So I follow this blog called One-Minute Writer, which gives a daily topic to write about for one minute. I don't know why I follow this blog because I never write about any of the suggestions or bother to read most of them, but this particular suggestion got my attention:


Saturday, December 20, 2008

Today's Writing Prompt: Chicken
Why did the chicken cross the road?


Are you fucking kidding me? Really? Really? You want me to write about why the chicken crossed the road? Seriously? Really?

whiny me

I feel like this whole thing has just been me bitching about everything. Which is fun and all, but everything I write can't be negative. That would just be wrong. I do have other feelings besides exasperation, rage, contempt, self-loathing wrapped up in a package of mockery and derision, disappointment, unhappiness, cynicism, and so on...



I feel the need to list a few things that make me happy:



COFFEE! Yay!!!!!!!!!



Chewy New York Bagels



When I get home from work, and my cat gets all evil and big-eyed and stalks me around the apt for about 30 minutes, taking random swipes at me and then tearing off to go hide under the bed



Making fart sounds. I'm serious. Purse your lips and blow. The sounds that come out are some funny funny shit. You can entertain yourself for an hour doing this.



Engaging my roommate in our ritual of insulting each other. Talking shit is just fun.

BOOKS!!!!!!!!

I think I've lived here too long-

Because the only thoughts running through my head as people brush by me in the subway grottos (they are unworthy to be deemed "stations"), (physically touching me as they brush by me, by the way, which is a big No-No. I have a personal bubble the size of Texas) are:

1. Everybody can EAT ME! I hate all you fuckers!

2. Why is everybody in such a rush? I could care less if I'm 10 minutes late to work. Sheep! You are all sheep! (to steal a line from one of my favorite teen movies)

3. Can the subway get even more crowded than this? (Answer: yes)

4. I don't need a $400.00 iphone to entertain myself. The voices in my head are entertaining enough....

Ms. Pessimist of 2009

Every year since 2003 I've told myself that the next year was bound to better...and every year I have been wrong (except for the summer of 2006. That summer was fucking AMAZING). It's not that anything bad has happened (which I am grateful for), but nothing particularly good has happened either. So for 2009...I have no expectations

rambling thoughts about being a product of the 80's and 90's

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like become an adult has been the biggest letdown. I didn't sign up for this!!! I remember how great I thought everything would be when I got into my twenties. Ha! Since we live in a society of victimhood and blame, I am going to blame the fact that I am a product of the 80's and 90's for the fact that my adult life is disappointing, particularly my relationships

The first round of this attack will be aimed at Disney. Bad enough that they anthropomorphized animals so much that I have found myself fretting over the emotional state of my cat on numerous occasions. And it's also their fault that I have to say "Waaah!Bebe!" everytime I see roadkill (they are also the cause of me calling any and every cute animal "bebe").

Let's get started on those damn Disney princesses. Ariel was a strong-willed girl who knew what she wanted (Prince Eric) to and was going to go to any amount of lengths to get it (or in this case, him). She gives up everything important to her and gets the guy. You know, the whole non-talking thing? Every man's fantasy. So listen up, little girls, if you give up everything you love and don't talk, you will get a prince. (Eric was also the hottest of the Disney princes)

Jasmine was smart, cynical, and didn't fall for the those rich douche-bag princes with their one liners. My kind of princess. She falls for Aladdin because he's "himself" (kinda) around her. The lesson of Jasmine is having a personality (but being incredibly gorgeous on top of that won't hurt) will get you the love of your life. That's actually a good message. I guess I don't have really any bone to pick with this movie. However, I do have a strong personality and low bs tolerance, just like Jasmine, and I just get told that I'm obnoxious and an ice queen. Go figure.

And then there's Belle. Beauty and the Beast has to be my favorite Disney flick. Belle loved to read (!). She was intelligent (!). She was caring, selfless, and not shallow (!). Beast was like that really good friend she wasn't attracted to but enjoyed spending time with. Eventually she does come to love him, and POOF! He becomes a gorgeous prince! Yeah right!

Although most of my friends think he was hotter as the beast...but STILL.

And let's not get started on all those princesses in the golden-era Disney flicks (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty). How dare Disney put all these happily-ever-after-there is one person for everyone-love lasts forever -visions into my pliant -already way too into stories and fairy tales-mousy-haired little head?

But Disney is a mere parcel of the 80's and 90's culture that ruined my life. (me, melodramatic?never!)

What about all those 80's teen movies where the nerdy unpopular people got the girl/guy of their dreams?

Growing up in the 80's and 90's we were fed a diet of pop culture and consumerism. Every cultural aspect of our lives was tied up with commercialism..Christmas became all about the toys (remember the cabbage patch craze? And Nintendo?) McDonald's Happy Meal was "happy" because it came with a toy (because it sure as hell wasn't about the food)

As we entered the 90's and into our teen years, the milestones of our youth were tied up into what we wore, what type of accessories we had (bags, electronics (remember pagers, precursors to our obssession with what cell phones we now carry), what cars we wanted to drive. The standards for beauty and success became more ridiculous. What were we told to attain but accumulation of more wealth? There was no longer any higher ideal to live up to, no better life to achieve (we were living the better life). All the messages, the stuff to get, the image to be, was tied up in trying to be happier and more fulfilled.

