living is easy with eyes closed

I woke up this morning in a Beatles mood. Listened to Abbey Road, ’65, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Let It Be and Revolver all day. Got home this evening, still not high enough on the Beatles and watched Hard Day’s Night. Needing more of a fix, I spent a few hours on every Beatles’ blog site I could get my bowl-cut-hungry-hands on. I put on Yellow Submarine and sorted through all my Beatles books, twitching and sweating, my pupils dilated and track marks forming. Tripping out on Beatlemania…

Now, as you kids know, I could wax lyrical about the Beatles like a twelve year old Twi-hard at a Robert Pattinson press event, but I’ll spare you all the gushing. Because I know my obsessive nature is that of great annoyance. Also because I really couldn’t put into words how passionately I feel about these four boys. And also because I am dangerously close to an overdose.

It’s getting hard to be someone

but it all works out….

Oh, Georgie boy...

 Paulie

 Richard

 Mr. Lennon

 silly boys...

 <3

 steller shades, babe

 who wears short shorts?!

 I've had this picture for two years and just recently noticed Paul in the background

 I would give my left tit to bang Mr. Harrison circa 1963

Cheers.

we don’t live in american’t!

So I saw my shrink yesterday and my doctor this morning. He upped my dosage.

Cheers. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about dropping one of my concentrations. As of right now I’m an Art Major with an emphasis in Drawing and Graphic Design and a minor in Media Studies. It’s not that I don’t think I could handle both concentrations, but I realized lately that I’m one of the shittier designers in my class. As much as I like designing, my heart is not in it enough to devote more of my time to learning about it. I feel that I’m not competitive enough to survive in the design world. I’m not skilled enough to produce something really amazing. I have the talent and the capacity to come up with great ideas, but I suck at executing them. There are a million more people in the world that can do so much better than me. There are people that are so much more devoted to their work than I am. The past two weeks of my work this semester has really dappled in the art of Half-Assing. It’s not that I don’t care about my designs and projects, it’s that I don’t have the time (correction, I can’t justify making the time) to produce a really fantastic piece of work.

Although I enjoy drawing far more than designing, I can’t imagine having much of a career in it once I graduate. I mean, who’s going to hire a drawing major? What do drawers (drawists? Drawing-ers?) do in the real world?

But there’s the other issue- I don’t know what I even want to do with my life (as far as careers go) (and everything else for that matter). For years I’ve had my heart set on Editorial Art Director of Vogue (possibly Spin or Nylon), but like I said before, so many more people in the world are far more qualified (and frankly, want it much more) than me. I don’t like high stress, I don’t like deadlines, I don’t like meetings and networking and sacrificing creative integrity. Even if I did manage to score a job in magazine editing, I would be spreading myself thinner than a Chanel runway model just to survive.

This recent realization that I might not actually like design and editing as much as I thought I did has made me stop and think, “okay then, what do I like?”

So I had three vodka-cranberrys, watched a few episodes of American Dad, did some soul searching (more like soul questioning) and realized::

A.) I like making art (duh). All day, every day, without worrying about deadlines or grades. I could be a street artist I guess. Like the next Shepard Fairey or something (sans the legal battles and copyright infringements).

B.) I like being naked. So…stripper? Professional streaker? Curator of a nudist colony?

C.) I love music and concerts. I could help promote shitty inide bands (make posters, sell show tickets, curate venues and auditoriums?) Maybe I can get a job as a roadie for some shitty indie band. Or photographer for shitty indie band. Or artist manager for shitty indie band. Cover art designer for shitty indie band??

D.) I like looking at art. Online, in books, in galleries, etc. If there were a career that involved me being on weheartit.com for eight hours a day, I’d be making bank. If I knew anything about web design, I’d be making the next devianART.

E.) I like Facebook. Every time I see a coming attraction for The Social Network, I have a mini-orgasm. It’s like “Oh My God, what is this, and how can I replace my blood with it??”

F.) I love fashion. But I hate retail. So maybe personal shopper? Mannequin stylist? Costume design? Maybe I could get FOREVER 21 tattooed on my forehead and get paid a shit ton of money for being a walking advertisement.

