.

switching

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:48:00 +0000

i love nomadlife, the community is great, but i'm switching to a host a little more dependable--as blogger is fickle in chiner.

i can also host my blog on my website via wordpress. gives me a lot of freedom. check it out, mark your links, etc.

in olympia

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:09:00 +0000

so about three weeks before i left china the chinese government committed an enormous atrocity against my ability to procrastinate and i was left with the worst means of postponing papering, homeworking, playbilling and translating. in effect, i had acquired an addiction to Sex in the City by my lovely roommate across the hall who had the entire six seasons on dvd for thirty RMB and the Chinese government who had suddenly deemed Blogger a threat to the morals of the Chinese people. i'm guessing that even though the status of its censorship is labeled "indefinate", it should be back up when tibet's residual anniversary hype has subsided.

i understand why the world's altruistic cause is tibet: tibet doesn't use brute force to fight the "oppressive" chinese government, it has been romanticized by european-ethnic writers and peoples for six hundred years at least, and the dalai lama is a genius at hobnobbing with the right wealthy and influential people.

i'm a bit displaced here, in the pacific northwest. when i arrived at the san fran airport, i saw a mexican restaurant that was sterilely trendy with some bright colors and stock designs up to date, and i became soothed. i looked around and i saw black people and hispanic people and many of them were being alive and charismatic, and the gay people were too, and maybe so were the rest of the people, and i felt at home. then i arrived to the pacific northwest, the land of no eye contact, a place of no hello's if eyeballs meet; maybe if you're lucky, you'll get an abrupt head tilt, so short that it's not even a nod.

people in olympia all look the same, they dress the same, they have similar interests, they eat the same, they share mannerisms, but if a handful of them were to be displaced in houston, they would suddenly be difference that their appearances portray they strive for. ironically i'm not sure if a majority of them would actually like it though, the real mental and physical difference, which is why they collect here, to be around others like themselves. this is true of peoples of many places because we most often connect through similarities, especially when displaced. so even though a majority of olympia folk come from outside, they come for the feel of the town, what has already been built by people like them. unlike houston where people come for the purpose of work, i think many come to olympia for an idea. people choose to live in a specific place for a purpose, whether it be because of a new job or a certain type of community, etc.

garrison keilor once said that the lutheran pioneers who founded minnesota arrived in utter exhaustion; they stopped, looked around at vast whiteness and therein proclaimed it god's country. they were just too tired to go on. as i was taking to 574 and the 603a down I-5 from the airport, i was face against the window with blight and sprawl whirring by for three hours, and i wondered if everybody here, in all these suburbs of tacoma and seattle are only here because of destitution. maybe they just don't have any motivation to move. when i left i knew i wanted to escape the tone of sadness that i had attributed to the weather, but now i'm not so sure.

so i'm back in town and stuff, shedding the time difference, eating raw things, writing on the school computers because Baine laptop is energy deprived and with an enormous dent around the power charging socket.

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:07:00 +0000

China recently put a block on this blogger's access to her blog. The block's time-span is unknown, but the blogger will begin posting again shortly, upon her return to the U.S.

life update

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:34:00 +0000

as i listen to melanie softka, reminding me of green summer olympia, painting pictures, smoking cigs (though only a few), eating raw food, all with electra ro. botz, i also prepare to leave jian bing, garlic spinach on white steamed rice, salty baking heat, my favorite cafeteria tofu with peanuts, my four month dorm room, helen, these forty-five program acquaintances i've acquired, a slew of chinese customs that have become comfortable...

i realize i don't have much time to reflect these days, because of two hefty papers, a smattering of odd and ends classwork, a presentation, a post-due midterm, a final, and a performance this weekend.

so when i don't post for a while, this is why.

i will be in washington june 1/2 to june 20ish? then brit and i will be taking a coastal tour of the west coast and the southwest for a month and a half at least.

p.s. the picture is a chinese version of a kissing contest.

for the record

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:29:00 +0000

kara (in a mix of chinese and english only intelligible by my roommate):

"[i'm going to clean up a bit today.]"

roommate:

"go back to sleep. it six am."

two new sites i've recently run-in to, and an older one worth remembering

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:56:00 +0000

freerice.com/

Here's a site any word lover could get addicted to and really fast. Luckily your game playing will not only make you smarter, but also serves altruistic purposes. Even if your day's humanitarian deeds are only ten grains of rice per correct answer, it could be just enough of an excuse to validate procrastination. And that warrants an A-OK in my book any day.

