“Really?” I asked.

He didn’t hesitate.  “Yea, pretty short, boring, not very insightful.”

It took me hours to write that post.  I wrote entire pages and deleted them completely.  I went through my blog notes over and over again only to find that there was nothing I wanted to write about.

Lately it seems that instead of letting myself become inspired I’ve been allowing myself to be distracted.  I’ve been making bad decisions because I don’t care about the consequences anymore.  On the other hand, I’ve been making good decisions for the same reason.

I’m doing whatever I want at any given moment.  Spontaneous.  Dangerous.  Fun.

“I really like your blog,” a friend told me the other day.  “You’ve got a lot of balls to put it out there like that.  Knowing the person you’re writing about could read it.”

People tell me things like this all the time – that my blog is “honest”.  I think my blog is dramatic.  I wonder if these things define me.

In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut writes:

Kilgore Trout owned a parakeet named Bill… He told Bill that humanity deserved to die horribly, since it had behaved so cruelly and wastefully on a planet so sweet.

I am curious to know if this was how Vonnegut truly felt, disguised as fiction.

“I have trouble believing anything is 100% fiction,” I once told Tim.  All of the fictional thoughts and experiences we read in our most beloved novels must come from some truth.

Some nights I lie in bed drunk and make blog notes.  (Ashleigh’s Writing Rule #658: Never write when drunk, only make notes when drunk.) One evening, I noted how I wanted someone in particular to die.  I thought about seeing the splish-splash of this person’s blood and guts on the ground.  I wondered how this person’s friends and family would feel when they heard that so-and-so had expired and is on his/her way to meet our maker, or maybe just to a meat locker in the morgue before being reduced to worm food or ashes.  (I’m not really sure what so-and-so’s last wishes regarding burial might have been.)

Is that honesty?  Debatable.  Is it any more or less honest if I create a character who expresses such thoughts to his/her pet parakeet?  Again, debatable.  Should it be stated that I obviously don’t wish death upon anyone?  No, because it goes without saying.  Should Vonnegut have clarified whether he really did or did not think that all of humanity deserved to die horribly?  No.  Why?  Because he was writing “fiction”?

I dunno.

What is something I do know?  That this blog is my cathartic release.  It’s my inaudible music.  My intangible painting.  Me dancing without movement.

It’s me screaming as loud as I fucking can without making a sound.

It’s my heart and my brain, thrown into Jayme’s food processor and made into a meat shake for the world to drink.

“I do,” I replied.  I’m like the Weegee of dead bird photos, I thought.

Weegee (derived from the phonetic spelling of Ouija) was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig.  His family moved to New York City from Poland in 1909, when he was just 10-years old.

Fellig left school at age fourteen to help support his family. His first job was as an assistant to a commercial photographer. He also obtained extra money by taking street portraits.  In 1918, Fellig was employed as a darkroom technician in Lower Manhattan.

Then, in 1935, Fellig left his job and attempted to make a living as a freelance photographer. By tuning his radio to the police frequency and monitoring their calls, he often beat authorities to the scene of a crime.  This resulted in grotesque images of murder victims, car wrecks, and the public’s reaction to such tragedies.  He even had a complete darkroom in the trunk of his car.

Fellig sold his pictures to newspapers, and in 1938 he became the only New York reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio.  Since then, his photographs have appeared in multiple exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art.  Books of his work have also published.

In unrelated news, I have a new mole.  “Whoa, you should really get that looked at,” Ryan told me.

The other night I dreamt that it grew to cover the entire left side of my face.  It was quite hideous.

Photograph of a murder victim taken by Weegee (above)

One of my photographs of a dead bird (below)

Medical documentation revealed that Lina had begun showing signs of menstruation when she was eight months old, and she started having regular periods at age three.

Lina’s family did not know of her condition until she was already seven and a half months pregnant.  Living in their small Peruvian village, they did not have the technology or money to diagnose the five year old’s bulging belly.  However, as the months passed, the family began to worry that little Lina had a fast-growing, life-threatening tumor in her belly, so they carried her into town for medical attention.