The truth is I could probably do a lot more than I believe I have the capacity to do. Wardrobe stylist, concert promoter, brewmaster, toy creator, academy awards ballot counter (ßGoogle that shit, it’s a legitimate career), flight attendant, taxidermist, makeup artist, candle maker, fashion consultant, glass blower, bookbinder, puppeteer, tattoo artist. I could make money working as a waitress all day, sell head all night and run a secret underground print shop that produced popular zines. I could become a silk screener and rent out a studio apartment in New York and paint it silver. Be a regular Andy Warhol fame whore, an underground film star, it girl. Become really infamous and die at a young age. Optimist Drowns in Half-full Tub.

So I’ve come to terms with the fact that I don’t exactly have it figured out what I want to do. I don’t have a goal or a career in mind. I don’t want to be a professional graphic designer. I don’t want a job that I’m dragging my gin-soaked ass to every morning and taking chain-smoke breaks on the patio of the trailer-house-turned-mobile-office, having meetings every third day about typefaces, image editing and package layouts. I don’t know what I want in life. I don’t know what I want a degree in. I don’t know for sure if I’m going to drop my Drawing concentration and focus all my energy on design, or drop Graphic Design and do what I really love but have no real future in. if you think about it, it’s a slight lose/lose situation. I can’t decide.

But I know that I’m having another vodka-cranberry.

if two people have only one thought between them, something is very wrong

I finally made it to the grocery store today (hallelujah). And while I was there, my mind was busy mental-blogging. I gathered my milk, mascara, cranberry juice and Generic Cereal O’s and thought about how silly it is when people grocery shop with their iPods or Bluetooth headsets in. I thought about how much work I have to get done this weekend. I walked home and I thought about how much I hate the hot and dry Colorado autumn air.

I came home, put on Florence + The Machine, made a cosmopolitan (sans the triple sec), smoked a cigarette sitting on my window ledge and started to write. (I felt so Carrie fucking Bradshaw I could puke).

I started to complain about the people with the Bluetooth headsets, the ridiculous amount of homework I have to do and how I can’t wait to move away after I graduate, but I remembered this whole not-going-to-complain-about-life-make-the-best-of-it thing I’m trying.

So I decided to write about men.

I’m already drinking the cosmo, I might as well take my Carrie Bradshaw persona to the next level.

Writing about guys without complaining was going to be a difficult blog.

I started thinking about relationships and lobotomies. Two seemingly different ideas that just might be perfect together.

In the twenty-one years I’ve been single, I always (selfishly) questioned why that was. Why, when far less attractive, far crazier bitches than me are having relationships, am I left rejected by the opposite sex? I always thought it was me and my insufferable flaws. My obsessive nature, my dysfunctional habits, my emotional instability (to name a few). And that somehow fate had been denying me a relationship. Maybe it was some Freudian complex I had with men- my father left me before I was even born so maybe I rejected the idea of men  because I didn’t want to be abandoned again. Maybe that, combined with my personality, was creating a barrier that no guy would even want to penetrate (maybe it’s the fact I can’t even type the word “penetrate” without snickering).

A guy a high school told me once that I was “too much woman” for anyone to handle. (which I took to be a nice way of calling me an intolerable shrew).

But lately I’ve been having a different school of thought. Maybe it is me. But maybe it’s the fact that I’m romantically challenged. Girls are fed love stories and fairy tales of heroic princes and Better Homes and Garden families (thanks a lot, Disney) and have it in their mind that they will achieve their ultimate happiness when they fall in love and find their soulmate. {Soulmates. Yet another crazy notion (like marriage or religion) that has us dithering around, playing games, chasing boys that don’t really care about us.}

The truth is, every eligible suitor that comes knocking on my door (actually, texting my phone), I quickly reject.  Because why? Because I am romantically challenged. I cannot deal with the cute nicknames and the hand-holding and the idea of being able to sit around with a guy without make-up or hairspray on. The truth is, anyone that shows romantic interest in me simply isn’t my type (sorry, gentlemen). Thanks to Disney and Titanic and Shakespeare, my idea of love greatly outweighs love itself. My soulmate, my perfect guy, my other half, he can never really exist. He is too idealized in my mind to be real (and the closest thing that’s ever come will never have the same feelings as I do for him).

