Law & Order: All You Need To Know About The System

Who doesn’t love L&O?  I mean, come on!  I love all three versions of it, because each has at least one character that I adore and a premise that’s intriguing.  My favorite has to be the original because I adore Jack McCoy, the District Attorney.  I loved the earlier episodes starring Jerry Orbach (RIP); after he died, the people they used to fill his spot couldn’t measure up.  The new cop, though, has renewed my interest.  Law & Order: Criminal Intent is my second favorite because Vincent D’Onofrio is an astoundingly excellent actor.  Following that would be Law & Order: Special Victims Unit only because I don’t watch it as often as the others.

There is one episode that sticks in my mind, bothering me.  I was twittering about it, but I haven’t blogged it yet.  I don’t know what the name of it was, but I remember it very clearly.  I didn’t really like it because the new cop was some bitchy chick I wanted to slap.  By the time I was done watching it, I was speechless, my mindset devastated.

A murderer escapes from death row to say goodbye to his mother (who has terminal cancer) and to get her forgiveness for all the killing he’s done.  She refuses.  This sets him off on a rampage where he takes some kids (10 of them maybe, about ten years old.) hostage.  ONe of the girls’ fathers knows she’s in there and she’s in trouble because she’s diabetic.  The police tried to negotiate.  He killed all of the children.  (I was in shock by now.  They usually save the hostages!  I was like, why?)  So, he goes on trial for murder, but it doesn’t matter because he already had two life sentences for all the murders he had committed.  This woman running for governor comes into the picture, pulling for the death penalty, which is outlawed in New York.  At this point, the father from earlier is distraught, who wouldn’t be after their daughter is killed?  One day, the murderer comes out after his trial and is shot by the father.  The father is arrested for murder.   

The father is being defended in court by the woman running for governor.  Her stand?  “He took action when the state did not act quickly enough.”  Jack’s stand: “He broke the law.  If we exempt him from prosecution, then people will think it’s acceptable to kill all the bad people.”  The jury found the father guilty of murder, even though he was set up by the governor lady to bolster her numbers.

And this bothers me; not that he was guilty, or that the governor was so awful, but how the two views are so…different.  Which one is right?  You can argue both sides.  But, after the father is convicted, the governor lady has been accused of setting the man up to kill the murderer.  The man’s time is reduced, but they’re both put in prison.

I watched this a very long time ago and it’s STILL BOTHERING ME.  I understood the conviction.  You can’t make exceptions to the rule, because then everyone will want to be an exception.  The system woudl fall apart.  But, he did break the law.  I can understand that also.  What bothers me is:  Should the people take over when the people’s government fails?

New Blog, Peeps

I have  a new blog that is totally dedicated to what I love most in the world: literature.  The writing of it, reading of it, I don’t care, I love literature and without it I wouldn’t be who I am today.  Sounds corny, but it’s so true.  I’m just gonna leave y’all a link and go back to working on the blog.

A Writing Curbxstomp

Road Rage

I honestly hate this state.  Nice landscape, beautiful downtown.  I hate the people.  I don’t hate ALL the people, just the majority of the RUDE JACKASSES wh don’t know how to drive.  They keep me in fear of driving on the roads of this state.

Driving on the highway with the family, going to meet the pops for lunch.  Some asshole nearly rearends my mother because he doesn’t know the rules of the raod and then, AND THEN, he flips my mom off.  With a kid in his front seat!  Never mind what he’s teaching his kid.  Who does he think he is flippig my mom off?

If we hadn’t been on 385, if we had been facing each other, feet on the ground, I would’ve broken his nose for disrespecting the woman who gave birth to me.  Hoenstly, half of this freaking state doesn’t know how to drive a damn car.  Pisses me off.  People get mad at YOU for what THEY did wrong. 

How gay is that?

