faithrhyne@gmail.com

show details Jul 25 (3 days ago)

Well – it seems that I have – perhaps – somehow confused people? Or something?

Maybe they think I am just some ordinary girl who is playing a joke. It would probably be helpful to my project (s) if the people who DO know me would – if they decide to help me fund my little DIY book – would perhaps inform those vast numbers of people that DON’T know me that, Yes: I am real. Yes: I am remarkable. Yes: I am, at times, totally baffling. Yes: My heart REALLY is made of worthless gold.

faithrhyne@gmail.com

show details 8:23 AM (8 hours ago)

Now this is totally weird –

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An ordinary person might be offended, or somehow hurt…

Really – one would think that someone may want to offer me some sort of acknowledgment…

I mean – I asked for help in understanding why my HP mini sounds like a damn tape in a blender.

I showed you my back – because it’s a good story…

And the interesting thing is this: not only is nobody backing my DIY bookmaking project on kickstarter, which is totally legit…I mean you can see for yourself – right?

Why should an asshole like James Frey get support for his TOTALLY SELF SERVING lies…(Remember James Frey…the guy who ruined narrative non-fiction re: the important stories about mental health in this country…because he lied.

That guy should totally back my kickstarter project.

The thing that is most interesting about this is that nobody seems INTERESTED…

I don’t know enough about technology to fake anything. It hurts my feelings to think that the world has become suspicious of real people…

I think I have solid proof of several things:

Clouds can be the same twice.

People are jaded as hell.

I am even more on my own than I ever imagined.

Which is okay – because I suspected as much…

Proof is a good thing to have. The only problem is…what to do now?

I guess I will just keep documenting. I am still fascinated and only a little bit hurt…

I am, after all, used to this sort of thing…as this blog attests…

Maybe I’ll change the title to: Figuring Faith: Testimony

I have done what I was supposed to do…and it shouldn’t add up to this…

I think I might have a bit of a chip on my shoulder after all this is over…

Why – after all – should I bother worrying about silly old humanity when – clearly, people are BYE AND LARGE (pun intended, fully)

just not worth my goddam time…you know what’s awesome:

I have proof that the internet realm is a pawn…and that people shouldn’t waste their time trying to make real friends in a fake world…

The sad thing is that – at this point – I am just really not feeling inclined to go out and assist anybody…

besides, who watch the clouds for me?

Which sucks – ’cause the people I have always been trying to help – as evidenced by my resume and choice of academic pursuit…well, they’re forgotten in the social networking realm as well…

The problem is we expect other people to take care of things that are our responsibility –

I have asked my folks to watch the kids a lot lately…because I am a little distracted by the culmination of this weblog project…and the dog pile of unexpected ideas and realizations that have come from this endeavor and all it’s tangential projects…and I know it is seen as shirking to have them spend the afternoons @ my folks…but, it’s not. It is good for them and good for me.

I am a pragmatist, remember?

See, the bottom line is this…

I am proof that you can drop out of high school and still get into graduate school…eventually:)

I am proof that – even for white girls, even for smart girls, even for nice girls, even for shy girls gone brave, even for strong girls, persistent girls, even girls who are a said to be beautiful but who cares because beauty is worthless…clearly.

I am proof that the world is harder to reach than we thought. Which is sort of concerning because what if someone had something important to say?

What if there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are asking, pleading, really – for help…and nobody hears them?

And the thing is…it is a dangerous illusion that the internet is a place of free dispersion of ideas and that it is a forum to reach people in an unbiased way…

I went ahead and set up www.dressrlcwithdignity.blogspot.com

I’ll email the editors of the local papers and ask them to please tell folks that I am providing an open forum for the discussion of the issue because I am interested in what the community thinks about the issue of inequality and school uniforms.

I really am interested. Do people actually give 1/2 the damn they say they give…or is it all smoke and mirrors?

Any experiment is about the introduction of a variable. Here, I am that variable.

Good thing I know enough about science that I can intellectualize all of this and now – by the end of this email to myself – I have found that I am still driven to try to communicate with people. I feel like there are lots of nice people out there…and I think that a lot of folks are getting ripped off.

But – still…what to do now, what to do now…

Get up from the porch and go inside, plan to make biscuits for breakfast…try to get this posted before the day starts for real, i.e. When the kids are awake and loud…

Thank goodness the internet is not all I am relying on…I’d be dead.

