We are the worst and the best
the saddest excuses
and the most magnificent
of dreams…we are human
in all our tumbled glory
the faded shadow of a burning
burning light…
a light blinding the universe
our essence our voices
with our echoes and stains
the worst and the best
centered by our grandiosity
mega-maniacal within
our own orbits we choose
we borrow and beg for
forgiveness…while destroying
the things we ask for
the worst and the best
dying and dead, we live
while dying and die living lies
to sustain dreams
we’ve never wanted and
never have…yet foist
on others as if they too
believed…the worst and the best
we are tireless
in our pursuit of sleep
energized by our obstinate
determination to remain
motionless and
unwilling to share
generously apportioning
enough guilt to assuage
to assume, to ascertain
the worst and the best
we are human
in all our tumbled glory
the faded shadow of a burning
burning light…

Breathing…
there is a moment
minute second instant
now…when
this edge of feeling—a
slide of skin
across skin, across
memories—becomes 
the focus the apex the
glide path toward and
from
breathing…
a small area of
nerves, trembling
hesitant, close
to the surface…a
coincidental 
frequency shift
emotional sine waves
traveling
along synapses
making connections
directions toward
waiting
toward waiting
toward
waiting
the next
touch
the next
breath
breathing…she folds
herself toward me, around
me; a warm mist
an envelope, she
offers
what I desire most,
with an
inarticulate
heartbeat, ragged breath
breathing…
I retreat slightly…and
the wave
starts to rise
again, the path set
headed for
crescendo—it is
a dance, a
rhythm,
an ecstasy.

I certainly get the gist of this article and think it’s an important message but I also want to say that if women just stayed away from assholes, this activity would cease immediately…and we’d have far fewer assholes in the world. Believe me, if we take assholes out of the gene pool by women refusing to procreate with them, they will “evolve”…or at least they will learn to hide their assholeishness pretty damn deep.

Anyone woman who makes a choice, for whatever reason, to stay with a man who constantly and consistently makes derogatory comments about their weight or their performance or their (insert sensitive area here) and then that man retreats with a laughing/dismissive/wtf? excuse when called out…well, you made the choice, suck it up. And this goes for any negative destructive behavior towards the woman…not just nasty comments and sarcastic/evil jokes but the silent treatment, pouting and acting like a child, etc.

We’re goddamn grownups for fuck sake.

Let me say this to my women peeps, and I sincerely apologize if it’s taken the wrong way but if you go out with or marry an asshole and you know he’s an asshole then I have little sympathy for you. If you go out with or marry an utterly amazing and sensitive man who then turns into an asshole…and you choose to stay with him knowing he is an asshole…well, again, I have little sympathy for you.

No, you aren’t crazy or imagining it or too sensitive, etc. (unless you actually are one of those things ) but if you consciously make a choice to be with and around an asshole–and I don’t give a fuck about your reason–then you are agreeing that you deserve to be treated like shit.

Listen to this closely because this is something I know, if I know anything on this planet; you are an incredible and beautiful person who deserves to be loved and to love others, not because of any special thing you’ve done or because of any specific look or talent, but because you are human and you are here.

Love yourself–first and foremost–and the assholes will all go away because they can’t control or destroy someone who is immune to their petty, controlling, shitty little antics.

And controlling and destroying you is what they really want anyway.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

I woke up to a day
cold and white
biting winds and an
angry glaring sun
pushing at me
precocious
inconsolable and
alone it yelled
from a white sky
I woke up to a day
without you…but
wasn’t alone
really
I saw you felt you
in small caves
caverns of pillows
down filled blankets
echoes of your scent
straining memory
directly connected
synapses firing
I had you here
without you here
and watching from
crevices, from creases
the day opened
cold and white
the sun crying against
icy balcony railings
against whistling
frigid winds
I wasn’t alone
in my white linen
treeless landscape
I had you here
the day
cold
and white
my skin warm
in caverns
of your memory.

We are standing on the planet Zoltron in the Gabbba Gabba Hey (G2H) galaxy which is approximately 400 light years from Earth. The chlorine/sulfuric gas of the atmosphere swirls in eddies and small vortexes, blowing about bits of sodium and frozen mercury. A large red giant star is setting and breaches the horizon and immediately the scarlet hue upon the landscape starts to fade, casting shadows that grow as the planet revolves. Two small creatures, resembling turtles inasmuch that they have pseudo shells covering their upper bodies but have six multi-articulated legs beneath and a set of forward facing claws like lobsters, can be seen scrabbling across the rock outcroppings. Two large eyes on short flexible stalks top the shell portion of their bodies, long slow blinks of lids with ragged lashes the only indication that they are looking around themselves…they stop on a flat plateau overlooking a wide valley.

