Little Sister

"Bless you, my darling, and remember you are always in the heart- tucked oh so close there is no chance of escape- of your sister." 
-Katherine Mansfield

Once upon a time, there was a scrawny, gawky, and terribly egocentric fourteen year old named Brittany Anne. Brittany was the oldest of three siblings, Alex, Ben, and Hanah. Though she loved all three of them very, very much, she did grow weary of fulfilling her role as the older sister and, in her own contrived imaginings, the "live-in indentured servant". When Brittany's diabolical mother told her that she was going to have another sibling for Brittany to watch all the time, you can imagine Brittany's immediate repulsion: "ANOTHER kid to watch?? What kind of hotel is this?" In other words, she was utterly annoyed and overwhelmingly stressed. For nine months, while this alleged Sibling #4 was being gestationally baked, all Brittany could think about was how dreadful her life was going to become once the little dirtbag was born. By the time the fated day, April 30, 1998 finally arrived, Brittany's mind had been well made up that this baby was on her own. Brittany had washed her hands of the entire affair. No more diapers, no more bottles, no more filthy rice cereal and baby food and baths. That would show her mom- the baby factory/slave driver. Even though it wasn't the new baby's fault that Brittany wasn't utterly thrillified to have another sibling, there was really nothing she could do about it. All of these sinister thoughts surfed through Brittany's brain all the way to the hospital. When Brittany finally saw her new baby sister, her first thought was, "Boy is she ever HUGE!" That new little baby was practically the size of a kindergartner. But she was cute. Brittany still wasn't convinced though. After a couple days, the new little life-ruiner was allowed to come home. Brittany had no idea what she was in for. Upon arriving home, Brittany's mom asked her to hold the new baby for a few minutes while she got settled. With much adolescent and estrogenical disdain, Brittany agreed. She took her new baby sister in her arms and sat down in a rocking chair in the family room. By some miracle, the house that was usually loud with chaos fell silent. Not a peep did Brittany hear as she sat there rocking her new baby sister. And it was in that rocking chair that something truly miraculous happened, and it took no more than three seconds. As Brittany rocked her brand-new, straight from the wings of Heaven, fifteen pound baby sister, her little black heart unleashed it's stubborn grip and actually melted right into her toes. All at once, every feeling she had ever had of animosity was disintegrated and all she could feel for that new little person was love, love love. Her plan was foiled- she loved her new baby sister and there was no getting around it. All her previous feelings were diminished, and at that moment all she cared about was loving that new baby and being the absolute most legit big sister there ever was.

I love you Emme- I wasn't completely a sister until there was you.

Peace and Love.

Change of Habit

"A pessimist only sees the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all- he's walking on them."

-Leonard Louis Levanson

Recently I heard myself voicing this to one of my peeps: "I don't seem to write my brother as much because my life is so good now that I have nothing to talk about." Just days before this word vomit, I ran into one of my good friends whom I hadn't seen or talked to in months. As we tried to figure out an explanation for this, he outted us: "It's because we haven't had any drama in our lives. Our lives have been so good that we haven't needed each other!" Wow. That dreadful realization made me ache. Why is it that only when my life is seemingly pitiful do I feel the need to proclaim it? Why don't I feel that need when my life is M. Poppins-esque in that it is "practically perfect in every way"? This proclivity of mine to vehemently declare my life's despondencies and merely whisper my life's little thrills is utterly disgraceful! Yesterday I drove right under a rainbow. A fully arched rainbow... In all my years I've never actually seen a WHOLE rainbow. I've only ever been able to witness HALF a rainbow. I couldn't help but compare this to my life and how, for so long, I've only been able to see "half the rainbow", hypothetically speaking, let alone anything at all through "the stormy clouds of my existence". How can one lead a happy, fulfilling life, if they fail to see the rainbows through the storm, or, I guess, after the storm?

