Currently listening to "The Happiest Christmas Tree" by Nat King Cole. Coming from a Christmas and jazz music aficionado, this is probably the single worst Christmas song I've ever heard. Ever.
So these past few days, I've been spending time with my sisters in Davis. They work during the day, come home tired in the afternoon, and take me out at night. I wake up early, make breakfast for them, lounge around an unfamiliar apartment for a while, make lunch when they get back, and like the excited little child I am, go out with them after a tedious day of nothing, really. We come home, I make dinner, we watch a romantic comedy, chat about how unrealistic some films can be (but secretly wish otherwise), and go to sleep. Boring, right? No, not really. As unbecoming as it is for a woman in the 21st century to enjoy the likes of a housewife (read the description of my typical day again), I actually really like it. I like caring for my sisters, I like seeing a warm look of satisfaction and gratitude replace the glazed stare of hunger and weariness after a long day at work, I quietly swell up with pride when they ecstatically devour my home-cooked meals and are immediately re-energized to embark on a rainy night journey with me into downtown Davis. I repeat, as unbecoming as it is for a woman in the 21st century to enjoy the likes of a housewife, I wouldn't mind being a housewife (for how long, is the question). Not to say I don't want to get a job or be economically independent or anything of the sort. No, I sure as hell would, but I think being a housewife appeals to me because I like helping other people, and loving them, and sacrificing a little of myself for them. I like caring for other people, especially when the feeling is mutual, and in many ways, I've lost that feeling ever since I got to LA. In LA, I feel like everything is, in the words of the Beatles, "I, Me, Mine". I study for me. I do this for me. I do that for me. I feel so fucking selfish all the time. Don't get me wrong, there are people I really care about in LA, and while I can't be there for them all the time, I show them through little actions, like cooking for them, spending time with them, helping them study, playing a song for them, surprising them on their birthdays, walking to their apartment at 3:00 am in the morning to be with them, etc etc., you get the idea. And while I don't verbally express a lot of my sentiments (I'm extremely guarded with my feelings, it's not a very good trait), I show people they mean a lot to me through these actions, and if they're perceptive enough, they know I care. But my point is, I haven't found anyone in LA I would give 110% of myself to. I haven't found anyone I would drop my books for to do something as simple as, say, watch the sun rise or the rain fall. I haven't found anyone I would share my whole heart, body, and mind with. I suspect that's what one would call "love." And even though I personally haven't been in love, I miss that feeling. I know, you're probably thinking, that doesn't make any sense, because how could I miss something I've never felt? Well, then, maybe I have been in love, but I highly doubt that. I think I've been close to falling in love, but I don't think I could fall in love with someone who'd knowingly love me just for a day. And shit, with both sappy fairytale definitions and heartbroken "been there, done that" definitions of "love" being thrown at you left and right, who can really tell what love is nowadays? Nay, not me.
On a lighter note, I welcome you to: http://yummypicks.blogspot.com. My mantra: food and music make anything better.
Tactfully,
T.J.
martes, 22 de diciembre de 2009
domingo, 20 de diciembre de 2009
I Was Kind of Tired When I Wrote This
Now you're a little bit of a letdown
Like the shady stars of a polluted night sky
Like the stars that do not exist
when you search and search,
but do exist when you stop looking.
The stars that happen to appear
in the peripheral vision
of your sad pussy eye
It's 3:00 am, it's very late at night
or would you like to consider it
very early in the city morning?
The chilly city morning that chills you with
its lonliness and its individualism
but heats you with its mad sporadic humbums
that roam the greenest intersections
and speak the honest-est truths
Time for a stroll, to assure the depressed,
the high, the weirdos, the fools, the selfish,
that in the end, it's gonna be okay
Running towards nothing, screaming, Moloch! Moloch!
into the eerie silence of the night, trying to minimize
attention? hah! the unconscious begs to differ
it lusts for misery, hate, rape! gyrating, moaning
in an empty fetal position
Under the streetlight, the shadow follows the feet
but by light of car, the feet follow the shadow
running, running -- I bid you farewell, they say.
If you run faster, I run faster, too.
so stop. stop running. inhale! exhale!
but even standing still, your shadow moves faster
than you. it's no wonder, shadows roam
this sad city, like the aforementioned humbum vagabonds.
maybe, maybe They
are the flesh our shadows?
Maybe we are they
or maybe they are us
or maybe, maybe
We are all Each Other
Like the shady stars of a polluted night sky
Like the stars that do not exist
when you search and search,
but do exist when you stop looking.
The stars that happen to appear
in the peripheral vision
of your sad pussy eye
It's 3:00 am, it's very late at night
or would you like to consider it
very early in the city morning?
The chilly city morning that chills you with
its lonliness and its individualism
but heats you with its mad sporadic humbums
that roam the greenest intersections
and speak the honest-est truths
Time for a stroll, to assure the depressed,
the high, the weirdos, the fools, the selfish,
that in the end, it's gonna be okay
Running towards nothing, screaming, Moloch! Moloch!
into the eerie silence of the night, trying to minimize
attention? hah! the unconscious begs to differ
it lusts for misery, hate, rape! gyrating, moaning
in an empty fetal position
Under the streetlight, the shadow follows the feet
but by light of car, the feet follow the shadow
running, running -- I bid you farewell, they say.
