For the past week I've been away from home. Last Saturday I left on a train with my dad and my friend, Constance. The trip was seven hours long, from Oakland to San Luis Opisbo. We spent this time talking about electrifying oranges, playing eye spy in the middle of nowhere ("I spy with my little eye...something dull." "Everything?" "Yes."), and counting couches on the side of the train tracks (eleven in all, I believe).
Eventually we arrived at San Luis Opisbo where we met my grandmother and her little dog. We took her car to San Simeon, where we got a room at the San Simeon Lodge. The room was drab, with a horrible turquoise carpet and lumpy beds with thin sheets. And the water in the shower tried to attack me.
But hey, they had a pool!
...on the edge of the ocean...
So after we'd eaten, Constance and I went down to the beach, which was right across the street, and picked up a lot of interesting rocks. We also found a rather large tide pool, on the edge of which was a vertebra. I picked it up with a stick and for, oh, about five minutes we stared at it and wondered aloud what kind of creature it might have belonged to.
Then I chucked it back into the tide pool and Constance was fairly upset with me and we decided to write a story about it. With characters from an existing television show.
The next day we went down the street a few miles to get to Morro Bay. The most exciting part of that beach was the random jellyfish we found (and that I poked with part of a sand dollar). We also stopped by some nearby stores and picked up a couple of bathing suits. Then we went back to the beach across the street from our hotel and found even MORE rocks.
Then we went back to the hotel and went swimming.
The next day was much the same thing, with the beach and the swimming, except that this time the sun decided that it wanted to cook me alive. The next two days consisted of agony (it felt like someone was holding a lit match to my shoulder) and further writing of the story that started with the vertebra.
On the Second Night of Agony (they deserve capital letters, they were that terrible), Constance and I went downstairs to this little restaurant sitting at the feet of the hotel to get cheesecake—and the waiters and waitresses thought we were lesbians. They lit a candle in between us on the table and the kept glancing over at us and coming over to see if we were enjoying our cheesecake.
"Has your cheesecake changed since the last time I came over? No? Well, tell me if it does."
The next day we headed inland to get to my grandmother's house where we ended up spending a lot of time reading, watching movies, and writing random stuff on my laptop. Involving Russians. And toasters. And the characters from that television show (after all that time at the coast, this monstrosity was the result).
And now I'm home and my sunburn still hasn't gone away and I'm pretty satisfied with the whole trip.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Revolution
I was having a somewhat humorous conversation with my mother about the different levels of discrimination between different ethnicities and we began brainstorming exactly what it would take to draw the peoples of the world together. Perhaps some kind of terrible natural occurrence, like a massive earthquake that struck multiple parts of the world or a meteor shower. Then again, though, people would still group together and war over what resources are left, so that kind of thing might actually have the opposite effect in the end.
So what if all the great leaders of the world tried spreading equality in their countries and in others by speaking to large crowds and passing laws about discrimination and segregation and eliminating them? Then, of course, the media would get in the way. The media has a habit of doing just that, by going against whatever peaceful things the leaders are saying by dragging up the dirty details and making everyone look bad and shining a negative light on everything.
After discussing various other ways, my mother and I finally decided on a science fiction way of looking at it, one that we had a lot of fun with. What if aliens came to Earth? Hostile aliens that only wanted our resources or perhaps to eat us for dinner? Then the world's populations would surely come together to fight off their common enemy. Then there would be no one who cares about the differences between dark skin and light skin, only a unanimous hatred against the green-skinned folks that have come to ravage the planet. We would call them Vertos. We would all fight against them, these aliens, until they would finally leave.
But then, once the Vertos had left, would humanity continue to treat all peoples with equality? One for all and all for one? Or would mankind revert to the old way of thinking, in which certain peoples are less than others because of their culture or ethnicity? My mother and I reasoned that it would be a fifty-fifty thing. Some people would find absolute joy in the equality that they can share with others; some people would find their own brand of joy in tormenting others. Such is the way of life.
It made me start thinking, though. How could we build equality without an alien attack? How could we spread tolerance and peace without having to go by the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? I began to imagine a great revolutionary, one like Gandhi, who stands up in front of a crowd and bellows, "I will respect you, but I demand your respect in return!"
Scratch that. Rewind it. Erase, erase.
"I will respect you no matter what, even if you do not respect me!"
