Uhhh….

It's best you don't ask too many questions.

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

The Future

The future is a barren world from which I can’t return. 

Both heartless and material

It’s wretched spoils not my concern 

Shining like an evil sun 

As my childhood treasures burn. 

(Shiiiiiining like an evil sun, as my childhood treasures…. buuuuuuuuurn.)

Sorry, every time I hear about “the future”, this song pops into mind. It’s from a scene in my favorite musical, Aida. I’m not necessarily this cynical about my future, but it’s catchy and heart-wrenching. 

While we’re on the topic of a dismal future, though, I thought I would share some words from my best friend, Jen. She looks like me. We’re the same person. That is not necessarily relevant to the topic at hand, but it’s my defense for any criticism I receive for using her thoughts to fill my word count. 

I like her words because my generation gets a lot of shit from older generations for our (perceived) short-comings. We’re often criticized for being angsty, or depressed, or apathetic. Her explanation of our mindset turns the focus from us to the world we were born into, and points out that in the context of our lives, the cynicism we are often chastised for is only a natural reaction. 

The following is an introduction she wrote for a poetry program of war themed/post-apocalyptic nursery rhymes she shared in a speech:

“Someone once said that the weapons of World War III are unknown but World War IV will be fought with arrows and spears.  It is no wonder that this generation is so cynical when we are being raised on notions like this. The popular literature of our generation are things like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. We have TV shows like The Walking Dead, in which society has completely crumbled.  Our parents thought the future was going to be like Back to the Future” (Hi, it’s Raegan. I’ve never seen this movie, but I’ll take Jen’s word for it.) “with flying cars and everything shiny and good... but our depiction of the future is bleak. And for some reason full of pointless love triangles, but that’s beside the point.”

“We have been raised in a world of watching war from a distance, so is it any wonder that we believe we are in some kind of prologue to a dystopian novel? The future to this generation is not bright but scary and somehow we are a pivotal part of how it is going to turn out but we don’t know how to change things.  How can we?  The future seems unchangeable for us.  The future feels like another war we are going to have to watch and live with without changing anything.  The future is something out of our control.”

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

My Spirit Animal

Maybe it’s my voluptuous afro. Maybe it’s my dad jeans and tennis shoes. Maybe it’s my extensive understanding of modern technology… okay, just kidding, none of these are qualities I possess. But oddly enough, when combined, these attributes make up a being who’s soul is connected to mine in some fundamental way. The fro, the dorky dad get-up, and the tech savviness embody my spirit animal -- This guy: 

Otherwise known as Maurice (Moss) from the British television show, The IT Crowd. It’s all on Netflix instant play. I suggest you watch it if you haven’t already, unless you have a lame sense of humor. If this is the case, please don’t talk to me. 

This particular character may not resemble me physically or characteristically in any obvious way. I recognize that. Our connection goes deeper than what you initially see. What Moss and I share is a likeness in our general demeanor and outlook. 

In addition to being dorks (of different persuasions, but dorks nonetheless), Moss and I are both either completely naive or oddly perceptive, depending on the situation. There really is no in between. 

Like Moss, I consider myself to be open-minded and accepting of others. For instance, I’m fairly confident I could also sit through an entire musical entitled Gay! A Gay Musical , and enjoy myself despite my heterosexuality. 

Moss reflects my personality in that he doesn’t necessarily share the values and priorities that the rest of society generally does. We do our own thing because we’re too cool for convention. 

On the other hand, we are both prone to being sucked into situations at the mercy of others because we go with the flow to a detriment at times when we don’t want to disturb the status quo. 

Despite these distinct parallels between Maurice and I, the main commonality between us is our inability to construct an e-mail efficiently, no matter how urgent the situation is. 

…We just don’t work like that. It has to be PERFECT. 

At the end of the day though, no matter how ungodly long it takes us to express our thoughts in an e-mail, or how many shenanigans we get ourselves sucked into, I’m proud to consider Moss my spirit animal because he’s just badass. 

That is all. 

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

This Rotting Mushroom House.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

After all this time, the cursor still found itself blinking atop a blank page.

Impatience was setting in.  

Blink.

Blink.

Come on.

Blink.

I’m waiting!

Blink.

It’s been days! Literally, days!

Blink.

