GIRLS?!!!
They say boys only love with their penises. And girls with their hearts. But I disagree. I don't think either of these statements are true.
Girls, I must confess, love with their heads. They think way too damn much when they love someone. It's always about figuring it out, sorting it out, fixing it, defining it, showing it off, etc. Girls overthink. Girls analyze. Girls assess. Which isn't a bad thing. You've gotta give your head the reins sometimes or you'll run right off the track. Plus, we just like knowing everything. Which isn't a bad thing.
And then boys? Boys probably love with their hearts. (I tried to decide which of the body parts they use more when they're in love: hearts or arms?!?!?! Went with hearts...) They just love. I don't know many boys who overthink anything when they really love a girl. They just love her. I guess that's why girls always blow up on them for making mistakes. We just wonder why you didn't THINK THAT THROUGH OMG. Boys just don't overthink everything. They just feel.
(Arms because boys are awfully comforting when they're in love. I mean, they hug a lot. And the good ones wipe away a fair share of tears. And they hold hands and stuff. Which is sweet. They're very hands-y with the girls they love.)
Don't get me wrong though, these are both generalized statements and I'm not saying that they're true for all individuals. Sometimes we girls through reason into the wind and sometimes boys get rational. I'm just generalizing and throwing out my opinion.
Then there's the statement "boys like to get into girls' pants." Now I'm not saying this isn't true.... because we know it is, for the most part. If a boy lies, he's probably out to get into either your pants or another girl's pants.
But when girls lie, why do they lie?
Nuh to get into a boy's heart?
So let's stop nitpicking at the sexes and just spread more love and stuff. This post was pretty short and, well, I just felt like putting this out there. Have a good week.
Yours with head-over-heart,
me.
Wednesday 23 January 2013
Sunday 20 January 2013
Jean Rhys, Madness.
Posting the first draft of my Literatures In English Internal Assessment piece as a favour to a friend.
-
-
A
reinterpretation of Meditation on
Red by Olive Senior, a narrative about
Jean Rhys.
–
Madness is a
hell of a thing.
If you’d
asked, Jean Rhys would have vehemently denied madness. Jean Rhys was a pretty
girl, a beautiful woman. She was good at getting what she wanted from men and
she was good at giving men what they wanted.
She first met
England at seventeen, back when she was Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams. It shook
her hand with a cold which would never leave her fingertips and endless green
seas of countryside that would haunt her.
“I hated the mountains the hills, the
rivers and the rain.”
“I’ll be an
actress,” she’d say.
Unfortunately,
her West Indian accent was far too thick and she could never land the best
roles. Not to be dismayed, she travelled with performance companies and chorus
lines—anything to stay in the world of theatre. She seamlessly transformed into
Vivienne or Emma or even Ella Grey.
Lancelot Hugh
Grey Smith was the first man who Jean Rhys discovered would take care of her if
she knew how to make him happy. A bat of her eyelashes here and a swoon there
and he had fallen for her.
When the
shiny copper coins stopped pouring in, pretty little Jean Rhys had to fend for
herself. With a dead father and no acting job, she sought a different set of
men to lean on.
These men did
not have Smith’s kind eyes or hold her and whisper ‘I love you’s against her silken
skin. These men had rough hands that bruised and stank of stale cigarette
smoke… but all of these men left the money on the bed when they left, and these
men always came back.
Jean Rhys
started to drink. (“So much drink / flowing / so much tears / so much …”) She
made wet glass rings stain the furniture, one for every man she sold a piece of
herself to.
“I have an irresistible longing for a
long, strong drink to make me forget that once again I have given damnable
human beings the right to pity me and laugh at me.”
Her scarlet
letter was stitched onto the breast of every dress she owned.
Smith paid
for the abortion of a child they both knew wasn’t his and that was the end of
that.
Jean Rhys was
a rudderless boat, anchored in a murky green English countryside and dreaming
of blue skies and wanting to go home, longing to get away, dreaming of places
but never people; Rhys learned that people leave and die and change. Places
don’t.
