Month: February 2018

the suburbs (pt. 13)

sprawl i (flatland) // arcade fire, sprawl ii (mountains beyond mountains) // arcade fire

sprawl is defined by merriam-webster as “the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.” the word can be synonymous with the suburbs, but i don’t know if i’d agree. then again, maybe i don’t know that much about the suburbs.

but i think hernando is the sprawl. hernando is this little town that veers off from the main interstate like a weigh station. within walking distance from my house is the track and field park, the children’s park, several churches and locally-owned shops, and town square. last year, our kroger was demolished and up-sized to a kroger marketplace. everyone was buzzing about it for months, mostly because it was supposed to have a starbucks in it. a starbucks and a little food court and an actual cheese section, which my dad was very excited about.

hernando was always homey, but it never quite felt like home. it always felt like a halfway-home. an in-between. not quite backwoods country, not quite big shining city.

there used to be times when i thought i’d never really get out. that i’d be doomed to live in the suburban purgatory that i never quite belonged in forever. i wanted to go out and find my people. i wanted to find people who didn’t tell me that my hopes and expectations were unrealistic.

i wanted to find those people here, but i don’t think i’ve found them yet. it’s like i’m still stuck in a halfway-home that i should feel like i belong to, but don’t.

when i’m going back home, back to hernando and the kroger marketplace and the community that never quite felt like community, i actually feel like i’m home again. when driving back to msa, my mom always texts me when i get in, “home?” and i say yes, because techincally, msa is home.

but it doesn’t quite feel like home. it feels like the in-between again. and i’m so tired of being stuck in the in-between. i want a place to certifiably call home, i want concrete and certainty and home, and i’ve started to realize just how at home i actually feel in hernando.

when school first started, i didn’t want to come home. i dreaded every weekend i would have to go back and be away from my true home, but now i long for the days i see commerce street. i long for the days i can walk into la siesta and shake our waiter’s hand and he knows exactly what i want before i can form the words on my tongue. i long for the familiarity and the comfort and the community i didn’t realize i had until i wasn’t in it anymore.

i don’t quite know where home is. i know i have homes, but i don’t know where my home is. i don’t know where i live. maybe i never will get out of the sprawl.

but then again, maybe i don’t want to.

Charlotte Rose Drane aka Charles

She is spunky.

(see 1st Urban Dictionary definition)

You find yourself sitting at a new table at lunch.

It is inhabited by Charles and Katie and an assortment of others

But Charles has caught your eye

Her StrungOutThoughts have weaved their way into your head

Now you listen intently

You don’t want to miss what she says

Her voice reminds you of an Artist’s Freedom

She is delicate but demands your respect

You will always listen when she speaks-

Even when the room is full of noise

You will share Unhelpful Thoughts

But you will not speak to her

Because how can you tell her that you relate when she is starring you in the eyes

So instead you will look her in her eyes as she talks

She knows you are listening

That is all that is needed

So you stare and you listen and you respect

And she will stare and talk and command respect.

~

This is just a series on the the people in my class and the things about them I notice.

8/13

The Best Thing I’ve Ever Read

I don’t believe in an objective best and worst in reference to art, so when I say that I’m writing about the best thing that I’ve ever read, what I mean is that I’m writing about my personal favorite piece of writing that I have read.  The best work of literature that I’ve had the pleasure of reading in my opinion is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, and there are numerous reasons why.

(spoiler alert for East of Eden – Please read the book before this post.)

One of the stand out reasons that makes this novel the masterpiece that it is are the characters.  Every last one of them is believable, distinct, and excruciatingly fascinating.  Cathy Ames serves as an antagonist, but she is so much more than that.  Even though the reader will come to dislike her very much over the course of the book, they will always be fascinated by her motives and means of reaching them.  She even plays on the reader’s own hopes for humanity by seeming to develop an actual loving relationship with the madame of a whorehouse.  Even though we’d already seen her kill and abandon her family and home, we hang onto hope that there is a sliver of humanity left in her, but we are fooled as should have been expected and feel like fools because of it.  This perfectly parallels another aspect of her character that makes her so incredible;  to other characters, she appears completely innocent.  She utilizes their faulty perception of her to take advantage of them and more than anyone else, she does this to Adam.