After doctor’s confirmed the pregnancy via x-rays and biopsies, Lina’s father explained that before her stomach started to swell, she was having regular periods that all of a sudden stopped.  Physicians were stunned by Lina’s pregnancy and were not going to pass up the opportunity to study this medical miracle. They transferred Lina to a hospital in Lima, Peru, so she could be observed at all times.

Due to Lina’s small frame and pelvis, it would have been impossible for her to give birth vaginally.  Doctors at the Lima hospital concluded that she would have to have a cesarean section.

In 1941, two years after Lina gave birth, the New York Times published an account of an American psychologist who had examined Lina while visiting South America:

Ms. Kosak said she gave a series of intelligence tests to the child and that on the basis of this study she has no doubt that the child’s age was given correctly.

“Lina is above normal in intelligence and the baby, a boy, is perfectly normal and is physically better developed than the average Mestiza (Spanish Indian) child,” she said.  “She thinks of the child as a baby brother and so does the rest of the family.”

Jose Sandoval, an obstetrician who took an interest in Lina Medina’s case and authored a book about her in 2002 said that Lina was a psychologically normal child, that she displayed no other unusual medical symptoms, and that she preferred playing with dolls rather than her own child.

Lina’s boy, named Gerardo, did not learn until he was ten years old that the woman he thought to be his sister was actually his mother.  He grew up healthy but died in 1979 at age of 40 of a bone marrow disease.  Lina still lives in a poor district of Lima with her husband (who fathered her second son in 1972).

Members of the American Medical Association meeting in 1939 were a bit skeptical of Lina Medina’s extreme youth.  Per a Time Magazine article published a month after Gerardo’s birth:

Most of the members believed that Lina was at least eight or nine, little younger than several U. S. child mothers now living in the South. Baby teeth, said the critical U. S. doctors, are no criterion of age. Lina’s early menstruation, said U. S. pediatricians, was probably caused by an ovarian tumor. Ovarian tumors are not rare, sometimes cause menstruation in children a year old, often produce glandular changes which stunt growth. Concluded A.M.A. spokesman Dr. Morris Fishbein: “It is difficult or impossible to determine the exact age of children born in primitive tribes. . . . It is likely that she was much older.”

The father of baby Gerardo was never determined. In fact, Lina’s father was jailed for incest and rape of Lina, but was let go due to lack of evidence. Lina herself never gave any answers to doctors on how she became impregnated.

I’m getting to that age where a number of my friends are having children.  “Babies having babies,” I always say.  Now when I say this, I’ll always think of little Lina Medina.

Lina Medina, seven and a half months pregnant (above)

Ashleigh Walker –> Justin Tiemeyer: I had a dream that we went to the same school together but class was held on a roof in Brooklyn and on the last day of class you got mad at me because you kept saying you finished reading my blog and I didn’t believe you. Then we were going to walk home together but some weird guy started talking to you, so I just left. Sorry dream-me abandoned you.
May 23, 2010 at 12:54pm

Justin Tiemeyer: Haha. I’m almost done with July 2009! So you basically lost a significant other and decided to leave work and go back to school and wrote a blog as a way of creatively dealing with it?
May 23, 2010 at 3:34pm

Ashleigh Walker: That’s how it started, a kind of quarter-life crisis. And somewhere along the way I remembered how much I love to write, and people seem to like to read it, so…
May 23, 2010 at 3:49pm

Justin Tiemeyer: Good. There’s definitely some struggle in your writing, but it’s not blown out of proportion like a John-Cusack-movie-loving, Real-World-watching, Coldplay-listening writer might. Oh and there’s structure. Which is different. Memoir-based, feelings blogs rarely have anything resembling structure. I’m enjoying your sorrow so far. Haha.
May 23, 2010 at 4:20pm

…

I started this blog one year ago today.

A lot can happen in a year.

