I love a lot.

Most of the time I'd like to consider myself a non confrontational person. I mean, inwardly I'm probably one of the most confrontational people ever. Outwardly, though, I keep my mouth shut most of the time. I just have this thing where the anger of other people, whether justified or not (and now matter the level, scares the shit out of me. But there are a few things I will stand up for, and when I do so, I think I do it in a calm enough manner so that I'm respectable. I never want to be the person yelling at someone for what they believe in. But, I will, however, explain my opinion in a calm manner. Tonight I did this; tonight I was proud of myself.

Tonight one of my coworkers asked me some stuff about one of my books. This not only excited me because I'm always happy to hear anyone with the slightest bit of interesting my story, but also because this coworker has been grumpy for the past several days. He's one of those wishy-washy types, who you don't want to be around at all when they're not in a good mood but who are decent when they're happy. The only problem, though, is that he's kind of in a constant flux. And for the past week I'm been having to deal with him be a dick around work because he's been grumpy, and honestly I get that people have bad days, but constantly having to work with negative people is a bit upsetting.

Anyway, as the story goes of tonight. So I was telling him about one of my characters and how the character was gay but eventually gets married when gay marriage is legalized in certain states. It was at this point he said to me, "Um, yeah, can we not talk about that, I think its wrong?" To which, of course, I responded, "What?" He then goes on, in brief statements how it is wrong and he doesn't like it and doesn't support it. The 'it' being gay marriage. The thing is about me, is that I have so many liberal friends and go to such a great open-minded college like Montevallo that I forget I still live in the South, which if you don't know, is probably one of the close minded places you can be. And it just really upsets me when I do realize this.

So I ask him, very calmly, why he thinks this…to which he answers every time that it's just not right. Finally, I get some variation and he says, "Because they can't have kids, they have to adopt." And I'm just baffled, because "Why", I ask him, "is adopting such a bad thing?" I tell a little more, tell him there are hundreds of kids every year who have no families, kids who will never have families. And he somehow comes to the defense of all the kinds in orphanages and says some people can't afford to keep them. To which I answer "Then why can't gay families adopt him?" He tells me that it's wrong and they don't need to be raised in that kind of situation. This statement really gets me, how cruel he was being. But I kept my cool. And why I asked him raised what way, he can't answer, he just shakes his head. And then after a bit he says that it wouldn't really be their kid so it's not as important. And I tell him, "Being together and being in love isn't just about having kids, you know. And I'm to a kid that they adopt, it's pretty darn important that they actually have a family."

He's silent for a bit more and then says that all of earth was started by a man and woman, because it was natural and right, so that's why he believes it. If it was started by a guy and a guy and then he would believe that. I don't say much to that because I didn't feel like getting into the religious aspect of it. I think people being in love and religion are two completely different things, and that religion shouldn't determine who you love. But after a while I ask him something, "I don't mean this is an offensive way. But you know, not that long ago, people would've looked at your parents and said it was wrong." His parents are interracial and he says he knows. But I can tell he's made because he doesn’t say anything and only talks an hour or so later. He asks me if I'm mad that he doesn't believe in the same things as him, he says it with a joke in voice, like he's trying to lighten things up a bit. I told him no, I'm not. I'm just upset because it's 2013 and people still aren't letting people be with who they love.

And it is sad and it is upsetting. And while I'm not really mad at that coworker anymore I'm also not really going to look at him in the same way. I just don't see why people who love each other can't be together. I think love is probably more precious than anything in this world, so why can't we cherish all types of love. Why are there rules and guidelines to follow for an emotion that comes naturally, so instinctually to every single one of us? It's stupid, and it's hurts my feelings. I love so many people; I love all my friends not matter who they love. I'm just tired of so many people being oppressed for simply being who they are.

Fin.
-Keshia

Criss Cross

“I know I'm still young and there's a lot of time for things to happen, but sometimes I think there is something about me that's wrong, that I'm not the kind of person anyone can fall in love with, and that I'll always just be alone."

So let me tell you a story about this book. It currently sits at and has, since I first read it in 2006, in the position of my third favorite book in the world. And as someone who considers herself an avid books reader, being in third place is a big deal. Along with several of my other favorite books, Criss Cross is one of the books that I re-read each year. With Criss Cross it's at the first sighting of fireflies each year. Now sit down, are you sitting? Let me try to explain to you, as much as I can though I promise I won't be even touching on it, how much I love this book.

The most common complaint I have seen about Criss Cross is that is has no plot, that nothing really happens. But can't you see that is where the beauty if at? Lynne Rae Perkins did a fabulous job of capturing life for what it really is. And that is my favorite thing about this story, that it is life, and I think there's nothing more beautiful than reading about a human life. And for people who do point out how simple it is, they don't really see it, they don't really understand the true essence of this book. Criss Cross is such a wondrous piece of literature that is upset me so much that people can't see what's it's really about.

