saml

In love and war

2008-08-20T07:11:00Z

Not careless feuds weaved jaggedly through,

But sadness entrapped by a differing view

That could be love’s plight to surface- lodged by abrasions.

Emotions rumble and pang under doubt’s hesitations.

Standards and roles muddy his lens

So I’m bound by ideals and these cultural trends.

And asserting my wrongs seems wholly impure

When it hurts to stand up for a self that’s unsure.

But to not stand at all, just hurts even more

Insecurities affirmed and I’m torn when insulted,

Condemn or avow this self that resulted?

Still I believe- as one small earthbound creature

That bruises within are a man’s greatest feature

A girl sullied in filth, a hell-fallen whore

Who’s disgraced and defaced, loved never before

Yes her heart is still fragile; her flesh soft to the touch

She bears her burdens yet for you him it’s too much.

He bites through her lips still Truth never dies

The girl that man loves, is the one men despise

And to similar greed she is victim as well

Fending apathy cast by the cultural spell:

No empathy due for a girl of that sort!

-But she’s angry too and her temper’s as short

Like her, his breed’s damned, unable to court:

He’s the self centered man who judges for sport.

Inflated egos plague this elitist male sex!

Sorting reason from treason make this battle complex

Impassionate touching; shivered unsanctioned truth

For we hurt when exposing the scars of our youth

We fight to be worthy; choices rightfully made

We prove and we prove in concealed masquerade

Being judged makes me riled, and its ironic defense

Is condemn twice as hard on judgmental pretence

If I beg to be studied then I must do the same

For existence of tension will not yield to blame

I will prod at your boundaries with privilege we share

And you have license to mine-

As in love all is fair

I miss turning on the TV and having to channel surf immediately from the New York 1 station.

2008-07-31T20:42:00Z

Still, all in all I realized I’m having a really good summer. School’s almost out and I’m this close to vacationing in my beloved NYC. But California wasn’t as bad as I expected. I spent most weekdays living in San Francisco hotels to be closer to school and hanging out with my one and only friend. He also happens to be my boyfriend and who wouldn’t want a private summer getaway in the city with their boyfriend? It’s a pretty nice life.

The work wasn’t bad either. My Art looks better than ever, my blog is suffering a bit, but I’m still writing for a creative non-fiction course.

Sorry, there’s always more to say. But I don’t have time quite yet. Just know I’m happy. And after four years of terrible high school summers, I’ve finally had a good one. Adolescence is really hard but it gets better- life becomes much less conflicting. People don’t have to feel like that for the rest of their lives.

I couldn’t go all of July without a single blog post!!

2008-07-29T01:03:00Z

I want to let my extensive following know that I’m doing really well. I’m writing, making art, and catching up on all the credits I withdrew from during first semester. I’ll have sophomore standing by the time I start school in August. I’m working on some long term projects… hopefully… I just haven’t had tons of revelations I feel inclined to share. I’m in a relationship now, but still few prolific words of wisdom. I have learned a lot, I think, about myself and my interpersonal skills. But I still have yet to articulate them fully. But here’s a taste of the post pubescent psycho Babel referred to in Charlie Bartlett: Revealing and guarding yourself can be a tricky balancing act. And sometimes it’s beneficial to go with the more counter intuitive route. As much as I scream at the top of my lungs that me, in all my quirks and abrasive remarks, is worthy of affection. There are two people in a relationship. And if I expect a person to act counter intuitively, to listen and be open minded to ideas and experiences that he or she is not comfortable with, than shouldn’t I be willing to act counter-intuitively too?

I think a lot of entering relationships has to with proximity and the right set of circumstances. But as much as I would like to believe in uncensored expression- there is a malleable, but still present social standard. I think at some point everyone realizes that no one is quite the person they readily expose, but never the less what one chooses to expose says something about their true character. It’s complicated… I’ll try to figure it out later. Right now I have more work to do.

Until next time

Ahh... I just realized I have so many unfinished blogs to post.

Still attempting to be poetic

2008-06-30T03:48:00Z

Through Kinks

My lips lightly pressing swelling clouds

Soothing drums like rain drops my eyelids shut

Sometimes

I never want to open them

Emotions, moods, transition like fabric sheets

Unfolded, Tossing, turning but finely threaded still

Warm Skin, Wet Skin,

Rigid, resilient, rough…

Vivid breaths, colors, sounds, thoughts, -

Consume every stone mile of us

Bones intertwined

Hearts repel like northern magnet charge

Devouring Depowering and harrowing

Invisible to the naked thy

I do forget that I can’t hide

But you don’t stop

I…

Never mind

Seize me in fists full of flesh

And kiss me

I’m close

“I’m not a rapper I’m an entity" and other random thoughts

2008-06-23T06:24:00Z

-John Brown (white rapper show)

