me versus god

This was written for my Nonfiction Literature class.  I liked it. 

Were I male and bearded....

            It is not exactly secret that there are many types of people in this world. I can't resist it; there's just too many of you!  A lot of you I've loved, hated, and some I've not even spoken with or considered.  You can see why I have tiny little fears that deal with this big picture that's handed to me on a tiny little screen.  I can't know the world as a whole, though I feel like they must get to know me.  The universe is a lonely place for someone who has the great concern of making a constant statement, for keeping minds on their toes, for generally caring.  This is why I try to write.  Like EB White discusses in "The Essayist and the Essay", I feel as if I may have perhaps paid too much attention to my own life and the only way to clear my thoughts is through word.  I am too "self-conscious."  I can't really help this need to communicate; my personal belief being that communication is necessity and something we must do and were born into this world intending to do so.  Without it, we grow stagnant.  This is “the last resort of [an] egoist.”

            Individuals are like pages in a book, decorated with handshakes and awkward glances.  The special part is writing your own page.  Imagine a writer coming up to you and saying, "Hello, Miss. Yes, uh, we're writing a book about the Whole World and we wanted you to write your own page about yourself so everyone in the Whole World can read it!" Wouldn't we all live the best lives if we could rewrite our stories and publish them to the world? The ultimate misrepresentation would become the ultimate representation.  In "What I think, What I am," Hoagland speaks of the essay as a fascination of the mind.  Whether full truth is present, or otherwise, Hoagland and I both agree that we are more intrigued by a thought process of “mind speaking to mind”..."This is what I think, and this is what I am." It never, ever “boils down to just a plain summary.”
            You must ask yourself, "What I am I?"  It is difficult when the world is a fantastic stage at your fingertips and it's too easy to make any prop personal. When you use your hands to mold a statue, there is not only the capability to create something you want but also something utterly unlike what you want.  It's the complete opposite of going to the store and buying a statue.  You could buy a statue that isn't what you want, yes, but it's not the same thing as making one. Then, you get to show everyone the statue you made.  One way or another, it’s already become a part of you.
            It's intimidating.  As much as I have this need to communicate, I have this fear of losing what is sacred about me. I don't wish to divulge too much or too much in the wrong way.  George Orwell speaks of his insecurities, too, in his essay "Why I Write,” by stating "...it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality."  It's not easy.  I try to play down my values.  Each emotion is going to cram into crannies of this deluge eventually. I'm supposed to be reflecting my life, reflecting on my life.  Take this as a warning, an apology, and an explanation. Take this as my rationalization of how to cope with the grab-bag of feelings I carry with me and often hurl at absolutely unsuspecting bystanders.  You wouldn’t understand me otherwise.  I represent at my own personal best with no fear, you should not either.  I am who I am not to insult, impress, depress, or enlighten. I am who I am because I am.
            Here, in on a planet so small that everything is based off a text-book definition, I am surrounded by words aplenty. Not only do words satisfy my desires, but a full range of senses. In this I also obtain knowledge, petty, but that same delicious understanding constantly craved.  I swim in writing, but when I cast my eyes to the edges of this pool, I see a lot of toes. There's not very many swimmers here, not many writers.  Yet, I have a proposal for all those who dare even truly read this word for word.  My proposal is:
TRY.
            Try a little harder with everything you do and make it available for cognition. There is no need for modesty or subtlety in the world of contentment or wonder. I say strive, I say use fancy, flowery language and I say turn heads. Anyone can make their life look interesting and seem much more sensitive if only we were capable of the vulnerability and nudity of mind it takes to make all those realize, "Yes, yes, my life is actually very beautiful." I would prefer if we each were a whole book, blank pages to fill with a lifetime.  If we all tried to be books, opposed to a single page, we then might be a little better off.  If only there was time to read them.

            I appreciate just knowing that others try. Now, instead of saying where you went or what happened, I can understand how you FELT about it. I know it never hurts to understand.  Don't be angry; do not misinterpret.  No one came down and demanded that we each spend our lazy times creatively on a spurt of passion or inspiration. By all means, execute your liberties and write as you feel. Don't write at all!  I do not disagree with it. I know that I am (we are), often, uninteresting. 

            I was so moved by a simple word recently.  When sitting with my boyfriend, I asked him, "How are you?" and he answered "Vigorous!" It hit my hot mind like a spritz of cool water. Here's to vigor, and here's to being moved, and here's to trying. Essayez-vous.

