lighting technique, buttons and needing a fix

This is by far the best picture that has ever been taken of me. Not that it looks like me, though it does make a (large) part of me wish that i lived in a slightly out of focus black and white world with Oprah-style lighting. And that i still had my lip ring... I don't like very many pictures of myself. Don't get me wrong I'm no more insecure than the next person; it's just that I look in the mirror every day so looking at a picture of myself isn't all that appealing. In a picture you can't turn your head to a more becoming angle, you can't fix smudged eyeliner or stray bangs, there's no way to change your clothes for the fifth time or do a button undone. In pictures there always seem to be flaws and no way to fix them. Unless perhaps you're amazingly talented at Photoshopping. Which I am not.

I like being able to fix things. Not fixing them mind you, just knowing that i could. I want to know things could be okay with my friends, but I don't need to necessarily have them be ok. If that makes any sense. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it doesn't need to.

I think we all try and fix people in some way. While I haven't figured out quite how I try to button life's buttons yet, I know that my friend Ariel does it through art. And I love her for taking this picture. Because somehow, by handing me headphones and taking pictures and telling me to sing along to my favorite songs, she fixed me for just long enough to take that picture.

Not that because of that one moment I'm fixed forever, but because of that one picture I know I'm fixable. And that, along with the fact that I can change my clothes five times and fix my bangs, is enough.

buttons, applause and two black eyes

someone once told me that they didn't know what they'd do if i ever ran out of anger. it just struck me that i don't either. but more importantly i have confidence that i never will, because life will never run out of things worth being angry about.

i know that all my trigger buttons are in plain view, as prominently displayed as the plastic ones on my shirt, just waiting to be pushed. those that know me well can work me into a rant with a single word. it takes complete strangers a good minute or two. they aren't there because i don't know where else to put them, they're there because in order to make things happen buttons need to be pushed, so i guess they may as well be mine.

the truth of it is that i see a lot wrong with the way that things are. and since simple observation makes one of the two inevitable, i'd rather be angry than sad. i saw carlos mencia in san francisco the other night. and yes, everyone involved realized the situation was problematic from the beginning, but it was free so we figured what the fuck may as well just go...

now i pride myself upon having a pretty decent sense of humor. but i realize that may be because the vast majority of the humor i encounter is either rather witty sarcastic one-liners or the more repetitive reenactments of well-known stoner movies and the occassional Family Guy episode. this show was neither of these. i know my offense at racist jokes is what is anticipated as the inspiration for this rant. but it's not. growing up in oceanside i can tolerate the predictabile and uninspired racist commentaries about how asians can't drive and black men have foot long dicks. these jokes just make me wonder who still finds this shit funny, not because it's so ridiculous but because it's just so fucking trite.

no what got to me was the number of jokes centered around domestic violence. apparently women being beaten by their spouses got hilarious when i wasn't paying attention. when i told my friends that i thought that, if anything, was off-limits one of them told me "well it's not like anyone in there thinks hitting your wife is ok, it's not like he's condoning domestic violence". i agree. but what are they saying? what aspect of that joke is funny?

people make jokes about black people, but never say they deserve to be lynched unless it's introduced with "i know this really horrible racist joke". they joke about gays, but never Matthew Shepard. they joke about Jews, but not in terms of the Holocaust. they walk up to the line, but few of them cross it. with women it's different. they get pummeled in jest, lips split to a resounding applause and black eyes encouraged by the screams of the entire front row.

i'm not angry that people laughed at the fact that you can't tell a woman with two black eyes anything you haven't already told her twice. i'm angry at the fact that when i am offended people think it's because i'm a feminist, or a liberal, or an idealistic kid. not because there are women walking around right now with make-up covreed black eyes. i'm not angry because of my sex, or my politics. i'm angry because the world is one fucked up place to live, and yelling is better than crying.

it bothers me that people feel the need to look over their shoulder before they tell a racist joke, since clearly the only person who'd be offended by an asian joke is an asian. but it bothers me more that sexist jokes don't even get a turn of the head. not that you'd see the battered woman in the room even if you did look. she probably put enough make-up on this morning to make sure of that.

by the way, have you ever heard the one about the white guy and the Christian?

no, neither have i.

playing dress up, cheerios and justification

so as i got dressed today in respectable office attire, easy to pick out even with sleep-blurred eyes as it is in remarkable contrast to the rest of my more thrifty (and yes, threadbare) clothing, i had an almost out-of-body experience. i watched myself pour coffee grounds into the coffeemaker, eat a sensible breakfast and leave the house before noon, and i wondered..."who the fuck is this person?"

it seems that now that summer school is over (concluded with a 4.0 i might add), i have somehow managed to establish an even more rigid routine. one much less flexible to the remnants of an unplanned hangover or the necessity of continuing a really sweet dream... here i am- an unpaid intern. sure, part of it is predictable, i know my perpetually bleeding heart is susceptible to such decisions, you know- the economically illogical yet oh-so emotionally appealing type. but it's the other part, the one requiring routine and responsibility, that makes me wonder. and worry. but mostly wonder.

i can nonetheless justify my behavior, this being a talent i have refined through years and years of practice dealing with a great many bouts of seemingly uncharacteristic behavior. #1: the fact that the position is unpaid means that i have not yet yielded to the demands of an unfeeling capitalist society that i value nothing that does not bring me monetary gain (incidentally it also means that my parents money is still between me and starvation... but hey, who wants to get into the nit-picky details?) #2: the fact that my internship is with the ADL, a nonprofit civil/human rights organization allows me a bit of cred with the i-can-save-the-world crowd (whom i can thus continue to count myself a member of) and #3: the fact that i took off fridays backs up the claim that i am not only a free spirit with regard to my weekend mobility but that i have provided myself the freedom to indulge an occassional thursday night hangover. or two.

after this my sense of well-being was largely restored. it may also have had something to do with the coffee buzz kicking in. but i prefer to go with the non-chemical indused version. all that matters is that either one leaves me still safely within the parameters of spontaneity and youthful indulgence that i treasure so highly. even if they now arrive between the hours of 8 and 9am.