unicorngirl's thoughts on everything

A lot.

One of the creepiest and coolest songs of all time. And yes, I did hear it on the palm pixi commercial like everyone else. But I took the time to find the band on my own, and Passion Pit really is great.


I'm obsessed with this song too. Nobody can rock out like the brits. Unfortunately this is the only video I could find. The song is a lot better not live.

YES!!!! God I have so much to say on this topic.

The Single Issue or "Smug Marrieds" (as Bridget Jones would say)
I'm sick of the importance our culture puts on being in a couple. Having a bf/gf/spouse is a sign of importance, and being single is a sign of being lame to most people - it's NOT true, it's a shameless brainwashing to make one type of people feel bad and another feel good if fake. I'm not saying all coupled up people are smug or they shouldn't be together, I'm saying I'm tired of people assuming you're worthless when you're single, that everyone WANTS to be in a relationship at all, and that if you're single, it's because nobody wanted you. Many, many people are perfectly happy being single, and EVERYONE has the potential to be a whole, interesting, fulfilled person without a significant other.

Now I am ALSO not saying this means no one should want a bf/gf/to get married. I in fact want to get married someday more than anything. What I am saying is that you shoudl be in a relationship because you want to be with that person, not because it's expected of you or it validates you or you feel worthless without it. And if you're not in a relationship and feel bad about being single, it should be because you are lonely and are ready for a relationship, not because you feel worthless because society has told you single = worthless.

I honestly don't feel like it's only - or even mostly - married and/or dating people who create this way of thinking. Most of the marrieds I know are not smug, nor are those with bf/gfs (though less PDA would be nice). However, they're obviously out there: the singles who hate themselves and want to make other singles share their pain, AND the people in relationships who want to feel good about themselves by putting down single people. I wish it would all just stop. Do what's right for you and shut up about everyone else. That sentence applies to just about every issue know to mankind. (Except poverty I guess.)

To Procreate or Not to Procreate
I am a staunch advocate of both limiting the number of children you have AND people who make the choice not to have children. This is partly because I am one of the latter. At this point, I really feel like I never, ever want to have children. I have many, many ligitimate and well-thought-out reasons for this, which I can neither list here nor recall on the spot, but suffice to say the decision was not taken on lightly. I also want to marry, which presents something of a problem that doesn't need to be a problem, because our society expects, even more than the initial marriage and children, that as soon as a woman marries, she and her husband will start popping out the kids. Marriage and kids go hand in hand in our minds, and it really shouldn't. For that reason, I'm worried about finding a husband who will genuinely not resent me for not wanting children.

I honestly think ALL couples - and single women - should be thinking a LOT longer and harder about whether they SHOULD be having babies before they do! Think of all the terrible mothers out there who decided they wanted kids but can't take care of them or give them the mothering they need. I'm the opposite: instead of having children I shouldn't, I'm NOT having children for the right reasons, one of which is that I don't feel I would be a very good mother in the first place. Honestly, deciding NOT to have children is WAY more responsible than accidentally or intentionally getting pregnant without considering the consequences. So why are you yelling at me? I'M not going to bring a baby into the world and then mistreat it, mess it up, or give it up for adoption.

Anyway, on a less confrontational note, I am also concerned with the figures for population growth, and I honestly think now is the time to start limiting childbirth to avoid overcrowding of our planet. I feel it's definitely more responsible, even for perfectly sane responsible parents, to limit their procreation to one or, at most, two children in our current population situation. None is even better. So individuals and couples deciding not to have any children at all should be praised, not derided, if only for that reason. I honestly wish our government would adopt a population control initiative now, because the'yre just going to have to do it later, perhaps as soon as 50 years from now, and then it will be way more chaotic. But anyway, if I didn't have other reasons not to have kids and decided I wanted them after all, I woudl still only have one, because it's the responsible thing to do.

The Holidays
Well ... no, I actually don't personally notice the single/chlidless prejudice gets worse around the holidays, but I know it does. I do personally notice it gets very lonely, with all the emphasis on family, friends, good tidings of great joy etc. not to mention the onset of winter. It's the time of year you want someone to hang onto, and if you don't have anyone, it can be really sad.

Well today is cram day for the midterm in Modern Art class, because it's tomorrow morning. Well, the thing is I do better by studying the day before a test because the closer to the time I have to regurgitate it that I look it over, the better I remember it, so it's honestly best to do it at the "last minute" for me. Anyway, I just spent 3 hours in the study room compressing and organizing my notes on all the artists from Manet to Marc (1860 - 1920 ish) and that's not even the last of it (still have to do Cubism).

Anyway, I keep getting upset and crying a little. Stress? Probably contributed. But honestly a lot of these artists are so depressing. I remember first block when I was in that class about environmental writings, it really got under people's skins, whether it made them angry and argue in class or just upset them really badly, but it never rankled me that badly, and I wasn't sure why. It does upset me to think about environmental issues like clear cutting and hurting nature and stuff, but I guess since I grew up in an environmentalist family of park rangers, I got used to those issues. Granted, I might not have been as stressed out. And I did cry when I read the Gary Snyder poems. But my friend Melissa got really upset by the whole thing, and i felt bad for not getting that upset.