How do you still have nothing?!

A puffy face glared back at the restless cursor, unamused.

Blink. Blink.

The face blinked at the cursor. “The face” was a “she”. Let’s call the face “she”.

Blink.

The face is also attached to a body. …So there’s that, in case you’re not one to assume.

Blink.

She cracked a smile.

There’s not just a severed head staring at a screen.

Hah. That would make the cursor even more of a jerk. Then, it would be taunting a severed head for not being able to type anything.

Blink. Blink.

Hey retard!

Blink.

You gonna type something?

Blink.

Or are we just gonna stand here being useless?

Blink.

Oh, wait….

You don’t have hands.

Blink.

Or arms.

Blink.

Or a body.

Blink.

Or any use in this world!

Lol!

Blink. Blink.

That would be superbly rude, if it were the case.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “She”, being one with a face, and hands, and arms, AND a body, and allegedly some use in this world… She was just indecisive.

…

What do you mean, indecisive?

Blink.

Well, not so much indecisive. …She just doesn’t know how to tell her stories.

Blink.

You can always start with “Once upon a time”.

Blink.

That’s the thing, though, my stories used to start with “Once upon a time”.  But--

But what?

But, I feel like if you begin a story with “Once upon a time”, you’ve made an obligation to give the story a happy ending. And I’m not sure if my stories do anymore. …Have happy endings, I mean. Does that make sense?

Blink.

…

No.

Well, who asked you?!

Is this a joke? You literally just—

Her hands leapt from the keyboard, sliding down her face, then tugging at her bottom lids, giving her the appearance of the world’s most forlorn and irritated basset hound.

 Can you PLEASE not sass me right now? I’m having a hard time with this. I personified you to give me a little encouragement and get the ideas flowing, but you’ve just been mocking me this whole time, and frankly I feel very attacked right now. So just… lose the sass, okay? Or I’ll turn you back into a regular cursor! I’ve met the minimum word count just by arguing with you at this point, so I technically do not need you anymore.

…

Did you just threaten to kill me?

Well. You drove me to it.

And you’re the one who feels attacked.

I am really not in the mood to be lectured by an object that I’ve written to life for the sole purpose of lending a voice to my internal conflict.

And yet here we are.

Look…

You brought me here.

I have nothing better to do than help you.

I think you do need me.

Oh really?

Really.

Uh, okay, and why is that?

You need someone to talk to.

Even if it’s technically myself.

Even if it’s technically yourself.

That sounds pathetic and lonely. I do have friends, you know.

You don’t need them for this.

Alright. Fine. You help me.

Great.

So, your stories don’t have happy endings anymore?

Kind of. I suppose I don’t want happiness so much as I want closure.

By which you mean…

I mean, I don’t need a story to end with all conflicts resolved... but I need to feel like they can be.

Let’s work with that. What was the first idea that came to your mind for this?

I thought about these stories my mom used to make up for me as a kid. They were about this little fairy girl named Ishkabibble.

Ishkawhat?

Ishkabibble. Shut up. It’s a cool name.

Okay, what was Ishkabibble’s deal?

She was me. But she was very tiny. She lived inside a mushroom stem. She slept in half a walnut shell. She wore a blue and white checkered Dorothy dress everyday.

Every day?

I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz.

Right on.

Anyway. Her best friend was a monarch named Mr. Monarch. She baby sat newly hatched cardinals when she wasn’t off adventuring with him.

That sounds awesome!

It is! – was.

So how did you manage to ruin that story for yourself?

As I was writing her stories all these years later, I just realized, Mr. Monarch is long dead. The cardinals are dead. Her mushroom house will have rotted away…

Compared to everything meaningful to her, she was immortal. It’s tragic.

Kind of like Edward Cullen from Twi—

DON’T YOU DARE DRAW A PARALLEL BETWEEN ISHKABIBBLE AND TWILIGHT.

Just saying. 

…

Okay, sorry, go on.

Anyway… I just imagined Ishkabibble today, sitting alone in this rotting mushroom house, her own memento mori, an incessant reminder of mortality, and as she brushes her hair a hundred strokes as she does everyday, I see her slamming her thistle comb down on stroke 92, and instead of thinking “Carpe diem!”, she cries out “What’s the point?!”

