creative [kree-ey-tiv] : resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc

Fashion? Smashion.

Because I have nothing better to say besides the fact that I fainted inside a Lee's sandwich shop and I think I have a case of vertigo or anemia or swine flu or a mixture of all three plus hypochondriatic stress. A week of vacation sure would do me good but no, that's not how the world works. Nothing is fair, you see. But, it's strawberry season and I know Spring is coming I know it but how can they say there is no global warming (aka climate change) ? Maybe that's why: the name is so misleading... they say "well it's colder right now, so there's no global warming!" But that's the thing - it should be warm and it was warm when it shouldn't have been. And I cried at our (WSA: Worker-Student-Alliance) worker event tonight - I can understand their Spanish now but I can only speak in broken, simple sentences and still blush when they ask me questions but they are so understanding and beautiful people - their struggle is my struggle and our struggle and I cry with them. "Muchas gracias, es muy muy muy triste.... pero.... bueno para... la lucha! y.... estudiante.... como se dice... help? (the little son Mickey whispers to me: "ayuda") ayuda!" they smile and nod and speak quickly, and I catch most of it. "Buenas noches... Nos vemos manana?" and I miss a lot of things but this is something new and it's good, real good. I don't wake up feeling as empty. It's almost the end of week 5 and that means there is only week 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and then graduation. And then two months in the apartment and then that's it. Hasta luego Irvine.

I love you. I always will.

4th time around...

Near Tehachapi. This was a great drive that I will never forget for the rest of my life... and there wasn't anything spectacular about it. It was just good. Something tells me, you and I, we'll be alright.

for the tree to drop...

Well, I've listened to Strange Fruit and Fourth Time Around and I'm so heavy my body has fallen through the mattress and box spring of my bed, through the carpet and cement of the apartment's foundation, through the six feet of damp, California dirt, through the hidden caves of the underworld and into the core of the Earth. I can see you all up there and I am shouting, I am shouting, but you can't hear me and all I feel is the aching deep within the future womb of my unborn child and the air is being sucked out, breath by breath and my tears dissolve into the layers of Earth that envelope and enclose me. But I can still see you. I can still see.


My eyes see everything. and that's all I have left.

the times they are a-changin'

My goal is to write more and start updating this as a photoblog... or, a thought blog. or something. Even if it's a sentence a day, a picture a day, or something? A quote? Anything.

I've caught a sickness and it's the first week of school - not a great combination. I've felt inspired and motivated and determined and this sickness is really trying to wear me down and I just can't let it. Anyhow, I'm taking a class on Toni Morrison's works and she writes so beautifully. Right now I am reading "Song of Solomon" and well, I recommend it to all my ladies out there - and gentlemen, too if you're up for it. I will post some passages here soon. So beautiful.

I am also trying to transition to natural deodorant and it's not difficult, I am just a girl that enjoys her dove moisturizing deodorant, sadly that has all the bad chemical stuff of any other brand besides the natural ones. Maybe I'll switch off? I don't know. It's all relative I suppose.This is rather uninteresting for you readers...

So, I'm gonna end here with these quotes. One semi-cynical and one inspiring.

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."
- Charles Bukowski

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

kiss me at the gate

These days keep getting longer and she just doesn't care anymore. She has sold her soul to this thing called love and well, you think she would have learned, that she should know better by now. Such a fool - in life, in love - we get lost sometimes. What is she waiting for? Hoping for? So many moments that....
Well here she is alone on the floor. Her arms and legs sticking out from her shrinking frame. She wishes she was in snow. She wished it could envelope her and fill her mouth and then her lungs and she would just be frozen - in her thoughts and unable to move - at least then it would all make sense.
She is back at his door again and she is fondling her feet around the doormat. Waiting to knock or ring the bell - her thoughts pace over her pants, shoes, hair, eyes, face. Is this what he wants to see? Is this the girl that will make him smile back at me?


She should let go.

She should believe in herself and just go.

I need to start writing again

"No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky."
--Bob Dylan

acid tongue

If I've learned anything from my years in college, it is that life is fucking ugly. Now, granted, I would choose knowledge over ignorance, yet with this knowledge comes a responsibility. It is one thing to not know and be ignorant because you are unaware, but it is a whole other thing to gain knowledge of things and then just do nothing to acknowledge them.

What I mean here is that I've learned so much - it is overflowing to keeping me up at night because all these thoughts have nowhere to go yet (on top of the usual bullshit all 21 year-old girls are going through otherwise). All my professors have the same remedy for this sickness - just keep absorbing as much as you can and eventually you will figure out how to put all of it to use - all the akward discomfort of carrying around this pile of ugly that is the world in which we live.

I used to think life was beautiful - I absorbed nature and people and I was a great observer - I loved almost everyone and everything completely unconditionally. I was naive. As a little kid at my pre-school, I chose to play with a kid that was all by himself - that no one else would play with. My mom told me this once and it shocked me - I'm not just bringing it up to make myself seem like some sort of saint (I'm not, nor was I ever) but because I had no idea about prejudice, about racism, about class (the socio-economic, structural kind) - I didn't realize that this kid or that kid might be pre-determined to have a life that I will never have to live. I didn't do it because I felt sorry for him - who knows why I did it - but I did it because I wanted to. I was inclined to for no other reason than to play with someone, maybe thinking he was alone and that I was alone a lot too... It's this sort of realization that really starts to tear at my heart.

So when this happens you have to learn to cut out the emotion of things. I am getting stronger but also heartless. There has to be a way to remain hopeful and compassionate when all you learn is that people are shit and the structure of things is shit and capitalism is built upon inequality. It's essential. The system of this country is FOUNDED on inequality. It's fucked.

So with all this knowledge of my four years here I have learned to relate to so many people - more than I ever thought - and I have also been able to have some of the most profound and progressive conversations with many of my peers - it is amazing how much I have learned and how that has helped to shape and continues to re-shape my life and who I am growing into - the Kelly I am becoming.

I am fortunate to have these 4 years and if anything, EVERYONE should be given this opportunity with more ease. UC Irvine is accepting something like 500 less freshman this year. Fresno State has already cut off their admission date for Undergrads. The State of California is delaying tax refunds to the residents of the state. I am living pay-check to pay-check and so is my family. I think everyone that is feeling the effects of this all need to figure out why. This distant war(s) - yes there is more than one and might be more than two - we are fighting? What about the de-regulation of the already greedy in "Wall Street"? The list can keep going...

Check out the articles on counterpunch.com or antiwar.com (a libertarian republican publication, mind you) and how about the British press? It's amazing the articles you'll find in there that are somehow left out of our daily news - things regarding the country in which we live. The Guardian is a good start.

And, if someone says to me, again, when talking about interracial relationships "Why would you want to have children and have them go through that?" I might just have to slap you.