Give Love

This past weekend a good friend of mine suddenly lost his dog, Kyzer, tragically and unfortunately suddenly without warning. I was so deeply saddened, not just because Kyzer was such a loving and loyal dog, but because I felt the pain and anguish my friend was experiencing. Kyzer was absolutely his best friend and there were not many moments you saw them apart. I flashed back to when Kels had to make the decision to put Dixie down and how incredibly difficult it was for us to let go of her. I thought at this time that I probably would never be able to have a pet of my own again because I just didn’t want to have to experience this type of sadness for a second time.

Well...that didn’t last too long. In November, I adopted Mr. Jose Gato Diablo, my bad ass kitty. He is awesome. Just awesome. After listening to my friend, I was so sad to think that there could ever be a day that I do not walk through the door to be greeted by my main man. It’s the little things, the sound of their paws, the constant shadow, the daily routines, that become such a part of your life, seeming impossible to be able to continue without. I just cannot imagine life without him.

People tease me that I have become a “cat lady,” posting all my "stupid" pictures on FB of my cat. Yea I’m aware that no one cares, however, nor do I (most of the time) to see 9 million pictures of your kids that I do not even know. I think it is only fair to say Jose is my son, my best friend, and well, treats me better than any man I have ever known. So what the fuck, I am down with being a “cat lady” if it includes bragging about the fantastic and absolutely exciting life of Mr. Gato. Because again...he is awesome.

Anyways, back to the subject of pets. I just think it is so important for us to give them as much love as we can while they are here with us. In only a moment they can be taken away. Forget the annoyances, because I am sure you piss them off at times too. If you are not able to take care of a pet ADEQUATELY, please do not get one for the sake of getting one. They are just like us, they need love, attention, and most of all companionship. It is not fair to give them any little and any less.

So...if there’s a pet waiting for you at home, please just give it some extra love today, just because...someone somewhere there is a friend who no longer can.

Sad blog, done.

"LOVE" you anymore

Hardly stir when you sleep,
There's a piece inside your mind, inside your dream,
Though there's two that lie beneath these sheets,
Might as well be three with all the space between.
Sweetheart, behind the eyes,
A different person, stranger lies,
Stay a while and creep towards the door,
I said I love you though I knew I didn't love you anymore….
~Matt Duke

So a couple of months ago I went to Adele’s free at noon at the WCL. The opening artist, Matt Duke, a local artist, another John Mayer in the making, was nothing but mediocre to say the least. However, I will give him credit where credit is due. The song ‘Love You Anymore’ hit me like a ton of bricks. The lyrics insist how easy it is to say I love you to someone, who actually you really don’t even love anymore. The song got me thinking back to my own personal relationships, love, and how ridiculously unfair but prevalent this actually is.

I remember after my first, and I can ((contently)) now say only, real love, break up, I was given the book “All About Love” by Bell Hooks. Hooks talks about the overuse of the word love and how it is just thrown around, diminishing its true meaning. The book goes about explaining the correct way to use the word love and how we need to make an effort to replenish the strength of the word. Again…just like EPIC, it has been basically destroyed. Yes, I am at fault for this destruction and I have never met someone who wasn’t.

Anyways, back to the lyrics of the song. I was absolutely positively upset with myself after hearing Duke sing this song. It brought me to tears. I thought to myself, this is horrible, how can someone say they love you, when really they are falling out of love with you? It’s just so incredibly hurtful. Yea, well, little did I think at that moment that I had recently done this for months and months with my last ex. I thought back to how every day and every night I told him that I loved him, when really, I knew, deep down he probably was the worst person ever in this world I could ever be with. Harsh? Sorry it’s the absolute truth, I always knew, but I just denied and denied it until it just became meaningless and truthfully just a bad habit. I was broken down into this person I did not even recognize, mostly from him, but hardly not my own fault as well. I was doing exactly what I had always said I would never do and I was completely ignoring all the advice I had ever given to any friend in a bad relationship. What the shit? So…I loved, I lost, and I learned.