omegle.com/

I'm not sure how I feel about this site yet, as the anonymity aspect seems uncannily similar to the primitive, black and white web I surfed at twelve (which is also why I like it). The premise of it is very simple: type in the web address, let the page load, and press connect to be randomly assigned to somebody else who at that instant was also doing the same. It's a minimalist site with a candid motive: talk to strangers. (Right now I'm talking to somebody from Lyon, France about ripping bear flesh apart in Patagonia.)

wefeelfine.org/

This site was hands down my favorite site of 2006. It "harvests" feelings--sentences that include "i feel" or "i am feeling"--from recently published blog posts. The site's interface itself is one of the reasons why the site is so popular, allowing you by a panel to screen feelings by adjective, place, weather, time, or gender (to name a few). Of course this feature just narrows a search by criterion, and to experience the six lenses that help you picture the web's mood, you'll have to take a peek yourself.

mother's day

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:31:00 +0000

I really appreciate my family. It's great to see how everybody has helped each other grow and learn, regardless of if they are/aren't aware of it. Every time I talk to my brother he seems more mature and even though he has always been incredibly intelligent on some higher plain of ethics and living, he recently has become more aware of what he realistically needs to do to survive on his own and is suddenly with more motivation to carry it out. I think the latter is the most important change I've seen in him in the past year or so. I suppose some of this is due to his girlfriend of two years, whose presence has helped him value things outside of his head or his game. I guess my family has also taught me the benefits of compromise, as I've always been hard-headed in my knowledge gained from my learned/lived experiences. I've had to learn considerable patience from my mother's lack of memory, one that she has been blaming on Alzheimer's since 40. I've had to learn to overlook things for the sake of harmony, things that can never be figured out, or aren't worth my time to try for--which is hard for a mind that doesn't quit. I really value my family. I think they all try to be the best people they can be, and even thought we all have our individual faults, we all also try our best to be understanding of each other. I think this is the most important thing a cooperative family can do. Love is not enough, there's a bit of work required.

tigers versus lions. a perennial debate

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:20:00 +0000

This is what i'm talking about. I mean I haven't said anything yet, but this is what my neurons fire at each other most of the time, pictures of zoo lions and tigers feeding voraciously out of the same tin bowl without attacking one another. I think the photo must be posed, maybe even taxidermic, for if this were true the lion would flee to a safe spot of 360 sight while the tiger would stalk from the foliage. Neither would choose to attack, but neither would remove an eye or be relaxed. Maybe they are just too preoccupied here. Maybe food that isn't one another is the key for stability. Healthy pursuits that aren't each other. Tigers suffer from wanderlust. This is okay.

This however, makes me want to puke. By "this" I mean pigs wrapped in faux tiger skin (dear god, i hope so) blankets. I really don't know what to say about it or why it is on my blog. I just know there is some relevance in my grand metaphorical scheming, but right now i'm involuntarily sagging into shaking zombie body from five hour nap coffee combination. There's a test tomorrow too. One with lots of things on it like 拍拍 or 服从。我拍拍老虎。I pet tiger. 我服从老虎。I obey tiger. There's also idiomatic gems like “远亲不如近邻”，a close neighbor means more than a distant relative. I want to get back into my rhyme of whim, magick, impulse and intuition. I know i've strayed and while I acknowledge phases--all of them meaningful--I'm ready for these spirits in my life again. It couldn't have been only a side affect of switching doses of antipsychotic drugs or a byproduct of natural highs and lows, it is in here somewhere and will once more find a valid place.

okay, okay

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:24:00 +0000

so i know i should be talking about things like jian bing or baozi, but i just can't help myself right now. gay marriage. when did this massive landslide of change begin? i recognize that i'm out of the loop and not immersed in u.s. media (as most of it is blocked here), but iowa, vermont, maine and new hampshire all in a month's period...w h a a a t? is this really happening?

that's also to add to connecticut and mass, and a soon to be new york.

