A study of lexical ambiguity processing

Christmas = Mental retardation.

Meant literally, because around the holidays my mind and personality increasingly retard back to the point where I am around 10 years old. It can be a nice feeling, though, I was probably more insane as a child even than I am now.


Party = Plum flavored vodka?

My friend brought over homemade plum vodka for a holiday gathering. It was.... like plum pudding and rubbing alcohol mixed with good intentions.

Snow (okay, two words) = Wipe out.

Actually just evil ice masquerading as lovely lovely snow. I don't think I really needed that ice and concrete facial.

Family = A distant and guiding light fading out of sight.

Sadly, my life has seemed to me for a while to be kind of an endless preparation for everyone I count as having formed me and made me who I am to fade away and be gone. Then what will I be? I will still be me and yet there will be no history. It is an odd feeling, and disconcerting. I hope I appreciate my family as much as I can. I think I do.

November = Hospital.

For the past month my father has been in and out (mostly in) the hospital. In a series of health related catastrophes which seem to be unrelated, but are in fact are all tied together by a liver on the fritz, my pop ended up in the hospital for a kidney infection and ended up on a liver transplant team's operating table having his gallbladder removed. We were told he had an extremely rare condition involving a calcified gallbladder which had a high risk of cancer. So he needed to have it removed, despite the fact that he is not a candidate for surgery. He is a bleeder and has severe liver damage from hepatitis C.

My Old Kentucky Home

So Kentucky has been good for a couple of things. We invented Bourbon, chewing gum (we called it taffy tolu) and we don't allow our citizens to sell blue chickens, carry ice cream cones in their pockets, buy hats without their husband's permission, or let bees enter the state without certificates of health. We're good people. We're also called the 'Graveyard to the West," which is slightly ominous. In any case, I'm thrilled to live here. Or, that is, I was thrilled. Until I discovered that Kentucky has a unique little agricultural wonder which is indigenous to our state. Kentucky is home to something called a "pamper tree." A pamper tree is a regular tree which has had diapers thrown onto it. Dirty diapers. Dirty diapers have been thrown onto trees because.... because there are no trash cans nearby? Because people like the smell? No one knows for sure, but one thing is for certain. These unique trees are thankfully becoming extinct thanks to state cleanup movements. I'm still left reeling. Why would anyone do that?!! Ah, Kentucky.

Twin Sister

So I saw the great indie band Twin Sister last night. I'd heard them before almost by accident at a friends house. I was instantly taken by the bands mix of solid beats and a sort of dreamy shoe-gaze aesthetic. Overall, the band has a wonderfully atmospheric sound and they should be on your playlist, like, now. Originally from Brooklyn, the band stopped by my little world on their way back from SXSW and I couldn't be more grateful.



Here are some mp3s for you. No problem. Don't mention it.

Off their first EP Vampires with Dreaming Kids

Twin Sister - I want a house
Twin Sister - Dry Hump
Twin Sister - Nectarine

Radial club hands? More like RADICAL Club hands! Am I right? Right? Oh gawd.

Me, My lovely sister and her extremely nutso ex

Let me briefly share something with you, faceless void of the interweb. I am somewhat self esteemed challenged, for it is just my nature to feel hopelessly lost in life, but I do recognize certain of my near-good qualities (on a good day anyways). I am not an ugly person in physical appearance. I have a conventionally good body, good skin, good hair and somewhat exotic features. This may sound like bragging, and it is, but it is also a very hard won sense of physical self. I was born with a skeletal disorder that left my arms shorter than average. Noticeably. I had 12 surgeries before I was 14 and went through a lot of physical therapy in order to have the kind of functionality most people have with their hands. It was a lot of hard work but now I use my hands perhaps even more than most people. I draw, I paint, I sew, I write, etc. etc. I digress. Though this disorder does not define me it did affect how I viewed myself in the world. It made me shyer, more insecure, more afraid. I was very lucky in that I was raised in a family and a social group that totally overlooked any differences, there were no differences. The thing was never discussed and yet not taboo. Everyone simply was who they were. But. I also have a twin sister. A very beautiful twin sister who is identical in every way to me except for her arms. She was born with no skeletal abnormalities. It is one of those things that is simply an odd twist of fate. It could have been her who was born different or both of us could have been. As it is we are extremely close and alike in all ways that count. If anything, my gorgeous sister has somewhat less of a sense of self than I do. Maybe that comes from being home schooled and feeling off her footing in the world. I feel that way too, but I have also had to try and define myself, for myself, so as to not let others do it for me. In the end I am probably a little bit stronger of a person than her. This makes me very sad because I can't really relate to her insecurities and fragility. To me it becomes an almost black and white situation where you should look at what you do have and what you could not have had and be grateful. Of course, I do know that nothing works that way. You feel how you feel. Looking at the person next to you and feeling guilty for feeling so unhappy with what you have does not enter into it. I think I am heading down a different emotional path if I continue talking about this, so I'll save it for another day.

To sum up: I was born with an abnormality that can cause people to think of me differently, it doesn't define me, I rarely think of it, I'm not handicapped.

I'm Not Special.

