What's love got to do with it?

This blog is going to be used for my Gender Studies: Modern Love class. The blog posts that will be posted will be about the stories we have read, or about some aspect of my different types of love in my life however near or far.

[lalocaasiatica]

It's been a while but every day is the same

I am stuck. It's Groundhog Day every day with only slight differences. Yes, I am still looking for that perfect job and the chance to move out of my parents home. There's days I don't even know what day it is because at the end of it, it doesn't matter and whatever the next day is doesn't matter either. The majority of my friends here in my hometown are all moved away, getting married, got married without telling anybody, having/had babies, purchasing their own homes. Here I am, recent college graduate with 2 degrees and I feel that I just got out of high school all over only with a higher degree plus one. Except this time, I'll be on my own; I have fortunately grown up since high school so it is not scary as it was. However, I still feel that longing to be older for the possibilities that I have accomplished something wonderful (even though getting a BA and BFA are pretty spectacular).

The hints are coming more strongly than before "by then you should be Katie [insert new last name]," "Don't get married till you're 30," "You're the last one now to get married. You are the last...besides ----, ----- and ----- and the great grandkids because they are waaay too young." Is that what I get to look forward to now that I have graduated (besides hoping to go back to school) marriage and work? What kind of life would that be to do the same things over and over every day? Maybe that's why I want to go back to school, for something different. For choice. My mother says just to read books for knowledge - forget school. That there's a huge chance that I won't get a job in my field anyway.

  I don't want to be stuck but "resistance is futile."    

[lalocaasiatica]

Today, I found something

I found something today. I found the proof that I am not just the same me I was yesterday. Today, I rode the mechanical bull for the first time in years. Took me two tries to stay on and was only on for 3 seconds, but I did it. Better than last time when it took me 3 or 4 tries.

Today, I got my picture with Jerry. Stupid dog wasn't looking but I did that too.

Today, I had to grow up and do grown up things. My job was to go get the insurance checked in. Sounds simple right? Wrong. I managed to go from the third floor to the basement (where possibly dead bodies were, the perfect scene for a horror film). This wasn't the first time I have gotten lost in a hospital and it probably won't be the last. But I got the job done even though I was terrified and panicking and freaking out, I had to overcome myself in order to help a friend. I know I looked like a fool but at that moment I didn't care.

To finish the night, I ate crawdad and frog legs at New China. No that's not a huge ordeal but I did it. I didn't hesitate with the crawdad, I ripped it open and feasted on its meat. I hesitated with the frog, but I didn't back down.

So here I am, more confident me. The me that can do anything.

[lalocaasiatica]

This is it, the Big Kahuna

The last post:

How do I throw all of this knowledge onto people so that they too, will understand and be impacted?

This class has opened my eyes to many new ideas concerning love that I can use in my writings, my every day life and through all sorts of literature, media and whatever else.

I think if everybody in the entire world would be able to know this stuff, the world would be a better place.

Everybody should have to take this class. It should be offered at every college in the world .

I don't know what else to say besides that I am so glad I took this class.

Oh, one more thing...

I am awake.

[lalocaasiatica]

I see you

I see you

Over there,

On my screen.

Your name pops

up everywhere.

I see you

In my mind,

At the store.

Please I don't want this,

anymore.

I see you

You see me

Please, just stop ... 

Get on with life,

so I can too

(Thank God there is something called Free verse :) )

[lalocaasiatica]

"Here's Looking at You, Kid" (Week 15 Post 3)

So I finally watched the entire movie of Casablanca. I think that I had a different idea of what it all consisted of. More romance, less political stuff. It wasn't what the ending kept it up to be. As much as that giant flashback was needed, I think it took away from everything. They could have done that differently. I, for one, felt distracted from the main storyline. I mean the entire thing was screaming the perfect romance story but it's not the perfect story. He tricks her to getting on a plane with a guy she really isn't that crazy about and he just disappears into the fog. What kind of romance is that? They don't even end up together! What a let down. I demand a remake with an alternate ending (with the same B&W, unfortunately it'll have to have different characters, same type of filming).

[lalocaasiatica]

That GUY did what with His Car? (Week 15 Post 2)

Not far from the town where I live, there was a man who loved his car. That's nothing new, lots of people love their car. But he loved his more than the healthy limits. Some or most of you have possibly heard about him. For those of you who didn't hear about him don't forget to pick your jaw up off the floor.  Now when I say he loved his car please think about the title long and hard or simply keep reading. He named his car, nothing out of the ordinary there. Heck, my car even has a name. Every night he would tuck his car into bed (the garage). He would make out with his car, video documentary shows he would make out with the front fender. He even had sexual relations with his car. Yes I said it. He stuck his man junk into the tail pipe. He would take his car on dates. Take photos of them on their date. How do I know this you ask? He was on an episode of "My Strangest Addictions."

