Manic Pixie Dream Blog

Wrong in an interesting way

Do I dare to list my lovers

the way I would list friends,

list what they’ve been to me

and I to them,

harp on deeds and undertakings,

eras in my life, my making?

Do I dare to list my lovers

as a canon of possessions

by their attributes and colors

on a box I’m moving nowhere,

yesterday’s obsessions?

Do I dare to list my lovers

like vain celebrities

who represent my lacks,

who are what I want to be,

into whose presence I dip my goals

until I crumble, full of holes?

Do I dare to list my lovers

as if they listened in,

elucidate for them

how false I’ve been?

Ah, but I feel that I’ve been true

to most — at least, more than a few —

and I’m not that girl —

at least, not now —

and what’s the point of it anyhow?

Seeing people you love dealing with debt is like seeing them battle a disease. It makes you want to take up arms.

#priorities

SAVING MONEY FOR

- Nyan Cat merchandise

- salt lamp(s)

- dogs/cats

- exercise classes

- aerial acrobatics classes

- large monitor

- new external HD

- legit webcam

- meatspace cam

- new computer

- smartphone

- car repairs

- new bicycle

- LASIK

- laser hair removal

- scar removal

- Mayo Clinic physical

- travel

- ability to attend festivals

- ability to splurge on spa treatments

- costumes and stripperesque apparel

- complete financial independence

ranting on my blog in a barely coherent manner like a boss

Things that piss me off:

- The slow demise of trick-or-treating

- KTRU off the airwaves

- Baker 13 making dumb mistakes that will get them banned

- Pretty much every awesome quirky senior privilege being banned at my high school, half of them before I was a senior (and I’d been planning for Prank Day for years, guys)

- The slate gray paint job over the inspiring quotes once painted in the rafters of the halls of my high school (one of these things is not like the other, and it’s this one, but damn it, I loved those quotes)

- The fact that kids of all ages can’t seem to garner any respect

- The fact that it’s their fault as much as it is their parents’

Things that make me happy:

- The fact that I know it feels to skin my knees, nearly fall off a cliff, climb a waterfall backwards, zip down a homemade zipline into a mudpie, swordfight on the roof with sticks, wander through fields in the rain, and run down a sidewalk in the dark wearing a costume and holding way too much candy.

Those of you who are having kids now, please try to let them have a little old-fashioned fun now and then. The streets aren’t that much more dangerous than they ever were. Nothing is.

I remember when I felt this way. It was very nice. But now I feel that there are too many of us. I feel that each of us is a bit too insignificant. This feeling is not so nice.

I remember when I felt this way. It was very nice. But now I feel that there are too many of us. I feel that each of us is a bit too insignificant. This feeling is not so nice.

before film

Tonight I started pondering how life might have been different before photography and video. Think about growing up and how you watched your own home videos and flipped through your family’s albums — at least, if you were like me — watching yourself grow. And the familiar startle of seeing yourself as you were or — even more startling — seeing someone close to you as they once were, especially if you hadn’t in a while. I came upon some video snippets from an old point-and-shoot recently. Most of them are terrible — I had a bad habit of mixing up “record” and “stop recording,” so it’s mostly the off moments — but they still brought back years-old realities with alarming clarity. To relive the past in this way is so common now. Before film, people could only do it through writing and painted portraits, and usually only if they were pretty well-to-do. 

Imagine early daguerrotypes and photos in the nineteenth century and the earliest films at the beginning of the twentieth — experimental shots of daily life or bawdy silent jokes. How must it have felt to see yourself on film for the first time, for those who had the privilege? I guess they were so involved in the evolution of the medium that it wasn’t shocking, inundated as they were. But remember the first time you ever saw a photo of one of your grandparents young? I dunno … maybe there’s not a point to be made here. I’m thinking aloud (kind of). I just … as much as I sometimes feel that the best art is the oldest and the closest to nature — painting, for example, and music — I adore film. I guess that’s what I really have to say.

I should piece those snippets together sometime.

Wait, I remember the rest. Okay, so imagine BEFORE all of that. Before photos and film were an option at all. Imagine growing up without looking back on yourself. Would our senses of self have been more solid back then? Would we have forgotten more, and maybe for the better? Or has nothing really changed?

I guess not much has changed. After all, letters were written and portraits were painted, and people relived the past that way. But I can’t shake the feeling that staring into the chemical or digital likeness of a person is a sort of magic that reveals something else entirely. Candid moments. Smirks an average painter might have overlooked. Asymmetry. Fear. Joy. I dunno. A few painters captured that, and a few writers, and they were masters. But now it’s so easy.

Then again, now we fake ourselves in photos, too. So what are we looking back on? Two memories. “I looked good then. I remember how I wanted to seem in this photo, but looking back, I know I was exhausted and sad.” Someday will I forget the truth and look back and see only the picture? Should I?

Help?

There are so many things I want to write about, Tumblr. I want to write about the seasons. I want to write about how weight discrimination plays into racism. I want to write about my admiration for punk porn starlets. I want to write feminist film reviews and reflect on my childhood while somehow making my reflections relevant to others’ lives in the present. I want to write things I don’t feel comfortable expressing in sentence-long snippets on social networks. I want to list all the ideas I’ve ever had that I remembered to email to myself. I want to tell you my birthday list for all time. Let’s talk about nightmares and country songs and the sexualization of authors and the nocebo effect and why I love architecture and what’s hot or not about Austin and everything that’s wrong with bright headlights and Barbie Princess Charm School: The Movie and everything that’s right about hard work when you’re passionate about it and the morning sun in maple syrup in early fall and tree leaves past a porch screen. Just please, Tumblr, do SOMETHING to get me to write here. I can’t seem to do it on my own when the world’s always telling me to do something else. 

And for the love of all that is holy, someone give me a damn iPhone and some unitards.

“For a limited time, get 2% cash back at Sunglass Hut using your debit card.”

How popular could these bank promotions possibly be? “Sweet, $98 instead of $100 means I’ll definitely drive the extra fifteen minutes to Sunglass Hut despite its shitty Yelp reviews!”

*Edit: Apparently Sunglass Hut has decent Yelp reviews and a billion locations. Fine, Chase. Fine. 2% cash back it is.

Transfer Accelerator: Giant Slide in a Train Station

[link above]

Reading The Color Purple and feeling like God is everywhere. God is definitely in this train station slide. For all we know, God IS this train station slide.

Nah, I didn’t sleep much last night. It’s cool.