Adam is an equally incredible character in my opinion.  He serves as our protagonist throughout the first half of the book, and the first half of one of the two pairs of siblings throughout the book that mirror the biblical story of Cain and Abel.  Adam despite not setting out to, always earns all admiration from his father.  A key aspect of Adam’s character is his unwillingness to take action in nearly any circumstance.  He depends upon his brother to defend him, so he becomes completely submissive to him to the point that when his brother turns on him and beats him, he allows himself to be beaten.   After marrying Cathy and having her bare twin sons to him, he makes no true effort to make her stay.  Additionally, he completely shuts down after she leaves, and does not name his sons for months after they were born.

As I approach a limit on how long this post can be, I know that I cannot talk nearly as much about this masterpiece as it deserves to be talked about.  With that in mind, I can only end this by discussing one of the absolutely best characters within the book and the overarching theme throughout the story associated with him, Lee and Timshel.  Lee is a servant hired by Adam who ends up taking care of the two twins and serving as a source of wisdom and insight to all who he interacts with.  In many ways, he is more of a father to the twins than Adam ever was.  He first introduces us to the concept of Timshel during a conversation with a neighbor of Adam.  They are discussing the story of Cain and Abel and there is a specific part of the story that is translated very differently between two common versions of the Bible.  One promises a triumph over sin while another demands a triumph over sin.  Lee decides to trace the problem to its roots, and after a long amount of research, he discovers that the most accurate translation of the term in question, Timshel, is thou mayest.  This gives the choice to each person as to whether or not they will conquer sin.  It does not promise it, and it does not demand it.  It is a perfect theme for the book, and in the end, which I will not give away even to the masochists that have read this far without having read the book despite my spoiler warning, this theme ties everything together absolutely perfectly.

I Don’t Like You

It’s as simple as that. When you breathe, my skin crawls from my body in an attempt to drag down the street. I hear your screech of a voice, and my toenails curl upward. With every step you take, my eyelids burn. I am me, and you are me, and I hate you.

There are so many reasons to be grateful for the lives we all have. There are also so many beautiful things that happen when you embrace your mistakes, rather than run from them. Sadly, I tend to forget this. My pretentious-self somehow decided in the last few years of my life that snobbish, self-centered trash was bound to be my density. And thus, it was so ( and is so).

I would like to believe I am funny (though I know, I’m not). I would like to believe the seven double chins I have displaced below my neck are cute. I mean, squishy is adorable, right? ( Maybe on a Siamese or Rottweiler, but not on me, I promise).

Redeemable qualities? Miss me with that.

I have lied to my closest of friends so often that I normally can’t see the already thin line that I drew for my lies. I don’t know what’s real, and not in the cool psychological way. I just honestly cannot ever tell what’s going on.

Sometimes, the existential rage rooted in my bones is shown in forms of me being rude, or maybe not taking the time to actually be a  real human, with humanity, you know? It sucks, but it happens.

And all of this is why I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of ever hating anyone, besides myself. I just, I understand why people are bad sometimes. It is a thing  that I too get lost in, and I need to work on it.

Existing has become a real hassle, but hey, I’m still kicking, right?

Right?

God, I don’t want to exist sometimes.(Geez, what an edge lord, huh.)

I keep waiting for that day. The day my life changes. The day I wake up and breathe in atmosphere instead of overworked oxygen. The day my feet float instead of trample. I am waiting for my bad poetry to mean something, waiting for my eloquence to be elegant and humble. I am so ready for college, and not just because I want to grow up. I don’t, technically.

I just want movement, it’s the only thing that’s keeping me, for the most part, sane.

