[mnemonically-blog]

“Our system of integration is working increasingly badly, because we have too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to find them accommodation, a job, a school.”

— Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of Hungarian immigrants.

[mnemonically-blog]

Headless dancer.  I know I've been away from this blog for quite some time. A lot of things have happened since then. I graduated from school early, stumbled into a frantic post-college madness, interviewed several times in several different mornings for several different companies that I hadn't even heard about a week before, and was so sure, so certain my head was lopped off during a night ride. I was taken back by my own decisions, by my own choices. 

But then finally, somehow, I ended up here.  I no longer wake straight up in bed at 8 AM with ten thousand questions firing off in whichever way. I no longer pace around in the shower searching for answers. I just remind myself that I just turned 21 and that headless dancers can find their way too.

[mnemonically-blog]

The sunlight is golden but the leaves still sway by the wind.

[shinji--moon-deactivated2017123]

When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys call asking your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you give him blue balls, say you’re welcome. When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you’re a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won’t have anything to grab when you head-butt her. Then head-butt her. When a guidance counselor teases you for handed-down jeans, do not turn red. When you have sex for the second time and there is no condom, do not convince yourself that screwing between layers of underwear will soak up the semen. When your geometry teacher posts a banner reading: “Learn math or go home and learn how to be a Momma,” do not take your first feminist stand by leaving the classroom. When the boy you have a crush on is sent to detention, go home. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time. When the skinhead girls jump you in the bathroom stall, swing, curse, kick, do not turn red. When a boy you think you love delivers the first black eye, use a screw driver, a beer bottle, your two good hands. When your father locks the door, break the window. When a college professor writes you poetry and whispers about your tight little ass, do not take it as a compliment, do not wait, call the Dean, call his wife. When a boy with good manners and a thirst for Budweiser proposes, say no. When your mother hits you, do not strike back. When the boys tell you how good you smell, do not doubt them, do not turn red. When your brother tells you he is gay, pretend you already know. When the girl on the subway curses you because your tee shirt reads: “I fucked your boyfriend,” assure her that it is not true. When your dog pees the rug, kiss her, apologize for being late. When he refuses to stay the night because you lived in Jersey City, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because you live in Harlem, do not move. When he refuses to stay the night because your air conditioner is broken, leave him. When he refuses to keep a toothbrush at your apartment, leave him. When you find the toothbrush you keep at his apartment hidden in the closet, leave him. Do not regret this. Do not turn red. When your mother hits you, do not strike back.

“Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls With Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair,” Jeanann Verlee  (via floralnymph)

[mnemonically-blog]

[inothernews]

Really, Congress? You held a Congessional committee on reproductive rights and you did not invite any women? Really? That would be like not inviting any men to a Congressional committee debating the Maxim Top 100.

AMY POEHLER, Weekend Update

[mnemonically-blog]

Your blog seriously, is fantastic.

Thanks dude.

[mnemonically-blog]

[mnemonically-blog]

Roses are black, violets are black, I am a dog. Woof.

[mnemonically-blog]

안녕하세요? 제이름은 브랜다예요. UCLA 4학년이에요. 전공은 영어예요. 저는 미국 사람이에요. 웨스트 우드에 살아요. 제 취미는 독서예요. 좋아하는한국 음식은비빔밥이에요. 만나서 반갑습니다. 잘 부탁합니다. Turning twenty-one on a Wednesday before an 8am class, losing your voice Ariel-style, and then having an oral presentation. In that order.

[mnemonically-blog]

Finding wonders in the kitchen.

[saddest-summer]

Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment. Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.

Haruki Murakami

[mnemonically-blog]

Some children fall in love with yellow-haired dolls. Others, race cars, toy soldiers, or a water colour paint set. I fell in love with the dictionary. Yes, the dictionary. It was silent kind of love, a love one could only share with their mother and no one else. As a young child, I had access to a collection of books; my classroom walls were lined with literary characters, my local library poured out pages, and my parents allowed me to buy new books every month from a scholastic brochure. However, I always stayed true to the dictionary, the one book that relentlessly provided me both challenges and joy. It was from the dictionary that I learned about the roots of a word, the sounds of a word, the purpose of a word. I could open a book of literature and read it to have it tell me a story, but opening a dictionary meant I would have to make up the stories to understand what I was reading.

[mnemonically-blog]

When I was younger, a very old lady lived in the house next door. She had a more severe case of skin cancer and was advised not to leave her home into the broad sunlight (that, or it was simply old-lady mentality). However, I saw her often when I went over to fetch a fly-away ball that had flown from our yard to hers. She'd invite me into her home and told me many stories about the people who once lived in my home.  One of the particular families that lived here was a family of four. A mother, two daughters, and teenage son. The son was the eldest, an energetic boy who built many things around the house, things that still stand today. He lived in the garage and built many things in there too. One day, however, the teenage boy grew into a troubled young man and began to run with a rougher crowd. It was speculated that he was into the harsher drugs and thus, they concluded in his premature death in his early twenties.However, his mark around the house has surely stayed. For example, the above photo is a painting in the garage undoubtably done by him, still shining brightly.

I could never figure out what it meant.

[mnemonically-blog]

Two years ago, I took this photo and it has remained one of my favorite personal photos. It is of a little girl in front of her wooden house of where I stayed at for a brief moment in time. During a daily walk with her father, Serith  had found a little chicklet and adored it so much, her father allowed her to take it home. However, the little girl did not know that the chicklet was sick and needed its mother, and held it everywhere she went. Her father, too kind to take it away, let her.

[mnemonically-blog]

"I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life."

-Mildred Loving's letter to Robert F. Kennedy about her plight with the anti-miscegenation laws.

[mnemonically-blog]

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.”

Charles Bukowski