Thank goodness for that rainbow (BTW i'm fully aware of how utterly... gay... all this talk about rainbows sounds, but just humor your girl...), because it was just what I needed to change my perspective and compel me toward a life of Optimism. I used to say that optimism was boring. More word vomit. Because... in all sincerity, I've always sort of been an optimist in a pessimist's clothing. This is making me sound like a contradictator, I know. First I say I'm Negative personified and then I promise that no, I really was a proponent of optimisticism. But, I say optimist in a pessimist's clothing because, even though it was effortless for me to complain, and bemoan, and condemn, and be all estrogenical all the time... Sometimes, deep down, I still had this little flicker of hope that things were going to be just fine. So it is true what they say. Beauty is only skin deep because my ability to find the beauty in situations was always there, just buried deep down beneath the surface. That little flicker, try as it may, never really surfaced. But the fact that it flickered at all under such circumstances is kind of inspiring, right? Let that little deep seeded flicker of optimism surface, and it can change everything. Suddenly, everything is rosy, your Pepsi glass is always half full, there's no such thing as a cloud without a silver lining, no tunnel without a light at the end, and all that jazzy jazz.

I heretofore pledge that I will now not only broadcast all the marvelousness in my life, but search tenaciously for it when it seems to be on holiday. There's nothing like a rainbow to make you switch sides. Pa ha. Peace and Love.

All Shook Up

"Any perceived inconsistency among various aspects of knowledge, feelings, and behavior, sets up an unpleasant internal state - cognitive dissonance - which people try to reduce whenever possible."

-Henry Gleitman

Today I read something which was like a b-slap to the face, basically reiterating to me what a waste I am. That certain issue that has been quaking my soul for the greater portion of the last year of my life. Lucky for me, I was born with a brain. It's quite marvelous. It allows me to decode and encode information, proliferate synapses, analyze and personally "logicate" incoming data, accommodate/assimilate my schemas, etc. Along with this ability to cognate, I believe that I have also been granted another entity, contributing vastly, yet not as tangibly, to my carbon-based existence- a spiritual component. I believe that human beings can be spiritual, whether or not they adopt a religious dogma into that schema is their choice. Still, that spiritual component of existence (regardless of religion) is there, acknowledged or not. I believe that it's the part of you that governs your morality; is responsible for the guilt you feel when you've chosen a "wrong" instead of a "right". Some refer to this as a conscience. But I choose to believe that it's more than that. Your spirit- that is the best version of who you are meant to be. And that is why when you choose a Wrong instead of a Right, or maybe even an Acceptable instead of a Very Best, you don't feel your very best. That feeling is an intrinsic sort of resonance, not a cognitive one. There is a difference between thinking something is wrong and feeling something is wrong. Therein lies the spiritual component of decision-making.

Truly, we all "know" what is wrong and what is right. We "know" because in employing our cognitive resources, we discover that it is not logical to lie, to cheat, or to steal because we "know" that there are always consequences for these things. Still, because we are human, we transgress. Or, we choose to transgress. So the "knowing" component of exercising morality is obviously not enough; the impending consequences are not enough. What can the culprit behind this cognitive dissonance be? The culprit is disregard. We abjure that spiritual aspect of our existence- the "feeling" component of choosing. What we so often may not acknowledge, is how it feels when we choose that Wrong, or even that Acceptable, in addition to our knowing it is not the Right or the Very Best for us. I think that if more human beings acknowledged the cognitive and the spiritual component of decision-making, the result would be a more harmonious sense of being and thus, in the long-run, a less dissolute society.

I can see how this idea might seem hopelessly naive to some; to others, it may just substantiate claims that my mind is still paying rent to Cloud Nine, so to speak. For once, though, I have actually taken a hiatus from my hypothetical Cloud Niner state of thinking, and have found myself engaged in a desperate cogitative quest to tap into that spirituality that has for so long been abandoned in my thoughts, my actions, my words, my very Brittany-ness. I don't want to be part of a dissolute society; I want to be a proponent of the virtue which can heal it...