The Pretense

Life is really weird. I don’t really know many things and I know that I have a lot to learn and experiences to experience, but even so I do know some things. Those things aren’t that major compared to what people much older than me know but at this time in my life they seem like the world. Like I know the definition of love. I know what it’s supposed to mean and how people fall into it. Then again I always hear different things. My mom said that it’s if you’re willing to take a bullet from them. But I would take a bullet for a lot of people. Someone else said that it’s when you want them to be happy no matter what. But what if that “What” is them becoming a dictator and taking over and enslaving a country. Then maybe you wouldn’t want them to be happy doing that. Then again that is an extreme scenario. So to put it another smaller perspective it’s if they want to be with someone else. That’s when the cause of their happiness is someone else. You may make them happy but not like that other person. Then again you still would want them to be happy but another part may want them to be unhappy so you could have them. Then would that be love? I don’t know the answer but I don’t think I am meant to at the moment so I’ll move on from that. Another thing that I know is the meaning of friendship. Again my mom has always told me that I should choose my friends carefully. Now if carefully is befriending everyone then I suppose I have the right idea. I know it isn’t, however, I never claimed myself to be smart when it comes to things like this. Just that I know about them. Sadly though friendships are weird and are similar to relationships just with less kissing and stuff most of the time. They take time and effort and a trust between people that is stronger than one with a stranger. They would have your back ideally and not be broken up by any petty means. Then comes the cases of trust because a lot of people are not trustworthy or necessarily worth most of it. Now I’m not saying that everyone is or that humans are in general, to be honest every last person could lie about everything. But it’s the case of if you are good enough for that person to choose to give them the truth. You’re not legally obligated to do so but it would be nice, I guess.  Especially if you call yourself a friend to someone. But, like I said I don’t know everything and I could be wrong. Please feel free to give your perspective on things or these two in particular. It would be greatly appreciated.

future

the future has always scared me.

I always thought I’d never live to see 16, and my friends and family wouldn’t really care that I was gone.

that I would just be the kid that faded away at age 13 that no one really cared all that much about because I was “weird.”

I thought if I did have a future, it would consist of a crappy job that I hate, forever stuck in the small town I grew up in and always despised, being criticized by the members of my family that I never saw about the tattoo I got last week or how my hair is now.

I thought my future would be terrible.

that it would be the type of future everyone deliberately tries to avoid for themselves.

I knew my writing would go nowhere, regardless of how much I love it or how hard I tried to make it become something.

it would always be doomed, and I would never be able to stray from the path I was placed on at birth.

but now, I know differently.

and it’s still utterly terrifying.

the unknown scares me, and my future is exactly that – unknown.

I’ve always been relatively good at math and thinking logically and solving problems and searching among chaos for something specific, but this is one that I cannot solve.

I can’t combine the numbers right or find the piece or the specific thing that I need.

the future is something I cannot see.

I could end up flipping burgers at mcdonald’s when I’m 30 or a writer before I hit 25, my dream career.

living in a decent apartment or moving back in with my parents by the time I finish college – assuming I even get into one and complete it, that is.

which brings the question: college dropout or graduate?

working in the field of creative writing or putting together terrible poems in the room I sleep in now at my parents’ houses and waking up at 3 p.m. to go to work with rude people and an ice cream machine that’s always broken?

all alone or able to surround myself with a few close friends and those I care for when I need them and even when I don’t?

am I doomed to wander back to that path, or will I remain off of it for the remainder of my life?

how many people will come and go?

will any remain five years from now?

will I?

The Necklace

“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is a wonderful short story that takes place in a time when women were viewed only useful for chores and being a trophy wife. In this story, the main character, Mathilde Loisel is the wife of Monsieur Loisel. She is so hungry to be a part of the rich group and that of the upper class in the economy. Every day, she dreams more and more to go to balls and dance with rich people rather than spend time with her husband. She is a very bitter person, and seems to only care about herself throughout the story. Her husband is a very nice and caring individual. He proves that to us as readers, when he walks back into his home with an invitation that is very difficult to get to a ball with only select upper class. Instead of her reacting in a happy and positive way, she tells him that it’s a pointless invitation because the good dress she wears to the movies isn’t good enough to wear to this party. He gives her the money that he has been saving up for a gun for himself, that will also be beneficial for his family, so she can buy a dress. The main character in this story is very unlikable, but it’s definitely a great way to drive the story forward. It keeps the reader’s emotions open and available throughout the entire story. Even though this character is very disrespectful and annoying, it keeps our attention throughout the story.

