disposable myths

"don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable." - beyonce

i've seen you before. don't worry, we are all children looking up for validation. i know you don't want to feel special, you want to be special. you are so helpful. you are always there. you are so kind, so loving. you want equality so long as you are the equal one. i've seen you before. don't worry, you always get what you want.

here's what i think, though. you are completely disposable. we are all completely disposable. one body is replaced with another (how absence is easily replaced by another body that makes the same motions, and then it's fine i guess) is replaced with another is replaced with another. how the giant world makes us feel so small, and the tiny world makes us feel so small. you are in denial about your dispensability, 'cause it hurts doesn't it. all we wanted was to feel like someone needed us. i mean, me. wouldn't it be nice to feel like someone needed you, but actually you, you you you? turns out nothing needs us. you're flushed.

but don't worry, because it's completely alright. see, here's the thing. you are not the first nor the last to do the thing you're doing. someone will most certainly accomplish the same things as you, and don't worry because someone already has done it before you. someone has already made your mistakes, and someone will make them again when you're gone. so that's it. you are not the first and you are not the last. you are a cog in the machine, you are not a cog in the machine. you are free.

Open Letter to the STM and Transit Users

You never fail to frustrate me at least once a day.

To the STM;

I don't know why I should expect reasonable customer service, ever. I can't count the number of times I was yelled at for using student tickets back when tickets still existed, and now I'm forced to pay for a monthly pass if I want the discount. Obvs it was cheaper when I could get 10 reduced fare tickets on my Opus before.

The worst though, are the buses. The buses never run on time. The first bus doesn't come, and the next one comes late. The bus drivers are mean. No, really. A bus driver once gave me false information about the bus that I was on. Maybe it was an accident, but really, shouldn't he know anyway? Once I was accused of fraud by a metro lady.

Also, regular transit fare is expensive. The Opus doesn't work with the trains. The train doesn't even run near me. What's the point of telling me my Opus card expires October 2010 if you're going to make me renew it in 2009? Why do I have to pay $13 to have my Opus renewed?

Thanks for expanding the metro in every direction except west.

I hate you with every fibre of my being.

To transit users;

It's not that I hate you all, but sometimes you just suck the fun out of my day.

Just so we're clear, we're all using public transportation for the same reason: to get somewhere. So, you know, I'm probably just as late for school as you are for work. At the end of the day, I want to get home just as badly as you do. Why do you have to make it so hard?

My number one pet peeve, and this seems to happen every day of my life, is when people stand on the left side of the escalator. This is common knowledge everywhere that on a highway, the left lane is for faster drivers. The further right you are, the slower you go. I know that and I don't even drive. The same applies for the escalator. If you stand on the left side and everyone else stands on the right, you are blocking the entire escalator. Everyone behind you who wants to catch a bus hates your guts and wants you to explode into a pile of dust (or maybe just me). How is it even hard to figure out when the whole left side is open? Here are some things to think about before using the escalator: if you can't make it up the whole way, DON'T DO IT. GET ON THE RIGHT SIDE. DON'T WALK HALFWAY UP, REALIZE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE AN ASTHMA ATTACK, AND STOP. At the top of the escalator, a lot of people stop walking for some reason. If there are a lot of people behind you, this ends up creating a standing line. Keep walking until you're off the escalator. It's not that scary, I promise.

The other thing that bothers me is the lines for buses. Taking the 470 at anytime from 4-6:30 sucks. Everyone knows that. The line wraps around the sidewalk and overlaps other bus stop lines. In really shitty weather everyone is miserable and cold and wants to go home obviously. But why are you making a second line? I get it that you think you're not going to make the first bus, so you stand "first" in line to be "first" on the next bus that comes, except what you're really doing is butting in front of everyone else who is already in line. Like, I'm in the real line and I miss the first bus, and then you come along and get in this fake second line and the next bus comes and YOU JUST INTEGRATE YOURSELF INTO THE REAL LINE I HATE YOU OMG YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE

SRSLY

IT'S SO FUCKING COLD OUTSIDE

GET IN LINE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

Do you know why this irritates me so? Because how do you tell these people what they are doing is cheating and annoying? Like in elementary school is that what they taught you? That it's okay to butt in line? Next time I see you at course change I'm just going to start a new line and go in front of you. FORGET EVER STANDING IN A LINE, I'M JUST GOING TO MAKE MY OWN LINE AND GO WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT

Lastly, I don't want to hear your music on the way home. So if you have headphones you should use them. If you have headphones and are using them and I can hear your music over my music then I hate you, I just hate you

I want to rip your headphones from your ears and punch you in the face and make your eyes bleed

Sometimes when I get mad I feel violent. I'm glad I have this blog to rant to or else I might bottle up all my feelings inside and just cry myself to sleep instead. Sidenote I feel like I am blogging autowin style

