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
There are stickers posted around campus at my school of bands, businesses, people's graffiti tags, and a strange looking pickle. There are tons of these all over: in stairwells, on light-poles, on buildings, on newspaper dispensers, etc. They are vain attempts at their creators trying to be cool and hardcore, but they are really just failing miserably at preschool art. If a four-year-old came up and saw someone in the process of putting a sticker on the side of a building, that four-year-old would go, "Pfffffft, you dumb shit, stickers go on the paper, not on the school. I'm not sharing my toys with you because you're weird and I might catch that," because when you are four, you are not supposed to touch anything bad because you might get sick.
That aside, there is one of these stickers I have seen in a couple of places and it has what I think is a band name printed on it. In bright green letters it says "Birds With Teeth" and has the image of T-Rex skeleton on it. Before I had barely acknowledged it because it was just another sticker, but today I noticed it again and realized it was in fact true. Dinosaurs, at least the two-legged ones, were essentially chickens with pointy teeth. So of course then I thought, what the hell did chickens do to deserve their lot in life today? Birds must have really pissed off whoever lives upstairs. In evolutionary terms, the T-Rex got the short end of the stick, you know what with the huge head and hilariously tiny arms. I'm sure the brontosauruses (brontasauri?) made fun of them.
It is in fact a band. They're meh. You can't really hear the music over their mustaches.
"Hey Ted." "Yeah, Jim?" "Look at that poor fucker, he's got all those teeth but he can't get anything because he's got nubby arms! Hahahahaha, look at him try and eat that stegosaurus Hey, is that Steve? Steve! Hey, Steve! Push on his head when he comes at you, he can't reach you because his arms are so friggin' small!! Hahahahaha--" and that is when the T-Rex had enough of that bull shit and swung his tail around and knocked Jim on his feet because their head was large and their arms were small, but brontosauruses were cocky and their peanut brains forgot about the huge tail. I bet it was hilarious to watch a brontosaurus fall down.
Anyhoo, chickens and ducks and geese and the rest of the aviarians were all these vicious, bloodthirsty murderers with disproportionate body parts. Even the tiny ones. Remember in Jurassic Park when the fat guy tripped and you laughed maniacally as you watched the two-foot tall twigs with teeth massacre him? Or was that just me? The point is that even the small bipedal dinos were just as dangerous. They were hardcore, not these low-self esteem hipsters with pieces of shiny paper that have adhesive on the back. Sure, dinosaurs all had peanut brains and yes, they probably wouldn't have lived very long anyhow, meteor or not, but if you or I were to encounter a velociraptor, we wouldn't say "Hmmm, that looks like a McChicken." We would piss ourselves and run away screaming, hoping that they might trip on rock that was in their blind spot. But we laugh at the descendants of dinosaurs. We use birds for food, jokes, target practice. We call stupid people "bird-brained" and people who walk weirdly "pigeon-toed". We put birds in cages and teach them to say inappropriate phrases for the childish delight of our guests. What in the hell did dinosaurs do and how can I avoid it? Did they insult whatever deity was in charge for dinosaurs? Too much in-breeding? What the fuck did they do? Was it just that science deemed the awesome might of a spinosaurus was not evolutionarily feasible for a long period of time? I hope it was that one because I don't want my descendants to become the butt-end of every joke and loathe the very existence of my species.
The muted wailing you hear right now is every species of reptile crying out in shame and anger.
In the transfer program at my college, depending on your degree you have to take a certain number of class hours before you can graduate, as with any college. So, for a two year program that means taking basic college classes and other classes pertinent to your degree. So far, this is an agreeable and fair situation that is common for any college or place of higher-learning. I am getting my Associates in the Fine Arts, which is your basic degree for people afraid of math. Unfortunately in order to successfully acquire the degree and the ability to transfer, I have to take 8 credit hours of science. Now, I did have to take one math class but it was college algebra, which may have some relevance in reality. But now I have to take two classes on a subject that I and possibly everyone else in my degree program, just don't fucking understand. I'm pretty sure that the guy who put the degree requirements together was some jealous science nerd who got tired of looking at the long-haired English major who got all the girls and decided to he was going to fuck with every future liberal arts major. Someone like Chad. You know, the creepy guy who lives in his parents' basement and I think looks like the fat serial-killer from The Sandman. This guy: I like a good running gag. I would get used to this if I was you.
