So

You've already made all the mistakes that I am afraid of making. You've already been there.

And it's my fear of taking all those wrong turns, and your fear of repeating them that will most likely be the end.

It's ok to run, as long as you're running in the same direction.

My compass starts to spin out of control, and I realize that I'm getting exactly what I've wanted all along.


-J

Guess What

You don't win.


You lose.


You might always lose, even when you win.


But this time, you were wrong.


-J

Interestingly enough

When people tell me things like: "If you don't change x/y/z about what you think/act/do/believe, you're probably going to end up alone." I don't get upset. I'm not indignant, or afraid, or questioning. I'm not surprised, or angry, or scared.


Mostly, I just shrug and think to myself "Yeah, you're probably right."


-J

The Tail of Mr. Bojangles

I was dragging my carry-on through the front door of the 3rd floor apartment I shared with my roommate, Steve. I fumbled with the keys, breathing heavily from the trek up the three flights of stairs that always seems to serve as a reminder that I needed to quite smoking. It was 9pm, and I had just completed my bi-weekly commute home from Washington Dulles Airport, where I am based as a flight attendant. I open the door and I am greeted by the sight of Steve, in his pajamas, holding a Rubbermaid wastebasket and signaling for me to be quiet. He looks down the hallway that connects the rooms of our tiny apartment, and I notice the intricate labyrinth of boxes that have been set up. He looks over to me and mouths the words I have been expecting to hear for the last three months since settling into our South Philly bachelor(ette) pad: “We have a mouse”.

I immediately abandon my luggage. I’m excited. I’m intrigued. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, that part of the state affectionately referred to as “Pennsyltucky”, and I am intimately acquainted with the struggle of rodents and people attempting to cohabitate. Growing up on a sprawling, rural area littered with small family farms, my mother would insist on keeping a barrage of family pets around, and the cats would serve as the chief rodent exterminators. Once or twice (ok, maybe a lot more often than that), there would be a mouse too cunning and too brazen for even the most agile of our feline family members, and I would get in on the action. I remember being seven, eight, nine years old, and stalking our unwelcome visitors, armed with a cereal bowl or cardboard box. Truth be told, I always preferred catching them myself, my family watching in horror and amazement as I grabbed them by their little tails, shrieking all the way out the front door and into the grassy fields outside. I found them playful and adorable, and my childhood self could never quite bear to watch them suffer at the paws of the family cat.
At once, we see a flash of grey fur scurry from the hall into the closet-sized living room. Steve jumps back and I start to laugh and plunge forward, excitedly. I can tell Steve is not pleased by the situation at hand, and so I try to mask my delight at the stand-off that is about to occur. I drop to the floor, still in my uniform and heels. I immediately begin to call out for him. “Mr. Bojangles, I’m sorry, but you’re not wanted here. Can you please come out? I’m not trying to hurt you, dude”. Silence. We move the reclining chair, and in an instant Mr. Bojangles runs for the nearest fortress, a box of board games under the coffee table against the wall. With all of the boldness of my previous childhood mouse-capades, I immediately grab the boxes, hoping the sudden interruption will jar Mr. Bojangles out of hiding into the waiting trashcan. I begin to have visions of victoriously pinching him by the tail and setting him free on the fire escape, telling him to run as fast as he can, and explore the delicious array of dumpsters and curbside trash that south Philly has to offer. We wait another five minutes, and Mr. Bojangles is no where to be seen or heard. A small hole in the bottom of the wall behind the television is his new, suspected hiding spot. “I’ll get some traps tomorrow”, Steve says.

He brings home five different traps. A little excessive maybe, given our tiny apartment, but I understand he wants to get the job done. The traps are glue traps, small black sticky pads of doom. Steve arms them with peanut butter and cheese, a kind of smorgasbord of entrapment. We scour the apartment for the most strategic places to set traps. We go back to emailing. We cook dinner. We go to bed. We wait.

