kellenhathspoken

[kellenhathspoken]

I'm moving onto Substack and everything has been backlogged! kellenhathspoken.substack.com

[kellenhathspoken]

There are (Kafkaesque) cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see!

Recently I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of having to engage with bureaucracy firsthand. My most recent endeavor? Getting a brand-spankin’-new passport! What about the passport I got when I was 15 to be an exchange student in China for two weeks? Well, I lost that one between moves! I even had to fill out a special form to let the government know that I was a dolt and lost my prized passport somewhere in Brooklyn, New York, USA! Do you know what happens when you lose your passport, and you must leave the country because one of the students you teach French to is wonderful and gifts you a trip to Paris? I’ll tell you all about it… but first you must prove yourself worthy to hear such a tale:

If you would, please provide me with the second-to-last but not penultimate letter of your mother’s father’s middle name that your great-grandparents almost bestowed upon him. After you’ve kindly handed that over, please fill out Form 69-PP-POO-POO that you can only access every full moon EXCEPT if the full moon occurs on a Thursday AND if Valentine’s Day lands on a Friday that same year. If that wasn’t confusing enough, I also request ten copies of your Social Security card printed on red construction paper as well as a ripped-up and taped-back-together copy of the first poem you’ve ever written, smothered in ponzu and topped with MSG, sautéed to perfection. From there, I will determine if your eyes are qualified to read what I have to say.

Wasn’t the above paragraph the most Kafkaesque paragraph you’ve ever read? I don’t know if I would be qualified enough myself to read what I have to say!

When I filled out the humiliating Lost or Stolen Passport Form that is essentially a dunce cap granted to you by the government, I was too embarrassed to get a new passport. What would they think of me, someone who didn’t even lose their passport when they were on vacation abroad! To be frank, I still have no idea how I lost it. Then again, does anyone know how they lose things? I guess if I remember accidentally dropping my passport onto the electrified train tracks at the Myrtle-Broadway station, watching in horror as an amphetamine-induced orgy of rats eat my delightfully stamped passport with a Chinese tourist visa valid until 2025, only for them to be run over by the elusive yet sexy Z train, rat guts and shreds of paper with my personal information as well as stamps from Austria, France, the UK, Poland, Turkey and China swirling together into a monstrous soup, only to be slurped by a rabid seagull missing its left leg and somehow also smoking a Marlboro Red… then MAYBE I would’ve remembered losing my passport!

Finally, the time came: an opportunity for me to leave this dumb-ass country! But what do I do when I’ve reported my vanished passport as lost? Is there a special passport that is neon green and has “STUPID” printed at the top? Do I have to start all over again and get an entirely new passport? Why, yes, a new passport is required! I almost wish they made passports for stupid people; much less gauche than having to apply for a totally new passport!

To find a safe space for me to get a new passport, I googled where to go: the post office! Of course! And they accept walk-ins at an oddly specific time of day… Ok, fine, I’ll acquiesce! But I’m not happy about it, I’ll have you know!

Yesterday, I showed up at the post office with a folder in hand that contained all my necessary documents, paperwork, and grossly unflattering passport photo that I’d gotten from Walgreens (at least the photo department clerk laughed when I said I was ready for my close-up!) I walked toward the passport office door with a little jump in my gait, ready to hand over my form that had been correctly and thoroughly filled out as well as every stinking document that was needed (I forgot that they take your birth certificate from you, ship it to DC, then ship it back to you! Ahh!) Alas, the door is locked! Lunch break, perhaps? No! A laminated sign containing a QR code (this vile morsel of technology operates at the lowest vibrational frequency, especially when used to replace physical menus at restaurants! But that’s neither here nor there…) informs you that this particular post office does NOT accept walk-ins and is appointment only… Hmmm… I smell a liar! I rechecked the post office’s website to read, much to my chagrin, that they list this weirdly specific time of day as accepting walk-ins… Not only could I not walk in and get this humiliation over with, but the precise timeframe the website listed wasn’t even enforced! What a ruse!

Before I turn this blog post into a psychotic Yelp review, let me say the following: The clerk at this post office probably had a few other people ahead of me who were in the same predicament: Do I trust what the outdated website says or what the slimy QR code on the door says? Unfortunately, the QR code was correct. I say abolish ALL QR codes immediately! Apparently, the passport office was fully booked yesterday! But city hall down the road can process passport applications. Ok, off I go! Thank you, dahling!

This city hall was gorgeously preserved from the Victorian era. Elaborately carved banisters, weird chandeliers, and the ghostly presence of Madonna (who was born in this town, fun fact!) lingered in these hallowed halls… however, it was devoid of townspeople! It felt eerie, like getting up in the middle of the night at your grandparents’ house to get water and having to trudge through their dark living room ripe with a loud, ticking clock and disturbing antique porcelain clown statuettes locked away in a glass cabinet! Nonetheless, I persisted and entered the first office that seemed somewhat relevant.

Success! It was the correct office! And the clerk was polite! I handed over the necessities, said the Pledge of Allegiance, listed off every US president – in alphabetical order! – and submitted my application! Then I transformed into a beetle. The end!

[kellenhathspoken]

New blog posts coming soon!!!!

I took a break for the holidays and my bday, but there's more writing coming momentarily! Also, can someone recommend a better blog platform please? I love tumblr but you know...