This brings me to cathexis, or as Hook called it, cathexism. I cannot even begin to count how many conversations I have had with people, where cathexis was the charge in their relationship. Cathexis can be defined as, an “investment of energy: the concentration of a great deal of psychological and emotional energy on one particular person, thing, or idea.” I feel that so many of us confuse love with cathexis. We become so used to, or familiar, with a feeling, that we forget what it feels like to actually feel it for real.

I have explained time after time, to myself, and to my friends that love and abuse can NEVER co-exist. When using ‘abuse’ I not only (definitely) mean physical, but also, emotional, and psychological abuse. If a relationship, in any way, consists of abuse, love cannot exist. If you say to yourself, what am I doing, why can’t I leave (them), oh “its because I love (them),” well…you need to stop. It is unfair and it will never work.

I am so scattered on thoughts, and I can probably babble about this love ish topic for like a bazillion days, but its worthless. I have come to experience in the past couple of months, love in a completely different way and I am beginning to only accept the truest of forms. I have learned that to love someone, their best interest, and happiness, must always be of utmost importance to you. Absolutely positively NO exceptions. If you cannot become more aware of yourself, and display your desire for this person's happiness, then it is not love. Even if they don’t love you back, or if they are just a friend, etc, etc, it is okay to love them, it is alright to have these feelings and show emotions. Send them your light and love every time you think of them. Don’t be ashamed to feel. But please, please, please examine what love means to you, in your mind, the true meaning, and use it correctly and honestly!

Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame

Shhhhhitttt…all this over some lyrics.

Oscar the Grouch

Even thought I came to this conclusion about five days prior to moving in my apartment, I have to say that my landlord is absolutely positively INsane. I could probably go on about this topic for like days but I just wanna bitch (as she does) about the current issue, mind you, that has been creating a regular disturbance in my life for like months now.

This bitch thinks trash cans need to stay clean! She calls me every week to tell me that my trash can is dirty and broken. FYI crazy queen, trash is dirty and trash cans are meant to be thrown around. Is there something I am missing?

So anyways, she calls me the other day to tell me for the nine thousandth time that my trash can is well...ugly. I'm actually starting to want to stick up for my trash can, I mean, I think it has character and it is just not fair she is constantly putting it down. She told me that I needed to get rid of it, or she was going to chain it to the wall. Again, what the fuck. What is chaining the poor old trash can to the wall gonna do. It's not gonna get plastic surgery sitting there getting all caught up with the super flies that surround it. I just don't get it.

So...I thought that maybe if I bought my trash can a nice new friend she would leave oldie alone. Nope. Now that clean trashy is around she is adamant about me getting rid of the old guy. She asked me to put a note, yes, a note, on the trash can to let the trash guys know it needed to be thrown away. Completely absurd. I refuse to believe the trash guys are reading notes on trash cans nowadays nor are they deciphering them. Mind you, if I put a note on the trash can saying, "please throw me away," (as she requested) I am sure the trash dudes would be like "yea, no shit, idiot." Cause you know, it is fucking trash and it needs to be thrown away. How are they supposed to know I mean the trash can, and why is it fair that I now have to right a lengthy letter explaining that my trash can is ugly and it needs to be disposed of. I can't even believe I am writing about this nonsense.

For the time being...I will continue to boycott the anti-christ's demands to note my trashy and rid of it. I want to actually see now how mad I can make her. Game on hater!

epic

ep•ic
adjective
1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.
2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
3. heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war.

What the eff is with the overuse of the word epic? I’ve been noticing this the past couple of months, and its overuse and misrepresentation has officially surpassed my annoyance of lol. It seems like these days anything can be “epic.” I was driving in Jersey this past weekend and saw a Budweiser billboard with some stupid slogan (and I cannot remember it) suggesting that drinking the brand is an epic event. What the fuck. Drinking Budweiser, let alone any beer, unless it has some magical power, should never be considered epic.

I’ve always loved the word epic and I just can’t take that people are just butchering its meaning and well…value. I just want this word to be savored and used up only in moments of complete awesomeness, or otherwise, “impressively great” experiences. Eating a cheeseburger from In and Out, doing a backflip from the highdive, or riding the Bolt Bus for the first time, should never be considered epic. Anything that is ordinarily mundane cannot be fucking EPIC.

