The Reckless Idealist

Polyvore change

2011-01-07T14:56:00.000-08:00

So, I'm trying something new with my Polyvore sets- automatic fiction. I need the practise. I need to get myself into the habit of writing as often as possible. So, each set will be accompanied by an extract of my own writing. A variant of automatic writing- writing where you just put down whatever comes into your head, random rubbish and all- but purely short, fictional moments. Like a daydream of a moment or scene.

It will always be something short, possibly atmospheric, definitely unlinked. Something that comes straight from my head onto the keyboard at that moment. I've done four or so already. Might start posting them here too. Why not, right?

R.I. out. x

Dear Santa...

2010-12-10T02:53:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I would like:

To be more knowledgeable
To be more articulate
To be stronger in both body and mind
To forgive those whose have wronged me
To forgive myself for wronging others
A full restoration of my dignity and self worth
A better understanding of the motivation of others
To be less prone to paranoia, cynicism and self-deprecation
For life to be easy
An HD tv

And they said I don't understand Christmas. Ha!

Thanks!

R.I. out. x

I've had better days.

2010-05-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

After a long illness, my uncle died on the morning of Monday 17th May. Even writing this is hard. I don't know what to say, what to think. He had rapid onset MS which made him deteriorate incredibly quickly, destroyed his immune system, and made him incapable of speech, co-ordinated movement, or even recognising his own family. He has lived in a care home for the past few years. He was 50 years old.

He was 50 years old, he caught pneumonia, and he died. In a couple of weeks time it will be forty years to the day that his mother died, also aged 50.

What do you say about something like that? I'm horrified by it all. By the idea that he died alone, that he might have been scared but couldn't articulate it to anyone, that he's just, gone. This man who has been in the peripheries of my life since I was born is just gone. Forever. I don't understand it.

I hate that my dad is in so much pain. That he drove 200 miles to see him in hospital and didn't make it in time. That he was alone when they told him.

I know, everybody dies. Bodies break down, people are inconstant creatures, flesh is just flesh and no one knows about the rest. But none of that makes this better, or easier, or less tragic, or less terrifying. None of it makes up for this family losing someone that they love.

I can't say that whole spiel about him not being in pain any more. I don't know what happens after death, I don't know what I believe in terms of theology and philosophy. All I know, is that he's gone. And that is not okay.

His funeral is on wednesday. I'm hoping to get to see my grandparent's grave for the first time then too. I didn't know them long enough to mourn them, but I hope that they'd be proud of my dad. Of the man he is and the family he has raised. Of the way he looked after his brother in his time of need, even though he barely ever saw us when he was well.

I just don't know what to think about all of this, or how to feel. Everything just feels numb, and empty, and difficult. I can't figure out the right words to say to my dad, because they're all redundant. They're all irrelevant. They won't make our family whole again.

I don't want to grieve, and I'm not even sure I know how. It just hurts, and I don't know when it won't.

Beginnings

2010-02-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've finally started work on my book. It's been building up for a long time. Been a long time coming. The number of times my friends have said I've been writing down their stories for future use, they've been right. Now it's time to put all their stories to use.
I have a title, I have a premise. I have a prologue. Now I need to get down to it.

I'm terrified.

R.I. out x

Review: A Guide to Recognizing your Saints - Dito Montiel

2010-02-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

So, my reviews may not be reviews in the technical sense. More a gushing, or a rant. I tend to get rather emotive about things I love, as do I with things that I loathe. Which makes the idea of using a rating system sort of pointless too, as things would either get 0 out of 5, or 5 out of 5, depending on my gut feeling.

Recently I finished reading A Guide to Recognizing your Saints by Dito Montiel. I bought it, along with the DVD of the film adaptation, at the same time on Amazon. The film has Rosario Dawson, Channing Tatum, Shia LaBeouf, and playing the older version of the title character, Robert Downey Jr.

Now, this title seemed to have been popping up a lot in my peripheries recently, and something about it had always drawn my attention. When I spotted RDJ was in the film, I decided to make the purchase, and get the book for comparitive reasons if nothing else. For me, Robert Downey Jr is always the best thing in whatever he is in, so I expected to like the film. And I did. It was powerful. Beautiful even, in its stark story-telling and emphatic emotion. It's the sort of realist film that I always love, but I can totally see why a lot of people would hate it. Maybe even find it boring, or a little unsatisfying. Now I have read the book, I can tell the movie was directed by the author. What I didn't expect, was how much I would like the book.