In the morning, much to Steve’s delight and my (hidden) dismay, we see our traps have succeeded. There, on the black glue-trap pads of no return, is not only Mr. Bojangles, but another furry accomplice. Briefly, I imagine a sort of rodent Romeo and Juliet scene of a romantic double-suicide, before reminding myself that despite the fact that scientists use them in lab-testing studies and correlate their findings to the human brain, they are still mice. On one of the traps I can see Mr. Bojangles is still twitching slightly, he’s still alive. My heart breaks a little as Steve scoops up the traps, sandwiches them together, and tosses them into a plastic Wal-Mart bag. He ties it tight, double knotting it, quietly sealing their fate.

He went by another name. Intellectual Property reasons, he said. I didn't even know his real last name until one night he made me come so hard that I thought my brain would fall out of my skull. I asked out of a passing curiosity, not because I cared. He could have lied to me for all I know, in fact, I almost wish that he had, because he told the most wonderful lies. His greatest skill was his own self-deception, a game that I had always wished more people were better at playing.

When I saw him for the first time, taking off his jacket in a smoke filled hole-in-the-wall (a place he had chosen no doubt for its suggestive ambiance) I thought, he's not very tall, but he carries himself like a diminutive Adonis. He never drank very much. Something told me he didn't need the courage. He sat across from me, and the stories began, religious beginnings giving way to a loss of the innocence that never really existed (people always recognize their own kind). There were the psychotic breakdowns of the women he'd left in his wake. The emotional destruction of most of the women that knew they could tame him. The way he would wave the warning flag over his head that clearly told me to get away, but that look on his face that said I'd regret it if I didn't stick around. He was a master at spinning his tales, leaving out the most important details, which he would reveal one at a time over the course of weeks and months, as if he were deciding what I deserved to hear. Yet, that first time seeing him, I was not blown away. And when he kissed me goodbye at the end of the night, he had all the constructed grace of a man who knew what he was doing, who usually did much, much more. Later, he would tell me, I was one of the only girls to get kissed at the end of the first night. I wondered why he was trying to be sweet with me, it wasn't like him, but eventually I came to realize he had left out "instead of fucked" from that sentence.

Later, I would find out, he fucked like an expert, with the potential to be a specialist. He liked to be who he wasn't, and the nominal truth of his stories didn't hide the fact that he would never see things how they were. I liked that. He liked to play a part, the part of all-knowing, but I knew better. Or, at least, he let me think I did. It was like he wanted to be the God we had both rejected years ago, omnipotent but fearful that I knew better, and I wanted to be punished for knowing the truth. I told him all the filthy things I wanted to do, all the ways I wanted him to hurt me, and of course he told me I was just trying to impress him. Push. Pull. Until finally, he did what I wanted, under the guise of giving him all the power. It was a certain thrill to believe that I was schooling this self-imagined Casanova. Even if it wasn't true that he had 'never really done this before', he spoke the words with such a sincere fragility that despite its possible insincerity, still made me swell with the depth and commitment to playacting for my own benefit. He wanted to be the young, mysterious stranger in the bar as much as I wanted him to be. He wanted to be destructive, to be allowed to cause pain, to hurt, to create something hauntingly beautiful and violent, and he wanted to take the credit. I wanted to be crushed. Broken. Ruined. I wanted love the only way I knew how to take it - begging, in short, painful, and mysterious spurts, with a stranger I knew very well. I sit across from him, and light up a cigarette. I don't normally smoke, but I exhale gently in his direction, and he gives me the face that I can't get enough of, the face I see when I ask him to choke me, when I tell him to fuck me like the little slut that I am - in an instant, he is repelled, and fascinated. For a moment, we're everything we aren't, and nothing has ever felt so good.

Lolita Grows Up

I have always been pretty
and don't you deny it
it's true
I wasn't mean,
but I was pretty,
and for most
that was basically the same thing.

I have always been pretty
and don't say I'm not
because it's the truth
and I had no innocence,
not by any stretch
but I was pretty,
so for most,
that was basically the same thing.

Despite my railings I knew
I was Nabokov's nyphette,
even very early before
I knew what distinct pleasure
there was
in
that word
people called
evil.
For me, I was pretty
and evil was not, although
they're basically the same thing
I now realize.

Pleasing to the eye of everyone else
gave no pleasure and so
I learned to take it
for myself, in any
cheap presentation and fancy packaging
that it would be offered-

God
love
cigarettes
high-heels.