Rhys learned
early: if she called herself English, they would remind her she was but a
horrid colonial. She most certainly wasn’t English.
Jean Rhys
knew the power of red. (A red dress worked on men in ways few other things
could. Red would blind their consciences. Red would dazzle. Red was awfully
pretty.)
“I took the red dress down and put it
against myself. ‘Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?’ I said.”
//
“Your red dress,’ she said, and
laughed.”
A
Christmas-cracker red dress in the back of her closet for when they whispered.
A red wig to shock them. A red housecoat, frayed, for when she couldn’t manage
to escape.
(escape was a pretty word and Jean Rhys was
good with pretty words
and theatrics and mad people)
and theatrics and mad people)
Jean Rhys
once wrote a very successful story named The
Wide Sargasso Sea about Mr. Robinson’s mad wife in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
(Bertha
Antoinette Mason was locked in the attic with a drunken nurse and abandoned by
her husband because nobody seemed to understand madness. They called her
attacks ‘explosions’, but if mad women
could make things blow up then they wouldn’t be stuck in attics, now would they?
It is written by Bronte that Edward Rochester was enchanted by her
loveliness—but pretty girls are always just a little mad. You can ask Jean Rhys
about this.)
Jean Rhys
just couldn’t shake her inner drama queen. Her breakdowns were awfully
theatric; lots of screaming and scratching… and she pretended to be a ghoul in
her own attic and the neighbours were all convinced by her performance. As a
little girl, Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams made her daddy check under her bed
for monsters… but as a grown woman, Jean Rhys learnt that monsters don’t live
under beds, they live inside our heads.
Depression is
a funny tasting word that comes with a funny tasting set of pills – red, what
else? – that she had to remember to take three times a day. Red pills drove
away her monsters.
“I am not used to happiness.”
//
“…I want to be happy. Oh, I want it so
badly. You don’t know how badly. I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want anything
black or miserable or complicated anymore.”
Jean Rhys
made up her pretty face and dressed carefully, a string of pearls around her
neck and a fine dress. The village children called her a witch, but she
couldn’t even spell her seeds into pushing up blossoms of bright red. She bled
her pain into paper—black ink that smudged and blue murder in her heart. She
honed her craft. She planned to write brilliantly.
In her last
days, she wrote in notebooks and on napkins and in Parisian hotels. She,
fearing that she would be forgotten and never good enough, buried parts of
herself in her writing to be exhumed at a later date. She returned to drinking,
letting the drink flow until she could barely distinguish between Jean Rhys and
Anna Morgan and Sasha Jensen and Julia Martin and Marya Zelli.
“If you want to write the truth, you
must write about yourself… I am the only real truth I know.”
Even with her
last breaths, Jean Rhys would have denied the madness that defined her life.
Her ebb and flow, her come and go. But the madness was in Jean Rhys.
“She lifted her eyes. Blank, lovely
eyes. Mad eyes. A mad girl.”
Thursday 3 January 2013
"I don't believe in marriage" and
Every time I say this, someone gives me a funny look.
Like "This cray cray ratchet girl just say she don't believe in marriage?" or "It's not Santa... or the Easter Bunny... it's marriage."
Yes, it's marriage. It happens every day and all that.
But I think it's an outdated and failing institution. Marriages don't work. (This is, as far as I'm concerned, the rule. If you are an exception to this rule, props to you.)
(Feel free to skip this next bit and pick up at the next bolded section if you don't want to read my view on homosexual marriages.)
First, let's talk about how marriages are excluding couples. This isn't a gay marriage protest post, but I'd like to know why a same-sex couple isn't entitled to a piece of paper guaranteeing the security of their relationship? It really isn't your business, but I think if I was a lesbian and I had a girl I'd love to spend the rest of my life with... I'd like knowing that I could die today and she could be taken care of by whatever I've left behind.