If you run faster, I run faster, too.
so stop. stop running. inhale! exhale!
but even standing still, your shadow moves faster
than you. it's no wonder, shadows roam
this sad city, like the aforementioned humbum vagabonds.
maybe, maybe They
are the flesh our shadows?
Maybe we are they
or maybe they are us
or maybe, maybe
We are all Each Other
jueves, 17 de diciembre de 2009
Mushaboom
So this video was kind of on-the-spot. I liked the song I was listening to and the atmosphere of the scene (my apartment, last day before holiday break), so I decided to fuse the two, pepper it with endearing subtitles, and voila! I present to you...
"Gosh, I love LA" by Tactful TJ
"Gosh, I love LA" by Tactful TJ
miércoles, 2 de diciembre de 2009
Damn Vegetarian
The little girl brushed her greasy hair from her greasy face with her equally greasy fingertips. Gross. Her fingers looked like big, fat, delicious Polish sausages. Just as thoughts of cannabilistic cravings surfaced, she decided she would become a vegetarian. Which was quite funny, because just yesterday, she had coddled herself in the interpretation of vegetarians as idealistic, superficial saps. But now. It was different. OH, how different it was.
Her fingers were not fragile and beautiful like the ones she saw on the little Russian ballerinas in the golden music boxes or the girlish Victorian debutante piano players. Maybe becoming a vegetarian would help her become beautiful. Maybe making herself littler and weaker would make the things she managed to do right seem grander.
"It's an illusion."
A small spider resting at the tip of the little girl's mud-splattered shoe hopped onto her knee, then onto her blue cotton dress, landing right above her left breast. "I said it's an illusion. It's not that great being delicate and beautiful. It's kind of lonely actually, everyone just kind of forgets about you."
"But look at all the things you can do! You can fall a distance one hundred and one times your height and still live. You can kill an opponent fifty times your size with one bite. And BY golly, would you please get off my chest? It's making me rather uncomfortable."
The spider scuttled up the little girl's neck and onto her eyelid. She was very careful to keep her eye closed or risk accidentally trapping the spider in the crevice above her eye.
"Do you think the size of my achievements matters to me? I'm just a spider. That's what I don't understand about you humans. Everything is revolved around flattery, flattery, flattery! What happens when you die and everyone forgets about you? What happens when you die and you realize that you and I, spider and human, intellectual and bastard, we're all the same? Will it matter then?"
The little girl hesitated for a moment and closed both eyes. She felt the little spider hop down from her face onto the ground.
"I guess it won't. Unless there's some kind of afterlife. Then it would matter to me. Because. I'd want to be immortalized by what I accomplished while I was alive. I don't want to be remembered by my fat fingers or my greasy hair. I want to leave a legacy. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to want to be remembered? How else will dwarf and giant be distinguished? Now THAT's a scary thought, what happens to us when we die. Do we vanish like vapor into the air? Do we swim among the stars like particles of ambiguity? Do we lose all sense of feeling? Maybe we're all just insignificant vessels of flesh attempting to find something that means something to us, be someone who means something to someone. Maybe we're trapped in a puppet's body, controlled by an inexplicable worldly force and unable to escape. OH, I don't know. What do you think?"
Eyes still shut, the little girl awaited a response from her new friend. She waited for a long time, but was embraced by silence.
Growing impatient, she opened her eyes.
The little spider lay dead on the floor.
Her fingers were not fragile and beautiful like the ones she saw on the little Russian ballerinas in the golden music boxes or the girlish Victorian debutante piano players. Maybe becoming a vegetarian would help her become beautiful. Maybe making herself littler and weaker would make the things she managed to do right seem grander.
"It's an illusion."
A small spider resting at the tip of the little girl's mud-splattered shoe hopped onto her knee, then onto her blue cotton dress, landing right above her left breast. "I said it's an illusion. It's not that great being delicate and beautiful. It's kind of lonely actually, everyone just kind of forgets about you."
"But look at all the things you can do! You can fall a distance one hundred and one times your height and still live. You can kill an opponent fifty times your size with one bite. And BY golly, would you please get off my chest? It's making me rather uncomfortable."
The spider scuttled up the little girl's neck and onto her eyelid. She was very careful to keep her eye closed or risk accidentally trapping the spider in the crevice above her eye.
"Do you think the size of my achievements matters to me? I'm just a spider. That's what I don't understand about you humans. Everything is revolved around flattery, flattery, flattery! What happens when you die and everyone forgets about you? What happens when you die and you realize that you and I, spider and human, intellectual and bastard, we're all the same? Will it matter then?"
The little girl hesitated for a moment and closed both eyes. She felt the little spider hop down from her face onto the ground.
