Irresyllable

On death and dying Pt. 1

2009-12-14T07:18:00.000-08:00

It's weird when you live through a situation you shouldn't have. I'm 22, and I've lived through two accidents which have resulted in injuries to some pretty serious parts of my body. I couldn't think without my noggin' and couldn't type with out my spinal cord intact anywhere from the thoracic spine and up, so I guess I'm pretty lucky. Well, really lucky. I recently lost a friend to an accident frighteningly similar to my first one. I almost feel like I'm mocking him by saying my first, like I'm putting notches in my belt. Or, I'm in a bar conversation competing with strangers on who's tickled injury and death more.

"Dude, I broke my leg when my raft flipped over."
"Psh. I broke all my ribs AND punctured a lung when my motorcycle slid!"
"I had a massive head injury and broke my pelvis eight years ago when I was hit by a car."
"Oh yea!? Well..."
"I'm not done. Three months ago I broke my neck in one place and my back in two places."
The crowd goes silent.

I should be dead. I've been told time and time again how lucky I am, and how God has been watching over me. These things I don't doubt. However, that doesn't change how surreal it feels. One minute, I'm 14 years old, thinking about orange juice and crossing the street to get to the bus stop. The next, I'm in ICU in a head trauma unit, begging to be able to take a piss and to be taken off the hospital bed.

I have no memory of this. My mom told me later. I was on a lot of pain meds, which probably was a really good all things considered. I was in the hospital for nearly five weeks, and had the whole rigamarole of treatments: physical therapy for the fractured pelvis, occupational therapy for the head injury ("Can you look up this number in a phone book? GOOD! Can you dial it? GREAT! Now, can you ask the person if they have a CD of a band you like in stock? AWESOME!"), vitamin E rubdowns for the road rash, how-to lessons with crutches...

All I wanted was to go home. I was stick of the hospital bed. I was sick of the hospital food. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to see my friends. I had no real understanding of how serious my injuries were, or how lucky I was to be in the hospital and not the morgue. I was 14, I was untouchable. There's something very neanderthalish about teenage thinking--I am teen, I am indestructible. When I look back, I feel very ungrateful. Then again, I think that if I had a little bit of that innocence now, that idea that I could live forever, I wouldn't be so bent out of shape about what it means to be alive. More on that later.

So, eight years pass and I'm as good as can be. No withstanding problems from the injuries, except that I was exempt from all contact sports for PE in high school (YES!), and I had to get a CT scan every six months until the blood clot in my head dissipated. It took a few years, but it eventually said its farewells. I was free to do any sort of head-bonking activity I pleased, as long as it didn't involve cars, I figured I was okay.

Well, I didn't relish any head-bonking activities from 2001-2009, unless you count forgetting to close a kitchen cabinet and standing up into it. Or, having a box of Olive Garden To-Go! soup bowls fall on you in the supply basement. I graduated high school, went on to college, and did my college thing. I studied, I partied, I worked, I tried new things, I tried new people. It was a free for all in life choices, and I picked whatever sounded the most interesting. Throw a superhero party and go as Captain Communist? Why not?! Power hour of Arrogant Bastard with the roommates? I'm down. Fly to Portland and hook up with an internet friend? Sure. Dabble in the drug culture? Sounds like a plan. Fly to New York and explore the City alone? Absolutely. Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." I thought, "Life is like a bag of Jellybeans. You never know what flavor you'll like unless you try it." So, I tried what I could, threw out what I didn't like, and savored the ones I loved.

There's something really gratifying about saying, "Fuck you" to convention and living on the fly. You're always in the moment. You always have a good story to tell your friends. There's never a dull time in your life. However, it lacks stability and longevity. After a long night of whateverthehellIdecidedtodo, I would lie in bed and think, "What's the point? Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do? Why am I here?" The nightly Q&A usually rested on an inebriated mind, which led to some interesting answers to say the least. My innocence had left, the idea that I am indestructible, gone. I had no one real to turn to and nothing solid to put my feet on. Fear overwhelmed my life, mostly a fear of sickness and death. Which, now, I think is really ironic. I feared sickness and death, but had no idea what I was living for. Some (even a part of me, admittedly) argue that the moment is enough to live for. Yea, that's fine in whateverIdecidetodo land, but it leaves you lonely and scared at night. There's no rock when the tide changes. What do you hold onto when you're being swept away?