There we go. The crowd is screaming now, bright grins on their faces as they holler his or her name. It is a chant, a prayer, calling up to the heavens to protect this man or woman who has dared to be great.
"I will be the first to be tolerant! I will be the first to lay down my weaknesses and honesty at your feet and let you spit upon my own!"
The crowd is wild beyond imagining. He or she is a hero, a wonderful madman who has brought hope to the eyes of little dirty children and their hardworking parents. He or she is the answer to late night wishes upon twinkling stars and fairy godmothers. He or she is the next Martin Luther King, Jr., the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Mother Teresa, and he or she has come to deliver this world from hatred and racism.
Well, that is, if there isn't someone in the crowd with a gun ready to shoot him down. Humanity has an odd habit of extinguishing good things like that.
So what if all the great leaders of the world tried spreading equality in their countries and in others by speaking to large crowds and passing laws about discrimination and segregation and eliminating them? Then, of course, the media would get in the way. The media has a habit of doing just that, by going against whatever peaceful things the leaders are saying by dragging up the dirty details and making everyone look bad and shining a negative light on everything.
After discussing various other ways, my mother and I finally decided on a science fiction way of looking at it, one that we had a lot of fun with. What if aliens came to Earth? Hostile aliens that only wanted our resources or perhaps to eat us for dinner? Then the world's populations would surely come together to fight off their common enemy. Then there would be no one who cares about the differences between dark skin and light skin, only a unanimous hatred against the green-skinned folks that have come to ravage the planet. We would call them Vertos. We would all fight against them, these aliens, until they would finally leave.
But then, once the Vertos had left, would humanity continue to treat all peoples with equality? One for all and all for one? Or would mankind revert to the old way of thinking, in which certain peoples are less than others because of their culture or ethnicity? My mother and I reasoned that it would be a fifty-fifty thing. Some people would find absolute joy in the equality that they can share with others; some people would find their own brand of joy in tormenting others. Such is the way of life.
It made me start thinking, though. How could we build equality without an alien attack? How could we spread tolerance and peace without having to go by the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? I began to imagine a great revolutionary, one like Gandhi, who stands up in front of a crowd and bellows, "I will respect you, but I demand your respect in return!"
Scratch that. Rewind it. Erase, erase.
"I will respect you no matter what, even if you do not respect me!"
There we go. The crowd is screaming now, bright grins on their faces as they holler his or her name. It is a chant, a prayer, calling up to the heavens to protect this man or woman who has dared to be great.
"I will be the first to be tolerant! I will be the first to lay down my weaknesses and honesty at your feet and let you spit upon my own!"
The crowd is wild beyond imagining. He or she is a hero, a wonderful madman who has brought hope to the eyes of little dirty children and their hardworking parents. He or she is the answer to late night wishes upon twinkling stars and fairy godmothers. He or she is the next Martin Luther King, Jr., the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Mother Teresa, and he or she has come to deliver this world from hatred and racism.
Well, that is, if there isn't someone in the crowd with a gun ready to shoot him down. Humanity has an odd habit of extinguishing good things like that.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Imagine All the People
Racism is almost always a sensitive subject when there are 'white' people involved. To me it seems that discrimination itself is what causes this sensitivity. I never saw the difference between myself and someone with a different skin complexion until other people began to point it out. To this day I still do not see the difference, save for hereditary levels of melanin and facial features, yet I've been called a white racist bitch in the past. Is that not stereotyping in which I was placed under a malicious category because of my own European descent?
The Caucasian people do, indeed, have a history of bigotry and hateful acts towards other ethnicities. In fact, a few months ago I became physically ill after discovering a website devoted to a community of people who are convinced that the other 'races' are warring against the white race. At first I thought it was a joke, a forum created to poke fun at people who really are like that. I kept scrolling through all the different parts of the website, becoming more and more sickened. They hailed Hitler, saying his ideas about extinguishing certain people were genius. It was a website so full of hate that it gave me a headache.
Yes, these people are white supremacist bigots, but that does not mean that I am, too. People should not assume that I am ignorant and narrow-minded because I have a sort of peachy-pink skin tone. And I am not saying that I am perfect and that I never discriminate or anything like that. I wish that stereotyping was not a part of daily life, but it seems to have burrowed its way into the media, into our society, like a nasty virus spreading from one person to the next. I think everyone has that little monster in the back of their mind, that tiny whisper.