It was different to the film of course. They had picked one cohesive storyline from the series of out of sync vignettes, focussed on Dito being a writer rather than a musician. They omitted a great deal and added some elements in. They mixed up his friends to make the story easier to tell onscreen. As with everything in the world, the book has some flaws. Montiel even references the criticism he received over his (lack of) punctuation. But most of them can be over looked. I choose to over look them. The writing is just so powerful.

I waited a day after I finished reading to start writing about it, thinking a little time to reflect would be ideal, as I may have been over zealous in my initial fangirl-style adoration. That my admiration would diminish somewhat, so I wouldn't turn into a total gushing nit. It hasn't. At all. So to quote that Aussie bloke off Got To Dance, 'gush, gush, gush, gush. Gush, gush. Gush, gush, gush. Gush, gush, gush, gush. Gush. Gush. Gush.'.

The most common word that I have seen used about this book (though mostly the film. It is a sad fact that fewer and fewer people are frequent readers nowadays) is 'moving'. I would have to agree with that, but there are a dozen other words I'd love to tag on to it. Like 'raw', 'powerful', and (whether elements of it are fictionalized or not) 'honest'.

The book wasn't what I expected at all. It is a memoir, and it is totally unsynchronized. I think I went into it with no expectations, which was to say, the usual expectations. That being, a linear story. I loved how it was a selection of moments, interspersed with poetry, but all coming back to the same messages. This book actually made me rethink my stance on poetry (which before rested at 'blaaah, poetry', not very educated, articulate or enlightened of me, I know. It's just a gut reaction thing). I found the structure really inspiring.

Dito tells us everything about himself, by focusing all the time on people he encountered during his life. The people he felt lucky to have met. What's that quote from The Craft? 'You are who you hang with'. Well then Dito Montiel is the single most interesting person you've ever met. The people he tells you about during the novel, some of them are so out there that you just want to meet them. You want them to be real, to be exactly how he wrote them. You want to run into them on the street and recognise them from his writing. You want to go to a party in Astoria and get drunk with them, and just know them with the same affection you can feel radiating from the pages.

It also gives you this unbelievable urge to go and explore New York (not easy for a broke English bird). The sense of freedom, impulsiveness and exploration is just infectious. It's an urban coming of age story, so I guess that's the point, but it just works. One of my favourite parts was when he is telling the reader about a road trip he went on with an ex-girlfriend. It just gave me this urge, this feeling, like I wanted to jump into my car and drive somewhere, anywhere. His story telling is beautiful. It grabs you by the collar and doesn't let go for the whole ride. Poetic, personal, visceral, every flaw is in a gem, every person is described with compassion. Even the violence doesn't bring you down from the high his writing has you floating on.

I'm going to end this with my favourite line from the book, which I think also says a lot about it. At least, it's the message I came away with. It's a line from one of the poems, which is in full underneath (punctuated exactly as in my copy of the book, so don't blame me for the little i's).

You will rationalize no more dreams

WHAT YOU WILL AND WON'T DO

you will take no more life from me
you will not slow down my natural instincts
you will not make my loud hysterical hissing laugh muffled
you will always keep me younger than all my baseball heroes, too young to order coffee at chock full o' nuts, too young to open a newspaper on a crowded subway
you will rationalize no more dreams
you will take no more dear friends from me
you will not disappear any more vivid memories or fade away melancholy technical insignificant but perfect moments
the way her bottom lip quivered in my hallway rain pouring outside lamppost light only light
you will put no more distance between us
you will not hurt me any more
for from this day on i will begin learning to live with you
i will allow you to give so much more to me
and i wish this was all true
but it isn't
well maybe a little
but you will just keep doing all of these things to me

won't you

R.I. out. x

It's time

2010-02-24T16:22:00.000-08:00

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

Your turn.

R.I. out. x

Belated Valentine reflections

2010-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is sort of a belated Valentine's post, and there will probably be another one at some point. It's 5:15am here now, and I'm still not sleeping. I don't really want to, since I had some horrendous dreams last night, so I'm surfing the internet instead. Went on PostSecret for the first time in a while, and they still have Valentine secrets up. This one really struck me, and I guess it's because it is true for me too, but it is something that I never realised before.

People talk about those crystallizing moments in life. Moments when you see thing differently. See them for what they really are. This card is one of those for me. Maybe not totally life changing, but at least laying some demons to rest.

