a day in the life of a vegan.

In my life there is this amazing consistency going on but when I say amazing I don't mean amazing in a positive forum I mean amazing that I am really just amazed that I can manage to be let down and disappointed with such remarkable consistency.
Very recently the one person in my life who I never thought would let me down did. I know he has no idea that he let me down and I know he would never let himself think that what he did was a disappointment but it truly was. This person is someone who I thought would stand beside me throughout every shitty thing in my life, because before now, he had. And I don't know what changed... I certainly can't recall doing anything to cause abrupt change in our friendship but nevertheless... I am sitting here feeling abandoned, hurt, and deeply saddened by all of my friends, confidants, and acquaintances in my life that have only helped to twist the knife into my heart.
This past week I received news that an illness I thought had laid dormant in my body is back in action. Part duex. Who is here to help me through these times? Who have I come to rely on in this life? Myself.

It is time to move in and shed this down, shed these people, and shed everything that I have come to rely on in my almost 24 years on this planet. It is time to start fresh. I only hope that I am able to go forth with this change.

It has been one week since I entered the funeral home in Chicago, Illinois that held my grandfather whom I affectionately refer to as, Poppy.

Robert Henry Reis was laying inside the oak casket with gold handles and furnishings, wearing a dark grey suit that was a couple sizes too big for him since he had been so sick in his final days. My Poppy died with a full head of hair, something he was damn proud of, wearing his medical alert watch that stopped at 8:02 pm coincidentally also the time of his death, a rosary around his hands, and a gold angel pinned to his lapel one that matches one my grandmother wears.

Walking into the viewing room took strength in me I didn't know I had but what came next was the equivalent to my heart being pulled from my chest. I slowly walked down the isle towards the casket to see my grandpa... My hero in every sense of the word.

My grandfather was married to my gram for almost sixty years but it wasn't always great. For almost ten of those, she was gone. Before I was born my gram left my poppy for another man. An admitted mistake on her part, my poppy was devastated and heartbroken. In all of those years he never so much as looked at another womyn, never dated another, his heart belonged to Marilyn- his love. He waited for her. Eventually she came back and they remarried, he was whole again. He held her hand through life as she did his, she was his world.

You see, my poppy was a hopeless romantic. Hours before his death, his concern was telling my gram that she would need to learn to buy her own jewelry because it was something he loved doing for her. He was thoughtful, always showing her with gifts and affection. While I was back in Chicago, I looked through is movie collection to find classics like Casablanca. He was a true romantic.

He held so much honour in his life. He worked as a pharmacist for Walgreens for 48 years very fitting because that is also where he met my gram. Robert Henry Reis was an amazing man, I only hope I made him half as proud as I am to call him grandpa.

I don't know if I believe in a true love, I don't know if that exists but I do believe in the idea of holding out hope for hopeless romanticism- I only hope I can be half as happy has he was.

Hope is the last to die.

I really think it would me impossible for me to have a partner who didn't share my love for Jet's to Brazil. Fuck that, I don't think I could even be friends with people who don't love Jets to Brazil.


"Sea Anemone"



the curtain's a sea anemone

in the way it sways

to the slow breeze

I lie spread out on the floor

looking at these things

and most of them are yours

and it's so nice

sitting very still

without those old shoes

I could never fill

starfish with its arms out in a daze

staring at the stars

through an ocean haze

was I one you wished upon?

burned out like a lightbulb

when you turned me on

and it's so nice

sleeping here all alone

with my ashtray and

white courtesy telephone

now I'm making out the shapes

like the shower rod - can it take my weight?

I will tell you I am fine

I got some news, friend, feels like I'm dying

turtle on its back in the desert sea

and you look like a cool drink

just slightly out of reach

draw myself into the shell

waiting on a sign from god

or a nod from hell

and it's so nice

sitting very still

without those old shoes

I could never fill

no we're turning on the lights

it's the first day of my second life

take my name off of the lease

you can even keep the name it never suited me

I was in the hospital last week and this weekend I got the bill. It's funny how when you're there they wait hours to see you but then bill you within 10 days of getting out. Ironic.
Anyway the grand total:
$900.01

Yeah.
I don't have $900. When I called them to pretty much say, "uh, this is a lot. I don't have this much money."
Hoping they can work something out with me the response I get is, "Thats the total. You have 90 days to pay it, if you don't we take you to collections."