I’ve lost some old friends, made some new friends, and held on to some true friends.

I’ve graduated college and begun working for a small company that I hope to help flourish.

I’ve gotten over last year’s heartbreak only to find there is heartbreak far more cruel than those previous, reminding me that someone I believe to be compassionate can turn out to be quite merciless.

I’ve been forced to question if the world is really plagued by bad people, or just good people who do some bad things.

I’ve changed but remained the same.

I could have never imagined that this is where I’d be now.

I wonder what the next year will bring.

Happy birthday, blog.

Jayme, Maria, and I were watching the first Sex and the City movie.  In the film, Big doesn’t show up to his own wedding.  His fiancé, Carrie, is devastated.  When she confronts him on the street only moments after he told her he wasn’t coming, she is hysterical.  She hits him.  Repeatedly.

I had just dealt with a similar (but still very different) situation.  “Is it ever okay to hit?” I asked the room.  “Like really?  Shouldn’t you never slap someone?”

“I really don’t think it’s ever okay to hit someone,” Jayme responded.  Her words wounded me a little, as she knew that I had recently lost control of my emotions and slapped a boy.

After Maria left, I brought it up again.  I’d been sitting there over-thinking it and feeling guilty and terrible.

“Should I apologize?  To xxxxxx for hitting him?” I asked.  “I mean, it’s never okay to hit someone.”

Jayme looked at me, and very sternly she said, “No.  He deserved it.”

“But..,”  I started.

“No.  I mean.  It’s not okay to hit.  But he deserved it,” she assured me.

“I just.  I just feel so bad,” I told her.

“Well stop.  Stop feeling bad,” she said.

I told this story to Rona via email.  Jayme’s a sage, she wrote in response. I think she verbalized exactly what the situation is.  Also, a few slaps make a man!!

This boy and I have mutual friends on Facebook.  In my news feed the other day, I noticed a comment one of them posted on his wall.  The mutual friend was expressing how happy he was that this boy has found himself a girlfriend.  It contained the text: …it’s been a while since either of us have dated someone…

I found this funny, since the boy whose wall it was had dated me for months almost immediately before he decided to commit himself to this new girl.  Maybe he never mentioned it.  Us.

Ha ha.

Also quite funny is that this other guy just moved back to Brooklyn.  He now lives around the corner from me with the girl he left me for two years ago.  It certainly does not affect my heart anymore, it’s just… funny.

Ha ha.

But returning to Facebook and emails, I recently received an email from a very old friend that I just reconnected with over Facebook.  He wrote:

Hey Ashleigh, I wouldn’t normally do this. I tend to be shy and don’t really Facebook and all that stuff. I am content to have left my old life behind and blend in…  MY POINT. I loved your website. Really cool words. Thanks for sharing them. Good AM reading. Even if they leave a small hint of residual sadness in the room.

I thought that was nice.

And finally, back to Jayme.  She and I were playing pool the other night at Lockinn.  The jukebox there contains one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs, “Blasphemous Rumours”.  Additionally, I have become newly obsessed with the Regina Spektor song, “Laughing With”.

These songs have much in common.  Maybe they should fall in love.

I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours
but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor,
and when I die I expect to find him laughing.
(Depeche Mode, “Blasphemous Rumours”)

God can be funny
when told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way,
and when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus.
God can be so hilarious.
Ha ha.  Ha ha.
(Regina Spektor, “Laughing With”)

“I really thought there’d be some hipsters rockin’ out on this one,” I commented to Andrea.  “Oh, and I thought you’d like to know that I haven’t washed my hair in a week and two days.”

“You are a hipster, you know,” she told me.

“How so?” I asked.

“Uh, what you’re wearing,” (I looked down at my ankle-high pixie boots, jean shorts, and thrift store tank top), “you don’t have a real job, you don’t wash your hair, and you’re sitting in McCarren Park on a weekday afternoon,” she stated.

The day before she had texted me a picture of some birds.