Sometimes I find that limbo burns between fire and cotton smoke. The texture soothes like plastic ocean shores or ripples in a waving flag. If purgatory sits between than why is indifference hotter still? Eyes in an irrevocable dehydrated sting Inevitable upon approach Yet there’s always time to sneak a squinted glimpse however it may burn And there it is; not light nor smog but a moving liquid screen Whipping and smothering rapids in the air Why is it? and how can it be captured in description? If she is nothing but an alteration to the atmosphere But a curious illusion with very little substance to speak of

My family likes to spoil

Self sacrifice reigns

Seeing others smile- knowing it was our doing

It's How we feel alive, powerful, significant…

Is it so much to ask that someone care- not just go through the motions and say what they’re supposed to say and supposed to want so their rewarded with what their supposed to get. Is it so much to ask not to be treated like a variable in an equation to be evaluated and perhaps used for the final product. Why must I prove myself worthy can’t I be loved simply because I am lovable. Why are people so hesitant to wing it as if they really had a choice?

I think that the chemistry of emotional attachment is minuscule compared to the blown out Intellectual proportion. That when we think of how much we will miss any given object actually- we would deeply feel very little of its absence. When one values and explores their internal world- externalaties have but little impact. If we can accept that everything is transitory, ourselves included, and we can love at a distance aware of the inevitable goodbye. If we can stand strong and detach ourselves from the urge to cling and grope- we might realize that life is so much more enjoyable when we’re not afraid to lose it. I do understand the impulse to repel from uncertainty and the insecurity that risk provokes. But I do believe if we think there is another option we’re kidding ourselves and robbing ourselves of the natural experience-induced high.

Why am I so out of it?? Part three: Realizing that it’s futile to speak of killing time

2008-06-15T01:57:00Z

I’ve been sick for about a month now and I’m pretty certain it’s from tripping. I won’t be specific because it’s irrelevant but I do, despite popular belief, consider this said chemical to be a hard drug. It is the cheapest, most accessible, most disregarded drug of our time but in my experience- fucks you up more unlike any other. Ironic, right?

It’s been a while since I’ve digressed into that culture and really it’s because I no longer care to seek it out. But my new ex-rehabilitated neighboring object of sexual tension did, and he had nothing but time. So with him I digressed.

After the enlightening Facebook conversation with the previously mentioned friend and victim, my new neighbor called and we met mid-campus in the rain. I was stilled embarrassed from relentlessly patronizing his life of chasing highs and I also wanted to tell him he could talk to me, he could be honest with me, I wanted to help him like I wanted someone to help my former self or prove that she could have been helped with a little effort. So we talked but instead of sober bonding we went on a little mind trip.

We tripped one day and we tripped another; the second time harder and more substantial all the while watching the first ever Land Before Time. I think he pointed to the grandpa brontosaurus and said “He’s G-d.” To which I responded “Yes that’s Karl Marx.” I remember trying to stand and feeling that the acceleration of gravity had increased tremendously- my cheeks felt heavy. I remember walking, stomping shakily, one foot in front of the other in an exigent production… And I contemplated death watching the Christmas lights, thriftily decorating the wooden sublet floors, flickering like pearls of fire.

“Where is everybody?” My detached consciousness wondered. “There is no one here but us” it answered itself. But I felt the presence of others all around tenaciously protecting me from confronting akwardness, boredom, and the pointless inevitable dystopia of significantly altered states.

With the lights on- my vision was coated in pink-white noise. And without them graphic-novel blacks and whites conquered every form. And it wouldn’t go away. “When will this end?” I begged him. “I don’t know.” And then he said hesitantly “Hopefully soon.” We kids never like to admit when we find something elevated in status and deemed cool unpleasant, when we’ve had enough, or when we can’t take it anymore. To not bask in the coolness of cool is to not ourselves be cool and therefore most, especially those who spend their time treasure hunting for highs, would rather self-deceptively believe in their divinity.

“This is it.” I said to him. “This is what we’re doing now.” “Drugs are so stupid.”

I realized I had just spent my night being fucked up- hallucinating as if plagued by mania, unable to process as if mentally inadequate, dizzy, delusional, and anxious, overcome in unfounded worry, moving like heavy liquidity- and begging for it to stop.

But low and behold- no off switch.

I had voluntarily swallowed insanity. A new state of being- yes, a break from reality- yes, but insanity none the less. I would surely not want to be stuck this way I noted as that very fear began to percolate inside. I much prefer the ease, the torment, the malaise, the exhilaration, and the anxiety of living- real living.

That being said- I did come to feel the validity of that realization while under the influence of drugs. Remember I have been in rehab, I have participated in and seen the hollow depths of anti-substance propaganda but never have I confronted the truth with such rigorous honesty before that night.