Why the inner conflict you ask? It is this: I really do believe that one's spirit is the best version of who they can be, and I want to embrace that without forsaking the mind and the reasoning ability I've been given, because that, too, is so much part of who I am. I wonder then...Is it possible to make wrong decisions and feel right about them? Conversely, is it possible to make right decisions and feel unnerved/discontent? Is it possible to employ both one's brain and one's feeling-regulator (spirit), and have that decision induce inner harmony? Or, do you have to choose to employ one facet of aliveness over the other? Can they work harmoniously? For as long as I have been aware of and believe that it is in fact a real thing, I have chosen to trust in that spiritual aspect of aliveness. And with the aforementioned "quest for virtue", my instinct was that I should just embrace the hell out of it. Yet logic tells me that I cannot ONLY seek this component's approval. This seemingly dichotomous task of trying to utilize one without disturbing the other when faced with moralic decisions is perplexing to say the least. I have no real solution to this dilemma. In my lifetime, empirical evidence (aka personal experience) has shown that there really is no way for me to achieve complete copaseticism without allowing both my mind and my spirit a chance to defend their arguments. Howev, I will attest: when I have allowed each defendant to plead their case, rarely is there a dissonance between the two. When I have been truly judicial about my moral dilemmas, objectively weighing the Wrongs vs. the Consequences vs. the Feels Right For Nows vs. the Will It Feel Right Laters, I most always find that I am content with the aftermath of my decision. So then, maybe, cognition and spiritual conciousness can stand independently, but if used together, can bridge the dissonance?
Meh. Who knows.
Peace and Love.
P.S. This guy has some more thoughts on the subject. I thought it was interesting... http://sisyphusfragment.wordpress.com/2009/3/15/morals

How Would You Like To Be...

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."

-Goethe

So after the somewhat despondent undertones of that last post, I felt like it was the least I could do to make the next post at least semi-funny. Unfortunately, I rarely come up with my own material, and so once again I will rely on the clever humor of someone else to elicit laughter from an audience, and then take credit for it. Awhile ago I sent my missionary brother some pictures in an email. He was having a rough time and I was doing my sisterly duty to try and cheer him up, being thousands of miles away. Anyway, these pics always gave us a worthy chuckle, so hopefully they’ll amuse at least a little part of you. Enjoy yo’selves, biatches.

"You look like a... Something."

Like I don't?

Chris Farley, circa 1978. When he was a baby. Girl.

Don't act like you're not impressed.

Your mom.

"I love Krithpy Kremetheth." Yeah, way to go, Champ.

And drumroll please. The end all, be all of internet pictures. I was so thrilled when I stumbled upon this that I actually considered myself lucky and took up gambling. I call him Bernard.

Some things not pictured but which I can totally appreciate, humor-wise, and upon which I put my B.A. Golden Stamp of Hilarious:

1) Midgets in a hurry. But no other kind of midget, because for the most part, midgets are creepier than any serial killer.

2) Arrested Development (R.I.P.)

3) The Sword and Quill club at BYU (Whyyyyyyyy)

4) Joel McHale

5) The old lady's face in The Wedding Singer when she watches Adam Sandler eat the two meatballs she plops in his bare hands. Pa ha.

6) Lord of the Dance

7) Bret Michaels

8) The chubby window-washer at Guru's whose hairy stomach was pressed up against the glass while LaRee and I were eating lunch. Actually, that was more grotesque than funny.

9er) That Juicy Fruit commerical where there's only one pack of Juicy Fruit gum left and neither the male teenager nor the large African-American woman will relinquish their grip on it so it shows them in various situations- like while the lady's shaving her legs with one hand and holding the gum with the other, whilst the teenager is still holding onto it too... ... You'd have to see it.

10) The SNL Jeopardy skit with Norm McDonald as Burt Reynolds.

11) Norm McDonald

12) Hit and runs. JK.

13) Anything and everything Britney did, from K-Fed through post K-Fed. Funniest trainwreck to watch, maybe ever.

14) NOFX songs

Peace and Love.

By and By (For Uncle Brad)

"...and it left a dreadful sort of goneness..."