That is, not using periods

leaving those sentences hanging in mid-air

Line Breaks Do Not a Poem Make

Listen, I'm never going to claim that I am a good poet. I think I'm okay. I've never really asked anyone's opinion, nor have I ever let people read much of what I've written. Actually, my poetry teacher from second semester said he liked an edited version of this poem, which was published in the Liberal Arts Anthology last spring. But he may have been lying. Regardless, I don't know if I'm a good poet or not. But I do know one thing: poetry is not a bunch of sentences with line breaks. Nor can you hide run on sentences with line breaks. Poems have a rhythm and beat, and I don't know why people think this means that poems have to rhyme. Rhyming poems are harder because you end up trying to force syllables in places they don't belong. This is a really good rhyming poem. Good luck trying to imitate that in any way. Anyways, don't write really long sentences 'cause it's tiring*. Just as a general rule. Keep that shit short. Concise. Done.

I just really have to get this off my chest.

Like, this is not

a poem because

I split my sentence

into 5 lines

where angels

come down from heaven

and I go off

on tangents

and say random things

that might have something to do

with my topic

and then start new stanzas

for no reason

banana

now I have to

bring this back around

to make this

make sense

can you tell

that I'm making this up

as I go along?

This is not a poem.

Riese has feelings about poetry in school:

I read this essay about how teaching literature in school is ruining it. I think a teacher wrote it. I can't remember. Most teachers in most schools in America are making kids hate books by treating literature like a Periodic Table, especially poetry.

Poetry is a gift and a skill. It's one of the hardest things to do well. Luckily, 'cause there's only a tiny poetry market, so it's a good thing we only have maybe 100 living poets who truly deserve a book of their stuff to be read by lots of people right now.

So making kids memorize poetry is boring. Making kids get pop-quizzed on what record album Holden Caulfield bought his sister is boring, and it misses the very best part of learning and reading poetry and really any kind of literature, which is reacting to it however you want -- rudderless and hopeful -- and I don't have an answer for how to give someone a grade on their emotional response to a work of literature. But I think making kids write poetry is a huge mistake. Let them discover it on their own if they must and if they must than they will. Otherwise they'll just associate poetry with the experience of sucking at something. Poetry will feel miserable to them and it has to feel not like that, it has to feel like the opposite of misery.

Back to me, Emily: Also telling having exercises where kids have to write poetry and you tell them to just write whatever is in their heart/what they feel is no good. Poetry has feelings, yes, but so does your fucking diary.

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem." - David Carradine

*Unless you can pull it off.**

** but you probably can't.

Top 6 Favorite Posts From the Last 6 Months

Did I forget to mention that last Monday was my 6 month blogiversary? Ok, well it was, and I forgot all about it. Six months ago I started out with 0.5 regular readers and now I have 5-7 regular readers which makes me feel really happy. Especially when they comment. Or when they get their sister to tell me over the phone, that's cool too. JK, sorry I said I wouldn't say anything about that. Anyways, I thought I'd be cliché 'cause I feel like it, so here's a top 6 of my favorite posts over the last six months!

6. Thursday, March 5 2009 Life is so Quick and Sometimes it Goes Away too Quickly

I think I'm the only person who liked this post, but I don't care, I really really like it. It was a bunch of thoughts added to each other written over 5 days or something.

sometimes i dont like punctuation
i like to learn
i never used to care if my friends loved me
but now i do.

I admit it's weird and I finish with a conversation with myself but that's okay because this whole blog pretty much started as a conversation with myself. Now that more people are participating maybe you will see the quirky, beautiful things I see in this post.

5. Thursday, February 19 2009 A Lesson in Geography

This is apparently a very popular post despite the surprisingly few comments (only one a month later??). I guess people think my condescending, pretentious manner is funny. Anyways I hope you all learned something. I've actually found it quite useful as I continue to refer to it when I hear people tell me they read my blog but "didn't know they could comment".

4. Monday, April 6 2009 Rummaging for Answers

This is a post consisting of 2-3 entries from my "diary". It ends with the bus story which remains, for some reason, a special point in that semester at Dawson. I actually saw the girl a couple of times at school which means I was clearly wrong about her being an art student at Concordia (??) but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's where she's applying at some point in her life. For now I like to pretend I was right about everyone else.

It's a source of comfort that if the bus had tipped over and I had died that day, I would have at least died with nice people. I think, somehow, that bus ride restored my faith in humanity a little. The thing about having connections with strangers is that your opinion of them hardly ever changes.

3. Thursday, May 7 2009 I Get by With a Little Help From my Friends

Well, what can I say? This is one of my favorite posts not because of the way its written, but because who it's written about -- my favorite people.

Also I love that cartoon.

2. Monday, February 9 2009 Ballad of Big Nothing

While writing this (which was not written with a blog post in mind) I was able to put something I discovered about myself into words which is sometimes hard for me. I guess this is the best example of how this blog is just a conversation with myself. If you agree, if you read something here that you agree with or you say "me too" then maybe we're having a conversation together seperately or maybe we're partly the same person. And maybe that is terrifying or maybe it's comforting. Maybe both.