Personally, I think hatred has become a universal emotion. I do not know a single person who does not hate someone else. This hatred is easily morphed into racism, sexism, and other prejudices. These prejudices lead to misunderstandings and ignorance, which only leads to even more unnecessary hatred. On the website mentioned above I read a story in the 'Youth' section in which the kid felt he was being racially discriminated against because the 'negro' librarian told him to get off the computer so that someone else could go on. Because of his original mindset where he believed that other races are purposefully being discriminatory and making the white race into a minority, he automatically believed that the librarian was racist against him. He said later on in the story that he never went back to that library because he was so disgusted.
But like I said, not all 'white' people are like that. It's like two sides of a hate fest: on one side is the white supremacists, and on the other side is everyone who has been discriminated against or treated badly because they have a different pigment to their skin. In the middle is all the people who really just wish everyone would stop caring so much about religion, 'race', ethnicity, nationality, and all the other things that, in the end, don't actually matter.
So I often find myself not only angered with racist bigots who live in small worlds, but also angered by those that take the bait, that accept the challenge, that participate in the fight instead of just shaking their heads and walking away. It is why I believe that hate is universal. It is not just a one sided ordeal. There are many sides to every conflict, and everyone must take responsibility for anything they say or do. Even I must take responsibility sometimes for my mistakes because even mistakes may sometimes cause horrible things to happen.
Maybe if everyone took responsibility for their actions, even the fundamentalist basket cases that use God to justify murdering 'witches' or the white nationalists that use their ethnicity to justify treating all other races with utmost disrespect, there would not be quite so much hate.
Sometimes even that seems like too much of a farfetched idea.
The Caucasian people do, indeed, have a history of bigotry and hateful acts towards other ethnicities. In fact, a few months ago I became physically ill after discovering a website devoted to a community of people who are convinced that the other 'races' are warring against the white race. At first I thought it was a joke, a forum created to poke fun at people who really are like that. I kept scrolling through all the different parts of the website, becoming more and more sickened. They hailed Hitler, saying his ideas about extinguishing certain people were genius. It was a website so full of hate that it gave me a headache.
Yes, these people are white supremacist bigots, but that does not mean that I am, too. People should not assume that I am ignorant and narrow-minded because I have a sort of peachy-pink skin tone. And I am not saying that I am perfect and that I never discriminate or anything like that. I wish that stereotyping was not a part of daily life, but it seems to have burrowed its way into the media, into our society, like a nasty virus spreading from one person to the next. I think everyone has that little monster in the back of their mind, that tiny whisper.
Personally, I think hatred has become a universal emotion. I do not know a single person who does not hate someone else. This hatred is easily morphed into racism, sexism, and other prejudices. These prejudices lead to misunderstandings and ignorance, which only leads to even more unnecessary hatred. On the website mentioned above I read a story in the 'Youth' section in which the kid felt he was being racially discriminated against because the 'negro' librarian told him to get off the computer so that someone else could go on. Because of his original mindset where he believed that other races are purposefully being discriminatory and making the white race into a minority, he automatically believed that the librarian was racist against him. He said later on in the story that he never went back to that library because he was so disgusted.
But like I said, not all 'white' people are like that. It's like two sides of a hate fest: on one side is the white supremacists, and on the other side is everyone who has been discriminated against or treated badly because they have a different pigment to their skin. In the middle is all the people who really just wish everyone would stop caring so much about religion, 'race', ethnicity, nationality, and all the other things that, in the end, don't actually matter.
So I often find myself not only angered with racist bigots who live in small worlds, but also angered by those that take the bait, that accept the challenge, that participate in the fight instead of just shaking their heads and walking away. It is why I believe that hate is universal. It is not just a one sided ordeal. There are many sides to every conflict, and everyone must take responsibility for anything they say or do. Even I must take responsibility sometimes for my mistakes because even mistakes may sometimes cause horrible things to happen.
Maybe if everyone took responsibility for their actions, even the fundamentalist basket cases that use God to justify murdering 'witches' or the white nationalists that use their ethnicity to justify treating all other races with utmost disrespect, there would not be quite so much hate.
Sometimes even that seems like too much of a farfetched idea.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Soak Up The Sun
So I'm not a freshman in high school anymore. I'm a rising sophomore, or a 'stale' as my friend calls it. And today was my last day! So now summer starts, dragging me back into a time of late nights and late mornings and books and tank tops and the worst weather and the best moments...
