Panic on the streets of London

What seething rage lies in the hearts of these hopeless young people?
When even their small dreams are denied and life seems pointless...
In the darkness of my own smoldering anger, I can hardly blame them.

Social and economic inequality
"Britain is less equal, in wages, wealth, and life chances, than at any time since" the last major financial upheaval, the great crash of 1929, says Mary Riddell in Britain's Telegraph. It's almost poetic that when the riots broke out, the same ruling class that failed this angry "lost generation" was vacationing abroad, "parked on sun-loungers, as London burned." Indeed, the cause of this week's unrest mirrors that of the riots of 1981 and 1990, says Steve Hynd at Newshoggers: "Brutal cuts, forced austerity," and the shakedown of "the common people to finance corporate giveaways."

A British blogger wrote of the factors behind the riots: “Cuts to everything, including welfare and education, have created an atmosphere where the poor and alienated feel that the basic means to the ends of success are no longer available. Moreover, at the same time that austerity is expected of the poor, who are simply meant to swallow their lack of opportunity, it is, of course, business as usual for the rich who continue to consume and the mass media which persists in selling everybody a consumer fantasy. “

This Hideous Life Part 2,000,000,000

WARNING: THIS IS A RANT

I've been trying so hard to be positive, but the last 2 days I would like nothing more than to punch someone in the face. Hard. Actually, I can think of a couple candidates...

As if months of sexual harassment, physical threats, 2 weeks of UNPAID 'training' shifts, getting fired for no good reason, a nearly austistic roommate who can barely carry on a basic conversation, dating a guy who lied about his name and tried to trick me into not using a condom, a date with a guy who grabbed my breasts and squeezed them in a restaurant, another who reached over and pinched my ass while we were walking down the street, having a guy tell me he loves me only to have him tell me several days later that he can't have a 'serious relationship', going to a graduate school that barely offers any classes in my department, wandering the streets at night because I don't feel comfortable going home, isn't bad enough...I've started a new job in real estate...and I haven't earned a penny in 3 weeks!

This is so frustrating. I'm tired of being poor and alone. I'm sick of people being disingenious at best and outright liars at worst. I don't understand why its so difficult for people to be honest,to do what they say they are going to do and to take other people's feelings into account. I don't understand why common courtesy and human decency are so difficult to find. I know I'm not perfect but I'm honest, loyal and (usually!) kind. To me these should be baseline human qualities, not exceptions. What the hell is wrong with people these days?!

I Can't Give It Up

Baby how could you trick me like this? After I gave up all my pride and completely subjugated myself to you? After I let myself go...and even then I longed to go so much deeper with you. But you got scared, you lost control, as you said, and you caught yourself. Well, me, I wanted to take it even further, abandon all inhibition and shame, delve into the deepest, darkest part of ourselves. But you pulled away and then I did too. You felt too much, said too much and then you wanted your independence. I would never desire to possess you completely and I would never want to be entirely yours. Please forgive us. Our desire. Our greed. Our confusion...
I don't want to lose you completely. I know most everything is ruined. And I blame you, maybe myself a little bit too. If it wasn't for our romantic delusions, maybe things would have been different. I doubt it though.
Anyway, I miss talking to you about life, everything. I compare all the other guys to you. And they always disappoint me.

Family

My brother and his wife were just here visiting me in the city. (As it turns out I’m probably gonna stay after all – I am still a little in love with this place.) It was so good to be with family. The warmth and comfort of someone who knows you so well – all your annoying quirks, who tolerates your never ending complaint sessions about the same old things, who you can talk to for hours on end about the state of the world (or just the state of your life) and who loves you in spite of it all. Such a relief, because there’s not exactly a ton of unconditional love floating around in my life.

I feel the sweet tang of sadness when they go. I am snapped from the cushion of companionship and returned to my strange and elusive solitary ways. After hugging goodbye outside the subway stop on 14th St they disappeared into a hole in the ground. I was alone again on a warm night in Manhattan. The breeze picked up softly, bleeding the darkness and lights together as I drifted off into the miasma of the city. In love with loneliness and being lost.

Where I Came From

Twilight closes in and I step outside. The dry air is silent, hovering on the verge of darkness. Trees have grown up along the old path, obscuring the view of the meadow below. Once a tiny sapling in my memory, a large oak now huddles in a verdant clump surrounded by young pines. The growth of these trees surprises me but then I am reminded time has been passing. And not a little bit of time. It will be 20 years this summer since I left, all my belongings thrown carelessly into big black garbage bags. I drove away down that long dusty hill in my Toyota Tercel, with pictures of Robert Smith taped to the back window, blasting some staticy ‘modern rock’ radio station. I was headed to the big city for college and a better life – to forget my small town shoddiness. To leave the chaotic, eccentric poverty of my parents’ weird lifestyle, to make new and interesting friends, to take drugs and stay up all night, to not be fat, to not be a virgin.

Here I am no longer a child, not even young anymore. And still the silence and isolation of this place holds me in its thrall. I can see now that it is beautiful in its remote uncultivated way. My Dad struggles incessantly, fencing gardens, pulling weeds, cutting grass, sawing down trees, repairing old buildings and yet everything rebels and returns to nature – paths overgrown, thistles and weeds thrive, trees rot and fall under the weight of winter snow, the buildings slip into disrepair – the wood going grey and brittle, birds eat the fruit from the trees, gophers pilfer the gardens and rattlesnakes lurk in the grass.

