I forgot to apologize last time for not posting for many moons. Mostly for me because I don't have an accurate idea of how many people actually read my nonsense. 501 people have seen the page though, so that's cool. I haven't been doing a whole bunch in the interim. I'm still single (guys) and I'm okay with that (ladies) but I'm feeling a tad lonely (guys). So I got that going on. I've also been feeling kinda low. Like life is poop kind of but with more actual feelings. I was trying to think about what I did last time I felt this way and I think what I did was start watching Doctor Who. Mostly because I ran out of things to watch on Netflix, and also because my giant nerdy friend Sarah (she's a literal giant) kept harping on it. So I said fuck it and watched the first episode of the new series. I didn't expect much, mostly because of my low opinion of British television. Not that it's bad, it just looks crap. Plus we had watched an episode in my theater class in high school but my teacher kept fast forwarding so all I saw were bad CGI aliens and Chris Eccleston's nose. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the first and only time I had seen that nose, it was being a terrifying asshole to pre-butt-of-every-joke Nicholas Cage in Gone in Sixty Seconds, so that kind of turned me off. It is also why I can't love him most as the Doctor because I was introduced to him at a young age as a scary, murderous villain.
Dude also had a weird thing for coffins and I had, what you might call, a phobia of death and dying.
Anyhoo, Doctor Who. Daleks, Cybermen, TARDIS, Sonic Screwdrivers. Fantastic. All of it. Like nothing you have known. I love the shit out of this show. And yes, I understand it is only a show, but here is the thing about Doctor Who: there is wisdom and grace and beauty and danger and excitement and tears and joy and love and compassion and a ridiculous amount of true and real humanity in the whole made-up world that is the Whovian universe. I was almost embarrassed for myself that I had put it down for so long. No, I take that back. I was embarrassed. And I still am. I am fairly new to a lot of the nerd culture. And with that, I have felt a bit of a stigma from people who have been immersed in the culture for a bit longer than me. This is probably an imagined stigma, but I wanted to write about things that are inherently geeky and how I feel like I have to apologize for coming in late to the game. Also, I figured this could help with some writer's block I have been battling. To begin...
I didn't have a childhood of Tolkein and comic books. I didn't watch a whole bunch of anime shows, although I did watch the shows that looked like the product of a perpetual acid-trip. I was a nerd in the sense that I read obsessively whenever I could. I was the kid in class that read between doing assignments and then was shocked when we were doing stuff again. I was in the outer circle of classmates with loose ties at best to the inner circles. And there was one friend whose house I would go to and we would play Age Of Empires for hours on end. I preferred being the Vikings, f.y.i. Oh, and a smattering of Pokemon, Crash Bandicoot, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Star Fox. And I waited for my acceptance letter to Hogwarts. The point is that I was a nerd or I was nerd-ish or nerdy or whatever is least offensive and I am recent to the inner circle of nerd-dom. That said, I feel guilty from time to time when I say that I adore the shit out of Firefly and I am angry that Fox cancelled it, but mostly because the story ended and there isn't anymore to it not because they took away what I loved. I get ridiculously excited about Doctor Who, but because it is a big ol' mindfuck of a puzzle and I like puzzles. I played AC Brotherhood because the idea of jumping off of the Coliseum in Renaissance Rome after having a chat with Da Vinci and Machiavelli was the greatest thing I had ever heard of and I didn't know about it before Brotherhood because I don't have any gaming platforms. Of course I'm not going to know about it if I have nothing to do with it. I like Minecraft because it's Legos without destroying your feet, and I play to create not fight the Creepers (don't hate me). I also have a lifelong fascination with digging.
I was a weird kid, I cannot stress that enough.
I did not read the Song of Ice and Fire series, mostly because I knew of George R.R. Martin's tendency to pull a Joss and kill beloved characters. I knew the books were long and I did not want to spend a whole bunch of time loving a character only to have them torn from me. I decided an hour of viewing time would suffice. Although now, I am going to be reading the books because I love the show. I never read any Tolkein as a child and knew that it would be lots of running, so I avoided that for fear of boredom. But I did read The Hobbit before seeing the movie, so you can't get me on that one. I read Watchmen after the movie and Scott Pilgrim before the movie. I shout at Andrea and worry about Daryl when I watch Walking Dead, but I have only read one of the books. I have seen all of the Batmen, X-Men, Iron Man, Marvel, DC movies there are, but have read none of the comics (this is also the same line of reasoning as not reading GoT by the way). I half know a lot of these universes but know the sum total of only a few. It is because I am a recent nerd. Mea Culpa. I try not to be grouped in with the other recent nerds that are hipster-y twats who saw something on the near fringes and thought it was mainstream enough to say it wasn't mainstream. I was just never exposed to a lot of that stuff and when I learn about it, I want to know as much as I can. I want to obsess over that universe and know every little nook and cranny there is to know so that I may know what it is the fans before me felt that make them want to protect it.
