i wrote this for class

I initially went into this with the thought that I would be able to write a little bit about every night, since each one was so interesting, but I keep coming back to only three nights. After losing my friend Andy to suicide in August, I had a lot of questions about how to make sense of it all. I debated whether coming to the suicide night would be of much help, or if it was just too soon after the loss to be able to really let everything sink in. I had already been signed up for this class before he died, and before him, I had never lost anyone to suicide. My thoughts surrounding it were very one-sided. I always told people that dying by suicide was a cop-out or it meant that you couldn’t face the challenges of life and suffering like every other human being. I was actually pretty rude about it, and definitely being too defensive to be someone that could offer help. This class and the loss of my friend have changed my view completely.

I got a call at 2AM from my friend Stephanie, and I didn’t answer the phone because I figured it was just asking me to come and hang out. They left a voicemail but I never listened to it. The next morning at 8AM when I had just arrived at work, my friend called again. This was unlike her to call in the morning so I answered. She told me the news and I was in disbelief. Andy was the nicest guy, very well known in the community, had hundreds and hundreds of friends, remembered everyone by name, went out of his way to be nice to everyone, and always had a smile. It was such completely shocking news that I was waiting for someone to say “just kidding.” I gathered myself and went home from work, the start of taking off three days because I could barely even get myself out of bed. The first day, I met with my friend Anne, who was one of his best friends. We got flowers, spent the day talking about him and sharing stories, and doing lots and lots of crying. A week later was his memorial, and it was amazing to see over a thousand people crowing the block of 20th street between J and K, in front of his office. It was bittersweet to see lots of friends who I had lost touch with, and who I now keep very close because the glaring realization of how short life is was made apparent that night.

The next month, for some closure and for renewing a bit of my sanity, I did the “Chalk-it-Up” piece sponsored by his employer in memoriam of Andy. The piece drew a huge crowd of his friends and family, and we all sort of accepted the impermanence of the chalk as a metaphor for life. It rained two days later.

Another part of the suicide night that crept up from the filing cabinet of my brain was the death of my uncle Mikey. He passed away last year from complications with alcoholism and drug abuse. It was the middle of December, in a record-low temperature week, and he had stopped eating. A couple weeks later he became so weak that he collapsed in his apartment and he froze to death. At first, I thought, “Oh my god, why has nobody in my family ever said he was this bad?” And my second thought was that he probably was far beyond the reach of any help. I never considered this to be a form of suicide, but then when we had that class, it became obvious. He was too weak and depressed to take any measures to take his life beyond starvation. He just stopped eating instead of putting a gun to his head like Andy did. The death of my uncle is almost even more depressing than Andy’s, because he experienced very real suffering before his death, whereas Andy just ended everything quickly.

I could barely keep it together on suicide night, but I am so glad I did. Now if I encounter someone who seems like they are having those thoughts, I can share with them what I have learned about how to speak to them, instead of just closing off and saying they are copping out. People who are close to suicide really need the help and comfort of someone who loves them, because often they just don’t feel loved. The loss of Andy and Mikey is incredibly sad and difficult, but I think that through understanding their pain that I now have a better idea of the thought process of someone who is thinking of taking their life.

The other two nights were on Grief. I didn’t think that these two nights would hit me as hard as they did, but it made me think about the losses in my family, and that EVERY single death of someone close to me has been tragic. There have been drownings, seizures during sleep that caused choking, stroke, suicide, drug overdose, and heart attack. Realizing that I had not been around any terminally ill loved ones made me really sad. It made me realize a lot of things about myself, how I hang on tightly to the people I care about, and that it’s incredibly hard for me to get close to them in the first place. I also realized that my family is very closed-mouthed when it comes to grieving, and we don’t really show our emotions or talk about feelings or even say “I love you” very often. The most recent loss of my uncle was sort of weird because I found myself trying so hard not to cry at his funeral. It was only later, when I was home by myself, that I was able to let it all out. I thought, “how tragic” about his death and “how pathetic” that I didn’t even want my own family seeing me cry at his funeral. I didn’t want to go through life hiding my very real and very painful emotions about death. I feel like when I experienced the loss of Andy, that my talents in grieving were brushed up a bit. I felt ease in grieving, possibly because I was around my friends who knew him, who weren’t going to judge my grieving. I know it is even silly to say the words “judge my grieving” but that is the only way I can describe the feeling of wanting to hide my emotions.