On September 14, 2009. I needed that rock. Something in the physical world to hold onto, to roll around my head while I was still here on solid, albeit wet and soggy, ground. A stamp I'd left somewhere. An impression on someone's mind, perhaps. If I died, I needed a friend who would be forever left uncomforted, a hand who would be left unheld, a heart that would be left broken. I wanted to be important enough to someone that they remembered me forever. In hindsight, it sounds selfish, but I think that's something everyone wants: to be remembered, lovingly, by those who mean the most to you.

...More later. I'm tired.

Domestic Vogue

2009-01-18T22:15:00.001-08:00

We are delicate fainting women shrouded
in autumn silk, hiding long black
tentacles that pulverize
the eyes that are so enamored by
the cloth, falling like leaves-- swish,
swish, to the hard wood floor.

You're pulling wings off butterflies
for science and for fun; a sadistic
experiment to scrutinize the naked torsos
as they whither and die-- a pile
of golden yellow and speckled auburn
red, kicked into the corner.

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

Raise your glasses brimmed
with the good wine from yesteryear
dark burnt-orange,
that tastes like fire.

It's burning the house down;
plaster spit spats, and the
paint melts and dribbles down the walls
like bile down a bulimic's chin,
puddling on the floor, a rainbow
of designer oil slick.

You retch and retch, throats smoldering,
engulfed in flames; but relishing
its age and class, toasting
Skies the limit! Never
look back! We'll remodel
again, this year.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T00:42:00.001-08:00

A Life- Sylvia Plath

Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair,
Short-reined, pawing like paradeground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.

Portland

2008-12-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

We're digging our names into the basement boards of historic hotels
with revolving doors and etched glass,
and linoleum chrysanthemums, perched on " can i help
you please?" front desks that
the receptionist has left empty and dry like an untreated open
sore,] while she shoos the women and men in too many coats
with too many outstretched hands,
chapped and swollen red like the apples of your cheeks after
crushing snow flakes with your arms and legs, you're
an animated mortar and pestle, smashing beautiful
angels into the backdrop of a gutter squatting winter wonderland.

The moonlight hangs heavily above
but the street lamps guide our way through this
city that brought us together so many times,
zig-zagging though stained sidewalks, pin-up style skirts, and
24-hour donut shops with the strongest, most god-awful coffee
that burnt my tongue, and you made me drink the cold, cold
water out of those water fountains that look like gaudy
18th century replica art, the kind my grandmother promises
to give me when she dies, and I promise you I will never
decorate with when we move into a seventies Victorian on 23rd
street with the teal paneling and too large bay windows that stare
into me like a crystal ball, whispering secrets into my candy-apple ears,
because it's so damn cold here.

But I wonder how the poppies smell and how the heat
waves dance atop the blue and foam slamming
into the golden coast, where iridescent midriffs ripple beneath
our very own celestial body that defines what we call ourselves
when we travel places that don't understand progressive
movements that force the world to think in a direction
it never understood before, while the midriffs desperately grasp
for different shades of brown, smoking neatly rolled mounds of
'tobacco', reading about The Inferno and what it means to be
a sinner, so they drip drop coins to the nickeled-and dimed who piss
behind the Hilton, legs splayed like spindly cartoon frogs,
their hands calloused from steel strings and wrought iron edges
of the boxcars we found when looking for another life.

The Untrustworthy Speaker by Louise Gluck

2008-12-15T00:47:00.000-08:00

Don't listen to me; my heart's been broken.
I don't see anything objectively.

I know myself; I've learned to hear like a psychiatrist.
When I speak passionately,
That's when I'm least to be trusted.

It's very sad, really: all my life I've been praised
For my intelligence, my powers of language, of insight-
In the end they're wasted-

I never see myself.
Standing on the front steps. Holding my sisters hand.
That's why I can't account
For the bruises on her arm where the sleeve ends . . .

In my own mind, I'm invisible: that's why I'm dangerous.
People like me, who seem selfless.
We're the cripples, the liars:
We're the ones who should be factored out
In the interest of truth.

When I'm quiet, that's when the truth emerges.
A clear sky, the clouds like white fibers.
Underneath, a little gray house. The azaleas
Red and bright pink.

