Playing Scrabble in Silence

Ok, yes I failed at being wordless, but in my defense I did say that I would most likely fail because I am obsessed, addicted to writing! After experiencing blogging, I just can't go back to just the diary. I tried! I've written about 10 entries in one day...that sounds like a word addiction. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hi. I'm Ivelisse and I am a WORDAHOLIC.

Bloggers: Hi Ivelisse.

Today was a silent day given that I have lost touch with the human race and have fallen out of the sphere of communication due to the semi-disconnection of my phone(can receive incoming call and texts). So I resulted in the thing that i dread more than anything: SELF ENTERTAINMENT! Ok I am cool and all but I don't really think that my company is so spectacular that I just want to hang out with myself. That is pretty lonely. The weather didn't really help either so I just stayed home. I was choking in the wordless air. Silence makes me feel uncomfortable and sort of sad. The thing about silence is that you have too much time to think. Today I just didn't feel like thinking for once, so instead I attempted to embrace the silence and decided to play a nice game of silent Scrabble. How do you play? Basically you don't make a damn sound and keep yourself busy with words in any form.

First I wrote back to Danielle's comment on the blog, so thanks Danielle your the initial reason why I starting playing the damn game. How did anyone expect me not to blog when Danielle made me respond to her comment? It was inevitable! So yes, I absolve myself from any responsibility. You hear that Danielle!!!! I blame you!

Second I worked on my resume and cover letter and applied to like a gazillion jobs! So tiring and tedious and this is the most boring form of word use of my life! I'd like to skip the talk about my credentials as a creative mastermind whom according to my cover letter, yatah yatah "diversified markets...globalization...contribute to your company's versatility..."yatah yatah yatah. Omg! How boring! I did this for most of the day...thinking about committing suicide in the process because none of these jobs were the jobs for me, but whatever I'm broke and currently have no life and I'd like to get a life ASAP. Right about now I'd internship or volunteer just to make use of my abundant wasted time. I wish I had homework...isn't that so nerdy? Oh well. I WISH I HAD HOMEWORK!!! well finding a job I guess is like homework but you graded so much better...MONETARY GRADES...SWEET.

Third, I took out all my fiction and fashion how-to books and learned. I learned about things I already know but could be better at, things I had forgotten and of course, new things. Did you know that zippers weren't used in garments until the 1930's? or how about that it wasn't until the 1980's that celebrities became trendsetters such as Madonna and Michael Jackson? Yep, its true. Prior to that the fashion trends were worn by celebrities, not set. Interesting right? How about that I'm perfectly sane to be so contradictory because according to Charles Baxter essays on the art of writing fiction the discrepancies between desire and attainability is at the core of every great story. Desire and longing is the epitome of my life story. Today I also learned that when removing mascara you must close your upper lids and swiping the cloth or pad in a smooth light downward motion because grinding it can cause lashes to fall out. I bet you didn't know that...Ive been removing my mascara all wrong all these years! awful...I probably have no lashes left.

Fourth, the best part of my day, reading my own stories. I found my folder that I holds some of my stories. Two of my more recent and favorite are "Treasure Hunt" and "The Taste of Ambivalence" and I enjoyed them thoroughly! Actually it reinspired me and it reminded me how powerful my voice is, how potent my WORDS are! How could I ever be silenced and wordless when I wasn't meant for that. I was meant to use my words, no matter what consequences result from them. These stories hit close to home and i started thinking about my story history and what basic trend follows these stories. I found a common thread and wondered what I would call my short story collection when published. I thought about "Blue Collar Blues" but I'm sure I've seen that somewhere. Something original, Adolescent Divorce...nah that's lame and too academic...ok so the point is that I have no idea what I would call my collection, but I do know that THERE WILL BE A COLLECTION! How have I lost sight of my ONLY life goal...I mean I'd like to accomplish more but the one thing that MUST be accomplished is PUBLICATION! I think I have a talent and a gift and what does Spiderman's uncle say again? "With great talent comes great responsibility?" Nah, I definitely got that wrong, but whatever you get the point. I feel like the WORD SUPERHERO! Call me Scrabble...hahaha. The thing that I learned from todays silence, is that alone is when I am most creative, most thoughtful, most inspired. Why do you think I am so profound amongst my isolation in both Tennessee and Puerto Rico? Because it is only when I converse with myself, when I sit and think, that a masterpiece can be created. I remember at school sitting on the couch or at my desk for hours typing away like a mad woman just listening to music and allowing emotions, memories, thoughts, curiosities, questions to completely consume me, creating a new world translated from mind to paper. This is what I do. This is who I am. How could I just forget that?

