Doing my part to spread some holiday cheer

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/121806/xmas-dick.gif

2 Afterthoughts

re: recent advertising industry rant:

1 - I happened to be at Union Square Park at the right time of night to go through the lighting display, and it's actually really cool. I was giggling and spent quite a bit of time there. The lights are motion-sensored and fun. Way to go designer Boontje, still fuck you Target. [I re-read the aforementioned sign and there's also a conspicuous section which says something like, "Target has also sponsored other holiday and seasonal displays in New York City." This is starting to sound like a performer's bio in a program, and I hate those too.]

2 - I walked through more than usual of the Union Square subway station, where Amstel bought every open wall space in existence, and overall the ad campaign doesn't actually leave any room to wonder about what brand it is, it was just that my particular morning path happened to cross those few specific ambiguous ads.

Adimmorality

There is, in fact, something I find more insidious than advertising campaigns that plaster names, labels, and logos as large as possible everywhere you look, until you're so used to them you almost don't see them anymore (though their effect is just as present on your mind and behavior).

It's this new trend I've been noticing, or maybe it's not new at all, of campaigns that DON'T include either the business name, or the product being advertised, at least not visibly enough to identify it.

3 things:

1. A subway campaign by Starbucks. The more square poster-like ads in the car all feature, very clearly, a big Starbucks cup and the name of a holiday-season-specific product available. And probably some other pro-Starbucks language pertaining to how it will improve the sense of family in your holiday and even your general health and well-being. The context of this ad is a certain color scheme - mostly red, a red background, red cup, white lettering, and either periwinkle blue or mint green accents (these alternate from one to the next).

1a. Then there are the long, thin ads that run above the windows along the entire length of the car, in 3 or 4 pieces. These feature very specifically the same color scheme and attitude, but feature family scenes - mom bringing the Christmas turkey to the family waiting at the table. A row of people bundled up waiting in line to place presents in the mailbox. A big family snowparty with snowballs, iceskating, snowmen, etc. Nowhere in these ads is there a Starbucks cup, nor even a representation of a warm drink, nor the word Starbucks.

2. Also subway related, but in the station - this one by Amstel Light. The ads are all very simple, a huge golden-colored poster with a beer bottle in the center, and it's "dressed up" in different ways, as related to the holiday season. I get off the L-train and the first one I see is tinseled-out and I can't read the brand name. The second is wrapped in foil like a gift, and again I can't read the brand name. The third has a red and white scarf, and the brand is slightly obscured but clear enough that I can guess. Then I turn the corner, and there's a maybe 10-12 foot by 3 foot poster (same colors) outlining each syllable of the first line of "Deck the Halls" including the tra-la-las, as if on a karaoke program where a ball or arrow bounces on each syllable as you sing. The ball is a bottle of unadorned Amstel Light, and since it's not video or movable, there's a separate bottle of beer on top of each syllable. That's 17 bottles of beer on the wall, lined up in a pretty row, leaving no doubt as to the brand.

3. The "installation" at the north end of Union Square Park, called Bright Nights or some shit. They closed down the whole end of the park for nearly a week putting up scaffoling and such, so I was curious when it reopened. Apparently the scaffolding is the support system for some sort of lighting display or program that comes on at night. But, of course, metal scaffolding is ugly alone, so they decorated it with some green fabric and red and white ribbon, almost as if each standing tower is a big gift. Seemed fairly innocuous as I walked through the first time, until I looked a little closer at the ribbon, which is a red background with white printed leaves and flowers, maybe poinsettia, and infiltrated with white target signs, you know, the red and white logo for Target? If you're anywhere close that little target is all you can see clearly on the scaffolding. (I have never seen the light display and don't intend to, so that part's missing from my analysis.) At either end of the walkway is a sign describing the installation, but first mentioning the sponsor, Target, and the designer's name. As if we didn't fucking KNOW it was Target's deal.

Problems: a) the advertisers are pretending to be generous with the space they've bought in not being clear that these are indeed advertisements, (as opposed to actual donated space or a public service announcement) which is illegal, by the way - check the FTC - but these big wigs have probably found ways around that. ADVERTISERS ARE NOT GENEROUS EVER. b) the advertisers believe that their logos as unconnected to a name or product will be enough to carry the effect of the supposedly sanctimonius message - and THEY'RE CORRECT. c) due to the nature of advertising as it has been, obscuring the advertised product simply makes people more curious and confused, therefore increasing the effectiveness of the ads with out obscured products. THEY'RE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A UNIVERSAL HUMAN CHARACTERISTIC, CURIOSITY, TO MANIPULATE OUR CONSUMING HABITS - NOT TO MENTION OUR SUBCONSCIOUS SYSTEMS OF BELIEF.