Sometimes birds don’t die, she wrote, Sometimes they chill on stoops like cool awesome people would if they had stoops.  I mean me.

Awww, I replied, But also.  I wish they were dead.  God.  I’m cruel.  Kill them and send me a photo?

You are the worst person in the world, she texted back.

In other news, on July 14th, 2010, Keep My Words will turn one-year old.

It was around this time two years ago that this guy broke my heart.

And it was about one year ago that I decided to break my own heart before this guy did.

Then this year, only a little over a month ago, another boy broke my heart.

Independence Day is painfully literal for me.

independence – (noun) freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others.

All three of them had new girlfriends less than a month after our dissevering.  The latter two ended up with skinnier, more-tattooed, and I’m sure less-cynical versions of me after claiming to be too commitment-phobic to dare call me their “girlfriend.”

Oh well.

Right now, I am uncomfortably content.  Part of me thinks I’m better off alone, and part of me thinks I just haven’t met the right person.  But it’s fine.  I want to meet a good man as much as I want to win the lottery – it could happen, and it could make me gloriously happy, but it’s not necessary.  And it certainly doesn’t happen for everyone.

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.  Possibilities are everywhere.  With each second, I am changing.  Those boys don’t even know me anymore.  You don’t even know me anymore, nor do I.

Yet there’s enjoyment in constantly becoming reacquainted with myself.

Andrea’s birds (above), Piano at Thompkins Square Park (below)

Piano at Astor Place (below)

Piano at Greeley Square Park (below)

Piano at McCarren Park (below)

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN Kubrick’s 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER

Many tiles included footnotes consisting of cryptic political messages, such as “Murder every journalist, I beg you” and “Submit.  Obey.”

Bill decided to do some research on the tiles, and he came to discover that this wasn’t just a local incident.  Over time he found that similar tiles had appeared in many US cities, including Washington DC, Pittsburgh, New York City, Baltimore, and Boston, to name a few.  Some had even shown up in South America.

Although these tiles were planted into busy public roads, no one seemed to know who was responsible or what was used to make the them.

“Toynbee” most certainly refers to British historian Arnold J. Toynbee.  According to letters written by the tiler, allegedly uncovered by Toynbee tile researchers in Philadelphia in 2006, “Toynbee’s idea” stems from a passage in Arnold Toynbee’s book Experiences:

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body… Someone who accepts – as I myself do, taking it on trust – the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more ‘scientifically’ if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit.

The other reference in the tiles is to Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was a movie that made implications that a man was reborn on a mission to Jupiter, not exactly resurrected.

There is only one known connection between the works of Toynbee and Kubrick: Toynbee’s writings spoke of a man named Zoroaster who conceived the idea of monotheism (the belief that only one God exists), and this name also occurs in the title of the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme song entitled “Thus Spoke Zoroaster.”

A clue to the source of these tiles came from a 1983 newspaper interview with a social worker from Philadelphia named James Morasco.  Morasco claimed that Jupiter could be colonized by bringing Earth’s dead people there to have them resurrected.

When writing an article on the tiles in 2001, a reporter stumbled upon the original 1983 article and tried to call the only James Morasco listed in Philly. A woman who answered said Mr. Morasco couldn’t come to the phone because a mysterious ailment had required that he have his voicebox removed.  A different reporter writing another story in 2003 tried to call the same man, only to be told that he died the previous March at age 88.

“My husband doesn’t know anything about that,” his widow told the reporter. “Besides he died in March. But he didn’t know anything about it.”

In any case, there are two problems when assuming that James Morasco is the responsible party: (1) He would have been in his 70s when most of the tiles were placed, and (2) Some new tiles have been installed since his death in 2003.

It was eventually determined that these tiles were composed of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound.  A Toynbee-tile enthusiast website reported a tile found in Pittsburgh that included deployment instructions, which the reader transcribed as:

…linoleum, asphalt glue (?) in several layers, then placing tar paper over it so that car wheels won’t mess it up, and apparently the heat of the sun on the tar paper will bake it into the street.