This goes to show that the English (or just American) language is just fucked. People throw around adjectives like its nobodys business. I am definitely at fault, for sure. The other day I described breakfast as “pretty much the most amazing experience of your adult life.” I highly doubt this was actually the case. I don’t even know how to continue to describe this phenomenon, and I don’t think there’s any turning back, but pretty soon it will be impossible for us to create a connection with the use of words or adjectives.

So…if you are reading this, out of the kindness of your heart, please save the use of the word epic for something really fucking awesome, something that makes your life different, or something truly special. Otherwise…you are just, what you would call, and epic fucking fail.

change

Holy effin’ change. My life is simply absolutely positively nuts right now. I just can’t seem to catch up with myself. I just do not know where the time goes. I believe in the impermanence of life, where everything changes like the wind, but what the shit, I’m feeling some serious gusts over here.

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.”

Here goes.

ATCQ: Beats Rhymes & Life

I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am for the release of “Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest” at the Ritz 5 on July 22nd. OH.em.gee….ATCQ just makes me so happy. I remember when I first really got into ATCQ, I heard ‘the Love Movement’ and was instantly hooked. I met this dude in college who was a huge ATCQ fan and I think back to sitting in his dorm room for hours copying all the cd’s and live shit he had. I would drive around on nice days with my windows down acting all cool and shit like yea I found a new ATCQ joint. No one cared. Well except for me (and probably dorm room dude, I forget his name).

I’m not a super hip hop mega fan but I am definitely down with the OG ish. All this dumb ass gangsta shit out there today is just ridiculous…but ATCQ was always so real. I wish more kids would look up to these guys rather than the wangsta I’m so gangsta dudes out there on the mics today. I won’t even begin to rant on that influence. The collaboration of ATCQ and De La Soul was pretty much one of the best performances I have ever seen and I wish I could see more artists like this emerge on the hip hop scene.

Anyways, the documentary, directed by Michael Rapaport ((who by the way is effing awesome)) will hopefully capture basically everything I’ve wanted to know about ATCQ since their break up in like ’96 or something. I am totally ecstatic.

Check out the trailer: http://www.sonyclassics.com/beatsrhymesandlife/


Complete Side Note: Did you know that pronunciate is not the proper word for “to pronounce?” It actually is enunciate. I have been pronunciating words for years…what the shit.

Thoughts from the weekend

• I’m just not down with dudes in convertibles. I don’t think I ever will be. I have never successfully met a dude with a convertible that I liked. All in all, I think they look ridiculous and they should leave the cute little convertible Porsches to the super rich wives/girlfriends/mistresses. It is also not acceptable for you to blast Biggie from your convertible either. No one will like you for this. Just because you know all the words to Juicy does not mean you are cool. Get over it.
• Guys that surf or skateboard should be required to bring their boards with them every where they go. That’s it.
• It is not okay to wear a prom dress out…no exceptions. If you could have worn your dress to the 8th grade dance or even class night, please choose another outfit. Absolutely NO ONE will think you are cool. Ever. Well…unless it’s an 80’s prom party.
• I think guys should be required to show all tattoos upon entering the scene. This could save girls a whole shitload of time. It could basically be broken into a few categories…No tattoos, horrible tattoos, and guys that look hot with their ‘toos.
• If you are puking outside the bar, please have a friend take you home. Immediately. If no one is available, please find a safe hiding place to continue chucking.
• If you are overweight and/or super old…please stop wearing bikinis to the beach. I am quickly embarrassed for other people and your disgustingness makes me really upset inside. I do not want to stare at you and I don’t want other people to either. There are plenty plenty of adorable one pieces out there made just for you.
• Eating cheesesteak eggrolls is disgusting whether or not you are drunk. Please discontinue sale of this nasty nast.
• Tipping a NJ gas pumper dude will really make him smile.
• If you are a dad, it is not acceptable to make a move on someone that is as old as any one of your children. It is gross. And super creepy.
• Lemonade stands make bank.