I guess it's my turn now. I was doing fine until I got to Van Gogh and Gauguin. Well, let's break it down, shall we?

Paul Gauguin - Never reconciled his identity crisis or his yearning for the exotic. Kept going to Tahiti and junk, never found belonging anywhere or the primtive culture he wanted to be part of. We might never know what he really felt about Van Gogh, which whom he had a ridiculously turbulant friendship that ended in Vincent just about razoring him, but he was always avoiding him. His womanizing came back to haunt him when his Tahitian mistress ripped him off and disappeared while he was sick in Paris. Tried to take arsenic to commit suicide, but it just made him sick and slightly demented. At least he died in the tropics where he was marginally happy.

Vincent Van Gogh - Yeah, the ultimate tragic artist right? The saddest thing though is he was one of those awkward, over-eager, bipolar people you really woudln't want to be around because he would creep you out - but he wanted more than anything to be loved, and spent his whole turbulant life searching for it but never really found it. He kind of smothered his friend Gauguin and drove him away with psychotic episodes, got just about every vinereal disease because prostitutes would actually pay attention to him, and his brother Theo was basically the only person who sort of got him. He just got more and more lonely and psychotic until he spent the last year of his life in an asylum and under a doctor's care back home - all the while painting obsessively - until he shot himself in a wheat field. Is there anything more lonely and tragic than killing yourself in the middle of the wheatfield you've just painted a bunch of times?

Then there are the German Expressionists - pretty much all of whom were labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis in the 20's and had terrible things done to them. Kirchner painted these amazing sweeping brushstrokes and colors that are both lonely and compelling (I fell in love with his painting "Winter Moon Landscape"), then the Nazis took all his art out of the museums and it hit him so hard, he killed himself in 1938. Emil Nolde, who did these amazing violent, scary images, actually sympathized with the Nazi cause and thought it would save his art, but it didn't. They still labeled it degenerate, destroyed everything they could get their hands on, and forbid him to paint ever again. The poor man painted watercolors in secret, hiding them in his house for the rest of his life, and called them "the unpainted pictures." Franz Marc hated reality and humanity and painted these lovely cubist-type animal paintings because he wanted to feel the "blood of nature", which was more authentic than people. He thought a war would cleanse the world, went off to fight in WWI - and died. Kandinsky - I don't even like his art very much, but he was the abstract shapes guy who liked to hide what he wanted to say in totally abstract paintings - was this respected art teacher in the Bauhaus school until the Nazis banned abstract art and shut the school down, forcing him to flee to Paris. Just the idea of being told by the powers that be that your art is literally retarded and forbidden to do it, the thing that you just have to do that fulfills your existance, is so horrifying to me. Is that something that only upsets artists? I started imaging what it would be like if I was forbidden to write ever again - I'd probably do it in secret too, but then who would see it? How would it mean anything? I don't blame Kirchner in the slightest for killing himself. What else could he do?

Luckily, Cubism isn't quite so depressing. Picasso seemed relatively happy, at least he wasn't persecuted and forbidden to paint or so completely alienated that he didn't want to live anymore. It's all the stuff that is just kind of sad by itself, but when you compress all the tragedy into a short space of time (like the block plan does), it gets really overwelming.

Something about the Nazis especially terrifies me. I think it's the overwelming powerfully enforced ignorance, the fact that they could condemn you for any reason and there was nothing you could do. They could take away your art and you would say thank you sir - Herr - because the could kill you too. That's why Nazis are so fascinating, because they're probably THE single most terrifying force that has been in the recent past. I always want to write about them, but they scare and upset me too.

I'm also really fascinated but also upset by the Van Gogh-Gauguin thing. I want to know about their relationship, how their different dementias played off each other, why they stayed together whne they did and why they completely combusted. Both really depress me for different reasons. And together they make me think that they were very much alike in deeper ways, but superficial things divided them, which is always really tragic. I'm doing my paper for this class about Gauguin's self portrait for Van Gogh, just because I liked it a lot and we had to pick only one, otherwise I'd have done both of their self portraits for each other. But I don't think I can resist bringing in some comparisons, and I'm allowed to anyway. It just occurred to be Van Gogh's portrait would have been easier, because i know a lot more about Van Gogh from before than I did Gauguin, but whatever. I'll learn about something I'm actually interested in either way.

Yeah, I need a break from all this art history and Nazis and suicides. Maybe I should fool around til my writing studio shift at 5, have dinner, then resume. That's a nice breather. Yeah, I did kind of use my "free time" to type this, but honestly, the first thing I needed to do was get it out. When I'm upset by something, it helps to write it out, then do something else for a while, and by the time I get back to it it's not so upsetting anymore.

So I forgot all about this til now - I would have posted it the day of, but my internet at home is so slow it wasn't worth it.