    Could you imagine what it's like to wake up in your bed, without even knowing you climbed into it, or finishing a movie and then suddenly arising four hours later, confused, and alone? Go have a drink or three, then note that your heart rate is slowing, and your eyes are flitting black into their lids and sleeping on the floor of your favorite band's concert. Imagine the blaring yellow-black of a warning sign approaching the windshield of your car at 60 miles per hour, then opening your eyes to a bloody nose and the world sideways. This is the world of me, the narcoleptic.

My life revolves around the concept of always staying busy. It is nearly impossible to get me to sit still. I'm not completely sure if it's a long-term effect of some previous medication, but I am just a bag of bolts the minute sunlight hits my eyes. Literally. The sun will grace my window at just the right angle and my eyelids slam open like the garbage trucks outside. It's usually about seven'o'clock when I get a stomach ache and begin wandering aimlessly about the house. My head hurts. I'm usually confused.
   

    The night before I could've fallen asleep at any time. Very few nights do I go in and out of sleep, it's just the act of feeling tired that becomes a problem. I don't know how to feel tired. Then, suddenly if my body stops moving or I just become disinterested, I'm gone. I have to keep thinking or else it's like my brain just lets go, and I fall. I've fallen pretty hard.

    Some symptoms of narcolepsy include cataplexy(eye movement- for me- and faint feelings), sleep-paralysis(the ability to feel nothing yet be fully awake), or hypnagogic hallcuinations(creative, but off-putting moments of dream-like activities); I know all of them well. Minutes, or even hours before I am awake, I am aware that all though I cannot move, I am thinking logically and also out of the dream state. It's not so much disturbing when you're used to basically pretending to sleep for an hour or so. Time can fly. I tend to have imaginary scenarios even enter conversations when I am close to REM sleep. And before I fall asleep, my legs buckle and my neck slouches.

    The act of falling asleep in public areas and narcolepsy always go hand-in-hand. My friends just thought I was some normal drugged-up teenager when I began being found curled up in the fetal position, stuck in corners of the most awkward areas. No one every really confronted me about my problem. I went to sleep under a table at a convention, during several concerts, movies galore, and even dinner. The worst stories are about passing out at the wheel. All though this severe form of going unconscious at-the-drop-of-a-hat narcolepsy is rare, it happens and it's the most horrifying thing one can imagine. I've not only fallen asleep in open venues on a myriad of occasions from childhood on, but I have committed the unspeakable act: I have nearly killed myself falling asleep at the wheel.

These are your new eyes.

    I had never been able to explain my attention-span. I'd started losing jobs over lack of concentration due to loss of sleep. My appetite was waning and people started saying I looked different. I turned twenty and planned a trip to my hometown, seventeen hours away. I had not very much sleep the night before because I'd been working two jobs from five in the morning until twelve at night. I was driving through Augusta, Georgia with a companion at one in the morning, on a dark highway when I began to feel an overcoming feeling of drifting. I put on my favorite CD to try to keep myself awake. I commented that I needed to find a place to pull over, in final desperation. We were looking for a place when my vision swerved left and right uncontrollably, then it went utterly black. My passenger screamed, “What the fuck are you doing?!” and I open my eyes and veered past a warning sign away into what I thought was the road.

    We don't know how long it was before we realized we were sideways in my car, the windshield shattered, and hanging on by our seat belts. I had a bloody nose and the car stank of dust. The airbags had deployed. My CD was still fizzling on the audio receiver, blinking spasmodically green to grey. My only luck was that my phone was still attached to its charger, which I lassoed up by its spiral cord. I couldn't even speak through my tears to call 911. I couldn't think straight. I was actually suffering from shock and the world's worst panic attack. Later, we found out that the car had narrowly missed a ravine, and it was a bridge we'd just gone off. My blood was burning out of my skin. I woke up crying for days.

    A few years later I drove up to Nashville to visit a friend who knew about my accident. He actually scolded me for not sleeping longer before the drive, saying, “You know bad things happen to you when you don't sleep. You should see a doctor.” We stopped at a gas station so I could shut my eyes on the way home. I knew he was right.

After that spring, I realized there was really something wrong. It took multiple occasions to explain the actual circumstances to people. I couldn't watch movies because my lap was just the right temperature to rest my head upon. Trying to hang out with friends is nearly impossible; I still go misunderstood. It's a very embarrassing illness. How do you explain to someone that you might not be able to listen? How can you live through a series of moments with no continuation or serious resolution? My words stop making sense when I'm tired. I have to cover my eyes so no one sees how lazy they are. Then, when I think I can handle that, I'm gone.

