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Why Alive People Love Dead People So Much

There's something that really creeps me out about a lot of people.  Tell me if you've ever noticed this:

A young person dies.  Suddenly, everyone they have ever met is "their best friend" and thinks that they're "an angel," "a beautiful soul," "the sweetest person they've ever met," "looking down on them from heaven" (even if the person writing it and the person who died don't believe in heaven).  It's all over facebook.  Everyone changes their profile picture to that ONE picture they had of them and the dead person, cropping out all other people.  Everyone wants to know that dead person.  Everyone wants to be sadder than the next.  Suddenly, someone you only small-talked with becomes someone who "you miss so much, every day."

What the fuck is up with that?  It's weird and exploitative and just kind of...sick!  Now, I'm sad when people I know die.  It's sad.  It's sad when any young person dies.  But, unless it's someone I was close with, their absence in my life doesn't really change anything.  I might contemplate on mortality and feel really sad for their family and close friends, but I'm not like, "OHHHHH, EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW!  I CAN FEEL YOU WATCHING ME FROM HEAVEN!"  Yikes.

Here are my possible theories for why people do this:

1. They really just love attention.  They want to be the sad person who everyone feels sorry for.

2. They're kind of a sicko.

3. They are actually really sad people and this gives them a way to manifest all their pent up sad feelings into something that is totally normal to be sad about.

4. They think it makes them popular.  Higher status.  Like, in high school, you know how there was always like, one kid who died every couple of years?  Everyone would be in mourning.  EVERYONE went to the funeral.  Whoever knew the dead kid the best became infamous.  If you were DATING the dead kid, even better!

The totally creepy truth is this: No one is ever going to love you as much as when you're young and dead.  You will be worshipped.  An ANGEL.  BEAUTIFUL.  Put up on this amazing pedestal, and everyone you've ever met is going to say something wonderful about you.  And you won't even be around to see it!  Damn!  I understand why Tom Sawyer faked his own death now.

Stop being creepy, people.

Psychotic Bitch!

For every girl who has been called psycho, insane, nuts, crazy, etc...

You probably were.

But, hear me out.  You didn't start out that way.  Well, maybe you did.  I don't know your story.  However, the people who call you mean names, like crazy, are usually the people who have made you crazy in the first place.

Sometimes, you just feel like acting like a goddamned loony.  What else do you have to lose?  Sometimes, you just hear monkey noises in your head.  Sometimes the crazy, rage-y feelings are too much, and you just wanna throw something.  And who's gonna stop you?  The person who made you feel this way already thinks you're crazy.

Just remember, if you were actually crazy, you'd know.  Acting crazy when you're feeling hurt, trapped, frustrated, and just utterly devastated does not make you generally crazy.

We've all been called those names at some point.  Trust me, though.  You're good.  We're good.

The Weight Of Your Words

There have been three times in my life that someone has called me/insinuated that I was fat.  The first was a guy named Bryan, who was friends with my ex-boyfriend.  Someone left their Myspace (yes, it was that long ago) open, and he had sent someone a message referring to me as a "chubby 19-year-old."  Growing up, I was always really skinny.  Despite my genetic predisposition for obesity, I was a string-bean, who could eat anything I wanted without working off the calories.  The weight gain was so gradual, I didn't even really notice...until I was called a "chubby 19-year old."  That thoughtless comment, which the guy probably didn't think twice about, sent me into a tailspin of dieting that was near-dangerous.  I was obsessively counting calories (Weight Watcher points, actually) for about 6 months.  I lost about 15 pounds in 2 months, which is a lot for someone who didn't start out very big.  The pleasure I got from dropping weight, doing math for every bite, and fitting into high school clothes became compulsive.  I didn't want to do anything outside of the house that might involve me slipping up and eating more calories than I had allotted to my day.  At home, in my kitchen, with my legal pad listing everything I ate that day, I was in control.  The master of my destiny.  I could fight the doom of pending obesity off with my little point system.