Okay, usually the Macy's parade is hokey, boring, and yet something to do all Thanksgiving morning. This year, for about 5 minutes, it was definitely not boring. I got the surprise of the last few months! Guess who appeared on the screen on the Broadway M&M's float?

THIS GUY!!!!!!1!11!

Yeah, I dont know how that one slipped by me. I think I totally read somewhere in like September that the lovely Alan was going to be in the parade, but I forgot all about it until T'giving morning. I was chowing down on some cinnamon rolls my wonderful mother made and remember thinking "Hey that guy kinda looks like Alan CumOH MY GOD IT IS ALAN CUMMING!!!" He sang "That's Life" and was very sexy lol. I totally freaked out and my parents were unimpressed as usual, but since when have my parents ever understood me? *emo* lol

Thanks for the surprise, you darling man! xD

I think these pretty well sum up my feelings on the matter.

Also sick of Twilight? Feel free to use and credit my pixel journal.

Give me a break - THIS IS A WRITERS BLOCK??? For serious??? Has the whole world gone so crazy that we can't think of one thing more interesting than a crap book that was made into a crap movie????

Banning books is wrong for any reason. If the parents of this kids care that much about what they'r reading (or watching for that matter) they should actually talk to their kids about why they don't want them to view certain things, and take responsibility for policing their own kids' reading, not foist it onto librarians and teachers.

In November 2009 Reader's Digest "Life" section:

(Oveheard conversation)
Girl #1: This whole Ben situation is really starting to tick me off.
Girl #2: I know! I just don't know what his deal is.
Girl #1: He called me like 12 times yesterday.
Girl #2: He called you? [Pause] Oh, you mean Ben your boyfriend.
Girl #1: As opposed to?
Girl #2: Ben from Lost.

I lolled so hard.

Something hand-made as only you can make it, or something that hearkens an inside joke you have with them.

Here I thought Poker Face was Lady Gaga's only good song. The song is amazing, but the video is really freakin amazing. I love her for bringing back the creative, theatrical, sexy, high-fashion extravaganza music video. I got shivers and my heart was in my throat the whole time I was watchin this. It reminded me of seeing "Blade Runner" the first time - so edgy it almost makes you want to look away - but you can't. Easily my favourite music video of the year. You're crazy if you're not keeping an eye on Lady Gaga - she's the pop sensation for the new millenium, and still a little ahead of the times.

impractical: extraordinary modeling ability. then people would book me even tho I'm 5'1" and kinda chubby because I'd know how to hide it in pictures.

pratical: be an extraordinarily good writer.

I'm obsessed with this song right now. Sorry for the subpar audio.

gawd I'm tired lately. I actually napped for like an hour this afternoon because there was no PM class, that's how tired I was. I'm still tired but just napping sort of takes the edge off. I got lots to do this evening, so I need energy. Hmm ... *frappuccino*. Bah, I got addicted to them during this class - I got to the point where I was buying one for every AM class. My ratt money is down to like $30 so I'm using my own now so I have some left for next block. Tee hee. Caffeine is a funny addicting thing. *wants frapuccino*

I would have a model body. That sounds shallow, but it's not because I think my body's that bad now, I just have always wanted to be a model, but can't at 5"1' and slightly chubby. If I had the required body, I would seriously persue modeling.

I have always wanted to have lived in the sixties. So much important stuff was happening, it was the turning point of America basically. Plus the pop culture was so much fun, and the counter culture was even more fun. And then there's the British scene ... that would have been the coolest. I would love to vacation in the sixties for a couple of years. I don't think I'd be as miserable if I got stuck there permanently as some other time, like the middle ages, but if I had the choice I'd come back someday. And as long as I'm taking this vacation (and definitely going to mod old England) I'd have to take my best friend Graham with me. He'd probably appreciate the music the most. We could see the Beatles and Dylan together or something.

First off, that's two totally separate and vaguely related questions. Second, in the first question, you ask for a choice between two of the same thing. I think you MEANT "do you think your moods control your brain chemistry ..." Get it right, people. What are they paying you for over there?

First question: Brain chemistry is the only way science has vaguely been able to figure out something as esoteric as emotions, so it basically is neither and both - emotions are chemicals in your brain, but we have no good idea how it works.

Second question: Nope, yo'ure born how you're born. I believe a lot of stuff about your personality can be shaped by nurture, but nature chooses how you react to that experience. So yes, some people are born "happier" or "sadder" or more prone to anger or depression or humor etc. I personally am a melancholy type, and I'm pretty okay with that, and woudl never want to be one of those perky happy slappy people. But to a certain extent if a happier type of person lives a dreadful life, they will naturally be sadder, etc. But in that same situation a melancholy person might just self destruct, because they don't have the happy to fall back on. I think it has a lot to do with optimism/pessimism, which is another complicated topic I have a lot to say about. But I digress enough already.

In general I tend to feel like both nature and nurture apply, but nature is the basis and therefore stronger than the nuture part.