Poor Guy.  

Proof that love can be ... weird.

[lalocaasiatica]

Monsters (Week 15 Post 1)

So I admit I have this fascination with old things; songs, movies, books, cars...I feel sometimes I belong to another generation.

It's been perhaps 4 years since I have seen The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I went to the Film Festival that my town hosts every year. I got to meet Julie Adams and get her autograph. It was the documentary type of event, where Julie and other people would answer questions. To be honest, I don't remember anything that was said.

The movie theater that it has always been held in is closed now. It's such a pity. It was the oldest in the state of Arkansas I believe. I once got to tour it with my fellow Debutants. Still had it's colored entrance around back and balcony seating covered with word out red velvet that smelled old. Some of the chairs were permanently broken, the paint on the wall needed a new coat badly. There was a beautiful chandler and a grand spiral stair case by the entry. The snack bar was a glass counter - everything operating it antique looking. The experience of a lifetime to just walk in taking a step back in time. Even the sign out front screamed 1930s or whenever it was built. But the outside was not very welcoming after years of weather beating at it's doors and nearby run down buildings making it look even worse. But you would have never known the magic it was hiding until you went in.

Those old monster films, if you really think about it, the monster just wanted to be loved. However nobody gave them a chance because they were what they were, monsters.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Curious. Hideous. Powerful. Alone. Exotic. A Creature of the Devil. A Sin Against Nature.

Frankenstein’s Monster:

Somewhat Dead. Somewhat Alive. Alone. Scary Looking. Sometimes Violent. Doesn't say much.

Phantom of the Opera:

A Creep. Hideous. Intelligent. Alone. Murderer.

The Mummy (The 1930 versions):

Cursed to forever search for His Love. Doesn't say much. Possibly really stinky. Murderer. Slave to Love.

What do all of these creatures have in common? Nobody gave them a chance. They could have easily been something else if somebody gave them the time of day and didn't try to kill them. It's just like with the theater, you don't know what is really there until you take a peek.

[lalocaasiatica]

I can't decide what to put here

I remember when Broke Back Mountain came out in theaters and I am sure you all do too. There was a huge ordeal. What I remember most though was hearing about how my grandmother and her little elderly friend went to go see it. They thought it was a Western like a Clint Eastwood movie. My grandmother loves Westerns. I guess it didn't take them that long to realize what was going on. They were both too embarrassed to get up and walk out. So they sat there through the entire film. In shock.

Different generations. Different shock value.

I was recently telling my mother about one of the books we recently read for Southern Literature called, Visitation of Spirits. I warned her knowing what I know of both the book and her traditionalist, bible thumping ways. One of it's main characters is a African American boy who is trying to grasp the reality of him being gay. She said she was open to read it. I then told her something else about another book we read called A lifetime burning which is also of the struggle of people trying to figure out their sexuality. I told her she needed to be more open-minded. She made a comment about me sounding like a "New Agest," where we are being brainwashed into believing things of the world and that there is no God.

Long story short, she wants me to read a book she knows about on the New Age belief.

So I am not too sure how from one generation to the next we keep altering our beliefs and how everything is going to be accepted into the world. It's a little scary.

[lalocaasiatica]

We will go dancing

I like to dance. I may not be that coordinated but I like to dance. To whoever my heart holds in the future, they better take me dancing like once every week. Instead of date night, it's dance night...or maybe karaoke night...or maybe once every month or so take me to the opera (at least once in my life)...or even a drive in movie, even if we have to drive for hours or days to find one. Just don't let me grow old and fall out of love. Every day should be a new day to fall in love all over again. Why stop the charm when there comes a ring involved? Love gets old that way, it gets stale. Keep it fresh.  

[lalocaasiatica]

Eureka! (Week 14 Post 3)

I am calling dips on this paper topic. If any of you take it and replicate it, shame on you.

I have been having trouble deciding on what my final paper for Modern Love should be and I think I have finally decided (Get ready because this will blow your mind, well least I hope it will); Super heroes (Marvel, DC Comics films) vs Disney Princes.

Why might you ask? Well because Disney gives off the idealistic understanding that a "princess" is going to go through some horrid experience and come out with a Prince Charming and life will be happily ever after. Marvel, & DC Comics (films),on the other hand, may have it's horrid experiences (conflict) but they don't always end up with the woman they love at the end of every movie, or the end of every sequel - there is always something preventing them from being with them, which does not make for a happily ever after.

I think this could work. I like this idea. I just hope I can pull out 8-10 pages on it.

[lalocaasiatica]

Nature Boy - Nat King Cole (Week 14 post 2)

I use to/still do listen to the oldies but goodies. There are many remakes of this song but Nat King Cole's is my favorite or Sara Vaughan's. There is something sleepy and romantic about Nat's voice, especially with this song I could listen to it on repeat for hours.  