After the main character buys an expensive dress, she gets sad and again manipulates her husband. She tells him that she doesn’t have any good jewelry for the ball and so she won’t go.  He tells her to go see her rich friend, Madame Forestier for some jewelry to borrow. After she goes, she picks out a nice necklace to borrow. She then goes to the ball and has a great time. She loses the necklace, not being able to find it at all. Her husband and her end up working for around ten years to try to pay off the expensive amount it would have costed. They went from being upper middle-class to poor all because of the main character’s very selfish decision. After they pay everything, we get to see inside of her mind again, and she is still focused on being upper class. After we get that really cool image, she meets her old rich friend, Forestier. It turns out that the necklace that Mathilde lost was just a fake the entire time, they bought Forestier an actual diamond necklace. Loisel never thought to tell the truth, all she did was lie and think about ways to cover up her tracks and opinions about her in the eyes of Forestier.

I think that this story is a really great way to show people that you don’t need to lie to people. Honesty is a good way to just deal with the situation at hand. Lying will just dig you a deeper hole.

“Before the Storm”

“I met her in a cocktail bar, but she wasn’t working as a waitress. She was getting drunk like me at the counter…” (Sheal) This excerpt is a portion of the first few sentences of the piece that caught my attention.

For this month’s good read, I’ve chosen the short fiction piece, “Before the storm” written by Alex Sheal. The story follows the actions of a man getting into what it seems as a “one-night stand” with a woman at a cocktail bar. The story is, in my opinion, very nicely written. I believe a reader will understand the eloquence in Mr. Sheal’s writing especially once the circumstances of the voice of the story is taken into consideration. The story could have very easily been made into a smut piece with poor layout and development; however, the metaphors and very slight and subtle vulgar details gives the piece a great delivery that still has good taste. I must say I love the choices of language Mr. Sheal chose for his main character; my favorite being, “When we burst out the doors, it surprised me to see the hurricane had passed; moreso that not a drop of water lay in the street full of taxi drivers. Then I remembered it was November and a storm hadn’t rampaged through this city in months, years since a proper one” (Sheal). The irony within it is simple, but I admire the connection of leaving the bar and the incoherence of the weather outside without actually stating what is going on. I also admire how the story isn’t necessarily laid out bluntly. The reader catches the gist of the encounter through context clues and strategic detailing. My favorite point of the piece would have to be the very being and the end due to the similarities, and interesting turn of events that begin and end the story.

Although I enjoyed the piece, I do believe there are a few areas that could be altered to make the piece possibly stronger. For one, in my opinion, the author has some areas with excessive wording. The situations in some areas are described repetitively, and it takes away from the unique original description. The piece in my opinion also missed the opportunity to be elongated. The work had the potential to be a much longer piece that could have went into describing emotions or even describing the lack of emotion in the action. The author could have also given more thoughts or events that followed the encounter before he jumped to the twist ending; however, I suppose adding events before the ending would take away from the dramatic effect of it; I digress.

Even with my few thoughts on how the text could possibly be improved, it is nevertheless still a very nice piece to read. I would definitely recommend it as a quick read to anyone looking for a story that is short and full of some great choices in language. If you would like to read this work, click here.

We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Tale

After searching for popular, personal essays online, I came across “We Do Abortions Here: A Nurse’s Tale” by Sally Tisdale. The title immediately grasped my attention, so I decided to read it. The first link I clicked gave me this half page text, and I thought how is this a personal essay. Still, I printed and read it. In the five short paragraphs I read, there were tears forming in my eyes. The text was amazing and very well-written. It seemed like it was the full story, a nice slice of story; however, I accidentally clicked another link and this hideously long full text appeared. The part I read was only an excerpt from the essay though it stood so well on its own. I decided to go through and read the five-page personal essay, and I am glad I did.

“We do abortions here; that’s all we do”; that is the first line of the story. It was slicing, blunt, and gave a sense of opinion in the narrator. It goes on to discuss the clinic she works, the clients, and her fellow nurses and doctors. The essay clearly expresses how she feels about her job. Tisdale describes the ugly and bad side. She even exudes fear because of the ongoing debate of Planned Parenthood; sometimes it gets dangerous.