[kellenhathspoken]

My French teachers and professor throughout the years have been completely whacky and insanely interesting. As a French tutor now, I feel I owe it to them for not only teaching me my second language but also inspiring me to teach it. From kindergarten to college, let’s break down each and every one of those profs dingues:

Kindergarten: Madame Olga

All I remember about Madame Olga is that she was Russian and had a bob! My sister tells me that when the Catholic school we went to didn’t have a gym teacher for a couple of years for whatever reason, Madame Olga was the stand-in PE teacher, and apparently gym class with Madame Olga (even as a gym teacher she was referred to as Madame!) involved her reading aloud from an outdated textbook on how to play sports and do simple exercises such as jumping jacks! Incroyable ! I remember learning the word “fromage” from one of Madame Olga’s weekly classes and finding the word hilarious; I remember being a little kid in the grocery store with my mom, and as we passed by the cheese aisle, I’d yell, “Le fromage !” Finding French funny was formative (pardon the alliteration) and cemented a lot of vocabulary in my brain.

Grade school: self-taught (lol)

I don’t remember having a French teacher for the rest of grade school. I do remember being a troublemaker, however! I couldn’t stop laughing in class and I often made other kids laugh too. I couldn’t help it, everything can be so funny! I remember being the designated class clown and getting sent out of the classroom to sit in the hallway due to talking and laughing too much. What a ridiculous punishment! It didn’t really teach me anything except to talk more quietly (I’ve never been a good whisperer) and sneakily to avoid punishment. In retrospect, those teachers should have encouraged me to write down what I had to say; I was aching to express myself but didn’t know how to do it appropriately! It wasn’t until middle school when I learned the appropriate time and place to talk and laugh and make others laugh. Then I had a few teachers who encouraged me to write instead of sending me out into the hallway. Even when those Catholic grade-school teachers sent me out into the hallway, I still found a way to laugh — alone, to boot, like a true maniac!

Re: French, I remember teaching myself with a “French for Dummies” book. I was obsessed with French and France. There’s a scene in the Suspiria remake that resonated with me: young Suzie Bannion circling Berlin on a map during a lesson — all she can think about is Berlin while having no idea why. She then gets into trouble for disregarding the lesson but can’t help but still think about Berlin. That’s how I felt about France as a kid. I was a weird kid.

Middle school: Madame S.

This French teacher was iconique. She had a bob like Madame Olga but a striking aquiline nose that I loved to stare at. I’ve always been fond of big noses. They’re so elegant, like a toucan’s colorful beak! Madame S. was also obsessed with France; our French classes consisted of half-language, half-culture, which was such a delight! La bise has always been an interesting cultural practice; everyone gets a kiss! Tu vs. Vous is a fun way to distinguish a friend from a rando! Saying “Bonjour” before saying anything else to a worker when entering a store? So very clearly polite for everyone involved! I felt special in Madame S.’s classes because she’d pick me to demonstrate to the class how to pronounce words. “It’s ‘question,’ not ‘question!’” I remember getting into Yelle around this time because when I was acting in plays at the local community theater, one of my high-school directors knew I was a young Francophile and recommended them to me. I discovered later that their song “Je veux te voir” was egregiously vulgar for a middle schooler to listen to! I survived nonetheless.

High school: Monsieur E.

Such an intense ex-military translator who spoke French, Spanish and Arabic! Super type A and anal. My god, that dude needed a Xanax. I remember he’d tell us stories about his time in the military during Desert Storm. At the time I didn’t care, but in retrospect I bet they were interesting stories, especially as a translator. He respected me and eventually encouraged me to do French independent study and then dual enrollment at the local community college, which I did! He also told me once that “the grammatical gender of genitals in French is never what you’d expect it to be.” He was right! The French have “le vagin” and “la bite”… How queer!

College: Madame D.

Such a fascinating, complex, intense friendship I had with Madame D. After dual enrolling in three of her courses in high school (two or all three were taught entirely in French; no English was allowed! My throat always hurt after those classes), I became very close with Madame D. She appointed me the president of her French club, she encouraged me to tutor my classmates in French, she gave me French New Wave recommendations (she showed me The 400 Blows and Zazie dans le métro, two fabulous movies that I still love!), and eventually we’d go out to get coffee, lunch and dinner together. Then we’d watch movies at her house, and she’d make me delicious Belgian food and pour me glasses upon glasses of Belgian beer and French wine, and we even smoked weed together one time. In the two years I knew her, it was intense from the very beginning, until I moved to Detroit and cut her from my life temporarily after she tried to make a move on me in a movie theater when we went to see The Disaster Artist (I still can’t rewatch that movie lol). I do think about her from time to time and how lonely we both were at the time. We sometimes text each other on WhatsApp but I have recently tended not to respond. I hope she’s OK. Overall, I think French is a language where it’s incredibly easy to accidentally say something perverted and/or sexual, therefore leading to lots of laughter and embarrassing moments. Whenever I speak French, my mouth feels like it’s making out with someone endowed (or cursed) with a long tongue — long enough to caress my uvula with it! Ew!

All in all, I’ve had some absolute freaks as French teachers! Each was more uniquely bizarre than the last, but none deterred me too much from continuing to learn this silly language. Beyond French, I’ve studied Spanish, German, some Russian, a little Portuguese, and a tiny bit of Italian. I would love to learn Arabic and Mandarin and Japanese and Catalan. And Greek! Ancient Greek! I ❤️ languages.