For a long time, though I would never admit it to anyone, I thought that I was just one of those girls. Those annoying, neurotic girls (maybe I am that to some people) who clung on to exes out of weakness, sappiness, maybe even a certain level of obsession. I thought it was about them, not me. That I was weak for not being able to stop loving them, in whatever way it was that I did. That I was betraying my current partner by still harbouring feelings for past relationships. But maybe I have stopped loving them, and maybe it is just what it says above. I just don't want to lose any part of myself, even the parts that age and experience tell you to discard and move on from.

Or maybe I'm just another typically over-analytical writer.

Either way, I'm fine with it now.

R.I. out. x

Patriotism

2010-02-19T20:34:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a girl I used to go to school with the other night, and found out that she has cut all ties with someone who was once one of her best friends, for what can only be described as a ridiculous reason. Maybe even a close-minded and slightly bigoted reason.

We’ll call this girl K, and her friend S. S is Asian (of the India/Pakistan type, not the China type, though I’m not positive where her family is from).

S lives with her parents and grandparents. They are a Muslim family. The grandparents in particular are quite traditional in their views, but then, so are my grandparents. They just have different traditional views. When K went around to her S’s house, it was summer, and she was wearing sweatpants and a vest top. I’m not Muslim, so I’m not 100% sure on this really, but I think part of the faith involves women maintaining their modesty and not exposing too much flesh. Obviously, a modern day Brit might differ in their view of what that is to a traditional Muslim.

Anyway, the point of this is that S’s grandfather was offended that K had her shoulders exposed, and asked S to make K cover up. S, the ever dutiful family girl, did as asked and offered K a hoody. Which she did not take too kindly to. Essentially, she kicked off. Went off on a rant about how they wouldn’t tell her how to dress in her country, blah, blah. Stormed out and hasn’t talked to S since.

This all seemed fairly idiotic to me, for a couple of reasons. One, it is not S’s fault that her grandfather asked her to do that.

If K’s grandparents asked her to cover up, I bet she would do it. If she went into a church, she’d be expected to cover up, she adhered to the uniform code at school (part of which was covering your shoulders). Just because the person asking her to cover up wasn’t part of ‘her’ culture, she refused.

Two, respect your damn elders. Have respect for other people’s views while you are in their home (even if you don’t agree with them). They’ve invited YOU into THEIR home.

She tried to excuse all of this by claiming she is a patriot, and she has issues with that culture coming to ‘our’ country and trying to enforce their culture on ‘us’ (to which I pointed out that she was sitting at a table with an American and two Irish, all of whom technically classify as ‘immigrants’ to her precious England too). The only part of her argument that I sort of agreed with was the issues she has with traditional Islam values on women. She didn’t want to be told to cover up by some old man because, in part, she didn’t want to validate the idea that women are second class citizens who should do as they are told. Yeah, I get that, but again you do what is polite when someone invites you into their home, and you don’t blame your 19 year old female friend for her 70 year old grandfather's behaviour.

Then again, I suppose you can be ~~racist~~ a patriot when you live in part of the country where less than 1% of the general population is an ethnic minority (hoping anyone reading this will understand that I’m being sarcastic- you never can tell on the internet).

Everyone is entitled to an opinion I suppose, and mine is this:

We live in a multicultural world. I find the idea of patriotism almost archaic for this world. It is out-dated. The world, the human race even, is constantly evolving and changing. Why does anyone have the right to tell others where they may or may not live? It’s just land. No one really owns any of it.

Besides, the melding of cultures, the evolution I was talking about, makes everything more interesting. If she loves the old-school, patriotic England so much, maybe we should revert back to Victorian England, where a flash of her ankle horrified even more than shoulders.

On an even more practical note, if people are so horrified of people coming in and taking ‘our’ jobs, why aren’t they doing those jobs? Oh wait, because they don’t want to. Most English people don’t want to be cleaners and manual labourers. I’d be interested to see the statistics of English nationals claiming benefits versus so-called immigrants.

Oh blah, this has turned into a rant, and I didn’t want it to.

You get the point I’m trying to make internet land. Tolerance, melding of cultures, all that jazz. It's 4:40am here, I should probably get some sleep.

R.I. out. x

Audrey's wisdom

2010-01-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

I'm a collector of quotes. I've got books full of them, computer files full of them, I gave my best friend a homemade 'Little Book of Inspiration' for her 21st birthday. I believe in the power of words, especially when they are used well. So now I have another place to unload this addiction. Here's one by Audrey Hepburn, which, while I may not necessarily follow all of it (I don't enough nails to ever quantify a manicure), does speak to me.

