Of Same Opposites

There is snow, far away from here. It is cold, soft, and enveloping. Far away is not so far away.

The heat is melting. Faintness swallows the mind, exertion beyond personal bounds becomes an unforgivable mistake. Do not press on. Failure will result. Be careful. You’ll get hurt.

Yet in the snow…in the snow there is softness, and in the softness, danger. A lull to sleep is dangerous. And an over exertion is dangerous. It is but relative. Choose your life or your life. You can’t keep both.

But you lies. You lies out of fear. Fear of danger, of the heat, of the faint. But the soft comfort is equally dangerous. Beware, beware for the softness will lull you to an endless death.

At least in the heat you know when you’re dead.

That Ernest Hemingway Quote & Subjectivity

You know, that one that goes “Write Drunk, Edit Sober”. I think I’m going to try it. Except with out the latter part.

Also, I’m utterly amazed at how little vodka it takes to  go from comfortably tipsy to “I want to roll around in blankets” drunk. (I’m a happy, if very tactile stimulated, when drunk.) It’s odd. I don’t typically pay attention to tactile sensation during the day. Pain or comfort do not hold any particular significance to me. If anything, auditory or visual stimuli is the most attention-grabbing. Though that may be true for a significant majority of humans. It’s socially accepted* that each person has a generally different reaction to alcohol. Mine I believe is “giggler”, as the layman categories** go.

It’s fascinating. Watching and testing oneself under new circumstances and mind-frame. Conservative society dismisses experiences influenced by drugs/booze/sleep-deprivation/what-have-you but why? Because it is so subjective? In Northern-central mexican-native American culture, experiences during the smoking of peyote are revered for understand ones ‘soul’ or spirit dreams. Is it only western culture that places such an important emphasis on reason and testability of observations? Does that not ignore a vast knowledge of the self and the self in universe such experiences afford?

But then again, I am one to completely dismiss religious experiences. It’s a contradiction to be sure, and one that has bothered me in my subconscious for more than a few months now. Sober-me dismisses my drunk self, but my drunk self sees sober-me as rather closed minded. Hmm…Does sober-me see drunk-me as a hippie? (Also, why is there such a bad connotation with hippie?…Wait, I was raised by conservative parents. Nvm.) It’s not hard to want the world to be a fantastical magical land, unintelligible to the uninitiated and infinitely malleable to the insiders. When you read a fantasy story, or pretty much any story at all, the main character, the one you care for, is special, exceptional, privy to special information/magic/abilities/knowledge/etc.  Yet odds are, you aren’t. The world most people inhabit, including you, yes you, sitting in your chair or bed(like me) is not magical***. You are only privy to your own experience and those of whom you are allowed to access, either through writing, visual art, or music. (I wonder if that’s why the arts are so important for a rounded world view…that would make sense). Yet my reality isn’t. It just isn’t fantastical or wonderful or even strange. It is beautiful and infinite, but perfectly ordinary for a 19 yr old college student in the US.

Speaking of which, this 19 yr old is going to rap up this rambling soliloquy^ by the need to remove my contacts before I forget. My drunk-self sincerely hopes you enjoy your day/night/tomorrow and try to better yourself/situation/the-world tomorrow. YOLO and what not as the hip-cool kids say. Hah, goodnight y’all.

* Aka: each person interprets drunkenness in a different way based on experiences and connotations one develops through out one’s life. Mine is that alcohol is dangerously seductive. Alcoholism runs in the family and what not. Also, you would think that seeing my Dad almost die from alcohol poisoning not once but twice would turn me off alcohol.  Oh, liquor and my genes, you’re so silly.

** Other categories include the crier, the angry drunk, the hyper-active, the so-chill-you-literally-can’t-upset-them, and a few others I legitimately can’t remember. It’s my understanding and non-personal-experience that after a certain point, everyone becomes a crier. They are a hell of a hassle to deal with. I hate puke so much. So so much. But it scares me to let anyone go to sleep extremely intoxicated if they haven’t vomited. See the first note for the probable reason.

***I shit you not that this universe is utterly dumb-foundlingly astounding. If you don’t think so, you obviously haven’t any passions****. I would recommend starting with google-ing philosphy, art, any-culture-EVER, any branch of science, HELL have you EVER gotten into the wikipedia pages about MATH. I SHIT YOU NOT, the math pages are fucking amazing. Unintelligible to me most of the time, but I know they are wonderful, because it makes me happy people are smarter than I ever could hope to be. Is that odd?

****That was rude. I apologize. But seriously, you may want to re-examine yourself and life if you would even think that you have no passions.

^I had to let Google Chrome spell-check me on how to spell soliloquy. Good lord (not that I’m religious) but I am getting dumb.

Slowing of Summer

Life is slowing. Smoke curled upward around my fingers, lingering in the still night air. The oppressive humidity and eternal heat of the summer stifled even the street lights, blurring them into monet-esque softness. Leirsurely, I watched remanents of the combustion waft, wondering if in time my fingers would be stained yellow like the way elementary school drug programs warned.

                          “So is this who I am now? A smoker then.”

Yet the label of smoker didn’t seem to fit. I was no chain-smoking white trash, nor a hipster searching for validation through appearances. I sat on borrowed chair on my miniscule apartment balcony, alone, contemplating. Only my best friend even knows I smoke occasionally. I hid my little habit like shy pre-teens hide their poetry. Hell, the rush of nicotine to the head still made me nauseous almost every time one is lit.

Another drag is taken, burning, the poison being taken in. Head tilts back. Exhale. A cough ruptures the silence. There are no pretentions here. Cicadas hum louder, the sound synonymous with the heat. With the outdoors. But perhaps the cicadas meant a slowing of life.

Paragraph – In the Shower

Guys flashed through her mind, shape shifting, faces not matching bodies, essences not matching figures, but none of them matched the sensation. They never did, but still she persisted in her pursuit to find a sating human fantasy. Water undulated against her clit, harsh and intense. She opened her eyes for but a moment to survey her reality. A cheap white tub and shower, matched by cheap white painted ceiling, and a cheap clear shower curtain filled her view. The shower head had been removed in a fit of lustful madness, now pouring a perfect stream of water down upon her exposed body. “A water hose…I didn’t think it would look like that”, flitted through her mind. On her back, legs splayed, “What have I become, maybe C.S. Lewis had a point in saying masturbation only isolated oneself. I can’t even tell R—— about this. C——- knew, but he was so taken aback. God damn it, why is it wrong to want the ecstacy men are allowed to feel?” But she turned her head to the left resentfully, sliding her body just a few centimeters toward the drain, removing the distraction of stimulation. Water sprayed outward in all directions, some promptly speckling her face and uncomfortably into her eyes and nose. A half hearted attempt to shield the face with her hand resulted in even more mild annoyance. Sitting up with an resentful sigh, the stream pounded heavily against her scalp, driving thoughts out. Massaging her skull with the pressure, enjoyment still seemed too distant to attain for this evening. “What the hell am I doing” is all that echoed faintly in her mind.