I’m Everything You Hate

I haven’t had much to write about these last few days…weeks…but I was reading a magazine that I got as a requirement, and it made me think.  One or two stories in particular.  April’s edition of Glamour was what I picked up (along with Blender and Elle, the latter has Natalie Portman on the cover and she is GORGEOUS) and I just finished reading through it.  So, now I can tell you about the articles that made me think.

Article Numero Une:  “Single Female Seeks Baby, Now!”
Open Diary article by Jessica Queller, writer for show Gossip Girl

It starts off with a story of how her mother died of ovarian cancer after defeated breast cancer.  This prompts her to get a mastectomy (breast removal) and then a reconstruction.  Both of these topics lead to her “baby-making” plans as she calls them.  PGD (preimplantation genetic diagonsis) is one of her first thoughts, to make sure her babies won’t have the risk for ovarian cancer and breast cancer, but then her ethics tell her otherwise.  I was reading all of this like, oookay, and then the next part is what hit me really hard.  She ends up telling a group that she doesn’t want a boyfriend.  She only wants to find a suitable donor.  Two guys–TWO–offer to be the donor, one actually telling her he’d help raise the kid.  There is a definite awww…factor  there, but then, she turns them both down. 

Searching through some sort of anonymous donor thing, she finds the perfect guy, only to find out, when she was on the verge of purchasing the sperm, that his sperm was no longer available.  She ends up finding another candidate, of course, but after insemination, her pregnancy test was negative.  I was so sad when I read that one pink line showed up.  She wanted a baby so bad, and it didn’t happen.  But, at least she knows that there is definitely one in the near future, right?

I don’t know why, but I had never really thought about having kids that way.  These past few weeks, I have undergone some serious thinking, and some serious changes, and I realize, kids might be a possibility.  I want to experience pregnancy, just like this woman.  She didn’t necessarily want to get narried, but she did want to go through precnancy.  I totally agree with that idea, but it seems lonely to me.  It’s just good to know that you DON’T have to be married to have kids, which has been pounded into my skull with a concrete mallet most of my life.

Article Numero Deux:  “Salma: On Her Lifesaving Work (And Brand-New Baby)”
Interview between Salma Hayek and Eve Ensler, the playwright who brought us the Vagina Monologues

Salma Hayek is very outspoken against any domestic violence, and is very involved in the movement against.  Apparently, she witnessed a lot of it, and being a strong woman, she didn’t stand for it.  A lot of the interview talked about her pregnancy and her new baby, Valentina, but it just made her seem so much stronger.  She’s having a long-distance engagement, raising a baby, performed in the Vagina Monologues, and participates in a movement against domestic violence.  Not to mention she’s gorgeously curvy.

This article was just very motivating.  I’ve had relationship issues–and I’m not just talking about boyfriend-wise–but this time I refer specifically to it.  Both of these articles really showed me that you don’t necessarily need someone to make you whole.  Someone else can make you feel better, but all your self-satisfaction has to come from yourself, because you really do count.

I did a lot of reflecting today, especially after that first article.  I just want to show the world and be like, “SEE!? YOU WERE WRONG! I DON’T NEED A GUY TO COMPLETE MY LIFE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”  I’m not referring to anyone in specific, but I’m referring to some people out there who constantly moan over the fact that they don’t have a boyfriend.  My advice?  Get over yourself.  You’ll get one soon enough.  For me?  Right now, I’m content to love my friends, my self, my new found independence from the general consensus, and my writing.  Because that’s all that matters, right?

Video of the Week

I really like this video.

An Unexcused Absence

I’ve been gone awhile.  On account of having a pretty sucky one half of the month.  I’ve been so miserable that I just don’t get on to blog because I thought I might kill the computer.  Right now, I’m trying to keep myself calm so I don’t start crying.

I have had a pretty hard time.  All that goes on in my house nowadays is yelling, screaming, or crying.  All that goes on at school is uncomfortable silences and dirty glances.  All that happens in my classes is a secluded loneliness in the back of glass, my nose shoved into a paper or a book, trying to drown myself in school work so I don’t think about what my problems are.