[kellenhathspoken]

A real short story/poem that my college newspaper published in 2018

I wrote the following when I was in my second year of college, before I transferred to my alma mater the same year. Somehow the editors allowed this travesty to be published! I don't have a physical copy of the issue it was published in, and I'm scared to google the title to find out if it's been digitally archived, as my full legal name is attached to it! Anyway, here's a poem (?) from 20-year-old Kellen that was published, if you can believe it:

Who put pickled foreskin in my salad?

Jan. 2018

You order a salade niçoise from your favorite restaurant. The very thought of anchovies causes your entire mouth to salivate at once. Your dear friend Charlotte orders the same. 

At last, the salad has arrived! Hark! What is this? These cannot be the prized anchovies you once adored. No, this simply will not do!

Slices of pinky-length somethings are scattered throughout the salad. You take a whiff. Garlic, truffle oil and a scent that reminds you of your ex-boyfriend… Peculiar!

You take a bite nonetheless. Hmm, could this be calamari? Perhaps a mix-up in the kitchen… No, this fleshy substance comes not from the sea. But what could it be?

Charlotte takes no heed of this most unusual substitute. In fact, she appears to enjoy the chewy, well-sautéed slivers of meat. 

“Dearest Charlotte, what could this be? What don’t I see? This salad I once knew no longer seems true! Am I befoolèd? Unschoolèd? Oh, woe is me! How did I ever get a master’s degree…”

“Friend, companion, hear me out: There is no need to pout or to even freak out. What you see before me is a delicacy from the male anatomy; his coil robbed by a mohel, cut perfectly round the tip and placed upon a tortilla chip, this thin, pinkish slip. Feast, my friend, for we mustn't linger! Please pass me a fish finger.”

“Charlotte, Charlotte, whose lips are scarlet. My ears are deceived, my soul feels aggrieved. Is there credence in what you say? Should I have ordered the soufflé? I daresay, may we pray that whoever has circumcised at least sterilized our pieces of man. Let us eulogize these remains of manhood that were tossed into a pan.”

The end.

[kellenhathspoken]

My guide to quitting smoking!

wingnut wisdom from a former four-year smoker

At the tender age of 22, I became a smoker! Not just any type of smoker, a filthy, coughing, phlegm-ridden chainsmoker! As soon as I got out of bed in the morn, I’d pop a cigarette into my mouth, light it with the remnants of last night’s dumpster fire, inhale good vibes and exhale bad vibes. Smoking became an integral part of my life for four years: I used to plan in advance how I’d sneak away from social functions to smoke a cig when I felt overwhelmed; I’d check airports to see if any had smoking lounges (one actually did, but I’ll get to that later!); I’d always make sure I had enough money to buy a pack after guzzling through just about an entire one in a day, and if I didn’t, I would bum one or two off anyone I’d see who was smoking, even if all they had was menthol (disgusting, I know!). Despite how cool I felt and how seemingly soothing these sticks-o’-cancer were, there came a point where it wasn’t worth the money or wheezing, and eventually I quit, but before I successfully quit, I tried around four times to quit, but none worked until three months ago when I found the solution, which I will share with you! How generous of me!

The times I had tried to quit never worked because I didn’t want to quit! That’s right, I tried to quit smoking when I didn’t even want to give it up, and while this may sound painfully obvious and silly, you actually must want to quit in order to quit. If you try out a new hobby that you’re half-assing and don’t actually give two shits about, there’s a small chance you might get a hang of it and end up loving it! But let’s be real: That’s highly unlikely, so don’t even think of starting or committing yourself to something you aren’t fully invested in! Put that SCOBY down immediately! If you’re willing to quit smoking and deeply understand the mental anguish and physical cravings that come with quitting, then do it! Otherwise, light up another Virginia Slim and make sure to brush your teeth and wash your hands afterwards, please!

Once I realized I really did want to quit with all my might, it took two attempts for it to finally work. The first time didn’t go smoothly because after a week or two of not smoking, I caved just as the cravings began to worsen! Yes, nicotine cravings do pick up after a week or two once you’ve quit, at least in my experience! All you can think of is going to the store to get your favorite pack of cigarettes (American Spirit Sky) and light up three or more in a row at your favorite designated smoking spot (the porch) with your favorite ashtray (a tiny colorful jar with fairies on it). Rest assured, it gets much easier to quit after a month or five weeks. Within that timeframe, you will feel like a pubescent teenager all over again! Your withdrawal-induced moodiness will make even Edvard Munch seem sane! This is why it is so important to have a therapist and/or smoking-cessation support group handy! I’ve never been to a support group in general, but I imagine a smoking-cessation support group would be entertaining. I like to hear about why and how people began smoking. For me, a global pandemic of respiratory illness profoundly inspired me to start filling my lungs with smoke and tar, like a brand-spankin’-new highway! Having a therapist at the same time I quit, however, was an invaluable resource for many reasons, but also for successfully quitting!