"I guess it won't. Unless there's some kind of afterlife. Then it would matter to me. Because. I'd want to be immortalized by what I accomplished while I was alive. I don't want to be remembered by my fat fingers or my greasy hair. I want to leave a legacy. Is that wrong? Is it wrong to want to be remembered? How else will dwarf and giant be distinguished? Now THAT's a scary thought, what happens to us when we die. Do we vanish like vapor into the air? Do we swim among the stars like particles of ambiguity? Do we lose all sense of feeling? Maybe we're all just insignificant vessels of flesh attempting to find something that means something to us, be someone who means something to someone. Maybe we're trapped in a puppet's body, controlled by an inexplicable worldly force and unable to escape. OH, I don't know. What do you think?"
Eyes still shut, the little girl awaited a response from her new friend. She waited for a long time, but was embraced by silence.
Growing impatient, she opened her eyes.
The little spider lay dead on the floor.
viernes, 20 de noviembre de 2009
My fartsy thoughts
http://thesneakygiraffe.blogspot.com/
The Sneaky Giraffe: An ecclectic collection of visuals brought to you by Tactful T.J.
miércoles, 18 de noviembre de 2009
Moldy Curry
Last month, somebody asked me what love was.
Last week, somebody told me it sucks.
I've never been in love so I have no idea
but yeah, if you care, here's my two bucks.
It's a passionate appeal
but really
not real.
It's tricky mirages
and naive foot
massages.
It's a selfish game
played just
for fame.
It's soft je'taimes,
whispered falsely
in REM.
It's Noahs concocted
from notebooks,
like Naoh wrought
from textbooks.
It's poison.
It's toxic.
It's deathly
like chopsticks.
It's schizophrenic.
It's carcinogenic.
It's fascist
like cannabis.
It's fat,
it's stupid
and naked
like Cupid.
It's weak honey tea
and moldy curry.
It's decaffeinated coffee
and hopeless vulnerability.
It's cruel.
It's tools.
It varies
like cherries.
It's scary,
it's haunted.
It's all
I've ever wanted.
Last week, somebody told me it sucks.
I've never been in love so I have no idea
but yeah, if you care, here's my two bucks.
It's a passionate appeal
but really
not real.
It's tricky mirages
and naive foot
massages.
It's a selfish game
played just
for fame.
It's soft je'taimes,
whispered falsely
in REM.
It's Noahs concocted
from notebooks,
like Naoh wrought
from textbooks.
It's poison.
It's toxic.
It's deathly
like chopsticks.
It's schizophrenic.
It's carcinogenic.
It's fascist
like cannabis.
It's fat,
it's stupid
and naked
like Cupid.
It's weak honey tea
and moldy curry.
It's decaffeinated coffee
and hopeless vulnerability.
It's cruel.
It's tools.
It varies
like cherries.
It's scary,
it's haunted.
It's all
I've ever wanted.
domingo, 1 de noviembre de 2009
Private detective for hire
Currently listening to "The Race is On Again" by Yo La Tengo.
A few nights ago, while "studying" for biology, Moriarty challenged me to define a Lewis acid. After careful deliberation, I settled on the answer "an electron acceptor" (as opposed to a proton donator, the definition of a Bronsted acid). We agreed whoever was wrong had to call the number of an ad Moriarty had found on a bulletin board in the math and sciences building. The ad read "Private Detective for Hire" in big letters and displayed a rather flattering picture of Jason Schwartzman, followed by tearable tabs with the number 646-336-6222. After a civil altercation over our answers, we decided to just put the phone on speaker and ended up reaching the guy's voicemail, only to find that the number had been a clever medium to advertise the HBO show "Bored to Death". This witty voicemail message suddenly ended with an impending "Please leave a message" beep, and under the pressure of time, I candidly shouted "I love you, Jason!" I quickly closed my phone and Moriarty and I shared a laugh and quipped some funny comments. Then I realized I hadn't closed the phone all the way so whoever (if anyone) received the messages heard everything we had said about the call (I don't think it was necessarily anything bad, but maybe a little embarrassing). I decided the only way to mute our previous comments was to shout another well-articulated "I love you, Jason!" after which I made sure the phone was closed completely this time. Win!
Tactfully,
T.J.
A few nights ago, while "studying" for biology, Moriarty challenged me to define a Lewis acid. After careful deliberation, I settled on the answer "an electron acceptor" (as opposed to a proton donator, the definition of a Bronsted acid). We agreed whoever was wrong had to call the number of an ad Moriarty had found on a bulletin board in the math and sciences building. The ad read "Private Detective for Hire" in big letters and displayed a rather flattering picture of Jason Schwartzman, followed by tearable tabs with the number 646-336-6222. After a civil altercation over our answers, we decided to just put the phone on speaker and ended up reaching the guy's voicemail, only to find that the number had been a clever medium to advertise the HBO show "Bored to Death". This witty voicemail message suddenly ended with an impending "Please leave a message" beep, and under the pressure of time, I candidly shouted "I love you, Jason!" I quickly closed my phone and Moriarty and I shared a laugh and quipped some funny comments. Then I realized I hadn't closed the phone all the way so whoever (if anyone) received the messages heard everything we had said about the call (I don't think it was necessarily anything bad, but maybe a little embarrassing). I decided the only way to mute our previous comments was to shout another well-articulated "I love you, Jason!" after which I made sure the phone was closed completely this time. Win!
Tactfully,
T.J.
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