...What is she doing in this world where everything is so temporary? Why should she bother making friends if they’re all going to die so soon? Why should she bother brushing her hair? Why should she do anything?

Oh shit. So what happens to her?

Her hair becomes matted. She outgrows her Dorothy dress. She exists until she doesn’t and is too afraid to feel anything for anyone.

Well, alrighty then…

See, I told you. This is why I can’t write this story. How would this benefit anyone at all? I hate it. But I don’t know how to solve her tragedy without making her something she isn’t. So, I just don’t write her story.

It sounds to me like Ishkabibble needs to develop some mental fortitude.

Right, and how does she do that?

I don’t know.

Brilliant. Thanks.

Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I think you have to try.

What if I do try and I ruin her? Maybe I should just leave her in the past when everything was perfect.

And let her stagnate? How meaningful is she really if she never has to overcome anything? If you ask me, perfection lacks purpose. Let her face the conflicts. You might be surprised at her resilience.

Blink.

Do you really think she’ll be okay?

Blink.

I don’t know. But you owe it to her to try and make her mean something. Especially considering she’s YOU. I feel like that lends some incentive.

Okay.

Okay. I’m gonna go now. I’m eager to see how Ishkawhatever makes it.

...

Hey, wait!

Blink.

Thank you.

Blink.

…Are you crying?

Blink.

What? I don’t know. I guess. It’s – I haven’t slept, like, at all.

You need to calm down, this is just a tumblr post.

Get out of here.

Take it easy, crybaby.

Blink.

...

“Once upon a time…”

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

Oh, How Things Have Changed.

Truth be told, I was struggling to choose one person who has inspired me most. When I asked myself why, I realized I’d assumed it had to be someone I discovered in my childhood. A long stretch of time to observe and reference how a person has shaped my character would make deeming them ‘most inspirational’ easier to support. That being said, time shouldn’t be the factor that dictates my choice, for at least one obvious reason: What I considered inspirational when I was seven is in many cases radically different from what I consider inspirational now. In other words, the older I get, the less I want to emulate Sleeping Beauty.

She’s just not that exciting… Not that I blame her. The second she got a social life… well, you know.

Sadly, many of my early role models were just pretty female characters. Sure, most of them were also good people who exhibited good (female) qualities (kindness, compassion, general morality, grace, etc.). but if they weren’t conventionally gorgeous, I didn’t care about them. No one did. This is exactly why the moment I expanded my criteria to more recent influences, I IMMEDIATELY knew who my biggest role model was:

Roxane Gay is a kick-ass writer, professor, critic, feminist, scrabble player, and human being. She is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, Bad Feminist Essays. I read Bad Feminist over the summer after going on a slightly tipsy rant about male sexual harassment at a party, after which my friend Derick conjured up the book and read a passage echoing my sentiments (in equally, if not more eloquent language than I had used to make the same point).

After consuming that book whole, what I valued about Roxane Gay was her ability to discuss her social and political beliefs in an honest, approachable, and nonjudgmental manner. Though she’s opinionated, she makes even her harshest criticisms palatable, even when I adamantly disagree with them. Her charismatic approach has done so much good in facilitating an important dialogue about social issues having to do with race, gender, and privilege in our country and our world.

She’s enforced in me the idea that it is absolutely okay to have strong beliefs and share them, so long as you know how, and are willing to entertain contradictory points of view. Beyond that though, she made me realize how important it is for all of us to involve our minds and our voices in discussions of hot-button social issues if we wish to progress as a society. Also, the woman is hilarious. Roxane Gay inspired me with her narratives that made me nod, chuckle, cringe, sob, and contemplate. She influenced many of my current social values, and empowered me to share my own.

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

Top Five? …Just-- just five?

Okay, I’m going to do this quickly. If you ask me in another five minutes, I’ll probably give you a completely different list.

Here are my top five favorite songs as of right this second. I tried to choose songs that I’ve cherished consistently throughout my life that embody different aspects of my personality. Let’s go…

1.   The Sentimental Song:

“Take It To The Limit” – The Eagles

When I was just a wee bairn, my father would sing my sister and I to sleep with this song. Despite the audible strain it caused my father’s vocal chords, we were big fans of “Take It To the Limit”. As I’ve grown old enough to comprehend the lyrics of the song, it’s come to mean something to me on a more personal level as well.

