This is my final blog post. I liked doing this for a while but as with all things, I got bored of doing it. I feel too self centered telling nobody about my boring life and assuming people cared enough to check everyday anxious as to what I did. It’s just time to end this. I may create a new blog in the future when I have fun things to talk about. Thanks for reading.

With my love…

A Final King A Goodbye

I recently watched a movie that really impacted me and I think every single person needs to watch it. It’s really one of those movies that stays with you for a few days. The movie is called Temple Grandin. If you haven’t…. watch it!!!

Temple Grandin is an Autistic woman. Her way of thinking allowed her to study cows in a way that nobody else could. She studied and spent a lot of time around cows and developed humane ways to slaughter and take care of them. She was highly functional meaning she didn’t need someone to change her diaper or feed her like some mentally retarded people. She was just different. Not less, different. I don’t know a lot of scientific things about autism however my mom is a special education teacher and was in the past so i grew up knowing people with autism and other mental conditions. People with Autism think completely differently than we do. They have a lot of social problems mainly because they don’t relate to other people as well. It’s hard for them to understand facial expressions and things that we don’t realize we do when communicating. Autistic people often are extremely smart in some categories while really lacking in others. Temple happened to excel in science but not at all in language or math. The movie is about her and just her life in general.

The hardest thing about the movie were the many scenes depicting how others would make fun of her. She grew up in the 50s/60s. People were a lot less knowledgeable about mental retardation than they are now. Temple was just thought of as a weird girl to her classmates. Nobody cared to work with her. It didn’t bother her because she didn’t really grasp the concept of being made fun of. She understood that they did not like her but those kinds of things didn’t matter to her. It is still really hard to watch despite the fact that she didn’t care so much. It makes you think about those incidents that go on today. People are 100 times more considerate now but things can still be hard. I think one thing that movie really opened my eyes to was to really never judge a person by what you see or how they act. You have no idea what someone is capable of. Temple used to spin to calm herself. If you stumbled upon someone spinning like a mad person you would probably think that they are seriously disabled. You would have no idea that it’s just their brain needing stimulation to calm them. In reality that spinning girl could be a genius and discover all kinds of things that normal people’s way of thinking doesn’t allow.

I can’t really do the movie justice just by talking about it. Just go see it. Please. You will probably cry a few times but that’s okay. Claire Danes, the actress, won a Golden Globe for her performance and it was well deserved. Temple Grandin.

~King A

I think it’s fascinating how people have such different viewpoints and priorities in their lives. The saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is so true. This is the cause of everything wonderful as well as problematic in the world. It’s what makes us unique while also making us hate others. ((*Quick Warning… this is a tad bit mature. Nothing nasty but I do a little but of talking about the male genetalia. Discretion is advised. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.***))

For example… people protest all kinds of different things. In order for someone to go out of their way to push their beliefs they must really believe in them. In today’s lazy world, putting effort into something is  pretty big deal and a rare occurrence. If you’re going to put work into something is has to mean a lot. So a protester is not kidding around about their belief they’re protesting. It’s amazing how many passionate people there are on both sides and how strongly their passions are. Gay marriage is a big one right now. There are millions of people on both sides of the spectrum and very few in the middle. It all depends on priorities and beliefs.

But I also think it’s amazing on which issues people decide is worth protesting. One of the most pointless ones I have ever encountered is circumcision. There is seriously a billboard near my house that is anti-circumcision. I don’t understand why they are protesting such a trivial thing. They claim that it causes infections, lifelong disappointment, and unneeded pain. None of those things are true. In fact it’s actually the opposite for the risk of infection. I’m “cut”. (T.M.I. right?) I don’t sit around at night cursing my parents for making that choice. There is really no difference between the two besides 1-2 inches of skin. But still, someone decided that it was worth a few hundred dollars to put up a billboard trying to sway people not to circumcise their sons. To me it’s strange that we’re still in the middle of a war, have a lot of equality rights up for debate, our economy is rapidly declining, the world is being completely destroyed by humanity, america is getting fatter by the minute, and there are hungry/starving people everywhere… but no. Circumcision needs to be taken care of first.