And that – my friends – is the point. By focusing so much on media and corporate sponsored portrayals of life as we know it…well, we are missing the opportunity to see the world as it truly is…

And I think that hurts a lot of people.

FYI: I haven’t voluntarily watched more than about eight cumulative hours of television in the past five years…I didn’t decide to stop watching…I just didn’t have time to…and it seemed pretty dull and pointless. I understand how people end up watching and watching and watching – I have gone through periods of fairly intense program addiction – and it was not the quality of the program (simpsons re-runs at 5? Beverly Hills 90210 every wednesday night, alone in my apartment with my punk rock records and my unringing phone?) But the fact that is was there when it said it’d be there and that it asked nothing of me…

I am glad I have found a better friend in myself and my mom-ness and my animal family and my yard…

The big things I know by glancing at headlines, I still have a subscription to the New Yorker and sometimes I read more than the fiction and the comics and the sidebar ads…for private psychiatric hospitals and fine art and jewelry and towns in NC and New England…

And so, yes, I know the world has money…the New Yorker costs 6 bucks now at the newsstand. That’s insane – a weekly magazine that costs six bucks…

Things cost too much. The economy has become highly conceptual and we have turned wealth into a binary code that has no worth OTHER THAN WHAT WE ASSIGN TO IT…

I don’t know enough about economics to understand how adjustments to the value of a dollar work, etc.

But it seems like we could level the field a little…things cost too much and it is insane the way corporations are preying – now more than ever – on vulnerable populations, the middle class is fractured as disparate and the have nots have become – for all practical purposes – the ARE NOTS…

Meaning that when people disappear from media, they tend not to fare well in real life.

I am not talking about myself. I am talking about the vast numbers of people who are relegated to the sidelines of the bland black-and-white newsprint that nobody reads…and that their faces are rarely shown and when they are it is with pity or scorn or holiday smarm.

And we, the people, have left it up to schools to fix the problems…

I am not talking about middle class America…there are plenty of people who are working tirelessly to sustain forgotten communities and

to try to clarify the confusing mess we’ve

made of the world…

And they put their work online to give evidence to traditional funding sources that they are actually doing something…

But, by and large

Nonprofits and activists are spending precious energy and funds to try to prove they are worthy to get underfunded.

Which is a huge frickin’ waste of time.

The thing I don’t understand is how ATandT can spend a shit ton of money on a full color back page ad on the New Yorker and not even photoshop it well…two left hands? The same paper cut accented by costly washable art with religious connotations. What a weird freakin’ ad. I could have come up with that…

And it probably cost a fortune.

The people who are paying for this shit need to pony up. Hollywood liberals need to give more. Really – ya’ll should be ashamed to be living so high and mighty and having people come to the theatres and spend their HARD EARNED money to watch you take off your clothes and blow shit up. That is just wrong. Cause they walk away with a hard-on and a very confused and popcorn-sick kid, thirty dollars more poor, and you – you walk away with 2 million fucking dollars.

That, my friends – and this comes from a girl who has, in her time, seen some mighty baffling shit –

Well, it is truly bewildering.

And the reason I can’t relax and have fun and go buy shit is because this sort of bloated plastic misappropriation of US dollars just seems so unnoticed. It is surreal to watch a youtube about Chernobyl and then go to the grocery stores and see all the cans lining the shelves and it all bright plenty and choice…and I don’t want any of it, really…

I think I might have slipped into a hunger strike. I eat, but I am not hungry…

And the thing about a true hunger strike is that the striker likely cares nothing for food anyway…they are not hungry for food. It is likely that they are relieved to simply give up for a moment the pressure to fill your mouth with sustenance that is hard to swallow.

The striker is simply saying: look, watch me become thinner and thinner…

It is sad that the brightest hearts among us are pushed to starve and will gain recognition only after they invite the world to watch them disappear…

That is sick. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. That we will listen to some of the worst and overfunded socially ABUSIVE music in the history of humanity and we will PAY for it and go crowd arena’s for a hundred bucks a pop…just to say we were there…to feel the presence of sound and crowd.

Damn, people. Don’t ya’ll get that this shit is a rip-off?