I ended up studying abroad in New Zealand, where I, quite frankly, lost count.  I started gaining weight there, after eating crummy, processed college food and going out drinking for the first time in my life.  I started feeling pretty bad about myself, and since then, have had bouts of dieting, but none so successful as that first time.  I keep thinking I could do it all over again--I did it once!  However, the busy, college lifestyle and lack of money makes it hard.  Or maybe that's just excuses for me to keep eating like a fatass.

The second time someone called me fat happened a couple of years ago by a mean, older Korean woman in Santa Monica who was giving me a massage.  In the middle of my "relaxing" massage, she says, "You eat too much, you get fat.  You not fat now, but you need be careful."  I almost started crying on that massage table.  I hated that woman.  Who does that?!  In the middle of your expensive, relaxing, private time, while you're naked and vulnerable on a table...that bitch.

The third time happened today.  This is by far the worst.  My ex-boyfriend tweeted a comment about how breaking up with me was "a weight off his shoulders and a weight of his bed...poor bed had to support all that weight."  I've told him before that the meanest thing he could call me was fat, but so far, he had never crossed that line.  Now, I think, he must have been completely disgusted by my naked body.  All the vulnerability and nakedness in a sexual relationship...and now I think he must have just been staring at my cellulite or love handles or chubby arms.  My heart absolutely sank when I read this.  What does this mean?  Was he faking his attraction for me?  Was he always secretly wishing I'd go on a diet?  Was he checking out skinnier girls, wishing I could be more like them?  Did he (gasp) have to think about someone else during sex?  All of these horrible things go through your head.  Moments you thought you looked sexy...he thought you looked fat.

I know I'm not skinny.  I would really like to be skinnier.  I didn't think I was FAT, either.  But, maybe my self-perception is bad.  Before this, I felt like I was in a place in my life where my body was fine.  Not perfect, but an adult woman, curvy, flawed, perfectly okay body.  Now I feel like shit.  Now I feel like moving into a gym and chewing on sprouts.

I will be skinny, then.  It's decided.  Off to operation starvation part 2.  Let's do this.

But, my God, what an asshole this guy is.  After all we've been through.  So petty.  So cruel.

Addendum: Most importantly, PLEASE remember how HORRIBLE it is for girls to hear these things.  Be kind.  If you call them fat, even as a joke, they will remember your words forEVER.  Probably verbatim.  And she may laugh it off then, but you'd better believe she having salad for dinner tonight.  Comments like those can end with a 70 pound girl in the hospital, refusing to eat.  Please be more thoughtful, even when you are mad.  Show some compassion for the girls with a little bit of junk in the trunk!  After all, an elephant never forgets (jk).

MTV Movie Awards

Stuck at Dog Camp since yesterday at 7:45am. Going crazy from lack of human contact. Soooo ronery. Watching the MTV Movie Awards. I think it might be the most self-indulgent piece of Hollywood shit I've ever seen. It's like watching your college improv/sketch comedy troop in the quad. And by watching I mean walking by quickly and avoiding eye contact. Gosh, I hate improv.

I've been playing the ukulele a lot lately. I got a new piano. Robert Pattinson has the worst American accent ever (still watching the MTV Movie Awards).

I guess that's really all I have to say.

Memorial Day Meltdown

Do you ever feel emotionally exhausted? Do negative things ever accumulate all at once? Do things ever just feel heavy and stormy and helpless? Do you ever feel like you're on the brink of tears multiple times a day, but it never comes? Do you ever feel like you're faking it? Is it draining you? Do you feel like you're exhausting your friends to the point of them not wanting to be around you? Do you feel like hibernating?

This is not a "Do you Have Depression" quiz. This is just how I feel today.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY.

FUCK WAR.

Fuck violence.

Fuck thinking murderers are heroes.

Fucking thanking people just because they are in uniform.

I didn't ask anyone to "protect my freedom."

Get the fuck out of the Middle East.

Fuck patriotism.



I'm not gonna lie, that felt pretty good.