Of course,
all of these things are illusions
and may kill you in the end,
but they're all basically the same thing.

-J

Choose The Right Victim

When I met you I knew you would take everything
I hoped you would
stories of an everyman's
epic
spilled from your colorless eyes
and skillful tongue
told tales of Odysseus' journey
out of south Jersey.

In and out of beds,
or at least that was
the eloquent way of putting it
I used to recite you poetry
from memory
sometimes mine
sometimes what I wish were mine
but it was never an accident
and I knew you'd fall into
the only love you knew how to give

When I asked you to hold me,
I told you to hold me down
and you looked at me with
that same brief glint in your eye
of nervous fascination and disbelief
like when you were telling me stories,
on one hand proud,
on the other, not entirely believing yourself.

I just wanted to give you what you always wanted
permission to inflict wounds on purpose
visible, like blue and purple outlines of continents
on my thighs
I wanted you to look on what you'd done for once
and be proud
and take credit
It's hard to argue with
what's right in front of your eyes.

You are so unbearably
like everyone but you try,
you create someone else
for which I am so endlessly thankful
I do the same for you
and it is an exhausting game
but not without its little victories,
like the first time I saw
the color of your eyes,
when they widen,
like the look of a
mistreated animal
who never grew quite as big
as he imagined.

-J

Happiness = overrated

and misunderstood.

I am not happy. But, I am definitely not unhappy.

What is the adjective one can use to describe the feeling of being 100%, totally, and utterly alive?

Cause that's what I am.

Dear future Jackie,

Never forget Jackie at this moment. She makes almost no money, she doesn't own anything, and she hides in the third floor of an apartment in a city of over a million people. Her life is insanely beautiful.

Don't forget that. Don't lose that. Wherever you are, whoever you are, remember that you are cool water that can flow and change shape into whatever container holds you, and you're still the same. Don't lose your soul. There's no price that's high enough to make it worth losing. Be proud of the essence you've been able to maintain through it all. Make that your primary goal, always. Keep loving. Keep living. Keep asking questions. Keep the glass half-empty to make room for everything wonderful that comes your way. Stay as honest as you can, but don't beat yourself up too much when you aren't. Forgive yourself, and then forgive other people, because we're all in the same boat, and its not sinking, its drifting, and if you try too rigidly to direct its course, you'll miss all the wonderful places that the wind wanted to take you all on its own. Come alive. Stay alive.

-J

Why I am and am not a feminist

I had always wondered
if I was just
a fraud
parading around
in
stilettos
and my short,
short skirts
I had the ass for it, after all

I didn't look like them
but I was them.
I was all of them.

they'd laugh and call
me fruit fly
flame dame
fag hag
god-damned wannabe
art fucker,
take off your heels,
you're
your
own
prison
they said.

and it didn't matter
what I read
or thought

I raised my hand
to answer
proudly
with
perfectly
manicured nails

and you didn't listen

I sit back
and let
the ones who
looked more
like they fit the bill
speak
for
me.

-J

I don't want it

You
can take
all
your
Bikram yoga,
Memoirs,
Tea parties
and books
about
your
fucking
spirituality

I don't want it

You can take
all
your tax breaks
your
Gideon Bibles
fair-trade coffee
abstinence programs
secularist
religious
bullshit

I don't want it

You
Can
Take
It
All.

I want freedom
and it's not yours to give
so,
you can take it all
and stop
pretending
you're doing
me any
favors.

-J

Once Upon A Time In South Philly

Sometimes, all I need to re-balance is to start a new art project, bake a few cookies, remind myself what amazing people I count as friends, and marvel at what a beautiful life I have.

Some good new tunes never hurt, either.