New or not, we can all agree this bitch is stupid.
It was the fierce loyalty that attracted me to those shows and books and movies, but it is the feeling of love and acceptance that keeps me there. Be it Rowling's or Whedon's or Moffat's (MOFFAT!!), those are universes made with love and care and come from the heart and someone felt a desire to share that love they felt with their characters with the rest of us. I am a recent nerd, but I am a nerd nonetheless. I understand all of the feelings that went into these creations and I understand the love that is given back. And if you understand that, it doesn't matter how long you've been a fan.
By the by, any comments are appreciated. I post a thing on Facebook about making a new blog entry and people just like it. I don't know if they are liking the post or the entry. I would also like that small bit of validation.
I can't say that word without thinking of this short, so this picture is really for the hell of it.
So there's this debate thingy happening up in D.C. right now. You may have heard of Prop 8 and DOMA. If not, you are a hermit or illiterate. Someone will come by shortly to beat you soundly with the information stick. For the rest of you, pro or against, I have a story to tell. It's mine. I should start off with saying that I am straight, I think that helps with understanding my perspective on things. I have mentioned before that I was raised Catholic. I went to a small, tight-knit Catholic school in Houston with a heavy Hispanic influence. So, if you ask how Catholic I was raised, I can answer without hesitation I was raised all-Catholic. I remember as a child being surprised that there were other religions. Knowing that I am straight and from a heavy Catholic background, you would assume that I am in the "gays are an abomination camp". That is assuming you haven't read any of my previous posts, which are, for lack of a better word, blasphemous. Also, I'm pretty sure they have some grammatical issues.
oooooo a gif!! How fancy!
Anyhoo, the story. So, I'm in this school my whole life with people I know about as well as my family and we grow and become friends and get in fights and all that jazz. Part of the problem with growing up in a familiar group of people is that you can become comfortable doing things a certain way and then not realize that it's time to change. In this instance, I am speaking of my tendency to behave more like a boy than a girl. See, the thing about me is that I am the first girl in my family. In my generation at least. On my mother's side, there are three cousins, all boys, then my older brother, and then miraculously I was born. I was doted on and fawned over, at least that's what I'm told, because I am an oasis in the midst of gross, stinky boys. What I don't understand is why no one figured that I'd prefer to play with Hot Wheels and Legos rather than Barbies what with my influences clearly laid out. I tried to emulate my big brother and I preferred to play in the dirt outside than play with make-up. I did do these things when I was younger, but for the most part pink was yucky and Barbies were evil. All of my friends knew that at school. I chose shorts over skirts and liked to run around with boys and dig for bugs. This isn't a bad thing, it's just a set up for the self-esteem issues later.
WARNING: We are about to get personal up in here!
See, I was more comfortable being like a little boy for the longest time and it had become, I assume, something that was understood. Then that evil bitch puberty came around and all of a sudden all of my friends were talking about which boys they liked and the number of people I played with in the dirt got smaller. People are all of a sudden talking about who they like and then pairing off. I didn't get it, and I especially didn't understand what was so damned attractive about having a boyfriend. Everything was perfectly fine the way it was, but hormones had to go and muck it all up. Thanks a bunch, hormones.
Anything with a diagram should be mistrusted.
So I stayed how I was. If a term must be applied to my situation, I guess you could use the god-awful phrase "tom-boy" that makes bile rise in my throat, but I suppose it simplifies things. What usually accompanies this time of raging hormones is this need to be incredibly nasty to your peers. Gossip and jealousy and rumors and peer-pressure and all of these viscious behaviors start flying around and the only way out is high school, and not even that can save you. Around fourth or fifth grade, we were introduced to a couple of new students. We would occasionally welcome an alien or two into our class, but it was a rare thing. Anyhoo, these new kids came in around the time we were all really ramping up for the Big Change. And then there was me, changing along with everybody, but confusedly so because just yesterday boys were icky and cooties were real. These new kids didn't grow up with me, they didn't know me, and my boy-ish behavior was taboo; out of the ordinary. I became a target. In the midst of all this shit came the idea that boys had to like girls and vice versa. But I didn't show an interest in boys and I liked to play Army, so what did I like. I couldn't have told ya, but the decision was made for me so I didn't have to worry about it. The concept of gay and lesbian came about. One of my friends, someone I admire a whole bunch today, was incredibly effeminate so I wasn't alone in my victimization, but it was to a lesser extent I think. Especially since in fifth grade I had my first boyfriend. I was so happy to have a buffer against the attacks, so it certainly helped me out. They didn't stop though. One day in gym, my friend I mentioned earlier came up and told me that one of the boys (that I still considered new, but had been there for awhile) had called me "faggot". I laugh about this now because you and I both know he was using the word wrong, but at the time I knew what he was saying and it hurt. It had put what I assume everyone else was thinking out in the open. And it started me out on this really hard path.