It's mystique, almost alluring really just like love if you think about it.

We enter into love with the fantasy and seductive wants and qualities that will never be truly fulfilled. Love isn't going to happen just like a snap of the fingers, not even to the hot exotic, enchanted boy - if so, you suck.

But it doesn't matter what you do/have done in life unless you learn to love.

My (and probably everyone's) favorite line of the song;

"The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

[lalocaasiatica]

Peace (Week 14 Post 1)

Okay, so it has come to my attention that I might somehow have missed a week's worth of blogs. So here I am, catching up.

Dr. Wilson (for those of you who don't know her, she is one of the awesomest professors to have, right next to Dr. Clair and I am thrilled to have had both of them for more than one semester) today said that at a certain point in our lives we cannot wait to get to another milestone because by that point it is imagined to be easier. Once we get there, we know it hasn't happened so we put it off till the next milestone (which again doesn't happen) so we just keep putting it off hoping for peace and the easy life to appear. However, Dr. Wilson ended this little speech with something on the lines of 'When I am dead then I will find peace and ease.'

That really got me thinking, how many of us (single or already married) have thought that by marrying someone life would become easier, that things will fall into place? At some point in my past I thought that. But it is life, it's not meant to be easy. If life was easy they would call it death. Marrying somebody isn't going to make things easier, unless you marry some rich guy/gal who has truck loads of money but even that has it's rough patches.

Is it easy for you to realize and understand that some day you will die and all your hard work will be for nothing? Even if you have a huge company that can keep your family for generations from ever working, what good will that do in the end? It's a terrible realization to see that everything you ever do will be for nothing, unless you religiously save people then you won't know that until you're both standing at Judgment.

We do what we do for whatever short period we are graced with to fill our lives with something more than nothing. If you are blessed with love, accept it if you may and be at peace.  

[lalocaasiatica]

Sustaining Love (Week 13 Post 3)

"A Lifetime Burning" is not one of the strangest books I have ever read, it's far from it. It has its lesbian love affair, its gay love affair, its hetro love affair (all happening to the same couple). This book is so blunt but beats around the bush like nobody's business. The passion that is seen in this book isn't just a regular "Oh, I am passionate about pizza and running," but a burning passion that literally at one point burns down a house. For those of you who know nothing of the book, you are probably imagining some young couple. Wrong, this couple starts out with the woman being 62 years old and still in her sexual prime (for her husband). They go through this huge ordeal that if I was to summarize it for you I would probably make your brain hurt. BUT after all of that has happened to them, they are still together. And yes, they know each other's secrets and still cling to each other. In a weird way it's depressingly romantic.

[lalocaasiatica]

Corregidoras Past (Week 13 Post 2)

I know I have already blogged about this book but here at the end of the semester, I cannot help but think of it.

There's the main character, tortured of what has happened to the women of her ancestry, doomed to be the "evidence and proof needed" and to pass it down to generations.

By no means am I saying that the women in my family torture me to be like Corregidora, I know I am my own person and that what I do is me and not because of what my family has gone through, but sometimes I feel it is destined.

I am not saying that my family was slaves and had a stupid master who should have had his dick cut off and stuffed in his mouth, but I see the pattern of my family from both sides. There are very few who have not gotten divorced or had a child out of wedlock.

I think the highest count for remarrying in my family for one individual is 5 and an average of 3 and 2 being the commonality. Being married to the same person in my family for an entire life is a rarity. The only one who I believe had mastered it died a few years ago, but even then it's told he had an affair. Granted my father has not had a child out of wedlock or been married more than once (to my mother) but my mother has been married twice.

I feel doomed to follow in their footsteps. Just like Ursa.  I don't want to be married more than once, when I get married it's forever unless he is just a sick bastard (which I pray to God he isn't).

I am the last to carry my family's name, burdened with having to keep it going. For those of you who know who I am, you know it's not a first name, or a middle name if that. I don't want to burden my child with a split name, it does me no good to keep my name once married (it will still die with me). So am I destined to have a child out of wedlock and leave the poor guy out of the birth of his child? Or is my family just doomed to be erased with time?

So here I am, striving to break the mold my family has so evitably thrust at me. 