a few grievances

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:49:00 +0000

i've passed by the same makeshift cavities inside the tiled walls of the east side of 赤峰路chifeng road six times today; some with pink lights and women with fake eyelashes cross-stitching in nightgowns strewn about languidly on lusty-colored ikea couches; others lightless until you cross the threshold of those with curdled blood tofu skin and a dash of pepper hair for good parsimonious taste; and more without electric light capabilities altogether, those of the nomadic tribe, lacking a edifice to hole in, instead hiding durians, pumelos and apples under a blanket, or books in between the partitions of a rectangle paneled bike cart. (the latter giving me a 400% foreigner price hike for the pirate-printed american heritage dictionary, of which i refused, and his pride refused, and nobody won.)

why? why three times today did i make the twenty minute trek in my blue plastic mary-janes that rub the inch below my outer-ankles to visit carrefour? dee first time i went to procure 'dem necessities like a buy-one-get-one free package of mint dental floss, jumbo-sized nail clippers that don't cost 10 cents USD or have steel that breaks in the middle of the lever, toothpaste that has illustrations on the package that signify "whiter teeth"--in my case a sparkling diamond--and an external hard drive. the second time i went to the carrefour i came bearing laptop and pleasant smile with AAA buddhist grade detachment. we tried both my purchased chinese brand external hard drive and a different one of the same make and model by a few computers with an unnervingly nonsensical and arbitrary sampling of responses. the third time i went to the chifeng road carrefour, i came donning bandages below my ankles, and grade C+ style detachment. i was able to get a return on the item, prided myself in being able to handle a return using chinese--i usually cannot do this in america in english--and left without an external hard drive.

moral of story. unknown chinese brand products usually are not quality tested.

things that i need to work on in the coming year:

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:18:00 +0000

relieving myself of self-indulgence, and the decadent habit of analyzing my self-indulgences

exhuming my intuitive, good-spirited impulsiveness

making lists in the name of goal-oriented behavior in order to circumvent point a

british colony, sex shop

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:39:00 +0000

My poor, poor Baine laptop has been clammy as of late. Rendering high quality vector images through hot temperatures burning my bare legs has been volatile temperature spasms of freezing fluctuating stupid nonfunctioning. I can’t get my work done but the bane of my luggage’s existence is Baine's coming along. For the ride I lugged that seven pound sucker under the pretense that he’d help me out with some Illustrator work. Apparently he had no intention of of lending me a hand from dat get go, as when I was in Hong Kong I saw him at this heeere mountain top snappin' a few shots on my web cam that I purchased a few months ago. After the peak's gusty wind cooled me down, I didn't mind as much as I realized that I didn't have a camera and could borrow his pictures for this blog post. Uhhh, nope. That little piece of brushed aluminum has hidden them somewhere in the depths of his mind. Maybe he is pissed at me for never cleaning his face, still glowing with mischievousness from behind all of the dust and grime. So I had to snag this picture from google image search instead. This is where many famous night-scene portraits of Hong Kong have been taken. Beautiful view.

Right now i'm still in Hong Kong. The last post about the tower, shoe and the sky is a small portion of my trip in Macau.

The reason I've been so busy with life is that I'm starting a new business. Besides my internship posterrrrrmakin', I've also been doing a lot of other Illustrator work--logo and product designs. I've already referenced some of this work in this past post, but I have yet to introduce this business that I'm starting. What it is is a chain of retail shops in Shanghai selling masturbation aids, raunchy novelty ornamental products and other sex-related goods in an open, friendly and comfortable atmosphere. Its median Chinese customers are mid and upper class women from 25 to 35, and 40% of the total customers are foreigners. The sex toy market in China is growing 30% per year and China herself is expected to see a growth of the middle class into the hundreds of millions during the next two decades. The upper middle class will also expand dramatically, albeit on a lesser scale. Right now my partner has one shop open almost one year, and in September I will invest some money to open the second shop in a different area of Shanghai. We'd like to start manufacturing our own products for export and domestic sales.

the trajectory of thrift nikes with yunnan mud stains and neon tangerine laces

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:11:00 +0000

oh and me too. from the 61st story of the macau tower.

the star with the line extending southward is the range where my shoe landed. it was recovered eventually from the grips of traffic, near death. the circle has the shoe inside it and the arrow is pointing at the enormous landing zone, which was a forty by forty by eight feet high air bubble landing pad.

i don't know what to say about the experience in writing. you'll have to ask me about it sometime because it is an in person story.

no offence.

