Winter is waiting
Like an old hospital room
White and clean
Yet so foreboding
They will wash the walls
Of my presence
Scrub away
Until there is nothing left of me
Strip down my pictures
Replace them with plaster
A life cast of me
Molded too tight
Until I cannot breathe
Suffocating and gasping for air
Inside a white washed room
Sterilized of life
Where dolls sit
With clairvoyant glassy eyes
Of Ovid’s butterfly
Fluttering helplessly
Settling down
In a flourish of color
Only to die slowly
Caught in the grip
Of Winter’s cold fist
Such an absence
Such a silence
It deafens me
Echoing off white walls
The screams of the plastered casts
Of those who came before me
Faces protruding like the gates of hell
Leaving me too blind to see
Staring blankly
At the horror before me
I wonder why I am here
Why I wound up
In this white washed room
Suffocating in a prison
With no windows
No sound
Except the noise of madness
And the sound
Of a rotting brain
As the butterfly takes its last gasps
You left me here
To slowly decay
I watch the butterfly
Curl, wither, and deform
From the beauty it had been
Watching my fate
Unfurl before me
With a merciless slowness
I am waiting now
For the white to capture me
To whisk me away
Into some fairytale dream
A reprieve of this white washed room
But the butterfly’s ashes
Lay around me
Staining my palms
It will never leave me
Winter is here
With its worn cold hands
I refuse to go with you
But I cannot stay
Take me with you butterfly
For where I am going
I hoped I would never be
See you on the other side
Of this damned eternity
For now I will hope for a better destiny
And try to avoid the inevitable
By hiding behind the mask
Of a butterfly’s face
In plain sight
A flourish of color in a white room
Waiting for fate to find me
It seems as if all of the most childish and supposedly innocent things are the most twisted. One of the most twisted is the kids game Twister. It seems so innocent, but it actually is a perverse and awkward game unlike any other. Hidden under the guise of childhood innocence, it is deviously deceptive in its twisted ways.
Case and point, need I say more? Yes, I do. The main problem about this game is it’s total lack of boundary space. There is no such thing as personal space in this game, with arms and legs crossing and criss crossing across numerous people. Nothing is sacred.
This game is meant for little chidren, so for teengaers it was slightly difficult to fit on the mat making the space issue even more of a problem as you can see. There is alsways something awkward waiting around the corner in this game.
The main way to win is to get into such an awkward position that your oppenent can not continue due to death by laughter.
It just makes me wonder the people who invented this game, they must be twisted people indeed. The name twister is perfect for what this game actually is, a perverted and twisted thing. But damn is it fun to watch!
At Natural Bridges State Park in California there is a spectacular little lagoon that looks like the ground it is so filled with mosses. The entire water is green and looks solid enough to walk on even though there are ducks swimming in it. Life seems to spring from it, with long stretching reeds that reach outward like arms and old logs reposing in the green water. There is something about this green lagoon that is erie and beautiful, maybe it is the illusion, or maybe it is just the presence of life all around. I hope to go back very soon and see it again.
Many people when they see my creeper photos either think it is totally strange or very interesting. One of the questions I get most often is what if they see you taking the picture? For most people, I take every possible precaution to make sure they don’t see. If they do see me there is a special tactic I imploy to sooth their suspicion.
- If you notice you have been spotted, don’t run away in fear of being called out. Most people will not call you out, so keep it cool and they will just give you a weird look then walk away. People are not very confrontational and if you keep it cool nothing will happen. Most people assume they are being paranoid and don’t do anything about it.
- Occassionally though, they will call you out. So if a person seems a little peeved here is my strategy. Still, do not run away. Stay put and then put your camera up again like you are going to take another photo and wait till the are out of the frame and take a new photo. Make a real spectacle of what you are doing and make it as apparent as possible that your intent for that picture was not the person. Once they see you do this, they will not do anything about it because they assume that you were taking a picture of what is behind them and they just happen to be in the shot. They never think they they are the shot.