One of my favorite lines in one of my stories says "It bothers her to know she has the blood of a master knotter but will never be able to learn from him." I have the blood of a master writer...and I will not let that go unnoticed. No. So I will research how one gets published, gets noticed and I will begin my journey as a writer. I may have to be a teacher, a researcher, a secretary, a stripper to make some money but I know that the only career I was made for is Author.

So tonight I write. I feel that tonights story will be an idea that has been marinating in my brain for a while now but I haven't been sure how to organize it. If I had to choose a direction with a title I think I'll call it either "Marlboro Barbie" or Virginia Slims Barbie" or "Barbie smokes cigarettes" or "Smoking Barbie" clearly you get the main idea.

WORDS

WORDS

WORDS

WORDS

WORDS

and no one can silence me.

WORDS: SPELL: G-O-O-D-B-Y-E--leaving it in the hands of God

This will be my last blog in a very long time.

I need a break from words.

Which seems strange given that words are the reason I live.
Words give life to concepts, to thoughts, to ideas.
I have been impregnated by thoughts that invade my mind, torturing me through my days, tormenting me until I give birth to them on paper. After the sweet painful release I am calm again, free from those imprisoning thoughts that can draw me to ruin the very things I love in my life.

I can not help but to wonder why as writers, we over analyze our lives? Why is it that every moment in our lives must play out like a scene, a melodramatic tragedy, like fiction rather than simply our lives? Why is it that writers live in these fictional worlds that they have imagined for themselves, altering it, changing characteristics, antagonists, plot and scene? Why is that I have manipulated the scenes in my life in order to make them more interesting, to fix dialogue and throw in symbolism and foreshadowing for my pleasure, for my writing gratification? It seems that I have created a script, if you will, with a permanent soundtrack that follows my every move and thought.

For once I would like to stop playing god, stop creating these fantasy worlds that i insert into my reality. For once I would like to stop playing god, playing with the rules of nature, forcing love to go as I HAVE DESIGNED IT, rather than the creator himself who has given birth to life as we know it. I can not keep thinking my life is like one of the stories I have written. Yes I am the author of my life story, with the power to narrate the decisions that I make...but what happens when the author takes complete creative control, forcing the story to take on forms that it was never meant to take? When we force our lives to be molded into cookie-cutter shapes, we do not give it the freedom that every story deserves.

A true writer knows that when writing a story you must let it flourish on its own. A real writer sits at her/his desk with ideas, characters, plots and when writing, half way through...even when reaching the end, the writer may realize that the story reshaped itself into a new one. The original concepts are lost in new ideas, and these ideas that were randomly produced by chance, by free will, that is where THE TRUE STORY LIES. I started writing my story and like I've done time and time again, I forced it to go a certain way. I said: "The plot is love. The characters are him and I. The conflict is confusion and doubt. The foreshadowing is blogging. The ending is heartache."

A good writer knows when to abandon a story. We,like parents, must sometimes allow our babies, our stories to run on their own and if they are not successful we must nourish and guide them. But like "tough love" we have to know when to leave them alone until they are ready. Some stories die. We have so much love and dedication to our babies, we have seen them grow from mere ideas and WORDS into full length stories or novels. We started with a character and then create a family. We grow so close to our WORDS that we don't know how to let go.

This story...this scene from my life story...was manipulated until death. Today I will murder it. I will abandon it. Half way through the story I realized that it was going in the wrong direction all along. I was guiding it the wrong way. So now after almost losing something, someone dear to me, I have realized I have to let go of this hold I have on the story. I have to let it take on its own form and hope that the end result is beautiful. I have to have FAITH. Something that I have probably never had.

My WORDS....
Truth, my cyber audience, my WORDS have gotten me in trouble countless amount of times. Because I don't know how to keep quiet...because if I don't let it out I feel like I will die, I release, sometimes word vomit that I have not contemplated long enough to see the consequences of. So for the first time in my life I will not use my WORDS to tell the story, but let the story tell itself.