If you want the truth, you have to close yourself
To the older sister, block her out:
When I living thing is hurt like that
In its deepest workings,
All function is altered.

That's why I'm not to be trusted.
Because a wound to the heart
Is also a wound to the mind.

Green is the new Black

2008-12-14T19:55:00.001-08:00

We're forward thinking,
economists of a new millennium,
selling hymns and psalms on
polyester t-shirts, 2-for-1
specials with complimentary
plastic bags, stained
with smiley faced suns
and neon flowers hugging trees.

Roaches

2008-12-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

I cracked my head
open, on the kitchen floor
to prove to you
that I had brains.
Like an egg,
I spilled out.
All of me, yolk and
all, crept through
the cracked linoleum
slipping under the refrigerator.
And my last thought
was to clean the floor
in case of roaches.

Ten years old, Visitation

2008-12-01T21:30:00.002-08:00

Dad stumbles toward me
arms outstretched like a
windmill, whirling round
and round.
I tumble down,
like a rag doll
flop flopping
to the bottom
of the stairs.

Metal

2008-12-01T21:30:00.001-08:00

Her foot taps in a perfect four count,
a beautiful time signature in converse
shoes with headphones the size of
cantaloupes cut in half and suction
cupped to each ear,
bleating like a snowy sheep
dying at the hands of its Shepard.

Letters

2008-11-08T02:40:00.000-08:00

Dear San Francisco,

I hate you, I really do. I hate the cardboard signs perched in homeless hands. I hate the smoggy rain that machine guns onto cracked sidewalks. I hate the Tenderloin junkies begging around alleys for a fix. I hate that the Golden Gate Bridge is so overrated. I hate that the hustle and bustle goes against the grain. I hate the idea of you being the gem of the west coast. Most of all, I hate that you’re the only city I make sense in.

This all feels very self-deprecating, but I think I love you like a battered wife holds onto the hand that beats her. Every time I’m with you I finally feel like I belong somewhere; I hate that I belong in such an inconsistent, backwards world, but maybe that’s where I’m doomed to be. Maybe that’s who I’m doomed to be: Forever twenty-one, thrift-store shopping, recycled-book reading, soy latte drinking, heart bleeding, counterculture seeking. I’m doomed to be someone angry with the world, yet so enamored by it at the same time. I wish I knew why you did this to me.

Maybe I’ve been reading too much Tales of the City, but the idea of you sounds more and more pleasing every day. I want to eat sushi off your stomach, pedal bicycles through your catacomb of hills, volunteer in your poorest parts, ride the Muni down the slope of your neck, drink gin and tonic in your Castro, smoke pot on your Tenderloin, and so many other things the San Jose just can’t give me. My brain boils like a cauldron when we are together, San Francisco. Are you trying to kill me, or put me under your spell? Every time you promise lazy paddle boat rides in Golden Gate Park, or green milk tea in China town, you slap me across the face with unintelligible one-way streets and transsexual armpits and crotches pressed into me on the Muni. Why can’t we spend time together with out the bondage and S&M?

What scares me the most is that I won’t love you if I don’t hate you. Sometimes the most tantalizing sex is mysterious and a little painful. Once I’ve gotten a taste, I may not want it taken away. Would you be the same with out your imperfections? Would you feel so good if you stopped sinking your teeth into me when I least expect it?
God I want to spend more time with you. This relationship is so wrong, but it feels so right. When can we be together again?

Love,

Amber

Sometimes RL is hysterical

2008-07-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Wow

2008-06-26T21:57:00.001-07:00

I was 'political' before the gas price fiasco. There is nothing more irritating that someone sitting at your table, ordering exorbitant amounts of food, complaining about the price of gas (I always wonder if they can name even ONE Supreme Court Justice), and leaving a 7 % tip.

If you pay attention to anything on this blog, watch this video

2008-06-01T20:07:00.001-07:00

ALWAYS support net neutrality.

The internet is everywhere

2008-05-25T12:32:00.001-07:00

This is one of the reasons I'm moving to Portland

2008-05-19T03:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/18/obama-draws-record-crowd_n_102337.html

<3

2008-05-06T21:08:00.001-07:00

I am so happy :)

Perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen

2008-05-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling my maturity level is being questioned. I don't care. This is hilarious.