How can this relate to my life in New York City? These worlds seem at odds, split entirely from one another. And yet I am part of them both, even though I have wanted to disappear. I am from here. This solitary wilderness still flowers within me, inescapable as nature.

Finally Over It

I think I might be getting the hell outta Dodge - NYC, actually. After being fired from yet another pathetic peon job by a disgusting power mongering misogynist, I think the proverbial straw may have broken my back. I just can't take this anymore. I can't take this tiny room in which I sleep, in a place that is not my home, where nothing is mine, the incessant thrum of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway roaring outside my window day and night, the quintessence of temporal space signifying nothing. Everyone is on their way somewhere but here itself is nowhere in particular, not a real destination. My life is nowhere, not a real destination, not a point on a map. I give up trying to find meaning. City College of New York is a bureaucratic mess hamstrung by budget cuts, not even able to offer its graduate students enough classes so that they may graduate, the escalators broken for 4 months, collecting garbage. Everything seems run down and full of junk. The men are jerks. I just don't have the energy to go on.

I want to go way, if only I knew where...

Dreams

A Dream Deferred

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

ESL

By now it should be apparent that I am slightly obsessed with foreign men. This results in some rather interesting text exchanges.

Friday Feb 25th:
12:21am Habibi: Hello my love!!!
Me: Hi
H: You will stay my love forever
Me: What's up?
H:Where are you come to see now
H: Habibati are you in the bed?
Me: No out on the LES with my friend.
H: I'm home I can't sleep
Me: My friend just ran out out and left me alone at this pizzeria
H: I wait for you take cap I pay for it

My friend L and I had gone out earlier in the evening to watch a Japanese folk singer from Astoria play at Pianos. After the show,the guys from the band came over and gave us free drink tickets because they said we seemed like the only people who were really into it. Then we met these crazy guys who grabbed us and started dancing with us. They bought us more drinks. Needless to say we ended up wasted at a pizza place in the LES. That's where my friend got into a fight with the guy at the counter who swore she ordered 2 slices and she swore she only ordered one. She stormed out in a rage and left me there drunk and confused with my pizza. That's when Habibi started contacting me. Meanwhile this other guy sat down next to me and we preceded to have a 45 minute long conversation about race relations and black men dating white women (he was black). Habibi was calling and texting me the whole time. In the end he drove into town and swooped me up in his minivan. Then the other guy started texting me, "You are cool. We should hang out sometime. XO". Habibi took me to his place fed me chocolate, climbed in the shower with me, washed my hair for me and put me to bed. I was wearing a vintage dress he had given me from his store and my stockings had a hole in them. The next day he pulled out a new pair of tights and gave them to me. He can be really cool sometimes.

Tonight as I write this its snowing/raining outside. I texted Habibi earlier to see if he wanted to hang out.
I just got this message from him:
'I'm staying home very bloomy wether' (I think he means 'gloomy'...)
Oh, all of this makes me laugh. Not in a mean way, its just funny to me.

The good times never end - or do they?!

I've spent my whole life surrounded
and I've spent my whole life alone
I wonder why I never wonder why
The easiest things are so hard
I just want, I just want love
I just want, I just want love
I just want, I just want love
I just want something
Something for nothing
Something, something for nothing

I'm a beggar and I'm a chooser
I'm accused, I'm an accuser
But nothing's unconditional

I hold the whole world accused
I've only got myself to blame
I wonder why, I never wonder why
The easiest things are so hard

-Unconditional, The Bravery

Sometimes I feel the urge to warn my younger friends about the perils of perpetual singlehood. That they might fall into the vacuous hole of endless city nights - drunken revelry, dead end jobs, meaningless sex, trippin' around 3rd world countries - until one day they wake up a decade or more later wondering what the hell happened. But its fun. Hell yeah, its fun! Too much fun. That's the problem. I have made a career out of avoiding responsibility, conjuring up casual romances and 'exploring my opportunities'. While I don't believe in regret - I think its a wasted emotion, if I knew then what I knew now (forgive me for this horrible cliche), I might have have slowed down a little, taken things a little more seriously.

But I keep my mouth shut. Everyone staggers through life and eventually finds their own way. Such are the perils of the modern age. We are free but its so easy to get lost.

Fate

I watched the Adjustment Bureau tonight. Its all about fate versus free will. Without totally giving away the end, the movie basically suggests that if you fight hard enough for something that you truly desire you can break out of the web of preordained fate. Put another way, 'Fortune favors the brave'.

As I walked home through the soft spring night, I started thinking about why I came to New York. I came here to change my destiny, to shake up fate. I felt like my life was stale, monotonous, whirling in a slow motion circle of vacuous wasted time and loneliness. So I came here. Now I am walking down these dark Brooklyn streets, the moon shining on the brownstones and though I have come so far, I still feel the same tug of inertia. It still feels like I am going to be alone forever. That's the worst of it. I have tried so hard, god knows, I have tried. I've fought to change, to grow, to take chances, to try different things. I have given so many guys chances each time thinking maybe I could find love with this person. And yet every time it eludes me. People say stop trying and it will find you. I've given up too. Nothing changes. I've never felt so powerless about anything in my life. Nothing I do, or feel or think or pray for can possibly seem to shake the pattern of my solitary life.