When I was six years old I wrote my first short story, it was about ice cream. When I was nine years old I wrote my first poem, it was about a toy. When I was ten years old I wrote my first love letter...it was done on crayola art studio and had a fun border and the end it said check the box yes, no or maybe. That first love letter totally got me in trouble. I wanted to show my friends and i put in my notebook and when i reached for it, it was gone. Apparently, the recess assistant found it and she knew my mom, the parents association lead member, and lets just say she wasn't too happy about having to tell my mom that by ten I was already professing my undying love to boys. "She's boy crazy" she said. I begged and promised that if she didn't tell my mother, I would never write another love letter again! Guys...I definitely lied! I've written so many love letters in my day you'd think I could make a collection, "The Greatest Love Letters." I wrote them again when I was 11, and 12, and 13, and 14, and 15, and 16, and 17, and 18, and 19, and 20, and 21. Many were never sent. They never reach my beloveds eyes, but rather are still found in the pages of my diaries or stored away in my memory boxes. Many are just for me to get those thoughts OUT, exit via pen. The ones that do reach the hands of my beloved, in every case scenario, has created an unwelcome drama. And now I perhaps have written my last love letter. Perhaps I have written my last nonfiction story in this blog. I have a tendency to be honest about myself...at the lunch table in high school everyone gathered around to hear my stories. They awaited the fascinating tale of my journeys and escapades of the weekend. What did Evy do now? they wondered. And with notes passed during class or a loud reenactment of the scenario, everyone laughed and gasped and always wanted more. I guess I am accustomed to telling my story, because I feel that my story is the REAL story to tell. Mine, is the greatest story, the most real, the most sincere, the most tragic, the most exciting, the one that I know the best, but the one I understand the least. Because I don't really understand myself or my life, or what this is all about, it is the story I can't stop telling. But perhaps in retelling these autobiographies, I have forgotten to just live it. I have been working on my memoir. I have always wanted to write a memoir. When I reread the written pages, they seemed like just WORDS. How do you do justice to life with words? It seems that i have been living my life on paper, animated and translucent. I am the translator, the mediator between experience and story. Maybe this story shouldn't be told. Maybe this life just needs to be lived. So I am going to exchange WORDS for EXPERIENCE.

I can not be sure if this will last, given that my soul fiends for WORDS. But I'll try and see how loud, how clear the silence can be.

Wish me luck.

Completely lost in "Unusual You"

I am flawed.
I am imperfect.
I am unusual.
I am unique.
I am addictive.
I am addicted.

He is flawed.
He is imperfect.
He is unusual.
He is unique.
He is addictive.
He is addicted.

What are we?
Who is He?
Who am I?


Why is it that we women often lose ourselves in love?
Why is it that we feel that men complete us, give our lives that extra edge to fill the void and lonely nights?
Why is it that most women are either whores(not in the derogatory sense but in the liberating sense) or serial monagomers, but so few decide to be completely single? And if we find ourselves in a "dry spell" it is a moment of depression, vulnerability and rejection? Why is it that we feel less of a woman, without a man?

For once I would like to be completely single and actually enjoy it. To find great company and remedy to loneliness in myself. But starting too early in the game sometimes results in one having trouble deciphering between the self and the self with him.

I am guilty of losing myself in love, rather than finding myself in it. I just lose touch with my own reality and existence separate from him, separate from our relationship. I start to dwell on the us, good and bad,sometimes losing myself in the sweet memories and sometimes the bitter thoughts. I contemplate what I feel and whether not to leave them, that my days become consumed by the HIM in my life at the moment.

History has a funny way of repeating itself, especially when you haven't learned from the mistakes. I have yet to learn that the only way of loving another and being loved is first to love yourself.

I have decided to step back a little from the HIM to find the ME in US. I have to start walking away from something that makes me so happy, from a man who I can spend the rest of my days with because I think I jumped into this way too soon. Have I completely healed from the previous heartache? How can I do this, get to know him when at this crossroad in my life, I don't even know myself. How can I give him what he wants,what he deserves when I don't yet know what I want, what i deserve. I think I've lost track of the direction I was headed in, towards self-discovery and growth. He helps me to love myself better, just the way I am...but I need to do this alone, don't I? Maybe we're just wasting each other's time, getting in each other's way when we have to build our separate lives and then merge. We are merging too soon. Correction, I am merging too soon. He continues his life, goals and aspirations while I have seemed to put my life on hold. When I'm with him I feel like a baby, like his baby. I don't have to worry. I don't have to care. I don't have to be anyone but who I am now, but the problem is who I am now just isn't good enough. I am disappointed in myself for allowing love to consume me again, for getting lost in the high of desire.

But this time I will learn...even if I have to break hearts to learn my lesson, except I fear that the heart I will be breaking will be my own.

Help.

"The Things We Lost in The Fire"

I watched that movie, "The Things we Lost in the Fire," about a month ago. Halle Berry cried so hard for her husband, the kind of agonizing cry that you gasp for air, that you scream a screeching echoing howl, the kind that resonates in your heart...she cried so hard after the fire, after the death, after the memories that I cried right along with her as if my house, too, had burned down. It wasn't until recently did I realize that yes, indeed, my house burned down. I cry for it sometimes; I long for it all the time, but it will never be mind again.

