IsisMari's Xanga

JMS (If you do this you will DIE!!!!)

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:02:37 GMT

Friday or Thursday or something while subbing at Jupiter Middle School, I walk into the cafeteria and they're having one of those drug assemblies they always have in Middle and High Schools. You know, the ones where they have a bunch of blown up senior pictures and other happy go lucky pictures of all the people who then overdosed and died. I mean, you see enough of these you become immune or desensitized to them or whatever. Plus, it's always been pictures of people you've never met, never heard of, and were too much older than you for you to consider this as a "now" problem affecting you or anyone you know.

I remember my thought process back in the days of 6th grade. It pretty much consisted of "these are a bunch of older people who died years ago, no one I know does any of this, maybe back then it was an issue but....." the but was usually my illogical thinking that the kids I was currently in class with had been saturated with enough of this "anti drug/if you do drugs you will surely die and then go to hell and nothing will become of your life" nonsense that they would know better. Plus you also had been taught to associate drugs with gangs and ghetto type areas and shoot outs and all that nonsense. I lived in Jupiter. There wasn't anything here back in '95 'cept some woods, a river and the beach. Oh, there was a Publix too.

Then, once you get into highschool, then you know better, in one sense at least. You know that people really do use drugs, and in lovely little Jupiter, there is a whole lot of weed going around, and in a highschool dedicated to the arts, there is a whole lotta other stuff going around too. But by then your thought process has changed to "it's just weed, that's not gonna do anything too bad, and you sure as hell can't overdose on the stuff". And you figure that those around you who are doing more than weed know what they're doing, aren't gonna be overdosing anytime soon, and they're still in school and their grades are fine so their lives obviously aren't going down the drain anytime soon (and the ones whose grades are not fine never had good grades to begin with, so their problem is obviously something else, not drugs). So in highschool, when they do the drug assemblies with the blown up pictures of all the smiling dead people, once again, it isn't about you or your friends or those around you. It's about people who were obviously really really messed up, came from really really messed up lives/neighborhoods/situations, or were just really flat out stupid, cause once again, no one you know is gonna be ending up that way anytime soon. Yeah you know plenty of people that do this and that, but still, they know better than to take it to that other level. Like I said, my illogical thinking.

And then one day you graduate highschool and guess what? Nobody died. Everyone is alive and well, addicted to this and that maybe, but for the most part, they're all still going to some kind of college, or have found some kind of job, and they sure as hell haven't overdosed on anything. And so the drug assemblies of "if you touch this you will DIE......." are still something to roll your eyes at (and once school is out and you never have to attend one again, they are easily and readily forgotten). Getting addicted, getting arrested, getting kicked out of school, spending a whole lot of money on dumb shit to keep the party going, getting sent to rehab by your parents, yeah all of those things obviously happen, but the death thing? Like I said, you gotta be pretty stupid or messed up to take it that far, and I don't know anyone like that....

Then one day you hear that so and so put a gun in their mouth when the cops were after them for having/selling who knows what, and they were more than likely high when they decided to blow their brains out. Ok, so that's somewhat of a shock, and yeah obviously it was drug related, still not an overdose, but definitely a drug related death. Then you start hearing of all the 18/19/20something year-olds out in the Farms who are constantly overdosing on this and that, all after having graduated highschool alive and well, and you find yourself fairly relieved that all you've ever bothered to touch in your life is weed. And eventually, the whole so and so overdosed on this and that becomes something else you are now desensitized to. Yeah, you think it sucks, but it's something that happens more often than not, and well, that's what happens when all you want to do is party and swallow pills, and they're the idiots who thought they were "all so cool" and superior to everyone else for doing it and living that nonstop party lifestyle, (it's so much easier to think this way then to really sit down and think about it, and thinking about such things is something I avoid all costs) and once again you're relieved that you're smarter than that.

By now, over 5/6/7 years after the 12th grade, the drug assemblies of death are a distant memory, something in the past, something you haven't thought about probably since the last time you had to sit through one, and you sure as hell don't think about them when you hear about the latest overdose. Drugs are still something you roll your eyes at because after working in a psych ward/drug rehab for the past four years all you're really thinking is "man, these kids are really stupid, how many overdose/horror stories do they have to hear before it knocks some sense into them? I mean, just here in stupid Jupiter you got someone OD'ing on a monthly basis, how cool do they really think they are doing all this crap, it's retarded, but whatever, it's their life, you can't force anyone to do anything".

