The hardest I ever worked in college was in honors calculus. Like the arrogant standard obsessed girl that I am, I refused to take business calc even tho that was all taht was required as a finance major. and I refused to take regular calc. I wanted the smart kid class. And while, the material wasn't particularly challenging, the pace of the class was insane. People would be like "you can solve it like this" and the professor would be like "well, that's 3 chapters ahead but yeah that works." and i'm like "hello! I've never taken calc before maybe stick to the FUCKING CHAPTER WE'RE IN!"
anyway-
i took all the problems in the book and put them on those 5X7 flashcards and kept them next to my bed.
I worked really. fucking. hard.
and it started messing with my head.
when a girl jumped off the roof of our dorm and killed herself, i walked around calculating whether or not she hit terminal velocity based on her weight and the height of the building.
yesterday some people got shot in Seattle by a random crazy guy with a gun.
and now people are going nuts about crime statistics and how safe seattle is and who is at fault.
and i'm realizing, that my job is like my honors calc class.
because i absentmindedly start picking apart people's claims and challenging assumptions and wondering about the data sets and how i would accurately claim that one city is "safer" than another.
what is "safety?" and in a world where people are afforded the luxury of free will, who IS at fault when someone mentally ill lashes out in violence?
genetics? and is it our fault for unnaturally prevailing as a society, curing sickness and passing on defective genes?
statistics? the larger the city, the more people there are to go crazy? are we a less safe city because 1 shooting for us is relative to 100 for new york or chicago?
quality of life? what measures can we take to ensure everyone is satisfied in their lives while still preserving the capitalistic healthy competitive nature that drives our society forward?
my brain goes in circles and i want data sets and i want to look for patters and find the data to back it up when i say "stop talkin shit about my favorite city"
but probably the biggest mindfuck is when that "let's all be good to one another" glow wears off after the media coverage dies down and people go back to being dicks and no one learns anything and we all just wait for the next excuse to feel alive.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
impossible condition
my friend nikki said it best when she told me "kari, when people say they don't want to hurt someone, it just means they don't want that person to think badly of them. it's always selfish because it hurts the other person much more in the long run to be protected in the short run."
It takes a lot for me to dismiss someone as a bad person. Obviously, given my track record. I forgive. And there really is good in everyone if you're able to be objective and not let certain actions cloud your view.
I may have too much compassion tho. Somehow got myself into a mess and i'm having trouble seeing a way out.
Let me open with this. I wrote this yesterday. It's called "Leave it Open." Apparently I am incapable of writing anything on the piano that isn't incredibly sad sounding. But the song is basically about how hard it is to cut ties with an ex when you break up on amicable terms. You lean on them for support because they are the one person going through exactly what you are. Support turns to friendship, turns to "hey this is nice without the pressure", turns to "what's sex between friends?", turns to regularly sleeping together, turns to a giant grey area that's confusing to friends and hurtful to... side projects.
and i really did not want to ever again get involved with someone who had a complicated half-relationship. of all the things i have learned in my years of dating, it is that those situations will always eat you alive.
yet despite going into this with the understanding that the person in question was undeniably single, he continues to go back to his ex and lie to me about it. well, i'll be fair. not lie, but position things in a way that is not representative of the real situation. misleading maybe...
and yet- i have little interest in dating him. i bounce back and forth in my level of investment depending on what else I have going on. and who the hell am i to judge someone for hooking up with an ex?
so i wouldn't give it a second thought except... misleading me on how close they are and misleading her on his extra curricular activities is leading to situations that could have been avoided if everyone knew what was going on.
and this is what i find most irritating. but you can't change people. and i'm willing to take whatever responsibility i owe. i just can't figure out what that is.
Do I owe him my discretion? Even at the cost of lying, walking on eggshells and silently supporting their public relationship displays when we're in a group?
Do I owe it to myself and to her to fill her in on what he's neglecting to say so that we both can make informed decisions on things?
kinda torn on this one...