I had a boyfriend, fine, but I was still stuck because the attraction to the opposite gender was a mystery to me. In seventh grade, I had moved to a completely new state to be in a school with completely new people, and there I was really taboo. So I continued to struggle, internally, because these new ideas were being flung around, and I seemed stuck. I was told I didn't like boys, which was true, so that meant I liked girls, which might have been true because that was the conclusion a lot of people had made. It just didn't make sense to me, so I thought it was wrong. So, what? I don't like either, so then I like both? There was this constant, cyclical tug-of-war pushing and pulling at me for years and it was killing me. I eventually found that boys are pretty dang cute, it just took me longer than usual. But I learned something:
After years of having "lesbian" and "gay" thrown at me as slurs, I found that, even though those words don't apply to me, I understand the hurt that comes with being derided that way. When I still considered myself Catholic, I learned that we believed that gays couldn't be married because God said no. And that made no sense to me.
If you are religious in any manner and find yourself on the anti-gay marriage side of the debate, I ask you read this next part with an open mind: in all my years of school and church, one lesson stood out among all the others and even though I am not religious today, I still apply it to everyday life because it is a great lesson. Jesus taught that we must love our neighbor as our self and treat others the way we want to be treated. I was derided as someone who was actually homosexual, and for me to tell them they couldn't marry who they wanted or live how they wanted would be the same as telling me that I couldn't. Jesus was talking about everyone, not everybody except people who happened to like someone of the same sex. To tell the truth, I think if Jesus could see how wonderful the people I know who are gay, he could give a crap who they have sex with. They live their lives in a much more Christian manner than some Christians I know.
They are also more fabulous than some Christians I know.
I was raised Catholic and I am straight and I am an Ally to the Gay Marriage movement. It isn't an abomination to love someone, it is an abomination to tell someone that they are loving the wrong person. I could never find it in my heart that it was right to tell anyone, straight, gay, or otherwise, that the person they loved with every fiber of their being is a sin and they will go to hell for loving them. I was made fun of for not liking boys when I was growing up and as an adult I am watching friends being told to stop liking boys. I learned that it is not anyone else's right to decide who you love. All you have to do is treat them with respect, because you want to be treated with respect, right?
The Queen commands it!
Before I leave, I have to address the Leviticus passage. If you don't know it, it is this little number "You shall not be with a man as one does with a woman. It is an abomination."That would be Leviticus Chapter 18 verse 22. Delightful no? In Chapter 20, we learn that such behavior is punishable by death. Here is the thing about Leviticus. By the way, this is information I learned in my college World Religions class. Granted, it was an intro class, but I'm not just picking it up from Wikipedia. Leviticus is where the majority of Jewish law comes from. It's where you get rules like no meat and dairy together, no pork, no shellfish, among others. I once saw a picture of the above passage tattooed on someone's arm. Ironically, Leviticus also says no tattoos, so that guy messed up big.
This guy knows what I'm talking about!
In the Jewish faith, at its basic, it is a religion of laws and rules. Follow the rules, and you are golden. On the opposite side, though based off those rules, Christianity is more a religion of faith and seeking salvation. One is literal, the other is metaphorical is a simple way to look at it. Make no mistake, I am not demeaning either religion, it is just a basic analysis. Christians kind of diverged from those rules in Leviticus a long time ago. They wear mixed fibers and eat bacon and say the savior has come already, a big no-no if you are Jewish. If you are going to preach Leviticus, fine, by all means. But don't shout about it and then go home to a cheeseburger. That argument is already kind of null and void simply by you being a Christian.
So that's what I got on this whole thing. Hope you don't hate me. If you do, then you should try to be a little more understanding of the concept of "everyone has a right to their own opinion". Toodles.