(I am steadily getting drunker as I write this, so forgive me if I start using run on sentences….)

So soulmates- they’re people that we have deep affinity and love towards. People that we are spiritually and infinitely connected to. Our other halves.

What bullshit.

If soulmates truly exist- if there is one person in the world who will love us for exactly what we are, despite all our flaws, who we’re supposed to not be complete without, one person that will understand something about us that no one will ever understand. That one person that we can always count on, who will forever love us always, and understand us the way no one else will. …geeeez,z vodka…okay..um..

If there is that one person who we love unconditionally, then I am convinced I could never find that in a man. There is only one person who I have a deep and powerful connection to. Only one person I’ve met that I’ve ever loved entirely, despite that half the time we want to pimp-slap each other. Only one person who has always supported me despite my self-destructive nature and annoying habits. She my best friend. She is the Thelma to my Louise. The Butch Cassidy to my Mozart. The Jack to my Tyler Durden. The Sam to my Frodo. The Frodo to my Smeagol. The Smeagol to my Gollum. The cheap vodka to my cranberry juice.

Maybe I’ll never have a husband or live-in boyfriend or even a baby-daddy. Maybe I’ll never meet my Paulie Bleaker. My Jack Dawson. My Edward Cullen (forgive the reference). Maybe I’ll never have a man in my life that will love me as much as I love him. And maybe I’ll never meet another man (besides the aforementioned one) who exceeds all my expectations of what the perfect man is. Maybe I am destined to live my life of having that one guy friend who I have lunch and great conversation with once a month, the one guy friend I invite over at two in the morning for a make-out session and hand-job, the one guy friend I talk to about dreams and hopes for the future, the one guy friend I sext and cyber fuck, the one guy I study with who helps me get better grades, the one guy friend I blow every Thursday evening, the one guy friend I share CD’s and go to concerts with, the one guy friend I talk about art and philosophy with and the one guy friend I email every so often, pouring my heart and soul, telling him every little boring detail about myself, wishing he could just like me back. Maybe guys can just be my friends and my play-things and I can be happy that I’ve already found my other half. I don’t need a man to eternally love me. I don’t need a relationship to feel complete. I don’t need a soulmate with a penis. I already have a soulmate. And she’s fucking fantastic.

no more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone

Penguins are whores. Female penguins will sleep with male penguins in exchange for pebbles to build their nests. They give away sex for payment of pebbles.

"wanna fuck?"

Penguin prostitution.

I am in such a daze of exhaustion.

{Seems like I’ve been held in some dreaming state (a tourist in the waking world, never quite awake).}

I am falling grossly behind in my readings for classes. I feel like an epic failure in design. I resorted to my usual “let splatter a bunch of angsty and expressive ink stains” solution in finishing my first drawing project of the semester tonight. I accidentally forgot about a check that I wrote quite some time ago and now I’m overdrawn over a hundred dollars in my checking account. I have no money, no motivation, no milk (seriously, I drank all my fucking milk and I have no time to grocery shop). I want to throw in the towel, but if I fail any more classes this semester, I will get kicked out of school.

Not to complain.

Somewhere between falling asleep this morning in the lecture hall and accidentally dipping my earrings in drawing ink, I realized I needed to get back to my “let’s try and change stuff and not just go on hating everything in life” plan that I had at the beginning of this school year.

So I wrote out a list of objectives that I shall be putting into effect immediately(ish)

Number One:

I will not complain about any responsibility that I have. I get myself into situations that require me to be an adult. I must live with them or abandon them. (The above complaining in this said blog does not count at the moment…)

I will make an effort to get more sleep and wake up early enough to not feel stressed out in the mornings.

I will see a Star Wars movie at some point in my life.

I will stop feeling sorry for myself when bad things happen or believe that I am doomed to misery.

I will live my life working towards the goals I have for myself and not adopt goals that other’s think I should have.

I will figure out some goals.

I will live only up to my own expectations and never anyone else’s.

I will not listen to people when they tell me I am not witty and hilarious.

Because I am.

Bitches.

I will accept compliments given to me and not argue with them.

I will never be guilted or peer pressured into anything.

Unless it involves alcohol.

Or sex.