Since attending the grief nights, I feel like I am becoming more open with myself and with other people when talking about the loss of a loved one. Sometimes I might become even a little bit too inquisitive, asking questions and being caring, but it’s because I am genuinely interested and I want people to talk about it if they are comfortable.

The grief night also helped me understand a past relationship I had, where my boyfriend’s mom passed away when he was 20 when he was on a mission for his church in Australia. He hadn’t seen his mom in two years, and his family lied to him and never revealed that she was getting sick until it was too late. By the time she passed away, he was already on his flight back to Sacramento. I found that our relationship was partially suffering due to his attachment towards me to fill a motherly role. It was interesting to find how young people grieve, and that as they grow older, they will have more questions to ask as their understanding and interest of the situation grows.

I think that this class has really helped me to understand death on a deeper level, and it has definitely made my interest in death and dying greater. I would hope to volunteer at a hospice some day, or at the very least be a shoulder to lean on when someone is having a hard time.

holidaycation

Aaaahhhh Thanksgiving week. Easily my favorite week of the year since I get off Thursday AND Friday. This week is especially awesome because I am seeing all my family on Thursday, all my friends on Friday, and then leaving ass early in the morning on Saturday to my FAVORITE TWO FUCKING PLACES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD... Seattle and Vancouver, BC. We are going to spend three nights in Seattle and one night in Vancouver. My friend Anne is coming on the trip with me; she is the friend who went with me to New York City in 2009, and also my only friend who could take that much time off and carries a passport. I plan on meeting at least 10 men of my dreams during that week. Maybe I will marry a Canadian. I swear to god all the men in Vancouver are hot as shit. They are all tall, kinda pale, dark hair, black glasses, dress kind of nerdy, and nobody is fat. Seriously, no fat people in Canada. I think it's a law.

So, in the meantime, as I am writing this blog, I am wracking my brain at the intense amount of homework I have to do between now and Wednesday. You see, I have a 4.0, which has been CRAZY HARD to manage this past four years that I have actively been going to college. I am SO OVER IT. I am SOOO fucking over class and the annoying people in my classes and doing homework every night and not being able to enjoy any free time. I have an oral report due for my death and dying class, a paper on environmental health and its effects on asthma, a whole bunch of homework to catch up on for math, and at least 4 more exams. BARF! But, as everyone says, "you will be happy you got it out of the way now instead of later." And these people are right. Hell none of my friends have really finished school or even take my school schedule seriously. This makes me want to lag on my homework and my other priorities like doing dishes and shit. Only three more weeks and then I only have two more actual classes that I need to get out of the way to BE DONE WITH SAC CITY!!!! Do you have any idea how excited I am? I am still in my dilemma of whether or not I should switch my major to something practical instead of art. I could always do art on the side and keep my cushiony state job.

I guess I should thank god it's getting into winter. Nobody goes out in the winter. I plan on drinking shitloads of coffee and reading about 10 books I have looming over me on my bookshelf. Speaking of bookshelf, I need a new one. And a new dining room table. I digress.

Anyway, on to my favorite season of the year... winter. Aaahhhhh winter. Thanksgiving with my family will be great like always, we will stuff ourselves until we can't move, and sleep in the next day while all the crazies are off stampeding Walmarts across America. I don't understand that sort of material obsessing. Then I will make me way to Target and buy some Christmas lights and maybe a plastic tree, so I can put it up in my window of my apartment. I am not religious, AT ALL, actually vehemently opposed to organized religion, but man, do I love me some Christmas season. I think I actually appreciate it more now that I don't work in retail. Also I really, REALLY love Christmas music. Especially Sufjan Stevens' stuff. Soooo good. And I love the rain. I love layering my clothing and piling all the covers on top of me and not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. I love getting together with family and enjoying the season of giving. I love any holiday, really, that involves eating.