There are thousands of amazing small theatres everywhere and people are putting their heart and soul into presenting something meaningful…

Their are some AMAZING local bands out there…AMAZING. If you’re in Las Vegas go see Kid Meets Cougar…cool multimedia music project. Send me the money you save skipping the casino:)

If you’re in Huntsville, AL – you should check out my brother and his friends’ really awesome DIY theatre project…which, perhaps if he’d call me I could ask him the name if it and let ya’ll know. 828-545-8321

If you’re in New York, go to some tiny theatre you’ve never heard of…they’re more interesting than Broadway. Check out the Indie Rock Musical of Hansel and Gretel that I am a small backer for on Kickstarter.

And way less stuck up…

Speaking of – the arts “community” if it is anywhere near as cool as it seems to think it is will get its head out of it ass and start welcoming real people into it. Don’t tell me you do. I have plenty of unrequited emails and imposing applications for recognition and proof of RACIST barriers in Big Art…

Don’t buy their shit. That’s dumb. And if you do pay someone 10,000 dollars for a painting at least ASK what they are going to do with the money – if it has anything to do with boating, well: I’ll paint you the perfect painting for 5,000. The painting of your dreams…if only you’d share them with me.

See, I am dreadfully unconnected and it’s true that I have severed some connections…but, not so much – a lot were frayed to breakage or wholly illusional/circumstantial anyway.

I don’t know if ya’ll imagine me as some fun-loving pretty girl who is going to snuggle up to some dude and fall asleep tonight or go out with my friends and blahblahblah…

I’m not. I don’t. I can’t. I have not.

Ask anyone who actually knows me…

And because I have removed myself a little from it all…been edged out/edged myself out…well, I feel like I have a pretty unbiased perception of the situation…

I have been Big Media free for a long time.

For well over a year now, I have been pretty much Beer free and totally Sex free. Not because I sat down and decided to be so…it just sort of happened…except in the opposing sense of that phrase’s usual usage…meaning: it just sort of DIDN’T happen.

I need to go make breakfast for the kids. I am a mother. And I am not hungry at all.

And, unlike most American mothers, I am not trying to lose weight. At this point…well, I am struggling to keep it on.

And it sucks. Because I am real. And all of this is true.

I think it’s time Big Hollywood pony up. I want at least ten famous actors or actresses to send me at least 2,000
before this kickstarter project ends.

I need to buy some staples and get my sewing machine repaired.

Seriously – fuck it. Ya’ll need to walk all that shit that you talk. You want a beautiful goddam mind. Here. You want a goddam girl interrupted. Here.

You want something to talk about. Here.

I am serious. I want 20,000 dollars from hollywood. I am not going to harm myself or anyone else. I have CHILDREN, remember. Which is what is SO hugely fucked about all of this.

Ya’ll have skewed things so terribly that the world, and MY. OWN. TOWN. and MY.FAMILY.

Well, they don’t know what to make of me. They never have and they always said they did, but I didn’t think that they did and now I know it’s true.

it is okay…as long as people are realistic and honest about what they can and can’t do…and proactive in making things the best they can be, regardless of how it looks from the outside…

You hollypeople all seriously fucked up MY WORLD with your stories. Perpetuated lies and cliche and sap about real truth and real pain…and real death…and real sex with real consequence…

Ya’ll should be ashamed of yourselves. Angelina, you – girl interrupted, who tries so hard to be good and really probably very much is…you understand the hunger, I know. Because of all you already do, you are exempt from the full request…but, you did, after all just make 2 million dollars for SALT…2,000 is what? One fucking percent of that. Yeah – I think I definitely want 2g from you.

Goddam, what is wrong with this world…that all the good people are starving…and paying to starve.

This is some sick shit.

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The nice thing about this kickstarter project is that – although I am clearly don’t seem to be disrupting the global economy by funding my book…or not funding my book as the case may be.

I have on day two, a total of three backers and 17.00 worth of pledges. I have – somehow? – offended people on facebook. Which is HILARIOUS! I mean, really?

I am so sorry – but everyone in the world saw that kitten being tickled…seriously. I am way f*ckin’ cuter than that cat. Really, and I actually mean something.

No, actually what do YOU mean?

People seem pretty damn commodified – in both the adjectival and passive verb sense…

I mean, we get fleetingly impassioned about one thing or another and look a girl in the eye and LOVE the idea of it…and then…poof…it seems dull and impossible and sort of sad…

Yes, I am beginning to think that maybe the world is more dull and impossible and sad than I ever imagined.