Every little moment in this book is a beautiful little kindling, a little spark, but together it's a fire-something great and wonderful and amazing. Hector's satori and Debbie's wishing, Lenny's brain overflowing with information, and Dan's donkey self, all the comparisons of people that ring so true to life. This books captures the very essence of adolescence, it captures the in between feelings of life. I read this book for the first time when I was thirteen years old and even now, seven years and twenty years old, I can say how much this book still resonates within me. It knew how it felt then and I can still feel it now. This novel is so deep in such a subtle way that it's easy to miss it, easy just like in life. People just don't see how so many seemingly insignificant moments can mean so much.

Now let's talk about the description. The description of this story is so wonderfully written that it melts my heart. It's simple, and not overcomplicated but yet so wonderful. But even it's simplicity you can see everything, you can feel it. And it's all so unique, unique in the way that you just want to take the scene in your head and gobble it up. It's beautiful.

Okay I'll stop rambling now, there's so much more I could say and never really enough. Never enough to show how much this book really means to me and how much it has helped me in life. It's incredible. It has my heart. 

Fin.

-Keshia

Bruises

"Bruises fascinate me, they way they are seem to exist in their own universe, streched somewhere between my vital organs and my top layer of skin.They're like their own dry, desolate purple brown continents in the sea of my skin. 

Sometimes bruises spring up like fresh daisies. I'm taking a shower and I see them there in their new glory, being rinsed under the streaming riveluts of water. These always surprise me, because I'd like to know where my pain comes from. But i suppose they aren't that painful, though, if I didn't feel them when they happened.

Other ones I remember, remember them from the early the early day of when they were newborns, pink packages just blooming. It's because of a mistake I made, a wrong word I said, or a disinterested look I showed. The sound always occured to me first, the dull smack that barely even left an echo. And then the pain, sharp and incessant at first and then the throbbing that seeps into my very bones. I looked down at my arms, at the purple blue mass above my elbow. He had asked about dinner as I reached into the cabinet. I didn't answer quick enough. The door of the cabinet was  wooden blur. And then there was the one on my cheek, alreayd aged and yellowing around the edges. This bruise was an old man, a remmant of a swift punch delivered with a heavy fist.

And then there are the ones I give myself, in the fits of rage, when hot tears are spilling down my chheks. I'll hit my head, my arms, anything. I just don't like the feel of it all. I just want to beat the me out of me. 

Just now, I had looked in the mirror. I saw the bruises, the young and old. My eyes seemed to bulge out of my head, outside of my sunken eyelids. And I couldn't stand, so I smashed my face into the mirror. It was different and more pleasing that being hit. Something peacefull in the echoing cracks of the shattered mirror. 

It's so easy to drown yourself in bruises and blood"

All the time I have these monologues, these little tidbits of scenes appearing in my head. I can never quite capture them and I can never quite tell them where they came from. A lot of times, I don't know what stories they're from, a lot of the times they become stories. I'd like to imagine my head like this, like this massive expanse of characters and stories begging and searching for a way out. They are squirming little things, some of them beautiful, some of them scary. And they are itching to escape. And so I write about them. I think they're really what it's like to be a writer. And if makes me seem insane, the way I describe it. But it's also the way I feel. 

Fin.

-Keshia

The Bell Jar

"If you expect nothing from anybody, you're never disappointed."

The Bell Jar surprised me in a lot ways. First, that I liked it so much, that no; I have come to adore the book so much. I feel like this invisible string of attachment to this novel and myself, and it's going to feel like my heart is ripping out when I return it too the library.

All I can really say about the novel is that it is beautiful; it captures the essence of Esther's depression right down to its very bones. And unlike many novels that embark upon this theme of depression, it doesn't sit there and whine and cry about how depressed it is. It's one of those beautiful works that has the magical trait or showing and not telling, a gift of a true writer. It's the thing, I'm telling you, that all writers need to have to be any good. And through The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath did a fantastic job of it, on more than one occasion I related to Esther. I felt her emotions, I felt her toiling, and pain. And sometimes even her utter lack of emotion. Everything is silent, everything is dead.

And Esther, she's this wonderful character that Plath created. Many say that Esther is based off her own self, and I'd have to believe it was true. The depth to which this character is explored is not something which any person could do, you have to be a person who really knows the character, who really understands her. And it's just brilliant.