Today while I was waiting for the bus I was approached by a guy. This is, of course, not all that unusual for any girl and is a somewhat regular occurrence in my daily life. There is typically a pretty set group of guys that will approach a lonesome girl in the middle of the day. I'd say there are around 3 "usual suspects" to be on the lookout for. There is the fairly innocent awkward guy who tries to make small talk (usually involving something easy to broach such as a book you might be holding, what music you're listening to, etc) who might just not get the hint that you're alone and not looking for company. Then there is of course the semi-creepy older guy who makes comments about your appearance and tries to hit on you in cliched ways (i.e. 'where are we? "Baby I thought we were in Hollywood. 'Cause I just saw a star") which can be really bothersome but pretty easily deflected. Then you get the cracked out creepy guys who alternate between hitting on you and seeming to want to hit you. These interactions usually start with a request for a cig, money, a bus ticket or borrowing of a cell phone. These people are the most difficult to get rid of. These are the 3 major categories for girl-botherers if you exclude any sexual deviants or real problem characters. Now, there is a hidden 4th category. There is the dude who is both a nice guy and creepy at once. He might be mentally a bit off or sub average or he might be on something but he just does not get the hint and what is worse is that you end up feeling guilty about wanting an escape. Okay, so today I met the 4th guy. Here's how it went down;

I was waiting for the bus and approached by the guy. Right away I could tell he was a little bit retarded or sub average. He also had some physical problems such as a facial twitch and a bad lisp. I could tell the only reason the poor fellow felt okay approaching me was because of my hands. He started trying to talk to me about the book I was reading ( I think I was reading a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami) and even recommended a series of his own (he chose to suggest Twlight). The conversation took a few turns towards personal when he asked me whether I had a boyfriend, where I lived and if I wanted to work where he worked. This conversation lasted around twenty minutes. Ordinarily, I would have shut down and annoying overly invasive convo within the first five minutes but.... I felt sorry for him. There I said it. Pretty much my worst fear is people looking at me and feeling sorry for me based on my appearance (for god sakes at least choose the fact that I am crazy to feel sorry for me). I know, it isn't a very exciting fear which is why I usually tell people that my biggest fear is of being eaten by a pack of deranged wildebeest. Let me put it all into perspective. Often times challenged people will speak to me differently or look at me differently. They see a kindred spirit. Whether it is the retarded bag boy who says something to me when he would ordinarily be silent or the girl in the wheel chair who gives me a knowing look, thousands of little gestures and interactions that all mean the same thing, "We're alike. You get it." Now, I would love to think that my life has given me the kind of perspective that most don't have. Given me empathy and caring for other people's struggles. But what I really think during these interactions is almost always "you poor bastard" and I want to get away from them as quickly as humanly possible. In fact, usually, I resent being associated with them. I feel like a fraud. I'm supposed to be better. I am supposed to get what it feels like to be on a different level than "normal" people. I'm certainly not supposed to feel vaguely queasy. In a way I feel like I am running from myself. I feel no different than so called normal people. I feel no better or worse. I carry myself with confidence, primp myself with a normal if not slightly above average sense of vanity and unconsciously look down on people who are not so different from me at all. I guess I am pretty normal after all. It might not seem like much of an internal conflict but it does make me sad. I seem to ungraciously embody my own worst fears.

And so the title of my post has two meanings. One; I am not "special" and two; I am most certainly not special.

Oh well. What can you do?

Pictures of yesterday and today.

Saturday, March 13th 2010.

Friday, March 12th 2010.

Thursday March 11th, 2010. I didn't do much today. I was feeling sick all day.

Spring Time Pic Spam

Inspired by a friend of mine, I have decided to start taking a photograph a day. My friend is an artist and she used the photographs to create a piece of art. My photos probably won't be artistic, but it might be a nice way to get through the day. One photograph at a time. The photos probably will be random, for instance, these pictures I took with my cellphone. I'm going to try for 60 days or so. Hopefully at the end of those 60 days I won't still be feeling so blue.

Sweet!

Music

mu·sic

 /ˈmyuzɪk/ Show Spell[myoo-zik]

–noun

1.

an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

2.

the tones or sounds employed, occurring in single line (melody) or multiple lines (harmony), and sounded or to be sounded by one or more voices or instruments, or both.

3.

musical work or compositions for singing or playing.

4.

the written or printed score of a musical composition.

5.

such scores collectively.

6.

any sweet, pleasing, or harmonious sounds or sound: the music of the waves.

7.

appreciation of or responsiveness to musical sounds or harmonies: Music was in his very soul.
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I am feeling this lately.
La Brigade - Liberez

c('_')o

Yoshitomo Nara And His Books: I want.

Tsumori Chisato Spring 2010

<3

Honestly, this blog is supposed to be for my own pleasure and I shouldn't feel obligated to update it, but every time I think of it I experience an unpleasant little twinge of guilt. As though I am ignoring and old friend. Recently, I have been sorely tempted to never post again. Between not knowing what I want this blog to be, being busy with life, and in general... life falling apart. So, subconscious self? I don't know what direction I'll be going in, but I'll see you when I get there.


P.S. a simply lovely site: http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-11-04T18%3A11%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=10