    The few narcoleptics that I have read about have noted problems with depression; this is something I understand like the back of my eyelids. It seems that a lot of us entertain the thought of suicide. We can not escape sleep. I can't bring myself to get out of the house often, now. If I try to visit acquaintances, though I try to make my problem known, I am burdened with the continuing thought: Do they think I'm a freak? I will swallow an energy drink in one gulp and then miss the entire night. The circles under my eyes grow ever-prominent.

    Question: How long can a person sleep their life away?

    Answer: Until they can afford the medicine.

    Food isn't all about eating. Assorted everyday grocery items can be put to many uses. Not only are these products edibles, but they are also excellent ways to naturally clean around the house, and ever yourself. One plus side of using edible products to care for the outside as well as inside is the simple knowledge that our bodies can completely handle and digest them.

Truth for your tongue: you are what you eat.

The ancient Aztecs, who inhabited the areas of New Mexico even had methods of pulling teeth. What they used to numb the patient's gum-line was a red hot chili pepper. They also composed toners of citrus to tighten the complexion. The ancient Egyptians celebrated natural ways of cleaning, including baking powder for their teeth, and almond oil as moisturizer.

    Some other products in your local supermarket are also just as helpful. Lemon juice is a near-instant cure for blemishes, when used in moderation. It can also be a temporary cure for a loss of mouthwash. If you forgot your toothbrush, chew on a strawberry or have an high acid orange- picking the bits of pulp out clears the teeth of tartar. Heated olive oil gives hair the effect of a professional deep-condition, but it can also give wood a healthy shine. Clear, consumable oils don't clog pores and soften the skin with kid gloves. You can shampoo with baking soda. Cleaning with white vinegar- glass or surface- is the best option in a pinch. The benefits of green-tea are innumerable.

    Present day, we still are living off of these products. Their other, more economic uses are ignored and replaced with chemically based products. Just as one would not enjoy MSG in a fine dinner that is hearty and healthy, who wants to put its cosmetic counterpart on their face?

    I wrote this a little while ago upon the beginning of my relationship with my current boyfriend.  It gave me a way to consider my feelings and how to handle what people call "love."

    I am a loser.
    I want so badly just to be one of those lucky people who are strong, smart, beautiful, and possess that one unique talent that everyone wants so much more than anything else they have ever seen.  However, as I've grown I've fluctuated back and forth between point a to point f, nowhere near z.
    Naturally, we can't logically expect someone to admire a collective of every deed ever done as if it were a portfolio of our actions.  When I say "admire" I mean to have someone truly be amazed with this mind-tossing set of records.
    Sadly enough, more so than my actual being a loser, I am deluded into thinking I am one.  It's all the positive things around me I take in that seemingly make it so.  If I see a pretty girl, a nice dress, a good poem, some kind of lovely thing that makes humanities the art that they are, I can only think of it as another thing I will not have done or another thing I cannot have.  I find more beauty in nature than I do in people; people seem so unlike me to me when trees and flowers don't even try to develop a personal identity.  Trees and flowers and animals and oceans just exist and they're fine with that.  Trees don't have peer -pressure, they just grow in the direction of the sunlight they need.  I've got peer-pressure, I've got supposed reproducing to do.  I've got money to make and a stomach I must satisfy myself in ways of my own personal choosing.
    The problem is that I've installed within myself a set of insensitivities I recognize but can't seem to unplug.  All I've ever had is myself and I will continue to be this way. People humor me because they aren't me and there is no possible way for us to intertwine as that species of fish in the ocean- the male swallows the female's backbone and they continue on in aquatic pleasantry as one fish and make caviar and then pass on- and really relate.  I will unhinge my backbone for no man.  It's not so much a matter of not wanting to do so, I just don't know how.
    I claim I have made it so many steps into the kiddie-pool that is sanity.  I am only dipping in toes, and when I do I feel icicles. 
    Fact is: I have low self-esteem for the most part.  I've still got personality issues.  I will never feel properly content, not as I am now.
    The only thing that's changed in my mind is my ability to evaluate and deal with actual situations and my appearance in said dealings.  I suppose I am what one would call "lucid."
    No one wants to dabble with a girl who's never had an appropriate sense of self or knows what it's like to feel like their self.  I don't like telling people about my personality issues. 
    Okay, maybe I'm scrambling through the dark here, no flashlight, in hopes one of you people might've had the heart to bring one along.
    I told my ex-boyfriend Matthew; I told him that's it's hard to feel like a person, let alone one who has pride in their existence, if I have no feeling of existence.  It's not just this, but my detachment to a good many of the people I know well and claim to love.  Needless to say that things fell short between us in months.  Despite my repeated attempts to warn him that "I don't know who I am," he ignored and called me crazy.   
    No shit.
    Here's a hilarity for you:  I really don't know how to feel this love nonsense.  I can feel selfless, I can feel attached. I can be sexually attracted. I can laugh at one person's jokes until the end of the day.
    At the end of the day they're just another disposable entity as I am.  They're another person I don't even have to warn myself about caring too much for them or worrying about what they think. 