After you have become inspired enough to feel you really do want to quit, it’s time to use your imagination, which, if you don’t regularly use your creativity, might be trickier than what I’m about to propose! I want you to vividly imagine yourself dying of lung cancer and/or emphysema. Relax your body as I whisper the following into your ear... You are on a hospital bed, and all you can taste is the wet plastic from your ventilator tube shoving oxygen down into your lungs because your lungs can’t work on their own due to decades upon decades of smoking. All you can hear are the sound of oxygen getting pumped into your rancid body, the sound of your heartbeat on the EKG monitor slowing down ever so slightly every day and the sound of your friends and family crying and wailing as they mourn your imminent death. All you can see is… well, unfortunately the cancer has led to a development of thick, irremovable cataracts over both your eyes, so you can’t see anything besides the vague presence of light peeking through a fleshy wall of bluish gray. All you can smell is your rotting flesh beginning to spoil like moldy bread. You cannot move and can hardly see. All you can think about is the sweet release of death, but you will never get there! Instead, a spiteful ex of yours has cast a spell on you that keeps you alive forever but never cures you of your affliction! You will be stuck in this state for eternity! However, every symptom I just described will change slightly every day and worsen and improve sporadically, so you will never get used to this horrific predicament your smoking has caused for you! Mwahahahaha!

If you are a bit creatively disabled, maybe ask a friend or confidant to read the previous paragraph aloud to you as you sleep to subliminally penetrate the confines of your thick skull! I can also send a voice recording of me reading it with spooky sound effects (coughing, maniacal laughter, an EKG monitor, a machine pumping oxygen, people crying, people moaning, thunder, the sound of applause for someone plagiarizing your brilliant idea, any “song” by Imagine Dragons). Let me know either way!

With a little bit of self-inflicted CBT (no, not that kind… or maybe yes, that kind?) out of the way, it’s time to address the elephant in your lungs: Those sweet, evil physical cravings! You’re gonna need something to suck on, honey! After all, one of my favorite famous perverts Sigmund “Cocaine-in-his-cig, mon!” Freud did say something or another about oral fixations unresolved in childhood leading to cigarette smoking! I admit, I did like to put things in my mouth a lot as a kid; my mom tells me she had to get a refrigerator magnet with Poison Control’s number on it because I kept eating poisonous chemicals! This was before speed dial, children! People had to put all the important numbers on the fridge or in a peculiar object known as a Rolodex. Although I grew out of my taste for chemicals, I eventually revisited my penchant for oral in my early 20s, when I became a social smoker ("social smoking" has never really made sense to me as a concept, but what do I know?) and then a Real Bonafide Smoker (RBS). So, your brain likes it when you put things in your mouth, and I don’t blame it! I’d recommend putting anything else in your mouth besides something you have to light on fire! And alcohol probably… maybe? I bought sugar-free suckers (or lollipops if you’re not from the Midwest), mint-flavored toothpicks and nicotine lozenges. This terrific trifecta helped me like no other! Nicotine patches never worked for me, but maybe they’ll work for you, bitch! Nicotine gum never worked for me either, but I found out recently that I had been chewing on it incorrectly! Apparently, you’re only supposed to let it stay in your mouth for a few minutes before actually chewing on it, or something. It doesn’t matter, just read the instructions or google it or whatever. I also downloaded an app that tracks how many days I’ve quit and how much money I’ve saved! It also tracks how my health has improved since quitting. For instance, in a month and six days, my lung and immune system function should “be improved.” I loathe the vagueness but anticipate the results!

I remember my first-ever airport smoking lounge experience. I was devastatingly let down, however. This smoking “lounge” (oh, how I hate that just about anyplace with chairs can be designated as a “lounge”! This was definitely not the prototype of a lounge I have in my head!) looked like what I can only describe as akin to a back-alley doctor’s office waiting room full of weirdos chain-smoking altogether with the looming, slightly hypnotic hum of a vent sucking all the halitosis-infused cigarette smoke out of this hellscape of a room. The ceiling had cardboard tiles, the chairs looked straight out of an Amtrak station, the floors were filthy linoleum like a public-school hallway, the “ashtrays” were metal trash bins with bowls of dirt on the top for butts, but the people? Straight out of the FBI’s Most Wanted List! I did not wanna go where these freaks were going, or maybe I subconsciously did! After all, I was one of the smoking freaks at Dulles International Airport on a weekday afternoon in July! Everyone looked miserable, like they were all awaiting trial for the same crime, and I didn’t dare make eye contact with any one of them! I thought smokers were supposed to show solidarity with one another, like Subaru drivers or niche fetishists! Not these smokers! Although I was in the throes of nicotine addiction, I stayed for one quick cig and returned to my gate. They should rename it the smoking gulag! “Lounge”? Niet! There weren’t any comfy armchairs nor built-in-to-the-wall bookshelves nor glasses of whisky served on fancy silver platters like at a cocktail party nor a pool table! Utterly misleading and grossly disappointing!