One of the greatest confrontations you will face in life is with your past. And the hardest thing you'll have to do is accept change, move on, and leave that past behind.

I wasn't ready to let go of 2088 and Ryer for a long time, not until February of this year. I realized that those I left behind on Ryer had to stay there, because I left this behind because they couldn't keep up. This epiphany came about with lots of heartach, betrayal and disappointments by both the men and woman i loved...and I guess whom I shall always love...but loving someone and leaving someone may go hand in hand. You can love someone so much that it damages you, that it becomes unhealthy, especially when you sacrifice yourself to ensure their survival.

I continued to cling to these unhealthy organisms, a symbiosis, that at first granted me some kind of benefit and later became blood thirsty leaches, sucking me dry. My friendships and relationships were established around the same block to ensure my connection with my home. I just couldn't leave. I didn't know how.

Recently after a bad break up, the savior of love entered my life, re nurturing me and giving me faith in love, in men, in relationships. How sweet right? Yeah, love that's cool and all...but what he doesn't know is that he gave me such a greater gift. He gave me the strength to leave Ryer for good. He made me want to be better, to start on a new clean slate, to escape the gossip, the reputations and the crippling hold that Ryer had on all my relationships. He made me want more than Ryer; and help to accept that change for the better should be embraced and enjoyed. If it weren't for him, I fear I would have made my way to that familiar zone that ravishes me from integrity, from aspirations, from success.

Now, I can look back with fond memory and simply walk away. I can forgive my mother and actually thank her and I can finally let go. I am free.

Follow the exit sign out

Please make yourself familiar with the two exit signs found in the front and the rear of the venue. Be aware that in case of an emergency, don't panic, but organize in an orderly fashion; identify the safest, nearest and most effective route of exit and depart using this path. Know that while no one wants to face a moment of refuge, life presents itself with unexpected situations in which you have no other choice but to flee to ensure your own survival. Please do keep in mind that no one wants to leave behind love ones, let the familiar perish, replace the comfort of the known with the uncertainty of the unknown, but sometimes when there's a fire, you lose it all: belongings, lives, comfort zones, familiarity, memories...

So all, in case of a fire identify the exit signs and always look forward, never look back...you might get caught in the flames ablaze, igniting memories that burn, that scar you for the rest of your life.

In 2006 I had a fire, a symbolic fire, and my house burned down. I haven't gotten over yet. I don't know if I ever will. But until i seize the flames, it will continue to engulf me into the memories of what was, and what I dream could still be but never will.

I lived in the same house 2088 Ryer Avenue since I was born until I was 18 years old. I never altered locations and left my temple of familiarity until I decided to go away to college when I was 17 years old. It was one of my most difficult transitions and with many tears I conquered my homesickness and triumphed my defining moment. With me away at college, my mother had a few epiphanies of her own, resulting in a series of self meditations that drew her to sell our home. Upon returning for my first semester break from college, the great return home, she, without consideration, discussion or warning informed me on her plans. The next few months my life spiraled out of control, and without proper understanding of the situation I resented her, and resent her still (but let me not get ahead of myself). By March 2006 spring break, my home, filled with boxes, my sanctuary, and subsequently the sepulchre of my heart, was no longer mine. This home that encased my memories, my identity and my security became the manifestation of my sense of abandonment.

I never got to say goodbye.

That March was the last time I would inhabit a place I knew as paradise, evy's paradise, the garden of eve, the first creation in which I was created, where I was risen and where my soul was murdered and left to decay. My mother packed my belongings and I never relished the pain of saying good bye, of crying please don't do this to me, to protest that maybe physically it wasn't home but that years will go by and my heart will forevermore be a prisoner to 2088.

I am a prisoner of 2088. I am bound and gagged and i like it. It continues to control me subconsciously and I want it to, because I just want to go back home.

The following four years after the great fire has been greatly influenced by the burning of my home, of my heart, of my sense of self. I absolve myself from all responsibility given that I became a puppet, a robot, a mindless creature with no sense of existence separate from 2088.

The first summer back....TO BE CONTINUED... "The things we lost in the fire"

Double Conciousness: Flawed Perfection

Today, after a long time away, I have decided to Blog. I've missed it. Blogging serves a great purpose in my life; it allows me to organize my thoughts and ease my sometimes manic unhealthy retrospection and self dissection. So as I faced another moment of emotional and psychological self annihilation and self-loathing, I have decided to blog to once again restore the equilibrium in my life.

