reading.

it's winter break, meaning i have way too much free time on my hands.

going out of my mind.

resolved to branch out and start reading for fun again.

starting with German lit.

i'm really falling in love with Rainer Maria Rilke, and i thought i'd share some of my favorite bits:

Entering

Whoever you may be: step into the evening.
Step out of the room where everything is known.
Whoever you are,
your house is the last before the far-off.
With your eyes, which are almost too tired
to free themselves from the familiar,
you slowly take one black tree and set it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made a world.
It is big
and like a word, still ripening in silence.
And though your mind would fabricate its meaning,
your eyes tenderly let go of what they see.


Lifting My Eyes

Lifting my eyes from the book, from the
tightly sequenced lines
to the full and perfect night:
Oh how like the stars my buried feelings
break free,
as if a bouquet of wildflowers
had come untied:

The upswing of the light ones, the bowing sway of the heavy ones
and the delicate ones' timid curve.
Everywhere joy in relation and nowhere
grasping;
world in abundance and earth enough.

it looks as though that time-honored tradition of accidentally and melodramatically reading books that go along with whatever post-adolescent/adolescent experiences i'm going through.

all i want to do is set out and write well.

too see and create.

give back.

set out, run away.

be me.

the only thing that's stopping me, i know, is myself.

i need to finally grow up and prepare myself for doing the things that make me happy.

i don't ask for much.

i wake up first.

i'm standing under the running shower head, soaking in the night before.

the door creaks open and you quietly close it again.

gently pull the curtain back and stand behind me.

you put your arms around my waist and press yourself into my back.

kiss my neck.

and we just stand there for a little while.

the night hasn't ended yet.

i turn to face you, kiss you.

i touch your face and your body.

"I'm blind without my glasses," i say, "I can't see you, but you feel beautiful."

i become a little embarrassed by this confession, but you put your hands behind my head, stroke my hair with your long fingers, and pull me into another kiss.

not too long.

just right.

and we stand there, holding each other.

fessing up.

i don't want to become my mother, a fearsome, broken vessel with only the shards of regret held together by anger and resentment to build her frame.

she wanted to be an artist.

to run away and become the person she always wanted to be.

but she was denied these things.

for so long, her entire being was crafted for her, forged in tradition by her parents' hands.

she went on to finally - so she thought - find escape.

but the world she came to was just as cruel and withholding as the one she left.

she had to trade her passion in for pragmatism.

raise her girls to succeed in the lives she knew and feared they would grow to hate as much as she did hers.

pass on the legacies of duty and practicality.

train them to be as realistic and prepared as she was forced to become.

but she failed.

underneath all those talks of what was right and real and attainable were whispers of an unforgotten, unforgettably passionate and angry past.

we heard the whispers.

soaked them up like sponges, more than we could ever do with the shrill call of reality.

we became passionate, too.

angry with the system that broke our mother and took her in.

i want to be an artist.

i want to say the things my mother never got to paint.

i want to prove to her and to all the nay sayers that the most real and most practical thing we can do is to have passion and to act on it.

to be the selves we were always meant to be.

to outweigh the anger with happiness and love and sincerity.

to stop breaking ourselves and to create and commit to the selves that hide, secretly, underneath all of the fear and doubt.

i don't want to be my mother as she is.

i want to be me and provide some ounce of comfort to the woman with night terrors.

i want to turn her nightmares into dreams and dreams into reality.

i want to give that secret self of hers a sense of solace.

and a voice.

going back.

the older i get, the more people i meet, the more i find out how much i've been missing out on.

i find myself reading and rereading old childhood gems that went ignored in my mother's effort to fashion 3 grown-up women out of her own regrets: a method that inadvertently let me forget to grow.

so now when i read Rowling or Silverstein or Juster, i'm learning more - or about the same - from them as i have from my fledgling adulthood or the presumptuously Big World i was once convinced had all the answers to all the questions i could ever have.

but the truth is, i'm coming to find that i haven't been asking the right questions or the most honest ones.

