holidays

So, it's the holiday season.

While I do enjoy the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I can't ignore that lingering feeling of dread that pounds away at the top of my spinal cord. You never know exactly what you're getting into when family congregates, so on my way home to Long Island I spent the train ride assembling my family deflector and arming myself to the teeth with insults (ones that I would never speak out loud, of course, but I would certainly repeat to myself inside of my head).

So I was surprised to find out that the only thing that needed to be deflected was my bad attitude and my unwillingness to recognize that people are able to change. Of course, this is a cycle that repeats itself as each year drops several celebrated holidays in my lap, but it's always a shock how much more accepting people can be.

Like most everyone I know, I used to feel like an outsider when I was in the company of my family. Like I was kind of just there because my mom had given birth to me, not because I was a part of this bloodline. I think that keeping my sexuality quiet for so long (it was known an not discussed; the way good roman catholics do everything) urged me along in these feelings of isolation. I always felt like I had a secret that kept me miles away from everyone else I was related to because the few remarks about being gay i heard from my brother and my father, and neither one of them was a pillar of positive energy. I remember wearing my sexuality on my sleeve when I got to college because I could invent myself in whatever fashion I saw fit. But now that my being an adult is a reality we've all abandoned whatever stigma it was that kept us from knowing one another in the past.

The holidays are the holidays are the holidays. I understand. But it's always surprising when people AND things change. I've always known that my mom loved me, of course. But I didn't know she carried a picture of me as a child in her wallet and showed it to her friends/co-workers-family members on occasion. That means a lot. She also gave me her mother's casserole dish so I can make my very own macaroni & cheese in it.


This post isn't too clever or witty. BUT it's thanksgiving. Give a girl some credit.

r.e.v.l.u.s.i.o.n.

Another post!

I need to update this blog as much as I tell myself I'm going to update this blog. It's pretty much a daily thing that i go back and forth with and for whatever undisclosed reason I can't. I don't know if it's the newness of it all or if it's me secretly trying to suppress myself. I know there are things that go on during my day-to-day life that I think are just so darn clever that I should blog them, but something stops me before I get the chance. I once told a co-worker that another co-worker was a "perfectly good waste of thick ankles" and that "any other pear-shaped woman would consider herself lucky to have them" in her place. SEE! Is that not screaming blog me? I think it is.

I think that the particular subculture I live and grow thrives on disappointment in some sick and familiar self-involved and necessary way. I'm going to focus on work for the time being because I know more people who are unhappy with their work than I know people. I feel like we are unjustly judged by ourselves and our peers on levels that radically alter exactly who we are and how we relate to one another and ourselves. And I use the term "we" loosely, because I expect it to include anyone who finds that at any given moment of any given time they are like me in any particular way. Different in a way that feels so singular, but is obviously large enough for a subculture to be built from it. Those of us who have sweat it out in tiny basements dancing along to saves the day, or done our time selling merch at some shitty d.i.y. show. Those of us who ALMOST shed a tear when the get up kids broke up (but would totally deny it today, of course) and now find solace in anything acoustic, electric, or overly simplified (read: a girl [without shoes], a guitar [with three strings], and a half-broken amp that hums louder than it transmits; or the infinite intricacies of the fashion world, the importance of an animal pendant, or how a simple pair of leggings can define an entire wardrobe) and now spend our time wishing we were after greater things in life, wearing tiny coats and shiny shoes, skipping cracks and inhaling carcinogens in this gloomy borough of ours. Brooklyn at it's finest and highest/lowest points. It's difficult to define something that is so all-inclusive, but I sure took a stab at it. If you find something else I didn't include, leave me a comment and I'm half sure I'll make amendments.

There are so many times throughout my workday when I wonder why, exactly, I'm still sticking it out at a seemingly dead-end job, merchandising mouse leather purses and plastic argyle sweaters for people who still think Rod Stewart is sexy, sought after, and... alive. I know I'm better than the spring green corduroy pants I shuddered at when I walked into work this morning so why am I still there? I think it's because I know I'm safe underwhelming myself; but I wish it didn't take so long for me to make a move in the right direction. Every time I reach for something the idea of a potential devastation simmers me down, and I go back to my own personal day-to-day-mini-devastation because it's so easy. I need for ease to be a thing of the past and for challenges to seem like they aren't so massive; otherwise I know I'll spend the next few years wholly regretting the last few months. Sometimes I curse the fact that I went to school for an art form, because if I'm not creating something stellar I feel like I'm just pedaling on a stationary bike.