Right now I think that advertising other than identifying signs above the store itself should be abolished. I'm not even going to mention a website review of a company I recently did at work whose purpose is research and placement of behaviorally targeted advertising on the internet. (You think they're not tracking your keystrokes and clicks?) I'm totally horrified and what with so many goddamned outside factors at work on my personality, moods, beliefs I don't know who the fuck I am anymore. I'm tired of it, and also tired of feeling I need to be so suspicious. Tired.

The Incomplete Story of the Man at the Green Door

He frequently hangs around the stoop two doors down from my building, he and a couple of other people, which I've come to believe are his parents. I must admit, the door isn't actually green, it's the entryway behind him and the inner door. But I've always gotten a green door feeling from the place. Wears the same clothes pretty much all the time - blue adidas jacket, black jeans with paint stains, baseball cap. Always says, "Hey, Hot Dog!" and smiles as we pass, though he's heard me tell people her name is Lily. It's his term of endearment.

He looks to be in his 40's, I'd guess. Maybe younger, he's a little haggard. Dark hair but it's unclear whether or not he's Puerto Rican or even Hispanic, though most members of the neighborhood hail from Puerto Rico. Pretty thick, longish mustache. Nice guy, predictable. Stable. And especially because of the lack of creepy looks or personal questions, kind of endearing.

I didn't realize he was gone, I guess it must have been a few days - walking down the opposite side of the street with Lily I see a missing person sign on a street lamp post. Big picture of him - at least I think it's him - and then I read what he was last seen wearing and I'm sure it's my green door guy (turns out he is Puerto Rican after all). Shit. Now he has a name, and 7 children, for god's sake, and he's missing. Only it's weird, because for several days that's the only sign I see, and it's not all that noticable. It's not like they're going door to door asking questions or papering the whole neighborhood. Then later I see another, nearer the subway stop, a more high-traffic area. I feel pretty horrified at the whole situation. Not afraid for myself, but sickened at the thought of where he might be, what might have happened, and knowing that his whole fucking family is wrestling with the same things, as well as just plain not having the guy around. I think about it a lot, more than seems natural, or something. Sick. Sickened, shuddering, bent over because I momentarily lose the strenght to stand up straight.

Then one day he's back. It's been maybe 2 weeks, maybe a little more. He looks different, like he's gained a little weight, and it confuses me - I can only think that maybe he's been in a hospital being fed intravenously. Does that even make sense - would that cause weight gain? I see him, in the same old clothes, and I stare. I don't mean to be an asshole, but I have to make sure it's him. His top four front teeth have disappeared. And he looks serious, moreso than before, understandably - only I don't, because I've no idea what happened. He was gone and then he was back. And it's clear in the feel when we meet eyes that something has changed, but I don't know what. Though it's sort of comforting to hear, "Hey, Hot Dog!" again.

Incomplete because I don't know what this guy gained or lost in those two weeks. How he suffered or didn't suffer, feared or didn't fear. Was he trying to run away on purpose? But we're not close enough friends for me to ask...and I'm no longer sickened, just......heartbroken.

This Sunday morning I'm sitting here at the computer doing a little research on Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and union organization attempts among their employees. It's kind of cold in the apartment, but I could turn on the heater and I haven't so it can't be that bad.

Normally in a situation and time like this, Lily Bug would be snuggling herself in a burrito-shaped pile of blankets and puppy on my bed. Her routine is to go back to bed after breakfast, since that's when I leave for work during the week, and when I'm home on the weekends, if I'm not in the bedroom, to her it's as if I'm not home, which is fine. She needs her Lily-time, as do we all.

However, for some reason Lily has decided she needs to be where I am this morning. She still needs to satisfy her morningtime sleepy quota, so that means she is curled up in my lap, my hand holding her little dog-butt in place, while the rest of her body is snuggled inside the sweatshirt I'm wearing, with her head resting in the armpit against my shoulder. No, I did not position her this way. She did that by herself.

And at the risk of a gag-me cuteness factor, I needed to put that out there because it's been a rough week, and my Lily knows it. My ex had a very hard time when I moved Lily across the country to live with me, understandably. She's still pretty angry about it. But R, even though you're not reading this, I don't know if will make any difference to you, but I want you to know that THIS DOG HAS KEPT ME ALIVE AND SAFE MORE TIMES THAN I CAN COUNT THESE PAST FEW MONTHS. And I mean that specifically - literally. She is a major reason I'm not dead.

Does size matter?

-She says: I see two people here, the little girl and the grown-up girl. So who is going to win?

-I say: little girl wants desperately to suffocate big girl to death with a pillow, in her sleep. Big girl wants desperately to beat little girl with a bludgeon until she shuts the fuck up. They want each other dead.