I will always remember what I love most in the world and never be ashamed of it.

I will end each day thinking of what I’ve accomplished and not dwell on what I didn’t.

I will not look at people on the streets and think to myself “Jesus, they’re ugly.”

No matter how true it is.

I will devote myself entirely to my schoolwork and will not channel all my energy towards human relationships (or lack thereof).

I will listen to a Beatles song every morning, read a chapter of a book each night and take a picture every day.

I will start telling people what I actually think of them.

Or maybe not.

……….

I will end this blog on a funny quote from my dearest Czarina (said to me this evening):

“I feel like the other penguins would develop human-like characteristics just to not fuck you.”

 Cheers.  

i hate men

that's all.

the only ring i want buried with me are the ones around my eyes

Why I would make an excellent housewife and why I will never be one, by Ms. Wilde....

I woke up this morning from a dream that I killed a black man for stealing my oil pastels. My subconscious self cares a lot more about art supplies than my waking self, apparently. And is also very racist.

As I spent the morning mascara-ing, lipstick-ing, scrubbing my toilet, and writing out my grocery list, I realized (as I always do when I do grown-up things like making shopping lists) that if I were to ever get married and have a family, I would be extremely good at it. Not to toot my own domestic horn, but my maternal and matrimonial instincts are top notch.

Par example- I enjoy vacuuming daily, dressed in pearls and fishnets. I take excellent care of houseplants and goldfish. I keep up on laundry and dishes. I mop every surface of the kitchen and bathroom with Pinesole and a hint of lavender air freshener. I alphabetize CD’s, color code the closet, arrange the yogurts on the top shelf of the fridge by flavor. I can hang curtains without measuring, sew buttons and patch jeans, kill spiders in the bathtub, bake sugar cookies from scratch. I can iron a crisp dress shit, tie a silk tie and imprint a ballet-slipper colored kiss on the cheek of a hubby every morning as he leaves for work. Answer the door in a garter belt and heels as he arrives home; Chinese take-out and cold beers on the coffee table with a season of South Park in the DVD player. I would make sandwiches for the Saturday poker games and hang garland from the stairway banisters every holiday season (just like my dear old mum does). I’d be a regular June fucking Cleaver.

I would toss out cigarettes and sushi for nine months, arrive five minutes early to Lamaze class, donning the Forever 21 Maternity line. I would screen print classic rock and punk band logos on the baby onsies. Decorate the nursery in a vintage- cabaret chic with nouvelle wallpapers and circus animal toys. I’ve had the baby names picked out since I was fifteen. Elijah Daniel James Levon Wilde, my oldest boy, his twin brother Julian Adam Michael Chaim and my baby girl London Michelle Phoenix Clair. Jude, Eli and London- my little prodigies. My sweet angels. My trophies, my gems. They would be well-groomed. Stylish hair cuts with just a touch of pomade and hairspray. Well dressed, teeth brushed, vintage comic book lunch tins packed with a sandwich, chips, carrot sticks, cupcakes, fruit, a thermos of milk, a thermos of hot soup and a note with a drawing of an eye, a heart and the letter U (same as my mom did when I was in elementary school. And middle school. …and high school). My offspring would be witty and charming little rebels. They would quote Coen brother movies and insist on dressing up like the threesome of Harry Potter every Halloween.  They’d be artistic and talented, writing me poems and drawing pictures that I would hang so lovingly on the fridge. Writing songs on their play drum sets and guitars. Starting a band as pre-teens and hitting it big time, sending mommy dearest a check every month “for being such a kick-ass mom. Xoxox”

What a wonderful life.