Zorg, the shorter, wider of the two speaks first, “Wait here mate, my feet are killing me…we’ve been going since yesterday.” He immediately stops and folds his legs underneath himself and settles into kind of a birds nest yoga posture. If they had yoga on Zoltron, that is. “I’m not sure we’re going to find what we’re looking for…before morning that is.”

Zyzx, the other turtle-like creature comes to an abrupt halt, almost shuffling into Zorg, “Watch it dumbass, I was walking there!” Zorg seems to not notice his friend as he starts to clean his claws with one of his back legs, a rhythmic swiping back and forth. Zyzx stares incredulous at his friend for a moment before realizing it’s useless to be upset, Zorg couldn’t give less than a fuck what Zyzx thought or felt.

Zorg continues talking, looking up at the darkening sky, “Have you ever wondered what’s out there?” an eye stalk swiveling upwards, “What kind of weird creatures might exist on other planets?” Both eye stalks swivel toward Zyzx, who has settled into his own version of a yoga position.

Zyzx’s own eye stalks swing around to his friend “Maybe there are sentient beings out there,” he says, “Beings that look nothing like us, maybe bipedal, maybe living on a world where the atmosphere is oxygen and nitrogen based…” his voice trailing off while his eye stalks scan the darkening sky. “Maybe these beings have evolved into large societies of multi-cultural groups, all interacting and coexisting, if not happily, then somewhat peacefully.” Zyzx flicks a Zibbet fly off his left claw, “Maybe these beings inhabit a planet that orbits a star like ours, only smaller and more yellow…and that on the anniversary of each orbit, they all make this kind of wishes about the future, about the things they want to be different.”

Zorg barks out a sharp laugh “Haa! You had me going there for a second mate, that last bit about wishing for the future to be different is just fucked up. Why don’t they just get off their lazy zubnots and make the changes within themselves? Wishing for shit to happen without doing anything to make it happen is just plain…well…alien.”

Zarbreve. Zib. Zod

~TrevorZorb

A new year sits just over the hill, undoubtedly rubbing its sweaty palms together, smiling and drooling at the thought of the billions of humans who sit shivering and silently whining—if they are not in fact rolled up into tight little balls of jangled nerves and cramped muscles—waiting for it to come storm trooping across the ridge…and with big shiny black boots…to kick the living shit out of their dreams and hopes. Dreams and hopes because they have no real “plans” that actually consist of “actions” that will get them closer to a “goal”. Now, I may not know a lot of things in this world but, I do know one thing…wishes and dreams are for people who want the future to change…without having to change themselves. Think lottery winners…

…you know, people who generally don’t exist.

I call this thinking a Sequentially Timed Overt Operation for Planned Increases in Disappointment (or STOOPID) Syndrome. Yeah, I like the acronym too 😉 and you know I call it “stooped” because inherently, people know that wishing and hoping for something ALWAYS gets them nothing and never will but they keep on doing it. With all the evidence in the world at their feet that wishing and hoping has never once delivered on its transformational promise, they turn right around from the end of one fresh disappointment and start wishing and hoping again.

Kinda like religion…but without the funny hats.

Seriously I feel for the billions—thinking up the perfect New Year’s resolution that will *solve* everything—who truly and firmly believe that wishing and hoping are their only strategies for success because they have such little belief in themselves that wishing and hoping are their *only* strategies for success. And it’s not like they don’t know what evidence and facts are. The evidence that they believe, actually believe and not just pay lip service to, is that they’ve disappointed themselves so many times in the past that they can only see disappointment in the future.

And a few words from some dude on social media is not really going to change their thinking, not even a handsome dude with a great and infectious smile and an ope…OK, OK, I get it, I’m moving on…so what is the answer, the quick fix…the perfect resolution?

Nope—sorry—that shit doesn’t exist…not coming from me it doesn’t.

The actual answer is called reality. It’s called planning, analysis and execution. It’s called hard fucking work. It’s called stop dreaming and start doing. It’s called start small and change a habit, a small habit that you dislike and win that little war. Learn what you did right, what you did wrong and go on to the next thing you want to change.