    I am some floating, amorphous blob. I leech tastes.  I leech words.  I leech styles.  I got good at it.
    Now I'm wondering,
    "This is what we all do, right?  We all see things that we what to be and slowly, though atom by  molecule by bit, we will become them.  It's choosing a hair-color.  It's picking out a dog.  It's MTV and furniture and sculpture."
But then I wonder,
    "Do we all know this?"  And then,
    "Or am I crazy?"  But,
    "Maybe I'm just somehow thinking unlike everyone else."  Or,
    "No, I'm deluded."
    Considering I spent the majority of my life empty bellied in the stomach of stability, I don't find it easy to pin-point what sanity is.  I don't think I ever will.
    That, or I just had the balls to admit something everyone thinks.
    I stopped being scared of death. Plenty of people shrug this off like its no great accomplishment.  That, alone, is enough to make me feel like wasted space.  I asked my current boyfriend if he is afraid of death.  He said no like he had never been.  It took my facing death  after a few occasions to really understand its demeanor.  It could happen anytime and no matter what, it will always be completely natural.  There is no reason to be scared of nature.
    This brings me straight back to the love-thing.  Love is natural, right?  Completely?  When I was in high school this incredibly bright-colored, abtract-painting band enthusiast was the only girl I really knew who smoked weed.  In our art class, appropriately, one morning she looked up(glazed eyes) at my friends and I and belched smoky-lipped,
    "Love doesn't exist." And I, Mz. On-the-contrary, remarked,
    "Ah, yes.  But as humans we do have the natural desire to copulate and provide heirs to our earthly thrones of work and puberty and so on?"  (I was not actually this eloquent in tenth grade, not openly.  Nor was I much for anything that went against Jesus either.)
    "But that's not love."
    "Yes, but do we not also have the same organic need for companionship?"
    "Ah," she sighed, "good point."
    When it comes down to it, it was me trying to make sense of my religious explanation of some holy love to a pariah of God.  Now, I am that pariah.  I am not only some runaway son to the concept of God, but to the concept of love(which could be attached to God, but I'm not, so there), and in it my concept of self.
    This leads me to question something.
    Is love a faith?  Is it something you must truly believe in for it to actually exist to you?  I think we all should answer "yes" to this.  This leads me to adding that I consider myself an atheist, all though not by the means of these clubs and organization of people- who think they're going to die and they will be so fortunate for their disbelief in everything that the earth will regurgitate their decomposed bodies into trees years later(DEEP BREATH)- that my boyfriend speaks of with vindication.
    Then, I am led to this:
    I have a boyfriend. I feel selfless, I feel attached, sexually attracted, laughing at one person's jokes until the end of the day.  My little heart is all left-right-left-right in my mediastinum when he just breathes.  Sometimes, though, I cock my head a little to whichever side I prefer at the time, and think,
    "Is that beating my cardiovascular system or is that my cervix throbbing?"  And then I say,
    "No, that's my heart."  Then,
    "If mine does this doesn't everyone elses?"  Followed by,
    "But that makes us human,"  and then I am at a loss as to what sets me apart from everyone else, because in my mind I'm just a person.  So is he.  So are you.  What makes us so special?  Really, now, rotate your cranium in your preferred direction(so the thoughts flow the way you like) and think real hard so it hurts.  Say to yourself,
    "I'm just another human being."  Trust me, every time I think it, it hurts.  Then like the most ringing natural resonation I realize that the reflections of the people we are mean absolutely nothing except that we all have the right to choose and believe what we are as if it a personal faith.  I don't care what you choose because your shoes don't have a thought pattern and your shoes are never going to try to cheer me up when I cry.  If you choose to smile, then bravo.  If you choose door number three then enjoy walking through it.  
It's really not the door, it's the walking though it that makes the other side so much more belieavable.  Our dreams and hopes and needs are all about the process of execution.
    Even though the mere upwards glance of tree branches spiraling all poetic through lamplight up toward some gothic sky can make me smile, it will never understand me or even try to.
    I like to think that I'm a disappointment, dash-it-all; I think.  I think hard and I like it.  My choices are an art(rather than a practice) in themselves, just as are yours.
    Now here's the part where I use the word "beautiful."  This is also my conclusion:
    What's beautiful about all this is that he chooses to hold my hand and I choose to hold his.  Call this shallow, but the man is not a tree and he actually tries to understand me.  Because he is not a tree, he has eyes to see and he looks right past me into the way I choose to execute my entity.  It's unfortunate I already used the word "beauty"... I'll just say it's really great.