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing; kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles.
~Audrey Hepburn

R.I. out. x

Dystopian trends, The Book of Eli, and the quest for the perfect combat boot

2010-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

There seems to have been a re-emergence of post-apocalyptic film and television recently. Whether it is remakes like the BBC drama Survivors, or new films like The Book of Eli. And they’re just the start. In the last few years we’ve had I Am Legend, Dead Set, pretty much any of the zombie movies/remakes, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Doomsday, Terminator Salvation, the third Resident Evil movie, novels such as The Road and YA series The City of Ember, flash-forward sections of the show Dollhouse aren't the happiest viewing, and there are games and several other examples, but I'll try to stop myself from devolving into simply listing everything.

I love the styles that emerge in these films and shows (except Denzel's Jesus nightie in The Book of Eli). Real, utilitarian, back to practicality. I loved what Mila Kunis wore in The Book of Eli, and was kind of gutted when I read that she burnt it all when they finished filming (though Premiere Props is offering an almost identical outfit for sale, so who knows what actually happened).

It may be the influence of all these movies, TV shows and books, but I have noticed that my style, even my interest in fashion has taken a more dystopian turn recently. There’s just something about that look that I guess I’ve always loved. Lots of leather and lace, plaid and army surplus, biker, cowboy or combat boots and lots of studding. No fringing, that’s a little too wild west, not to mention impractical. While I love the idea of space-western and steampunk, they aren’t exactly the most wearable of styles (except for the jewellery). I suppose it all appeals to my inner goth kid, but in an updated, (dare I say it) contemporary way. Maybe even a more feminine way (yeah, I’m aware that’s pretty much a contradiction in terms).

It’s not a surprise really, I’ve always been fascinated by leather clothes for a start. The tomboy side to me meant I was more of a dungaree than dresses girl and yet the first piece of clothing I can ever remember getting excited about, and wanting to wear all the time, was a black leather pinafore I had when I was eight. I was even channelling my inner goth girl back then. And when I was in my full-on goth kid phase when I about thirteen to fifteen, I often wore full leather outfits: corset, mini-skirt, knee high boots, floor length duster. Not so cool looking back, but I loved it at the time.

My version of that nowadays is that I’ve become totally obsessed with finding the perfect pair of combat boots. They have to have the right look, the toes can’t be too long (I’m 5’1” so this is an must. Long shoes on short legs make me look like a clown) but still be feminine and not make me look like a nazi kid wannabe. Ideally I want flat ones for the look I'm trying, but I can't discount all the hot, heeled ones too. My current favourite brand, All Saints, do really nice flats and heels, which doesn't help. The other problem with this, is that all the ones I love are a touch out of my price range. I'm just a shopgirl at the moment, so find it hard to excuse paying £150 or more for one pair of shoes, let alone around £300 like they are asking for the John Varvatos Converse, or the All Saints boots, or even Vera Wang or Prada’s take on the combat boot. I’m not even going to let myself lust over the Timberland Lucille lace ups, which are pretty much the closest that I have found to my ideal of perfect. The Nine West Cuzza boots are fairly lusty too, I just can't decide whether or not I want to go for a Cuban heel. Price and style-wise, I’m probably going to have to go for something like the Urban Outfitters Rodeo Fringe boot in the end.

Just so you have a clue what I'm going on about without having to Google them all.

Vera Wang Lavender Label Claire lace up boots
Urban Outfitters three strap hiker boot

Urban Outfitters: WWS Rodeo Fringe boots

Urban Outfitters lace up flat strappy boot
All Saints Military Boot

Timberland Charles Street Lace/Zip Boot
Timberland Lucille lace ups

Nine West Cuzza boots

John Varvatos Converse high tops

John Varvatos Converse

I like a look which hints at a little bit vintage, a little bit distressed. Silk slips teamed with wool tights and biker boots, or lace tea dresses with leggings, half a dozen pendant necklaces of varying lengths and cowboy boots. That sort of thing.