Lather, rinse, repeat…

…and you change the future.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

I don’t know if you’ve heard of this movie “Blue is the Warmest Color” but I just watched all 3 hours of it and was simply and utterly amazed.

Cinematic orgasm.

Cinematic. Orgasm. Put the words together or separately, it doesn’t matter. You might of heard of the film because it won the Palm d’Or in Cannes or you might have heard about because it’s been called pornographic with an NC-17 rating or you might have even heard about it because the sex scenes are predominantly two women but whatever you heard about it, go see it.

Just see it.

Quite literally and without guile I have never been as moved and felt so utterly close to someone I neither know or have ever met than I was with this movie…all 3 hours of it…and I became enthralled and unknowingly but intimately aware of and indelibly connected to Adele, the lead character. Adèle Exarchopoulos is indescribably fantastic—this is quite simply the performance of the year, really. The film is about desire; desire to eat, desire to sleep with someone, desire to live a life that won’t be regretted…and it is portrayed within a relationship between two women. We get to see without artifice or contrived scenario what it is to live through the arc of that relationship, regardless the gender of the protagonists. The two women are incredibly real—or what I imagine is real as the story never rounded to perfection, never uttered a false note—and there were amusing little French jokes interspersed between an extremely and very emotionally demanding relationship that had me gasping in spots.

But the sex…

I’m not going to hedge or pretend to some morality I do not believe in and kind of, sort of, maybe yes, maybe no, mention that I’ve seen porn before because quite frankly I’ve seen a lot. I like porn in fact but this is not porn. Despite its NC-17 rating, this is not porn but an utterly honest and laid bare portrayal of the world real people live in and that world includes messy, vibrant, gasping, sweating, incredibly erotic, discomforting, last too long/too short sex. We’re all big boys and girls here so this is something that we can talk about…the sex scenes will doubtlessly make some uncomfortable; such authenticity—heterosexual or homosexual—is something rarely if ever seen on screen, but they are neither gratuitous nor pornographic. There’s nothing more gratuitous than the old lie that’s been told throughout cinematic history of woman as a passive sexual being, and the women in this film are anything but passive.

What you do see is that aside from the initial erotic jolt of seeing real lesbian sex (exciting and new and incredibly hot), lesbian sex is also as mundane and banal as heterosexual sex can be and if you care to be honest (and have met Mr. Reality once or twice in your life), you watch with deep fascination and a sense of dread for it to end. Dread because you’re watching something literally honest (and how often do we get that chance…really).

There is no money shot with this sex because out here in the real world there is never a money shot…it’s work all day feed the kids do the wash check homework file a report send emails oh my god I’m so tired honey mind if we skip tonight oh okay then make it quick sex.

No money shot there.

The best thing about the movie though (and I have to say it again and again) is Adèle Exarchopoulos. Her performance is an extraordinary accomplishment, she shows every possible emotion: indifference, astonishment, grief, anger, joy, sadness, and yes, sexual excitement, without once giving the impression that the emotion is not real, that she is just acting. In fact, Adèle is in 95% of the scenes and often her face fills the screen…we see her sleeping, thinking, staring into the distance, eating, drinking smoking and all the while seemingly alive and living right before our eyes.

Cinematic Orgasm.

Cinematic.

Orgasm.

Put the words together or separately…

…it doesn’t matter.

I’ve been sick since Monday morning…really sick like *I-can’t-fucking-get-out-of-bed-my-brain-throbs-at-11-snot-factory* sick…yet I have hope and an idea that the world—haa haa if not me physically—is getting better. It’s Christmas, or was, and its generally that time of year where people act like they should every other time of the year; with joy, sharing, compassion and understanding. A time where we put aside the pettiness of daily life and rise above even ourselves to reach out—if even just symbolically—to the rest of mankind with greetings of love, hope and …something else…optimism?

It’s a time when we open the long locked doors of ourselves and the light comes in…it animates and reanimates the things we know we have inside. Because those things are so deeply personal and important, we hide them away…away from prying eyes, away from the possibility of hurt and injury…away from the people who love us thinking that if they saw those details, those things about us that may not adhere to the highest ideals, they might not love us…they might not want to be with us.

And in my delirium I dream of coming days where those doors remain open past this week…and that they remain open all year so that the fear that is generated by those closed doors dissipates and simply drifts off. I dream that when the fear inside is gone, we can truly accept ourselves and by so doing accept others who may ostensibly be different from us…because we see inside their doors and realize that they are the same.