That’s just funny to me that someone deemed that more important than those other things I listed. It’s possible that they also put money towards other causes but it still seems like a waste to protest something so pointless. Maybe there is some hidden danger that these anti-snippers are really protecting us from, but I have yet to encounter any problems in my foreskin-less life.  I hope that I have not offended some of you who maybe are in agreement with the billboard but this is just my perspective. At the end of the day our different views are what makes the world such an amazing place. We should just all acknowledge that and move on with our lives. No need to battle over it unless one viewpoint starts interfering with another’s life in a negative way. That’s my view at least…

~King A

So I’m sure most of you know that my best friend Duckduckdana has traveled afar to a mysterious land. She will be gone for a few months so I am without her for now. I don’t remember exactly where she said she was going… I have a problem with listening when people talk. But I pretty sure it was something about lemons. Or maybe mice. Or possibly somewhere in the middle east. Anyway, the point is she’s gone.

She was my left arm. I don’t know what I am going to do without her while she is on her mission trip (or wherever she is). But for now I have very limited friends to hang out with. You see me and duckduckdana are very exclusive people. We always have been. We find a group of friends and get really close to them and keep things at an acquaintance level with pretty much everyone else. It usually works out for the best because I can constantly be with exactly who I want to be with and never have those awkward tag-alongs since we simply never invite anyone else to do anything. But it’s times like these that I almost regret being a little less social then other people I know. I pretty much only have my boyfriend to hang out with a lot now. I have other friends I can hang out with but we don’t hang out anywhere near as much as me and duckduckdana did. But I digress.

So basically I have suddenly acquired tons and tons of free time. All of the time I would be hanging out with her are suddenly King Aaron times. I am trying to fill up my schedule with tons of crap to do so I never get too lonely or bored but I am running out of things to plan. I would like to go see concerts and shows but those all cost quite a lot of dollars. Dollars don’t grow on plants you know. So I have to find other things as well. I have been learning french pretty intently! That’s fun. But then I have nobody to practice with in real life so it’s sort of pointless.

Maybe I will start planning more for blog posts to keep you guys entertained as well. But we’ll see. For now I am anxiously awaiting duckduckdana’s return from her vacation in the bahamas, business meeting in one of the Dakotas, or prolonged stay in Ireland ( I’m almost certain it’s one of those three).

~A lost and lonely King A

P.S. If anyone sees her could you please tell her to let me know where she went. I promise I’ll try to listen this time.

I would like to briefly discuss the role of parents on a child’s life. I think one of the hardest things a person could ever do is raise a child. Every step of the way there I self doubt. I know that I don’t speak from experience or anything but I am a major observer and analyzer of all people so these are just some of the thing I notice in parents. Plus I am around a billion parents at my dance studio so I pretty much have seen every type of parenting in the world.

I think that the perfect parent is the kind of parent that establishes a good friendship. I am absolutely not talking about those moms who wear teenage clothes, listen to hip music, and pretend that they are a teenager. I am talking about the ones who speak with a nonjudgmental voice and treat their children as more of peers rather than little children. The parents in Easy A are these such parents. These kinds of parents have a really close relationship with the child. She was raised with the right kind of morals to where the parents completely trusted her because they knew that she wouldn’t do anything. It’s the doubt in the child that causes them to rebel. For example, if a parent thinks that their child is already doing something, then why not just go ahead and do it.

I do not think that a very controlling parent will end up having the kid they want. This will drive the child insane and eventually cause them to be the extreme rebels. Trust me. A lot of my friends are a lot different than their parent think they are. Kids need room to make their own mistakes. That’s the number one thing parents need to learn. (in my opinion). In the end they know that the kid is going to make their own mistakes anyway so why do parents try with all their might to prevent that. It only makes kids stronger. Yes kids need protection but on trivial things, they need their room to do their thing. Kids like to be left alone just as much as parents.

Honestly though. If your kid does not feel close to you, you will start to mean nothing to them. You will turn into the charlie brown teacher voice as the kid goes and does whatever they wanted to do anyway. If they think that they can trust you then they will tell you everything you need to know and allow proper parenting to take place. If you are down their throats they will learn to lie. Stay in tuned to your kids but keep your distance. That’s how I feel anyway. I think that I need to do some more deep thinking on this subject. I plan on having a post on parenting 101 from a teen’s point of view. Yes I think that would come out quite well. Stay tuned guys. Expect that i the future.

~King A

I have come to the realization that I thrive on feeling emotions. What I mean by that is that I like to feel every emotion to it’s full potential no matter what the emotion is. Be it sad, happy, angry, confused, or even apathetic. I just love feeling them all to the extremes.