So, disaster averted and the world does not end. If those don’t work…. then run. However, with children I let them see that I am taking their picture. Like this little girl, children make some of the most amazing eye contact with strangers and in that moment of eye contact is a connection like you are peering into their life. Their eyes, like this little girls beautiful blue eyes, become a window into who they are. Even though I will never know who these kids become, for just a single moment it feels like I do know.
Kids often seem to enjoy it and smile or just stare. This little girl waved to me and I waved back then just smiled and walked away. Sometimes I fancy what the parents reactions are if later the kid tells them that some stranger took a picture of them. I wonder how this makes parents feel, how vulnerable must they be in that moment. Not knowing me, or knowing my intentions of taking these photos. I just want to give my hearts out to these people that I take pictures of, by letting me have their picture they are helping me better understand humanity one person at a time. My intentions are pure and often I feel people don’t understand that. Yes, this idea may be strange or creepy to people, but to me it is about uncovering mystery from thousands of perspectives. Taking pictures not of the people themselves but the stories that build up that person’s image.
So to all of my creeper photo subjects, thank you.
This picture is at Pictured Rocks National Park in Northern Michigan. In a place of such pristine beauty, were the sandstone rock walls stand like monoliths looming over Lake Superior, there is wonder in everything. Most people would expect a picture of these cliffs, but my favorite shot when I was there, was not of the towering monoliths or the emerald green waters, but of the forest hidden behind it all. People will tell you where to find the most beautiful sights in places like this, but the real beauty is found in the unspoken places. Down the little untreaded paths were no ranger or tour guide will lead you. It is up to you to discover it and keep the little wonder a secret in your heart. Find your own beauty, mine lies in the forest. Where the trees are white as snow and the ground is red with fallen leaves and pines. This is were I find beauty, in the unsuspected place.
Crossing names out of address books
After showers patter on a closed coffin
Just a passing moment gone
Putting down the pencil
To look at the rain as it shifts
Dancing in front of the window
As the drops send ripples outward
Pirouetting hand in hand with the grass
as each petal bends slightly under the weight
The water pulling its face down like a tear drop
The face turned upward catches the rain
Between the lines in your face
Catching in the corner of your lips
As a smile sneaks its way to your face
The rain brushes your face
With the tenderness of a lovers embrace
Sliding down cheeks so the tears don’t show
You face the sky alone
With forgotten names rolling off of you
Falling into muddied puddles
Never to be recovered, never to be remembered
Sifting into the soil, becoming part of the earth
Like seeds weaving into the ground
Returning home from life
To the warm embrace of the world’s womb
Wrapped in a veil of the earth’s tears
From the earth but not of the earth
Not yet, for now you rest among the tulips
A shimmering rain drop
Sending ripples into dreams
Into the minds of those who never knew you
Dancing with the grass
I still miss you
I will find you in the tulips in the earths embrace
There your name will be written again
Not in a book but in stone
For my friends seventeenth birthday we went paint balling at a paintball course oer the hill. I had never done this before but it was loads of fun. It had been pouring so the course was totally muddy and I was slipping everywhere as we were running around trying not to get shot. We were on the Jeep course which had a bunch of playground pieces and a Jeep in the center of the course. We were divided up into teams and had to get ready for the fight.
Clara was my main paintball buddy, we stuck together the entire time. Back to back dominating the paintball field. There were basically three groups of people on our course,
- our group, composed of four girls who had never paint balled before. In other terms, Noobs
- the child’s birthday group, a pack of young boys and their dad who have played many times before and know the entire course
- the hard-core group, four adult guys who own at paint balling and kill everyone else on the course.
The teams wound up being half of our group plus the children’s group against the other half of our group with the hardcore group.
