Exercise that will remind you of your infinite place in this city and the universe:

Stand in the middle of the chaos, while swarms of people travel around you, and trace a skyscraper from its base to its tip. Note how some may be angered by this, by the simple fact that you’re refusing to move. Stopping and taking time out to smell the carcinogens is an act of civil disobedience against fast-paced society. Find where the two planes meet, the angle at which the man-made structure collides with the sky.  At this conjuncture, you may discover a million secrets. 

 

Currently, my most pressing question is whether my problems, primarily this unhappiness that is seeded so deep that I am never sad in the classic sense, but instead suspended in a perpetual state of boredom, is my body’s way of responding to external pressures, or if something defective is internally ingrained. 

“…thought concerns what he terms ‘the lost symmetry of the blastosphere’ – the primitive precursor of the embryo that is the last structure to preserve perfect symmetry in all planes.” 

Because, as we grow into fully developed beings, we are never quite the same on both sides.

Experiments in unedited rants (part two).

So I was sitting here yesterday on the top bunk (my own little world) and trying to free-write about what’s been happening to me lately when my roommate started talking about how annoying it is when her friends ask her, “how’s the city?” because she doesn’t know what to say. Although I think it’s great here, she talks about how she doesn’t want to do anything but drop out of art school and join a circus. Everyone brainstorms about what she might be able to do, because it has to be something that doesn’t require too much physical activity or effort, since that would take all the fun out of being in a circus.

She goes, “I don’t want to be anything, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” I understand. “But, what’s the alternative?” 

“Doing nothing.”

I agree, because doing nothing is pretty fucking awesome. 

Now I’m learning all these things. This school makes me go through mental exercises. I can trace your synapses back to before your first introduction to light, but I still can’t seem to make unquantifiable things happen. This world is not propelled by will alone. On Friday it was good and, flustered, he looked and I looked and for some reason I nodded slowly, agreeing to something that can’t be understood. On Saturday, it was different and we talked forever, but came to no concrete conclusion, only that I am a coy distraction (a step below what I want to be, which is a persuasive deterrent) but I still got a kiss before I left. I’m untrustworthy because I know a lot of people, but desperate because I don’t want to hang out with all of them. These are among some of his complaints. And I am investing too much and he loves [ ] and I am small and childish and I started All the Kings Horses wondering if he gave it to me because I’m a silly jeune fille but we were talking about boredom at the time which he blames on this american garbage and I’m only halfway through the book at this point so we’ll see.

At the end of it all, or at some point through it, it all comes back to whether I’m worth knowing (because if I’m not, I should go elsewhere). The answer is always yes.

Inside, bits of us divide at normal rates, cleaving and eventually separating. It has been said, and my mind has repeated this from time to time, “it is the dream of every cell to become two.” If love is any example, (and I’ll apologize now, as it seems I always return to this feeling, above all others) then when infatuation, and all other varying degrees are considered, a multilayered landscape is created. This is the complexity of emotion. While our insides work in ways that are far from simplistic, they do so with amazing precision. When two people intertwine they are trying to reverse (reenacting a cell’s nightmare?) a process and supposedly become one, though we make many more mistakes during the attempt. 

Mimetic Fireworks:

 

 

FIGURE 1

TEM of a necrotic cell: the disruption of plasma membrane and organelles is observable. A relative preservation of nuclear morphology appears. 

(original magnification: x 10,000)

FIGURE 2 
TEM of an apoptotic (A) and a normal (N) cell. The characteristic chromatin rearrangement appears in A, strongly different from its normal organization (N). The good preservation of membrane and organelles is also evident.       (original magnification: x 8,000)

FIGURE 3 
SEM of a necrotic cell. Numerous lesions appear on the cell surface.    (original magnification: x 5,000)

FIGURE 4 
SEM of an apoptotic cell. Surface blebbing is evident.   (original magnification: x 5,000)

FIGURE 5 
FF of normal cell, nuclear envelope. The regular distribution of nuclear pores is visible.    (original magnification: x 30,000)

FIGURE 6 
FF of apoptotic cell. The nuclear envelope shows a characteristic clustering (asterisc) of nuclear pores.    (original magnification: x 35,000) “

On a park bench, eyes with distinct clarity made contact with mine. 

Inside, organs experienced the Rapture theologians dream of.

Food for the Morning After: Not Quite the Breakfast of Champions, but Certainly a Feast for Harlots. 

- The last cigarette, smoked anxiously past the filter.

- Half a bagel, forced down.

-  An oversized coffee, made overly sweet. 

***

Scrubbing, but never hard enough.

No amount of water has the ability to connect me with its supposed holiness.

“Sometimes, I sit still and see if one can perceive the Earth’s rotation.”

Note: I can’t take full credit for the topic of this post. The beginning is inspired by a discussion held during my first year writing course. The rest is a tangent I went on in my mind while it was going on that I failed to bring to the table at eight in the morning. 

Opponents of the current notion of human nature, as it exists in today’s society, would say that small discourses are what make up a person. Conjure an image of someone in your mind. Certain words should spring forth: Woman, Middle-Class, Single, and so on. Without these identification tags, we return to infancy, left with nothing more than the statement a doctor gives when he says,”It’s a girl.” These words that we pick up along the way and attach to our personas are put in place by society, yet they are not fixed. They can change, just as a disgruntled libertarian can (with a push) become an anarchist. In arguing with an argument, one could say that some qualities like greed and empathy transcend language barriers, and that these are what constitute human nature’s core. Returning to that which we identify with, it seems as though sexual identification is always near the top of the list. A big deal is always made out of who someone is seeing and for what reason. To some degree, this is absurd. Sexual identification neatly packages one’s preference into a few tidy terms, which stuffs a complicated topic into that which is less than befitting. Society, demands this form of labeling, but by simplifying sexuality and love, it halts its own progress. In the same vein, as the individual fixes himself to one word, he trades in intellectual and spiritual growth for the “greater good” of becoming part of a collective. Though the Kinsey Scale is seen as little more than a scientific artifact, a ripple in a sea of misconception, most still feel the urge to nail themselves to a number. 

As a young girl, my professor thought the sight of separating spindle fibers was beautiful. On a microscopic level, tiny glorifications of life can be spotted. I’m fascinated by programed cell death. The calculated destruction of something that once existed. Inside is a working microcosm.

I’m in the city, officially. It’s simply amazing. Had a period of initial shell-shock, but I’m getting over that rather quickly. I just have to figure out where the fuck I’m going half the time, but that too is getting better. 

Classes have started.

Every time I miss the target (and shit, it’s like I’ve thrown a dart that’s travelled in the wrong direction) I become less interested in the whole notion. When I try to feel things without really caring, I end up surrounded by people, but as emotionless and apathetic as when I’m alone. When someone changes my mind and I decide to reluctantly (always reluctantly, as I’m apprehensive about falling face first) form attachment, it seems to lead to disappointment. But, it seems that the unfortunate taste that accompanies this feeling is constantly coating my throat, and it’s becoming less acceptable. Melancholy mixed with hopelessness (a common side-effect) is now turning into sadness mixed with exasperation. 

Knowing that I can’t control the actions of others, that I can’t sway your emotions, is a source of constant discomfort. I’m reading the same sentences over. It’s like examining wreckage from a disaster. While they make sense, they are unsatisfying at the same time. I’m starting to piece together a bleak past.