It takes a lot for me to dismiss someone as a bad person. Obviously, given my track record. I forgive. And there really is good in everyone if you're able to be objective and not let certain actions cloud your view.
I may have too much compassion tho. Somehow got myself into a mess and i'm having trouble seeing a way out.
Let me open with this. I wrote this yesterday. It's called "Leave it Open." Apparently I am incapable of writing anything on the piano that isn't incredibly sad sounding. But the song is basically about how hard it is to cut ties with an ex when you break up on amicable terms. You lean on them for support because they are the one person going through exactly what you are. Support turns to friendship, turns to "hey this is nice without the pressure", turns to "what's sex between friends?", turns to regularly sleeping together, turns to a giant grey area that's confusing to friends and hurtful to... side projects.
and i really did not want to ever again get involved with someone who had a complicated half-relationship. of all the things i have learned in my years of dating, it is that those situations will always eat you alive.
yet despite going into this with the understanding that the person in question was undeniably single, he continues to go back to his ex and lie to me about it. well, i'll be fair. not lie, but position things in a way that is not representative of the real situation. misleading maybe...
and yet- i have little interest in dating him. i bounce back and forth in my level of investment depending on what else I have going on. and who the hell am i to judge someone for hooking up with an ex?
so i wouldn't give it a second thought except... misleading me on how close they are and misleading her on his extra curricular activities is leading to situations that could have been avoided if everyone knew what was going on.
and this is what i find most irritating. but you can't change people. and i'm willing to take whatever responsibility i owe. i just can't figure out what that is.
Do I owe him my discretion? Even at the cost of lying, walking on eggshells and silently supporting their public relationship displays when we're in a group?
Do I owe it to myself and to her to fill her in on what he's neglecting to say so that we both can make informed decisions on things?
kinda torn on this one...
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
we were nothing
Things here have been interesting as usual. Lots of drama. Lots of love. Some crying. Lots of singing. Sex. Art. Heartbreak. Panic. Inspiration. Rejection.
Can't really sum it up in any kind of box.
Maybe partition by category.
drama-
shasta is on the horizon and i'm both excited and nervous. excited because, in all honesty, my bod is pretty rockin right now. and lots of exes will be bringing their new sig-o's. And i'm shallow (or more honest and self aware) so feeling skinnier than someone can often be as much as i need to feel better about a breakup. and i've got an arsenal of Agent Provacateur bikinis to rock.
but alas...of the 7 guys on my boat, i've slept with 5 of them. and only 1 of the 5 is public knowledge. and there's varying degrees of how much drama would be caused by people finding out A- about the past and/or B- whether or not it happens again during the trip.
those odds + alcohol + 7 days on a boat + no safe backup booty = how in the hell is this not gonna get dramatic?
love-
still feeling ridiculously lucky to have 4 women who completely accept me. even tho 2 of them don't live here and the other 2 are moving soon, i feel so much less alone lately. or maybe late 20s is just where it's at in terms of women i connect with. "it's nothing against her, i just have nothing to say to a 23 year old. all they do is talk about youtube videos. which as exciting as they are to watch, somehow i find it difficult to stay engaged when they are described to me."
crying-
still consistently upset about band stuff. still feeling stuck. still feel no one really cares about my suggestions. and then blames me when i'm not able to really get into our live show. still stressed about the growing number of times my drummer drops the ball, doesn't share info, isn't available for one thing or another. but i can't change anything so i must accept it and move on. feels like fame is to this band what a baby is to a failing marriage. i keep thinking success will excited everyone and reengage people. but he forgot to turn in the W9 that we need to get paid for our first ever paying gig. And no one's even shared on facebook about the magazine cover we were on. So it feels more and more like these problems won't be fixed by success or maybe by anything. so it's something i keep crying over and it should be the one thing that never makes me cry. and that's stressful.
singing-
played 2 really fun shows in the last 2 weekends. and did 2 ridiculous nights of karaoke at rock box with some climbing friends. and finally posted a somewhat not-terrible version of my gotye cover that i've been working on forever.
sex, art, inspiration, heartbreak, rejection, panic... i'll save for another entry. itchin to get home and work on the cover more ;)
Can't really sum it up in any kind of box.