Buenos Noches,

-J

If You Want To View Paradise

Expectation
is
the death
of imagination

maybe the fight is good
all our
stubborn tics
that we cling to
like a woolen blanket
like a child
with a boundless imagination

maybe it's our parents faults
(psychologist's wallets
need this
to be true)
or the teachers
in the failing schools
where expectation is
the only form
of acceptable knowledge

or the lovers
we bend our will to
freely, we think
until we're operating
beyond any semblance
of what we once were,
or thought we were

it's not compromise that
brings peace
it's the acceptance that
our microscopic individualities
are not to be
hammered out mercilessly
in the name
of expectation

so,
work harder

expectation
is
the death
of
imagination

-J

Re: Bukowski's 'Alone With Everbody'

I see you
in me
sometimes
quite
literally

but I see you
in me
and I wonder
if the hundreds
of others
did too

I wonder if it scared them
I wonder if they knew it
I wonder if they refused, in the end
to see even the smallest bit
of you
like them

I see you in me
and that means
the occasional nightmare
unfulfilled desires,
and grave disappointments
caused of our own volition

the overwhelming ambivalence
the genius of pure humanity
in all its faltering forms
intersect to make a whole
that will never be filled
even when I see you in me

I pray you will never be full


-J

DILFS

I kind of wonder if your kids teachers or the mothers of their friends and classmates hit you on. I would say yes, because goddamn, you're sexy. Actually, I hope they do. Because that's hot.

This post is irrelevant to anything significant. I would like to shout your hotness from a mountain, but a blog will do.

-J

An Open Love Letter to Men From Me, a Raging, Raging, Feminist

Dear Men,

I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal by a lovely woman by the name of Kay S. Hymowitz titled "Where Have All The Good Men Gone?" in which she blames your love of nintendo, beer, and wacking off for the entire collapse of the post-WWII-era institution of perfection known as Marriage, House, and 2.5 Kids. Actually no, what she really blames is my educated, hardworking, scholastically-outperforming, higher-earning (not to be confused with higher-paid) counterparts who, like me, possess a vagina. Apparently, as your mothers, siblings, girlfriends, and wives, we have coddled you, we have forced you into a state of perpetual adolescence, because we removed from you your one raison d'etre: to make a lot of money in order to attract a hot girl to bone and have some kids with. With women these days pursuing fancy degrees, establishing careers, supporting themselves and sometimes supporting entire families, we have, according to Ms. Hymowitz, made you obsolete.

However, before you assume that I am now just going to run out and turkey baste a baby into my uterus and declare my hatred for men and their overwhelming sense of masculine entitlement, dearest, dearest men, I want to apologize for this woman. She is so, so wrong about you. She's wrong about me too, but she's creating big problems for you as well.

I want to tell you, men, (really, all people in general) that I believe in you. I believe you are smart, talented, capable, rational, thinking, loving, fully human beings. I do not believe you were brought into this world for the sole purpose of making wads of cash, putting a ring on it, and then knocking me up. I don't mind your star wars obsessions, your video games, your preference to live frat-style well into your 30's, or even your occasional bouts of unemployment, existential ennui, or career changes. I don't even hate on you guys that hate monogamy (I mean, I get it - it doesn't make you a jerk - unless you fail to inform that lovely woman or man who may be falling in love with you who might highly prize a monogamous lifestyle. Just sayin').

I do not think it is ever right or acceptable to 'mooch' off of another human being or take advantage of another person's generosity, be it financial, emotional, or otherwise. I don't blame parents that want to kick out their sons (or daughters) who literally contribute nothing to society for whatever reason, along with their household as a whole. That does not mean I don't appreciate, understand, or even respect the fact that you may live at home. That doesn't mean I think you are less of a person because your girlfriend or wife pays your rent while you paint, or pursue your otherwise difficult or under-paying dream job. You know why, men? Because I know that you all have the capacity to be intelligent, understanding,and compromising in all life situations. I know you aren't sitting around all day expecting someone else to pay your way through life and then not offer any sort of domestic or emotional support in return. There are people who do this. A lot of them we like to call 'trophy wives' - and guess what, they don't even have penises! Men, I think you deserve better. I think you deserve more credit for the fact that only you can determine the type of life you want and the type of life that makes you happy. If that's a high-powered CEO, if that's a brilliant inventor and innovator, if that's an artist, a househusband, or a customer service agent who likes to play D&D in the evenings, or any blend there in between, I give you kudos. I refuse to believe that any man who deviates from the norm of the expected life path society has set up for him is lazy, immasculated, and in a perpetual state of arrested development. This by no means assumes that I condone absent or delinquent fathers, or any other type of person who shirks their own responsibilities and does not deal with the consequences of their own actions. It's sad that I have to explicitly make that distinction, but I make it more for the ignorant people who don't understand the different goals you have, not because I think you're going to take my statement and run with it as an excuse to not claim responsibility for your own life. No, dear men, I believe you are way, way smarter than that. I also believe you're smart enough to learn to put the seat down, but even so, in your defense, I would try to keep it up too, to avoid touching it as much as possible. But no, for reals. Men, I love you. If feminism tells me I don't have to settle to a prescribed set of ideals or lifestyle, it should tell you the same exact thing.