My ideal smoking lounge? Thank you for asking! A room made entirely of wood, sort of like a sauna, but the exact opposite: freezing! The kind of coldness where you can see your breath and any skin exposed to the elements would get frostbitten! When I was a smoker, smoking when it was really hot or really cold was my ideal smoking weather. Anything below 50° or above 80° was the best time to go outside to smoke. It felt riskier, more dangerous, edgier! Like my addiction was so intense and so debilitating that no extreme weather conditions could deter me from going outside to puff! No tornado, hurricane, cyclone, typhoon, earthquake or blizzard could stop me. I remember smoking out of my first apartment window in Brooklyn during a hurricane, or the remnants of one at least; while my windowsill may have been drenched, my nicotine itch was quenched! My ideal smoking lounge would be equipped with medieval torture devices that would include wooden benches with built-in metal pokers that slightly jab the sitting smoker’s butt in such a subtle way that the smoker would think they had hemorrhoids and would get self-conscious and start to shift their weight on the bench, only to worsen the pain and resort to standing up and smoking. Then, while standing, there would be a neurotoxin released into the room, causing the smoker to suffer from a dizzy spell. Ideally this would all happen before they had a chance to take a puff. Finally, if the smoker successfully loses consciousness, they would be taken into a nearby room whose entrance is a secret passageway opened by tickling a taxidermized bison’s nose. In this room, there will be a series of doors leading into various rooms, each consisting of various tortures that would quell the smoker’s addiction, such as hypnotism (not so much torturous as unethical and rude) and a room where the smoker is forced to chain-smoke until vomiting. Once complete, the smoker would leave with a goody bag full of sugar-free suckers, mint-flavored toothpicks, nicotine lozenges, gum and patches and a business card with my number on it so whenever they crave a cigarette, they can call me, and I can talk them down from picking a cig up!

As much as I do admittedly crave a cigarette here and there, I don’t ever get the urge to smoke one. The cravings have changed into thoughts like, “Wow, I used to love smoking after dinner,” or, “This glass of wine tastes good! I’d love to smoke a fag right about now!” or, “My lungs feel too good; maybe I oughta destroy them again!” While quitting may sound like hell, just know that it is probably much worse than hell! Once you get past all the icky withdrawal symptoms, I guarantee you will look back at your former smoking self and think, “I’m so happy I quit! Now I’m not dependent on a substance and I’ve saved so much money and I won’t die on a hospital bed of lung cancer!” Well, the last part might not be true: You could still get lung cancer even after you quit, apparently! I guess you can remind yourself that you were strong enough to curb the world’s most addictive drug, but you weren’t strong enough to curb the US’s second-leading cause of death! There are some things you just can’t control… but others you fully can.

[kellenhathspoken]

Isolation as inspiration as spirituality as wisdom as...?

let's make christianity weird again!

I have been obsessed with anchorites/anchoresses ever since I took a medieval literature course in undergrad. The urge to remove oneself from society to broaden one’s mind has become a cliché for artists, writers, perverts, psychos, etc., though as a full-time, tax-exempt vocation? Unheard of... nowadays! Unless you count people who belong to the work-from-home caste, though I wholeheartedly do not!

In the Middle Ages, primarily in England, certain individuals who felt a calling to seclude themselves as an act of holiness were appointed the anchorite/anchoress of their village, residing in a small cell (called an anchorhold) attached to the church. In it, the anchorite would have complete access to their bed, chamber pot, and three whole windows: one looking into the church through which the anchorite received Eucharist and counseled parishioners, another that servants could feed the anchorite and empty their chamber pot, and another that brought in natural sunlight. What a luxury not having to empty one’s own chamber pot! With a skylight, to boot!

Most anchorites were in fact anchoresses by the 12th century onward, making the vocation overwhelmingly feminine; proto-femcels, perhaps? While these hermetic girl bosses sat in a deeply pensive trance, villagers flocked to their cells, demanding advice and wisdom. I like to imagine what these questions could have been: “My husband refuseth to lie with me in our whoring bed! What shall I do to entice his staff into rising like the morning sun?” “Why doth mine anus bellow like a bagpipe after eating Mother’s gruel?” “What doth black bile dripping from mine ears suggest, O Wise Hermit?” These individuals were essentially medieval search engines!

Oftentimes, the anchorite would spend his or her day contemplating and praying. While this may seem cruel and unusual, anchorites felt compelled to live such a life; doing so would be an honor akin to winning the lottery! Even when villages were pillaged by invaders who caused mass destruction and committed murder and rape, the anchorite would stay put, perishing along with their parish! Talk about delusional dedication!

With the dissolution of monasteries enacted by the regally murderous, fabulously obese nymphomaniac King Henry VIII (I’ve always wondered if he was hung...) in the mid-1500s, anchorites saw a sharp decline in popularity, quickly becoming passé like Brat summers and white chunky Filas. Several anchorholds remain intact today, mostly throughout England, where visitors can come and pay respect to these medieval loners. I propose if any of you visit an anchorhold, consider contemplating so intensely that the veins in your head begin to bulge, your eyes squint into wrinkly, thin slivers and every muscle in your body flexes so as to appear buff. Then, rather spontaneously, you begin to relax your entire body until your bowels begin to relax and you let one out. I believe this could be comparable to a day in the life of an anchorite, but what do I know?

What baffles me the most about anchorites is the fact they volunteered! Not forced, not coerced and not even compensated! Not a single shilling was given! However, while baffling, the life of an anchorite is a compelling one. Reminds me of world-renowned-maestro-turned-exiled-pariah Lydia Tár’s quote: “If you want to dance the mask, you must service the composer.” Surrendering one’s own ego to something bigger and grander is no novel concept – the anchorites did it before it was cool! These recluses were somewhat like the blind soothsayers from Greek mythology or the Bene Gesserit from Dune or the secluded, child-eating witches from European folklore and fairytales! Let’s make Christianity weird again!