Maybe partition by category.
drama-
shasta is on the horizon and i'm both excited and nervous. excited because, in all honesty, my bod is pretty rockin right now. and lots of exes will be bringing their new sig-o's. And i'm shallow (or more honest and self aware) so feeling skinnier than someone can often be as much as i need to feel better about a breakup. and i've got an arsenal of Agent Provacateur bikinis to rock.
but alas...of the 7 guys on my boat, i've slept with 5 of them. and only 1 of the 5 is public knowledge. and there's varying degrees of how much drama would be caused by people finding out A- about the past and/or B- whether or not it happens again during the trip.
those odds + alcohol + 7 days on a boat + no safe backup booty = how in the hell is this not gonna get dramatic?
love-
still feeling ridiculously lucky to have 4 women who completely accept me. even tho 2 of them don't live here and the other 2 are moving soon, i feel so much less alone lately. or maybe late 20s is just where it's at in terms of women i connect with. "it's nothing against her, i just have nothing to say to a 23 year old. all they do is talk about youtube videos. which as exciting as they are to watch, somehow i find it difficult to stay engaged when they are described to me."
crying-
still consistently upset about band stuff. still feeling stuck. still feel no one really cares about my suggestions. and then blames me when i'm not able to really get into our live show. still stressed about the growing number of times my drummer drops the ball, doesn't share info, isn't available for one thing or another. but i can't change anything so i must accept it and move on. feels like fame is to this band what a baby is to a failing marriage. i keep thinking success will excited everyone and reengage people. but he forgot to turn in the W9 that we need to get paid for our first ever paying gig. And no one's even shared on facebook about the magazine cover we were on. So it feels more and more like these problems won't be fixed by success or maybe by anything. so it's something i keep crying over and it should be the one thing that never makes me cry. and that's stressful.
singing-
played 2 really fun shows in the last 2 weekends. and did 2 ridiculous nights of karaoke at rock box with some climbing friends. and finally posted a somewhat not-terrible version of my gotye cover that i've been working on forever.
sex, art, inspiration, heartbreak, rejection, panic... i'll save for another entry. itchin to get home and work on the cover more ;)
Friday, May 11, 2012
we loved each other in strange ways
seems therapy is the only thing that inspires me to write. i suppose because it inspires me to think. about everything.
i keep thinking there's a similar skill set between therapists and producers. each session is an hour long. i go in, hafhazardly speaking and by the end it wraps up with a nice conclusion, tied in theme and cliffhanger for next time. or maybe i just have a really good therapist.
this week is all about relationships. which, the more therapy i do, the more i realize, this is really what i want help in.
i get bored. i start to hate the things i loved. i start needing something, anything else.
and then i fuck it all up and destroy people. and then i miss them.
i don't want to be like that anymore.
i guess i want an answer to one question- am i not married because i haven't found the right person, or because there is no such thing as a right person?
because i like the idea of marriage. of loving someone else so much that i want to be with them forever.
but i've never found anyone i haven't started to hate after a few years. and i'm 29. i've been in 5 very serious long term relationships. with men i still think about very fondly. and all of them, i could date again... for a few years... and then i'd get bored.
5 relationships. with wonderful men. each amazing in one aspect. and i cheated on all of them. because i couldn't leave mediocraty by myself. i needed to do something societally unforgiving to make sure there was no going back.
................
this is coming from a few minutes ago. i was looking for something i stashed in a shoebox in my closet. i pulled down the wrong one. it was Dan's. Dear men of my past, Yes, I am still 13 years old and I still keep a shoebox of stupid shit i collected while i loved you.