or any, even.

for so long my truest voice has gone unheared and unused, drowned out by that wful din of other voices - borrowed voices - that for too long spoke for me.

so now i'm constructing my own Neverland: walls built high to keep it untainted and unchecked and my own.

to guard the foundations of unconditional love and generosity and curiosity and hope and courage and the unyielding promise for change and growth that can come by taking the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of quiet nights or flapping sails or leaves that brown in fall.

all these things get lost in translation, between the jump from brief childhood innocence to supposed budding and predtermined adulthood.

all too often i see that missing glint in the eyes of passersby, jaded friends and family who, having long since passed that age of wonder, have lost that purity and strength of heart that got them here in the first place.

i wouldn't say that i'm a bad person, or an idealistic one, and i'd like to think that i'm kind and gentle, but i would also add that i'm unwise and unlearned, and the more i see those faded or absent sparks, the more i want to find out where they went.

have i lost m ine?

can you lose something you're not sure you ever had?

i'm on a quest now for my own Rhyme and Reason, to discover my own glint and help return those missing to the eyes of their desperate and rightful owners.

the fact of the matter is, though, i'm not a child.

a full recovery of what's been missing is now intermingled with the grown-up experiences - few as they are - that i've been able to collect.

so now, interspersed with mentions of spellbooks and giving trees and trusty watchdogs are cigarettes, red cups, and faulty relationships.

the point here - the upside to all of this - is that i'm learning on my own.

i'm growing.

changing.

finding and using my own voice to say things like, "No," or, "I'll give it a try."

in attempting to fashion my own person - my own beginnings, because this really is my beginning - with the pages of presumably childish fare, and the erratic events and experiences that are forging my adulthood, i am building something new, fine, and, to an extent, pure.

i'm creating me.

it gets better.

i wrote this as something of a treatment/narration for a short video idea that was inspired by Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project.

it's set to Broken Social Scene's "Pitter Patter Goes My Heart" and is intended to play over a montage of various animated sequences as well as snippets of live-action shots.

Pitter patter goes my heart when I get too close now.

Closer than I've ever been.

Because this distance between me and her, you and me, is the smallest I've ever let it be.

It's been broken before.

Once, twice.

Probably more than I even know.

It was born broken, I supposed, because it loved the wrong things, the wrong people, too much.

So it couldn't love me.

But there was never really hate in it, as much as I used to think.

Just too much bad love that no one - not even me - could understand.

It was full of longing.

Longing to belong to someone else or to beat for the right kind of person.

To sustain the kind of love other people thought was right.

Told me was right.

I didn't want this heart to be my own.

I was ugly and weak, and my heart strained under the weight of two bodies: one that was mine and one that was for others.

And it was dying, because the things that could make it happy and full and whole were denied.

And I had to save myself somehow.

Close that gap between you and me, it and others.

To get rid of the strain and let it beat.

I told someone.

And she loved me in that way that sisters do, and every time she said, "There's nothing wrong with you," my heart became fuller and more open and strong.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I wasn't broken, it wasn't broken, and there was nothing wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with you.

Because you are beautiful because you are you, and there is nothing more beautiful than that love you have to give and that wholeness and strength you have in your heart that's waiting to break through.

And the people it touches - friends, family, lovers - will love it, too, and there'll be so many people sharing that love with the world and with you.

It gets better because you are stronger.

Because you know better than to let the people who're determined to discourage you to hurt you, because you know to hold out for the ones who surprise and love you.

Because you have faith in yourself and you have faith in others and you know that without either of those things you'd be lost and incomplete.

Because love is love and love is right, no matter where it goes and who it's for, and you deserve all of its beauty.

You are beautiful.

The world is beautiful.