-Which leads me to believe there is something to be said for altering one’s perceptions; looking at oneself through the intoxicated mind’s eye drenched in world-shifting chemicals. There is something to be said for escaping natural tendencies, ways of thinking and short-circuiting one’s neurological wiring to the point where judgment does not have the dexterity to latch onto previously engrained biases. There is truth to be seen in a distorted mirror- especially if one’s mind has already distorted the greater culturally accepted facts of doing hard drugs. Perhaps a negative view compromised by a negative substance would have a positive result?

Do not misunderstand; I am not promoting drugs, I am merely presenting an effect of their consumption: What one chooses to think about is often very different form the options presented in waking life. And the persistent compulsions in which trains of thought are pursued are often untainted by previously accepted truths. It’s as if the breaks installed by societal norms are temporarily out of order. And whether that’s frightening, liberating, or hilarious in can open you up to a new way of seeing.

It had occurred to me before, that drugs were cool: Both because my peers told me so and because society, run by rich, tired, old, fat, sex-deprived, self-important white men, frowned upon them. It occurred to me that drugs where fun because Hollywood glamorized a culture of high-chasing gorgeous youths and because the anti-drug campaigns tried really hard to make the consequences look compelling- therefore one could only rationalize that the procurements were perhaps equally or more compelling. But without the dexterity of mind to summon these biases- I could honestly reflect on my inebriated experience while inebriated.

What I realized like an anvil on the brain was that I was ingesting temporary retardation paired with mania. Some symptoms I was experiencing are frighteningly parallel to symptoms that would come with a hybrid schizophrenia- Alzheimer’s. And while I think that gazing through the eyes of a Schizophrenic would be a life-changing learning experience I would not willing try to cause myself full-blown mental derangement too often.

Furthermore, It is my belief that if there were more efforts made to expose the stupidity of drugs [the here give me 20 dollars for a mystery bag made of g-d-knows-what that will *** you up so bad you forget how to tie your shoes] rather than the compelling life-threatening dangers only a carefree badass would overlook- that counter culture would not be so quick to accept getting fucked up as cool.

To be continued (it’s too fucking hot to keep writing in this room- rrrr I could kill my father and his air-condition installing procrastination) …

Trabajo Con Perros

2008-06-13T19:32:00Z

This will all be gone one day…

Molecular structure

Generated in Situ

In German it translates to wetlands

Though it refers to nothing geological

Even Planck time

Most active enzyme need only be five amino acids long

Existence is beautiful

Is it not liberating to worship that in all its fortuitous glory?

- Samantha L.

p.s. Just got microsoft word- will post new writing soon

Pretty Certain I'm alive

2008-06-03T03:35:00Z

Although it doesn't feel like it. I'm such a mess. Trapped in California... Seriously, trapped!!! I live two miles from anything even remotely stimulating and I don't have a drivers license. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRoar.

No cigarettes!!! No Cigerettes!! No Cigerettes!! Have to take care of my health. Hardly a fix to speak of...

Can't even write, have to wait for my Microsoft office to come... My 60 day trial expired.

I'm going to burst out of my skin. So fucking angsty. Need a shower...

Thanks for listening

XOXO,

Saml

Why am I so out of it?? Part two: I opt for excitement cautiously

2008-05-22T00:54:00Z

When I said goodbye to this mutual victim from college- I cried. That doesn’t happen to me often and I certainly wasn’t expecting it. I’m usually so ambivalent when it comes to goodbyes. For me, change doesn’t register until it has fully manifested itself, slapped me in the face and shook me from my disbelieving stupor.

But if it was anybody who deserved my tears it was him. [G-d knows my other close friend from college provoked them often enough]. This was the guy who sat there with me and listened; Who never turned me away when I asked for his compassion; Who went out of his way to make sure I was alright. And you have no idea how fucked up our relationship got, how hormones and broken hearts complicated our bond, how radically different upbringings made our understandings clash, and how gender roles muddied our perspective. But he never gave up on “us”. He always made it clear that he valued me as a person, as a friend, and every other facet paled in comparison. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so loved or that I was completely ready to embrace and trust that kind of sincerity, especially from boy. But he was patient with me. He always listened and tried to ride with me on my trains of thought. Our conversations were deep and complex and he helped me to shed light on the errors in my thinking. Perhaps I did the same for him (although I don’t think he would ever admit to any). I tried to be there for him when he needed me and he expressed gratitude more than any friend I’ve ever had. But I can’t help but feel he’s given so much more to me than I have to him, even though with deep appreciation he tries to steer me from that conclusion.

He’s amazing. A seemingly typical cynical macho college guy with a heart capable of the purest care I have ever known.

That being said, I do often right off his advice as over-moralistic and unnecessarily safe. It’s not so much him as it is cognitive dissonance: At the end of the day I do what I want and my brain makes sure that I have at least a semi-sensible justification.