One of the people I look up to the most in life told me the same thing the other day. This person said the they LOVE feeling every single thing in life and shielding themselves from nothing. That’s the exact way I feel. I learned a while ago to never lie to yourself of try to convince yourself that you’re someone else. It won’t work. When I was struggling with my sexuality I was constantly telling myself how straight I was. We all see how that went. Eventually I continued with the self lying by telling myself that I don’t feel this, or I do feel that. That method also doesn’t work. I have now learned to just acknowledge exactly what I feel. What’s the point in pretending otherwise? Who will judge you on little things like that? Most of the time nobody else will even know the things that you feel so there is no way for anyone to judge you. We only have to judge ourselves. We obviously don’t need to worry about that so why not just embrace everything to the fullest.

I have a good friend who likes to pretend that nothing is ever wrong. When things get too hard to think about, she just doesn’t. She simply changes the subject of thinking and moves on. She never lets the emotions run their course. Eventually they get so built up that she of course has a breakdown and releases all of the stored energy. But that’s healthy. My way is also unhealthy because I am constantly putting my body into extreme happy or extreme sad modes but I just like it that way. I can’t imagine changing the subject to avoid feeling sad. If anything I change the subject so I can start feeling something. When given the choice between watching a sad or funny movie I almost always chose the sad ones. I just like feeling the emotions those movies bring up. I think it’s all because my job as a dancer is to display my emotions on stage for everyone to see. If I have no emotions to display, I would be out of a job.

A perfect example would be Marie Osmond on Oprah. Marie just lost on of her sons. She was very attached to this boy too. I got the feeling that he was the favorite. I think she lost him to suicide but I’m not entirely sure. But the point is she got on stage and sang this beautiful Ballad “to” him. She had to stop right at the beginning because it was too hard for her to continue. She started over and finished but she was crying the whole time. My mom was sitting next to me watching the show and asks out loud “Why would you put yourself through that?” My mom was also crying. I told her that that’s just what artists do. We put ourselves through those situations to feel the catharsis and release that goes along with feeling those emotions. What she doesn’t understand is those are the moments we live for. Where we get to portray bare emotion in the form of our art. Those are the moments that define us as artists…

~A Melodramatic King A

Do you ever have those days where you just want to kill someone. I mean literally kill someone. Today was one of those days. I was just a raging volcano inside all day. I was not nice to ANYONE. People would accidentally bump into me in the hallway and I would glare or roll my eyes and stop away. I think it’s because I have not been sleeping well and I’m bottling up some emotions. Dana is about to move and I refuse to think it about it out of fear it will send me into depression earlier than it’s already going to.

But anyway. I thought I would bring up some of the things I do to relieve my anger. I get pretty carried away when I’m angry so I need to calm down pretty much on a bi-weekly basis. Everyone has these kinds of days so most people understand. I think that the most important thing to remember when you are boiling is that you are just in a bad mood and that you should keep that in mind. I try not to lash out at too many innocent bystanders because I just take a deep breath and keep on moving. But sometimes things get to crazy for simple breathing. Here are some of the things that I do. Maybe they will help some of you in the future.

Take a shower- This instantly relieves any anger I have. If I wait in the steamy water for long enough all of my current troubles wash down the drain.

Watch Friends- This distracts me into thinking about the Friends rather than  what’s bothering me. But lately that hasn’t really been working. I’ve seen all of the episodes so much now that their effect is wearing off.

Listen to sad Broadway Tunes- Everytime I listen to Broadway tunes I can’t help but act them out. No matter what the part of what show. Gender is also not a factor. I will play the part for the audience of nobody. I just love it so it’s what I do. I like using the sad ones in times of anger because they help me release some energy to where I’m just simmering rather than boiling over.

Dance- This works no matter what. Even though lately Dance is the very thing that enrages me. But it’s not the dancing. It’s the people. It’s just really killing me lately. I’m not going to get in specifics because I’m sure some of the very people on my hit list may be reading this. Basically I am fed up. But when the dancing starts everything else doesn’t matter anymore. I am doing what I love. The minute the music stops I am back into murder-mode, but while I’m dancing I feel amazingly happy.

I hope this has helped some of you dealing with anger issues.