And then one day you walk into the Jupiter Middle School cafeteria, looking for the group of kids you're supposed to be subbing for that day, and up there on the stage, all set up for an assembly later that period, are all the blown up senior/happy go lucky pics of all the people who died from drugs, and you're kind of smirking to yourself, cause it's the Jupiter Middle School cafeteria, and this is the exact same place you had to sit for this 14 years ago, and you're smirking because you know that these people in the pictures with their 20something year old ages of death, are too far removed from these 12 year olds' minds to really mean anything to them, and you know they're gonna say the same old thing, weed is the gateway drug, if you touch weed this is what will happen, and you know that's not true because you've touched a hell of a lot of weed and that's all you've ever touched and you know a whole lot of other people like you and you're thinking all this as you briefly glance at the pictures and then you do a double take and you realize that you know half the people up there (most you haven't heard of since highschool or a year or two afterward) and for a moment you're confused because you were pretty sure this was a drug assembly, but now you're not too sure. Maybe it's a "choose what highschool you want to go" to assembly?, or a "get your senior pictures done assembly"? But that last one doesn't make any sense because why would they be telling middle schoolers about getting their senior pictures done, and for that matter, what do senior pictures have to do with choosing what highschool you go to, and then you realize there's a picture of some dude in a coffin, so you ask that one lady, the same one who was an AP back in the day when you went there and who gave your class many a drug lecture, if the pictures on the stage are of people who died, and she's like "yup overdoses", and then it's all just really fuckin weird.

It's weird cause now you're standing there, in your stupid old 6th grade cafeteria, surrounded by a bunch of loud mouthed 12 year old residents of "J-Town" who are about to have an assembly about the evils of drugs and are gonna get shown a bunch of pictures and told a bunch of stories about people they've never heard of, never seen, don't care about, and are too far removed from their reality to really make any type of impression in their minds, but you know all those people.

You know the one girl who got kicked out of school in the 9th or 10th grade for having a locker full of god knows what, that you never heard from again, nor really thought of again. Well turns out she lived to the ripe old age of 23. Then there's the other one you worked with, another one you knew through friends, there's one you actually sat with in this same cafeteria, through this same assembly, all of them people that you knew used this and that, but you always thought they weren't going to go to that extreme, all people who died within the last 5 years. I mean a few you already knew were dead, and that wasn't much of a shock, but a bunch of others you had no idea.

I wish I had something really deep (or whatever other word people like to use) to say about how I felt standing there staring. But I don't. All I have is "weird and confused and odd". Like the drug assemblies have come full circle and they are now about my world and I'm standing there in that stupid cafeteria staring at people from back in the day that don't exist anymore. And I can't believe how many people my age I've known that have died, cause back in the days of middle school, no one my age would ever die, unless it was some sort of rare freak accident, and how often do those happen? And I know that none of these silly kids are gonna care or listen much, they're just happy to be missing 1st period. But I want to stay and listen but can't because my class isn't scheduled to come to this. And I want to listen because I want to know exactly what happened to him or her and what they were doing during the years between "just out of high school" and now. And everyone else around me in that cafeteria is either too old to know these people or too young. To them, they're all just a bunch of people who were too messed up or too stupid to be able to control what they were doing, that's all they are to them, kids who failed to pay enough attention to assemblies such as this one. But to me, those are people I have memories of or with. People that when I think back to the good ol' days of stupidity, to the days before bills and responsibilities, to the days of skipping class, waiting for the next party, the next clematis hang out, the next beach/wood/sand pit day, the next day of BS at Publix Supermarket, the days of hoping the bus doesn't show up that morning so we can run around the neighborhood like jackasses. These are the people that were there at some point or another during those days of nonsense, they are characters in my story and apparently they no longer exist. They aren't going to be stealing fried chicken and sneaking it up into the breakroom for me ever again (I mean, that wasn't going to happen ever again regardless, those days are long gone, but it's still just so much more final when it's because they don't exist anymore). And I keep thinking of the years 20-23, the years when I did the most of my running around like an idiot with the J-Town loser club, going to random parties, watching other people snort this, swallow that, smoke some, nights of participating in the "high rides" of blunts around the same old streets, never giving a second thought to what we were doing and where it was gonna end up, and apparently, all along, people were dropping like flies here and there.

Whatever. It's weird that's all. I never felt the urge to do anything other than smoke some pot. So I will never know what these people's lives were like, how they thought, or anything like that, but I still wanted to take the microphone from that one lady and tell all the 7th graders that the people up there really are real people, people that at some point existed and now they don't anymore, and that I knew 'em, and that some of them sat in this same cafeteria about to nod their heads at, while simultaneously tuning out everything that is about to be said (if only because they will not feel like any of it applies to them or anyone they know) and that I could tell you some real funny stories about quite a few of them back when they still existed and no one thought anybody was ever going to die, least of all any of us.

it's been awhile....