Yes, the Bible outlines it as being wrong and on that ground your argument may have some basis. But the Bible also states that the removal of the penis before ejaculation is wrong (so, hey, you guys talking about "I'll pull out", you're sinning), a woman in a man's clothing is wrong (you too, ladies in pants... and Amanda Bynes, we aaaaaall saw She's the Man), the trimming of facial hair of men (bros, that line up? Might be your ticket to Hell...), the mixing of textiles in outfits (you DARED to put on a cotton tee with those denim jeans?!), adultery is a sin - even if you cast your eye upon another with lust and desire (you check out another girl, but you have yourself a wifey a yaad?), the wearing of gold jewellery, pearls, costly adornments by women (hahahaha - your entire jewellery box is standing between you and salvation), speaking about another person's evil (you gossipmongers), despising government ("PNP a slackness!"), getting drunk (I hope you guys had fun on grandmarket night), fornication and prostitution, gambling (we see you, boys in the sixth form study rooms playing poker), idols (that's a pretty Mercedes...), being lazy (an actual thing, don't just take my word for it: 2 Thes 3:10 - 12, Eph. 5:16, Heb 6:12, Ecc 10:18), lying - but also TRUSTING in lies, bad manners (I hope you said 'good morning' when you woke up), sex with a prostitute/with a virgin without marrying her/with a relative/with someone who is already married/with a virgin, betrothed-if she cries out, you should be put to death and if she doesn't you should both be put to death, tattoos (YOLO trampstamp now, Hell tomorrow?), being a witch or having anything to do with a witch (how many of y'all read Harry Potter? I know I did..) and seeking riches. These are only a few. You can check out some more here or here or here.
And James 2:10 says "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one part of it has become accountable for all of it". In Matthew 7:3, Jesus himself mocks you for attempting to remove the speck from your brother's eye while the plank blinds you.
Denying them the right to get married doesn't stop their relationship from happening. So before you go devoting your precious time to ensuring that these couples stay unwed, go sort out the man or woman having sex with someone else in your bed. Sorry, not sorry.
This is my opinion. I'm not forcing you to agree, but I'm asking you to be respectful and diplomatic about your disagreement. Thanks.
I've been told that when I get older, my views will change (and I'm opening myself up for the possibility of this - I'm actually eager for this... I love to hear OTHER people's views on marriage, in the hope that it will help to shape mine, as a matter of fact, a male friend or two of mine have contributed greatly, but I'll get to that soon). I'm still not satisfied.
I can't actually see myself devoting my entire life to someone else yet - vacations with them, waking up to them, etc. I like being able to escape from people or a person in particular if I don't feel like I can deal with them, and return when I can. It's like being handcuffed (or fingercuffed, heh heh heh...) to that same person. Forever. *shudders*
The ROUTINE. That may just be the worst possible thing, ever. I hate routines. I don't like doing the same thing over and over and over. If it becomes predictable, it becomes stifling and it makes me unhappy. And someone whose opinion I have always respected once said, "You wake up every morning beside the same ooman, nyam the same sh*tty breakfast,[ go to work and complain to your friends about the things that ooman always doing,] come home and nyam the same sh*tty dinner and go have the same boring sex if she nuh have some excuse why you shouldn't and go to bed so you can get up and do it again".
Interestingly enough though, one of my guy best friends said something to me recently that got me thinking. He said that the marriage most likely to work is the marriage with your best friend. And it made a lot of sense to me.
But until I find a man who is both my lover and my best friend, and is someone I can happily imagine waking up next to every morning (even with morning breath and messy hair) and sharing a family, a home and a life with? I'm with those anti-marriage people.
People are always asking me stuff like "So... you don't plan to get married?"
I have bigger plans. I plan to see the world, study abroad.... I have an entire bucket list. But, ironically enough, getting married is on this bucket list. I want to be proven wrong. And I especially want to have a wedding of my own - I love love love love weddings.
Yours not-in-matrimony,
me.
_____________________________________________________
A couple of interesting articles:
(Note: these aren't necessarily my opinion. The fact that they are shared on my blog proves nothing. It wasn't necessarily something this Mandeville girl said, or felt... or agreed with. I just felt like sharing.) (These are actually in ascending order of awesomeness; they get more interesting as you go down.)
