Beginnings

I suppose that, in my first post, I should give a little background about myself and why I chose to write this blog.  Right now, I live in Rochester, NY, in an apartment about 20 minutes from where I grew up.  I have a dead-end, incredibly stressful job in a field that completely does not interest me.  I am attending graduate school in the hopes that I can one day find a job that I will actually enjoy, and it is very challenging and time-consuming.  My family as I have always known it is slowly unravelling as my mother undergoes treatment for cancer and my younger sisters prepare to graduate high school and move on to their colleges.  I have come to consider it a successful day if I manage to haul my ass out of bed on time, make it through the work day without snapping at a customer or royally messing something up, find some sort of food for dinner for my boyfriend and I, and make it to bed by midnight.


I am 22.  Something about this life does not seem right.


I have decided that my life needs a facelift of sorts (though I suppose that is a bad metaphor, as I absolutely hate the cosmetic surgery industry).  Through this blog, I aim to find the motivation to share parts of my life that I find interesting with others, which will force me to actually see what in my life is worth sharing.  There are, really, a lot of things: insights from my graduate classes, delicious recipes I find and try out, films I am dying to review, causes for which I love to speak, inspiring events I attend (like the Occupy Rochester protest, which will be the focus of my next post).  In sharing these things with you, I hope to inspire others to examine and possibly revamp their lives, too.  I will end this post with the poem that inspired the name of this blog, one by the wonderful poet Derrick Brown, who has a fantastic sense of humor about all the things people take too seriously.


"Woman Sleeping in a Room Full of Hummingbirds"
by Derrick Brown


Teased by success.
We're like vampires in a tampon factory.
It doesn't have to be that way.

The only good monologue has mistakes.

I will read out of this book of drawings.
This is a book of lovers/freaks I tried to change.
I had new visions of them and tried to draw them all in a book.
The strange thing is... my drawings kind of look like you.

In some ways you look like the star of the wheelchair parade.
This one lover and I went everywhere in our wheelchairs.
I couldn't convince this lover that someday, I needed to stand on my own.
So it ended ugly and they rolled out of my life forever.

This is a self-portrait.
I drew myself as a Bengal Tiger smacked up out of its orange.
Pacing, just pacing until my next meal. Grrr.
Shading's a little off.
I call it "Hushing my legs out to the twilight poison
of h-h-h-hot bitch knife flavored lip gloss -in still life."
This was the point in my life where I babbled too much
and that shooed away inspiration.

I didn't have a grasp of what was happening to my heart
until after the first break up. I won't bore you with anything
but the necessary details but let's just say I was plowing anything
that smelled disinfected and didn't wear pookah shells.

I was fake.
I tried all kinds of leadership seminars
to shirk these feelings of being fake.

I started making lists to get the stripes back on the tiger.
I was watching my stripes slip from my spine,
laying there on the ground like a bunch of parentheses.
Not to sound self-righteous, but the lists became my glue to become myself again.

It was text I had crafted from a place I didn't ever know existed.
No bald headed philosophies. Just boot strap shit.

Go away therapy. Flush home pills. Make lists.
My lists started out strange.
When I got to the end of them,
I felt beautiful, but yes, they did start out strange.

#1. Do something rebellious to get out of your comfort zone.

My first graffiti art said, "Don't pierce your babies ears.
They don't like it and no one thinks it's cute except for you
and your friends with jet skis."
That felt pretty bitchin' and looked kinda gangsta in a Mormon sorta way.

#2. Write something down that is impossible and write it as possible.

It took me awhile but I came up with this little gem.

"Be on time."

There was a whole bunch I made, which are a bit embarrassing,
but the last one became my favorite.

#46. One day, when you are tired of being broken,
carefully strap little LED lights to hummingbirds,
at least 52 of them
and release the birds in your lover's bedroom at night.

When he or she asks what is going on,
tell him or her to be still,
lay there like idiots,
make some dumb wishes and enjoy your shooting stars.
The ones you made on your own.
Make endless wishes.

The birds can take it.







Next Post's Topic: Occupy Rochester