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:15:54 GMT

well lets see.... apparently this thing exists, fascinating..... I'm currently in the market for a new job, it isn't going too well.... I need more vinyl records, I need sushi, I need to clean the dog crap and mop the floor. I think I'm getting old. I tried to make peace with Mike to no avail, apparently he's still crazy, whatever, have fun with your new people. Apparently everything is meaningless and nothing lasts, and guys seem to lack any genuine feelings. But today is a beautiful day and that's good. I dunno. I'll be back later. Maybe.

So many hypocrites in the world AKA Being miserable does not make you superior!!!

Mon, 25 May 2009 01:58:16 GMT

Happiness is a state of mind (for the most part). You can wake up, decide you're done being miserable about all the bullshit life has to offer, realize that none of it really matters in the end, that none of it is what makes you a good person, that none of it is what life is all about, and just like that, your mood gets elevated just a bit.

I have a quite a bit of experience being a miserable, angry, depressed, "fuck the world" kind of person, I had my reasons, aaaaaand, I'm over it, I've been over it, there's no point to it, it doesn't fix anything, doesn't solve anything, and all it does is make you miserable and no fun to listen to or be around (although people did and do still find some of my rants humorous, and that always makes me happy).

Point of life is to live it, have a good time, don't do anything too stupid, stay healthy, live as long as possible, try to make some form of positive impact in the world and be good to the people around you cause in the end that's all that really matters. Other people matter, living things matter, you matter, all the other crap, just shut it off.

Miserable people who somehow feel they are superior to other people due to being miserable is beyond me. You do not have to be mindless to be happy, you can give a huge ass fuck about life and all that's in it (the good as well as the bad) and still maintain your sanity and there is nothing wrong with getting joy out of trivial insignificant things. If the dumb things that make you happy aren't hurting anyone or anything, then honestly, what's the problem? If anything, they're the more intelligent ones, they're the ones enjoying life while you sit there wallowing in your self-made despair. Ever heard the expression "stop and smell the roses". It is the little things that are good. Perhaps if you realized that you'd start on the path to feeling better. Don't go chasing waterfalls and all that nonsense.

Don't get mad at people because they want to announce their joy to the world, or belittle them. Being a depressed fuck doesn't mean you are "deeper" than others, or somehow more intelligent, or superior or whatever, it just means you are a depressed fuck. A depressed self absorbed fuck, cause if you weren't self absorbed you'd see that there are millions of people in the world who have it a lot worse than you, who suffer more than you, and yet, a lot of them still make the best of it and still try to do some good in one way or another instead of just lashing out at everyone.

If you want to be miserable, fine. If you somehow want to believe that your life is sooooooo much more horrible that everyone elses, fine. But then don't put those down who don't feel that way. Someone who says "Today is going to be awesome because I get to go to the beach with some people" isn't an idiot, moron, attention whore, someone trying to be oh so cool, etc. More than likely, it is just someone who truly is happy that today they get to go the beach with some people who's company they enjoy. You are not superior to them, you are no one to put their activities, thoughts, or feelings down. It's not their fault you're miserable, so fuck off.

What are you doing for the world? You drink, you smoke, you party, you whore yourself out, you are doing nothing productive for humanity, you act like the average college moron. So does the fact that you bitch about it all afterwards somehow make you less moronic than the person who states "Last night was sooooooooo awesome, I was soooooooo drunk". Drunk is drunk, partying is partying, being useless is being useless. If you think it's so idiotic, then don't do it yourself, I might have more respect for your thoughts then, but until that time occurs, my respect lies with the one who is actually doing something for the enjoyment of it and who then has a good, happy, enjoyable tale to tell afterwards. If the world and everyone in it is really making you soooooo miserable, then how bout you quit your whining and try to do something about it. Shit or get off the pot. If you're really that constipated, then shut the fuck up.

No one likes a hypocrite. You bitch that no one cares about you, bullshit, plenty of people care, but who do you care about? You bitch about people being attention whores, yet you could single handedly co-author the "Attention Whoring for Dummies" series. You claim that no one wants to hear people's trivial thoughts, or about how fabulous their life is, or about what "trivial, boring or mundane" thing they are doing today. Here's a news flash for you. Believe it or not, some people actually ARE interested in what the people they know or give two shits about are doing today or how they are feeling. Some people in this world actually do care about others around them and actually do find some form of happiness in knowing that those around them are feeling good or are having a good day. Just because you don't give a rat's ass about anyone doesn't mean no one else does. It's reading a bunch of angry, depressive, insultive bullshit that is getting old. If less and less people are giving a shit about you each day, it's because of you. You, yourself, your actions, your feelings, your way of interacting. Not because of society, not because of MTV or the Apple store, or that cute purse in the window, or what Brittney Spears wore today, not because of how many beers they drank last night, how many pills they swallowed or any of that nonsense. It is solely because of you.