For Christmas this year I think I want gift certificates to bike shops so I can get some work done on my bike that I have been putting off for the last year. I need new rims, tires, handlebars, stem, grip tape, flip the back wheel, and take off a brake. YEP, that right there my friends will cost a good couple hundo. Want to donate to the fix Mandie's bike fund? All donations welcome. I could also use some new winter clothes, especially a new pair of tall brown boots. MMMMM I love boots.

They're decorating the Christmas tree at the Capitol this week. They will probably light it up the first week of December.

Time flies, everyone. Love as much as you can! I love everyone :)

glasses won't help you see in the dark

I spend a lot of time alone. It is probably partly related to the fact that I live alone, or because I am usually at work, school, or doing homework. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking, philosophising, or having fleeting epiphanies and even more fleeting moments of understanding the meaning of life. My cell phone will ring or my cat will meow at me and my train of thought along the path to enlightenment will derail, but only momentarily.

What have I been thinking about lately? I guess lately I have been more aware of my physical and emotional state of being. Since ending a rollercoaster of a relationship in February and going on a thousand uneventful dates since then, I have decided to reorganize the filing cabinet of my emotions. I have started this process by being a little more selfish, not letting people walk all over me, speaking my mind, dropping leeches from my life. Ironically, I have actually gotten nicer as a whole. I am more aware of the way I speak to people, trying to be less cynical and more caring. I think maybe that is part of getting older. I also see the way my close friends treat each other, and I become saddened and afraid that possibly they are speaking poorly of me behind my back. I don't know why they would or what they would say, because I never cause drama among them, but I see how catty and unforgiving they are with each other, that it makes my heart sink a bit. I don't want to be like them. I want people to be around who I can trust all get along. I want people who I know when I share something with them that they won't tell 9 of my friends, who in turn tell 9 of their friends, and so on. So for now, I am working on being the role model to them, leading by example and all that shit. Hopefully it works.

With that said, I have met some really amazing people lately. People who are incredibly kind, generous, talented, funny, and genuine. Let's hope that train stays on its tracks and hopefully I keep meeting great new friends.

Unfortunately, the men I have been meeting are.. well... less than sub-par. Below par. Miles and miles south of par. This has got to end. I do, however, have lots of male friends in my life, who are all amazing, and treat me so well. But that is life. I have them in my life, but I sleep alone. And you know what? That is okay. I am fine with sleeping alone. Sleeping alone is thousands of times better than sharing a bed with someone who makes you cry or makes your heart hurt. This time that I am spending being single is a bit of a learning experience. I like to observe the behaviors of my friends who are in relationships, my friends who are single, and the one or two guys out there who I may or may not have a crush on. I like to observe the behaviors of single men who pursue me, staying just at arm's length from everyone. It's fun to watch. It's fun to sign in to facebook and see seven "pokes" from random guy friends of mine. It's fun to sign in to my Plenty of Fish account (LOL) once every couple weeks and read the drivel of poorly executed pickup lines and abortion of the English language. I can't bring myself to delete my Plenty of Fish account just for the sole comedic value that I recieve when reading messages. God, I have only met one person on there, and that was Jeff. Boy, do I miss him. I digress.

So I guess I have been spending time observing behavior. Performing a social experiment of sorts, with me being the only person tracking and analyzing the results. Sure there is someone out there who I have a crush on, but a crush is such an interesting thing. You have to have a crush long enough to decide if you would still like them after you got them. It's fun to want something so badly and never have it. Then you get it and you play with it for a few weeks and then you shove it back in the junk drawer. I don't want to do that anymore. I am so fucking stubborn and so set in my ways and so obsessed with having my free time, that whoever I date will have to be able to complement my life in a manner that is unobstructive. However, I am probably the best catch of a woman any man could ever have.