I like to curse. I think it might have to do with the forbidden fruit tasting sweeter or maybe because sometimes the only thing left is to drop an F-bomb. I curse like a sailor with friends (And on here. We're friends, right?) but I understand there is a time a place. I'm not an idiot. I work with kids every day of the week and I know I can't shout expletives. I know when I'm with relatives or in school or in the grocery store I can't say "It's so fucking cold" when talking about the weather and I'm standing in front of a priest. I have a pretty good understanding of when and where certain language and behaviors are acceptable. That being said, I may have accidentally insulted some foreigners.
Nothing as bad as him. It takes a lot of skill to insult an entire country. I just made a small snafoo.
Some background information first: my church is hosting some students in a choir from a boarding school in England and my family is hosting two of the students. we have a brother and a sister, aged 16 and 11 respectively and so far everything has been pretty awesome. Lots of timidity on both our parts but I have come to find that there isn't all that much different between the youth of England and the youth of America. So it's been pretty awesome. You know, one of those once in a lifetime experiences. Except I may have wasted a lot of the experience because they are out doing choir things during the day and my semester is over so I have the obligation to sleep until noon.
Dramatization
Now that you know why I would have the opportunity to insult foreigners, allow me to set the stage for the offending situation. My parents were at an office party and apparently a twenty-year-old that is certified in CPR and First Aid courses and who watches children for a living is not qualified to watch two well-behaved students in her own home. So, my friend Mary had to come hang out for a bit because she is awesome, as has been discussed before. Also, she's 21. You know, the legal drinking age in America. I, however, can't buy alcohol and am professionally qualified to watch children but I'm not allowed to stay in my home and watch these two pretty low-key kids (I may still be a little pissed off). Anyhoo, to pass the time we played a couple of board games. We learned that Clue is in fact Clue-do in England and that if you play Life with two British children, they will instinctively put the "drivers" on the right, which I thought was pretty funny but I kept it to myself so I wouldn't look like an idiot. I had opportunity enough later.
This is what my guilty conscience looks like.
So, there we are playing Life, the four of us innocent and carefree as can be. I was winning, which was cool because Mary is kind of cut-throat about most things and she had already won Clue, so I was feeling great. Mary was the banker and I don't recall what for, but I asked for two of something from her. And each time I did this, I would hold up my hands and show on my fingers how many I was asking for. I did what I usually do out of habit when asking for two of something, but it translates into the most offensive hand gesture you can make in Great Britain. That's right, the two-finger salute. Our equivalent of flipping the bird. I flipped off an eleven-year-old British child. Twice.
Not nearly as handsome as this, either.
It was an honest mistake, I swear. To be honest, though, it would end up being me doing something so stupid as that. I don't think she caught it either because I was really quick about it, but it would be my luck that poor child really does think I said "fuck you" straight to her face on two different occasions. Mostly because I was the one who told my sister not to embarrass me because we are essentially representing our country. Whoever is in charge of irony was listening in on that. I just thought I would let you know that I happened to greatly offend a visitor to our country so you have someone to blame when you hear that Americans are rude.
I found this band recently called Cloud Cult. They sound like they'd be some hippie-dippy feel good band and right on the surface they are. The lead singer, Craig Minowa, owns an organic farm and runs a production company called Earthology that is on the organic farm and uses save the earth technology to make beautiful music. So on the surface, they are tree-huggers. Same for their music. I accidentally ran into one of their videos on YouTube, liked it and listened to more and I then bought their album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes). Then I heard the first song called "Everybody Here Is A Cloud"
Oh shit! I'm gonna spurt dreds and become a vegan
Besides the title and the quiet earthy bit at the beginning, this song is fucking dark. We're all clouds which means we are all going to die because we only have a certain amount of time and have you figured out what your purpose is yet, because you know we're going to die? Oh you're waiting for a savior? We're still going to die, because we're all depressing little puff balls of clouds. That's what the song is. It's an emo ballad with a smile.
Much like this
I've mentioned my confusing religious stance. I have a hard time putting into words what it is that I think about god and all that jazz, but apparently if you put rhythm to religion it becomes a lot easier to explain, much like these lovely Minnesotans have done. But a lot of that introspection and philosophy didn't come about until Mr. Minowa lost his two year old son. He talks about death (which scares me), life (which confuses me), what lies beyond (which perplexes me to no end), and the people we live with (who, apparently, we need to be nicer to) and a great portion of that is what I have always thought, just clarified and with a better beat. I am comforted by Cloud Cult, even with their hippy-dippie attributes.
