Sweet Sin Couture

Hola!

So, my love for fashion has taken a fun turn. I'm now designing shoes! Please check out my shop on Etsy, and feel free to share these with friends! (please :D )

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetSinCouture?ref=si_shop

The Rest Turns to Ashes

Latest and Greatest:

My new book!

It's available to order at Blurb.com.

It's a poetry collection ranging from high-school to current (some available on this blog), that outlines the struggles that I, and many may face in their journey to becoming who they are. Please preview, and feel free to share it with friends :)

The Rest Turns to Ashes by Ashley Loya | Make Your Own Book

My Slactivist Response to Over-Reactivism

It seems that the more heated, and important a debate becomes... the more we feel inclined to draw a line down the middle, and pick a side... thus removing all gray area and making the situation completely black and white as a society. While I understand that it's always a gut-reaction to say "fuck that" to something that we disagree with, is that really helping either side of a cause? No, it's not. It just proves one or the other's point. I am officially going to say, that I don't think it's proactive or helpful to meet hate or bigotry, with more hate or bigotry. It's not helping, and just makes you look like a hypocrite every time you do it.

So, what's wrong with a little gray area? We as a society don't want it. We have to be right, or wrong. In the debate on Equality, it has become either pro-gay, or anti-gay. You don't get an "in between" you're one or the other, and you have no choice about it. Battle lines have been drawn. So, when there are those select few that are resting in the gray... how does it look to them when we as a society are forcing them to choose a side? Forcing on them, "this is right, fuck those other guys," isn't helping your cause at all. Throwing equal amounts of rotten tomatoes the other way, isn't going to cancel out the BS they're throwing this way.

Thus, I come to my point. I am a slactivist. I'm ok with that. I am very firm on my point, and love to offer my support to equality, and pro-gay efforts without being overtly active to the cause... but I (unlike most) am not going to do it with "Over-Reactivism." I'm pretty sure I just coined that term, but I'm not taking credit for it just yet. Anytime we see someone that seems to be leaning slightly in the opposite direction.... we over-react. We begin "throwing tomatoes" at lightning speed. People jump on it immediately, discounting their thoughts, opinions, and feelings. We paint them to be hate-filled monsters. How is that helping? Especially when there are real hate-filled monsters out there, that actually deserve the portrait we offer them.

I'm going to bring in the same viewpoint I have about the whole "anti-drug" cause. If you tell everyone that pot is the same as heroin, when they realize it isn't, it's going to discount you, and you'll appear to be an "Over-Reactivist." Same goes for the debate on equality. There are people out there picketing funerals, and standing on street corners with signs that say, "God Hates Fags." That is both disturbing, and disgusting. They are truly the comparative "heroin" of the anti-gay movement. Do you really want to lump everyone on the other side into that same area? It's the same mistake. Let's not forget, that the DARE program, based on this notion failed miserably.

The ends don't justify the means. You cannot stop the hate, by providing more hate, and propaganda. It doesn't make it O.K. just because the propaganda is to your liking... it's still the same thing! What happened to being the bigger man?

I'm certainly not about to change my mind on the subject. I think being anti-gay is wrong, and I feel that we should continue to push for equal rights as well as trying to stop the hate and educate the public. I'm just saying that before you re-post that anti-anti-gay article, or share that hateful anti-gay remark with well worded, "fuck this hateful motherfucker," that you think twice about what you're promoting. Are you promoting equality? Or are you just promoting hate with a prettier face? Take ten seconds and think it through.

be, BEING, been

You resonate clearly through my mind
a faded echo of yesterday
Roaming through empty hallways,
smeared mascara,
bleach blond ghost.
That's not you anymore.
Letting your fingers slowly glide
over opalescent waters
to lose track of the hours in incandescent lighting
nails, bent and broken
That's not you anymore either.
Lost between layers of plastic,
stems and seeds,
glass bottles and worn shoe soles
waiting impatiently with an empty gas tank
and purring engine.
Those weren't your best days.
Soap dried hands,
early mornings, late nights
and remnants of who you were
to tempt you in the silence.
Luckily these moments do not define us.

Poet

Poet

Nothing is more dangerous than a hopeful optimist
with inner recklessness
who bends the senses to please their disconnects.
The grass gets always greener,
the mean girls even meaner,
but for us hopers, for us dreamers,
we all just end up being feiners.
Our civilization digresses,
the rest just progresses,
left empty, left breathless
empty shells of human messes.
By the time I taste the heels
of the hopers and the dreamers,
I'll be flat out of breath..
flat broke,
disposed of by the cleaners.
and maybe we'll always be running,
to find the place where the sun is sunning
I never stop. I'm always gunning
even an angel wearing tears is
always breathless, always stunning.


I try to steer clear of rhyming poetry because it tends to be seen as "beginner work." All I gotta say about that, is sometimes you gotta get back to your roots. Rhyme and Rhythm is where we all started, isn't it?

Would You Like Fries With That?

While David Rochester was studying Bankruptcy and Civil Litigation at Harvard Law preparing to graduate at the top of his class last spring, he never imagined that he would return home, struggle to find a job and end up asking his clients, “do you want fries with that?”

“I have thousands in schooling debts that need to be paid,” Rochester noted, “Harvard isn’t cheap.”

Most law students end up with well over $100,000 dollars in student loans that must be paid upon completion of school. With the current economy, how are students going to pay that back if they are unable to locate a job?

David finally took whatever he was able to find, which ended up being “counter help,” at a local McDonald’s. According to David, he currently rings up orders, bags your food, and even cleans the bathrooms once weekly.

“I attempted to apply first with all the firms I knew, and even lowered my expectations by applying with firms that do not have the greatest reputation,” said Rochester. He ended up even attempting to take a job as a paralegal only to be informed that he was overqualified as a member of the Florida State Bar, and a resume that boasts a 3.98 GPA.

“It isn’t even that I was told I was under qualified for a position with a firm… it is just that the jobs aren’t out there right now,” he explained, “and I’m not the only one.”

Rochester went on to explain that most of the students from his graduating class he has kept in touch with are also struggling to find jobs in their area of expertise, and many are working at gas stations, low level firms, or small businesses.

“I understood that it would be difficult starting out. As a lower level attorney I anticipated that I wouldn’t get the best jobs out there, but I thought I would at least get something.”

With unemployment numbers soaring higher daily in most major cities, these types of stories become less, and less appalling.

Over forty-five percent of Miami’s residents are currently under-employed, according to the 2010 Census. This means that a large percentage of people are currently working in jobs that are far below their qualifications and pay rate they require to take care of themselves and their families.

“I’m trying to remain optimistic that this is just a phase, or that more jobs will become available as the economy improves,” Rochester laughed, “but I had a better job than this on summer break when I was sixteen.”

David said that he is still continuing to look for work, and has even began submitting his resume in neighboring communities and bigger cities. Until he finds a position available in his line of work he will be currently offering to upsize that number five at a fast-food joint near you.

Haha, gotcha. Please note that this story is completely fictional, although written in a journalistic format. The characters in question are not real, and are not based on anyone. All numbers, are purely fictional, and not pulled from anything real. In other words this article is just like Pamela Anderson... COMPLETELY FAKE. I just took the opportunity to poke fun at a few different things (satirically of course) in a new format.....You believed it though.... so what does that say?

Just a Reminder

Just a reminder, that I'm still selling my book, available on Blurb.

Ten Wicked Short Stories in a Bar by Ashley Loya | Make Your Own Book