In Dan's box is the following:
1. An AWS nametag. He came over to my house after some work function. I remember loving how it said "Senior Manager, AWS." I remember loving how powerful his job made him in my eyes. So I stole it.
2. Four photo booth photo strips. This is from the Ace Hotel in Portland. After the fetish club. We were drunk and spent about $60 on photobooth pictures. If i die, i hope someone burns these before my parents see them.
3. A masquarade mask. His 30th birthday was a masquarade ball. I went to a party with Jason earlier that night. It was my last double header. I met LK that night. It was the first time I felt really torn between the 2.
4. A burberry tag. The first of many lavish gifts. He came back from some Vegas trip with the burberry rainboots i'd been in love with. After we broke up, I bought myself a pair of Hunter Wellies as a symbolic gesture. I will buy my own damn expensive plastic boots!
5. A backstage sign from Sassquatch. We stole it, and a golf cart from the backstage area of the mainstage that we snuck into to see NIN. Years later, while staying at a winery down the road from the gorge, we tried to ride bikes back in and find the spot, but security kicked us out. It felt ominous.
6. 10 "I love you" cards that I never sent. I've made it a habit to keep a stash of greeting cards when I'm dating someone I've fallen in love with to stick into work bags or on car windsheilds. I kept these as a reminder that I never made it through the stash.
7. A pregnancy test, the first and only I've ever taken. I kept it because I remembered how weird of a reaction I had to it. It was the first time I almost almost almost wanted it to be not negative. Having that reaction scared the shit out of me.
theres a bunch of hotel keys, poems on napkins, ticket stubs, pens, and stupid shit.
was hoping going through the list would help me understand my final conclusions on that relationship, but i'm still a mix of happy to be out and missing the good times. but i guess that's all relationships in one way or another.
i guess Regina Spektor said it best, "You love until you don't."
keepin movin i suppose.
next week should be fun. i'm supposed to make a list of pros and cons of all my exes and discuss whether they are rational deal breakers or me obsessing over flaws.
maybe i do feel better...
had dinner with my parents who just bid on a house on some island that's a 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle. Feeling... oddly comforted with the thought of having my family so close. i ran away to DC so many times during the drama that was mine and Dan's relationship. It'll be nice to run away for the cost of a ferry ticket instead of a cross country airline flight..... there was a trip I took probably 3 or 4 years ago back home. I left because he was having some party and i wasn't invited and that's how ridiculous things get sometimes.
and i was happy, watching dexter, eating deviled eggs in my pajamas when i accidentally overheard my mom talking about me to my aunt on the phone. and she was so angry at dan. and maybe more heartbroken than i was. and said something about how I had said that no one before understood me the way he did. and i really thought he might be the one..... and it was so hard to hear that in an overheard conversation. and she got protective, telling my aunt that if he ever expected to date me, he owed her and my father a big apology...
i kinda lost it. something weird about hearing your parents heartbroken because you're heartbroken. supports my theory that it's never helpful to breakdown and be your emotional irrational self in front of other people. they're affected by it too.
okay. the box is back on the shelf. i'm no closer to any answers but i do know this-
i refuse to live in a world where friending someone on facebook is more intimate than fucking someone.
the end.
i keep thinking there's a similar skill set between therapists and producers. each session is an hour long. i go in, hafhazardly speaking and by the end it wraps up with a nice conclusion, tied in theme and cliffhanger for next time. or maybe i just have a really good therapist.
this week is all about relationships. which, the more therapy i do, the more i realize, this is really what i want help in.
i get bored. i start to hate the things i loved. i start needing something, anything else.
and then i fuck it all up and destroy people. and then i miss them.
i don't want to be like that anymore.
i guess i want an answer to one question- am i not married because i haven't found the right person, or because there is no such thing as a right person?
because i like the idea of marriage. of loving someone else so much that i want to be with them forever.
but i've never found anyone i haven't started to hate after a few years. and i'm 29. i've been in 5 very serious long term relationships. with men i still think about very fondly. and all of them, i could date again... for a few years... and then i'd get bored.