There are multiple things I enjoyed in this essay. One of them is the captivating metaphors and comparisons the narrator uses when describing the relationship between abortion, the clients, and the danger. “It is a sweet brutality we practice here, a stark and loving dispassion.” This is an example of the devastatingly beautiful language Tisdale uses. Another admirable aspect of this piece is the honesty. As stated before, the essay does explain the narrator’s opinion. However, it is an unclear opinion. The nurse realizes that every woman has their rights, but she also feels sad for the tiny, undeveloped babies that are being discarded of. “Each abortion is a message of our failure to protect, to nourish our own. Each basin I empty is a promise—but a promise broken a long time ago.” Another part of her honesty is the way she describes the patients. She gives different examples of the many women or young girls that come into the clinic every day. There are some she feels sorry for—others she does not. She also speaks of the men and their reactions.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this essay. It was very powerful and moving. The entire time I was imagining myself in the nurse’s place. I saw what she saw and felt what she felt. When a piece can do that, it’s obviously good writing. I don’t know if Sally Tisdale is a writer or if she just wanted to speak her emotions in a creative way, but I admire her and this personal essay.
The only thing I disliked about the essay was the structure of it. Sometimes, new paragraphs were created in weird places.

I recommend this personal essay to everyone, whether you’re for or against abortion. Please note there are some detailed information about the abortion process. If you would like to read it, click here.

Matilda – Roald Dahl

Overview: 

Matilda is a fantasy novel by renowned British children’s author Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach) published in 1988. The story follows Matilda, a child prodigy who has received nothing but contempt, neglect, and abusive her all five years of her miserable life. Matilda, unlike the rest of her family, likes to read and educate herself, so as a result, when she goes to school for the first time, her sweet-natured teacher, Miss Honey, is stunned by her ability. And apparently, being competent at reading college level book and rattling off four-hundred times tables is not all Matilda can do; she learns that she has telekinesis.  So the entire book seems like a slice of life genre story, with Matilda dealing with her horrid family, her insane headmistress, Miss Trunchbull (oh, yeah, we’ll get to that psychopath in all due time), and Miss Honey, the only adult who seems to care what happens to Matilda.

The Diction:

I should be lenient; this book was probably intended for third-graders and below. Thus, the book is written in a jargon that is easy for that demographic to understand. But as senior on the brink of graduation, who has been exposed to complex works, the diction is not enough to satisfy. Especially considering the fact that I analyze prose for fun. To support my point, I will quote movie critic, Chris Stuckmann.

Even though it’s a kid’s movie, it could still be of a high quality. I know when I was a kid, I watched good movies and I knew when it was a good movie. Kids deserve movies of just as high a quality as adult; they aren’t stupid, they know when they just watched trash.

Now, I am not calling the wording trash, not at all, in fact sometimes the wording is quite pleasant, and even humorous at times. “The boy by now was so full of cake he was like a sackful of wet cement and you couldn’t have hurt him with a sledgehammer.” But I will say that my point is one can write a children’s novel that has both nice wording and is easy for younger readers to comprehend.

An Appealing Factor:

The most appealing factor is Matilda herself. As a five year old child genius, one would expect her to be an arrogant, little, stuck-up thing. But she is quite the opposite. She is humble, so much so that at one point in novel, she says something that suggests might not even be aware of how smart she is. Matilda is also an adventurous girl who plays pranks on the wicked, mainly Trunchbull and her parents.

Speaking of the Bull.

Miss Trunchbull is a villain through and through. She physically, mental, and even psychologically abuses everyone she comes in contact with. She assaults children who make the smallest mistakes, and even forces a boy to almost die from eating a 18-inch diameter chocolate cake. She’s a villain I like to dislike.

A Potential Turn-off:

The plot was very predictable to me, but I have to remember that maybe children would not have been able to predict the plot twist.

My Rating:

I rate Matilda 3 out of 5 stars. Nothing spectacular, but nothing terribly wrong with it either.