-Anne of Green Gables

So I finally accomplished something by doing absolutely nothing: I managed to live an almost quarter century without having to experience the inevitable, the utmost breaking of one's heart- the tragical circumstance of death. I of course, in my almost twenty-five years have experienced what seemed like the actual breakage of my most tender organ. When your heart breaks from unrequited love, or from the "growing pains" of life, or after all your chocolate souffle cake is gone, though it seems the hurt will never subside, it eventually does, and you heal, and you're whole again. That sort of pain is real, and it does bruise. It may even leave you a little scarred. I've experienced those kind of ache-ings enough to know just how real they are. Still, as frail as it leaves you and as indomitable as your tearducts may seem to be, nothing, NOTHING can prepare you for the kind of anguish you feel when your heart really has lost a part of what makes it beat.

 When someone you love actually leaves you, not because they choose to, but because life chooses for them, that kind of heartache is Anguish in it's most tangible form. Even with consolations of that personified heartstring being "in a better place", it doesn't alleviate the "dreadful sort of gone-ness" that you feel, as you are still here, but without them. Once you experience this sort of loss, it doesn't make the "next one" any less formidable. On the contrary, it almost makes that fear more penetrating, because not only do you not know when it will happen again, you know exactly how painful it will be when it does, and that is terrifying. 

So, how does one thwart the inevitable epidemic of broken-heartedness? If you are like me, and suffer from CBHS (chronic broken-heart syndrome... I have a lot of feelings, man) the remedies vary. For those injuries instigated by the gruesomeness of love unrequited, the cure for me has always been springboarding (and then usually bellyflopping) into the next love affair (thus perpetuating the disease, but whatev- it only has to work once, right?). For the cardiopulmonary weakenings brought about by "until we meet agains", the most noted cure is frequent correspondences with the proprietor of that particularly heart-wrenching goodbye. Now, for those kidnapped heartstrings which you feel you may never have back- what of those? You probably won't ever get them back. But the exquisite irony of tragedy is that usually, if you look deep enough, it plants a seed for something new and equally beautiful to grow. The challenge is, after you've healed, finding that seed and figuring out what to plant in the place of what you've lost. What's interesting about the etymology of the word "break" is that it has dozens of definitions. Obviously, the primal of these being "to fracture". Looking on, however, we see that it can also mean "an interlude", and if one dares to venture further, "an opening." Thus, considering these definitions in context with a "broken" heart, we learn that to harbor a broken heart means that we are engaged in an "interludory process of creating an opening". That opening is where the remnant seedlings get planted, and new heartstrings have the chance to grow. Maybe those heartstrings will beat differently than the ones lost, but they will beat, and they will eventually fill the void of those heartstrings you desperately and oftentimes unwillingly had to relinquish. You may always miss that heartstring, but you will be healed, with time, as the new one grows. And it doesn't mean you have to forget the one that beat there before. It just means that you now have learned how to trust your heart again, after time and time again, it fails you. 

Peace and Love.

Artwork by Jason Alexander Cruz

Welcome To My World

"[S]he was at heart, a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him [her] a subtler satisfaction than it's realization."
- The Age of Innocence

So... Welcome to my world. Since my propensity for watching smutty television, idling away on Facebook for grotesque amounts of time, and my seemingly endless amounts of schoolwork don't seem to ransom enough of my time, and since at least four people have told me I should start a blog (which is the exact amount of people it takes to convince me to do something), I decided to just go ahead and go blog myself. Though my life is sometimes bleakly mediocre, in my own imaginistic perspective, it is truly enchanting. And because I do imagine the crap outta things, as practically perfect as their manifestation may be, the "thing" rarely meets my imaginistic expectations. (Thus that quote at the top... Oh so fitting.) So, as one terribly indignant of boredom, I will try and keep this "thing" as far from boring as my mind will allow. In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh once wrote: "Stretches in reality, lies, if you will, [are] often necessary", and that just may be the theme of this whole thing. JK. But seriously.

Peace and Love.

Artwork: "Vase of Roses" by Vincent Van Gogh