9 Marriage Rules You SHOULD Break
17 Rules for a Happy Marriage from God's Great Book
Marriage and Divorce Statistics from Dr Phil
11 Rules on Marriage That You Won't Learn in School
25 Extremely Strange Marriage Traditions
50 Wedding Traditions and Superstititions
Like "This cray cray ratchet girl just say she don't believe in marriage?" or "It's not Santa... or the Easter Bunny... it's marriage."
Yes, it's marriage. It happens every day and all that.
But I think it's an outdated and failing institution. Marriages don't work. (This is, as far as I'm concerned, the rule. If you are an exception to this rule, props to you.)
(Feel free to skip this next bit and pick up at the next bolded section if you don't want to read my view on homosexual marriages.)
First, let's talk about how marriages are excluding couples. This isn't a gay marriage protest post, but I'd like to know why a same-sex couple isn't entitled to a piece of paper guaranteeing the security of their relationship? It really isn't your business, but I think if I was a lesbian and I had a girl I'd love to spend the rest of my life with... I'd like knowing that I could die today and she could be taken care of by whatever I've left behind.
Yes, the Bible outlines it as being wrong and on that ground your argument may have some basis. But the Bible also states that the removal of the penis before ejaculation is wrong (so, hey, you guys talking about "I'll pull out", you're sinning), a woman in a man's clothing is wrong (you too, ladies in pants... and Amanda Bynes, we aaaaaall saw She's the Man), the trimming of facial hair of men (bros, that line up? Might be your ticket to Hell...), the mixing of textiles in outfits (you DARED to put on a cotton tee with those denim jeans?!), adultery is a sin - even if you cast your eye upon another with lust and desire (you check out another girl, but you have yourself a wifey a yaad?), the wearing of gold jewellery, pearls, costly adornments by women (hahahaha - your entire jewellery box is standing between you and salvation), speaking about another person's evil (you gossipmongers), despising government ("PNP a slackness!"), getting drunk (I hope you guys had fun on grandmarket night), fornication and prostitution, gambling (we see you, boys in the sixth form study rooms playing poker), idols (that's a pretty Mercedes...), being lazy (an actual thing, don't just take my word for it: 2 Thes 3:10 - 12, Eph. 5:16, Heb 6:12, Ecc 10:18), lying - but also TRUSTING in lies, bad manners (I hope you said 'good morning' when you woke up), sex with a prostitute/with a virgin without marrying her/with a relative/with someone who is already married/with a virgin, betrothed-if she cries out, you should be put to death and if she doesn't you should both be put to death, tattoos (YOLO trampstamp now, Hell tomorrow?), being a witch or having anything to do with a witch (how many of y'all read Harry Potter? I know I did..) and seeking riches. These are only a few. You can check out some more here or here or here.
And James 2:10 says "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one part of it has become accountable for all of it". In Matthew 7:3, Jesus himself mocks you for attempting to remove the speck from your brother's eye while the plank blinds you.
Denying them the right to get married doesn't stop their relationship from happening. So before you go devoting your precious time to ensuring that these couples stay unwed, go sort out the man or woman having sex with someone else in your bed. Sorry, not sorry.
This is my opinion. I'm not forcing you to agree, but I'm asking you to be respectful and diplomatic about your disagreement. Thanks.
I've been told that when I get older, my views will change (and I'm opening myself up for the possibility of this - I'm actually eager for this... I love to hear OTHER people's views on marriage, in the hope that it will help to shape mine, as a matter of fact, a male friend or two of mine have contributed greatly, but I'll get to that soon). I'm still not satisfied.
I can't actually see myself devoting my entire life to someone else yet - vacations with them, waking up to them, etc. I like being able to escape from people or a person in particular if I don't feel like I can deal with them, and return when I can. It's like being handcuffed (or fingercuffed, heh heh heh...) to that same person. Forever. *shudders*
The ROUTINE. That may just be the worst possible thing, ever. I hate routines. I don't like doing the same thing over and over and over. If it becomes predictable, it becomes stifling and it makes me unhappy. And someone whose opinion I have always respected once said, "You wake up every morning beside the same ooman, nyam the same sh*tty breakfast,[ go to work and complain to your friends about the things that ooman always doing,] come home and nyam the same sh*tty dinner and go have the same boring sex if she nuh have some excuse why you shouldn't and go to bed so you can get up and do it again".
