Jo Day

(Source: likeafieldmouse, via thechocolatebrigade)

I bought a second hand copy of Short Cuts from the book-blanket guy at uni. Six bucks, not bad, and it was clearly owned by someone who had to study it, that or someone who just really likes to write in their books. And I mean, all over the motherfuckers. Don’t leave a page un-scribbled on.

It’s filled with gems like: ‘Cat’s the witness!’ And, should the reader not be aware, descriptive notes like, ‘very surreal passage’ and ‘very dark story’. ‘A man’s story!’ (This was one of my favourites. Does it mean the reader was a woman, or was it a guy who was just stoked that this story was written for his sex?) Another winner: ‘Story, so full of irony.’

It’s usually something that annoys me, reading through peoples underlined notes. I get distracted from the story because I’m so busy thinking, like, don’t you have a notepad, dude? A post-it? Shit, an eraser? But in this case I find it intriguing, because there’s a little plastic envelope tucked in the back page with notes inside, and, despite this, there’s a name that’s been not crossed out of the front page, but cut out. Like, dude, can’t you go over that shit with pen? Have you not whiteout? And also, why cut out your name when you’re going to leave the notes in the back?
But props on the notes:

• Were you prepared for the last paragraph? No!
• Would a male reaction be different to this story? Very!
• Fear GROWS

It’s why I love second hand books. I mean, I love blowing all my pay on book depository (and then spending two weeks staring at the postman with hatred) but they’re so…new. No names cut out. Nothing (what?) going on.

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You may have learned by now that Sociology majors don’t make the best movie dates, and odds are, we Soc majors have probably annoyed our friends on more than one occasion. Those of us trained to think sociologically simply can’t accept anything at face-value, even when we desperately want to. Furthermore, we possess the annoying habit of explaining this fact to others.

You begin to notice times when your family laughs at a commercial while you’re debating the effects of its use of gay stereotypes. Your friends might be moved to tears during a heart-warming drama, but you’re busy identifying the replication of racial power dynamics. And when you get roped into playing dolls with your little cousin, you interrogate a five-year-old about why boy dolls can’t cook dinner, too.

Even if we spoil a friend’s favorite Disney movie, those things aren’t necessarily all bad – and thinking in a sociological style is important. No matter the field you ultimately end up in, there is tremendous value in questioning a presented “fact,” in understanding different viewpoints, and in recognizing the social assumptions existing within the seemingly mundane. Learning sociology shouldn’t be about memorizing solutions to social woes, but examining the world from a lens that aggregates each piece of the puzzle, and seeing the big picture when most do not.

So remain critical of the world around you. The beauty of the sociologically-enthused is that we aren’t know-it-alls with every answer, but we do know, before we accept anything, what questions should be asked.

Doug Hartmann, Is sociology ruining your fun? 

Sociology- making you think really hard about humans for the rest of your life

(via grrrlfoxxx)

(Source: sociolab, via blownhair)

My mum says I’m cool.

Well, I’m gonna tell you.

Gettin’ Austered.

I mean it’s dirty to keep yelling “Digression!” at him when he’s all nice and excited.

(July 14th, 2011.)

I’m finding it incredibly hard to convey myself without using cliches, or without contradicting myself, which makes for pretty wicked characters but some pretty confusing standards that I set for myself and other people, which I’d like to say are higher for me than others, but that would be bulshitting and also a cliché, and so no, I won’t say that, it’s around the same. More and more I’m wishing that speaking were as easy as writing, that you could include parentheses, could have appendixes, prologues, could be endlessly self-referential, mostly at the times when a cliché accidentally comes out. You could just say it without fear because the person you’re talking to could read it, note the asterisks and realise, oh, okay, they’re aware it was a cliché, a rather stupid and imaginative thing to say, but actually they were being self-aware, ironic. (And that reminds me of a line from a character based on a guy I know that I wrote and liked recently: ‘I feel the urge to park and stalk them, have some fun, but it probably wouldn’t go down too well. Ironically commenting on rape culture by stalking women is not something that too many people can appreciate, and yes, I’m thinking it too: I am probably the funniest person alive.) There’re too many words, too many things jumbling to get out even though inevitably it’s always the thing that makes you sound like a bitter, self-centred, overly humorous twat that makes it through all the other pithy, astoundingly clever things that were hoping for their chance in the sun. Not that covering everything all the time with humour is a bad thing. Except for when it’s a bad thing.

I want endless pop culture references, flashbacks, an ability to talk in a way that isn’t linear but is backwards and forwards, forces you to turn the pages, read back and forth, skip back for the correct reference that would help you understand. (If I were more original, less afraid of clichés, I’d utter something about not being written in pen but in pencil. How about, typed out, the curser running just ahead, so there’s always the ability for the author to backtrack, ctrl+s? But I’ve mentioned the cliché now, so now you’re just going to think of me as That Pencil Bitch.) Except that’s impossible, nobody can communicate like that (which reminds me of this guy who was astounded when I said I don’t know how I think, as in, I don’t see images or think of words, I just think, which makes me occasionally try really hard to picture what I’m thinking, form words visibly, which just reminds me of Danny in The Shining and redrum floating out through the darkness, which to me was always the most terrifying part of the book; that moment where he’s staring at the clock and you realise that the worst threat isn’t monsters or corpses but just blackness). Some kind of Minority Report screen – yes, I’m thinking of the movie and not the short story, how deliciously shameful – with the gloves, and the screen, so that I don’t even have to expect you to read anything for yourself, it’ll all be shoved in your face.

Although, really, expressions and inflections do a pretty good job most of the time, raised eyebrows and a bravado I’m-being-a-dick voice to say something that needs to come out regardless of it being a cliché, moving the mask of our faces around in an attempt to portray that we are aware of what we’re saying it, because apparently, for me, saying it isn’t enough, we have to be aware of the implications of what we’re saying.

(And I went to the bakery to buy bread [and the fact that I told you what I brought from the bakery could denote extreme attention to detail or such low self-confidence that I automatically had to specify what I bought, so maybe in some cases there’re instances in which ‘the truth’ should be subjective, and fuck,I’m not even sure why I had to specify] and the bespectacled woman gave me my change, smiled warmly, and said, you have a lovely day now, with such sincerity that the same emitted from me – yeah, I will, thanks so much, I hope you do, too, and as I was leaving, thinking gosh, sincerity is nice, the guy serving the woman next to me said exactly the same thing and elicited exactly the same response and I thought the obvious – oh, laaaaaaaaame – because it was kind of robotic, but shit, even if it was robotic, done a hundred times a day, it was still kind of nice, clichés are still kind of nice some of the time, and if I try to express myself without ever doing what I deem bullshit then I wouldn’t be able to express myself at all, ever, and, dear readers, wouldn’t that be a shame.)

Beep Beep.

Keyholes.

(May 17th, 2011.)

I wonder if you ever get over the fact that you rarely, if ever, completely communicate what you’re feeling, and that people often don’t act the way you want them to, and that what you see as charming others see as irritating. That those fuck-yeah! feelings of connections are often marred by that next interaction you have, which will be filled with …what’s? But mostly I wonder if you ever realise that these missed connections mean absolutely nothing and are not what they feel like at the time, they’re not everything, as if that one joke was just the essence of your character and by them not understanding there’s just no point in ever talking again. In other words, I wonder if you ever get over the fact that you can’t get all that shit through a keyhole (thanks Mr. Wallace) and deal with the fact that, a lot of the time, it’s an achievement to even know what the fuck you’re talking about, let alone anyone else.