Forbidden, For Biden: ForBiden - a parody cologne commercial roasting Joe Biden

For my sketch team last month I had the idea to write a parody cologne commercial roasting Vice President Joe Biden. His status as an entrenched Washington bureaucrat and his inability to see that his well documented creepery made him a prime target. Anyway, it was really fun to write something and cut together this ad in the style of a Martin Scorsese cologne short film/advertisement. Enjoy :)

I am an endless well of love. I really am, and I don't want to be any other way.

In my whole life, the only thing I've ever been certain I wanted, but didn't know it was certain I could have, is encapsulated by this TS Eliot poem:

It’s called, “A Dedication to My Wife,”

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,
the breathing in unison.

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning...

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

I read this piece in The Cut -- and among other things, it solidified more deeply my belief that I am in fact courageous for loving deeply. I am vulnerable enough to say "I love you" first. I am honest enough to admit to myself and to others that I have hurt them, and I am so sorry.

As someone who consistently feels like I have to justify my presence, I want to keep being someone that looks at others and lets them know that they deserve to be there. I want to treat myself with the same love and care I have for others. And I deserve that same care back. I might not always get it, but I know I deserve it.

I can be empathetic, compassionate and loving, and still know my worth when someone makes me feel like I am less than worthy. I can understand that they didn't mean to. I can know that whatever is or was perhaps had nothing to do with me at all, but know it affected me, and it hurt me. And I can even know that I don't have to be OK with that to move past it. I can forgive them, and I can love myself and them more still.

This quote from Rumi echoes these feelings too.

I've said this aloud before, but sometimes it helps me to write it so I can remember this moment later -- I am an endless well of love. I really am, and I don't want to be any other way.

It might seem like too much, and I might be too much, but we all deserve to be deeply loved; I deserve to be deeply loved. Any other way is selling ourselves short because the truth is everything you want... you can have it.

xx

I would sure like to feel different.

I've always been a sucker for Death Cab for Cutie. I know. Such a 2000s band name, but laying that aside for a moment, they've got this one lyric. It gets in my head fairly often, and to me that means it's a solid line:

"So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different."

What a poignant observation. Time is a construct. We are a construct. The concept of the individual is a construct. Nothing matters unless we give it meaning. What in the actual fuck is going on and why? Anyone who claims to know has just put forth hope in an idea. That doesn't mean anything necessarily. It has the meaning one has given it.

I've always found religion one of the most frustrating aspects of living. It's amazing to me that people can so fully "believe" in something. And then someone else can so fully "believe" in something else. And one belief system can negate the other's. How amazing and insane and confusing and, fuck.

2018 was a strange year. I jumped in with a sort of laissez- faire-fuck-you attitude, ambivalent, excited, tired, and waiting for the shoe to drop, while just trying to do what I wanted to do. For so long so many of us are told it's wrong to have wants, to do what we want to do. Why the hell is that such a bad thing? Why shouldn't we do the thing we want to do? Do the thing that will make us happy? If we're all following our bliss, and perhaps not following the blind construct some other person told us we wanted, then won't we be the happier? I guess murderers want to murder, and that's tough if you don't want to be murdered. But, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about going for the career you want (save for murderer as career path), having or not having a family, going on the trip, spending frivolously if you've got it. Why must we always save for the rainy day? Some people save their whole lives waiting for the bottom to drop out, so they could say, oh, good! I'm glad I never did anything so I can try to beat cancer with all this money I've saved, never you mind that the cancer was caused by XYZ factor that maybe could have been avoided if you'd just have LIVED a little.

I'm ranting here. I'm tired. But, mostly I'm tired of being confused about what it is I want out of life. I'm tired of watching people make decisions and be happy about those decisions, while I dabble in the here and there, never certain of any choice I've ever made. I'm tired that the thing I was told would make me happy, isn't actually the thing I want, and I've wasted so much energy chasing after bullshit. Energy I could have spent figuring out my shit earlier.

I have a fear of wasting time, and it seems all I have done my whole life is waste time. Granted it, I wouldn't be "me" if I hadn't do all of this, but still, who's to say "me" now is a better version than "me" as the ideal version of myself. Sometimes it gives me comfort to think of alternate universe me's, and knowing maybe there's a version of myself out there that is the best version of me. I don't want to rag on myself too much, because in general I like myself, my life, what I'm up to, etc. But, when I really let myself think about it, the anxiety and stress of living eats me up.

So it's 2019. This is the new year, and I guess I don't feel any different. I would sure like to though.