Surprisingly, there is not a lot of this in the actual music.
As I was listening to them one day, I thought about what someone might think if I were to say I listened to this band. Would they think less of me? Would I appear differently? There is such a stigma put on some music that people tread carefully when looking for things to listen to so as not to alienate anyone. I do occasionally have reservations about listening to one band over another, but for the most part I could give a shit. If I like a song and how it makes me feel, I'm going to listen to it and if you don't like it, go take a flying leap off the nearest cliff. Music is important to me. It is one of the biggest universal connections. There's a band called Gogol Bordello. It has band members from all over the world and the lead singer Eugene Hutz, is from the Ukraine. It's a stylized gypsy-punk band and occasionally Hutz will sing in a different language. I have no clue what he is saying but I know that I like the song. People in other countries don't know what Justin Bieber is saying, but he has international tours because, for some reason that I have yet to figure out, people in other countries and that speak different languages connect with his music. Even going waaaaaaaaay back to cave men and when the more protruded your brow was, the hotter you were, there is evidence humans used instruments. Whether it was a means of communication or our version of the bird song to find someone to get busy with, we have always had music.
The Paleolithic era's Elvis Presley. Dude is hawt.
Music evokes different emotions and feelings. There are apparently scientific formulas for making the perfect sad or happy song based on pitch and rhythm. Which means that no matter how much of a hardened bad ass you are, you will break down and cry like the biggest sissy in the world whenever you listen to Adele's "Someone Like You" because your brain has no defense against her awesome mind powers.
Resistance is futile.
So, music is this important thing and has been for a bit. To the point that today, the kind of music you listen to determines what social strata you fit into as much as your clothes do. If you like Justin Bieber, your friends probably do as well. I won't go within ten feet of you, though, because I do not listen to Justin Bieber and find him to be a disgrace to the musical community. But everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course. This is going back to the beginning when I said that people tread carefully about what the listen to so they won't offend their friends. Which is bull crap because I have the same musical interests as maybe two of my friends and the rest listen to stuff I don't like and vice versa. However, that pattern of conforming is possibly most recognized in hipsters and indie kids.
The ones in red fight to honor Belle & Sebastian and the fella in blue is fighting for Grizzly Bear.
Winner gets the world's tightest pair of skinny jeans and a Macbook Pro
I would like to go ahead and put a disclaimer here. Hipsters, as I understand it, tend to like obscure bands and trends that no one has ever heard of. I tend to do that as well, but I would like to defend myself. I quit listening to the radio a while ago because it quit playing things I liked. So I started looking for other stuff. It was around the same time iTunes came about and I would look for new stuff in the recommendations section. Eventually I was listening to stuff that was not at all like my friends listened to, like The Cold War Kids and The Shins. I also got new music from my brother, who I have to thank for Arcade Fire and The Avett Brothers. I was honestly listening to Arcade Fire before they exploded because no one had heard of them and then all of a sudden people were listening to them and I could get excited about them with other people. I kept looking and found the Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian. I would put Flogging Molly's "Black Friday Rule" and The Fratelli's "Chelsea Dagger" on repeat. And that's only a minor sampling of how finding music went for me. I went to some pretty dark places to find some of the music I listen to.
Finding enjoyment in some of Nick Cave's songs has made me question my sanity.
Here are some other bands:
Menomena, The National, The Pogues, Portugal. The Man, We Were Promised Jet Packs, John Lee Hooker, Man Man, Hanni El Khatib, J. Roddy Walston and The Business, Nick Cave, Ida Maria, The Drowning Men, Modest Mouse, Manchester Orchestra, Yo Yo Ma, Bach, Santigold, AWOLNATION, White Buffalo, The Cave Singers, Tom Waits, The Low Anthem, Mister Heavenly, O Death, The Go! Team, UNKLE, RZA, Rain Machine, Nina Simone, Method Man, Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling, Hans Zimmer, Vieux Farka Toure, Reverend and the Makers, Buck 65, The Builders and the Butchers, Stokowski, WU LYF, Meg Myers, Local Natives, Gorillaz, Fun., Gotye, The Heavy, Neutral Milk Hotel, Frightened Rabbit, Of Monsters and Men, Clock Hands Strangle, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Cage the Elephant, Heartless Bastards, Alabama Shakes, the list goes on and on and on to the point of insanity. Seriously, my iTunes playlist is the equivalent of a hoarder's house. I have everything on there. But the thing about this list is I can guarantee that, for the most part, you probably won't know more than five names on there but there are also five that you do know.
