Rasmenia, Author at Rasmenian Detritus – Page 8 of 42

Hey, Mourning Famous People is Totally Okay

January 9, 2014November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

Somewhere in 1986, there's a younger version of me. A version of me with skinny legs, knobby knees and no realistic sense of the future or adulthood. That version of me sits in her room, reading books and staring at the posters on the walls, of which there are many, daydreaming and imagining the future she wants. Like a lot 13 year-olds, she has mad crushes on golden movie star faces.River Phoenix was my dream guy. I watched Stand By Me and fell in love. I got older. He got older. I kept watching. When I saw him as a young Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, I got so geeked out and giddy, I thought I might swallow my fucking tongue.Somewhere in 1993, there's a 20 year-old version of me sitting in a sparsely furnished apartment. The couch stinks and is covered in stains. The bathroom ceiling is black with rot and mold; pieces of it fall into the...

I Got Nerdy & Ended Up With a Ridiculous Comic

November 20, 2013November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I like to get my nerd on. One of the really cool things about the internet - aside from funny animal .gifs on Buzzfeed - is the bottomless pit of nerdery. This year, I've spent countless hours getting lost on various subjects in iTunes U, Open Culture and Coursera.This summer, I enrolled in a writing class on Coursera. It wasn't on craft, but the basic mechanics of grammar, along with paragraph and sentence structure. It was a nice review on the basics, but also a nice intro to a MOOC (massive open online course), which I'd been curious about.I got into it. I enrolled in a few more courses. One of which was Comic Books and Graphic Novels, from the University of Colorado in Boulder.I fucking loved this class. Come on... a class where I get to watch PowerPoint lectures about Batman and study Alan Moore and Art Spiegelman? For free? HELL. YES.In all seriousness, though, this was an interesting...

Self-Preservation Can Look the Same as Being a Dick. But It Isn’t.

October 10, 2013November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

"Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are." -Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire "When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through." -Nicholas Sparks * * * Some people think I'm mean. They don't always use that word. Sometimes they say "hardass." Other times, they say "cold," "callous" or "hard."It doesn't hurt my feelings. Not because I'm cold and unfeeling, but because they're wrong. The adjectives people use to describe us are usually inaccurate. I'll tell you a story from a few years ago about why that is.I know a couple of women. Let's call them Patty and Selma.I've known Patty and Selma for most of my life (though they aren't a part of my...

Fluent in Fromage

September 12, 2013November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

After exchanging emails, letters and phone calls for 8 months with a French guy I'd met online, it was time to go to Paris to meet him face-to-face; time to look one another in the eye and discover if our long-distance chemistry would hold up in the flesh. I'd been in Paris one other time, 7 years before, but this time was different. This time, I wasn't a tourist.This time, I was on a crazy, international, first-date adventure that would last for 2 weeks.Olivier picked me up at Charles de Gaule airport. We went to his apartment in Montmartre and listened to April in Paris. Because funny enough - it really was April and we were in Paris.httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCJRoG6W8yQHe told me he'd planned a road trip for us and that he wanted to introduce me to some of his friends. After talking every day for almost a year, I knew quite a bit about most of his friends already, so I...

Boobs Are Cool. Bras Are Dumb.

August 13, 2013November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

Earlier this year, a French doctor announced that women are better off without bras. Now, I know some women are quite fond of their bras, or feel the need for a bra. Cool. Keep on rockin' the harness, ladies.However, I read the article and said, "Well, no shit. Bras are stupid."I have always hated bras. I feel stiff and restrained. Tied down. Strapped. Saddled. Shackled. I scratch and claw, twisting and reaching, trying to bite at it - much like my cat when someone is foolish enough to put a collar around her neck.That said, I'm going to tell you that there is one benefit to binding your boobs.When you move to France, there's a whole laundry list of things that a person must do in order to obtain their carte de séjour (their residency card). One of those things is to get a chest x-ray to make sure you don't have tuberculosis. So, back in 2006 when I was...

Expatriate, Not Ex-Patriot

July 11, 2013November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

When my dog was a tiny puppy, she was cute, but hyperactive. She barked a lot and played with her poop. She peed every time she met someone new. She was loveable, but a handful. An adorable, stinky handful. She wasn't stupid, she just needed some teaching and new experiences.We worked on teaching her new words and how to do things. We took her to new places where she could sniff unfamiliar butts and discover the wonderment of poop that wasn't her own.The more she learns, the more she ventures out of her own yard, the happier she is. She's also calmer and smarter for it.Humans will never be able to live and love as well as dogs, but in one regard, we're not so different: the more we learn and venture out of our own yard, the better we will be.Traveling is good for you. It doesn't matter if it's a trip to another region in your own country,...