[lalocaasiatica]

Tortured Love (Week 13 Post 1)

Sometimes I wonder how someone can love someone who has hurt them so badly. I don't understand. My aunt and uncle had been together for over 25 years. They physically never had any kids together. He had my cousin from another woman (before my aunt) and then they adopted my other cousin from one of my other aunts. If anything would have happened to my parents, my sister and I would have been under their guardianship because they were the best examples. Perhaps maybe three years ago my uncle went AWOL. He had an affair with a much younger woman. In fact, I am pretty sure my oldest cousin is older than she is. My aunt tried to make it work, but he just wasn't in the relationship anymore. He moved out. At one point he moved back in to try and make it work. Separate rooms of course. One weekend perhaps here in the past year, she came to my house for a weekend visit. My uncle had gotten the other woman pregnant. By this time the divorce was finally, so my uncle being the "responsible" man he is, married the woman. My family just kept saying that they couldn't believe that he would do that, they were shocked that he would even have an affair anyway. One night during my aunt's stay at my house, she and I were the only ones sitting in the living room. She kept talking about how she thought she had done everything right and she has placed it all in God's hands but she still loves my uncle. She cried. Questioned why God allowed this to happen to her. Not to long later, my cousin (uncle's son) got married. Everybody was at the wedding. When I mean everybody, I mean my aunt, the man I once called uncle, his new wife and a guy my aunt had met a couple months earlier.

At this point, I hadn't met the other woman just yet. I didn't really want to. I hated her. In a way, I still hate her namely because she took part in breaking up a part of my family and if she was any other woman, I would hate her all the same. I knew though there was going to eventually be an introduction. I kept thinking of a smart response to the "Hi, nice to meet you" that would happen. So far I had "Hi." a 'I hate you, you stupid Cunt' glare.

Reception comes along, I see him and the other woman walk in. He waves in my direction. At me, I am not sure. I don't know anybody just yet in my area so I just stare at my drink. My aunt comes up along with some other family members. I turn to see the other woman and him standing quietly behind me. My aunt mouths to me if I met her yet. I quickly shake my head. I see from the corner of my eye, the man I once called uncle lower his gaze and kind of shrink a little like he knows I don't want to meet her because he knows I know he has failed, like he knows I am disappointed in him. However, I am positive he didn't see my aunt mouth to me. I can only assume he must have thought I shook my head because I didn't want to meet her. But I met her anyway, did I care to remember her name? Hell no. Do I even remember what it starts with? Nope.

Anyways, a little later I had to leave to come back to school straight from the wedding. My aunt tells me to go tell him bye, so he knows I still care. I am sure he felt the disgust when I did.

Months pass, my aunt has been hanging out with this new guy a lot. Pretty sure he will be my new uncle. She is happy. She still loves that sorry excuse however.

A couple days ago was my cousin's birthday. My aunt posted pictures on Facebook of both my cousins (who are late 20s, mid 30s and married) and this 2 month little girl...their sister.

My aunt is probably the strongest woman I know. I don't know how she does it. I wouldn't be able to be in the same room, let alone take a picture of the offspring and post it on her wall captioned "Siblings."

Is there something that just doesn't click for her? How does she do it? I can't even bear to be in the same room as him because he just screams off stench and disgust, but there she is,,,still there as the devoted husbandless wife.

I hope what's his face makes her happy. She so desperately needs happiness.

[lalocaasiatica]

Deserved Love (Week 12 Post 3)

Settling for less. Thinking that Karma is a bitch and that this is the love we deserve. Let me tell you, you, the one reading this, don't settle. You deserve the best for you. Do you deserve abuse? Hell no. Do you deserve an unhappy marriage? N to the O. Do you deserve somebody that will love you unconditionally and be there for you in any circumstance to help you through life? Yes! They are not there to make you happy. If that is what you want get a dog but even they can't make you happy all the time. You must be happy before all this can happen, if not then you can feel that you deserve to have this happen to you because life is a bitch.

Love is not deserved, even if you have saved somebody from falling off the tallest cliff or saved from the beauty spellbound King Kong. That's gratitude. If you really do love them then heck, 2 for 1 combo. haha.

You people, who think that you deserve love because your life sucks - finding love isn't going to solve that issue. Your life sucks because you're not helping yourself to better yourself. So how is somebody suppose to love you if you aren't willing to be the best you can be for yourself?

Love is not deserved but earned. It's just like respect. A person isn't guaranteed respect until they have done something worthy enough to have earned respect in a person's eyes.  

[lalocaasiatica]

Like my ---- and I'll ---- (Week 12 Post 2)

We have all seen them, or even some of you might do this. If you are one of them, I hope you learn something from this.

"Like my status and I'll send you a pm if I would date you or not"

"Like my Instagram photo/account and I'll match you up with someone (else who has liked the photo/account)"

I was flipping through all of my Instagram photos on my homepage one day and a screenshot of another account pops up saying, "Give me a shout out and I will match you up with someone!" It gets worse when reading the account name, which I won't post on here for their safety but it was saying two certain school's middle schools couples and ironically they are huge rivals (except that is pointless information). Anyways, middle schoolers playing matchmaker. I remember those days, we weren't really playing matchmaker but 'hey, I like you. check yes or no if you like me back.' The account's photos were photos of the couples matched up. So it really isn't that they are trying to find love (because God knows that they are way to young for that) but they are doing whatever they consider dating as more of a "Who is with who" and how cute are they together.

I know if I have a child (or more than one), they will not be dating till 16.