I do have to say that my writing has become exceedingly better.  My characters have depth, my story has substance, and it’s completely satisfactory, if I do say so myself.  I tried to use my characters to keep my mind occupied and away from everything.  I got almost 20 pages in two days.  It’s been pretty amazing to be able to write again, like a weight has been lifted.  

You know how bad it gets when I start reading only Meg  Cabot books.  Yep, I have resigned myself to teen novels written by Meg Cabot.  She has to be the most amazing writer in the history in forever.  She surpasses all the other writers I read, because it feels like Meg Cabot has been there forever…

I just wanted to use this last paragraph to wish the troops luck, and to let them know I’m praying for them. 

Have a good night, y’all. 

The One That Saves Me

I am listening to the song “Wonderwall” by Oasis and it’s summing up my mood right now.  If you can even call it a mood.  I just feel…blah.  Like nothing important or urgent is going on right now in the world.

I should be writing right now, working on the final draft of my novel, but I don’t feel like it.  I just want to leave my made up world alone because everything’s consuming me.  It’s overwhelming me, almost.  All I’ve listened to for the past day or so is yelling and crying and I am so fucking tired of it that I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.  Stress is curled up in my bones, eating away at me until I just sit and cry for what seems like hours but only turns out to be maybe five minutes.  What is up with that?

My perception of emotions, time, and direction have always sucked, but this week, it’s like it has gotten worse.  I have begun to look at a lot of my opinions and question them.  Like the marriage and children one.  Ugh.  I don’t want to think about that.  I don’t want to think about my future.  It all looks so dim.  Graduate high school, go to college, get a job, find an apartment, find someone to live with for the rest of my life or die alone  live alone.  Everyone dies alone, I think.  Not to sound skeptic or morbid, but isn’t true?  Death is a solitary path that no one can help you along spiritually.

Neil Gaiman portrays Death as Sleep’s older sister in The Sandman and she is gorgeous.  It’s kind of like a subliminal messaging.  Maybe death isn’t really as scary as some people think it is.  Death doesn’t scare me.  Growing old does.

 

Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don’t believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don’t know how

Because maybe
You’re gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You’re my wonderwall

-Oasis “Wonderwall”

Introductory Course: Who Is Curbxstomp?

My name: Kaelie Curbxstomp
Occupation: Oppressed student/writer/blogger
Dream: To make a difference.

I have begun the record keeping of my life as I know it because of a question a mentor recently asked me:

“The bigger question is: Who is Kaelie Curbxstomp?”

I have been dwelling on this question for days and days.  (Okay, it’s only been maybe three days, but oh well.  I am entitled to my exaggerations.)  Who am I?  I don’t really know.  I don’t think it’s an identity crisis; I think it’s lack of time to think about myself.  You’re thinking “narcissistic” right about now, but it’s not narcissism, it’s “soul searching” but that can be both an oversimplification (I have seen that word twice in one day, so I have added it to my ever expanding vocabulary) and an exaggeration.  When applied to me, I don’t know.

So, on my excursion, I am going to learn about myself, and I will begin by citing what I do know:

• Learning is a number one priority: as a writer, most of my work contains research.  I love research.
• Music makes me happy, no matter what I’m listening to.  I could be listening to “Sleeping With Ghosts” which is probably the most depressing song in the world.  (Note: this may explain my attraction to dark haired musicians…)

• Without writing, I would self destruct.  Even music couldn’t save me.  Paired with this, is my avid hobby of reading.  It helps my writing and my vocabulary.  What’s not to love?
• Family is very important; I think it’s my Italian roots.  Friends often become family in my book, because to me, family doesn’t mean blood relation.  One more thing, these friends that cross into the family territory have warranted my full protection.  I may not look threatening, but when I’m pissed, I’m dangerous.
• Movies are literature that I would disintegrate without.  I took Film Criticism because I wanted to know more about what I loves, and I’m glad I did. 