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:19:00 +0000

i remember a fantastic time in my life when myself and my peer group first discovered the phrase "no offence." it was when people had just begun to appreciate the savvies of secrets and niceties, to the face and behind one's back. it quickly became the most widely-used saying because you could say things like, "she's got the nappiest poop-colored hair and i think she wipes her butt with it. no offence, or anything y'know," and it would let you off c o m p l e t e l y off the hook. you didn't mean maliciousness, you were just telling it like it was. m a g i c k.

in recent news, the 2009 runner up to miss america, a very conservative biblicist miss california, was asked about her views on states legalizing gay marriage by one of the miss america judges, gay rights activist and infamous celeb blogger perez hilton. she was destination conflict from da get go, but her answer sealed her own god awful fate.

"I think it's great Americans are able to choose one or the other," Prejean answered. "We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.

"And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.

"No offence..."

earth. with a capital E. Earth.

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:42:00 +0000

so the other day i was in Chinese class and we were studying about something when earth was mentioned.

the characters for earth look like this: 地球

this shouldn't mean anything to you if you don't know Chinese, so I'll try my best to explain. i then asked if this was Earth, like not just any old planet. is this E a r t h, you know like China is C h i n a, or Texas is Texas...Johnny Depp is Johnny Depp? it is. it is Earth, what we have known for thousands of years as ours, as this, as only t h i s particular planet.

many chinese words are made up of multiple characters. for example, the word homosexual, 同性恋：

同 tong means
[1] same; similar; equal; identical; common
[2] share; agree
[3] together

性 xing means
[1] nature; character; natural property; disposition; temper
[2] a quality or property
[3] sex

恋 lian means
[1] love (one of the other sex); be in love
[2] feel a persistent attachment (for a thing)

okay, so you get the point. it makes Chinese a fascinating language to study because there are often so many cultural biases embedded in the language, subjective descriptions by individual characters that all together makeup a name that signifies something completely different. for example, most of the chinese minorities have either the "female" or "animal" radical in their minority classification name. carol adams, suck on that. a radical is even smaller than a character, a radical is one of the individual symbols that make up a character. wikipedia gives this example:

"采 Cǎi ‘to pick, pluck’ is an associative compound comprising two elements or components, a hand 爫 (zhǎo or zhuǎ) picking items from a tree 木 (mù). Later, a redundant hand 扌 (shǒu) element was added in the character."

moving back on track. so how does Earth play into the multiple characters that you were talking about first in the homosexual example? well, lets break apart Earth, 地球。

地 di
[1] earth
[2] land; soil; ground
[3] region; territory; belt; place; locality
[4] position; place; situation
[5] an adjunct after a word (usually adjective) to form an adverbial phrase

球 qiu
[1] ball; sphere; globe; round
[2] the globe; the earth

all sports that you play with a ball have the 球qiu character in them, usually at the end. anyways with the knowledge that 球qiu means round, this was what got me thinking:

how long has the Chinese name for the Earth been 地球？how long have they known the shape of our planet? keeping this knowledge for thousands of years with no interaction with foreigners? in the 1400's Christopher Columbus decided to act on a "hunch" and prove the world was round. novel idea...

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:28:00 +0000

sso i've been i n c r e d i b l y busy. i've been designing quite a few art show posters for the gallery i'm interning at, as well as quite a few things (logos, products, ads, graphics) for a new venture i'm getting involved in. i'd post them here but i've just about had my fill of adobe programs and my g4 laptop, baine, struggling to process two feet by two feet 300px/inch posters. soooo instead i'll just link you to my friend laur's blog entry, about one of the items I put together with her generous and genious help. our program is leaving soon to do a 1.5 week trip to hong kong, macau, and some other places. apparently i really should know where, as a classmate pointed out, "did you r e a d the intinerary?!" i guess it never occurred to me that you're actually supposed read them. you just give them to parents or something. and since i'm lacking in that department right now its probs laying neglected with tea stain rings or drawings on the floor under dirty underwear. anyways, it is advised that i leave my computer at home. fat f ing chance. i have to finish two papers, finish journal entries for class and internship, and do a midterm post-mid term. ay yi yi. i should be writing a paper, which is a shame because i've been wanting to write a blog about chinese characters. i've got some interesting ideas for droppin'

.