Wake up, shut up and quit trying to bring everyone else down with you. I'm sorry you're miserable. You shouldn't be sorry for those that aren't. You are in complete control of your thought process. So fix it.

As for me, my life is fabulous. Tomorrow I have to work a 16 hour shift in a mental hospital, I don't have any shifts the rest of the week so I shall be short on money, I have tons of homework and the mortgage is due (plus some other bills). And soooooo I think I'll use that free time to work on some of that homework while sitting at the beach, and then I'll make those flyers for my mom and maybe later I'll walk into the apple store and buy myself a new mac with the money I don't have, because you know what? Life is great and everything will work out in the end, I can make it happen, and that's all that matters. Oh and, I love my dog.

The End.

I am feeling

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:57:10 GMT

numb.

All the things that had been eating at my brain since 2002 have seemed to have found something else to chew on.
I find this to be somewhat interesting.

Oh there is still some residue left of the post Publix years and this can mostly be seen in the way I act around certain groups of people, but for the most part, internally I've been feeling like good 'ol pre summer of 2001 Isis.

I like this.
I like this a lot.

It's nice being content. It's nice feeling stable. It's nice going out and meeting new people and not acting like a complete freak.

While I'm not sure what the reason for the current state of affairs is, I can make an educated guess. For while I still have no money, no real job, a degree I'm doing nothing with, a mother I constantly fear is going to die, a father I constantly fear is going to kill my mother, a mess of a house, a bunch of friends who moved away, grandparents who are only getting older (and therefore who I fear are going to die), an ex-bestfriend I fell in love with and no longer speak to (and then some), and all that other stuff that was "wrong" before the summer of 2001, there is one thing that changed. I stopped caring.

I stopped caring about him. Like I just don't give a shit anymore and that has been completely liberating. And since he was the one that had made me give a shit in the first place, being rid of that mess has seemed to have placed me back in my former position of being the easy going person who, while caring a lot about everything, simultaneously doesn't really care much about nothing, except people dying of course, I think that one is there to stay.

I am me again. And I like it.

It's ridiculous how one person can so completely change who you are and it's ridiculous that I thought that if I somehow kept them around and they were "friends" with me, that that would somehow "fix" all the shit that happened that one year.

And for awhile there I actually thought I had accomplished something. I thought I had made it better. I thought I had gotten my dignity back. Afterall, he said I'm his best friend, he said he loves me more than anyone, and then there was that one episode where I made him cry and afterwards figured "now we're finally even".

The only problem was, nothing had changed, and what was being said now was no different then what was being said then. The only reason it seemed different is because I was no longer the same naive, stupid, innocent, "never kissed a boy" little girl that I was back then, so a lot of it was in one ear and out the other with me. Except for the "you're my best friend and I love you" part. That I was still choosing to believe because that's what was suppose to fix everything and I guess I needed to believe it for everything to be "ok" again.

You live, you learn. Some people don't change. Some people say things depending on their mood, on who's around at the moment, at who's currently paying attention to them, how many other friends they currently have, on their current self esteem level, etc. And while I believe he means the things he says when he's saying them and actually feels this way at the moment, the problem is, the feelings don't seem to be consistent, they don't seem to last, and whether or not we really are best friends appears to fluctuate as much as his mood and his self image. Like I said, nothing seems to have changed since we first met, other than I now take everything with a grain of salt and take my time to pick out the one grain of truth amongst all the bullshit that is being said.

Maybe friendships like these work for some people. They don't work for me. If there is one thing I am consistent with in my life it is the people I am close to and care about, and that's the truth (seriously, I'm pretty inconsistent about everything and anything, except my feelings towards people. Hence degree I am doing nothing with and the billions of pojects I simultaneously start and don't finish). I know what it's like to be moody. I know what's it's like to be depressed as fuck, to be suicidal, to have a family life that leaves something to be desired. I know what it's like to be stressed out, to work full-time, go to school, and have to support yourself with little to no help from family or anyone else. I know what it's like to have your heart broke. But I've never let any of that dictate how I treat the ones I give a fuck about. Oh I can be unpleasant at times, I'm not denying that, but people know that if they need me, I'm there, regardless of what's going on in my personal life. These are the things I expect in return. These are the things I get from all my other "best" friends. These are the things I even got from Jason before all the shit happened. These are things I even get from aquaintances. These are things I only get from that other "friend" depending on the phase of the moon, the stock market, and the alignment of the planets. This is the same friend who claims he knows me better than anyone, who says he's closer to me than anyone. Yeah, ok. You don't know shit. You don't know the first thing about me, you never have, you never will.