So, what to do? This particular necessary disappointment is wearing out it's welcome and I know that sooner than later I will claw out the eyes of a co-worker, customer, or maybe even myself. And when I ride the subway home and see the lifeless glaze over my eyes echoed back at me from every other Kyle riding the train, I begin to wonder what went wrong with all of us and what our revolutions will be like when we take over our own mini-worlds.

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SO what do I find out as I am typing this post? My boyfriend just got promoted at work. Just now! Reading my blog is the new reality TV. Seriously.

#2

SO this is my second post. I've yet to go public with this blog. It probably has to do with some deep-seated feeling of rejection or my anxiousness at being thrust up on to a pedestal into a mock limelight, wherein I am the most celebrated celebrity in my own one-man world. Nevertheless, here I am. If you haven't noticed already I've acquired a penchant for run-on sentences. I feel like run-ons are textual extensions of the fingertips and my writing style is more free flowing; so don't get all up in arms when your mind isn't allowed to take a breath because mine sure isn't either.

That aside, I just got home from working from 6am-4pm and boy am I tired. I originally planned on napping, but the internet called out to me. So, here I am.

I spend a lot of my time watching courtTV and the sci fi channel (see also: the food network, tlc, discovery health). I'm watching forensic files right now. I think my want to understand things is trumped only by my love of being mystified. I love to wonder if something is or isn't real or if something that seems so great is really within grasp (ie: ghosts, cooking).

Anyway, it's holiday time. If you work or worked in retail like I do, you know this is a most hellish time of year. I had to physically slap a customer's hand today because he had the nerve to push me in order to reach a sweater. It is never serious enough to push me out of your way. I am moderately large and decently muscled, I'd hate to have to beat someone to death over a nylon/polyurethane sweater that costs 39.50. Not over a poly-blend that will likely catch fire when either you or one of your bargain-hungry gaggle gets a sleeve thread caught in the escalator at forever 21 resulting in a salmon-colored sweater brushfire.

But for every shitasshead customer, there is some sort of silver lining. Me and my boyfriend (this certainly won't be the last time i mention him in this blog) are figuring out holiday things. Gifts, trees, decorations, ornaments. The gamer in me is aching for an Xbox360 so we'll see if that pans out. There are a myriad of gift ideas I have floating around in my head, but I tend to think in terms of me when I'm buying gifts for others, and the "dude" that exists in the back and sometimes front of my head really wants to buy something that will make me giggle, but I know those gifts will result in menacing glares, so I'll do my best to avoid any gift that begins with "the best" and "the most".

I would like to keep up with this writing thing, so I'm going to try to post as often as my little fingers permit. Should you take a liking to my little blog let me know! It will make my littler (even smaller than my fingers!) heart swell to enormous proportions and that joy will spill over into these posts and nothing bad will ever happen again! In my next post I think I'm going to talk about my love of fruit flavored yogurts and the ensuing hilarity. bye!

#1

Hi Blog

So this is my first entry.

Hello, my name is Kyle and I am a Blipster. I have coined this phrase (and built this blog) because I feel there is an under represented, often ignored, and utterly fantastic subculture of peoples that need a voice more than you know. And who better to speak out and up for them than me? Nobody. That’s right, nobody indeed.

Well, what is a blipster? It is, in essence, the most fantastic oxymoron known to man. More majestic than the volcanoes of Kilimanjaro; more elusive than the murderous Irukandji, and more fantastic than Britney’s comeback album. And there are issues we blipsters need to discuss; tyra banks, africa, oprah, rihanna, welfare, reparations, apartheid, etc.

I am starting this blog because I feel like it’s the right thing to do. There are things in me that I know need to be expressed and it’s about time that I started expressing them. While I assure you most of my posts will be rich with exquisite wit and tricky verbiage; and most of my subtle nuances about race will neither be subtle nor nuances, I’ll salt pepper my posts with something real and insightful every now and again.

I am very much aware of what my musings may or may not mean to whoever happens upon this blog (Read: insightful), so should my posts become so trite and contrived that you mysteriously come back into consciousness on n7th & bedford, do not be alarmed. I took you there intentionally and I hope we can meet up, hold hands, and laugh our way back home.