MINE! MY OWN!!!

There is a certain satisfaction derived from claiming ownership of something.  I think that's why slavery was so popular.  But I'm not here to be racist.  I'm just talking about power.
The power of possession: the act of telling someone else that they can't have it. Yeah.....
Or, quite the opposite: the sense of powerlessness we feel when someone claims ownership of us (a boyfriend or girlfriend, a friend who starts calling you "li'l bro"), the powerlessness we feel as we hand over our pennies and bread the to the government and cable companies, the powerlessness we feel toward a rapidly approaching 99 chemistry problem set and 10 minute long English presentation and poster exposition on your experiment that failed to yield any workable results all due on the same day.
But the main thing about possessiveness and the power it gives us is that it is also possessive and takes power over us.  Possessiveness can quickly become obsession (like when Hitler first wanted Germany, then Poland, then the whole Eastern Block?) and then it can block out the rest of your mind that's like, "Woah. Woah. Are you sure this is such a good idea?  C'mon.  Give the other people a tur- No?  Really?  Are you sure?".
And here's where I get to my main point: how do we, as individuals, know where the line is between possessiveness and obsessiveness?  And where is the line drawn between inclusion and greed?  Where is line between wanting to give everything you have to what you love and taking what you think you deserve from what you think loves you?  These fundamental rights and wrongs are separated by miles and miles of gray haze, so how the hell are we supposed to know when we've crossed to the wrong half of the gray area?  And of course you can't just backtrack and say, "Well, hey there. Didn't mean to stumble into the Great Convention of Evil, I just took a right at the elephant tusks, a left at the McDonald's soda fountain, and went straight through the Gulf of Mexico.  It seems that somewhere in between, I must have gotten lost. Don't mind me. I didn't actually mean any of it."
So, yeah, while it's easy to get lost, we have to rely on each other, on humanity, to point us in the right moral direction.  So if you personally don't act on your moral compass, if you don't personally try to help your fellow humans, gay and straight and black and red and yellow and white and male and female and curly-haired and straight-haired and tattooed and Christian and Buddhist and Hindu and everything else that I missed, try to attain a better standing in there lives, if you don't personally make it your daily duty to tell someone you love them and think that they are worth something, well then who in hell do you think will?

from: http://classracegender.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/i_love_bread_by_chop_stock.jpg

A Catty State of Mind

Below is a paper I wrote for a class in which the question of whether animals, plants, and even ecosystems had consciousness, and if so to what degree, was discussed. Each of us chose a species (we all chose animals because plants are weird) and had to, for this particular assignment, create a narrative for this animal. I got an A on the paper (although I think the grading may have been a little lenient) and I wished to share this piece of fiction with you, if you care to read it. My jaguar named Mapi is a special young jaguar whose origins stem from an actual scientific narrative that I found while doing research for another component of the class. I took this real life account and turned it into, what I believe, is an accurate representation of the jaguar's state of consciousness. Enjoy!