So my life and my emotions and my physical state of being are continuously being observed and analyzed by me. My brain working so hard to separate fact from fiction. I enjoy being single. For now.

But then again, I would totally marry Win Butler.

the birth and death of the day

"... like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives."

Anyway, that saying is actually quite true. I have been obsessed (in the best form of the word possible) with death for quite some time. When I was much younger, I was really into gore, and I used to try to find as many videos online of people actually dying. I was kind of a sick fuck in high school, I admit. But that fascination got old, quickly. There were only so many car crash videos or pictures with people's heads smashed in that I could handle anymore. That fascination slowly morphed into wanting to know more about the philosophies of death, dying, religion, finality, loss, heartache, tragedy, and other equally jarring emotional responses.

As a preface, I should probably state that all of the losses around me that I have ever encountered have been tragic. Nobody in my family or my circle of friends who have died have ever been terminal. We all think to ourselves, "man, when I die I want to die quick and painless!" Which this may be a great idea, given the fact that we are human and we try to avoid pain at any cost, but it is actually a more terrifying mode of death to the loved ones who surround us. But then we all wonder who would be at our funeral? Who would be there to show their respects when I am gone? Have there ever been people in your life who become depressed, and one of the things they say is that they are scared nobody will be at their funeral? We wish so badly to be loved and accepted in life, and the final page in our book is the event of our death. If we feel like we spent a life with no love, what kind of a life is that at all? As I have studied this phenomenon of death, the idea of terminal illness is slowly revealing itself as the better option. There are so many things you can take care of with loved ones, your business, and the community, that would have no chance if you dropped from a stroke.

In the case of a girl my age named Eva Markvoort, she had battled cystic fibrosis her entire life, and finally succombed to the disease in March of 2010. She was in a documentary released in Canada about her search for a lung transplant. She recieved the transplant and became healthy again for a little while, until her body started to reject the lungs, and once again she was put on the waiting list. Her blog had thousands of followers, where she spoke about love and family and friends, and she never lost hope, or became depressed by her disease. She was able to see the love around her as she was spiraling towards death. I became very fascinated with reading her blog, partially because she was my age, and partially because I am so fascinated with terminal illness, and I cannot even fathom what it would be like to be aware of your fate. It is just as tragic to lose someone to terminal illness, but at least you can make sure that nothing was ever left unsaid while they are still alive.

Here is her last video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viNEhFQe5o8&feature=related

It's never really occurred to me until recently, but I try to hang on to everyone who comes into my life, fearing losing them. This also probably explains why I become so afraid to get close to people, because I am aware that it's only me that I have to rely on at the end of the day. It's not that I am not aware or that I don't embrace impermanence, I do, and I also know that there is a richness in experiencing loss and tragedy that people need. You cannot feel the highest highs without feeling the lowest lows.

The people I have in my life who I love dearly are very few. My acquaintances are very many. I have a very good way about me to become friends with everyone who I meet, but getting close is almost a rarity. I would rather not get close than get close and lose them. I realize this is a silly idea to have, and that I am wasting time by not enjoying these people or opening up to them and sharing my joys and my sorrows, but sometimes I feel like maybe they just wouldn't even care. And maybe I would spend all this time trying to become close to people to only find out they didn't actually care. Then is that considered time wasted? I feel I am stopping before I get to that point. To become close to me is a fucking feat of strength and I wish you the best in your attempts. If I don't latch on, I can't feel anything, right? Wrong. The fact that it is so hard to get close to people is more depressing to me than the idea of being close and losing them. It's an uphill battle that I fight every day, and sometimes I do become depressed. Usually on a Sunday night, when it's just me laying in my bed, and nobody has called or texted for the entire day. Is that a selfish thought?