Artist residencies come to mind the more I write about this. Secluding oneself to focus intensely and primarily on one’s art… You could look at it as seclusion as inspiration, which seems to be what the anchorites were doing in their cells alone every day! However, I should add that being an anchorite could be a horrible, nightmarish situation, considering that many Christians have such a deeply strange relationship with masturbation… You mean to tell me these hermits didn’t yank one out while they lived alone in a tiny room?! Not only was this probably enforced by others, but self-policing likely played huge roles in deterring these hermits from touching themselves beneath all that flax and linen! That, to me, is the absolute worst part of being an anchorite. Anyway, back to artist residencies: The urge to isolate oneself from the loud noises of cars passing by blaring Toddlers-and-Tiaras-extra-turned-popstar Sabrina Carpenter and unwarranted critiques from philistines in society is akin to the impulse to hermitize that anchorites felt themselves, leading them to fulfilling a cloistered life! I suppose the fault in this far-fetched comparison is that attendees of a residency eventually reenter society, whereas anchorites ideally spent eternity confined to their cell. Also, anchorites didn’t lose any money when they chose to lock themselves up; artists, on the other hand, aren’t so lucky. Sorry, artists!

If contemporary churches had anchorites, I imagine we would see them a lot on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Boys with the haircut that makes their head look like a stalk of broccoli would don dark robes à la archival Rick Owens that are cinched at the top of the torso so you can see how far out their ribs protrude, accentuating their commitment to an ascetic, gluttony-free life! Girls with curly mullets and glass-like skin thanks to Korean skincare would look as out of place as Sydney Sweeney “portraying” a nun in Immaculate. I can hear the affected voices these modern-day e-anchorites and e-anchoresses would record as voiceovers to their 30-second-long videos: “This is a day in the life of an anchorite withdrawn from secular society: I wake up around 3 am to pray for three hours. I then use my chamber pot to defecate yesterday’s Eucharist, which was my breakfast, lunch and dinner. By 7 am, I’m ready to start my day, which will consist of more contemplative prayer, counseling the townsfolk and flagellating myself for accidentally brushing my privates against a pillow last night!”

Anchorites may be one of the Catholic Church’s many historical faux pas, though perhaps with the invention of the automobile and, later on, the auspicious popemobile, Christians could really make a pretty penny with a traveling anchorite show. Even if anchorites are to stay locked away in a room, why not let the room move around? If anyone from the Vatican reads this and decides to take my idea and run with it, please credit me. Wouldn’t it be funny if an ex-Catholic who openly blasphemes about Christianity like me ended up spearheading an innovation in Catholic faith? I hope so!

[kellenhathspoken]

An ode to Dido's No Angel

a pretentious, air-headed look into an unpretentious, earthy record

Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, more commonly known as Dido, is a spokeswoman for survivors who grew up with unusual, highfalutin names. My first name is Kellen, and while I have (for the most part) loved my uncommon first name whose etymological roots reach all the way back to Gaelic for "slender warrior" (essentially an ancient moniker given to the village "skinny legend," rumor [and delusion] has it), growing up with an odd name wasn't always a pick-me's wet dream; it was fodder for the bullies! Kids would often call me "Kellen Heller" – as if being compared to one of history's most brilliant yet disabled intellectuals is an insult! – or adults would completely butcher its pronunciation and end up calling me "Keelen" or the utterly unfathomable "Colin." There isn't even an "o" in my name!

Dido has also spoken about growing up with a weird name, though not only did her parents name her after the mythical queen of Carthage, they added other names too, creating a Frankenstein name akin to an heir of a centuries-old aristocratic familial lineage! Dido's music, unlike her string of names that all sound magical yet intimidating, plants its feet into the earth and stays above-ground yet below the sky, never floating too high so as to get lost in the clouds, which is also the plural version of her third name! Her debut album, co-produced by her brother Rollo (their parents truly were on something when they named their son and daughter Rollo and Dido respectively), titled No Angel, relies on its earthiness, groundedness and straightforwardness to share secrets, tell stories and soothe others and herself. While the instrumentals never veer too far away from conventional music-making, and the lyrics aren't shrouded in metaphor and esoteric riddles, Dido still accomplished creating a world that enhanced and cemented the late-'90s anxiety-begetting zeitgeist into the new millennium! Let us take a look at each track on this masterful work of art:

Here with Me

This is one of my fave tracks on the album. Such a strong opener to Dido's world that she's sharing with us! Her vocals really are the metaphorical key here that unlocks the gates leading into No Angel town. The subtle drum and bass hint in the beginning flirts with your ears! All she really wants is the subject of the song to lie in bed with her! I hope she got what she wanted. Reading the lyrics makes me think of a long-winded text you'd send to someone who you really wanted to lie in bed with. Sexually, probably, but maybe platonically too! "I don't want to call my friends / They might wake me from this dream" girl... same. As a fellow Capricorn, i too have had to rely on many a friend to wake me up from something dreamlike but also maybe dangerous, and vice versa. I love that a literal interpretation of this song could be she's in this person's bed not wanting to get out because doing so could affect her memory of all that occurred the night before. Poor girl! She could pull a "My Bed" by Tracey Emin and reconstruct the scene of the crime in a museum and sleep there all she wants, while tourists come in from all over the world to witness her decay in bed. After googling more details on Emin's "My Bed," it seems Tracey Emin presented this piece at the Tate Gallery a year before Dido released "Here with Me" as a single... hmmm....

2. Hunter

This song sounds like it was plucked from the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack! Giving "Theme of Laura" a little, no? I love how slightly creepy it sounds. I think folktronica is kind of creepy-sounding, but don't get me wrong, I'm not using "creepy" here pejoratively; I think it's a pleasantly uncanny genre with the blend of acoustic and electronic instruments. This song and Björk's song, also titled "Hunter," are delights, and share similar themes: Both huntresses declare to explore and go out beyond the (self-?)imposed limits of what it means to discover uncharted territory as songstresses. Two gorgeous soundscapes and odes to landscapes!