You should know more than five, but we aren't all perfect.
I do find bands that no one has heard of and sometimes I do it on purpose, but it's mostly because of the music. I like the anthemic feel of The National's "Fake Empire". We Were Promised Jet Packs helped me accept the death of the mother of a friend. Tom Waits sounds like some demon angel telling us the devil's favorite hobbies. Modest Mouse are so angry, but they see all sorts of beauty. I like Gotye's and Fun.'s emotion and, yes, I cry when I listen to Adele. And if you have heard of anything that I listen to, which a great deal of my friends have not, let me know because I need someone to nerd out with. I want people to hear what I hear because, just like writing helps me organize what I can't say out loud, music helps me express my thoughts and feelings and put words to things I couldn't before. Call me hipster. I'll call you a dick, but you can call me a hipster. You can classify me based on my musical tastes, you can look at all the weird bands and criticize me because of it. That's okay. Go ahead. You're a pretentious jerk and more of hipster than me, but please, if it makes you feel better, go ahead. But if you do listen to Justin Bieber, I do get to be mean to you. No amount of science can save you.
Paleolithic Elvis ate Paleolithic Justin Bieber's for breakfast.
My cat is missing. For a lot of people, this statement is inconsequential and unimportant. For others, their hearts may have just dropped. I'm with the second group. Otherwise, I wouldn't deem it important enough to mention. For a pet to be missing for me is like a child to be missing. Not to say that people are less important, I just find that some of my more meaningful relationships have been with animals. Which is sort of sad to admit to but that's part of the reason I like animals better than people. For an awkward and shy kid, people are the worst thing ever. People are judgmental and cruel. They question why you like to play by yourself or prefer boy stuff to girls stuff or why you play with imaginary friends. I liked to play by myself and I had imaginary friends because of stupid people asking their stupid questions and they couldn't stay on script. When the world is danger of being destroyed by a giant rhino-squid-bear and the only person who can stop it is Mad Dr. Lucy and her powerful serum or when the ship is in the middle of a fearsome battle over some precious booty and Captain Lucy needs all hands on deck, it is friggin' imperative to stay on task and not try to steal the limelight. Regular people do that, but imaginary friends are always on mark. Oh, and boys always have the cooler toys for some reason. Fuck Barbie.
I've always thought Barbies prepare girls for a more dependent role in life.
Legos prepare you for...ummm...the dangers of public transportation.
Animals don't give a crap what you play with. They don't care if you're awkward around people you don't know and they don't expect you to speak to them. You ever met somebody who was so obviously making their own assessment of you at first glance but they were smiling this giant fake smile as though you might have some mental deficiency and won't notice? I meet these people a lot. Granted, I may just be jumping to conclusions, but I know I'm weird and I know how people think of me. Outside my group of friends, I stick out like a sore thumb. The point is, you know when these people don't like you but they are actively trying to hide it. Animals don't do that. If you meet a new dog, you let it sniff you and if dog is okay with you then the dog will let you pet it. If it doesn't like you, you will know because you will be trying to pry it's jaws off your hand. Simple and direct.
"You are not very nice. Also, you smell like trout."
The other great thing about pets is that they are by far the best friends you will ever have. They will listen to all your trivial bullshit and they put up with all your drama. All they ask in return is food and a pat on the head. They are the best therapists. That's been proven time and again by science. There's a reason that there are programs for pets visiting patients in the hospital, it's because it is medically proven to help the patients emotionally and occasionally physically. If you are a good pet owner, your pets will love you unconditionally and they will show you complete adoration. When I start fighting crime, the first group of people I'm going after are the ones that show up on Animal Cops.
How do people look at this and think "Oh, tiny punching bag!"? It's too fucking cute!
If a dog is happy, you will know. If a cat is pissed you will definitely know. My experience with rodents and birds is limited but I'm sure the same rules apply. They are easy to love and wonderful buddies. I have lost a few pets over the years and every time it feels like a punch in the stomach. I've been to funerals for people and there's only been one that I cried as hard as I did for any one of those pets. Steve, you get your ass back home right now so I can hug the bejeezus out of you.
He's the orange cat. The other one is his sister Mistletoe. She's....kinda dumb. But aren't they cute?
I got to honk the horn on my car today for the first time. It was a great privilege for me. Not that I have never had the chance to do so, it's just that I have a new car (finally) and it has a working horn, which is a novel little perk for me. So, I got to honk the horn today at someone who I am pretty sure was on the phone so he deserved more than just a honk, perhaps a good boxing on the ears, but nonetheless an idiot on his phone would not move when the light turned green so I got to honk my car's horn (I refuse to say "honk my horn" because something about that sounds weird). Then there was that self-satisfying moment between the honking and the going where you know exactly what is going through the person's head and you can see without seeing exactly what they are doing. I like moments like that.