You are still the same person you were in highschool. The person who only gave me one single ride home in the year we spent in school together, the same year you declared I was the best friend you ever had. I never held that against you. I was too busy feeling sorry for you and making excuses for you. I've spent the years after that trying to believe you when you say you're no longer that same person. And while you have changed some things, and while externally you might seem like a different person, internally and for the things that matter, not much is different. I think what happened in September pretty much proved that point once and for all.

I'm sorry. I wish I could say I still love you. That I'll always be there for you if you ever need me. But I don't feel much as far as you're concerned and I can't make any promises. This should probably make me sad, but it doesn't, and that is what makes me sad.

I shouldn't blame you for some things, but I can't help it and I do, because like I said, the only reason I can find for the change in me, is you. I lost the best guy friend I ever had because of the psychotic person I became after getting involved with you and your psychosis. And while I can't put the blame of those two years of nonsense solely on having you in my life, I do know that the person I used to be would have handled things much differently, and while things might have still gone to hell one way or another, they would have gone to hell in a different, less psychotic way, a way I would have been able to handle better, and feel less stupid about. Of that I am sure.

It's too bad it took me so long to finally come to terms with this and accept it.
It's too bad more people than I care to mention had to see me acting like a freak.
It's too bad I was too proud to admit it sooner and fix it then.
It's too bad.

If there is one thing I could go back and erase from my life it would be you. But even if time machines and all that existed, I still wouldn't know how to go about doing it, because the only way to accomplish it would be to get a different job that summer before senior year, and if that were to happen, there'd be no Jennie. That would be a real problem. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I wouldn't trade the "Jason and Friends" shit for anything in the world. That shit was hilarious and I will love those people forever. And I love Jennie. And then there's my top model to consider. You on the other hand, you and your condescending nature, I can do without.

I'm bigger than you. I'm smarter than you. I'm more secure, more self-assured, and more stable than you. Yet somehow you always make me feel the complete opposite and then some. Maybe you do it purposely, maybe it's completely by accident, maybe it's some goal you've created in your head. I don't know, and I don't care, but it ends now.

I'm sorry. I'm reall really really sorry.

Helloooooooo Xanga!!!!

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:39:06 GMT

Looke me using the internet again.......

So after the desk top crashed a while back and the laptop went kaput, I had an obvious break from the world of the web. (Yes there is internet at my job, but 95% of sites are blocked....)

So couple weeks back I bought a Mac to replace the desk top, but apparently the little antennae thingy I use to pick up the neighbor's internet signal is not Mac compatible (in other news, the free printer that came with the Mac is also not Mac compatible, and this I got at the Apple store.... You'd think they'd know better). (In even more other news the dog just farted. What a stink, and it's too cold outside to open a window.....).

Long story short, I have since reinstalled windows on the lap-top and am now using the Windows compatible antennae apparatus thingy to once again pick up some neighbor's internet (and one of these days I'll figure out exactly which neighbor it is that this belongs to....) and here I am, catching up on internet shit.

I must say, my little internet vacation was quite productive though. For some reason I have yet to figure out (could be the drop in gas prices) there is extra money in my bank account (the dog farted again, uck), therefore, I must be doing something correctly in the world of sporadic employment. I have also finished painting my living room and dining room (concrete floor and all) and have bought pretty little area rugs to make it all beautiful.

I haven't done much photography wise, but I've been super busy....

And then I met the 19 year old boy (who led me to believe he would be turning 21 sometime soon, LIES!!!!). 19 or no 19, I liked this boy, he seemed like a normal nice guy and appeared to have his head on straight and acted more mature than the majority of people older than me that I know. And he appeared to like me. Calling me, cooking me fish, telling me he was intimidated to kiss me cause I'm so purty or some crap. Yup. (Did I mention that said boy comes across as your typical southern country (redneck if you will) boy. Complete with a deer/hog hunting obsession, camo gear, rebel flag blankets and a father that at first glance I thought was Santa Claus holding a shot gun. So soon after I found out he was 19 I asked "you know I'm 25 right?" he said yeah, I then followed that with "you know I'm hispanic right?" he gave me another affirmative, so I figured it's all good (the roommate who had been screaming "WE NEED TO KEEP THE WHITEHOUSE WHITE!!" at the T.V. during election time had me a little worried about my spanishness, but apparently he doesn't like his roommate so I guess things work out).