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:19:00 +0000

when i was looking in my lonely planet for recommended bars, i spotted this gem embedded in one description: "...frequented by americans and eurotrash." (the current authors of the lonely planet's guide to shanghai are british.)

a pet peeve

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:24:00 +0000

when people who work cash registers are disconnected from humanity and that manifests itself in their putting your change on the counter instead of touching your inner palm and you're forced to slide it off of the edge of the counter into your other palm in a dicey, delicate maneuver. the latter part is especially true if the counter is ledgeless--which it usually is.

煎饼 Jian Bing, a love story

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:22:00 +0000

So one day I was gchatting with one of my favorite buddies, cool breakfast. As per usue, we began slowly about things like sweet youtubes of kittens licking foxes when we somehow transgressed into Chinese street food. Chinese street food. I cannot believe that i've never given y'all the down low up high on this fascinating subject. After an hour of lustful descriptions, Adam suggested that I write about this on my blog, and I agree.

So today I'm going to hopefully kick-off a long succession of blog entries about China's "small eats 小吃" by featuring my favorite of all eats: the 2.5元 Jian Bing.

The Jian Bing is supposedly from Shangdong province, but I've had it or seen it in almost every province I've visited. When I lived in Kunming I would have it in the back alleyway of the Kunming Minority University near the train tracks. I've heard a classmate say that they had it almost every day while studying in Beijing. Right now I'm typing this from a lame cafe and just writing about Jian Bing makes me salivate and wish that I would have snagged one before coming here to consume a twelve kuai ($1.50) two egg and toast breakfast. Alas. The great thing about Jian Bing is that each area reduplicates it to fit it's own region's taste pallet. I think it has become a Chinese treat without a home. So what makes a Jian Bing?

Okay, wait. We have to go through the first three bases before we get to the real loving. Foreplay and witnessing moments of extreme non-violent excruciation are probably in my top five list. So let me begin by taking you through my morning. First, I wake up and I think 煎饼. Then I look at my watch to calculate what type of morning it will be--Jian Bing before class or Jian Bing after first period. Most of the time it is the latter because from under the sheets I usually see 8:25 on my timepiece, and at that point I still have to get dressed, find those books and pens and room key, put knotted hair into a pony tail, and somehow get to class on time--8:30. I never do the last part right, but during first period all I can think about is break.

In class our desks are shaped in a horseshoe with the inner-belly of the U facing towards the door. Our classroom can hardly accommodate a U or as many people as we have managed to fit, so when "下课 xiake" comes I throw/slide my desk forward into the other stem of the U so that I may have the fastest gettaway. On the back street I race through hordes of small babies with crotchless pants, the fat middle-aged shanghainese lady who only plays cards and shouts simple english phrases at you, and the old people out in masses for their too leisurely morning stroll. Four minutes later, my Jian Bing woman is in reach, but only barely. She's usually got a few other fans keeping me from realizing my reality quickly. I stand there and wait as one, two, and sometimes three Jian Bings are made before I am able for mine. My sweet, salty, spicy, hot, crunchy, soft Jian Bing.

When that time finally arrives, I usually say "one egg 一个鸡蛋." She takes the bottle with a punctured hole in the cap and turns it upside down so water droplets hit the stop of the cylindrical steel stove and instantaneously vaporize into thick smoke, which keeps the crowd back or her food clean. She uses a brush made of sticks to scrape the flat, steel, foot-point-five in diameter griddle clean. She then dips into a plastic tub full of what looks like pancake batter with a huge ladle. She pours the batter onto the top in one sweeping clockwise motion while using its bottom to spread it about evenly and no more than a few millimeters thick. The her helper--she usually has her father or son assist her--will crack an egg on top. In my case, it is always one egg unless I'm starving and she will quickly break its yolk and slide it about, covering and strengthening the thin layer of now crispy wheatstuff.

She then asks you if you'd like cilantro, so you say yes 要。She asks about the green onions, and that's also a yes 要. After you pipe in "i want it all 都要都可以”, because at this point the smell is actually in your brain and chemically you just can't contain your self or your speech. Her male helper switches to the adding of the seasonings on his side of the trolley and asks about the spicy pepper, and you try to say "i want a bit more 辣更一点" then what you've already given me, but you are completely verbally impaired at this point and all you manage is "i want a whole lot 我要很多." So you end up with two heaping spoonfuls of spicy pepper, and it always turns out so [explicative] good. He puts on the spoonful of chopped pickled garlic. which they also sell for a pretty penny by the jar, the whole clove version, at the Pike's Place Market in Seattle. They then fold this creation in half and put mysterious brown goop onto the folded side. It tastes slightly of molasses, peanuts, and good. The last, but oh-so necessary part, is the rectangular-shaped extra crunch. The only thing i can say to explain it is that its consistency kind of resembles a pork rind. It doesn't taste like anything, but soaks up all of the flavors of the spices. It is purely for texture, and a Jian Bing with out it, isn't a 煎饼.