They watched as he regained consciousness.  He lifted his head slowly, very aware of the humans to his rear, but unconcerned as they made no movement.  He lay there for fifteen, thirty, sixty minutes, slowly leaving the haze that had encircled his head, lifting it now and then in an attempt to shake off the awful disorientation.  Seventy-five minutes, ninety minutes.  They approached.  He was aware of every footfall.  Close, close, closer they came.  He forced his muscles to relax.
Five feet away, he turned and leaped at them, roaring his displeasure.  They fell away from his sharp claws and gaping maw.  He rounded on one of them and stared him down, muscles tensing once again.  This man was frightened; his smell clearly said so.  It would be easy, so easy, to spring and rip out his throat.  But he wasn’t hungry. After a few minutes, he turned and left the humans to their petty instruments and words.  They were beneath him.  The magnificent jaguar walked off into the jungle and left them in the forgettable past.
He was unaware of it, but these men, these scientists, had named him Mapi.  Mapi was one of ten jaguars to be caught and tagged for the purposes of research but all Mapi cared for was the sore, itchy spot on his neck.  Young and strong, he prowled through the dense forest like he owned the world.  He was the top predator; birds that squawked loudly were silenced by his presence and the entire jungle knew to fear and respect him and to leave him alone, yet the tiny, sore, annoying itch on his neck was driving him mad.  Mapi stopped and rubbed his lean, compact body around a tree.
He was...content with the world.  Content was a good word.  It meant that all the little things that annoyed him were less so than other days.  His disdain for the earsplitting howler monkeys, for the colorful toucans, for the absentminded butterflies was less apparent today.  He suspected that this had something to do with the haziness of that morning but refused to think back to that humiliating moment in which he allowed himself to be cornered, not once but twice, and finally caught by those damn scientists’ hunting hounds no less.  Yappy, useless creatures.  He could make one bite out of them.  Well, no, he actually couldn’t.  But some of the thicker ones might make a decent meal...  Suddenly, the yappy hunting dogs seemed a better idea.
Mapi approached his river.  Fish were swimming along stupidly inside it, clustering together in fear every time his tongue broke the surface.  The silly creatures had no mind at all.  He gazed out across the water as he drank.  A snake was lazily balancing in a tree.  Mapi didn’t mind snakes.  They kept to themselves.  A sloth was, as usual, asleep on a high branch across the river.  Sloths were alright, too.  They didn’t make much of a meal, but they would do during the hard rainy seasons when he could find them.  Somehow, they were remarkably fast at disappearing whenever he was hungry.
His gaze struck an alligator basking on the opposite bank.  The alligator had seen him as well and was giving him a look of cool appraisal.  Of all the animals in the jungle, only the alligator was equal to Mapi.  Mapi had once, long ago when he was just a kitten, studied a hunting alligator.  Using little energy and endless patience, it had camouflaged itself into the mud and struck quickly and silently when prey strayed too close.  His mother, who had stood by him as he watched the alligator swallow an unfortunate monkey, had made him understand the importance of never going too close to an alligator.  Their strength was comparable to that of an  adult jaguar, but it would eat him and other kittens if given half a chance.  Mapi lifted his head and slowly broke eye contact, parting as equals on disputed territory.  It could stay for now.
Mapi had wandered almost fifteen miles that day.  He had seen everything, missed nothing, and remembered most of it.  The day was slowly dimming and darkness set in heavily in the undergrowth.  Mapi still wasn’t hungry.  He wandered some more, eventually coming to the ruins of some ancient town of some ancient tribe.  He climbed a stone Mayan temple in pitch darkness.  He liked this spot.  He could see everything from here.  Here, he felt like a god.
He could still see a little.  His eyes were nearly used to the pressing darkness, his ears nearly used to the roaring stillness, his fur nearly used to the unprecedented chill of the rain forest night.  In the stone work, he could make out raised carvings.  While he couldn’t tell all of the details, he had seen them enough before to know that they were of broad, feline faces that were covered in spots.  These faces were dancing with prey, prowling the outer edge of the temple, glaring at the world in disdain. They were carvings of himself and of his mother.  This shrine, covered in ancient and dusty blood, was dedicated to his kind, his glorious, elegant kind.

Mapi stretched leisurely on the cold stone and lay his head down on his paws but did not sleep.  He rarely slept.  He was needed to watch his domain.  It demanded his protection.  The next male was always haunting nearby, an irascible presence waiting to establish its core territory somewhere within his own..  Yes, their territories often intersected, but Mapi stayed well away from his rival, for his rival’s personal safety of course.  And sometimes his kingdom needed protection from itself.  The stupid creatures would create such a disturbance sometimes that it was left to him to tidy up the mess.  He would pounce in the middle of their crisis and bite either the slowest or the loudest of the bunch, depending on how irritated he was with these lesser nuisances.