Gingerbread: A Seasonal Delight

    The time of giving is soon approaching, but too soon? It seems that every year Christmas starts to peer through earlier than the last. Halloween has just past, Thanksgiving is up around the bend, but somehow Christmas sneaks its nose through the door of every store and shop before October even says goodbye. The stench of commercialism is high in the air, and it wafts freely from fir to fir. Visions of Santa Claus hohoho pure joy in the season of supposed selflessness. We all worship the Universal God of Sales- jelly belly bouncing in ecstatic glee to the rhythm of a cash register. Meals and occasional laughter are shared, but after all the wrapping is in the garbage and the ham is in the fridge, is it in good fun?

The mall barely advertises for Halloween. Thanksgiving gets no attention. Turkey Day isn't important to mall employees at all, except for a day off to get fat with the family then sweat it off amongst angry housewives with shopping bags their next shift. The day after Thanksgiving may as well be considered National American Middle-Class Shopping Day, all though it's popularly recognized as the bowel-quaking “Black Friday.” The cars crowd dangerously into aisle after aisle of taken shopping mall parking spots. A thick smog of mint Frappucino coats the walls. No one with a nut allergy is safe in the cloud of praline filling the halls. Women fight over shoes. Children run amok. Men waiting in line at the service desk get in fights in front of their toddlers. What moves people to be such a way? Surely not the mild mannered spirit of Old Saint Nick!

      Whatever happened to Jesus? Not everyone in America is a Christian anymore, which may have declined the sales of Nativity sets. The spirit of giving could no longer be tied to this amazing prophet. The Dutch, centuries before in an attempt to educate children on goodness, named their Patron Saint of Children- Sinterklaas- as the seasonal gift-giver. Little did the Dutch know, years later, a revamped Sinter Klass posing as a man named Claus would embellish a series of seasonal items, ready to please all ethnicities, ages, and creeds! The Christmas hype has packaged Dutch tradition into generic American boxes shipped from China. Sadly, all of the other religions in the United States are scarcely represented in such a way. There is not a sign of the much ignored Kwanzaa or Hanukkah imagery on green and red sprinklings of television ads, and any other holiday is equally as disregarded. One rarely bears witness to Boxing Day, which is just as foreign as the former. The pressure on America as a culture to maintain a Christian-based regime through the years has been a deterrent for the knowledge of seasonal celebrations spreading.

      When asking any child on the street, “What is your favorite holiday?” will most likely answer back, toothless smile grinning, “CWISMASS!” If the child is young enough, it's possible to ask, “And what is Christmas about?” To this, they will reply, “PWEZENTS!” This fictional hero in a sleigh, Santa Claus, this imposter has created a list of the good and the bad; how is he to check it even twice if the list does not exist? So it turns out, year after year, every child is “good” in the eyes of “Santa Claus” ...just as long as his parents have the money. One would think that the fine reward of a gift would teach a child the art of giving, but instead the presents get more complicated and the wish-lists get longer (or more expensive) each year. The inability of parents to communicate the actual cost and work put into achieving their little ones' dreams just applies more stress to the shopping. Children go on disregarding the true religious nature of the holiday season and forget to revel in the tiny things that can be regarded as universal gifts, such as kindness, family, and generosity. Christmas has made the world today and generations of the future seasonally selfish.

      Christmas may still be holy in some hearts and celebrated on a pure level in the minds of few. Christmas is a public excuse for everyone to get excited. At times, it's like a reason to "boost" the economy by spending outrageous amounts of money. For some, it's an impulsive shopping vacation, just because it's on sale. Christmas is there to gather all of the relatives you don't ever see at the dinner table- even if really you don't want to see them. Family cooks oscillate with delight over opportunities for classy new casseroles that later go cold and uneaten. To children, it's a year of planning how to elude rules to achieve the ideal gift; little girls with pony dreams often go disappointed. There is never enough under the tree.  Then, there are the few: the thoughtful, the considerate, and the kind. There are the people who try their hardest to do their most to do their best for all they love without a commercial holiday as a poor excuse. It doesn't take a price tag to make a lasting impression on the power of giving. There are people out there who just don't need Santa Claus anymore. Did we ever need him anyway?