It's Not so Black and White

Suli Breaks is a spoken word artist from the UK, best known for his videos and poems on our education system. Yesterday, he released a new video responding to the Eric Garner verdict.

It's Not so Black and White (R.I.P. Eric Garner)

"The only reason they allow us to oppose the violence, stating that it's 'racially motivated,' is that's the only way we remain segregated...saying that it's 'racially motivated' makes everyone else feel like as long as they're not black, they're safe." 

"We need to acknowledge that in the eyes of this system, we are all black." 

***

Other than sharing news articles, I've been avoiding speaking out too much about the police brutality cases going on nationwide. I haven't felt like it's my place to do so. I grew up in an area that is, according to the 2010 census, 94.5% white, and very affluent. I went to a private Catholic college. I currently live in New England (in a town that is 93.4% white.) So, yeah, not my place to speak up in a conversation that's almost entirely about race or low socioeconomic standing. I have been happy to remain on the sidelines and cheer. 

Like that

And from conversations I've both heard and read, that seems to be the general consensus of what "Allies" are supposed to do in these circumstances. I hear it all the time from my peers in the LGBTetc. community -- cishets can't fight our fights. There is no "A for Ally" in our acronym, they belong in the background. Same goes for feminism -- "No uterus, no opinion!" We have a tendency to attack anyone who doesn't share our exact experiences for daring to voice anything at all related to those experiences, even sometimes if it's to ask questions or lend support. 

I understand those perspectives. Certainly an ally should never be at the top of their fighting ranks. They should never deign to speak for whichever group they're supporting. But...Allies aren't just background people. They're not just there to add numbers to your ranks and hold signs and bang drums. Allies fight. WWII would have ended completely differently if Allies didn't talk to each other, share tactics, and fight alongside each other. 

I'd like to also point out an secondary definition for the word ally:

"Biology. a plant, animal, or other organism bearing an evolutionary relationship to another, often as a member of the same family:

The squash is an ally of the watermelon." (x) 

If you're an ally, an true ally, you deserve a seat at the table with the rest of the family. 

It's not all black/white, gay/straight, cis/trans, man/woman. We need to cut these bullshit dichotomies' throats and stop separating when we should be uniting against a system that treats us all the same. 

We're all human. It's time we stand together. 

The Holidays are Upon Us!

As such, Meg and I decorated our first Christmas tree together last night! Have a look!

Yes, it's tiny and sits above our TV (and next to my piggy bank) but it's a Christmas tree with real actual ornaments on it! Hooray for us!

Bella (our cat) did not appreciate this tiny addition to our home when the decorating first began, and I was worried that a double homicide may have been imminent.  She refused to look at Meg and gave her the silent treatment for quite some time! (It is during this point that I assume Bella was plotting our murders.) 

But then Meg fed her dinner. I think the danger is over. 

***

Not much else to report of late. I've been picking up a bunch of extra shifts at work, which has been welcome. I've gotten to the point now where many customers can request their "usual" from me, and I know what drink they mean. Huzzah! 

I've also noticed people's tendency to tell me random things about their lives while I'm fixing their drinks. (Maybe I should look into being a bartender after my barista days are done?) I will leave you with the most amusing example from the past few days:

A woman told me she was going to go home and add some vodka to her mocha before she had to head over to an "annoyingly long" meeting at the local school.

Sounds like a fabulous way to stay warm during this winter chill to me :D

Happy Holidays, everyone!

-K

Turning the Pages

I'll be honest, I have no idea what to write about today. I just know that I need to write, and that today is scheduled to be a blogging day.

Yesterday was a Storymatic day. Are you familiar with Storymatic? It's a writing prompt tool. It has two sets of cards, one representing characters and the other representing scenarios. You draw two of each and come up with a story. A couple days / week, my 500 words will be drawn from storymatic cards. Yesterday taught me that I won't necessarily finish a story in 500 words (nor will I have the energy to write much more than that in one sitting...Yet!), but I'll continue the story over several days of writing if I have to and draw new cards when the first tale is done.