Love,

-J

(If you're interested in the original article, you can read it here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146321725889448.html)

Music hath a far more pleasing sound

Words that don't mean that much to me:

"You're beautiful"
"You're special"
"I want to be with you forever"
"You're not like other girls"
"You deserve someone to make you happy"
"My heart is yours"

Barf.

I think one of the most rewarding, affirming, appreciative, and honest things anyone has ever said to me is:

"I've been thinking a lot about something you said the other day"

Music.

-J

Observation

When describing the attributes of their ideal mate, men, like women, often say:

'I want someone with a good sense of humor.'

Meaning: 'I want someone who will laugh at all my jokes, not actually be funny, or, God forbid, funnier than me.'

This is where I go wrong at least a good 89% of the time.

-J

Because Belle totally liked the Beast before other people realized he was cool.

-J

νεῦρον

The more
i read about
the brain
the less
i feel
like using it
because if
it's all been mapped
out in advance
and nailed down to
hormones
receptors
spandrels,
and the like
it seems like its
doing enough work
on its own
without my stupidity
getting in the way


-J

Please Secure Your Own Mask Before Attempting To Help Children or Others

You learn a lot about people and human nature when you work on an airplane. When you get people operating at, what is for some, an extremely high stress level, you get to see all kinds of rude, nasty, and inappropriate behavior. I personally feel most of the negative behavior that happens is rooted pretty deeply in fear (as someone who never, ever had a fear of flying, it can be hard to be sympathetic, but its my job to be just that, so I try). I've seen grown women kick each other's seat backs, pour juice on each other's seats, and do everything associated with 5-year old children short of hair pulling. Sometimes it amusing, most of the time its annoying, and in rare instances its downright flabbergasting.

Anyway, I had intended to write a post for a long time about my observations on human nature in an oxygen deprived can 30,000 feet in the air, but something occurred to me the other day doing the safety demo that struck me as probably the biggest and most concise idea about humans I've been able to observe.

You know that part in every airplane safety demo that goes "In case of sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks will deploy from a compartment above your head. Use the elastic strap to secure the mask around your mouth and nose. Please make sure to secure your own mask before attempting to help children or others."

'Please secure your own mask before attempting to help children or others.'

Which, basically says, 'Please, get your own shit together before attempting to even go near other people.'

You're no good to anyone if you've passed out while the plane is going down. If you don't take care of yourself, you'll never be able to take care of others.

Thanks, safety demo. I always knew there was philosophy hidden deep in you somewhere.

-J

Night Windows

This song will always be for you
The one I did not write
The one I did not sing
To you
This song will always be yours

These four lonely chords
With a bass descending,
Brings me deeper, and closer
To confronting the lonely truth
This song is yours
It will always be for you

And I only listen when
I want to imagine myself, there
On a once well-loved street,
3am, and we’re laughing
Where dry leaves now crunch
And circle around me,
Dust stinging my eyes,
As if the wind is telling me
I have no business being there

I push play, and there you are
I hum along, and you’re smiling
Looking at me from a softly-lit window
On a street where you no longer live
My feet trod where you no longer will be,
And they pound, and pound, and pound
In panic at pavement, in time with the song
I did not write for you,
As if more steps will bring me closer,
As if more time will bring you back

I’m singing your song,
The one I didn’t write for you
And I’m crying a little,
Although its very uncharacteristic
And not like me at all
But you were always doing that,
Making me human
Making me sing songs I would never write

-J

Either way, it matters not

Your eyes might be beautiful,
but I wait to find
if that makes much difference

Your eyes might be beautiful,
but there are no colors that reflect
from intertwined shadows;
I don't see you in the light.
I don't see you at all.