That their fear is naturally replaced by love…

…that our fear is as well.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

I asked this question of a friend a couple years ago (you won’t have to guess why) “If you don’t like getting stung by bees, why did you grab that bee hive? His answer is irrelevant but the lesson is not…if you know (are fully aware) that your actions result in something you do not like then stop the action. Seems simple, eh?

But what if the “action” is just “you being you”? If the action is something that you do unconsciously and seemingly without thought…automatic, a reaction, a characteristic…something that you believe you don’t control. You end up defending yourself (to yourself) by saying internally “fuck the world if they don’t like me…I am who I am” and then it turns out that the world doesn’t like you…or at least the ones you give a shit about…and you feel stuck in that

Even that automatic behavior can be changed (no matter how ridiculous that sounds) because as it turns out, even though we’re technically animals, we have highly evolved brains that can actually override that part of us. Because everything is external to us (and we experience living through our senses) we “react” to that outside stimulus.

That means we have a choice.

Here’s another seemingly simple idea yet is massively difficult to understand and put into practice…”What we do consistently and constantly is what we believe is important.” Period. End of story. You want to do something that you don’t or can’t do now? Make it important. Make it essential to you living, breathing…being part of this world.

The question you ask “I’m just told to be myself. Where the f is that going to get me?” means to me that you believe that “yourself” is unchangeable, immovable…that you’re stuck with the person you see when you look in the mirror.
You’re not.
Without judgment, without moral dilemma of any kind, without saying the worlds “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong” and in fact completely ignoring every other fucker on this planet…decide the person you want to be, the differences, the similarities, and learn to be that person. Make the actions you want important and the ones you don’t want…unimportant.

You won’t change overnight, you won’t even change over several months but eventually one day—actually when you don’t expect it—you will look in the mirror and see the person you’re looking for.

I say this from experience.

It works.

Believe.  Go.  Do.

~TrevorZen

I read this blog post by Scott Adams (i.e. Dilbert) and while I understood his intentions, I found his methodology completely inappropriate. He immediately understands and acknowledges that rape is a horrendous crime, the ultimate fault for which lies with the perpetrator. But then, what are we to do with that information? I believe Adams falls into the philosophical trap and same way of thinking that many people, men and women, often find themselves in. To wit, they try to explain something—that clearly they have never experienced—to another person using the experiences that they have had and that they imagine are close to what they are describing or talking about.

It can’t be done or at least it can’t be done well enough to make sense.

That said, people who are all up in arms over his apparent lack of empathy and good sense should take a page from the feminist movement in understanding the context of Adam’s views. To make sense of why we observe so few women in math and the hard sciences, for example, we don’t try to explain these variations through differences in intelligence. No, to understand, diagnose, and fix the problem, we have to be aware of what societal structures might push boys towards math and women away from it. I’m reminded of the views of the American Medical Association (AMA) on pedophilia today as an illustrative example of how we can actually do the most good by acknowledging certain immoral urges people might have (be they against unwilling children or adults). My opinion is that Adam’s fully understands and in fact, argues that rape of any variety is wrong. What, then, is so wrong with trying to understand it’s underlying causes and eradicate them so that fewer people have those urges in the first place?

But this seems to me like what Adam’s is saying—but saying it really (REALLY) badly. That acknowledging that men have an urge towards violence, or that men in general have a tendency for rape (which statistically they do), or that pedophiles have a lust for children does not, by any token, exonerate any of these three groups for acting on that urge. What societal institutions might exacerbate the tendency to rape? What can we do to prevent it? These seem like far more helpful questions (questions that it seemed to me that Adam’s was attempting, perhaps extremely poorly, to answer).

In any case, when anyone tries to explain something that they don’t have direct experience with, they tend to minimize and maximize aspects of the subject matter without realizing they are doing so simply because they don’t have direct knowledge of what they are talking about. They are extrapolating which is OK if you have a large data set to derive from but falls completely on its face when you have a very small data set…namely, you, to rely on.

Which kind of reinforces what I have said before…people who do not know what they are talking about should either weave that notice into the conversation (prefaces such as “in my opinion” or “I believe but don’t know for sure” for example) or just shut the fuck up.

Adams should have just shut the fuck up 😉

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/pegs_and_holes/has