-So my question now is, HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY BOTH STILL ALIVE?
I am furious.

On creativity

This guy has text in his piece in a concert in which I'm dancing this weekend about not wanting to create or add to or omit from or change anything but that he knew it was inevitable that he would create and add and omit and change things. And the whole time he kept fucking dancing around like crazy, just moving every which way and none of it had to do with anything else and clearly he had CREATED this whole construct and I thought,

"You know, I think I'm really just more interested in destruction."

I'm pretty sure I really hate dance.

Puppy Middle-Age

So, my little girl is growing up. Yeah, I know, this February she'll be 35 in dog years, but still. She's starting to act like a real dog.

-she has begun treeing squirrels at the park, which is pretty hilarious because with their tails fluffed out they're as big as she is. And what with all the leaves fallen from the trees, it's a feat for her to run in fallen leaves almost as tall as she is. Very laughable, but mature and dog-like.

-she has also begun marking, which I've never seen her do before. By that I mean sqeezing out a few drops of pee near where some other dog's smells are, to assert her presence when that or other dogs pass by. I wanted to say assert her authority, but who the fuck am I kidding? If she met other big dogs she would just turn over on her back. The only creature over which she has authority is me.

-she's gotten territorial about her Zoe-blanket (so called because it's made of fleece picturing Zoe from Sesame Street, thank you KatieB). It's pretty cute when she growls at her sister-dog, a pit bull-boxer mix, who has no interest in the blanket but just wants to say hi, for coming too close to the blanket. And goofy when the other dog backs away, because she's not fucking with that shit, even though she could eat Lily in two bites if she wanted to. She knows Lily means business.

-she's kind of humpy now, which I never knew her to be before her move to the big city. Before she would hump her cousin-dog (but only the girl cousin) a little bit, but it was just kind of part of their play. Now she wants to hump on my leg fairly regularly. What is this about? Did my hormones change in the year we were apart? Is there something in the air in Brooklyn? It's irritating, as she's persistent.

-she has these tiny intermittent groups of 3 or 4 or 5 grey hairs on her back and her head, and her little chin is frosting. It's really goddamned cute. My favorite is a lone grey hair on the nape of her neck, right below where her collar sits. Absurd.

I don't know. I realize I'm preoccupied with a canine but I don't have all that much human contact right now. Also she may be sassy but she's the sweetest dog ever.

Psychopharmacology, or, The Season of Altered States

This is probably a first installment, or something like that.

So this past week I realized that I've been more or less dissociative for pretty much the past two months. It was warm there, and quiet, when I was really far away. Alternatively I was hypersensitive to light, sound, images, odors, crowds (and I'm generally get easily overwhelmed anyhow, so you can imagine). I would already feel beat up by the time I got to work, just from surviving the commute, and would have to completely shut down to all incoming information for as much as half the day in order to recover and stay functional. I kept thinking to myself (in the Princess-Leia-dressed-as-bounty-hunter voice), "You are suffering from overstimulation sickness."

I don't know how much of it's due to the medication switch. Most is probably safe to say, though it wasn't unheard of before, it was just more stress-related. The past two months it's been everything-related. Wakefulness-related. Now I'm having trouble remembering why we tried to switch my meds anyhow. Then when I realized how not okay this new one was (in my haze it took what feels like a ridiculously long time) I switched back to the old one, but at a significantly higher dose, and the switch was way too fast, and it got worse for a couple of days - I was completely fucking checked out and passing out on buses and things. I went to the music store to look for two specific things and once I got there I couldn't for the life of me remember what they were. Came home with two totally other things that I didn't really need to spend money on just now. It's a good thing I had already done my Trader Joe's shopping once (the first time I was almost through line and the fire alarm went off - it was kind of devastating) or I have no idea what would've ended up in my basket.

As the transition is working itself out in my body I feel somewhat clearer each day, and in a significantly better mood. I know there's something to be said about a gift horse's mouth but it makes me wonder WHO THE FUCK IS ME IN ALL THIS MESS OF CHEMICALS. Do I even have a personality? Do I have non-chemically-induced moods? Do I even exist?

Radio Silent

I suppose it's something to say that I honestly considered spending my lunch break today crouched in a ball under my desk. Something to say, but still true.

It's also something to say that I shouldn't blog because it probably makes whoever reads it really unhappy. and it's also not at all funny. Fuck expressiveness.

I wonder if you could core a person the way you core an apple. Not long-wise, but sagittally a big round part of the chest. Sort of like what it looked like when the Terminator got shot, but before he regenerated himself. I would like to do that because it's so fucking heavy, my chest is so tight and stuck and it makes me feel like vomiting. I need some lightness and air down in there.