Today I laid in bed for most of the day contemplating the series of events that has ensued in the last couple of days. I found myself falling into a familiar routine, the New York ritual that I have come to know oh so well, but continue to want to stray away from. Usual friends, and usual spots and usual addictions and dependencies like alcohol and love. I wrote a story once that used the motif of Hennessey throughout as a symbolic representation for love, for the man I loved. I whole heartily believe that the intoxication of both a control substance and the intoxication of the heart exist on similar leveled planes. Being drunk and being in love function like synonyms for one another, for I know that when I am intoxicated by either alcohol or love, I see through similar fogged lenses. My vision and thoughts are clouded by an unknown, unexplainable, crippling entity that transforms me into a slave, into a puppet, into a vulnerable creature at the mercy of her master. I've been doubly intoxicated many times before, actually, my previous relationship played out like a series of double conscious episodes. I was always intoxicated... and towards the end I could not go see him unless I was drunk first. This dependency helped to further impair my vision of who this man really was. This stranger who I thought I knew, was masked by the haze of alcohol and love. I was playing out a role, becoming someone I was not, and performing a "relationship" rather than having one. In the throws of passion I imitated, I read a script, and acted out his favorite monologues from his pornographic fantasies. In a drunken stupor even the greatest flaws are perfect; for when you are drunk ugliness is beautiful, ill hearts are tender and pain becomes pleasurable. Isn't this the truth for love as well? When we love we no longer see the realities before us, but create fantasies, perfected versions of our raw realities in ways that are more gratifying, that are easier for us to consume.

I had lost who Evy was through this double intoxication and it wasn't until one night I couldn't remember my lines, did the thick choking fog clear. Finally, I could see who he really was, and who I had become.

And so last night when I found myself in a similar situation, it made it more difficult for me to freely indulge. I don't want history to repeat itself. Nor do I want to forevermore live my life in a drunken stupor, rather, I want to free myself from the confinements of inebriation. I will not solely love when flaws are perfected through Hennessey. I want to see him through clear lenses, and I want his perfection to be natural and consequently flawed, for all things in life are flawed, asymmetrical, abstract, irregular, jagged and subsequently BEAUTIFUL. Yesterday will be the last time I result or depend on Hennessey to love, to accept, to see beyond the physical attributes of a person. I saw him yesterday and he was immaculate. I saw someone who in my alcoholic sobriety and my love intoxication, was the epitome of flawed perfection, and I loved it. This is all I want. This is all I ask for. This is all mine. So I will push the Hennessey aside and let love fill me with its natural toxins and fall into a wistful coma, into lovers' malady and Petrarchan sonnets and bliss.

The Heart of the Matter...FORGIVENESS

Once and a while you put your ipod on shuffle and you encounter a song that you forgot you loved, a song that you forgot you owned, but most importantly a song that you needed to hear at that very moment. The ipod must read minds, there is no other explanation for the shuffle phenomenon.

Today I went on the top of my roof and starred at the beautiful green serene scenery, feeling the tranquility of the blue dynamic waters that are found near my home in Puerto Rico. The scene was immaculate, beautiful, so beautiful you want to cry. How can nature be this beautiful, I wondered. Nature is amazing in the way that it is constantly dynamic, ever changing, even stagnant waters seem in motion when reflected against the rays of the sun. People never change, you know that? But nature, nature is evolution. I like this about nature. I wish I could evolve...and I guess that's exactly what I am trying to do at this point in my life. I am trying so hard to evolve, to change, to become a better version of myself.

Today I allowed myself to reflect on the past month, past few months actually, and allowed myself to hurt one last time. I played all my meditative music, which are by both Mogwai and Sigur Ros(I suggest all to check these artists out. They are phenomenal, probably would have to say my favorites. They are profound and beautifully tragic, and each one open to interpretation and appropriation.) So I sat for a while looking up to the sky, the clouds forming, moving, traveling through space...and I cried. It was this gratifying release that I didn't even wish to understand, some things are better left vague, misunderstood, a mystery. One of my good friends has told me that she sometimes enjoys her pain and allows herself to be swallowed by it once and a while, and this while sounds perhaps a little unnerving, is completely normal and completely satisfying. There is this guilty masochistic gratification that comes from being hurt and sad, and of allowing yourself to be consumed by it. There is nothing wrong with this. I truly believe that everyone, especially women, have a very masochistic nature. While we women complain about how men hurt us, or friends betray us, or any other problem, it is LIBERATING to hurt. When you allow yourself to release, to experience the pain of the heart, you become completely vulnerable to your emotions and succumb to the feelings. To experience emotion with the loss of all inhibitions and self-judgement, that is a truly beautiful experience, probably one of the greatest a human being can feel. Our rationality prohibits us from getting loss in just being, in existing, in our different states of self, and state of mind. So today, I reflected and meditated on my existence, on my sense of self, on my heart. And when you let your heart hurt, bleed, die...you are able to be resurrected. Today I was reborn.