Now, gentleman, don’t go running off to Tiffany’s just yet. I said I would make an excellent housewife (and it’s true), but as you probably have noticed, WE DON’T LIVE IN NINTEEN-FUCKING-FIFTY-TWO. The idea that I would have to condone myself to a life of matrimony and motherhood is disturbing beyond belief. The truth is, kids, I am very much turned off at the idea of family. It is all television’s fault. The advertising, the Wal-Mart commercials, the Children’s Tylenol ads and the buy-one-get-one-half-off. Family is a product. Just like happiness is a product and health is a product and God is a product and love is a product. Everyone sells you on the idea on family; car companies, grocery stores, real estate. I’m constantly being pitched an idea that I never intend on buying. It’s an idea we are conditioned for years to want, but what is the real point in having it? To trade your identity for a wedding ring and a mini- van. Coach little league and host Girl Scout meetings. I cringe at the thought. I cower at the idea of pregnancy. Too many bodily fluids and hormones. Morning sickness and huge balloon feet. Your vagina gets ripped open by a wrinkly, cheese-covered baby. Everyone thinks childbirth is so magical. The miracle of life. I don’t see it as a miracle. I see the end result of an drunken back-seat grope-fest and a broken prophylactic.

My little angel would come home from school, his checkered vans dirty and worn, snot and tears streaked down his perfect little face. “Hey Jude, dollface, what’s wrong?” “Mommy, Bobby McDoucheBag told everyone in my class that I was a flamer and made fun of my George Harrison haircut and said that Mick Jagger called and he wants his pants back and kids threw rocks at me during recess. What should I do?” “I don’t know, baby cakes, go cry in your room and listen to Bright Eyes and write Fall Out Boy lyrics in your journal like mommy does. Now let me finish rolling this joint and we can make artichoke pizza and watch Shaun of the Dead.”

Now and again I think of “His” and “Hers,” for better or worse. But really, how could I get married? How could I ever commit myself to one person for the rest of my life? I get bored of my shampoo every other month and switch to another brand. And I don’t want to succumb to the expectations of society. The Wife, The Mother, The Happy Little Housewife. The only labels I want to have are the ones in my closet.  

that sounds like something you should be telling your psychiatrist

Several times throughout the day, I have the sudden urge to hit someone. Not any one person in particular- not someone I know personally. I have an image in my brain of this faceless person just standing there in front of me and all of a sudden I run up and start wailing on them. Punching them in the neck, kneeing their face. Knocking out teeth, permanently damaging reproductive systems, fracturing ribs. I imagine myself, digging stiletto heels in this faceless guy’s eye sockets, dragging his face across asphalt, my knuckles smeared with blood, biting this guy’s fingers off. This faceless guy is going about his merry way and I just start fucking beating the shit out of him.

I’m sitting in class, I’m walking down the street, maybe just sitting half naked on my kitchen floor eating Craisins and I play this scenario over in my head. Scenes of me, teeth bared, fingernails flying, just tearing this guy to shreds. I rewind the tape and play the reel several times over. Watch it again and again in my mind. Movie marathon. Rachel Kicks The Living Shit Out Of Faceless Man parts one, two, three, four.

I’d like to thank the academy.

All of my frustration, all of my insecurities, my shortcomings, every bad thing that anyone has ever made me feel is just compressed and unleashed upon poor Faceless Man. And when I look down at the remains of the bones and bloody meat, sprawled out, scrubbed of id, coughing up his lungs, Mr. Faceless, I feel calm and serene. I am relaxed. Tranquil. Zen. Untouched. Unconquered. Unattainable.

Any time I’ve got that kinda dazed/stoned look on my face. Any time I stare at someone as they’re talking to me, slight smile on my lips to make them think I’m listening. Any time I’m sitting with a sketchbook, hovering my pen as if I’m thinking of what to draw. Any time a professor starts going on about some useless thing and I’m nodding my head slightly as if it’s really interesting. Any time I’ve got headphones on, zoning out in front of a computer or gazing at a TV. Any time I’m walking anywhere. I’m really just picturing McFaceless. Getting his ass kicked. I’m having a conversation with you and I’m running on the treadmill, and I’m taking notes in class and I’m rocking out to some heavy tunes, but really, REALLY, I’m going ape shit on this faceless guy’s ass and I’m feeling more and more of a rush each time I hear a bone crack and the screams of despair as the onlookers beg and plead for me to stop. I am composed. I am peaceful. I am euphoric.

Of course this is all a fantasy. A daydream. I could never really kick anyone’s ass. Anyone could look at me and tell you that. I have no physical strength. I can’t even do a push-up. I’m as weak and fragile physically as I am mentally.

But Mr. Faceless doesn’t know that.

Appearances can be deceptive. 

my first blog post

well, there you have it.