So yeah, so I finally get asked out by a boy I like who continued to ask me out, and guess what? His mom decides it's time to move out, he had basically a week to find an apartment, went through about 5 jobs in two weeks (the dog farted again, no more chick peas for him) and is now working 7 days a week and 5 of those days he has doubles, and he's all stressed out and sick so I guess I haven't been hearing much from him. What a poop. Then again maybe he got bored with me cause I wouldn't get naked after having kissed him twice, but sheesh, I woulda eventually if he continued to be nice, it just takes me awhile to warm up to people and get comfortable with them you know?

But whatever, here's to hoping that he is just overwhelmed with life at the moment and did not lose interest....

I wish I understood how this whole dating worked (I also wish all the little friends of the last guy I was with would quit trying to get with me, it's like what? Because I got with him that means automatically I'll get with all of you? Um no, never mind that you're all on quite a few drugs and have all taken turns getting arrested and getting bailed out of jail, but even if you weren't, still, just, no.

And oh yeah, it's freakin cold out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And I have blisters on my hands from painting all day).

Much love to you all!! Hope your Thanksgiving was as delicious as mine!!

Hey there....

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:33:01 GMT

Been a few weeks since I've been on this. Quite a few things have happenes since then. First and foremost, have a job now. Substitute teaching, pretty much get called everyday. Then there's the part-time at the mental hospital and the part-time photography thing, so yeah, I've been busy.

House is still trashed, been trying hard to fix it up, but no time and no money somewhat make that difficult. I really wish I had a wooden fence instead of the chainlink so people couldn't see how high my grass is, but then again, if the neighbor behind me wouldn't have cut down my bushes, she wouldn't be able to see the mess back there anyway, so I guess it was pretty much her choice to have a view of that.

It's weird going back to my old middle school to sub. It's even weirder going to my highschool. The place still smells the same and for some reason I feel so much taller, even though I haven't grown a bit since the 8th grade. Plus I always used to wear heels to school and now I've been pretty much in sneaker mode, so I really don't understand this whole "too tall" thing I have going on lately.

My car got crashed into. By a guy wth no insurance who assumed I was going to run the red light that had been red for some time, so he comes speeding up and rams into me at 45mph. Totaled his car completely and surprisingly, aside from a bent back panel that wouldn't let my trunk close shut, my car was pretty much intact. It'll cost $2000 to fix it perfectly, but for $100 I found some guy in little Havana who could get the trunk to close. It's not perfect, but hey, least the trunk closes now.

My desk top PC went caput. Motherboard fried or some crap like that. I guess when you are trying to get a photography business of the ground and you have a few gigs of unbacked up photos on a crashed PC, this could pose some problems. Best Buy said they would retrieve my data for $200. Mike says his roommate will do it for free. Guess I'm driving to Orlando this weekend then. More time away from house fixing, and I kinda wanted to visit my grandparents in Miami since I'm off Monday, but whatever. Now I guess I have an excuse to buyt a Mac.

I love my little laptop though. Yeah it's too slow to run photoshop and the screen isn't big enough to properly edit anything, but for most tasks, it gets the job done quickly, better than my desk top that had Vista on it. And considering this was the ceapest notebook Best Buy was selling 4 years ago, and considering that's how old it is and how many times I've dropped it and how many parts of the power cord have electrical tape wrapped around them, I think I lucked out on my little gateway.

Someday I will purchase my own internet. That way I will no longer have to resort to picking up my neighbor's weak wireless signal which comes and goes as it pleases.

Maybe once I get a new desktop I'll put some of the recent pictures I took up on here. Some came out pretty nice.

That dude I was inlove with has a new girl I guess. She's drunk 24/7. Doesn't do much with her life cept party, and partying and drinking seem to be her main topics of conversation. I don't have anything against the girl or anything, she seems nice enough and hasn't done anything to me, but I guess I don't much get how the laws of attraction work. Then again, who does. (Plus he seems to be turning into quite the alcoholic himself, so I guess it's all for the best.)