I started off with a movie. It's called "The Invisible", and it's about this guy who gets beat up by a gang of people and his spirit detaches from his body but he's not dead. He has to get people to find his body before he does die. And the only person who can hear him is the leader of the gang. It's a really damn good movie.
Anyways. It still hasn't sunk in yet that it's summer. I've caught myself, multiple times now, trying to remember what kind of homework I have. And then I'm like, "Oh wait. I don't HAVE any homework."
And then I feel all happy inside.
I started off with a movie. It's called "The Invisible", and it's about this guy who gets beat up by a gang of people and his spirit detaches from his body but he's not dead. He has to get people to find his body before he does die. And the only person who can hear him is the leader of the gang. It's a really damn good movie.
Anyways. It still hasn't sunk in yet that it's summer. I've caught myself, multiple times now, trying to remember what kind of homework I have. And then I'm like, "Oh wait. I don't HAVE any homework."
And then I feel all happy inside.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
All these things that I've done
At what point do we know who we are?
When I was in seventh and eighth grade I would sometimes become very frustrated with myself because I had no idea who I was. I mean, I knew WHO I was. I knew what I looked like, who my family members were, who my friends were, and my basic interests. But who was I really? I didn't know, and it pissed me off. I was somewhere between being a little kid and being an adult and I knew that I was different from everyone else on the planet but how different? And in what ways? Everyone is different to some extent. How was I an individual?
I have no idea when I answered that question for myself, but it set in about a couple months ago. I was having a conversation with someone and they asked me a question. It was one of those "Really?" questions like "Are you really going to do that?" or "Is that really how you [verb]?" One of those questions in which the answer may or may not be used against you later on in life. And at that moment I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin and said, "Of course. I'm Susan Peevy. What do you think?"
So there I was. Finally an individual. I had a personality, a character, one of the many players in the game of life. It continued from there. "Why are you even asking me this? I mean, who do you think you're talking to?" I was developing, finding myself, pulling out scraps of memories and stashing them in a box labeled "Experiences".
I know who I am now. But when did I first begin knowing? Was it a while ago? Was it at that moment when I first used my own personality as an excuse?
And is it possible to change your personality once you've found it?
Not that I'd want to. I mean, I'm Susan Peevy. I don't change that easily.
(Isn't it amazing that I'm able to say that?)
When I was in seventh and eighth grade I would sometimes become very frustrated with myself because I had no idea who I was. I mean, I knew WHO I was. I knew what I looked like, who my family members were, who my friends were, and my basic interests. But who was I really? I didn't know, and it pissed me off. I was somewhere between being a little kid and being an adult and I knew that I was different from everyone else on the planet but how different? And in what ways? Everyone is different to some extent. How was I an individual?
I have no idea when I answered that question for myself, but it set in about a couple months ago. I was having a conversation with someone and they asked me a question. It was one of those "Really?" questions like "Are you really going to do that?" or "Is that really how you [verb]?" One of those questions in which the answer may or may not be used against you later on in life. And at that moment I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin and said, "Of course. I'm Susan Peevy. What do you think?"
So there I was. Finally an individual. I had a personality, a character, one of the many players in the game of life. It continued from there. "Why are you even asking me this? I mean, who do you think you're talking to?" I was developing, finding myself, pulling out scraps of memories and stashing them in a box labeled "Experiences".
I know who I am now. But when did I first begin knowing? Was it a while ago? Was it at that moment when I first used my own personality as an excuse?
And is it possible to change your personality once you've found it?
Not that I'd want to. I mean, I'm Susan Peevy. I don't change that easily.
(Isn't it amazing that I'm able to say that?)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Kick Ass
As I promised, here's a post about someone else. Well, technically it's about multiple people.
I have a fairly small family. I don't know a lot of relatives, and I don't like even more of them. But I've got my siblings and my parents and I don't need anything else. See, my family is really awesome. I've got my two brothers (one of whom is an in-law) who are both masters on an X Box, my sister who is a MAC pro, my blind father that manages to shock those that he meets with his brilliance, and my mom who makes friends at bus stops because everyone loves her, even if she doesn't love herself.