It is pretty exciting when you realize you got someone out. At one point I was having a little war with someone on the other team. They were hiding behind a stack of tires on one side of the field and I was hiding behind a different structure. They kept popping up and shooting at me. After a long time of nothing I finally hit them on the top of the head with an explosion of yellow paint all over their hair. I noticed that they had blonde hair and I wanted to see who I had hit when the round was over. AS I was leaving the field and searching for the mysterious blonde who I had defeated I realized it was my friend’s mom who had taken us here. I felt so bad for hitting her on the head and eventually told her it was me but it all turned out ok. I had to watch my butt though because I feared her vengeance for the rest of the day xD
Between running and hiding behind various structures and shooting at the other team I got shot three times in total. Once in the arm, one in the chest, and once on the back of my leg. I got surprised by an ambush attack and got the hits to my arm and chest which I still have a welt from today. It is more shocking than painful when you get hit.
The last shot I got was during the very ast round. The hardcore group decided that they could take the rest of the people playing. So new teams of everybody versus the hardcore group. Somehow they actually won the round. Clara and I were one of the last ones out of the game. Finally they snuck up behind me and yelled surrender. Before I could even turn around he shot me at close range right on the back of my thigh. It hurt a lot and I was really pissed because when you yell surrender you are supposed to not shoot them because you are so close. Later when talking to Clara we realized that when he yelled surrender she shot at him so instead of shooting her he decided to shoot me.
It was really fun, even though I was shot several times I really enjoyed the experience. It is really thrilling to run around shooting people without having to worry about really hurting someone. I hope to do it again sometime.
Bobbing for apples is one of the funniest games to watch ever. Watching people vainly dunk their heads in water and try to scrounge out an apple is pretty entertaining. That being so, this games is really only entertaining when you can stand back and watch the people getting soaked and frustrated. When it is your turn, it is no longer a laughing matter. The duality of bobbing for apples, fun to watch and torture the people doing it, annoying and frustrating when you are being watched and tortured as you try to bob for an apple.
There are several phases of bobbing for apples that the bobbers go through in the process.
- Disgust: It is all fun and games until it is your turn. When you get up to the bucket and you are staring down into that gross pail of water filled with a few measly apples you can’t help but think, God please give me an excuse right now to bail out of this game. Of course you don’t get one, and as you kneel down right next to the water you realize something disgusting. That water you are about to shove your face in, mouth wide open, has been the home to several other people’s mouths searching for apples as well. Yes, you are about to dunk your face into a cess-pool of germs to pick out an apple.
- Embarrassment: The embarrassment comes in right as you first dunk your head. Then you lift your head out of the water soaking wet and totally embarrassed that first, you don’t have an apple, and second you just ruined your hair, outfit, makeup or any other thing you put on your face that morning. Yes, you are embarrassed to lift your head out of the water, appleless to face your friends who are now dying of laughter because you look like a drowned rat.
- Frustration: At this point you have gotten past the initial embarrassment and disgust. Because you have already gotten totally soaked, you are now committed and become an unstoppable force of trying desperately to get that apple. You have to get the apple, and fast so you can get out of here. So very quickly your embarrassment at not getting an apple turns into frustration. After time and time again of not getting and apple you are at the point of gnashing violently at the water in a desperate attempt to grab an apple. All sort of tactics to get an apple fly away from your mind, you are a single-minded apple grabbing machine.
- Victory: The final and best phase of bobbing for apples is victory. And the surge of over exuberant energy where you just start smack talking the apple and its mother. At this point your friends look at you like you are crazy and are thinking, geez you were just bobbing for apples. To this I respond. I was bobbing for my life, you wouldn’t understand but that apple had back talked me for the last time!
A little over the top? Maybe, but it is all justified due to that stage of frustration, when you are frustrated any overreaction is justified, even if it ends with yelling at inanimate objects…. which I definitely don’t do. Bobbing for apples is not a simple game, it is actually quite difficult and takes some amount of strategy, which I am not going to share so next time I see you at a party I can watch you fail at bobbing for apples and then when you finally get one and overreact, you will know the truth. The truth that bobbing for apples is a cruel game meant only for the pleasure of those watching, kind of like gladiators.Yeah it is just like that -.-
P.S. Bobbing for apples makes for awesome photos
This post has been a long time coming, my shout out of the day today is Philomena! She is one of the coolest people in the world, she even has her own talk show at school called Phridays with Phil. Yes, she is that cool. She sticks with me even in my strangest of times, and loves Rocky Horror as much as me, which is quite a feat, believe me. She has sat with me in spanish for about the past three years and has gotten me through the full IB years and many golf sessions. Yes, Philomena child, you are a wonderful person and I love you!! See you in spanish 🙂
To those of you who have not seen Rocky Horror Picture Show,
- SHAME ON YOU
- This post probably won’t make any sense because only die-hard fans of Rocky Horror can truly understand other die-hard fans.
