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