High School

Today was like any other school day. It was the last period and I was running a pass to pull a member of my newspaper staff from class so I could discuss her latest article edits. I was the only person in the commons of the school, and the wide, empty space seemed so much larger than it normally did. And quieter. So much quieter. The only sound was my own footsteps. The sunlight was streaming through the skylights in the high ceilings and it made the place look beautiful. Almost ethereal. I looked around at the hand drawn posters announcing yearbook sales and Homecoming dances and an overwhelming sense of contentment washed over me. It was almost startling how happy I felt in that moment. I love this place. I love the friends I've met here, the teachers I've learned from, and the experiences I've had. I love this place and I'm about to leave.

There isn't a day goes by that I don't complain about some aspect of high school. No day where I'm not "completely over it" or "so ready to get out of this place." At least not until today.

As I slowed my steps, wanting to savor the moment for as long as possible, I realized how I hadn't said any of those things today.

Not during my Statistics class, not when I had to take a pop quiz I knew no answers for in my Econ class, not when half of my debate team forgot their t-shirt money, not even when I stayed two extra hours after school to help the yearbook meet their deadlines.

I had a really good day. And it won't be long before those kind of days - where I am so accustomed to being busy it's not even considered "busy" anymore, where I'm needed to answer a million different questions from my staff and my team, where I'm asked to do things that are in no way my responsibility - are nonexistent. It won't be long before the easy, practiced days of being a student at CHS are over.

And today I realized just how much I'm going to miss it. Boy, am I going to miss this place.

Single Nice Guys

“In pop culture, girls who crush hopelessly on guys they can’t have are painted as just that – hopeless. Over and over again, we’re taught that girls who openly express sexual or romantic interest in guys who don’t want them are pitiable, stalkerish, desperate, crazy bitches. More often than not, they’re also portrayed as ugly – whether physically, emotionally or both – in order to further establish their undesirability as an objective fact. Both narratively and, as a consequence, in real life, men are given free reign to snub, abuse, mislead and talk down to such women: we’re raised to believe that female desire is unseemly, so that any consequent shaming is therefore deserved. There is no female-equivalent Friend Zone terminology because, in the language of our culture, a man’s romantic choices are considered sacrosanct and inviolable. If a girl has been told no, then she has only herself to blame for anything that happens next – but if a woman says no, then she must not really mean it. Or, if she does, she shouldn’t: the rejected man is a universally sympathetic figure, and everyone from moviegoers to platonic onlookers will scream at her to just give him a chance, as though her rejection must always be unfounded rather than based on the fact that he had a chance, and blew it. And even then, give him another one! The pathos of Single Nice Guys can only be eased by pity-sex with unwilling women that blossoms into romance!”

-Lamenting the Friendzone, or: The Nice Guy Approach to Perpetuating Sexist Bullshit

You have to be everything.

“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.” -Courtney Martin

(man)kind

1.
You want him to want you, don't you?
-You want him to love you?
Keep your skin smooth for him.
Keep your hair curled for him.
Keep your body lean for him.
Keep your voice quiet for him.
And most importantly, keep your mind empty for him.



2.
Look at those hips. What are they for if not to bear children?
Or at that mouth. What is it for if not to please a man?
That laugh - that's to boost his ego, right?
That voice is to sing his praises?
Those eyes to admire his silhouette?
Look at those hands - made to care for a man in sickness and in health.
And that magnificent soul. What is that for?



3.
As girls we sit in front of the television and we flip through the magazines and we learn our place.
After all, you must start early or else she'll start developing thoughts, won't she?

As teenagers we go to parties with drunk boys and we learn our place.
After all, if she wears that skirt and she bats her eyes she's asking for it, isn't she?

As women we stand at the alter and we read our vows and we learn our place.
After all, isn't this what she's been preparing for her whole life?


4.
We are fashioned so early to understand that once a man decides he wants us, our bodies are not our own. That if a woman rejects a man's advances it must be because she's crazy. She's crazy not to want to be with this man - the one that's been giving her attention all night.

He chose you, girl. He chose you and if anything, you should be flattered.

This Place

This place is stifling.
The stench of death hangs opaque in the air, barely covered up by the aroma of the women's casseroles and the men's rubber boots.

This place is where women's dreams come to die.
Where they are left with burdens they can't help but love.
Where their aspirations turn to apparition with the soreness of their swollen breasts and the knitting of little blue blankets.
All the while men sit around filling their bellies and pondering how great life could be if only the rain would let up.

This place comes with a guilt you'll never shake.
Because once your cheeks have been kissed by the mouths, each one covered with lipstick or tobacco, you're guilty.
You're guilty because they can't understand why you'd ever want to leave.

You're guilty because when you look into each face - with the same cloudy eyes - you can't understand why they'd ever want to stay.

Can't I?

I can be that.
I can be smart and I can be kind.
I can be beautiful and real and honest and whole.
I can be dangerous and strange and volatile.
I can be witty and I can be loud.
I can be generous and concerned.
I can be that.
I can be present.
I can be strong.
I can be whimsical and courageous.

I can be lonely.

I can be what you need.
I can't be what you want.

I can't be that.
I can't be vain and artificial.
I can't be holy and I can't be absolute.
I can't be that.
I can't be airy and complacent.
I can't be secure and selfish.
I can't be apathetic and stagnant.
I can't be pretty and I can't be polished.

I can't be lonely.

I can't be what you want.

I can be what you need. 

Stay fabulous

Journal

Taken from my black, leather journal - the one with a handwritten note from one of my favorite people, Jake Walden. Written on June 15th, 2012 1:05 A.M.

This was written late at night and some of it is nonsensical rambling, but I'm going to try not to edit myself - Jake told me not too.

"I'm fascinated by the paths we take and the marks we make throughout our lives. The ones we follow, altering slightly to fit into ourselves, and the ones we create, scouting uncharted territory for others to follow one day.

You throw a penny into a fountain one day and, just think, that tiny piece of yourself will always be there even when you're so far away and have forgotten.

I carved my name in a tree in Central Park - THE Central Park - this year. And, just think, someone right now could be carving next to it, someone I will probably never meet but whose path will have grazed mine, if only for a second, as they read my message, 'Kay '12', all that I was able to write with the tiny fingernail clipper I dug out of the bottom of my purse.

And all this makes me sad because then you have the paths that collide, the people you meet, the people who make you laugh but all too often those paths and those people only stay for a short time until they're crossing and continuing on, no longer on the same trail as you. And that's sad because they've left a mark, some darker and more present than others, but all too soon we'll forget and let them fade.

Imagine a world where we left a trail everywhere we went, a brilliant color all our own that would mix and run with other colors as paths crossed. Just imagine all the places life has taken you and, just, what if you could leave a mark everywhere, remembering everything you've seen, everything you've touched. Everyone you met.

Whether you're in a pub you can't remember the name of in the middle -the heart - of NYC eating the best pasta you've ever had or stopping in a random Walgreens in Columbus, Ohio to pick up Jolly Ranchers, or retouching your makeup in the bathroom of a random convention center in a random city, it's like, what if you could see, really see, who's been there before and who comes after. Wouldn't it be amazing to see a world like that? So colorful, so connected.

I think if it was tangible like that maybe we'd realize just how alike we really are. That we share this life as one, that my life is so neatly tied to and connected to everyone around me at any given second.

It's just, life is a bunch of what ifs, chance encounters, close calls, and coincidences, but no one fully takes the time to appreciate that. I don't even know if I'm making sense anymore."


Stay fabulous.