Welcome to Portland

2008-03-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

The finest city in the great state of Oregon.

Braces Teeth

2008-03-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

“Braces teeth” is a term used to describe the picture perfect smile that $5,000 of orthodontic work can buy. If you line up a group of random sixteen and seventeen year olds and ask them to smile, you will be, undoubtedly, able to pick out those who had braces. The teeth are whiter and more porous looking than un-altered smiles, reminiscent of bleached coral and sea sponges. Each tooth is a copy of the last, only slightly graduating in size: even the canine teeth have molded to an unnatural shape, looking sanded or filed down. Both top and bottom sets are unnaturally straight, and clamp together with an unnaturally perfect alignment. The semi-circle of the gums has been pulled from a sloping U-shape to a taught, parentheses-like curve. This, I assume, is to give the barer a toothier smile—something much sought after by supermodels and teenagers alike.

Those who had or were in pursuit of braces teeth were unaware of the phenomenon, while kids without braces were uncomfortably obsessed with their metal free mouths. In magazines and TV, heroes and villains alike spent thousands of dollars on their smiles, and this was not overlooked by the dental deprived. We yearned for pearly white, abnormally straight teeth to run or tongues over, flash mischievously at love interests, and clumsily bump into other braces teeth when attempting to kiss. Middle and high school hallways were more obscene than the television: braces teeth were everywhere. Lucky kids born with crooked smiles stomped around school with permanently parted lips, showing off their braces teeth like brand-named clothes or fake-ids. Those in the ‘transitional period’ were less inclined to flash cyborg smiles, but were grotesquely open about their lives with braces.

Time and time again, braces-wearers would try and convince me that the clamps and wires lining their mouths were a curse, not a blessing. Painful, messy, and irritating were a few of the words used to describe their trials and tribulations with braces. They couldn’t chew gum, eat candy or corn on the cob, drink hot or cold beverages too fast, or floss with ease. In pictures, the flash would reflect off of the metal studs glued to their teeth, illuminating their robotic smiles. Some woke up with their cheek or lip stuck in the braces, and others snapped their rubber bands when opening too widely.

Still, I was convinced braces were worth it. I would have something to complain about on a regular basis, be able to show off my new braces colors every time I went in for a tightening, (the rainbow smile was in fact, amazing), and the end result was a set of exquisite, enamoring braces teeth. I learned at a younger age than most (after experimenting with As-Seen-On-TV eyebrow wax) that beauty was painful, and to obtain the ultimate in beauty one must be willing to go through the ultimate in pain. I was ready for the pain, but lacked the parental force to finance, and merit, my masochism.

***

My sister desperately needed braces. She sucked her index finger until she was about twelve, which had desecrated her orthodontics. Our dentist highly recommended braces for her, but said that she needed a cavity-free check up before he would refer her to an orthodontist. Years later, she has yet to wear braces because of her poor dental hygiene, and never seemed to yearn for the braces teeth that I did. Perhaps this obsession jumps generations, but that did not stop me from both envying her cracked, cavity-swollen smile, and hating her for not taking advantage of it.

My mother was so focused on my sister’s need of braces that my wishes were pushed aside. I was told my teeth were perfect, and I should be happy that I didn’t need to go through what my sister, inevitably (or so we thought), would have to. She didn’t understand that perfection was not natural; it needed to be aided by metal clamps, wires, and glue. To have perfect teeth was to push and pull them into submission, using whatever force necessary to rightfully dub them braces teeth. Orthodontic bondage was the price one paid for 32 perfectly polished smiling diamonds. As much as I expressed these feelings to my mother, she did not crack: I didn’t need braces and my sister did, so I would not get braces and my sister would. A simple equation, but I was still unhappy with the answer. I had seen many pairs of siblings with braces: Why couldn’t my sister and I both have them? Why was I doomed to a natural smile and my sister a perfect one?

The answer, I knew, but did not want to accept. It was the answer to every question I asked my mother: Why do we buy off-brand food? Why do we buy make-up at the drug store? Why can’t we have the seven-foot faux snow Christmas tree? “Money,” was her simple, pure, and honest answer. Money was something I had a perverted concept of. People with money ate Kellogg’s cereal for breakfast. People with money put on make-up from the mall. People with money wore braces and flashed fantastic toothy smiles. Having money was a way of life; a way of life that was better than the life I had. Later, I would realize this concept of money was learned from my mother’s relationship with it, and how she defined our lives by it.