3. Don't Think of Me

Proto-"don't perceive me"! The song is pretty self-explanatory: when you're with your new boo, don't think of me and how awesome and cool and beautiful i am! Purrrr!

4. My Lover's Gone

I love how ambient and weird this song begins. "His boots no longer by my door" you know it's a real breakup when your bf's boots are gone, and he's not at work!! Can I get a "boots"? This song has pretty drums, like the rest of the album. "No earthly ships will ever bring him home again" I wonder what it's like to date a sailor. Honestly, I think I would be devastated too! Especially if he took his boots with him and not me. Sad!

5. All You Want

This one is a little creepy. It sounds straight out of Edward Cullen's diary! "I'd like to watch you sleep at night" I do love it when women write creepy things. It's almost always more pleasant and relatable and slightly tinged with humor compared to most male perverts, except for the majority of famous French male perverts, but that's neither here nor there, frankly. I'm gonna be honest and say I don't like this song very much. It's underwhelming, and I usually skip it to hear the next track, which is:

6. Thank You

Where do I begin? Her most famous song, no? I'm gonna keep this short, because I don't want to end up writing the majority of this post about this particular song, but it is super, super special to me, and truth be told, I would like this to be played at my wedding. The mentions of depression's ability to twist your mind into not caring if you're late to work or if your house falls down or if you miss the bus or if your tea goes cold... relatable alert!!! And then your Person comes home and "it's not so bad, it's not so bad!" and you thank them for "the best day of [your] life".... Notwithstanding codependent dynamics, life can often seem "not so bad" when around the right person and/or people. While this may sound corny and cliché (because it is), Dido manages to write this song with down-to-earth diction that complements the otherworldly, somewhat silly drums (called cuícas) that sound like humans saying "whoop!" Such an earthly song that reminds you of your humanness when you're feeling out of sorts and alien!

7. Honestly OK

"I'm so lonely I don't even wanna be with myself anymore" sounds like the person sung to in "Thank You" left! Or maybe the emotional scars that the sailor gave you in "My Lover's Gone" were deeper than expected! This one doesn't have a silver lining, and it doesn't need to! I like this one. There's a sound that sounds like a harmonica in it and strange percussion sounds and maybe an accordion? Fun!!! But sad :(

8. Slide

This one is my favorite song from the album. In the beginning I'm gonna bet a bunch of money that they sampled Kirby doing his inflation thing where he floats/jumps. It sounds just like it! If you've got a sec, listen to this song and then pull up the sound effect of Kirby inflating himself, and tell me what you think. I think this song is very underrated, considering the emotional intensity of the chorus and catchiness. The lyrics here sound like a therapist's advice. It's lovely and not cheesy or condescending!

9. Isobel

Poor Isobel! i hope she's ok... A letter to a friend who's the victim of domestic abuse. Gone Girl–esque, but hopefully Isobel isn't a psychopath like Ms. Gone Girl!

10. I'm No Angel

I usually skip this song. Sorry, but it's true! It's a nice little summary of the album's content and themes. I have nothing to add!

11. My Life

Smooth song, kind of reminds me of a James Bond theme/proto-Lana Del Rey's Born to Die... hmm... I've got nothing!

12. Take My Hand

Fun clubby song!!! I like when the beat starts in the middle. Lots of build-up that evolves into a fun song to dance to. After all the heaviness and emotional weight that Dido has sung about, it only makes sense to dance it all off! Clubbing as an antidepressant.. I mean, duh! The perfect ending to such an album. One of my faves! It's a fun song. There's nothing else to add... Thank you, Dido!

[kellenhathspoken]

"Kellen hath spoken" hath been born!

Bonjour!

This is my first ever writing-based blog! I'd like to use this platform to spread lies, deceit, misinformation and pseudoscience across the internet! Hopefully one day I will have created a cult-like movement with followers who worship my words like otherworldly deities while disseminating all the nonsense I spew from my keyboard onto the screen on which you are currently reading this… Just kidding! Unless…..?

I am currently dog-sitting for family friends in an extremely remote part of Michigan. It’s the kind of “remote” where, if I screamed loudly outside, no one would hear me except for the animals that dwell in the surrounding forest! I could scream obscenities, slurs, insults or words in other languages for anatomical parts, and the only beings that would hear these horrible words would be the worms in the ground, the birds in the sky, and the hounds I’m watching! Let’s cross our fingers and hope they don’t tell their owners that the person watching them is a lunatic! But the dogs' owners, like most people I know through my parents, most likely already know I’m a lunatic! And let me tell you, readers: it pays to be a lunatic!!

I had a dear friend visit me on the farm (and I call it a “farm” because there are two barns on the property, though no farming takes place here… I think…) who recommended that I start blogging. I must admit, I am a bit narcissistic in the way that I get a thrill out of people reading what I have to say. Well, calling that “narcissistic” is such a dramatic stretch and over-exaggeration, but I do love the drama of it all… I have recently come to love creating text posts on my “close friends” story on Instagram and sharing my thoughts there, though I think it’s time to move on from esoteric rants and grow into something mainstream… Which is why I’ve decided to create a blog on Tumblr in 2024! So incredibly mainstream, is it not?