It gets better.

i have clumsy hands.

i've been neglecting this post in favor of Notes to Self, but recently i discovered a few non-comedy mini-journal entries that i felt impelled - in accordance with the promise i made to myself, of sharing all of my writing - to post here instead.

the following is an example of Drunk Vickie's poor penmanship and penchant for the poetics (and slightly more emo ramblings).

or some poor excuse for them.

i'm no writer and i'm saptastic to a fault:

I have clumsy hands. They stiffen at my sides when I'm about, keeping to myself. They twitch, itch to reach out and touch things their limbs - attached to my guilt, which seems to constantly outweigh curiosity - forbid them to touch.

The knuckles crack and bend in ways they shouldn't, interjecting when my voice has nothing to contribute.

They stutter when I write, become inky with accidentally blotted mistakes that run across the rest of my words in smudges and smears.

Sometimes they don't feel like hands at all: dumbbells that hold me back, making me all the more aware of the awkwardness of my entire body.

Or they're weightless and with minds of their own, belligerently swinging or pointing or poking, my innards squirming with instantaneous regret and humiliation.

Sometimes they're monsters.

Famished, insatiable.

They ache with hunger pangs, coveting contact.

To pick at and pull out my voice, pulling strand after strand of words lost, phrases confused, thoughts disfigured.

Throbbing - my heart pumping into them the want and beating voice that gets my attention - so I have no choice but to comply.

To go on lamenting the fact that I have nothing and no one else with which, whom, to nourish them.

They rejoice in my drunkenness - the loosened hold of my guilt that allows them to inarticulately speak for me, show affection my lips and chords are otherwise too cowardly to express.

Grab things and create the illusion of a temporary ownership.

Connection.

And then they become too eager.

Earnest.

The bottle cap to their full and shaken yearning finally explodes and they live up to their infantile and clumsy reputation by flying like shrapnel any which way all over their victim.

Soon after, another bottle moves down the conveyor belt, top open, awaiting jilted temptations and silenced protestations and affirmations. What with the likely dismal consequences of the previous pop, this new bottle is packed with a revitalized fervor.

Capped again.

Shaken again.

Embarrassed again.

Next.

They seem to fight back: regret belonging to the rest of this, want to be attached to someone more deserving of their curiosity and need to make. They're a large dog, fed up with my measured steps and dragging me along.

They rush, I try to keep up, trip over myself, and land on my face.

They wish they were a carpenter's hands, harmonizing machinery with craftsmanship.

Scarring with experience and satisfying caresses of their tools and their handiwork.

Building calluses from repetitious but worthwhile labors: hard work that both builds and satiates their appetite.

Their newly hardened touch will make for firmer grips, affectionate and practical.

They tell the world they're learned, they create.

They have the strength to give as well as to take.

As they are now, one would think they were spoiled: soft with naivete; long, the better to touch you with. The thinness and knobbiness and length are an illusion.

The kinds of things that suggest delicacy and prowess: strangers to these parts.

Their form is misleading, lying to passersby.

Present themselves as something more deliberate than they are.

If they are in any way delicate, it must actually be because of the inhibitions trying to keep the capped earnestness at bay.

Everything touched is a relic.

But I don't hate my hands: the feelings aren't mutual. At times, they may not feel like my own, but they feel.

Sometimes they're the only concrete proof of my self.

That I am here.

The fact that they pine, so painfully, is, in a strange way, heartening.

Desire is passion, passion is sometimes agony.

But if this pain livens us - makes us more aware of our humanity by spilling itself, warm and red, into every facet of our lives - then it's essential and honest and beautiful.

They do make mistakes.

I have regrets.

But I also have a new sense of vigor - to run and try my best to catch up.

To be a breadwinner.

To create and give back.

Maybe someday my tapered nature will be reconciled with the overzealous neediness of my hands.

Someday, they'll touch something wonderful.