Regardless, it was an important factor in my obsession with braces teeth in all of their pearly perfection. If I had money, would my seemingly ideal teeth be a candidate for braces? Would my dentist still deter me from pasting plastic and metal to them? If a practitioner of medicine changed a diagnosis to suit them selves or a colleague, whom else could I manipulate with money? These questions were daunting, and the answers shrouded in confusion and excuses from my mother. Money, she was convinced, would come to her by way of mystic force or serious banking error. It was fluid and elusive, forever available yet difficult to grasp. Working longer or harder was out of the question due to an inherent laziness and belief that she was continually being screwed by the man—a trait that is, in my family’s case, an unfortunate fish in the gene pool. However, I would not let bad genes, a poor worldview, or an irresponsible relationship with money ruin my chance at achieving personal happiness. Braces teeth were the beginning, the end, and the center of all that was pure, beautiful, and good in my adolescent world. I was willing to do just about anything to prove I was worthy of orthodontic advancement.

Growing up in a suburb of the Silicon Valley perpetuated my wealth-seeking, braces-loving ways. Rows of creamy stucco, two-story Spanish-style villas lined the lower-middle class section of town, and Berlin-wall-esque gated communities separated them from the middle class. Behind the gates, dozens of oversized, nearly identical homes loomed over manicured lawns and daily-swept driveways. The superbly wealthy lounged in custom built San Francisco-style Victorians and replicas of 18th century French Colonials on Garden of Eden like acreage. The mosaic-bottomed marble pools, I’m sure, cast a beautiful light onto the edge of the dark Brazilian-wood decks when the children scampered about on bright Sunday afternoons. Lunches were sandwiches on rye bread, washed down with organic white cranberry juice, and imported Italian gelato for dessert. On weekdays, mothers drove their children to and from school in sleek, bullet-like BMWs and Audis. The poorer children were subject to a small embarrassment when they were dropped off from “my child is an honor student” bumper-sticker donned minivans.

Back home, dinner was eaten around a table, and involved meals portioned according to the latest rendition of the food pyramid. Refrigerators were lined with a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, and dotted with snack-time favorites: peanut butter and jelly, apple juice boxes, cheese and crackers. Post meal, time on the computer was limited to an hour or less—dependent on homework research—and ‘TV-time’ was strictly monitored by parents. This was the life I yearned for. The snacks in the fridge, the gardeners waking me up on Sunday mornings, the chores and their promised five-dollar allowance, the pick-up and drop-off from school, the help with homework, the restriction of entertainment. While I was constantly pushing the little boundaries I had, I relished the idea of feeling secure within stricter, ‘normal’ ones. Braces, I was sure, would be a catalyst to normalcy. Not only would I be on the road to a perfect smile, I would be enjoying the many things my peers took for granted.

***

My sister’s need for braces grew with my obsession. Her mouth was reminiscent of a stone-hedge explosion—teeth jutted out at strange angles, colliding with each other, resulting in a plethora of cracks and chips. Her teeth were playing hide-and-seek, running away from each other, some hiding behind others. No longer was this solely an aesthetic issue: her orthodontic deformity was evolving into a medical problem. If she continued to take poor care off her teeth, she would be going in for a denture fitting at twenty-five. I’m sure the dentist was horrified when giving this diagnosis, as my sister was completely unphased. I can imagine her sitting in the dentist office emitting loud, obnoxious sighs as the dentist paces around her x-rays and preaches about the importance of brushing and flossing. Her eyes roll, her foot taps, and her eyes wander to the clock, waiting for this to be over so she can clamp her mess of a mouth onto her McDonalds sitting in the car while my mom drives her home. Her mind wanders to the gang-stealing-cars video game my dad bought her weeks ago, and how to go about finishing the mission she has been stuck on. I can assume my mother was hanging onto any word that sounded reminiscent of monetary value. My sister’s behavior was of no interest to her, as she was too worried about financing the braces. I can see them leave, chomping on French fries throughout the course of the drive, and discussing something other than what was just spent time ignoring and worrying about.