Sorry this is a fairly wandering post, but my brain loves tangents. So, I’ll finish with this, a contemplation point if you will: I watched The Book of Eli with my boyfriend the other day, and I'll admit, I enjoyed it, partly because there were obvious similarities with Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road, which I was always going to love. As with any film, any story ever told, it had flaws, it had holes, I'm not going to pick too much because frankly, it's not necessary. Though I want to briefly talk about my main point of contention. The religious element. Those who know me will be thinking 'obviously'. I know it was a driving force of the whole piece, and I know it was by no means a movie that was cheering 'Go Christianity' 100% of the time, but the whole pursuit of the Bible thing... bleh. Reintroducing Christianity into a broken world seemed like the most dangerous thing that they could do, at least to me. Though they showed how people could easily use it as a weapon, Eli was an inherantly religious man who based his life on the words in a book, and ultimately suffered for it. I liked that at the end the Bible was consigned to a shelf, among the Torah and the Koran, showing none were more important than the other, though each were important volumes. It led to a conversation with said boyfriend about the idea. He was convinced that Christianity wasn’t the most dangerous of the religions to reintroduce. His argument was typical Daily Mail reader. 'well, Islam preaches hate towards all other religions, and Islam has an actual word for holy war', blah bloody blah. My response? How many hundreds of thousands have been killed in the name of Christianity in all of its forms? Look at the ten commandments, ‘Thou shalt not worship false idols’. That is one of the first Christian rules, to worship no god but theirs, and recognise no other faith. Breaking a commandment is meant to lead to... pretty much, nothing but bad I guess. Then there is... well, 90% of Leviticus, which preaches violence to non-Christians, homosexuals and adulterers, amongst others. But to come back to the basis of this post, yes Islam may have Jihad, but let me direct you to Revelations, the final book of the Bible. Canon literature for all the other post-apocalyptic fictions I mentioned before. Christianity has the damn mother of all holy wars, the fight between heaven and hell. Jihad may be awful and have terrible connotations, especially in today's hyper alert, terrorism obsessed society, but I'm a little more scared of the freakin’ APOCALYPSE.

Nietzsche (as is to be expected), phrased what I'm trying to say better than me, so boyfriend, you could say I disagree because:

It was Christianity that first painted the Devil on the
worlds' wall; it was Christianity which first brought Sin into the world. Belief
in the cure which it offered has now been shaken to its deepest roots; but
belief in the sickness which it taught and propagated continues to
exist.
~Nietzsche

R.I. out. x

Too busy.

2009-11-13T15:54:00.001-08:00

Seriously busy couple of days at work. I'm in at 8 tomorrow. Very gross. This post is more a reminder to myself than anything. I need to write something of interest for here. Maybe start on a film review?
Will do some books when I have a chance to read any.

Until then, I'll leave you to ponder this fact: there is no real animal called a puma. Don't believe me? Look it up. A puma is a legendary beast or a name used for types of leopards, cougars and lions. Weird huh?

R.I. out. x
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Babies and bereavement

2009-11-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

I found out today that, maybe as an add-on to her business (but not to be mentioned in relation to it), my mother has been doing clay hand and footprints of dead babies. I'm serious. This isn't a really gross joke.

I don't know how she can do it. I don't even know if she charges for them, but apparently it is beneficial for the parents. Gives comfort to them to have these mementoes of their child, however briefly it survived. However briefly they knew it for.

I really don't think that I could do it. How I could walk into a morgue and touch their tiny, cold hands and feet to get the imprints. But then, my mother was a social worker for a decade, so I guess she's much stronger than me in terms of dealing with such... well, horrific things.

People obviously react to grief differently. I used to be emotionally closed off, because various screwed up relationships taught me it was safer to be that way. Then I met someone who made me realise I didn't have to be like that 24/7, and then I ended up in the relationship I'm in now. He gradually broke through all of that (though I definitely fought it every step of the way). Now... well I can still be a cold bitch when I need to be, but at least I can feel now. Too much sometimes. Maybe it is part and parcel of being a writer. We're hyper-imaginative, sometimes melodramatic and often over-analytical. So if I saw those children, I wouldn't be able to help but think about what their parents were feeling right now. That devastating sense of loss, that ecstasy of grief. I couldn't deal with it. No way.

I'm proud of my mother for what she is doing, but if I'm honest... I never want to be told about it, or shown the prints ever again.

R.I. out. x

Why I am angry at God.

2009-11-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

So, the other day my boyfriend and I somehow got onto the subject of religion, and the idea of God. This isn’t exactly a common topic of discussion for us. Even now I’m not sure if either of us class ourselves as atheists or agnostics or Christians or whatever. I do remember that the general basis of my thought was that even when I have wanted to, it is extremely difficult for me to believe in God. Because, to paraphrase a line from one of the many American tv shows I (a little too happily) watch, if there is a ‘God’ out there, they either don’t give a crap about the world, or they’re unspeakably cruel, and I can’t believe in something like that.