Speaking of which, I did meet a boy. At a friend's birthday party. I'm just not to sure how old this boy is. All I know is he's over 18. But if it turns out he's 19, that's kind of a big gap to 25. I mean I guess it's no big deal, but to some people it is. It isn't anything to stress about yet anyway, we've only hung out a few times, but I think I might like him, and me liking a guy I just met who asked me to come hangout after knowing me a few hours is a rare thing. I get asked out a lot (as do most girls around here I guess) and usually I don't care for a single one of them. So leave it to me to decide to like the one who might be bordering on the too young realm. But he does seem like a nice enough guy who's halfway normal and down to earth, kinda short, but whatever.

Alright, my stomach's doing weird things and I think I'll go to bed. Good night everyone. (And I hope that one dude calls me tomorrow).

This week

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:25:05 GMT

For starters, Fall is finally starting to come in, which is great considering the AC is broke and now if I open the wondows I actually get the chills. (I should probably explain that growing up in Miami, without AC, causes someone to get the chills at around 78 degrees, but whatever, here in SO FLA, once it hits the 60's it's time to pull out your sweaters and put away the flip flops). I love the Fall. Winter, on the other hand, sucks.

I've been semi drunk two nights in a row now. I never drink. Two nights in a row is a lot for me. On the first night, I actually got some work done during my loopiness, and my pictures that I was working on were the better for it. On the second night, I also found some weed (that's another thing I hardly ever do anymore), I was not productive in the least, although I did eat everything in my neighbors house before I went home to pass out.

But at least both times I have been able to sleep the whole night through. Depression was starting to set in. I haven't been depressed in so long I have been avoiding it taking hold of my brain through any means posible.

I think not making enough money or any money at all is finally starting to set in. The disaster in the house is starting to set in. Everything is affecting me, even the things that are happening to other people I know, that don't even concern me are affecting me. I'm ridiculous.

But um, they should legalize weed, honestly, because not only did it make me eat a ton, but I had the best nights sleep I have had in a long time.

Ok, think I'll go be productive now.

Cya

On Death and Dying

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:41:48 GMT

For the majority of my life, I had never had to deal with the experience of having someone close to me die. Parents are still alive, I had all my Grandparents, no dead aunts or uncles, no best friends dying in a tragic accident, all brothers and sisters alive and well. My experiences with death basically amounted to a great uncle who died while I was in fourth grade after being sick in the hospital for sometime, a great aunt who also died after being sick with cancer, and a great grandmother who died at 96 after spending the last 3 years of her life bed ridden and the 7 years before that completely senile. Of these three, my great grandmother was the one I had spent the most time with, she had after all lived in my grandmother's house since I was 3 years old and I basically spent 50% of my time at Grandma's house.

Great Grandma's death came as no surprise, the woman was very old, and she had been slowly dying in her own way since I was 5 years old. At 16 years old, this was the first funeral I had ever attended. It was a very quiet service made up of mostly close family members, my grandmother and her brother, my mother and her brother, my mother's cousins and their kids. Everynow and then an extended family member would drop by to pay their respects. People sat around weeping quietly to themselves. The burial was just as sad and quiet, and after she was buried, that was it, life went on as usual, except now there was an empty bedroom in my Grandmother's house and my Grandmother has a lot more free time on her hands.

At some point towards the end of highschool, I start to become somewhat panicky about people dying. I mean, most of my friends and family had had someone (or multiple someones) close to them die at some point. They had all been to quite a few funerals. And when someone around me would experience a new death, I never knew what to say, this wasn't something I dealt with, I mean ok, so my great grandma died, she was the oldest person in the world practically, most people don't ever even meet their great grandparents, no one was expecting her to live much longer, it wasn't something that to me could even remotely compare to the unexpected death (or even the expected death) of a parent, sibling, best friend, or even grandparent.

So I spent most of the following years with this nagging thought that eventually I would have to deal with the inevitable and thinking that I wouldn't be able to deal with it very well.

So a year ago I get a phonecall from my mom as I'm walking out of work. "Your grandmother passed today" she said. It was my grandmother back in Puerto Rico (not the one I mentioned before). Apparently she had had a stroke while doing her hair for a wedding and that was that. This woman lived alone, not only could she take care of herself, clean the house from top to bottom weekly and cook three meals a day, but she would also care for her grandchildren daily until the day she died. Yeah, it was completely unexpected. I'm not going to go through the usual set of emotions people feel when something unexpected like that happens, I'm sure what I felt wasn't very different from what anyone else in this situation would feel. What I do want to talk about is this woman's funeral.

So we get on a plane to Puerto Rico, my third trip to the Island in the last ten years. I guess half the time I was off in my own world because I would find myself thinking, "oh I should have brought this along to show grandma" as if the the reason we were going wasn't to her funeral or whatnot, but just another vacation.