That’s about it.  For sure, anyway.  A few things are questionable at the moment, but I will explain that when I actually figure it out.  Example: my view on marriage and chilren (mainly pregnancy, in the children area) Both are EVIL (they’re the devil!…for you Waterboy fans) in my book.  But I’m 15 years old.  What do I know?

Ah! One more thing.  Americans have this weight issue nowadays.  I am proud to say that I love me for me.  I am veeery curvy, but I’ve been told–by several guys–that it’s attractive (not necessarily me, but curves as a whole).  I like my body.  I’m 5′5″ and 130 pounds and I’ve never been happier.  I may not wear a Ø but at least I have boobs.  How many of you Ø wearers can sya that?  My point exactly.  I am not insulting all of you, but the ones who have the nerve to tell me I’m fat, is all.  Love you guys, too.

I will be back with more Curbxstomp!

Current Music: “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead

 

Selective Apologies, Reclusive Goodbyes

Listening to Panic! At the Disco’s “Build God, Then We’ll Talk” while writing this.  I feel horrible.  I’m tired, frustrated, my throat hurts from yelling, and my body aches.  It doesn’t get much worse than this.

No one really apologizes with sincerity anymore.  It’s forced words and a strange look when you finish.  We pick what we apologize for.  What will hurt our ego most?  Apologizing or not apologizing?  That’s the question and that’s what decides it.  We also apologize for our opinions alot, because nowadays, your opinions can endanger your life, your relationships, even your job.

I’ve moved around a lot.  I went to three different schools in less than two years, and then I got into high school, so that’s four schools in a year and a half.  I have been in the same school for two years and it’s pretty amazing, because I have friends, I have routines, and I love the house I live in.  There’s only one thing that hasn’t changed:

I still have to say goodbye.

Daniel told me that “People don’t see someone again because they choose to.  You are not forced to never see someone again.”

Partially true.  It also depends on lifestyle, but I truly believe once he’s gone, he’s gone and I’ll never speak to him again.  I may try to keep up with him, but when one person’s doing all the work, is it really worth trying to keep the relationship alive?

Mixed Tape

I am currently working on Daniel’s mix, trying to decide which order I should put everything in.  The first song is “Mixed Tape” by Jack’s Mannequin, and I hope he likes it, because if he doesn’t I’ll feel bad.  *grins* I doubt he’ll hate it thought–or at least he won’t tell me.

I literally ripped apart my library today trying to find good stuff for his mix.  I’m really indecisive about it, because some of the stuff I want to put on there probably isn’t something he’s going to like.  I know some of the music that he listens to and it’s a little bit different from his.  He hate’s a lot of the stuff I listen to, but what one of my guy friends doesn’t?  I put “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers on there for him, and that’s only one that I know for sure he’ll actually like–we had a long discussion about it.

I need to be writing my novel right now, but at the moment, I’m content to be writing about the little things that make my life mine.  Making mixes for example.  I love making mixes.  The only part I don’t like is ripping the song to the computer and burning it to a cd.  Takes FOREVER.  But, when all is said and done, I have fun doing so, because if there’s one thing I love more than reading and writing, it’s introducing people to the music I listen to.  It’s just a good feeling.  Music makes everything better. 

Speaking of making everything better, I need to take Excederin, because my head’s killing me.  I need to start wearing my glasses, because I read for several hours straight on the weekends.  Par example, I spent two hours reading Neil Gaimain’s The Sand Man: Volume 4, The Seasons of Mist.  Although, the headache may be from the paint fumes that I was around while painting shutters today.  I’ll get over it.

Character development coming along for the modern rewrite of Tarot Cards right now.  Ramxpage and I are collaborating on cover ideas.  It’s not going to be very easy.  Once we have sketches and the final designs, I will of course post them.  My friend suggested self publishing, so maybe that way I can choose what the cover looks like.  My character has taken on aspects of my behavior of late, and she’s become really annoying.  To William at least.  I love it.  I’m going to go edit and rewrite now.  Bye!