Yesterday, I drew the character cards of "Witness" and "One who is bullied." My other two cards were "Homesick" and "An inconvenient phobia." I came up with a character named Max Greeley who's dad runs a summer  camp. Max just turned 8, and it's his first year being able to attend the camp. He's being bullied a bit one his first day by his cabin mate, Nate, who found out he can really irritate Max by mentioning the fact that Max's father runs the camp. Their cabin councilor, Ashton, is going to play a role in the story, but I'm not sure what yet. He's just kind of...creepy, guess. For now. I'm pretty sure he has an interesting relationship with Mr. Greeley, Max's dad.

I'm hoping that the more I make myself write anything, something every day, the easier it will be to access the thoughts that I know I actually want to write about. I don't know why I can't access them immediately. It's like I have a sea of crap in between them and the thoughts that are currently escaping my head. The more important ones need to cook more, maybe. Or I just have to learn how to get this crap out before I can trust myself with other things. I'm not really sure what's happening. I just know that I have more to say than I'm currently able to.  I'm not sure what to do about it yet, but I'm hoping that taking this one small action towards being able to get my thoughts down again will help. I've also been making sure to journal a little something every day, which has been very helpful. I carry it and a few books with me pretty much everywhere I go.

Other than my writing block, I'm bopping along just fine...I work in an hour and a half, so naturally I'm still cocooned  in bed with a bowl of cereal. (Even though I work on Sundays, I still deserve a lazy Sunday morning!) I have lofty plans of buying some cat litter after work tonight, and maybe drinking some cheap wine or something...who knows.

One thing I do know is that I've successfully written at least 500 words for the past three days, and if that's not progress, I don't know what is :)

-K

It's Time

Trigger Warning: I'm going to be talking about my experience with anxiety and depression. If you don't want to read about my mental struggles, I completely understand and urge you to turn back now.

*  *  *

I've been falling through darkness for a while now. When I was a junior in college, I was floating in a pool one night, staring up into a starless, rainy Puerto Rican sky and I realized...I had no clue what I was doing in this life I was leading. And nobody up in that black sky was reaching their hand down to help me. That thought paralyzed me. I got drunk later that night and sobbed over the feeling of security I had suddenly lost. 

I wonder where I'd be right now if that thought, and the much darker ones that followed, hadn't taken over my brain for so long in college. 

I honestly thought I started getting over it after I came out of the closet a bit in the second semester of my senior year. I thought the darkness had passed and I'd be able to move on. I even started thinking about going to Law School and Studying for the LSAT! I got really busy with work and didn't end up taking the test, but I was also doing really well at work. And I loved my job at the time. 

But then my anxiety slapped me in the face again with a full-fledged breakdown this past February. (You can ask Meg about it, I don't remember much of what happened.) My frequent panic attacks came back worse than they were two years ago. I started hating my job and my life and never wanted to get out of bed. I only did because I felt like if I ever took sick days at work, all of my coworkers would despise me -- that pressure was slightly greater than my desire to cocoon myself away. (Most days.) 

There came a point this summer, though, that I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't get through a work day without either crying or having a panic attack. Burnt out at 22, I left my first post-grab job. 

I've spent the past several months getting some much needed R&R and realigning my headspace. I'm doing a lot better, but I have a lot of free time now that I'm not accustomed to. And rather than letting myself sleep or netflix it away like I want to, I'm going to be yanking myself the rest of the way out of this goddnamn depression by adding some structure into my un-scheduled life. I tried halfheartedly to do this last month and failed, but I'm going in with a pre-made plan of attack this time. 

From now until the Dec 20, I'm going to be writing at least 500 words / day, not necessarily a blog post every day, I do have other projects I'm working on, so don't expect daily updates here. I'm going to be doing some sort of exercise every day, be it ballet barre work, running, yoga, or something else. 

I'm detailing this plan here so that I have a whole bunch of people to hold me accountable. 

Expect frequent updates :) 

(If you don't get them at least weekly, you are allowed to pester me.) 

Here's to the next month! 

<3

One last thing -- If anyone read this post and wondered why I didn't talk to them about this while it was going on, I'm sorry. I'm only now learning how to put it into words. 

I Just Learned a Thing!