There is no public or private agency dedicated to conserving Toynbee tiles. Many tiles now exist only as photographs taken before their destruction.

Toynbee tile at Franklin Square, 2002 (above)

One thing upsetting me is how not upset I am.  The repeated heartbreaks I am forced to endure leave me passively disenchanted with love and cynically disappointed with humanity.  There’s cruelty in a world that allows two people to gravitate towards one another, only to be torn apart by disinterest or infidelity.  Oftentimes the bruised half of the equation aches and fantasizes, while the other appears unaffected.

I’ve seen it so many times that I fear I’m becoming indifferent.

Still, I refuse to surrender my naiveté when it comes to love.  Meanwhile, I need to heed the signs so often ignored.  For example, yesterday I was at the duck with Rona.

“One night,” I told her, “when xxxxxx really made me feel like shit – it was the night we were at the bar with friends, and when I went to hug him he told me not to ‘be weird’ – I went home and sat in my bathroom and cried.  And the whole time I kept telling myself that I didn’t want to feel this way ever again.  I kept asking myself why I let this happen.”

Even after that occurrence, I kept on with this boy.  I let my innocence crush my defenses, and with my armor down he unmasked to show me his true face before hurling his flail into my chest.

Tragic, I know.

But don’t allow my melodramatic words fool you.  Like I said, I’m upset about how not upset I am.

“You seem different this time,” Rona told me.

I thought for a moment.  “I guess I’m not as sad, I’m more aggravated.  It’s like when people tell you that you deserve better, but inside you never really believe it.  Well this time, I believe it.”

The shift in self-perception is bittersweet.  It’s a change.

Speaking of change, Mike and I were on our way to see sami.the.great last week.  Somewhere around 14th Street and Avenue A, he stopped and pointed to the ground.

“Uh, Ashleigh, look,” he said.

There at the base of a tree were two dead birds.  They appeared to be holding one another.  It reminded me of a news story I read over three years ago in which archaeologists uncovered the bones of a man and woman locked in an eternal embrace.  The couple was dubbed the Lovers of Valdaro.  Their skeletons were over 5,000 years old.

One theory suggested that the man was killed and the woman then sacrificed so his soul would be accompanied in the afterlife.  I wholeheartedly reject this theory, and instead propose that these Lovers were truly lovers, so devoted to one another that their breaths were in sync.  They could not live without each other.

I do hope that people have the capability to love this much.

Dead birds, 14th Street & Avenue A (above), Lovers of Valdaro (below)

It was the winter of 1926.  Thomas “Fats” Waller, the popular jazz pianist, had just finished a spirited performance at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago.  Following the concert, Waller was approached by four men wearing dark suits with wide lapels.

“We want to make you an offer that you can’t refuse,” they told him, as one of the men shoved a revolver into Waller’s corpulent stomach.

The men led Waller outside and into a black limousine.  He was terrified, but knew it best to follow their instructions.

Orders were given to the limo driver to drive to the Hawthorne Inn in East Cicero, a suburb of Chicago.  Inside, Waller found himself in the middle of a huge party.  The kidnappers shoved him towards a piano and demanded that he play. The loudest applause came from a familiar man with an unmistakable scar: Al Capone.  Capone was having a birthday party, and Fats Waller was a present from “the boys”.

The party lasted for three days. Waller exhausted himself and his repertoire, but with every request bills were stuffed into his pockets. He and Capone consumed vast quantities of food and drink. By the time the limousine headed back to the Sherman Hotel, Waller had acquired several thousand dollars in cash tips.

Currently, there is an art installation by British artist Luke Jerram on display around New York City.  Titled “Play Me, I’m Yours”, it consists of 60 newly refurbished pianos scattered in public places among the five boroughs, available for anyone to play.  Following the artwork, the pianos will be donated to local schools and community groups.

Next week, I plan on finding some of these pianos and listening to people make music.  Maybe I’ll even make some myself.

