A response to a facebook status:

What does "Urban" look like? What are some words that describe our generation? What do we wear? What are your habits? Why do we buy what we buy? What do you gravitate towards? What makes thing "Hip?" What do you consume online? I would really appreciate some perspectives. Thanks ahead of time to my fellow facebookers!

i think that we are a genration of followers, attachers. pseudo-independent thinkers. we latch on to ideas and fads and we use "who did/wore it best" to know who next to idolize. originality has been redefined as mere variation of things that already exist. (fbook,twitter are examples.. so are our trends in the fashion industry ). i think that we as a generation in the US specifically have foregone the idea of morality and substituted it for self complacency or impulsive fulfillment.

i think "hip" can be defined as a style of dress. one that includes many layers and or colors. think 80's fresh prince.... but not sure..

i think consumption varies with trends, and with idols as said before. mostly clothes, maybe books...travel

"urban" is synonymous with "hip" at this point. flip open an american apparel/urban outfitter magazine. is what the "cool kids are doing"

roomate sayss...

"awkwardness is our generation's biggest sin" -->im assuming she meant: everything is done as if we are mere actors on a stage. like we mold ourselves in order to avoid not being looked upon as an outsider/rejected.

"in regards to clothes, everyone tries to be different and in that process everyone becomes the same."

yea...we go to DUKE lol

Lol. Good Times.

"FUCK WHAT YOU MEANT, IT'S WHAT YOU MEAN!"

I haddd to put this on my blog.

Excuse the LANGUAGE...it's a little rough.

But it is THE MOVE!

(shout out to DOND & Juh juh juh Johnny).

MY BIG WHOOPS

These two bottles of smirnoff cost me $1,458.00.

(yes...that is in AMERICAN dollars).

SMH.

Dear children...

DON'T DRINK if your gonna be a dumbass and FUCK UP.

which is kinda inevitable if you drink (or maybe it's just me).

Circular argument? YES.

My point? I made a costly, little mistake & you should NOT do the same.

Be safe churrens.

that is all.

Your cool [to somebody].

Lupe tried it. He did an ok job. It’s my turn to give it a go…

What is “cool?”

[throwing up gang signs when u live in the suburbs? wearing glasses when your ass has 20-20 vision? having over $400 dollars worth of tats on your left arm? smoking a blunt before your SATs?Hmmm...]


To say there is one all-encompassing definition is FALSE. Ignorantly false. “Cool” is an idea...that varies from person to person. It has the same basic requirements across the board, but its contents and true composition are assembled by- you guessed it- the individual [try it out: Google the words “cool people” and take a look-see at the random ass shit you get. Proof that cool is either A. highly variable or B. loosely used. Smh].

The idea is based on nothing more than an iconic figurine- or an amalgamation of them. It’s a product of desires that are too realistic and too tangible to be written off as dreams… as something unattainable. “Cool” is crafted as a goal too subtle to be recognized as one; as a prize to embarrassing to openly desire.

So why is “cool” that kid by the supermarket that doesn’t give a fuck? Who watches as life passes him by without flinching to grab it all back?

The answer is simple. We envy that guy. Not for what his future holds or for the actions (or lack thereof) he completes. But we envy that lack of concern. We envy his absolute complacency with things AS THEY ARE.

We’ve become codependent on stress and pain. We strive for some sort of success (as the world defines it) and find ourselves incapable of rest until it is attained. We watch the supermarket kid walk across his own stage, at his own pace, as we let the puppeteers of fame and financial stability parade us across a wooden plank.

At any moment we can become that guy. And we might try his life out. In testing his waters we address our fears. A fear of the alternative of the strings that currently guide us; a fear the unknown; a fear of absolute and utter failure.

Heavy shit right? lol

So the question you’ve all been wondering…

"What is cool to you, Alexis?"

This guy:

Me & my board GO IN on life.

So today was the coolest day evah.

Why? You ask.

Because I had 100% unplanned fun. And all the Type A’s say "AYYYEEEEE!!!"

It’s kinda sad that loitering the fuck out of an abandoned parking lot is ‘fun’ to me but it was!!

After visiting my alma mater and giving a few inspirational talks to some high-schoolers (lol) I took the Avalon and found me a nice lil' parking lot. I blasted the radio, whipped out the board and skated the FUCKKK outta that place.

I busted my ass all of 2983974382389 times. But NOONE was there to see… so it’s like it never happened. Gotta love solidarity.

So I guess the point of this post is to remind you that... my life is COOLER than your life [or at least it has its days].

:]

[[ima sound like a nerd for this one.. but check out the converse gestalt-type image i got up hurr. is my board white? or black? ayyeee! i see you cog.psych lmao]]

Alternative to tears. Part 2

My health is declining. I’m not yet a doctor but I’d like to say that the decline is unnaturally heightened, abnormally omnipotent; and as always ignored. The saying, “Ignorance is bliss” has never -been more untrue. Ignorance, on the part of both myself and my family, is hell- absolute hell.

Literally all aspects of my “health” are victims of the atrophying ways of my life. My body aches; it moans under the duress of each step I take. My lungs reveal a hidden belligerence and aid in the perpetuation of my current state. I cannot breath. It’s irrational and its crazy, but I can’t. There is air all around me and I am full control of my mouth and nostrils, yet something within me, an uncontrollable presence, leaves me starved for air. I look at myself, my physical being, and I regret, and I lament.

There is no silver lining.

My emotional being is in a similar state. I’ve given up on love; now taught to believe it: nothing more than a half-hearted promise made between businessmen. Rooted in a selfish desire to avoid ‘loneliness’ and share the numerous tasks of life that adorn our futures. Even hate, my usual scapegoat, has become nothing: Yet another feeling that mandates care and a conscious cultivation on our parts. If love is nothing more than a mutual agreement, why is it so prized? And considered such a blessing? Is not the one that can complete life and all its tasks without the help of another a greater being? A stronger soul? If one can train himself to love- to forego lust and remain committed, to give continuously with the needs of others in mind- can I not train myself to accomplish more? To surpass the hackneyed requirements of the lover and do more? Give more? Get more? Is independence unable to coexist with selflessness, charity and achievement? Or are those the very factors that create it, and give it strength?

For too long has the fairy tale of my latter years acted as the blueprint to my life. For too long have I bought into the standards and ethos my society has set forth- without question and without appeal. What leaves me broken is not my current refutation of such beliefs. I stand firm in my rejection of such tales and will remain unmoved by any appeals to return to ‘what was.’ My emotional state is due to the absence of a successor; no heir to my former beliefs. Instead there is a yearning for some truth and an insatiable hunger for answers and explanations.
Fuck. I just realized I have yet to curse. And so the latter sentence was my simple remedy.

I mean what is catharsis without inappropriateness- so says society. Yet, isn’t expectation of an action merely a sign of its acceptance and tacit appropriateness? Oh life! Oh cultivated life. How I’ve grown tired of you.

Organic thoughts.

What the fuck am I doing?
That is, where am I going?

Zoning out on my “love.”

Disinterested and shit.
Eyes close.

Mouth opens.
Puddle on my desk where my interest used to be.

Fingers crossed that I make it. Give me four years I’ll fake it.


This perpetual test: of the can and cannot.

Fuck passion.

That proves nothing. Cloak me in white; then I’ll be somebody.

Foregone are the weakness and love and friends. Then- deemed a distraction.
Negligible fraction of what was... is to come.

Young and beautiful.

That she was.
Now dead, commemorated by a statue of gold and status.


I think I hate it.

Absolutely.