Why yes, I am awesome like that.
Anyhoo, Dickhead McTextypants finally goes and I figured I would give him a little extra punishment so I played a little game of "You Made Me Wait At The Light, So I'm Going To Accelerate Until I'm Right on Your Tail" and I got all hunched up over my steering wheel as if I was somehow menacing but in reality I am short and not menacing and afraid of bees. Then, as I am wont to do, I started talking to McTextypants. "I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you" and then realized that YMMWATLSIGTAUIROYT (as the kids call it these days) is nothing more than a game of tag. And what's more, driving itself is nothing more than a game of tag. But with the added risk of FIRE.
Now it's really a game
Now, stay with me. Think of the road from a bird's eye view. All the little toy cars are really just chasing each other around. None of them want to get to close because once you start packing up together, you make a bigger target. Plus you don't want to get to close to whoever is "it" for fear of being tagged and thus having the title of "it" being passed along to you.
Much like this, but with more tears
I have noticed something from working with children that when the child who is "it" finds a suitable candidate to pass along the torch (re: the slowest child) the new "it" child experiences something strange. The field seems to grow larger and expand. The other children are speeding by, too quick to catch, as if all of a sudden they have rocket boosters attached. The immense undertaking that lays before this child is heartbreaking and soul crushing and all too much for one child to handle. And when you have experienced this once, you never want to experience it again. So when you are tagged you call out "Nay! Thou hast not touched me, vile cretin! How dare-est thou even consider such a foul and blasphemous lie! I call a pox upon you and your family!" which roughly translates to "Nuh-uh!" and an argument then ensues. Names are called, tears are shed, hair is pulled, and in general everything comes to a stand-still. As though it were a traffic jam.
Do ya?
Going back to driving (and adulthood), whenever you are "tagged" there is a grand pause and tears and shouting and arguing and perhaps even hair-pulling until the cops come to pull everyone off each other (playing the part of the teacher) and resuming traffic flow once again (the game resumes). The fun part here is, and something I want to figure out how to incorporate at my job, the person who is "it" is unknown; a mystery player. Which is honestly a great thing, minus the damage and fire and arguing.
Edit: Minus the damage and arguing and death-causing-fire. Other fire is okay.
I suppose I should thank Dickhead McTextypants. But not really. Don't use your phone when you're driving. Everyone knows you aren't supposed to do it. It's like getting caught in class with your finger up your nose. You look stupid and lose friends.
This child is not being bullied. He is learning a valuable lesson.
As I understand it, part of this whole blogging thing is that both the writers and readers of blogs find other blogs to follow. I, however, have yet to find anyone that is writing something of interest to me. I know that what I'm writing definitely doesn't appeal to a lot of people but the majority of what I'm finding are blogs dedicated to attractive people's family portraits and Bible quotes. That's all well and good, but I am not married, I don't have kids, and I am not Christian. But every time I click the "Next Blog" button I get Bible quotes, family portraits, or blogs written in languages I don't understand. But mostly I see religious blogs. And while I am a firm believer in accepting any and all beliefs, there's something about the increbidly preachy blogs that scares the be-Jesus out of me (religion pun!). If you come up to me and say, "Jesus love you!" I'm not going to shoot you down. That was really cool of you to say it. It means you think that this awesome power you believe in loves someone who doesn't believe it, and that is incredibly nice of you and a great self-esteem booster for me. My problem is people that think their religious beliefs automatically make them a better person than everyone one else and that the heathenous non-believers are doomed to a fiery pit. You know, the snotty religious types. The ones who wear their religion as a label rather than an internal belief.
Others use their religion to be bat-shit crazy. Or maybe it's the eyes that make her do it.
I like religions. I like reading about them, learning about them, studying them, talking about them, arguing about them and making fun of them. For the longest time I had decided I was going to make movies for a living until I took two religious studies classes with the incomparable Dr. Chris Brawley and completely changed my mind. The whole idea behind religions is that people, for thousands and thousands of years, have made entire belief systems and cultures surrounding these huge, undefinable beings. Why? We still don't know! Before we had a spoken language, we were grunting to each other about things we can't and won't ever truly get a grasp on. Is it evolutionary? Is it a biological reflex? Do fish have a god? The whole concept is fucking mind-blowing because it is the huge thing that spans generations and lands, people have died for it and fought wars over it and still, religion remains an undefined, intangible concept. It's simply fantastic! How I feel about religion, but with more rainbows and whimsy.