- If you think you understand this post because you watched the Rocky Horror episode of Glee, and that is the only reason you have ever heard of Rocky Horror Picture Show, SHAME ON YOU MORE. Don’t tell me you get Rocky Horror because you saw weird people on T.V. singing along to the words, it is nowhere near the same thing. Take Glee, add more transvestites, more crudeness, nudity and make up, then, and only then, can we maybe start to talk.
Let me explain first the long months of hoping and planing that went into us doing this. I have been dying to see the midnight showing ever since I first became a die-hard fan of Rocky Horror. Going to this made my life in unexplainable ways. We didn’t get to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday but we were able to get tickets for the Saturday night show which was a huge relief. We were so close to not getting in at all, I would have been heart-broken. But we got in and saw it at last. Failure avoided.
On the left is Philomena, who went as Columbia, me in the middle as Magenta (afro and all), and on the right, Sarah as a mixture of a time warp dancer and Columbia. Let me explain my costume for you, it goes like this.
Low cut black dress + maid’s apron, cuffs and head band = slutty maid
slutty maid + afro of teased/ crimped hair = Magenta
Basically that is my costume and it works. The hair was an interesting experience. I never really work my hair so the effort of crimping and teasing it nearly killed me if not for the help of my lovely and amazing friends.
After the struggle with my hair and makeup (as well as some interesting interruptions from my little brother), did we get to go to the show. We got a good place in the line (which went all the way around the block) and had to wait there for an hour to get into the theatre. Waiting in line was annoying in high-heeled boots but we got to see some pretty special people and their costumes. We saw Mario and Luigi, a man dressed up as Little Bo Peep being followed around by about seven women dressed as sheep, and quite a few overweight people shoved into tiny corsets with skin popping out in unimaginable and scarring ways. I saw many things that night that will be burned into my memory for a long, long, time.
We finally got in, during a mad dash for good seats at midnight. Then the fun began. Slugs in Fish-Nets, the UCSC group that puts on the show, got up on the stage to introduce all the actors that would be acting out the movie as it played behind them on the screen. First method of business: Attitude Check
An attitude check is when the entire audience stands up, faces the front stage, flips off the actors and screams about eight times, F@#k You! To test how pumped up the audience is. Very interesting experience.
After that everyone got settled for the movie to start. Because the movie is an interactive experience we all brought little props to use during the movie like noise makers, rice, newspapers, bells, toast, cards, and rubber gloves. During certain parts of the movie everyone uses their props to act out the movie, it is really fun. One of my favorites was using the noise makers during the time warp dance. The whole audience gets up and reenacts the dance. It is really amazing to be in a large group of people, all passionate about one thing and to express that passion in a fun and creative way.
There is some adult content however… like the initiation of virgins. Being a virgin means you have never experience Rocky Horror at a midnight showing before. They take six virgins and vote which has the best costume, one boy, one girl. They then use them to go on stage and perform mock sex on stage. It was horrifying and fascinating and all together funny though inappropriate. Let me just say, I have never seen anything like that in a movie theatre before and probably will never see it again (unless I go to another showing :)).
By the end, we were all tired but extremely happy. We got out about three and went home. Then came the hard part, getting my hair undone. This included trying to untangle my hair and try to wash it all out. It took quite some time but it was all worth it a hundred times over.It was quite the night, and I will never forget it. I hope I can do it again soon. Stay true Rocky Horror fans!