I have always been in love with water. There's just something about that medium that's freeing to me in a way that air never will be. I move too quickly for air, you see. It's too thin to contain me, so I end up looking wild and jerky whenever I move. Water is thicker. It holds me in place more firmly, caresses me, even, and allows me to take on the guise of grace. I've always been oddly buoyant, too, so I can float in water while exerting no effort. It's the only place I can fully relax all of my muscles -- laying in a bed doesn't feel as good as floating, raftless, through a lazy river.

Here's another, more interesting way that water and I are related: Water let's me see. Most of you probably know that air doesn't let me see very easily. I've had glasses since I was nine months old. One of the main things that's wrong with my vision is that when I fully relax, my left eye crosses. (This is due to an eye condition called esotropia, which for me is a combination of muscle/focusing issues.) Obviously, when my eye crosses, things go blurry. Oddly enough, when I go under water and open my eyes, my vision isn't blurry, and my eyes aren't crossed. (Obviously the water acts like a lens, but why does it have my prescription?!) It's bizarre, and I've never fully understood it.

Until now! 

I've started watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey on Netflix. This show is a 2014  reboot of Carl Sagan's show Cosmos that aired in 1980.   I had it described to me once as "Discovery Channel's Planet Earth -- But for EVERYTHING!" And, well, that's a very accurate description. I'm 26 minutes into the second episode, and I've had more mind explosions than I care to recount. I'm ready to go back to Episode 1, pull out a notebook, and take notes. 

Anyways, I just learned about the evolution of the eye, nothing I've ever really thought about before. As it turns out, the eye evolved to help our long, long, long, loooong ago ancestors to survive while they were still only living in water. The first creatures didn't venture out onto land until after the evolution of the eyeball. And, as previously mentioned, water acts like a lens. It bends light. So, when our ancestors first ventured out of water and onto land, they couldn't really see here either! 

So, considering that, evolutionarily speaking, humans haven't been around that long, I guess maybe I just have slightly under-evolved eyeballs. Somehow, characteristics of my eyes survived from the times when we were seeing underwater through today. 

Lucky me :) 

Hey!

Hey Y'all!

I'm alive!  As Kara said in her last post we got really really busy.  It was kind of insane actually how much busier I am now then I thought I was going to be in August.

With the start of November, we ended Phase One at school.  Annnnnnddddddddddd... the moment you've all been waiting for :

My Phase One Final Portfolio~

 Environmental Portrait

(Model credit goes to Gracie from my old dance studio North Country School of Dance!)

Asymmetrical Portrait

(Model Credit goes to Abby Rae also from NCSD!)

                           Showing Motion                                                          Freezing Motion

(Model Credit goes to Sydney, again, from NCSD)          (Model Credit goes to Abi from Hallmark)

Product Shot on Location

                           Shooting with similar colors                  Shooting with contrasting colors
                          (If you didn't know...that's Kara)                     (So's this!)

Outdoor Portrait

Self Portrait

(Don't you just love when old dance costumes come in handy?)

So, there you have it.  These ten photos are my Phase One Final Portfolio.  Kara was a doll and let me photograph her and we had a good time finding pretty locations and making sure each and every picture worked for my assignment.  I had a lot of fun shooting this assignment and even though I was super stressed out (because we had one week to shoot this) I'm glad that everything fell into place.

I hope to be a little more active on the blog again now that Phase Two has started.  And I hope you like my work!

<3

Meg

Hello, again!

Hey!

As you may have noticed, this blog went absent for quite some time. A lot of that had to do with the fact that Meg and I moved into a new apartment and got busy, and then it had to do with the fact that we didn't install wifi until a few weeks ago, and then I had to spend a lot of time figuring out a standard schedule for myself so that I can do adult things like work and laundry, as well as child things like watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix!

But I'm here and I'm still queer ready to actually try out this writing-things-down-for-all-to-see thing more regularly.

I'm not sure how present Meg will be, since she's really busy with her photo program, but we'll at least be sure to get some of her pictures up here for ya'll to see on occasion. I, on the other hand, work at a coffee shop that's a two minute walk away from my apartment...You'll be hearing from me again soon.

:)