5 relationships. with wonderful men. each amazing in one aspect. and i cheated on all of them. because i couldn't leave mediocraty by myself. i needed to do something societally unforgiving to make sure there was no going back.
................
this is coming from a few minutes ago. i was looking for something i stashed in a shoebox in my closet. i pulled down the wrong one. it was Dan's. Dear men of my past, Yes, I am still 13 years old and I still keep a shoebox of stupid shit i collected while i loved you.
In Dan's box is the following:
1. An AWS nametag. He came over to my house after some work function. I remember loving how it said "Senior Manager, AWS." I remember loving how powerful his job made him in my eyes. So I stole it.
2. Four photo booth photo strips. This is from the Ace Hotel in Portland. After the fetish club. We were drunk and spent about $60 on photobooth pictures. If i die, i hope someone burns these before my parents see them.
3. A masquarade mask. His 30th birthday was a masquarade ball. I went to a party with Jason earlier that night. It was my last double header. I met LK that night. It was the first time I felt really torn between the 2.
4. A burberry tag. The first of many lavish gifts. He came back from some Vegas trip with the burberry rainboots i'd been in love with. After we broke up, I bought myself a pair of Hunter Wellies as a symbolic gesture. I will buy my own damn expensive plastic boots!
5. A backstage sign from Sassquatch. We stole it, and a golf cart from the backstage area of the mainstage that we snuck into to see NIN. Years later, while staying at a winery down the road from the gorge, we tried to ride bikes back in and find the spot, but security kicked us out. It felt ominous.
6. 10 "I love you" cards that I never sent. I've made it a habit to keep a stash of greeting cards when I'm dating someone I've fallen in love with to stick into work bags or on car windsheilds. I kept these as a reminder that I never made it through the stash.
7. A pregnancy test, the first and only I've ever taken. I kept it because I remembered how weird of a reaction I had to it. It was the first time I almost almost almost wanted it to be not negative. Having that reaction scared the shit out of me.
theres a bunch of hotel keys, poems on napkins, ticket stubs, pens, and stupid shit.
was hoping going through the list would help me understand my final conclusions on that relationship, but i'm still a mix of happy to be out and missing the good times. but i guess that's all relationships in one way or another.
i guess Regina Spektor said it best, "You love until you don't."
keepin movin i suppose.
next week should be fun. i'm supposed to make a list of pros and cons of all my exes and discuss whether they are rational deal breakers or me obsessing over flaws.
maybe i do feel better...
had dinner with my parents who just bid on a house on some island that's a 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle. Feeling... oddly comforted with the thought of having my family so close. i ran away to DC so many times during the drama that was mine and Dan's relationship. It'll be nice to run away for the cost of a ferry ticket instead of a cross country airline flight..... there was a trip I took probably 3 or 4 years ago back home. I left because he was having some party and i wasn't invited and that's how ridiculous things get sometimes.
and i was happy, watching dexter, eating deviled eggs in my pajamas when i accidentally overheard my mom talking about me to my aunt on the phone. and she was so angry at dan. and maybe more heartbroken than i was. and said something about how I had said that no one before understood me the way he did. and i really thought he might be the one..... and it was so hard to hear that in an overheard conversation. and she got protective, telling my aunt that if he ever expected to date me, he owed her and my father a big apology...
i kinda lost it. something weird about hearing your parents heartbroken because you're heartbroken. supports my theory that it's never helpful to breakdown and be your emotional irrational self in front of other people. they're affected by it too.
okay. the box is back on the shelf. i'm no closer to any answers but i do know this-
i refuse to live in a world where friending someone on facebook is more intimate than fucking someone.
the end.
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