You eyes might be beautiful
like Grecian marble
or onyx,
or any other variety of pleasing descriptors
that surely you've heard
a hundred times over.
I would say,
but I do not know.

You eyes might be beautiful
but I do not dare to take one glance,
I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
the most beautiful!
Of ship-launching variety,
capable of wrecking an ancient society,
but I do not look on them
and they do not look on me.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
or empty fruits, rotting
from the inside
still maintaining a pristine
shell of skin,
tricking some poor creature
into thinking them a viable crop.

Your eyes might be beautiful,
and they might not.
And many things
may be lots of other things-
but I've never been one to place my bets
in the palm
or, should I say,
they eye
of uncertainty.

-J

FYI

Everything you think you know is wrong.

More on that later.


-J

Sometimes I am surprised by the words that come out of my own mouth

I'm fairly certain no one reads this, so I'm going to go ahead an not care that I write about every new lover I take on.


'Just don't go falling in love or anything like that. That never really works.'

Me: 'No, don't worry. I don't wanna go through that again.'

You know what? It's absolutely true too. And I'm a fool every time I think I want different. My previous posts, written in whatever afterglow haze of a new and ignorant lover, may run contrary, but the truth really comes out at those times when you can't really stop the words from vomiting out of your mouth. Much like the ones above.

And its true. I don't want to go through all that again. And again. And again. I'm an optimistic person. I'm also quite an honest person, just not so much with myself. I don't know what love is and I don't think anyone really does either. Relationships and marriage, whatever, they have some sort of linkage with the whole idea of it but they are completely different creatures from it. Love I think is, at best, a spandrel - pretty, but not necessary - between the two neurons in our brain responsible for our sex drive and speech. Between our need to bone each other and then still have to talk to each other.

People I know in successful relationships aren't necessarily crazy in love. They just work really hard to make their partnerships work. Because that's what they want, and that's something thats important to them. I hate when people act like love is this uncontrollable force that is inflicted upon them, and then woe to you if you don't return that feeling, curse be you for existing as the object of someone else's affection that you don't return. Usually these people are the same people who are obsessed with this disgusting, archaic, media propagated version of romantic love but then when its comes to the difficult shit, they can't handle the fact that life isn't all beer and skittles. Relationships are a choice, and not that they don't have anything to do with love, but not love the way most people seem to understand it. So when I say I don't want you to send me flowers, that I think Valentine's day is stupid, or that the idea of ever, EVER planning a wedding sends me into a panic attack, its not because I'm a scrooge - it's because I get what's important in life, and should I ever decide to enter into a long term partnership with anyone, I'm going to be daydreaming about the person who will be cleaning up my puke when I'm sick, who'll leave me alone when I'm being a bitch and need to be a bitch, who's day I'll be inevitably interrupting when I get a flat tire or my car breaks down, and who will still be fucking my makeup-less, crusty-eyed, morning-breathed existence. To me, these are the highs. Bringing somebody roses doesn't say fuck about loyalty.

And, until that day comes that I decide I want that, if that day ever comes - until then, I'm going to continue meeting fascinating people and having more fun than anyone probably has any right to. Until it all blows up in my face and the shit hits the proverbial fan, and I'm back here writing about that and possibly/almost certainly contradicting myself, and trying to reconcile the blatant contradictions into things we like to call "lessons." Until then, faithful blog, until then.

-J

Upon the occasion of the zodiac shifting

Because tonight is like every other night,
I will remember these stars.

each one
each solitary unit that burns longer
than I shall ever hope to live
I will remember looking at the twinkling
(of what is really the past)
that shines in my eyes,
forgetting Orion's belt, the Dipper's handle,
forgetting Aquarius
and the shooters that fall in magnificence.

No,
I will only remember these faithful ones
these dazzling ordinaries
un-shifting guides
that decorate my darkness

Because tonight is like any other night
when the hand of the designer
gathers them in her fist
and hurls them in might, those sentinels,
and scatters them,
leaving the warrior swordless,
the ladle melted,
I will remember these stars.

-J

What happens when you take out the -EST?