And when I came back to life, I decided to put my ipod on shuffle and there, at the right time, "The Heart of the Matter" by India Arie.

"I've been learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning them again
I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore....

All the people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; cause life goes on
You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside
I want a happily everafter
And my heart is so shattered
But I know it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore"


So today I let it all out, all the pain and hatred and I forgave him. Because I cannot move on unless I forgive him. Sometimes we can't explain why things happen and why those whom we love are the ones to abandon us, to betray us, and to hurt us...why those we love the most, can't ever love us back to the magnitude in which we love them...but at the end it is a matter of life. I want to keep living my life and loving it, and as I forgive him and release all the negative emotions, I am able to make room for other emotions like happiness, tranquility, and bliss.


IT'S ABOUT FORGIVENESS...

Confessions of a Shopaholic, Schizophrenic fashion...

Through the grace of pandora.com, the source of my novel musical consumption I encountered Lady Gaga's "Fashion" and have been obsessed with it. I have been striking a pose like Benny Ninja, on my pretend runway that I created with my majestic purple yoga mat. I think "fierce" strike a pose---1920's flapper and androgyny, 1940's pin up girl, 1950's housewife, 1960's mod hippie, 1970's punk revolution, 1980's Madonna, 1990's gender bending. I have multiple personalities and every day I wake up and say "Mirror Mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all? Who am I today?" I travel through time, from reality to fantasy, from ancient civilizations to futuristic worlds. My fashion is schizophrenic, my fashion is bipolar, my fashion is the reinvention of self. In the world of fashion I am god, I am creator, I am inventor. They say fashion is shallow, an imitation of idols, that it is all a fad, but my fashion allows me to be undefinable and boundless.

Picture it: Deep purple satin pencil skirt, neck ruffled cream blouse, with black trim and tied in a bow, with a brocade wide collar cropped swing jacket, black fishnet stockings with back seaming, Purple suede Chinese Laundry peep toe pumps with archaic gold squared buckle, hair rolled in traditional pin-up girl fashion with some finger waves and to top it all off a mini cocktail hat hair pin with short veil covering one eye slightly.

Picture it: black petticoat, purple racer-back tank, pearls in different sizes and shapes, flowered Steve Madden sandals, hair untamed, wild, and natural.

Picture it: High wasted tulip brown satin skirt with pewter colored polka-dots, white v-neck t-shirt tucked in, cream peep toe pumps, 4 layered pearls around the neck and wrist, pearl earrings, gold nerd-chic 1970's glasses trimmed with tortoise pattern, and hair in a modern interpretation of a bee-hive.

Picture it: Hair slicked back in a fauxhawk with a hair puff on top, a green tutu with small raised velvet polka dots, black skinny jeans, dark smoky eyes with thick eyeliner extending like the Egyptians Eye of Horus, pewter neck jewelry that covers the entire neck- interpretative art piece of bondage, and snake skin Vince Camuto peep toe pumps with a geometrical cut-out heel (I have a thing for peep toe).

Like Lady Gaga sings, "Fashion put it on me. Don't you want to see these clothes on me. Fashion put it all on me. I am anyone you want me to be. I am anyone you want me to be"

Today I was a soft punk kid, a summer dress with circular shapes in gray and gold, with gray and gold chucks, knotted pearls and a half bee-hive puff...Tomorrow, tomorrow, I feel like a teacher...a yuppie, maybe a gray cotton-tweed pencil skirt, a blue, gray and black argyle sweater vest and black buddy holly glasses...Yes, maybe I will be a prep tomorrow...

So now that you have taken a trip into my world...you can see how this mode of self expression can perhaps be a very costly one!

So here are my Confessions of a Shopaholic (collage fiction piece): Each section has a subtitle that sums up the main idea. The whole piece works like a puzzle to create an entire story, more details about how the piece works as a whole is found at the end.

“They tried to make me go to rehab…I said no, no, no.”

I’m at the mercy of the high of conspicuous consumption and the thrill of buying just one more. I always say it’s just one more hit until the high is gone. I throw it in the closet tags and all and browse online for yet another item. A click away, my spontaneous desires are satisfied.