Something wonderful will come from my touch.

starting a fresh page! and blogging on it.

over time, this blog has become something of a diary.

but, as of late, i've decided to start a brand new one that only includes comedy bits.

i need to practice.

word.

http://notestoselfbah.blogspot.com

and you can/should join the facebook fanpage, under Notes to Self.

where'd the title come from?

i have 0 common sense, meaning that, all sorts of things that have and will happen in my most recent life, need to be shared.

in other words, as i embarrass myself, or have embarrassing thoughts, you guys will have access to them.

i'll try to keep up with this one, too, to talk about more personal stuff, but Notes to Self will be my way of practicing my comedy writing.

all in all, i've decided to start taking my dreams of writing comedy a little more seriously.

so hop to it! chop chop!

and please give me some feedback!

long time, no see. When Vickie Met Billy...and When Billy Met Dane...

i'm just like Billy Crystal.

at least, that's what my dad says.

some girls are princesses, sweethearts, mermaids, even.

but me?

i'm Billy Crystal.

he meant it in a good way, he assured me, and i don't really doubt this: if there's one thing my dad and i have in common, it's our inability to hold an anything but awkward conversation.

another would be our tendency to inarticulately pay strange compliments because of our debilitating and irreversible senses of humor and romantics.

the other would be our obnoxious laughs.

but i digress.

really, i don't think of the Billy Crystal thing as negative.

and lord knows that when my mother tried to dress me up as a Disney princess when i was little, i refused.

but i wonder if being like Billy Crystal, especially nowadays, is all that positive, either.

in his prime, Crystal was amazing.

along the lines of George Carlin and Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce.

they're all still considered some of the "greats" of all-time, and no one doubts their creativity and astuteness.

but nowadays, who can really relate to any of these comedians?

when i saw the movie Funny People for the first time, all i could think was, I could never make it as a comedienne. I hate penis jokes, and I definitely don't appreciate making fun of other people or the word "fuck" half this much.

could i ever really make it as a "nice" comedian?

or even a thoughtful one?

the more and more i think about it, the less sure i am of pursuing my "dream job."

i know i'd like to write good, clean, but inspiring comedy.

i know that, in a dream world, where i'm not ridden by the fear and the insecurities, i'd like to get up on stage and perform my comedy.

but i really don't know how willing modern audiences would be to accept my old brand of jokes and commentary.

we're in an age where gross-out, shock-value comedy seems to be taking centre-stage.

comedians are getting more and more vulgar.

and louder.

and i really don't think i can pull either of those things off.

i can't Dane Cook my way through a joke, and yell it as loudly as possible to trick people into laughing.

and i can't pull a Sarah Silverman and make a totally perverse or over-the-top story cute, just by pulling a cute face.

and i'm not hott, so i don't have that going for me.

i'm not suave.

or confident.

and all of the things that might've been my "schtick" have already been done:

1. lesbian;
2. Asian mom;
3. Latino family;
4. awkwardness.

bah.

the only "nice" comedians i can think of can be counted on one hand:

1. Eddie Izzard;
2. Dmitri Martin;
3. Tina Fey;
4. Amy Poehler;
5. Ellen.

still, though.

i'm not saying that ALL mean or modern comedians have no merits.

Chris Rock is one, along with Margaret Cho (who, even though she's now mostly political, still has her moments).

but the fact remains that i just don't think i can pull that kind of work off.

what options are out there for me, then?

what can i really do?

do i sell out and try to break my way into that kind of humor?

what hope is there for someone who doesn't want to trash-talk Britney Spears or rant about vaginas for thirty minutes?

what can someone who's totally awkward and shy and just wants to talk about her awkward and shy experiences really accomplish in this new comedy industry?

why has comedy gone down this track?

all's i know's is, i'm at a loss.

without comedy, i have no idea what i'd do with my life.

and, more than that, i don't know how i'd be able to really get out there and reach people.

what if my comedy/humor is my own, and no one else would really appreciate it?

what am i supposed to do with my life?

my dad told me that i'm just like Billy Crystal.

because i'm self-deprecating and awkward and harmless.

but is that good enough these days?

popular?

in middle school they taught us that, "Just because it's popular doesn't mean that it's right."

but in an industry that's all about visibility and popularity, what can i do to really succeed?

anyways.

i'll try to be more consistent with my postings.

so 'til next time!