My response, "Ok, can I at least make payment?"

Their retort, "You can make payments but if it is not fully paid off in 90 days we take you to collections."


I am pretty fucking bummed right now.

Opposable- Dangers
Base. How low can we go? Fuck the beatles, I`m an animal. An upright ape with opposable thumbs. To hold the clubs. To shoot the guns. Swing low sweet chariot. God bless my DNA. Drunk drive my Chevy to the levee. Let the flood come and sweep me away. This ain't the apocalypse, it's the way things have always been. From soddom to Saddam. Attila to Tiananmen.

A quarter million years of humyn beings. I quarter million years of a humyn stain. We use ten percent of our gorgeous brains and leave the rest up to cocaine.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds made of blood. Lucy in the sky. She's got her hands on a new shotgun.

And I know where the wild things are. Don't look far. So if you made me in your image, please let me break the mold. I`m ready for something new, my friend, 'cause evolution's getting old.
Wish I may, wish I might frop the ice-nine in the drink tonight.
If you made me in your image, please let me break the mold.

KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Primates
FAMILY: Hominidae
SUBFAMILY: Homininae
TRIBE: Hominini
SUBTRIBE: Hominina
GENUS: Australopithecus

</b>On November 24, 1974 Anthropologists Johanson and Gray discovered Australopithecus afarensis- otherwise known as "Lucy" or "Dinkenesh" (Amharic meaning for "you are beautiful"). Lucy was found in the Awash Valley in Ethipoia's Afar Depression.

Estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago, Lucy was an amazing find for the Archaeology and Anthropological professions. In only three short weeks roughly 40% of the hominin skeleton had been found- a great feat in such a climate. With the bone gathered it was determined that this hominid was a female, due to the broadness of the pelvic bone.
The classification of the bones were difficult at first because the skeleton only stood to be 3 feet, 8 inches tall- she was misclassified as a Chimpanzee especially given her small stature and small cranial capacity but her lower extremity bones were identical to that of an upright hominid.
Other identifying characteristics of habitual bipedalism were a posessed lumbar curve, the length ratio of her humerus: femur (84.6% compared to 71.8% for that of modern humyns and 97.8 for that of a common chimpanzee).

I would say that the most important finding with this hominid was that of the cranial capacity. In the 1950-1970's it was commonly believed that a larger cranial capacity meant that you were "smarter." In the anthropological community we also bought into this theory, thinking that most of the hominids and other animals with larger cranial capacities meant that we evolved more recently from them.
Until Lucy came along...

Homo rudolfensis, also named 1470, boasted a cranial capacity of 800 CC (cubiv centimeters) while Lucy only contained a cranical capacity of 375 to 500 CC. This discovery was instrumental to Stephen Jay Gould's amazing prose, "The Mismeasure of Man" in which he countered the study and practice of eugenics and overturned false findings that ones cranial capacity can be taken into account when dealing with intelligence.

I encourage everyone to pick up Gould's book if for no other reason that he was a character on an episode of the Simpsons and you can feel cool saying you read his book. More so because it is amazing though and you can consider yourself smarter for reading it.

[[yes, i did help edit the wikipedia article]]

Sorta.
I have this friend who I don't know very well but see sporadically and I recently saw him a few times over the last week or so and I have a huge crush on this person. That isn't so much news though, when I first met him (we'll call him x) I felt an attraction- [side note: I hate when people say "when I met so and so we had an instant connection" .... No you didn't you had an attraction. You cannot be connected to people who you know nothing about... /rant]
Anyway...
So when I first met x I felt attracted to him- we spoke to each other about subjects that I rarely get to discuss, let alone have someone at least seem interested and also know what the hell I am saying/ be able to comprehend the subject matter.
It is really refreshing to finally meet someone who I am attracted to and happens to be smarter then me. I am not saying that to seem self important or whatever. I know that I lack knowledge of certain everyday mundane things that most people may know but when it comes to intelligence... Well let's just say most people don't cut it... Most people need to read more.
So yeah. I feel really happy but sad at the same time because I know it is unlikely anything will come of this attraction. Not because it wasn't reciprocated but because there are a lot of factors involved. :/ I`ll stick with the happy part for now. Sadness can come later.

PS
I am running on 2 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours. I am exhausted.
PPS
Brittany is my heart. I love RoAD trips!