It is as if everyone has major fatigue for people and ideas.

There are just too damn many of both. The sad thing is that often – for the most part – ideas that are, well…not so great, really…are the ones pushed and sold.

This blog was SUPER lo-profile for a long time, 2/3 of it’s existence I had four readers, all of them occasional…I briefly had two steady readers – but, I am not sure if they still check in…

People have drifted in and out a bit over the past few weeks – after my notice of the irregular cloud formations – which are, by the way, still pretty irregular. However, as I told the kid at the convenience store on 74 A – “They are still weird, but they don’t seem to be doing anything.”

“Oh, well. That’s good to know.” And we talked for a minute and it was sorta nice, talking about the pitfalls of sociological inquiry with this convenience store kid out in east Buncombe. I gave him the address and told him to email me so we could talk more. Nothin’ –

Do people really find me that weird or off-putting? My Kickstarter announcement was phrased as an “ad” – man, what the fuck? People are not advertisements…and I would think that a person might be interested in what a now-single mother who this time last year barely said a word other than okay might be doing with her summer…?

Maybe if I fell down more?

Folks, I was down for a long time and you didn’t notice me then either.

Anyway – so I got this great idea to provide a simple model for sustainable redistribution of resources in the form of an unwanted computer. Charlotte Street Computers is a really nice little independent dealer of Mac and PC computers and they have awesome little smart cars that drive around town. And they do stuff like this in the community:

AFTERNOON EXPLORERS: presented by Charlotte Street Computers
Afternoon Explorers is a program offered by The Health Adventure to groups that work with children who are considered financially, academically, or emotionally “at risk”. These are children whose parents or caregivers may be unable to expose them to enrichment activities such as our museum offers. READ MORE for more information or to be a part of the Afternoon Explorers program.

AND they have a program that donates refurbished computers to nonprofits or community centers. The computer at the Varick Chapel – the A.M.E. Zion Church up the block, where they were very nice to me when I was sad and confused and where they have a crew of congregational volunteers serve a hot meal every Wednesday to whomever would like to eat, for donation. The day I went to thank them and show the Amazing Lady Pastor my cloud pictures (this was when I thought maybe they had something to do with God – you know, in some acute way…? I was pretty confused about friendship and work and sanity and parenting and…well, the angular clouds just hit me a bit hard.

I noticed that the computer they have down at the really lovely-but-crumbling Varick Chapel is a Compaq from the early 1990’s. WHAT?! Why don’t these folks – who are feeding people and comforting people and counseling people and giving people odd jobs when they can pay them – why don’t they have a computer?

Access to technology is not evenly distributed and that excludes huge segments of the population not only from facebook and pandora* – but also education, funding, and ‘meaningful’ participation in the economy. We all know this – but, still: The Varick Chapel needs a functional computer.

So, I called the guy who does the ads and I said – I don’t run ads on my blog, but I am open to featuring local businesses that show a commitment to community and an integrity in the marketplace. I explain re: the Varick Chapel and the guy told me to have the write a letter addressed, Dear Judge and explain why they are requesting a computer. The program should up and running again in September, because we are in the middle of moving. So, just send the letter and then they’ll be on the list in September.”

Whoa. That is intense, ‘Dear Judge’ — “Well, I have an old desktop pc, could you help me wipe my files off of it so I can give it to them?”

“Yeah, that might work.”

I might do it. I am half inclined to just backup my files myself and just take it over there. However, that just seems weird and tiresome to me. I am busy as hell – trying to wrap my brain around the staggering implications of my experiment.

We have this really counterproductive ‘That’s the way it is’ sort of attitude – which is RIDICULOUS considering the world has changed dramatically in the past few years, much less in the 250 measly years of this country’s ‘official’ decree of existence.

It is not hard, people. Not hard at all. Community Trusts are the answer. People shouldn’t have to beg or appeal to privileged entities to have what some people get automatically. That is not okay.

2 Dollars or more a year from every citizen in a municipality invested into a fund that supports industries within the community and is able to offer support to mindful and effective, resourceful organizations who currently are just flat-out busted in so many ways. The corporate model never works well when trying to serve people – because corporations don’t serve people, they serve corporations…

A large number of small donations would not at all disrupt the contributions to larger non-profit entities, such as the United Way and The Childrens Defense Fund. However, it would give communities a reason to discuss realistically what….

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