Nearly every Sunday, we all get together at somebody's house and have "family night". Generally my siblings will tease me mercilessly and poke fun at everything I do, though I don't mind it. I grew up around that, y'know? My mom'll sit in her chair and my dad'll sit in his and everyone will just sit around eating whatever dinner has been prepared and cracking jokes.
We even have family songs. There's "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba that inspires the will to keep going and the desire to blast music in the car while driving down the freeway with the windows rolled down. There's also "Baba O'Riley" by the Who (most people think the song is called "Teenage Wasteland" when it isn't) which is about hard work and earning the goddamn right to live.
Everytime someone comes over to my house on family night, they generally end up either completely shocked at the way we do things...or they can't stop laughing. We do that to people. They either stand in the doorway with dazed expressions on their faces or they just grin and grin.
We're the Peevy family. We're Irish. We're hilarious. We're hard working and we totally kick ass.
I have a fairly small family. I don't know a lot of relatives, and I don't like even more of them. But I've got my siblings and my parents and I don't need anything else. See, my family is really awesome. I've got my two brothers (one of whom is an in-law) who are both masters on an X Box, my sister who is a MAC pro, my blind father that manages to shock those that he meets with his brilliance, and my mom who makes friends at bus stops because everyone loves her, even if she doesn't love herself.
Nearly every Sunday, we all get together at somebody's house and have "family night". Generally my siblings will tease me mercilessly and poke fun at everything I do, though I don't mind it. I grew up around that, y'know? My mom'll sit in her chair and my dad'll sit in his and everyone will just sit around eating whatever dinner has been prepared and cracking jokes.
We even have family songs. There's "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba that inspires the will to keep going and the desire to blast music in the car while driving down the freeway with the windows rolled down. There's also "Baba O'Riley" by the Who (most people think the song is called "Teenage Wasteland" when it isn't) which is about hard work and earning the goddamn right to live.
Everytime someone comes over to my house on family night, they generally end up either completely shocked at the way we do things...or they can't stop laughing. We do that to people. They either stand in the doorway with dazed expressions on their faces or they just grin and grin.
We're the Peevy family. We're Irish. We're hilarious. We're hard working and we totally kick ass.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Unwritten
When I was little I was tested twice for the GATE program, which focuses on those who are part of a sect of intelligence that are able to solve puzzles. I passed both times, the second time shocking my school into submission because they hadn't gotten the records saying that I had already taken the test before.
"Oh, I guess she really is a GATE student." Ya think?
So anyways. My parents expected for me to grow up at become a scientist, a doctor, an engineer, something like that. Maybe even a Mathematician, though I've never quite had the patience for all of those equations. Instead, I began devoting my life to the arts. From the age of eight I've played the piano (even though I can't really read music sheets), I've been writing stories since I was six, I've been writing poetry since sixth grade, and occasionally I draw something that looks right. For years my parents tried to persuade me to follow the path of the engineer because they wanted me to make a lot of money, but I wouldn't have it so eventually they just gave up.
So here I am now, in ninth grade, constantly improving my skills in art and possibly reaching out to the path of the Psychologist. Why is it that I, a puzzle solver, would rather write about all the different ways the light may glint off a bowl made of glass instead of figuring out how the wooden table underneath it was constructed?
Sometimes I really just don't understand life.
Also, it has occurred to me that so far on this blog I've only talked about myself. The next post I make will be about someone else, I can promise that.
"Oh, I guess she really is a GATE student." Ya think?
So anyways. My parents expected for me to grow up at become a scientist, a doctor, an engineer, something like that. Maybe even a Mathematician, though I've never quite had the patience for all of those equations. Instead, I began devoting my life to the arts. From the age of eight I've played the piano (even though I can't really read music sheets), I've been writing stories since I was six, I've been writing poetry since sixth grade, and occasionally I draw something that looks right. For years my parents tried to persuade me to follow the path of the engineer because they wanted me to make a lot of money, but I wouldn't have it so eventually they just gave up.
So here I am now, in ninth grade, constantly improving my skills in art and possibly reaching out to the path of the Psychologist. Why is it that I, a puzzle solver, would rather write about all the different ways the light may glint off a bowl made of glass instead of figuring out how the wooden table underneath it was constructed?
Sometimes I really just don't understand life.
Also, it has occurred to me that so far on this blog I've only talked about myself. The next post I make will be about someone else, I can promise that.
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