How pathetic these creatures were.  Mapi almost pitied them.  Almost.  He felt no pity as he raised his head and focused his vision on a small patch of ferns that were swaying against the breeze.  A young tapir emerged, all spotted and apparently lost.  It did not realize the danger it was in as Mapi unsheathed his claws and slowly crouched away.  He slunk down the side of the temple, keeping his eyes trained always on some part of the small but plump animal.  His paws touched the ground silently and the end of his tail twitched back and forth.  Mapi was hungry now.

It was over quickly.  Mapi was a little disappointed as the adrenaline cleared from his eyes.  The hunt, the feel of his body slowly compacting just before the giant spring, the precise angle at which to jump so that he would land right on top of the miserable, pathetic creature with his claws out and his jaws wide, was so enjoyable that, at times, he would regret not going after larger, more exciting prey.  But the large cattle and goats on the nearby ranchos and plantaciones were protected by men.  These men were not the same men with shiny instruments and fear, but these were men with anger and loud guns.  Then Mapi remembered that he didn’t need that kind of trouble and he would silently enjoy the meal sitting in front of him.  Mapi had dragged off the tapir to a nearby tree that was tall and sturdy.  Climbing to a low branch, he began to gorge himself on the carcass, devouring all but the bones and parts of the skin.  He left a few organs as well, as a show of his benevolence to even the scavengers of his forest.

Mapi climbed back up the temple, much more slowly this time, and hid himself in a little ceremonial chamber that peeked out from inside.  He lay himself down once again among the sacrificial idols and closed his eyes.  He could envision his mother, his domain, his prey, his whole world.  He let out a huff of air and with that was asleep.  It would all be there, assuredly, when he woke up.

Happy Spiffy-fied April!!!

Ok. To be honest, I love being a science major. And I love being an english major as well. But there's something else that I love that not too many people know about: song writing. Well, maybe not the actual physical writing down part and then working out rhythms and trying to figure out how the hell my down beat got moved from 1 to 2 and 3 to 4-and, but aside from that I love creating lyrics and melodies which I then plunk out on the piano and try to create chords and arpeggios for.  I find it amazing to create such awesomeness with 12 notes, 3-5 octaves, and a handful of words that mean something to me.  Anyway, because this blog doesn't have an actual theme (or audience for that matter) as of yet, I figured I'd start posting lyrics for songs I'm working on.

This current one is one that I've just finished the lyrics and melody for (maybe eventually, after I've finished the music for it, I'll figure out how to put a podcast up on here or link you to a podcast so that you can actually put a tune to the words, because frankly, lyrics themselves are nothing without the music and they are also a separate thing from poetry which stands fine on it's own. But lyrics need their own syncopation and all that jazz....anyway, I'm ranting now.)

Anyway, the working title is Mirror Mirror, but that is subject to change because it really doesn't capture the song, which is about me and everybody else who just can't feel beautiful or purposeful sometimes.
Anyway, I hope you like it.  And if not, well that's fine too.  More to come!

"Mirror Mirror"

Lord am I a failure
Because I can’t appreciate the works...You....do
Through me?
Lord am I forgiven
For hating Your creation...inside my own reflection..
Shocked and staring?

Mirror Mirror
I can’t see her
Where’s the graceful angel God made me to be?
I see the beauty, strength, and love of Him
in everything and every
one around me
but I can’t see..
The Beauty in Me....

Praying for salvation
Of a population I’m not sure that I belong
To
Stubborn disbelief and foggy eyes
Belies surreal realities
Who ignores the truth?

Mirror Mirror
I can’t see her
Where’s the graceful angel God made me to be?
I see the beauty, strength, and love of Him
in everything and every
one around me
but I can’t see..
The Beauty in Me--

--Lost and torn out
Wind-blown pages
Life’s Your story
Told through ages
But words escape
my tongue unintended
Seeking worth from
those offended

And all I have to offer is my shame
Ungrateful, unbeautiful, unfit to name

Mirror Mirror
I can’t see her
Where’s the graceful angel God made me to be?
I see the beauty, strength, and love of Him
in everything and every
one around me
but I can’t see..
The Beauty in Me....