Would It Be So Terrible If I Were To Say...

...Dear blog, that sometimes I hate my parents for picking each other, for getting married, and for giving birth to me? Not because I hate the life I've got, far from it, but becuse sometimes I feel like I contain all of the worst qualities found in my mother and father.

It's mainly the contradictions that I find unsettling. I have inside of me both an introvert and an extrovert - my father and my mother - and, probably because my parents are extremely introverted and extremely extroverted, I find in myself extreme loneliness when I'm alone, and extreme loneliness when I'm not. I don't fall in the middle - my father's ascetic tendencies do not cancel out my mother's verboseness - and I wish I could be one or the other. My dad, who can sit in a single room and be silent for days, eating peanuts, filing taxes. Doing whatever a CPA does. Or my mother, who thrives on people, almost like a goddess, sucking out a mortal's life-force with her blubbering.

Sometimes I feel terribly sad when I'm alone, and sometimes I feel terribly sad when I'm not. Usually I can tell; either I need to be away from people, or I need to find my friends.

So, what do you do when the remedies don't work? When you find yourself alone and lonely, only to transfer to a group, and feel solitude anyway?

I know one thing; I would rather be alone and lonely, than with someone and withdrawn.

P.I. Staker

Terminators and Vacations

Evening, Blog, 

I'm at the beach, writing this to you by computer light only. I'm a little scared of my computer right now; the professor and I saw Terminator: Salvation earlier today, so now even my cellphone seems menacing. Terminator kicked ass, honestly, but only because I went into the theater expecting to see Batman kick ass. Which he did, a lot, and with guns and fire and explosions and robots and I'LL BE BACK and Bryce Dallas Howard, who was beautiful but too frail to be John Connor's wife. Just because she's pregnant doesn't mean she fights like a girl and wears cotton wrap dresses. Sexist Hollywood mogul bastards. 

So there I go on my soap box. 

The mind is a very powerful thing. Isn't it funny the way people convince themselves of things they have no reason to believe? Ah, but it is a lovely feeling when you're able to ignore reality and concoct the truth in your head. What control! What style, what grace! 

I'm tired, but I plan on waking up early tomorrow so I can bake on the beach. And fall asleep in the sun, hell yes. The professor said the weather was "moistrous" today because the word "moist" makes both of us cringe most uncomfortably, but "moistrous" sounds like "boistrous" which is a pretty cool word, so that kinda made up for it. 

Still, it's humid as hell, which I love. 

The professor's boyfriend called her tonight inviting her to abscond to Greece for a week, tickets on him, because apparently he's loaded now and really wants her to go on this family vacation with him. I am so very jealous. It would mean having to cut our beach trip short, but it's fucking Greece. I could come back to the beach later, with others. The professor can't always go to Greece. Greece! And I didn't even register the romantic-ness of the whole thing. A Santorini sunset with a tequila sunrise and That Special Person? Oh, gawd. The professor says it's too sudden, and it is very sudden, but isn't that part of the appeal? Lucky, lucky, tart. 

Unfortunately, if she goes to Greece I might not get to see her for a long while. But that seems fair because it's Greece and the boyfriend isn't easy to visit these days, what with this recession they got goin' on and all. 

I gotta sleep. Dad's watching Law & Order in the other room, passed out on the couch with (honest) the remote clutched tightly in his channel-changing hand. He's gotta be the only dude I know who can watch TV in his sleep. Lucky, lucky, tart. 

Tomorrow's high? 78. I know, I know. Now I'm the lucky tart. 

P. I. Staker

In Response to The Professor...

• The problem with beauty is that it's relative. You are at the same time both gorgeous and hideous, depending upon who's standing next to you. 
• The problem with beauty is it's easy to overlook. You see yourself everyday. You don't notice your striking cheekbones, or your smile. Stand in front of a mirror, completely alone and completely naked, and you will see what you don't like, probably because you want to change it, make it better, and have already noticed it before. 
• The problem with beauty lies in it's culture. I'm taking an Islamic Civilizations course this semester, and one of the most striking differences between the west and the middle east is it's conception of beauty. In the middle east, skinny women and men are seen as unhealthy and sick. In the western world, heavy women and men are seen as unhealthy and lazy. Both extremes don't work. The anorexic and the fatso are both unhealthy, so...
• The problem with beauty is that the standards can't be trusted. People place so much faith in their appearance as perceived by their culture, and then they lie to themselves about it. A girl in America puts on a bikini and thinks it's beautiful when you can clearly define all of her ribs. A woman in Iran gets a marriage tattoo between her heaping bosoms, a sort of pop-up book for her husband to read, feeling proud when the tattoo enhances her stretch marks. 
• The problem with beauty is in it's fickleness. Beauty never lasts a lifetime, so the beautiful may feel a desperation when they look at themselves, as if they have to get their fun in now, before the good times end. 
• The problem with beauty is that none of this matters. There are more things I could say, more problems with beauty that I could point out, but it seems futile to fight the current that's been running for far longer than I've been alive. I would rather be an obstinate rock, placed in the middle of the river, quietly disagreeing with the water. Physical beauty is largely determined by society, and according to my society, I am not beautiful. But I don't think society has it right, just yet, because I am beautiful. And by all accounts I shouldn't be. 

Thanks for listening, 

P. I. Staker

Witness the Incredible Morphing Woman!

Good God in Heaven, Adult Swim sucks. All they have is Family Guy, which they pimp out endlessly, and it's not even that good anyway. 

Well, I take that back. Family Guy is pretty hilarious, but there's only so many Robot Chickens I can handle until I burst into flames of anger. 

So, second semester, sophomore year just started. I never thought I would say this (and I never speak in absolutes) but I find myself becoming more and more introverted as the semesters go by. Maybe it's the pragmatist in me - the only person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with is me, so I might as well get used to it. Cynicism? I can do that, too: people suck and will ultimately, eventually, let you down. 

God help me if it's a superiority complex. AKA why should I bother with all of these nimrods? Leave me alone while I paint my nails black and read some Somerset Maugham. Fuck you. Yeah, you. 

(Side note - I just found a fun little website called eNotalone.com while I was Googling other books Mr. Maugham wrote, besides Of Human Bondage. Just the fact that it's called eNotalone tickles me pink). 

Anyway. That's all beside the point. The point is, I miss Emily and Matthew and my other friends from home far more than I anticipated. 

Fuck you. Yeah, you. 

And yet I'm hardly introverted when I'm home. At home, I'm bursting at the seams for human contact. 

Does the fact that I morph into an introvert at College upset me? Yes, but only because it makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me. 

Or maybe College is just fuck hard. That could be it. That probably is it, and arguably explains why I often find myself wishing that I was the only one in all of my classes. No competition, right? Just me and the professor. Dropping our thang down. 

Isn't there some sort of psychological need in humans to form bonds with others? Didn't I read that some where? I'm pretty sure it likened us to pack animals. 

Yep, we're all a bunch of glorified beagles. 

Pardon my lengthy pause in updates, 

P. I. Staker