Fats Waller (above)

Yesterday I returned to New York after a much needed week-and-a-half long vacation.

On this trip, I happened to watch quite a few episodes of Pee-wee’s Playhouse.  Each was brilliant, but one in particular lingered in my mind throughout my entire stay down south.  It was titled “Why Wasn’t I Invited?”

In “Why Wasn’t I Invited?”, Mrs. Renee passes by the Playhouse on her way to Cowntess’s birthday party.  When she tells Pee-wee where she’s headed, he says that he wasn’t invited.

“I thought the Cowntess was my friend,” Pee-wee solemnly states.  Chairry suggests that maybe Cowntess didn’t send any invitations, but then Randy, the Playhouse bully, tells Pee-wee that he got an invitation in the mail.  Everyone else in the Playhouse except for Magic Screen and Chairry admit that they, too, received invites, and they head to the party.

Pee-wee claims that he can have fun at the Playhouse with just Magic Screen and Chairry.  They attempt to enjoy themselves, but eventually Pee-wee gives in to his disappointment.  “We’re not having a good time because we weren’t invited to that party,” he tells his friends.

After wondering what to do about it, Pee-wee decides to write a letter to the Advice Lady.

Dear Advice Lady, he writes, I have two questions.  Number 1: Why would somebody that’s your friend not invite you to their party?  And number 2: What should a person do if something terrible like this happens to them?  Please answer this letter as soon as possible, if not sooner.  Your pal, Puzzled in the Playhouse.

Mr. Kite takes Pee-wee’s letter to the Advice Lady, and not even five seconds after Mr. Kite’s exit from the screen, the Playhouse Picturephone rings.  It’s the Advice Lady calling to answer Pee-wee’s questions.

In response to the first question, she says that there could be a lot of reasons why a friend wouldn’t invite another friend to his/her party.  For example, if it is a party just for family members, or a party just for girls.  The Advice Lady also says that if someone has a million friends, he/she cannot possibly invite them all.

“I guess you’re right,” Pee-wee tells her, “but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

This brings the Advice Lady to Pee-wee’s second question: what should he do?

“If someone hurts your feelings you should let them know about it.  If you don’t, you’ll only end up feeling worse,” she advises.

Pee-wee considers her wise words, agrees, and hangs up the phone.  “I’m going to call the Cowntess right now and give her a piece of my mind!” he tells his friends in the Playhouse.

When Cowntess answers the phone, her party is in full-force.  She begins to say that she heard about Pee-wee not getting an invitation, but he interrupts her.

“You really hurt our feelings and we don’t want to be your friends anymore!” he shouts.

“But I did send you invitations!” Cowntess claims.

Unfortunately, Pee-wee is so hurt and upset that the statement doesn’t even register.  He continues yelling at her.  “Have a nice birthday party without us Cowntess!  GOODBYE!”

Pee-wee hangs up the phone and begins frantically pacing around the Playhouse.  He still doesn’t feel any better about the situation.

“Maybe you could have told her in a nice way, Pee-wee,” Chairry says.

“Maybe I could have.  Maybe I should have,” Pee-wee replies.

At that moment, Reba the Mail Lady shows up with the missing invitations: one for Pee-wee, one for Chairry, and one for Magic Screen.  Seconds after she leaves, the Cowntess knocks on the Playhouse door.  She says that she couldn’t enjoy the party knowing that she hurt Pee-wee’s feelings.  They both apologize.

“I was mad and I just wanted you to feel as hurt as I was.  I’m sorry.  Do you forgive me?” Pee-wee asks.

“Of course I do.  If you can’t forgive a friend, who can you forgive?” the Cowntess replies, and they all head to the party.

Recently I had to forgive someone for something terrible they did, and I also had to forgive myself, not only for my reaction to this thing, but for my naiveté in the whole situation.  I haven’t told this person that I forgive him, and I honestly don’t know if it’s necessary, or if he’d care.  I had to forgive him for me.

Still, as it goes in these situations, the radio silence is deafening.  And so very, very sad.