I know that some religions do preach that their ‘God’ is wrathful. That he/she/it sends suffering as a form of punishment/atonement/a contrast to highlight the good that he/she/it also does. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s weak. That sounds more like an excuse than a reason to me. These religions also tend to preach that their ‘God’ loves all his/her/its children equally. That’s a total contradiction as far as I’m concerned, if you can’t see the hypocrisy in those two statements, I think you’d have to be truly blind. Once I did believe in some type of higher power, but even then I knew that organised religion wasn’t what I meant by that. I believed in flexible, personal variants of the idea. Of an ideal that was shaped by the individual. I believed in the importance of hope.

I know some people need those constraints of organised religion. They help them with their lives. They need the idea of punishment for people who do them wrong, or a reason to live their life in a moral way. I don’t really need those things. I live my life according to much simpler ideals. Like loyalty to your friends and family. I believe in karma, and that whatever you give out comes back on you. Faith has never been a factor in my life. I have a mother who used to go to church with my fairly Christian grandmother when she was a kid, but hasn’t been in decades now. She let me choose when I was eight if I wanted to be baptised. I was told that I’d get presents. I was eight. What do you think happened? I got baptised, not having a clue what it meant. I can even remember some of it. There were five or so babies getting baptised at the same service. I was the only one physically capable of holding my own candle. I’m pretty sure my dad is an atheist. He’s that guy who yells at street evangelists. If he does have any religious beliefs, he’s kept them hidden from me for over twenty years.

I think he’s like me, even if he doesn’t talk about it. I think that he would like to believe in a deity, in a god, but he can’t. His mother was Irish, and died from a stroke when he was eighteen. His brother and sister were fifteen and eleven. I’m pretty sure if that had happened to me (ever, ever thankful that it hasn’t) I would be angry at god too. Especially since it led to his sister running away aged fourteen. And now his brother is sick, and only getting sicker. The doctors think he has degenerative, rapid-onset MS. But they don’t even know for sure. He’s my uncle, and even though we were never close and rarely saw each other, I could never forgive god for that, so wouldn’t expect my dad to. I don’t think anyone has the right to fault me or him for being furious with a deity that has made my uncle incapable of even recognising his own family. He’s only 50.

So yeah, I can’t allow myself to believe in a ‘God’ like that. Because I won’t believe that this omnipotent, omniscient, all-everything deity that people preach about the world over would let all those things happen. Like I said before, they either don’t give a crap, or they’re unspeakably cruel. Both are unacceptable to me. The older I get, the less likely I think that I’ll ever be able to discover faith or to hang on to an idea of religion. There’s too much suffering, and there’s no acceptable excuse for any of it.

R.I. out. x

Quote post.

2009-11-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

Saw this quote on MakeupGeek 's Twitter page and liked it. Kinda apt for my mood recently:

'Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.'

R.I. out. x

Blogger app

2009-11-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

So I just got the BlogPressLite application for my iPhone. Testing it by writing this. Pretty user-friendly and free, which is a bonus since I'm too broke to download apps that cost anything.
I like it. Means I can write blog posts, or at least draft them, anywhere I am. Just a question of keeping my nosy boyfriend's sticky little mitts off my phone, as it also shows up all your previous posts.
Test over I guess.

R.I. out. x
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

So this is me.

2009-11-10T17:15:00.000-08:00

I used to have journals. Ever since I was a kid I was always writing stuff down here and there. It's a cathartic thing for me. Often enough, especially when I was a teenager, it was - still can be - hard for me to talk aloud about any of the important stuff with friends or family, so I wrote it all down. I've had several paper journals and diaries, a website, a Wyvern's Library account, a fictionpress account, two fanfiction.net accounts, a Livejournal, a teenopendiary, a Xanga, a Myspace blog. I still have and use a Twitter account. But 140 character posts can only get you so far, and I learned my lesson the hard way about paper diaries. To be honest, I learned my lesson the hard way about keeping any journals. Some vicious little bitch or nosy family member or relentless relationship can find and break you with them at any time. But what it comes down to is this: I am a writer, and I need to write. So this is my new little corner of the virtual-highway to do that. I don't think that there will be a prevalent theme amongst all this. My brain can jump from fashion to song lyrics I like to literature to movies to Grey's Anatomy to that cute guy over there in the grey sweatshirt. Some of the time I don't know if I believe half what I'm writing, half the time I don't even know what the hell I'm writing. I just need somewhere to write. Even - maybe especially - if no one else reads it.

So this is it. So this is me.
I'm a reckless idealist.
R.I. out. x