As this blog post comes to an end, it's time to think about our lives and how we are living them. Are we showing our loved ones that we love them? If you lost them tomorrow, would everything be said? Your life will never be the same after losing someone, but you learn to live differently. You live a new life. And would you ever take it back?

Rest in Peace: Uncle Mikey, Andy Ekstrom, Aunt Ina, Gary Fontes, Chris Becker, Arloa Singhsnaeh, Pat Handy, and all of my grandparents. I miss you all.

hypnagogic hallucinations have halted heavy hens henceforth

So, I suffer from insanity, at least, that's how it feels when it's three in the morning and I am still rolling around in bed trying to convince myself that I am not dying, only temporarily lapsing into purgatory. Anyway, on with my story.



I have a very common although little talked about ailment called "hypnagogia." Hypnagogia is actually commonly referred to as "night terrors." Mine is different, I rarely get the night terrors (where you are paralyzed in the body and your mind/heart is racing, but you can't move) and they are more leaning towards "hypnagogic hallucinations." These are fucking CRAZAAYYYY. I swear to god, in a past life I must have been hitting the acid, hard.

So, for someone like myself who is dealthy afraid of medication and doing drugs, to have my brain send my vision into seeing a kaleidescope of geometric shapes, large roses, animals, people, lace, spinning and rotating fractals and other things; I would have to say that enjoy it.

What are these like? Well, do you remember those Magic Eye books from elementary school where every other kid was trying to cross their eyes to see the dolphins jumping out of the water only to figure out that they were doing it completely wrong? Well, if you were the 1% of the population who was "doing it right" like me, you would already have a pretty good idea of what these hallucinations are like. These hallucinations omit color; they are like seeing large transparent objects that you can make the figure out by the way the light bends around the object, like glass. Or sort of like dark matter in the universe!

My favorite memory of one of these hallucinations was when I had just fallen asleep and I was awoken by something, and I looked across my room and there were three or four very large roses rotating in the air. I was startled, but also deeply calmed by this (for reasons unknown) so I stared and watched them for a few seconds before they dissipated on their own. Sometimes I will be fully aware that what I am seeing is not there, and I think that is when my brain begins to process regular input and the hallucinations go away. Then I lie there, completely calm, in utter fascination at the workings of our brain.

Sometimes this is my favorite part of falling asleep.

zombient

If you know me or pretend to know me or if you would like to know me, you should know that I am really, REALLY into post-rock, ambient music. The more heavy and instrumental, the better. Maybe it's because I have been in full-time school for the better part of the last four years or maybe it's because my poor brain just can't process anything else anymore and everything ends up sounding like a dying animal or a car accident. So I am here, today, to unveil to you some good instrumental, post-rock, or ambient bands that I have been listening to for years and years.

Album Leaf
Helios
Unwed Sailor
Mogwai
Sigur Ros
Explosions in the Sky
Stars of the Lid
Godspeed you black emperor
Unwed Sailor
Efterklang
Do Make Say Think
M83
Mice Parade
Ratatat
This Will Destroy You
Zoe Keating


Enjoy my dears. I hope your ears thank you as much as mine have over the years. I am still cynical, though. So if you're hoping your cynicism will be cured... think again.

Midtown Stench

Oh, the lovely aroma of death and feces that wafts up from the underbelly of Midtown Sacramento.

Thousands of people's poo and pee swimming along an integrated system of channels underfoot.

How I love when I am riding my bike on a hot summer's day, and I find myself jerking my head back in repulse as I ride past a manhole and your stench burns off my delicate nose hairs. My eyes water, not in delight - not in longing - not in sorrow, but in pain. Sheer pain from the stench of the amassed pee and poo particles floating through the air like a ballerina, dancing to the music of a thousand urine streams hitting the rim of a toilet.

Alas, countless memories have been created at Tres Hermanas, Tuli Bistro, Ernesto's, Yogurt a Go Go, and other Midtown eateries -- only to be fermented by bodily secretions, turned into excrement, and flushed away into infinity to continue the circle of life. Cue Elton John.