The problem with me and stories that I really like is that I often have trouble expressing myself with them, but really, I can say this; The Bell Jar is a wonderful story. Not wonderful in the sense that amazing adventures happen and everyone gets a happy ending. But it's wonderful because it's a story that captures such intense, raw human emotion it's almost hard to believe. It's like reading from your own self or hearing your own thoughts. They aren't just words, but a gripping story that resonates in your very being. And I think above all, that is what makes it so beautiful. Is that Plath's ability to capture this, to capture the hills and rampages of human emotion is a wonderful thing. And it makes for a story worth reading.

Fin.
-Keshia

The Nanny Diaires

"If you're going to do something, darling, then do it all the way."

Sometimes I get in this mood where I want to read books that just aren't going to be really deep. Do you understand? Books that won't weigh on me and cause emotional turmoil, you know where I can't do anything for several hours after finishing but think about the book. I picked The Nanny Dairies looking for a good, light read.

In a way it was, and in another way, it wasn't.

I became a fan of The Nanny Diaries through the movie. Scarlett Johansson played this gorgeous yet down to earth character and I was aboslutly applauding during her speech to the teddy/nanny cam. And of course, when I like a movie based off a work of fiction I must go out and find that work of fiction.

Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus do a very good job her of examining human behavior and putting it to play in a story. The characters range from witty to cold, and all seem homespun in such a way that they are some combination of believable and unbelievable. The story itself is great, there were so many times I was angry, and so many times I wished I could have jumped to Nanny's defense. But I understood her character. I understood why she saw it through. And I really think that's what was so wonderful about this, how it connect you to a character. And then, the closing monologue to the nanny cam is brilliant, wonderfully written. It takes all the things Nanny has learned and understood and puts it in this little neat package.

I will say however, this isn't a book for the detail hungry and description frenzied readers. It's not eloquently written, but still good. It's written simply, in a way that pulls you in and makes you want to read more without rattling your brain too much.

Fin.

-Keshia

Pathetic

Pathetic.

Do you know that's my favorite word to apply to myself? And it's because I really am. I have this ability to do nothing but bad. The hardest part about being positive is attempting to sort through the piles of negative shit I think about myself. And really, not just piles, but mountains. I know they are silly to have. But I can't help it. But I think of it like this. How can I be good when I feel bad about being good? I grew up in such a way that feeling confident with yourself was tagged along with words like narcissistic and selfish. It's playing the blame game, though, isn't it? Because by the time you're twenty shouldn't you have grown out of, or at least had the opportunities to grow out of, the senseless things from childhood that made you the way you are. It's about being tall enough, tall enough to see beyond the problems that keep me bound. And it's like I'm jumping with all my might but not even being strong enough to peek over the edge. And I'm so damn sore and tired. And the 'I can't do it' phrases are crushing me.

Fin.
-Keshia

The Postmortal

"Death is the only thing keeping us in line…"

PostMortal is a complex and unique read that takes a new spin on the 'apocalyptic' genre. Because Drew Margary created a world that isn't teemed with disasters and deprivation but instead one where everyone is young, no one ages, and hardly anyone can die. And it is that, the concept of forever and longevity, which ruins the human race.

PortMortal is a book set in the future, a very near future of 2019 where a 'cure' for aging has been created. It is not immortality; you can still die from murder or disease. What the cure assures is that no one will ever die of a ripe old age; the age that you get the cure at is the age at which you stay. The story follows John Farrell and the sixty years of his life after getting the cure, twenty-nine forever.

This book is brilliant in its deep understanding of what a cure for aging would essentially create. It seems like something fine and dandy but it is not, because as with anything in the world there is controversy, and the controversy around this is enough to tear the world apart. The books gives this away in style, in the several time skips that happens, because while more and more people clamp unto eternal youth the world only gets worse and worse. And it really questions the morale behind, how good is it to actually get the cure. One of my favorite things about this book is that is leaves me questioning, because hypothetically, if this cure was real, would I myself get it? And it's really hard to give a straight yes or no answer. And I think that's what Margary was trying to get at with this book, if you were given the chance to essentially be immortal, would you?

Magary also does a fantastic job in developing the character of John Farrell, because while he does in fact remain twenty-nine throughout the story he is not really twenty nine. Everything that happens in the world, every death that comes upon him, changes him and matures him in some way. And so at the end when he was eighty-nine years old, I really felt like he was eighty-nine years old. Character development in a specific art that can be done so eloquently sometimes that it just shocks you how well a person can write it, can really show it to you, can really make you feel it. To think of this, particularly when his character had the eternal age of twenty-nine, makes him brilliant.

Overall it is thought provoking read more than anything. The style and balance of the story, the way the character grows, it was all brilliantly done. 

Fin.

-Keshia