This funeral was a three day event. Everyone from the town (and surrounding areas) was there. There were people crying, there were people laughing, there were people doing the usual catching up you do when you are forced to intereact with people you haven't seen in years.

There were several small bands that would come and sing songs. Several religious figures from the island came by to give mass. There was a lot of food. There were a ton of people I had either never met or did not remember, coming up to me, telling me they had heard of me or they remember me from when I was two feet tall. They all had some story to tell about my grandmother.

The whole thing was just this mixture of happiness and sadness. People smiling while they cried, telling stories and making jokes. Apparently this woman, throughout all her years of meddling in people's business, gossiping, telling others how to live their lives and trying to solve everyone's problems had made quite an impact on quite a few people. I admit that my grandmother could've be annoying. She is someone my mother would repeatedly say of "if your father's mother would have lived over here, I could have never married him". She was that intrusive in people's lives. But in her world, all she was doing was trying to help everyone, trying to get everyone a ticket into heaven (she was insanely catholic, and if anyone is currently in heaven telling Jesus off it is this woman), and I guess people understood that and they loved her for it, even if some of the things she used to say bordered on the ridiculous (but then again, a lot of things people in Puerto Rico say border on the ridiculous).

The burial was like something out of an old movie. An old movie about a village that in the end comes together for some sad reason that still leaves you with this happy feeling inside when the credits start rolling. Everyone who had been at the funeral home throughout those three days from 7am to past midnight came to the burial. She was buried in one of the oldest cemetaries in San Juan, there were alot of old broken graves, a lot of headstones from centuries ago, a lot of stray dogs that looked as if they were guarding the place. Someone sang the Ave Maria, a few read things they had written, someone else released a dove. It was very hot and we were all dressed in dark colors.

I wasn't sad having to spend the night in her house after this. The first night there it was just odd. All her pictures everywhere (half of them of me and my sisters, it has always fascinated me that somewhere outside this country is a copy of every picture ever taken of me, whether it be a trip to Disney World, School Portraits, or me catching fish with a pool net in a canal), all her things, all her records, all her bibles and crucifixes. But that final night, it was just nice and breezy. I remember I called Mike for no good reason while lying on the couch. "What's up?" he says. Me "Nothing much, in Puerto Rico". Him "what are you doing there?". Me "nothing, my grandma died, so we came". He replied with that odd silence people usually do when someone says someone died, expecially when someone says it in the manner I had just said it. He starts doing the usual you ok? wanna talk about it? I'm sorry etc. I say "nah I'm fine, what's up with you". And that was that (Mike is used to getting odd reactions to situations out of me), we talked about random things, about the usual stupidities that occur in Puerto Rico (the funeral was full of enough of them, and while people were starting to get into fights and others were shocked that this was occuring during a funeral mass, a lot of us were pretty sure grandma wouldn't have liked it any other way, the woman lived for drama).

After talking to Mike, I went back to lying on the couch and reading a book, like I usually do, regardless of which grandma's house I happen to be in. At some point a lizard ran across my face. Then I wet my hair so I would be able to get some sleep in the heat of the non airconditioned Carribean nights.

Next day we came back home. Back to work. Back to life. I didn't want to leave, I think real life had begun stressing me out, and I liked my four days away from it all.

I can't say that this solved any of the issues I have regarding people dying. I am still paranoid beyond all reason about losing people permanently. It did however solve the issue of this particular person dying. This is probably the best closure I have ever gotten out of anything and the next time I'm over there I'll be sure to visit that cemetary.

This entry didn't have much to do with anything, but it isn't anything I've ever written about or dicussed to any full extent, and I got to thinking about it and figured I'd write it down, just so I'll remember it if I ever go down the same path of senility people in my family have a habit of doing in their 90's.

The girl in the picture

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:22:46 GMT

Thanks to everyone who commented on the picture, I love hearing other's thoughts on things such as these... I had some inquiries about what she might actually look like or what kind of shoot I was going for, so here's a picture she liked of herself...

Alrighty, see you all laters...

What's your opinion on this?...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:08:58 GMT

This is a picture of a model I had in a recent shoot. To most models and anyone in the industry, it is a horrible picture of the girl. It does not make her look beautiful, glamourous, classy or any other related words. It is not a picture she will be using in her portfolio nor that anyone would recommend her to use. Me on the other hand, I love it, I think it is a great portrait, but I'm not really sure why, there's just something about it, it reminds me of something but I don't know what. I dunno, maybe I'm just tired.

Anyone else think this is an interesting shot? Or am I just odd?