Interestingly enough though, one of my guy best friends said something to me recently that got me thinking. He said that the marriage most likely to work is the marriage with your best friend. And it made a lot of sense to me.
But until I find a man who is both my lover and my best friend, and is someone I can happily imagine waking up next to every morning (even with morning breath and messy hair) and sharing a family, a home and a life with? I'm with those anti-marriage people.
People are always asking me stuff like "So... you don't plan to get married?"
I have bigger plans. I plan to see the world, study abroad.... I have an entire bucket list. But, ironically enough, getting married is on this bucket list. I want to be proven wrong. And I especially want to have a wedding of my own - I love love love love weddings.
Yours not-in-matrimony,
me.
_____________________________________________________
A couple of interesting articles:
(Note: these aren't necessarily my opinion. The fact that they are shared on my blog proves nothing. It wasn't necessarily something this Mandeville girl said, or felt... or agreed with. I just felt like sharing.) (These are actually in ascending order of awesomeness; they get more interesting as you go down.)
9 Marriage Rules You SHOULD Break
17 Rules for a Happy Marriage from God's Great Book
Marriage and Divorce Statistics from Dr Phil
11 Rules on Marriage That You Won't Learn in School
25 Extremely Strange Marriage Traditions
50 Wedding Traditions and Superstititions
Tuesday 1 January 2013
Pizza is romantic... and
Happy New Year! I hope this year brings you happiness, joy, peace and nuff nuff nuff love.
h'Anyways.
romantic (adj.) - Inclined toward or suggestive of the feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
It's subjective, really.
Maybe you think romantic means chocolate and roses and candlelit dinner on Valentine's Day. Which is completely fine too. If that's what gets your romance wheels going, then press along.
But I don't think that's romantic. I think that's commercial and stereotypical and spoonfed. I feel like it's the idea of romance that's taught to us. We're taught to ooh and aww when a man gets down on one knee in front of the Eiffel Tower, or presents us with a bouquet of red roses.
I've only ever received a rose once. The gesture was sweet, but the rose died anyways. The card was nicer - with the sweetest note ever. It meant a whole lot to me. I still have both the card and the note, even though they really exist mostly as painful reminders.
I'm not fond of flowers. As a matter of fact, I can barely distinguish between types of flowers. I think they all look the same. I guess everyone can identify a rose. And I can identify orchids and sunflowers. Sometimes lilies, which are really pretty. Otherwise, they're all just... flowers. They don't even smell that great.
So someone presenting me with a bouquet of assorted flowers is rather meaningless. The gesture behind the gift is romantic, but the gift itself isn't.
Then what in the world is "romantic"?
Pizza.
Pizza is romantic.
I swear this isn't like one of those "#fatgirlproblems" hashtags or something. I think the idea of pizza is romantic. Because pizza is casual, the perfect idea of casual. How much more casual does a round baked meal cut into triangular slices in a square box, topped with grease and cheese and grease and meat and more grease get?
You don't eat pizza in front of strangers. You don't eat pizza at fancy dinners. I don't know about you, but I really only ever eat pizza around people I'm comfortable with.
There's the thing though. Comfort. I think comfort is romance. Being with someone who you feel at home with. When you can be dressed down, hair up, no make-up and feel okay with that.
Not someone you put on a pretty dress and curl your hair and dust your eyelids for. (Not that there's anything wrong with getting dressed up; I've actually acquired a fondness for the occasional dress-up.)
That suggestion of love is someone you can accept you as you are when you're comfortable.