So I did see the boy from the bohemian love triangle. He called one night drunk and nearby and I was eager to share with him the recent online conversation with MVT. We sat on campus and smoked cigarettes- I think we were both afraid of the occurring interaction.

We got along so well- mostly. Until a week or so before I decided to be drunk and self centered and tell him exactly who I thought he was. I channeled my mentality when I was compulsively using and I described the criminal that I was, only attaching his name to my former qualities.

He knew; he called me on my bullshit the same way I called him on his. We knew. We know people and after countless experiences of watching ourselves and others in the midst of psychoanalysis- I think we realize that human motivation if often quite predictable. So he saw right through me but he didn’t quite understand why I chose to patronize him that night or where my anger came from.

Neither did I.

Yes I was angry at my former self, yes I was angry at the people who never tried to call me on my bullshit, yes I did wish to spare the other girl hurt that came from naively lending him trust he did not deserve. But what I later discovered after much self-reflection was that on a superficial level (which is actually deeper when it comes to interacting with bohemians as they’re used to discussing sobering truths but not so much the simple ones) I just wanted to interact with him. I wanted to spar, I wanted to play, I wanted to tease and to prove myself all without having to compromise my friendship with the other girl from the triangle. In fact, I may have managed to reinforce our friendship with my tactless condescending exposé.

Sounds manipulative, doesn’t it? It is. It’s disgustingly manipulative but know that I did believe my words. Know I did believe he didn’t value her best interest as much as he should have because of his adrenaline addict priorities. Know I did think that he was blatantly lying to her by making false promises and letting her believe every word.

It’s just one night I felt the drunken impulse to call him out in front of her, realizing only later how much it worked in my favor. And I think I felt confident that mine and his relationship could take the heat as it was based almost entirely on discussing ugly truths.

But I’m done with the honesty game- because that’s really all it is when it’s uncalled for. I think the three of us, to some extent, have adopted this philosophy not to say anything about a person that we wouldn’t say to a person. And I think sometimes we get caught up in the power struggle of proving our authenticity. He exposed her opinions of me both in and out of her presence. She exposed him. I exposed her. I exposed him. I knew she exposed me privately to him. And so I assumed he exposed me to her.

I don’t know why it was jarring to think that I couldn’t trust him with secrecy when I knew she couldn’t. Ok, that’s a lie I do. I wanted to believe our alliance was stronger but I also knew it was absurd and hypocritical to count on it.

Part of my anger at him was a reaction to that realization.

But he’s a good guy. Today I trust that his compassion for me is genuine and I think he knows I truly care about him: Whatever that means.

I enjoyed the time I spent with him so much and the history he chose to share with me. I enjoyed our platonic experience on drugs, intensely watching one man’s theory of religion. I enjoyed the next day half wittedly reminiscing about Thunder Cats and VR Troopers while I wore his only mildly roomy clothes. I enjoyed saying hello and goodbye to my closest friends and then leaning on his shoulder for support. I enjoyed wandering with him to Chipotle speaking and walking like crack heads (I wonder if he remembers that my eyebrows were unusually dark?).

I enjoyed the drama caused when the other girl jealously caught us hanging out and I technically had nothing to feel guilty about. I enjoyed it when she asked us what we’ve been up to. And he replied “O you know just waiting.” To which I chimed in with my best soprano “Waiting on the world to change.” And all three of us continued singing.

And most of all I enjoyed waiting for four hours with him, while she was in a meeting, in “our” abandoned soon-to-be demolished dormitory as we babysat the last of our belongings and reminded each other of the trippy events taking place: Seniors returning to vandalize their transitory freshmen home.

And when she came back and they interacted- I respectfully stepped aside. I realized I didn’t know him at all, at least not with the intimacy that she did. And I let myself finally confront the fact that maybe I was wrong. That maybe her feelings were of some consequence to him and that it would hurt to hurt her. They’re almost perfect strangers to me and their hearts aren’t familiar enough to mend. My mistrust of their intentions is a reflection of my skepticism and is not the absolute truth about their character; Although, I will not discount the validity of my observations and reflections.

The bottom line is you can understand basic psychology and have a good eye for unconscious motivation. You can project onto others every observed detail of your own nature and learn a tremendous about human nature in general. But to understand how a person works; the organic desires that haunt them and how they go about fulfillment is only a fraction of their humanity. A person is yes, the desires they act on, but also the ones they’re to afraid of. A person is where they’ve been both a year ago and a decade ago. A person is their favorite childhood TV show and their current best friends. A person is their anger, their sadness, their shame, their hopes, their fears… the way they hug, the way they choose to wear their hair.

A person is what you see in them but more so, what they see in themselves. Because we can never wholly see what another person sees; we are after all, solitary prisoners in our own minds.

Ironically this revelation occurred to me while under the influence which brings us back full circle, to the original topic for discussion: The hard hitting truth about drugs.

To be continued…