My sister continued to destroy her teeth, and I continued to hate her for being so ungrateful. At her fingertips was the object of my obsession, and she brushed it off as a minor irritation—a fly swarming around her TV screen while trying to watch her favorite show, or notes home about unfinished class work and poor behavior. I begged and pleaded with my mother (and the mirror) for braces to perfect my seemingly fantastic smile, with no avail. As I meandered through school hallways, I hated my peers with their metal mouths and braces teeth. I hated their parents who wore business-casual, who picked up my friends from school in nice cars, who fed them fresh fruit and exotic cheeses, who had two dining tables in their giant houses—one for everyday dining, and one for formal.

I was obsessed with those who had for the same reason I hated them: I couldn’t enjoy the things they, I was convinced, took for granted. I saw everyone around me skating through life, with out a care in the world, never acknowledging the fantastic, normal things their everyday life was filled with. Braces, for me, would be the push down the mountain of poverty and chaos to the quaint valley of middle-class normality. My sister had yet to realize this, but would one day bring herself to the edge of that mountain, throw herself down, and fall into the seat of kings to be fitted with the metal, wires, and glue that would pull her into the realm of the normal. I, however, will forever sit at the sidelines as a judgmental and jealous observer, coming to terms with my out-of-the-ordinary unaltered self everyday.

New Tattoo!

2008-03-13T22:52:00.001-07:00

I had the script done when I was 18. I finally found something that would look great added to it. Four hours of confusion and pain are worth the result.

Sweet smells

2008-03-04T23:20:00.000-08:00

Flowers from the market never fail to brighten my senses. They have a simple, fresh scent like day old dryer sheets nestled in unfolded laundry, or the cool spray of perfume on the wrist of a girl, yearning for the blush of womanhood. Rows of daisies, lilacs, orchids, and tulips send their soft fragrances through the marketplace--they shimmy and sachet with those who care to dance with life's small indulgences. The strongest are sisters of clove cigarette smoke after a few beers, and the lightest the organic vanilla shampoo during a post-hangover shower. Together, these opposing smells meld together, and weave into nature's mosaic of beauty amidst a stand-in-line, debt-by-plastic world.

Oh my goodness

2008-02-28T15:32:00.001-08:00

We all lose. :(

America's view on universal healthcare

2008-02-21T04:17:00.000-08:00

There are more things wrong with this picture than there are pixels.
Is you're still lost, look at the description next to the red box and cry yourself to sleep tonight.

For RTVF 141: Links

2008-02-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

My Top Ten Favorite sites online. CLICK WITH EXTREME CAUTION! Enjoy with a robust, full-bodied wine.

YTMND
&totse
Buckethead
Cyanide and Happiness
xkcd
Something Awful
Red Meat
thinkgeek
Bash
Digg

In response to a Ronpauligist on Hillary's Universal Healthcare

2008-02-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I don't like Hillary and didn't vote for her.

Secondly...
Universal Healthcare is the antithesis of your summary in Canada, France, or any other country (practicing universal Healthcare) that is truly freer than we are. Have you ever been without health insurance? Have you ever been without health insurance, working your ass off, sick, unable to afford care, making it so you can't WORK to make more money because you're so sick? Until you have, then you can talk.

People who spout off about the evils of a government-funded (which is truly funded by the tax payers "hard earned money" as you so eloquently stated. Who, then, have the right to dictate how the Healthcare system is run: eg. no one in their right mind would put up with DMV-esque workers in the Healthcare system. Also, the DMV is a state entity--blame California for that one. Popular sovereignty ftw). Those against Universal Healthcare never seem to see any positives, nor do they research how these positives can be obtained without sucking paychecks dry. If anyone was smart enough to pick up on things other countries have done successfully, (pushing aside the 'America-knows-best' ego) maybe we would be better for it.

I think the problem is people who have never had any hardship in their lives. They assume everything can be paid for by 'hard-earned cash' because their family unit--and usually by extension their group of friends--earns enough money to live a decent life because they were PRIVILEGED by opportunity. You and I both know (unless you are completely blinded by what politicians and the media tells you) that opportunity waxes and wanes throughout this country; it is consistent in places saturated in wealth, as the wealthy can send their children to better schools, tutoring centers, colleges, etc. While the (relatively non-existent) middle class and the poor struggle to get their children into good schools; pay for childcare; pay for the overwhelming cost of health care if they can afford it; and other things necessary to live in this country. When you can say you've lived that life, we can talk.