freewillastrology.com

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:44:00 +0000

"
Sagittarius Horoscope for week of April 9, 2009

(November 22-December 21)
At a Buddhist sanctuary in Khun Han, Thailand, monks have used a million beer bottles and soft drink bottles to build their temple. Bottle caps have come in handy, too, serving as the raw material for numerous mosaics portraying the Buddha. Your assignment, Sagittarius, is to draw inspiration from these geniuses. How could you take some profane elements of your life and turn them into a hotbed of sacred inspiration?
"

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:12:00 +0000

So I'm kind of thinking about staying in China and going into business. This would probably mean that I would spend my entire graduate school education money on starting a venture during the worst economic time in the past twenty years. The good part about it would be that it wouldn't initially focus on export, but would have an opportunity to grow there. It would initially be focused on domestic sales.

I would partner with a person who has already gone into business and she's looking for a partner. I almost dropped out of school a year and a half ago to begin this with her. She's beginning to make revenue and she's got the first foot prints into breaking social barriers and capitalizing on a previously non-existent market. She is virtually creating the market.

Everything about it tells me to go with it, but it is a huge commitment.

a gay and magical week

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:49:00 +0000

not kidding.

vermont, after massachusetts, connecticut and iowa, becomes the forth state to legalize gay marriage.

you can read about it here, or pick from one of many google articles about it here.

insomniacnic

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:11:00 +0000

so the other night i couldn't sleep. under the sheets, with late great aunt meal's frilled, satin and stained eye-mask, a hunched and madly typing roommate ten feet away, three podcasts about science and a sag's vedic astrological report for 2009 finished and still no reprieve from a racing mind, i got up. i turned on the computer and stared. read wikipedia for awhile, listened to a four-computer skype call between family members and faded out as it was four am and i couldn't speak aloud. somewhere in my tiddling around, i found a document that i had forgotten existed. pushed away in time, between that small collection of porn with actors who only look fourteen and pictures of celebrities shopping at home depot. i suppose it was a year and a half ago that i made a point to save my entire email correspondence between myself and a person i dated for about two years. even though at the time it was hurtful to have to re-look at those emails as i copied and pasted them into word, i knew that in the future i may find insightful gems on that specific stage of mind.

the strangest part was that it wasn't the content that was illuminating, but the fact that inside this five-hundred-and-forty-six p a g e document (single spaced, size 13) of one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-thousand-five-hundred-sixty-nine w o r d s, i had probably written five-hundred of those pages, or one-hundred-and-fifteen-thousand of those words. that is incredible(y misguided energy). this means that if i were born during the seventeen hundreds, and i had good penmanship, and i wasn't saying "fuck-you" in so many of them, i would have been a "woman of letters". that's elegant. reee-gal. maybe they would resurface in some new england house basement and be auctioned on ebay to pay for a honda prius or solar panels.

some of the dates were from two years ago to date and in that weird, exact time parallel, it made me realize how much my mentality has changed and how differently i would have reacted inside a similar situation. what saddens me are not typical feelings of regret, but the fact that even though knowledge helps one improve and mature, and is inevitable, hurt is not as easy as nescience to overcome and continues to be disabling long after one's rational mind has learnt its lessons.

gay news. so gay, man

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:57:00 +0000

so if anybody wasn't already paying attention, this week was positive for (HIV, damn!) glbt equality.

the bible belt iowan supreme court has ruled that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional and gays iowan and non--as they don't require proof of residency--will be able as soon as three weeks to legally wed.

the pop-country band rascal flatts, whom texans adore, has released a song with "non-gender-specific lyrics" called love who you love. in response to the southern gay heyday over this song--cause you know no one north of mason-dixon cares--rascal flatts replied that they were pleased dat dem hoemoesexshuals find it so inspiring.

of course, they weren't all pflag about it, just tolerant, as they don't want to pull a dixie chicks. got to be smart business men, too.

da bund

noreply@blogger.com (Kara Kara) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:43:00 +0000

it was sunny and stuff