I have to owe it to my above-mentioned dear friend Sarah for suggesting I start blogging. In the past, whenever I had Tumblrs, it was a site I went on to re-blog photos, videos and music I thought were cool. Getting a Tumblr at the age of 13 was like opening Pandora’s box: Arthouse movies, unheard-of genres of music (like vaporwave!! I still miss it), stills of scandalous TV shows such as “Skins," artists I’d never heard of but came to adore, reading strangers’ graphically detailed diary entries, hardcore pornography, photos of women wearing high-heels in the mud, radioactive green goo dripping onto Nike tennis shoes, Paz de la Huerta, anime, hentai, pro-ana manifestos, a lady named “Molly Soda,” a link to a website that teaches you how to kill yourself with a helium tank, John Galliano, neo-Nazis, gore, gore, and more gore; these horrifically grotesque yet fascinating items and ideas all jumped out from the screen and implanted themselves into my brain, never to be forgotten! One click led to an intrusive thought, the other a pang of guilt for seeing, another a new type of arousal never felt before. I don’t need to go on and on about Tumblr, and I’d rather not anyway for fear of sounding corny, but you get the picture(s)!

I’m excited to begin this new trek into the collective unconscious to retrieve new ways of self-expression and discovery! Maybe I won’t come out of it unscathed, but I am looking forward to seeing how kellen hath spoken evolves (or devolves!) on this platform we Gen Z degenerates and outcasts are all too familiar with. One more thing about Tumblr and then I’m cutting myself off from mentioning it again: We as members of the same internet-exposed generation ought to require our potential suitors to disclose their old Tumblrs. I believe this could prevent you from dating a serial killer, racist, sexist, or, worse: a Dr. Who fan!! Ew!!!!! Typing those words made my stomach growl, and not in a cute way.

I suppose I’d like to dedicate this inaugural blog post to gluttony, considering it was only yesterday that Americans across the US of A gathered to eat till the cows came home! And maybe the cows never came home, and the eating never ended. Maybe you’re still eating turkey (my least favorite meat! I HATE how dry it can be, and the flavor isn’t satiating in the least!) and mashed potatoes (like eating cotton balls, I’d guess) and stuffing (weird) and the wretched grotesquerie known as green bean casserole!!! Disgusting!! I have spent just about every Thanksgiving with my family, except for Thanksgiving of 2017 when I went to London by myself to stay with an internet friend whom I’d met on (you guessed it!) Tumblr. I think from this moment forward I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with friends who possess exquisite taste in cuisine. Sorry, family, but there’s only so much overcooked, under-moisturized turkey and meandering small talk I can stomach! Next year, I plan to assemble an elite team of friends, acquaintances, lovers, and gluttons who all have a complementary, if not identical, palate. I’m salivating while thinking about a Thanksgiving feast replete with foods and drinks that tickle our umami and savory taste buds in our group’s mouths!  Vegemite on every slice of sourdough bread, seaweed as a garnish on EVERYTHING, raw garlic and onions as hors d’oeuvres, nutritional yeast mixed in bubbly water as an apéritif, duck marinated in a salty, garlicky sauce only referred to as “duck bath,” a jar of pickles for every guest, ponzu as the liquid with which we wash our hands before “digging in,” canned sardines that we all tie into knots in our mouths like cherry stems, a soup made of leftovers from last year’s Thanksgiving that we must all slurp as dramatically yet sexily as possible, trip hop and downtempo and drum-and-bass classics playing from a Bose stereo from the ‘80s that someone somehow hooked a Bluetooth connector into, an autistic mime in the background mocking and mimicking each of us in a slightly insulting yet endearing way, a live chicken sauntering beneath the table and occasionally pecking our feet. Reader, would you like to join us next year? If so, let me know. If not, also let me know and include an explanation as well as a list of three nice things to say about me.

Gluttony as a sin baffles me. I can understand the sinfulness of lust, wrath, and even sloth, but gluttony? You mean “god” will “damn” me to “hell” for eating too much? You know what, I propose we get a hold of the Pope and demand that gluttony be replaced with withholding! The act of restricting something necessary from someone or yourself; now that’s a sin worth damning someone to hell for! Before you assemble a torch-and-pitchfork-wielding militia to conduct a citizen’s arrest on me, hear me out. Depriving another human of something they absolutely need and/or desperately want is much crueler and more unusual than over-consumption! Gluttons can share too! However, gluttony in and of itself… Doesn’t make sense as a sin, does it, Christians? Choosing not to share when being fully able to do so? Evil! I applaud Christians for being such good rule-followers. That sort of deluded loyalty is an admirable trait indeed. If you’re a Christian and reading this, have you considered being an evil henchman/sidekick instead? Think of all the riches and treasures you and your evil genius leader would scour. Put those blind-worshiping skills to good use!

If you have made it here after reading the nonsense I’ve written so far, I am not sure whether to thank you or fear you. Either way, I appreciate your patience and perhaps enthusiasm for what I’ve got to say. Kellen hath spoken will ideally be a blog through which I share my thoughts, concerns, suggestions, obsessions, observations, favorite things, least favorite things, fears, desires, and interviews with friends! Thank you for reading!!!!! TTYL!

[kellenhathspoken]

[kellenhathspoken]

[kellenhathspoken]

Should she suffer? Clap if you think she should suffer.