Best.
Prettiest.
Smartest.
Wealthiest.
Fastest.
Luckiest.
Nicest.
Sexiest.
Latest.
Greatest.
Happiest.

It seems counterproductive to encourage someone not to strive for any of the above. After all, haven't we been told from the cradle until now to always strive to be "our best"? We're all such fans of the idea that 'our best' exists somewhere in some Platonic form, reachable after some undetermined amount of time and effort. Some of us work like dogs every single day with a single-minded pursuit, eyes on the prize, sure of every step and setting ourselves up for the best way to get to the next step. Some of us work like dogs every single day in an effort to discover exactly what that focus should be. It may seem from the outside that the latter group is 'lost', or hasn't quite 'found their niche' or 'found their way'. I argue that neither group has, and neither group probably ever will.

Why? Because we operate on a system based on -EST words. We use these three little letters in a vain effort to measure the immeasurable. Someone's World's Sexiest Man Alive is someone else's Ugliest Person Imaginable. But, don't you think it makes said Sexiest Man Alive feel good to have that honor? They call the Valedictorian the 'smartest' person in the graduating class. What happens when the lower achieving kid goes on to make more money? Run a more successful business? Think about it - there isn't a single person I know (including myself) who doesn't feel good when the -EST is applied to something particularly important to them (You sang the BEST. You are the PRETTIEST girl I've ever seen. Isn't he the NICEST guy?)

-EST implies there is at least one other party that can't make that claim. That you've won, and that you are the very essence of whatever the -EST is attached to. It no longer becomes about 'our best' but THE best. And you know what they say about being the best - there will always be someone better. I don't care that there hasn't been another playwright like Shakespeare in 400 years, he may have been the BEST of his time, but there has been, and always will be, better (I'm gonna catch heat for that). Your life becomes about serving a need to invalidate other people in order to validate yourself (this is what I consider the very essence of competition). Most people that talk about achievement, happiness, goals, they all stress the important of 'personal best' - but underneath it all is the looming reality and unspoken truth of 'when you improve yourself, you make yourself better, so you can therefore be better than others, and maybe someday be the best.' Its not wrong to have goals, dreams, high aspirations, work hard, and dream - I'd actually think you quite an unhappy person if you didnt have any of these - but can we please, for god's sake, stop measuring the units of our success in terms of how much better we performed than someone else, how much more money we made, how many more friends we have, how many more points we scored - can we please stopped that?

I, for one, am tired of having to justify the incredible happiness of my life to those who 'have more' or 'do more'. It's not that I've 'settled' for my lot in life - far from it. The story of my life from childhood until now dictates that I shouldn't have even made it this far. And I won't stop. Because I have dreams. Beautiful, vivid dreams, goals and longings. I have this want to experience, and learn, and grow, and soak up every last bit of beautiful life that earth has to offer while I'm here. I want to take off the incredible burden of the -EST. I don't want to be the best. I just wanna....b(e).


-J

Thoughts on a fire escape overlooking Philadelphia

Everything comes with a price, and success comes with many names and faces. Nobody gets everything. Or maybe I should say, nobody gets everything all at once. You attract to yourself the things that you focus the most energy on. Sometimes at the cost of other things you want. This is why we prioritize. This is why the things we want are always within our reach. But no one is just going to hand them to us. The perfect job, a fulfilling relationship, supportive friends, a happy family - the basic things we all strive for. However, it's incredibly difficult to make all of these things #1 in our lives. If you're unhappy with one, two, or all of these categories, look at how you prioritize. Could you sacrifice a little bit of one to have more of another? Which is really most important to you right now? Are you putting your energy into something other than what is really important to you? Take inventory. Look at your actions, because they define you 99% more than anything you say or feel. You may feel pressure to have one thing, but if you truly desire something else, switch your focus. Get out there and get what you want, and cut out the meaningless crap. Check the failures and baggage at the door. Stop repeating the same stupid mistakes. Be honest with yourself, and everyone else. It's probably going to be incredibly difficult, maybe scary, and may gain the disapproval of those who don't really know you or understand you. Don't listen to them. Listen to your heart, and then react with your head. You have the ability, and have no excuses. Start small, build, and keep going, for God's sake, just keep going. You'll get there.

-J