~King Angry

I finally caved and bought some mega mainstream music other than GaGa. For the longest time I had a repulsion to Mainstream music. I just didn’t like it for the fact that everyone else did. Groundbreaking huh? But i finally got over my childish hate and bought the Ke$ha and Katy Perry cds. And they are good! I can’t help but get wrapped up in Ke$ha’s complete disregard for grammar or Katy Perry’s controversial words. It’s all just so much fun to listen to. Of course there are time when i wonder what in the world I am listening too. Those are the moments when i feel the brain cells falling right out of my skull. You know, when Ke$ha sings “of course we does, where my girls is…” and other nonsensical things. I want to barf a little bit. But the tune is so catchy that I just soak it up and move on.

The thing I worry about though, is that it is rubbing off on me. I find myself using the idiotic terms and phrases a lot of my peers do. I start off using the bad grammar as a joke because it sounds so funny to me but then I can’t stop. I’ll talk to teachers in the same way that I talk to my friends. That’s never good. I’ll end up saying things like “I have zero stuff” etc. I originally started saying them as an inside joke between me and Dana but then it continued to be my only way of speaking. It’s getting ugly you guys. But i’m trying to keep what little intelligence I have left. For now anyway.

~King A the Grate grammer guy

Long time no post. I have lost inspiration to blog. Or maybe I have decided to do more things with myself than be on the computer as much. Or maybe both. Or maybe neither. Anyway, Here’s the deal. I am going to only do posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So don’t bother checking on any other days because it won’t be different. Maybe what I need to keep this blog going is some time in between post attempts to let noteworthy things happen to me. Then after 2 days something is bound to have been funny or important enough to blog about. So that’s the deal.

Today I went to the Galveston County Tax Assessor because I was being audited. Just kidding. I had to go down there because my car something or other had expired and i needed a new something or other. So i went and stood in line for a while and observed the variety of people that were along side me. Let me tell you. It was hilarious. Every type of person imaginable was in there. It’s like the grocery store. Everybody has to eat so everybody ends up at a grocery store at some point. You see all kinds of people. Same with the car something or others. Everyone else’s something or others expired too so they all had to go get a new one. It was such fun standing and listening to the conversations. The lady behind me was discussing the woes of her new pit bull. The lady in front of me seemed to know everyone. The two guys a little bit behind me were extremely loud, profane, and offensive. This did not ride well the the grammy on my right. There was a mega mom. These are the women that seem to always have 7-8 children with them at all times and none of them are ever quiet or behaved. This one was carrying a baby, pushing a stroller, there were 2 year old twins, a boy in elementary school, and a tween girl. Very ‘Von Traap’ only they didn’t sing. (much to my disappointment) It was just such a colorful (literally) group of people that I could not help but chuckle at it all.

On another note, my auditions are right around the corner so I will be giving you updates on what does down. The dates are Feb 4,5, and 8. So be looking around those times for news of things to come.

~King A

I think I might delete this blog. I am running out of things to talk about. I can’t just talk about how my day went or what I did in school because my life is boring. Maybe it’s not boring but everyone who reads this knows how I spend my days anyway. But also maybe i’ll keep the blog. I don’t know right now. But I’m just warning you. There are about 20 of you who seem to check everyday, but sometimes I think wordpress is lying to make me feel better.

Anyway… for now i’ll continue about my usual rantings. I think that I might be growing up. Not too much or too noticeably but it’s happening. For example: My very last RAFA Nutcracker came and went. I’ve dedicated me entire November and December to this production for 12 years now. That’s pretty intense. I feel like I’ve lost a friend. I have always looked forward to Nutcracker ever since I was little. I’m sure I’ll do it again in the future but not at RAFA. So it will be different. I’m not sure if I like this idea of growing up. I am fearful of aging skin. I am fearful of going bald. I am fearful of losing my friends. I am fearful of becoming serious. I am fearful of catching the eminent grown-up complaining syndrome. I am fearful that I will stop caring about things as so many grown-ups do. I have been writing down my inner thoughts that I find important so I will not let myself become someone I hate. Deep down, that is my worst fear. That I will morph into someone I hate and not care enough to change it.

With all of this fear there is a lot of excitement. I will meet so many new people. Enjoy so many new experiences. Have so many adventures. Experience Life. Things are about to get so legit. You must first leave in order to arrive. So I guess I must leave my current state of being to enter the things to come. It’s not all sad.

~A wrinkling King A