 2.   The “Deep” Contemplative Song:

“Never Let Me Go” – Florence + The Machine

Florence Welch is the master of striking the perfect balance between powerful but ethereal, and eloquent but emotionally untamed. Of her songs, I listen to this the most because of the subject matter. The song is about allowing yourself to be emotionally overwhelmed, or surrendering, to forces greater than yourself. Those “forces” don’t necessarily have to be religious, or (ahem) biological. It’s just a general outpouring of emotion, in a cathartic sense. It’s a good reminder that letting go is not always a bad thing.

3.   The Guilty Pleasure:

“Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” – Queen

Anything Freddie Mercury is brilliant. I love “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” in particular because of the melody and dynamics. The inflections in the song are provocative without being vulgar or explicit. It’s just sultry as hell, and like most Queen songs, is fun to belt out at the top of your lungs with friends. I love this song, as does the squad.

4.   The Feel Good Song:

“Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)” – Jackie Wilson

Jackie Wilson just makes me so dang happy. I’m a pretty joyful person. Jackie’s flawless riffs and gleeful exclamations are constantly ricocheting around my noggin because they embody that joy and energy better than just about anything in this song. “Lonely Teardrops” is a cheerful tune also. Well, cheerful as long as you disregard the lyrics. The lyrics are depressing… but it sounds happy.  

5.   The “Done With Your Sh*t” Song:

“I Don’t F*ck With You” - Big Sean

This song is an absolute gem. It has a sense of humor, but holds some important truths as well; the first of which is not to f*ck with people who don’t deserve our attention. Secondly, don’t be bitter or hateful toward other people. Maybe everyone doesn’t have a place in your life, but you can wish those people well from afar.

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

Behold: The funniest video on the internet. 

Why is this clip worthy of the title? 

Context: This video was made in 2008 by The Onion (false news).  It caused full-blown panic. …People thought it was real. This video gets more silly from start to finish. The reaction of believers makes it funnier. It was posted in 2008, and still fools people. 

How are we fooled? Few of us pay attention to government hearings. Fewer of us watch C-SPAN. The video feeds on our ignorance. It exploits our fear. This is the funniest video on the internet.

[heysnoopytwo-blog]

Why The Hell Am I Going To College?

There are a lot of reasons for why I’m at community college spending more money than I’m currently earning. For one, I’ve got a dream. This dream most likely won’t come true if I’m working retail everyday instead of getting an education to pursue it. Secondly, I have always been an avid learner. 

To me, there is nothing quite so simultaneously exciting and relaxing as spectating while my professors pace the front of their classrooms, sometimes contemplatively, sometimes with indignant ferocity, back and forth, preaching upon the topics they are most passionate about. I guess I can learn outside of the institution, but I come here hoping to catch the wave of second-hand excitement about things beyond my own comprehension from the experts, and from my peers, many of whom are experts in their own rights. Most of the time, it’s worth the money. This may not be true for most people, but for me, going to college signifies taking initiative in my life. For many people, it seems that college is just a part of the plan that has been laid out for them by society and by their family, regardless of who they are and what would actually be best for them. In my family, college is encouraged, but certainly not expected.

 The household I’ve grown up in is one of very little expectation. Whether this has been more beneficial or detrimental to my development as a fulfilled human being and functioning member of society is a bit of a toss up. On the plus side, having no expectations imposed upon me by my parents means that my decisions are just that -- MY decisions. My life choices are (almost) entirely deliberate, which means that I have mustered up the resolve to embark upon whatever challenge I’ve sought out. …However, it also means that I know what it is to dig my own grave. When I falter and am struggling to see things through, there really isn’t anyone to push me through. So part of why I’m in college is because I’ve pushed myself to do so. While I’m here, I’m learning the skills to keep pushing myself, even after I’ve pushed myself past the threshold. Does that make sense? To put it in fewer words, the main reason I am here is to develop consistency. I’m here to challenge myself in a controlled environment where the stakes are relatively low, and the hope is to gain the skill of seeing through as many challenges and undertakings as I can. Success in my intended career depends on how well I develop the skill of actually accomplishing what I set my mind to. That’s why the hell I’m in college. That, and the parties. …that was a joke.