I’m hoping that there’s a bed for me at home, someone warm to curl up next to, stairs to walk down in the morning and a lot of sunlight outside, a bus that comes on time, and then places, I hope there are places I can go. I hope I have some place to go, some place to return to, a space in time in the crowded world that is just for me.

1. Thursday, March 26 2009 Life is Full of Wonder




Here's to an awesome summer and another 6 months of conversation with myself!

All I Wanna Do Is Complain And Take Your Money

The new facebook is a piece of shit. As is this asscrack of a computer I'm using instead of my supposedly youthful laptop (still under warranty) which is in the hospital (my uncle's place) undergoing surgery for memory loss (RAM).

In the grand scheme of things I really have nothing to complain about, but when has that ever stopped anyone. No, wait. I hate when people say that. I am grateful that I don't live in a third world country. I am grateful that I have food, not dirt on my plate, and that I actually have a plate to eat it off. But as much as they didn't choose where they were born, neither did I. There's not really much I can do about the shitty life people in third world countries live, besides donate a bit. I could volunteer to help build a school in some place across the Atlantic. Would that satisfy my soul? It's not like I starved the kids and put them there myself. Blame the shitfaced Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries who thought it would be a good idea to make Africans slaves.

In all honesty, I don't think about dying kids during the course of my day, but I bet you don't either. It makes me sound heartless doesn't it. Because really, they're over there, and I'm here. My life is here. I have real deadlines here. Things that affect me, personally, here. Mememe. Yes it is all about me. And if you're you, you're saying the same thing. It's in our nature to put ourselves first. Maybe volunteers are looking for a special place in heaven. Most likely it's because it makes them feel good about themselves.

I don't even know why I'm ranting about this, I'm mad about something else.

What I really want to rant about is my laptop. I feel empty and nervous without it. It's not the fact that I don't have a computer, obviously I have a computer, it's that my stuff is on it. All my music and pictures and thoughts are on it. The music is the worst, I think. Some people put their records and/or cd's on a shelf; I put mine on my laptop. And it's not like you buy one cd, you've bought them all, no, people have really large collections of music. Imagine if someone came into your house and stole all your cd's? I feel like that. Along with my photo albums, which people also collect. Those things are irreplaceable. Maybe I do sound like a first world asshole complaining about being rich, but anyone who's reading this has a computer too. Also, does the fact that I'm defending myself from criticism I never received mean I have a guilty conscience?

I've been in a bad mood for 2 days. March break sucks.

I'll be Curled on the Floor Hiding Out From it All

I think I am one of the most socially retarded people ever. I just cannot carry a conversation. After the how-are-you's are exchanged, I smile awkwardly and leave the room. Either I'm like "what's going on" or "ok" and both of those are not good ways to present yourself as an intelligent person. People who have only met me once probs think I am a monkey in disguise. That's why I like to stay inside and live in the world wide web 'cause it's harder to look like a dumb shit, unless you are SO incredibly lazy that you have to save ALL THIS TIME by typing "u" instead of "you" then I look down on you and judge you. To your (internet) face. Just sayin', it makes me think that you've never opened a book before. I just kind of want to poke those people with a pitchfork sometimes. For the most part I hold back on judging people and I'm very open minded, but if you do not have some kind of disorder (dyslexia) and your native language is English, and you type like a three year drooling on the keyboard and you write things that make you sound like a drooling three year old, I do judge you. This is also why I'm a pretentious liberal arts snob, but don't get the wrong impression, they're not all as retarded as I am. They're more charismatic and friendly, which (kind of) brings me back to my original problem of being socially inept.

I also just want to throw out there another one of my general flaws, is bailing at hard times, ie, I will NOT STEP UP TO THE CHALLENGE that I most likely started in the first place. Sometimes I do. But a lot of the time I just say "no". Rereading this mini paragraph makes me realize that it's hard to decipher and I'm just talking crazy to myself.

That being said, I think this just goes to show that I'm very good at analysing myself. I'm very aware of all my flaws, thank you, I like to confront them in ways that people can't give me harsh criticism, i.e, by writing it here. See, hiding again. I'm so predictable.

One real problem I actually have though is, what do I change and what should I leave alone? There's this prayer thing, and I'm usually not into Jesus and the Bible and whatnot, but it really touches a chord with me, and I'm about to go off into a tangent here so bare with me; isn't that what religion's all about? Not really, but I mean, if just one thing, one prayer or something else religious I have no idea what makes you feel better, then doesn't that serve the whole purpose of god? Now I'm totes talking crazy shit but from my point of view, god is supposed to bring comfort and make you feel less alone. Religion has obvs turned into something else, but I like that simple sort of blind faith that things will get better. I like to hold on to that. Anyways, prayer time:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference."

Now I obviously don't have this wisdom which often leaves me in a state of confusion. To save myself from thinking hard and making choices and solving problems I often wish I could hide under my blankets all day, sometimes I do, it never really helps anything in case anyone was thinking of trying it.