Please. Just one more hit.
My mother keeps telling me that I need to go to rehab, but I keep telling her “no, no, no,”

I’m not in denial.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hi, my name is Ivelisse and I’m a shopaholic.
All Respond: “Hi Ivelisse”

11 more steps?

I’d rather keep shopping.

Walking On Air:

The air is electric, the wind like waves of current running up and down my body, recharging me. It’s not like this everyday, but today the voltage has so much energy it leaves me restless, numbing the tips of my fingers. When it’s this bad I try to shake the feeling, but I can’t find my way through the empty space. I can only see the electricity dancing in the wind like the inside of wires, like cyberspace. I close my eyes and the light attacks me like meteors, catastrophic ink blots that stain the inside of my eyelids. I in vision them like crystallized eye shadow, I want to paint my eyelids like a peacock. In my other life I was a peacock, beautiful and exotic and terrifying. I think there are trees and parallel-parked cars and tall buildings that are tired of being so tall all the time, but all I can see are millions of Nanoparticles and megapixels. I look down at my numb fingers, this is what I look like in a photograph. I think I’m inside of a digital camera. I want to be in high definition but I haven’t evolved that far. I feel abstract like the distorted street that breaks apart into perfect asymmetrical shapes, like Tetris pieces, like Pez candies, like fantasies.


Credit Crisis:

"The Credit card industry sends 2.5 billion solicitations each year and in the past decade there has been a sharp increase in credit card use, increasing consumer debt and personal bankruptcy. Survey data show that many people are in denial about the level of credit card debt that they have, on average underestimating by a factor of two."

Life maxed out:

I’m not in denial.
I’m all about that instant gratification, and that plastic-goodie grants me immediate satisfaction every time I need a quick fix.

“Credit please”
“Miss, your card has been denied. Would you like to use another one? Or apply for our store card?”

“Sure, why not. What’s one more?”

I’m living my life maxed out anyway.

Painting Self-Portraits:

Willie Wonka made that pond, I’m sure of it. In the middle of Urban America, there it is a paint pond. The pastiche of colors I have seen before, the light beams over the colors like a kaleidoscope. My head is spinning, the colors blending, the kind of fusion you see when turning round and round in Alice and Wonderland Tea Cups. I met the Mad Hatter once. And he gave me this top hat, but I added a black widow’s veil. It was theatrical so I cried. Four leaf clovers bloom by the mossy edge of the pond, and Shrooms that while sitting on intoxicate me. This must mean there are pots of gold at the end of this rainbow, but I can’t find the leprechaun. The fountain sculpted in the shape of Coco Channel spews shocking pink from her wrists; she invented the term shocking pink and majestic purple and royal blue. I know this; I travel through time. I want to swim in it, but ask myself WWCD---what would Channel do? Then I dive in. I’m Pink. I’m a Flamingo.

Recession:

"In the fall of 2008, the credit crunch, which had emerged a little more than a year before, ballooned into Wall Street’s biggest crisis since the Great Depression. Hundreds of billions in mortgage-related investments went bad."

A Great Depression:

Anomic suicide:
Anomie is a state in which there is weak social regulation between the society's norms and the individual, most often brought on by dramatic changes in economic and/or social circumstances.

Cymbalta: Because if you can’t shop-it away, you can drink it away:

Shopping is the rich man’s therapy, but now that it has become the poor man’s as well, these therapeutic sessions have lead me straight to a therapist.

“Doctor I can’t sleep at night; I’m in debt.”

“Oh and Doctor, I can’t sleep at night I keep thinking about those shoes, I need them.”

And all he says is, “well then this sounds like a job for CYMBALTA!”

“Ohhhhh my hero!” I sigh.

They say Cymbalta cures the pain, because…
what does the commercial say?

“Where does depression hurt?”
Everywhere.

“Who does depression hurt?”
Everyone.

I’m hurting, ouch, these new shoes are way too high.
How do I break them in?

I’ve got Cymbalta, one addiction substitutes another, I’m not good at math but I think this cancels them out. The transitive property? I failed Algebra though.

I heard Cymbalta can help me budget myself, but that’s not FDA approved.

I thought about suicide, fashion-suicide, oh that’s so tacky. Suicide is definitely a fashion faux pas, Vogue said so on the Do’s and Don’t section. Poor, Isabella Blow.[1] She went suicide-shopping. The new trend, it’s all up and down the runways.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Blow: was an English magazine editor and international style icon. The muse of hat designer Philip Treacy, she is credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl as well as the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Toward the end of her life, Blow had become seriously depressed and was reportedly anguished over her inability to "find a home in a world she influenced". On May 6, 2007, during a weekend house party at Hilles, where the guests included Treacy and his life partner, Stefan Bartlett, Blow announced that she was going shopping. Instead, she was later discovered collapsed on a bathroom floor by her sister Lavinia and was taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, where Blow told the doctor she had drunk the weedkiller Paraquat. Blow died at the hospital the following day.