Because "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." But can you do that with personalities? I'm very very offended by myself.

[literary reference to the bible, or some other scripture I'm not sure]

#4

I'm in all these earthen-type colors today and my
triceps are sore
With what kind of creature did I battle in my sleep?
Was it the Great Boyg?
Go round, Peer Gynt.
I don't want to go round. what are you?
Go round.

stayed a little open until that guy looked at me in that way a stranger no reason
then i closed no more open for today
withdraw withdraw a little more every moment

"'I am beautiful,' he said, 'but imperfect.
I have lost my past.'"

(or was it, "'I have no past'"? I can't remember)

I don't want to go round.

[literary references to Ibsen and IPJ]

Blog #3

's this the kind of day you get brazen and do something that lands you in the hospital?
The tie-wearing emergency room kind of day?
Is that what you want?
What good did it do last time, or the time before that. Hm?

Did your eyes roll back in your head, in there tonight?
Y' feel pretty dramatic?

So what.

Extreme weather situations call for extreme presence in the moment - no, they demand it
bucket. ice. 20 pounds of ice. a bit of water.
what do you, wish you were there?
think that was fun?

's that what this feels like?
's that what this is

fucking coward
chalk it up to mercury in retrograde
til you're back here tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow til it's retroretrograde again
what then

Coming Attractions on The Maybe Girl

The Maybe Girl may or may at some time ruminate on:

-Babies in Jail & The Vomit Monster
-(already mentioned) the binary-gendered nature of pronouns
-psychopharmacology
-being tiny and tiny, bigger and big
-dancy shmancy
-work is not easy
-gender identity/gender presentation:
*tie-wearing
*binding
*tucking
*packing
-sexual identity (may be tied to the pronouns)
-New York City Etiquette Codes:
*standing in elevators
*walking on the street
*UMBRELLAS
-Mormonism, i.e., how god has pretty much wrecked my life
-family relationships, aging, hating people and such
-tiny witches
-confessions of preoccupation with my dog Lily Bug
-overstimulation & people who talk because they can't stand silence

Blog #1

Once I figure out how to add this photo as an avatar on my profile, I will do so. But I can't do that right now, I'm supposed to be working.

It's a photo of the industrial lesbian worker people of the subway station at 14th Street and 8th Avenue. I'd love to credit the sculptor but I don't know who s/he is. [gendered pronouns will be addressed as an issue in a future blog unless I forget] The name is probably posted somewhere in the station - I'll keep an eye out for it. The photographic genius is my own.

Now, in calling them industrial lesbian worker people, I admit that I'm making some assumptions which aren't necessarily acceptable, such as the fact that (look closely) they both have breasts, so I'm assuming that they are female. Not really fair, but on these sculptures I don't have anything else to go on and for this purpose (appropriation) I need gender, or at least gender presentation, defined. Also, they have arms around each other's backs, so I'm assuming they're in love. Not necessarily so, but art is open to appropriation, that's the risk you take in exhibiting. Last, one of them is holding a big motherfucking hammer, so I'm assuming they are industrial workers. But if I had a hammer that big I'd carry it around just for fun, so it may not be true. Nonetheless, with assumptions and assumptiveness in mind, it's a good sculpture with which to represent myself.

Yesterday amidst a birthday celebration with plenty of liquor, several homos, a few heteros, and many many tater tots, the subject of blogs and blogging came up. [It inspired me to start one of my own; it's wordy already. Shit.] Anyhow the conversation was about how I frequently have something to "put out there" and soon after I do so, I regret it and feel stupid and self-edit until I don't ever want to speak or use words again, ad absurdum (I like to make up latin phrases so deal). A friend commented on the value of just throwing things out there, because you have no idea what will be done with it and it doesn't really matter anyway. At that point it's supposedly no longer yours. I imagine that this statement is related to the above-mentioned appropriation, or rather, is the above-mentioned appropriation, which I clearly support. Still: A#1 I'm not sure I believe that expressing it makes it no longer yours or that it won't be back to haunt you and B#2 I really do hate words right now. They have the capability to really, really fuck me over.

C#3 I feel many reservations about this whole online environment thing, including Myspace, friendster, demographically-targeted advertising, the researchers that design said demographically-targeted advertising, identity theft, keystroke/click tracking software, BIG BROTHER, unauthorized wire tapping bullshit, etc. Besides the Handmaid's Tale aspect, I feel there are larger social problems at play here. (speaking of Margaret Atwood her most recent is a book of short stories entitled Moral Disorder. I HIGHLY recommend it; I find her a genius.)

But what the fuck everything is a problem.

So this is my first blog.