I am telling you all of this because I am feeling really left out. When someone has Bible verses emblazoned across the heading of their blog I get a little scared and uncomfortable. It kind of feels like when you see two people mashing their faces together in public; like you see these people just going to town on each others gob as if they are saying "Hey. Look at this. You see this? See what we are doing? Yeah, we're gonna keep shoving this in your face. We don't care. We're above you. We're going to keep having awesome fun and completely shut out everyone else around us because they don't really count as people."
I tried to find the grossest one. This isn't it.
Clearly I'm not saying religious expression in public is disgusting. It's when people take their religion and shove it in your face. That's what I feel like when I see those blogs. Fine, have a bible verse on their, that's cool. It's a little dry but there are some pretty kick ass people in it. Just don't use it as a tool to include some people with the same idea and exclude others. That's what a smarter person might call "being closed-minded".
I have hard-core Christian friends. I have friends that laugh in the face of religion and call it a way to control people. I have friends that are agnostic and friends that are so confused about religion they don't know what to believe. I've been friends with Wiccans, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and Pastafarians and I would never, ever even think about telling them to change their mind or force what I believe on them. You can't argue with someone that has a different religion than you because while you are thinking that they have it all wrong, they are thinking the same about you. Christians believe that Jesus commanded them to go and spread the religion, or as my priest says at the end of every mass, "the Good News." That's why the incredibly evangelical Christians think they are helping you and they are doing a good thing because while you are uncomfortable with it, they are being the best people they can be. Don't shoot them down, don't be crude or mean, be a decent human and say thanks because they are doing you a favor. DON'T be her. Mostly because I don't think she's taken a shower in a while.
No I am not Christian. I was, however, raised Catholic, it just didn't happen to stick. I went to a small, tight-knit Catholic school where if you weren't a Catholic, you were like a rare animal. It was a fantastic school and quite honestly I am glad that I was able to go there. Yeah, it was a Catholic school, so students were taught the Catholic faith. But it wasn't like we were praying all day and reading the Bible. The school motto is "teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge" and I did all that there. But that was the school. Church was a different thing for me. I liked the people I went to church with and the community I was a part of. I just never felt too religious. I don't think I ever really prayed or felt like I was being listened to if I tried to pray. It never bothered me until my family moved.
When I was twelve, my family moved to Charlotte and for the first time my siblings and I went to a public school. It was also the first time we had gone to separate schools: my brother in a high school, me in a middle school, and my little sister in an elementary school. I didn't have the benefit of my brother blazing any paths for me any more and it was completely uncharted territory. And here is what I figured out from going to public school: I didn't have to be Catholic and I don't think I ever was. My older brother started being argumentative with my parents about going to church and it had been my life-long lesson that when my brother makes my parents angry, do the opposite. I went to church with no problem, I was an altar-server almost every Sunday, I went to the relgious-ed classes, but I didn't feel a part of that church anymore. And then I noticed I wasn't identifying too much with the other people my age that were Catholic. They went about it differently like it was less a cultural thing and more of a something that happened to come up every Sunday. And then I began realizing I never felt too much like I was Catholic. The mass felt like a Pavlovian reaction to what the priest said or what kind of music was playing. I realized I never really prayed the way everyone said you were supposed to pray. And then I began learning the history of the Church and realized that Catholicism was started by a great guy but it was taken wildly out of proportion. Then some bitch-ass priest in training gave me the crap jobs on the altar and told me to pull my hair back because I looked too girly. It was my understanding we treat everyone equally but that was just what some crazy bearded middle-eastern guy in the desert said two-thousand years ago. That wasn't the final straw, I struggled with religion for a long time after, it was more like a turning-point.
Also I watched Dogma and read Lamb by Christopher Moore. That'll really turn you around
So I started looking in other places for answers. All this interest in new religions made me notice when other things came up about religion. It also took a while to get away from identifying myself as Catholic or Christian. And that wasn't easy. It upset my parents and my lack of religion is a well-guarded secret from the rest of my family, namely my grandmother, and now I mostly keep quiet about it around my family.
This turned into something completely different than I had originally planned. I was trying to make it more humorous rant but it turned into more of a confession. Sorry about that.That will be next. I promise. Also, I apologize for any offense but this is my opinion so be mad just don't be a little bitch about it
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