Clowning-Around:

There’s a tent on Fashion Avenue. You can surely find anything in New York City. I met the ringleader, and she told me to stop by.

“I like your style” she said.

I always wanted to be a clown. She painted my face mate white, with ruby lips and black Egyptian eyes with feathered eyelashes, like the eyes of Horus, I almost flew away. My cheeks powdered pink, what a doll she said. Sometimes I’m a doll, a baby doll.

The tent was not the typical festive adornment, but a carnivalesque image, grotesque Mardi Gras, a dark Gothic castle.

“Here, put this” she said, and handed me a studded leather choker.

I always wanted to be a punk-rocker.

“Now perform” she said.

I really like my costume.


Economic Rescue Plan:

"Almost a year since the credit crisis exploded and 14 months into one of the worst recessions of the postwar era. this administration has presented a budget plan that charts a path to achieving to sustainable budget deficits in the medium term, so that recovery is not impaired by concerns about excessive government borrowing in the future. The Obama administration indicates that it will inject $800 billion into the U.S. economy by the end of next year, pushing its budget deficit to a record-high. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office predicts the national deficit will hit $1.8 trillion in 2009. The administration is determined to bring spending under control in the coming years. We need to live within our means, and that is going to require very substantial adjustments to bring our resources and expenditures more into balance."


Transfusion:

I gave America a referral.

I think they need Cymbalta.



This is an experimental piece called a collage story. Each section is labeled a relevant title and is comprised of a little reality, a little current events and a little fantasy to create a whole unified story through the use of collage. If any of you feel inspired to, let me know what you read this piece to mean as it works as a whole. Hope you enjoyed, this is one of my more abstract pieces!

Symbiosis

Sorry all, the sins have been terminated in order to reflect on symbiosis, catalyzed by a very current event in my life...umm like an hour ago...

Symbiosis is defined as a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence. This term is often used in biology to describe a relationship between two dissimilar organisms, of which one is usually a bacteria or fungi of some sort...have you ever been a bacteria? Has fungus ever grown on you?

I have had bacteria feed off of me time and time again, and I too have fed off of my share of the human species. The more I think about, all my relationships have been symbiotic in more than one sense of the word. It seems that we are all guilty of using each other in one form or another and this may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Think about it...

A few days ago I met a guy who for a brief moment in time, made me forget all the hurt that I was going through. Today in particular was a phenomenal day filled with so many smiles and so much laughter, that I almost forgot how broken I was. It was not that I was necessarily romantically interested in this guy, but he reminded me that there can still be chemistry between me and another and that there is a life after love. I didn't believe Cher, as I waved my hands frantically in the air and rehearsed the lyrics, tears streaming down my eyes, but today I had faith in her words. Damnit Cher! You were right! And after an afternoon and evening of great conversation, there was the key question..."are you seeing anyone?" "Yes," he replied. It was not that I wanted more than friendship from him, it was the fact that i had a moment of dejavu and I didn't want my life to replay the same way it has for the past 7 years. I have awaken from a coma that has impaired my self growth. I don't want to be the same person I was years ago, nor do the same things I once did. I will no longer be the other woman, nor will I be the home wrecker. I have done this time and time again with no remorse, but today it ends. I want to be a better person. And I want so much more for myself...so I'd rather not put myself in the situation where again I will be the old evy. So instead I walk away for my own dignity, my own growth and to finally be the woman I always wanted to be, a self-dignified one.

But, like I said, I would start looking at my glass half full, rather than half empty... so what does this guy and this experience serve in my life?

Well the thing about the journey of life is that people will continuously enter and leave your life, and you just have to accept that each individual serves a significant purpose in your life. Some are there for a lifetime, but most will creep in through the cracks surprisingly and then with such profound brevity, exit. The main thing is to contemplate and be grateful for the symbiosis that takes place between the individual and yourself. For when their function is fulfilled they can no longer sustain their place in the grand scheme of your life.

So I met a guy...who gave me the gift of hope. I had lost all faith. I was bitter. But because of him i remembered to smile, to laugh...I remembered how to flirt and was reminded of how much fun it was, and how good I am at it. So thanks Mr. anonymous aka Mr. CEO. I just hope that my presence in your life even if brief, provided you with some kind of benefit, for in the game of symbiosis both must receive.