Finally, this libertarian/anarchist movement makes me sick. Why do people who HATE government want to be IN government? That's something I never understood. While our government is in shambles now, it shouldn't be eradicated. The current problems need to be resolved (we have solutions to these problems, we just need someone to have the balls/ovaries to implement them) and someone needs foresight enough to find solutions to problems that will, inevitably, affect America. If someone *cough Obama* would be willing to admit the problems of this country (while still BELIEVING in it) they will be best able to achieve solutions.

Toilet Paper

2008-02-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

Everything was fine until double-roll toilet paper. Before the advent of mass toilet tissue marketing, drug stores were places of indifference and nonchalance: I could enter a Walgreen’s without cringing, and purchase everyday items (cigarettes, energy drinks, mascara, vitamins—staples when in pursuit of the American dream) without feeling hypocritical. Now, the toilet paper mascots of my childhood are pushing bigger, better, and bolder rolls. The gaseous cartoon bear is still making daily trips to the forest’s community toilet hole, but is armed with twice the toilet tissue for his (and I presume the next bear in line—one bear alone can not possibly use a double-roll) wiping pleasure. The group of pleasant elderly women is still working the days away, quilting millions upon millions of tiny-paper-pillows to bring the gift of soft, plush toilet paper to industrialized countries around the world. I am sure they are thrilled to have their workload doubled: the fine craft of toilet tissue quilting will be forever in debt to the Quilted Northern 3, inoculating them into the Quilter’s Hall of Fame for mastery in common reusable goods.

Certainly, the marketing department at Proctor and Gamble was tickled about the double roll idea at its dawn: it’s a time saver, a space saver, a money saver, and (to ice the cake) it helps the environment! The wonders of a forward-thinking company have yet again revolutionized a product that, one would think, was at its peak of performance. At the double roll’s drug store debut, an overwhelming sense of pride and joy must have overcome the slew of designers, advertisers, and marketers; they had put a new edge on toilet paper, and society will surely benefit from it. This is what I think about while I browse the aisles of the corner Longs.

I’m not sure why double roll toilet paper was the catalyst for my disdain for American consumer culture. There are so many products that could have done the same: toothbrushes with plaque-destroying bristles; super-strength multi-scented deodorant; sponges shaped like hearts and farm animals. All these products, along with millions of others, are more than qualified to bring any overly observant individual to their breaking point. Perhaps it was the simplicity—and necessity—(according to our societal definition of needs: I’m not sure where toilet paper lies on Maslow’s hierarchy) of toilet paper that made its makeover so disturbing.

For years, adjectives softer, smoother, sensual were used to describe the two-ply squares, and for years, this never bothered me. The majority of Americans often overlook words directed toward the senses, so I did not feel that Charmin or Scott had roped in buyers by tantalizing their vocabularies. Words that describe size and savings, however, are ear candy for any consumer. Saving a pocket of change and doubling the size trumps a soft, smooth, and sensual wiping. I suppose this puts to question our values as a society, and our purpose as a species: Are we forever doomed to wipe our asses with a never-ending roll of discomfort? Will humanity one day evolve to a people that appreciate a thicker paper over more of a thinner?

I think about this with my cigarettes, energy drinks, mascara, and vitamins in hand. As I pull closer to the register, I don’t know if I am aiding the toilet paper tycoons I despise by supporting an institution that carries their product. And, if I am, where would I go to in protest? I’m sure the Safeway or 7-11 down the way are carriers of the double-roll virus. Even Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (elite grocery stores for those who bash consumer culture, only to be sucked into a black-hole of hypocrisy) have to subscribe to the tyranny of toilet paper marketing. As the overweight, soul-broken woman scans my purchases, I wonder how I could change consumer culture. If I turned to the line behind me, gave a venom-filled speech about the evils of double-roll toilet paper, and stormed out of the store, would it make a difference? The checker hands me a weighted bag with a balloon-like arm, and tells me to have a nice day. I leave, and continue to live the life I have been leading.

A 1...2...A-1-2-3-4!

2008-01-31T23:30:00.000-08:00

This is a test. This is only a test.