You don't have to spend all your money on jewels (it's advised that you not do this, considering I've worn about three pairs of earrings in the past year), you don't have to get me flowers (I won't appreciate them and they'll die anyways), you don't have to take me out to expensive restaurants (I'm a picky eater and I live on comfort foods - ice cream pastas, pizza, rices, chicken and desserts - anyways, plus I don't like eating in front of loads of people), you don't even have to plan a splashy proposal (I think they're cute on TV or in movies, but if someone took me to Paris and got down on one knee with a fat rock, I'd probably run away and have a breakdown in some bathroom because I hate crowds and I don't like being the centre of attention anyways).
I like handwritten letters, and gifts with lots of sentimental value (and usually little actual value). I like Chinese food. I like watching movies wrapped up in the couch. I like the idea of finding someone I can go to church with. Someone I can wear my yellow pajama shorts around.
Romance isn't Edward and Bella, with Elizabeth Mason's century old engagement ring and honeymooning on Isle Esme. Romance is Grandma and Grandpa, married for dozens of years, comfortable in a home and a family and a life they share.
Romantically yours,
me.
h'Anyways.
romantic (adj.) - Inclined toward or suggestive of the feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
It's subjective, really.
Maybe you think romantic means chocolate and roses and candlelit dinner on Valentine's Day. Which is completely fine too. If that's what gets your romance wheels going, then press along.
But I don't think that's romantic. I think that's commercial and stereotypical and spoonfed. I feel like it's the idea of romance that's taught to us. We're taught to ooh and aww when a man gets down on one knee in front of the Eiffel Tower, or presents us with a bouquet of red roses.
I've only ever received a rose once. The gesture was sweet, but the rose died anyways. The card was nicer - with the sweetest note ever. It meant a whole lot to me. I still have both the card and the note, even though they really exist mostly as painful reminders.
I'm not fond of flowers. As a matter of fact, I can barely distinguish between types of flowers. I think they all look the same. I guess everyone can identify a rose. And I can identify orchids and sunflowers. Sometimes lilies, which are really pretty. Otherwise, they're all just... flowers. They don't even smell that great.
So someone presenting me with a bouquet of assorted flowers is rather meaningless. The gesture behind the gift is romantic, but the gift itself isn't.
Then what in the world is "romantic"?
Pizza.
Pizza is romantic.
I swear this isn't like one of those "#fatgirlproblems" hashtags or something. I think the idea of pizza is romantic. Because pizza is casual, the perfect idea of casual. How much more casual does a round baked meal cut into triangular slices in a square box, topped with grease and cheese and grease and meat and more grease get?
You don't eat pizza in front of strangers. You don't eat pizza at fancy dinners. I don't know about you, but I really only ever eat pizza around people I'm comfortable with.
There's the thing though. Comfort. I think comfort is romance. Being with someone who you feel at home with. When you can be dressed down, hair up, no make-up and feel okay with that.
Not someone you put on a pretty dress and curl your hair and dust your eyelids for. (Not that there's anything wrong with getting dressed up; I've actually acquired a fondness for the occasional dress-up.)
That suggestion of love is someone you can accept you as you are when you're comfortable.
You don't have to spend all your money on jewels (it's advised that you not do this, considering I've worn about three pairs of earrings in the past year), you don't have to get me flowers (I won't appreciate them and they'll die anyways), you don't have to take me out to expensive restaurants (I'm a picky eater and I live on comfort foods - ice cream pastas, pizza, rices, chicken and desserts - anyways, plus I don't like eating in front of loads of people), you don't even have to plan a splashy proposal (I think they're cute on TV or in movies, but if someone took me to Paris and got down on one knee with a fat rock, I'd probably run away and have a breakdown in some bathroom because I hate crowds and I don't like being the centre of attention anyways).
I like handwritten letters, and gifts with lots of sentimental value (and usually little actual value). I like Chinese food. I like watching movies wrapped up in the couch. I like the idea of finding someone I can go to church with. Someone I can wear my yellow pajama shorts around.
Romance isn't Edward and Bella, with Elizabeth Mason's century old engagement ring and honeymooning on Isle Esme. Romance is Grandma and Grandpa, married for dozens of years, comfortable in a home and a family and a life they share.
Romantically yours,
me.
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