American Gods

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

— Neil Gaiman

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone.

I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live.

What exactly made it worth it?

What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming?

What's so great about feeling and dreaming?

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Starved for affection, terrified of abandonment, I began to wonder if sex was really just an excuse to look deeply into another human being's eyes.

— Douglas Coupland

A million little pieces.

I close my eyes and I let my body shut itself down and I let my mind wander. It wanders to a familiar place. A place I don’t talk about or acknowledge exists. A place where there is only me. A place that I hate. I am alone. Alone here and alone in the world. Alone in my heart and alone in my mind. Alone everywhere, all the time, for as long as I can remember. Alone with my Family, alone with my friends, alone in a Room full of People. Alone when I wake, alone through each awful day, alone when I finally meet the blackness. I am alone in my horror. Alone in my horror. I don’t want to be alone. I have never wanted to be alone. I fucking hate it. I hate that I have no one to talk to, I hate that I have no one to call, I hate that I have no one to hold my hand, hug me, tell me everything is going to be all right. I hate that I have no one to share my hopes and dreams with, I hate that I no longer have any hopes or dreams, I hate that I have no one to tell me to hold on, that I can find them again. I hate that when I scream, and I scream bloody murder, that I am screaming into emptiness. I hate that there is no one to hear my scream and that there is no one to help me learn how to stop screaming. . . More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone. More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if I wasn’t alone.

— James Frey

The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the ship.

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.

- Charles Bukowski

Take heart, sweetheart, or I will take it from you.

I am a complete commitment-phobe. I do this thing where I pretend like I am not. I really like to pick guys that are emotionally unavailable because then that way I can blame them for things not working when inside it was me and I knew it and sabotaged it. I really deep deep deep deep down in my black little heart I want someone to reach in and make it warm. But, as soon as you pay attention to me I will hate you.
I am fucked up. Honestly, don’t like me. I will ruin you. I don’t want to. But, I will. It bothers me because I don’t want to be like that.

Random facts about yours truly.

- I was born in Europe and have never met my real parents. This never used to bother me, but lately I've found myself growing more curious about my roots. I haven't decided if I want to actually meet them though.

- If I could do anything I wanted to do and not have to worry about making a living – it would be travel, write, take photographs, read, meet new people, learn about new things, and get a massage every day.

- I have been to more places than 99% of the people I know. I plan on travelling the world one day and consider myself extremely lucky that I have been able to see so many things.

- I spent my March break at Disney World for 8 consecutive years.

- I have the most ridiculous sleeping pattern. Meaning, I usually never sleep. But then I go through phases and just sleep 24/7. This is probably super healthy.

- I rarely remember my dreams. This has not always been the case.

- I cannot and will not function without a cup of coffee in the morning.

- I never eat breakfast, and I hate just about all breakfast foods. Minus crepes, and waffles. Even pancakes if they're mixed with something good like chocolate chips. If I eat too early my stomach gets super irritated and I feel like crap for the rest of the day.

- I can't eat mint ice cream because it reminds me of toothpaste.

- I hate tomatoes. I mean, I really hate them and I can't understand why on earth anyone eats them.

- I love baking. Usually for other people. I like decorating cupcakes more than eating them.

- I don't take medication for headaches or anything else.

- I have never had a "Beatles phase". There is no "phase". There is just one long continuous obsession. I have listened to the Beatles almost constantly throughout my entire life, with no let-up. Since Brooke and I discovered "Sgt. Pepper" in 5th grade.

- In kindergarten, I recited the lyrics of "American Pie" in their entirety for Show and Tell.

- I'm obsessed with text messages. I text more than any one person should.

- I actually HATE talking on the phone. My conversations never last any more than a minute. Mainly because I just don't care to hear what people have to say. There is only one person in this entire world that I have ever found I enjoy having a telephone conversation with.

- I want to learn how to skateboard. This stems from my obsession with the video game "Skate" and my belief that the tricks I can perform in this game, can be replicated by myself in real life. Christ air anyone?

- I own just about every Disney, Shirley Temple and Mary Kate & Ashley movie ever made. You're jealous.

- It really irritates me when people don't use proper grammar, or spell OBVIOUS words incorrectly. At this age, there is no excuse.

- I have a love/hate relationship with the non-word "irregardless". If someone says it to be funny, then it makes me laugh. If someone says it out of ignorance, then I hate that.

- I literally chase rainbows. I try to photograph them whenever I can. When it rains and gets sunny quickly, then I'm looking for them.

- I love the supernatural. I sometimes visit historic sights with my camera in the hopes of catching something on film.

- Sometimes I randomly break out into song when the mood strikes. This generally creates different responses from people.

- I push people away once they get "too close" to me.

- I like to think I'm a good judge of character. But I have the worst luck with guys. The only serious relationship I have ever had ended terribly and since then I have had the worst issues with trust. I'm still trying to get over it.

- When I was younger, I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I still do.

- I would like to write a novel one day.

- I have an irrational fear of birds, snakes, and insects. Although I'm pretty sure my fear of birds has something to do with being attacked by one as a child. I have a scar above my eye to prove it.

- That said, I have the most bizzare scars and stories to go along with them.

- I have been contemplating giving up meat on moral grounds but am not sure I have the will power to make it happen.

- I have been dancing since I was 3 years old. I recently stopped due to my arthritis, but am hoping to get back into it soon. And yes, I have arthritis. I'm 90 years old.

- I have broken both of my big toes. Both from dance.

- I don’t have stage fright. I have spent more time collectively on stage than anywhere else. You can consider that weird, but it's just normal to me.

- Laughing is one of my favorite things IN THE WORLD. I can almost ALWAYS laugh. Always. It is the way I cope with…everything, really. Even at my most depressive, sad, horrible, angry times, I can laugh or find the funny somewhere. It’s just my nature and I am extremely grateful for it. It’s gotten me through some really tough times

- There is very little about me that is fussy, organized or methodical. I do not have a logical mind. Like, AT ALL. I SUCK at math, mechanical reasoning, etc. because of it. I do not vacuum in an orderly fashion. I have no qualms cutting into the middle of a cake. Cupboard doors can be left open, the dishwasher can get loaded however, as long as it’s loaded. I have no super method for folding towels. My mother said that when I was a child I would walk over to a stack of washcloths, pull one out of the middle, have half of the stack fall over and just walk away. I am the product of very Type A anal parents with an amazing work ethic. I have no idea where the hell I came from, actually.

- I'm obsessed with sushi and could eat it every day.

- I want to get my motorcycle license.

- I want to get my gun license.

- I never drive the speed limit. Ever.

- Family Guy makes me laugh like a hyena. I think it's the funniest show ever.

- I'm a big fan of alphabetizing stuff. I realize that makes me kind of weird.

- I crave a McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder (no cheese) every time I am hung over.

- I honestly believe that men and women can be friends without agendas. 90% of my friends are of the male gender, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I just find they're so much easier to get along with. Girls are fucked.

- The more you persuade me to do something; the more I will not do it. If you’re stubborn, I can be ten times more stubborn than you are.

- I forged dozens upon dozens of fake notes in highschool. Especially in my last semester of grade 12. School was simply not fun for me, so I never went.