All this 80's and 90's American culture led me to dream big, to expect love, and to stay true to who I was. Most will agree that these are pretty good messages. But we can't expect all our dreams to come true.... If everyone's dreams came true poverty wouldn't exist. Some work harder, some want it more, and some are just damn lucky. But what of the rest of us? Those of us who slosh through our adult lives, working at mundane jobs, always in a hurry, stuck in the glut of other people going to their mundane jobs, waiting in line constantly (or on line, if you're on the east coast), perptually navigating through impersonal, ugly spaces. Maybe its just that the world of my childhood was painted as a vast and wonderful place full of hope, excitement, and possiblity. The real "adult" world I'm now a part of doesn't seem so wonderful. In fact, it seems quite the opposite.

And the most fractured part of our society seems to be relationships. The divorce rate is still at roughly 50 percent. Nearly everyone I know lives in a family of divorce. I'll be the first to say I don't think this is a tragic statistic, but merely illuminates that fact that the reality of our adult love lives is a sharp contrast to what we are led to expect as children. I am beginning to think marriage is more a lifetime friendship than a the passionate "one soul mate for everyone" type of love that is so prevalent in our stories.

I used to think marriage was the penulatimate in a relationship. That "Mr. Right" or "Prince Charming", "The One", my "Knight in Shining Armor", was just waiting around the corner to sweep me off my feet. And I still love watching those Disney flicks, and sighing, and reading romances, and watching great male characters, but I'm beginning to realize that is all just fantasy, and not a mirror of what love is supposed to be.

With weddings now becoming more of a spectacle than a sacred ceremony all about "the dress", "the ring" and what food is being served, and easily costing tens of thousands of dollars(although I have to give my friends and family credit, their weddings have been primarily about having their friends and family brought together in celebration), I am becoming more and more against the idea of having a wedding, and of getting married.

And I can't decide if this is just a bitter, cynical rejection of everything I looked forward to as a young girl, or a realistic decision based on my observations about how modern relationships work-or don't, in my case.

As we go into the next decade, as my generation comes out of our spoiled, idealistic, Disney-themed youths, what messages will we create for our children? Can we really say that everyone has a one true love with a straight face? Will anything ever be sacred and holy anymore, or will all or our ceremonies (especially marriage) continue to be commercialized?

It will be interesting to see what happens. I think (and I already see this) that there's going to be huge backlash towards all the fakeness that has overtaken our culture. That as our ability to purchase status items, status vehicles, and status lives dwindles, instead of looking to icons of our consumerism (goodbye, plastic barbie faces and bodies, goodbye designer handbags. The concept of cellphones as a reflection of who we are will, alas, never die) to define ourselves, perhaps will we find something more meaningful to care about. That last statement is an exagerration. There are a lot of really positive things going on right now and I think our generation still cares the most about family and friends, and the world in general, but still.....

Another one of my perceptions is that our generation is lacking one major thing it seems our predecessors had: belief that the world of the future would be better than the current world. That the world their children inherited would be better than the one they grew up in. Wasn't that the reason our grandparents (the greatest generation, hands down) fought in the World Wars? Wasn't that the underlying belief in the counterculture movement of the 60's? I have heard from many people in my parents generation stating that they "wanted to give their kids everything they didn't have." My generation was the first to reap from this philosophy, showered in material goods and fed messages that we were "special" and deserved the best of everything. I think the past decade has shown these ideals will not sustain our society through the next 50 years or so.

With the resources continuing to dwindle as world populations swell, with technology that's supposed to connect us isolating us from each other even more (in my opinion), and with violence, hatred, and religious strife continuing, I honestly do not know if the world 50 years for now is a place I want to live in. Does anyone in my generation believe the world our children will inherit will be a better, cleaner, more peaceful one? My faith in the future being a wonderful place is fragile and hesitant, at best. All of us has witnessed the glory and the darkness that marks our civilization; we know what we are capable of, for good and for bad.

I have issues with organized religion, but at least it gave us something to believe in that was greater than ourselves.

The one thing I will give this culture is that the ideal of hope has always been the underlying theme. And it is this theme which won Barack Obama the presidency. Where this hope will take us, I don't know. The era of decadence fueled by our 80's and 90's culture, and its attempt to sell us into better lives is ending. The ideals of true love, of individual specialness, and dreams coming true will never leave us, but hopefully the fact that we have to buy into a certain lifestyle in order to achieve these things will. If we can look at relationships and marriage, hell, if we can look at our lives as something better than a movie, or a fairy tale, or a product...

Art will, and should, always be important. Films, tv, music, all this culture enriches our lives. But I don't think it should soley define us.

I don't know what I want anymore. I think I have too many choices. I have been given everything I could ever need in life. I have had the freedom to do whatever I want and become whatever I have wished to be. And for the most part, I have partaken in all the freedom and choices I could. I am grateful for the life and country I have been born into, and am thankful for the generations before me.

Call me ungrateful, call me pessimisstic, but most of the time, I don't really like the world.

And I have no idea whatsoever how to find happiness in it. All the neat stuff, all the choices, all the freedoms, all the great ideals, all the hope and promise of love, of children, of white picket fences and subarban pardise, none of it, none of it has made me feel content, or made my life feel like it had meaning or a purpose. And as alone and isolated I often I feel, I have the feeling that the above stated sentiments are feelings that many people out there in my generation share.