This semester I am taking Biology. I don't really mind science all that much. Psychology is great. Once I understood physics, it was mind-blowing. If they let us use more combustible liquids, chemistry could have been fun. Einstein and Tesla were sexy bastards.Unfortunately me and Biology have had a tumultuous relationship since my freshman year of high school, I get the simple stuff. Stuff like basic human anatomy, evolution, we need oxygen, photosynthesis, cells are tiny, and other stuff like that. Ask me about that stuff, I can give an intelligent answer. Ask me what the equation is for cellular respiration and I will tell you to go fuck yourself sideways and then I will call on my army of attack bears and they will maul the crap out of you. That's biology. The one on the left is Boris, Ivan is in front, and Gregor is behind Boris. Gregor's a bit touched in the head.
I'm probably not going to need to know what cellular respiration is. It won't be necessary in an emergency situation and no one is going to want to read about a process that makes ATP. Someone tell me what use it is of for me. I understand that without it we would probably die, as with all of the other stuff I am learning about. But after this class I am going to forget the minute details and go back to thinking it happens because magic.
It's not all bad. For instance, we are currently learning about human genetics and crap like that. It's interesting, sure, especially when you learn about traits and how they are formed and what happens when the process doesn't go as expected. That's cool and I understand that stuff. It's when we do stuff like figuring out how to make a karyotype from a jumble of unorganized chromosomes. Oh, you don't know what a karyotype is? You must not be a geneticist. Karyotype. It looks kind of like a bunch of tiny knee-socks..
A karyotype is an arrangement of all your chromosomes so they can be seen and analyzed and it's also how scientists determine if you have certain abnormalities. That's cool, and congrats to geneticists because they are much smarter than me. But if all those squiggles were jumbled together, I wouldn't be able to tell which is which, let alone put them in the proper pairs.
Then again, that's pretty much the same story for my socks.
I like scientists. I adore The Big Bang Theory, I think Nikola Tesla is the bomb and Einstein has go to be one of my favorite people. Darwin is responsible for how I think of a lot of things in the world. Marie Curie was in my mind one of the foremost people in the Women's Right Movement because she is responsible for a lot of the first research in radiation and thank goodness for Ignaz Semmelweis telling doctors to wash their hands. Bill Nye is a cornerstone of my childhood. Oh and Harold Crick was tripping hard on acid when he came up with the double-helix design for DNA. I think scientists are some of the coolest and occasionally sexiest people. They figure out how shit works. They know the whys and the whats of the world and it amazes me to no end. A lot of them are my personal heroes and I love them to death. I just know that the person in charge of my degree program had low self-esteem and was jealous because he wasn't getting any and decided to use his limited power to mess with my day. Chad, I swear to God if it was you, Boris and Ivan are going to kick your ass. And Gregor is probably going to sit there and.... lick his balls or maybe drool. I don't what he's going to do, but it's going to be friggin' terrifying and you are going to shit your basement-dwelling breeches!
Beavers suck. As an animal, they have got to be the biggest jerks, killer whales aside (those guys are assholes). Think about it. You never see beavers, you only see evidence of them. That in itself is not a bad thing, that is just a shy bachelor, like our friend Chad. Hi Chad!
No, that's not what I'm talking about. These jerks, beavers, are truly terrible. You never actually see beavers. You see pictures of beavers in books and on the internet (and Playboy, wink-wink), but if you are walking through the woods you never see a beaver, just the chewed on stump of a tree that used to be there. That is incredibly morbid. And these stumps aren't from really big trees, because if they were then we would have really big beavers, which is both funny and frightening. No, the trees they cut down and drag away are smaller, more like children, if you will. Beavers gnaw at these trees and then drag them away to use for their homes. They build their HOMES with CHILDREN. The bastards! Not only that, beavers build their homes (called lodges) in the midst of dams they build with even more tree-children that cut off water to where it was going and keep it all for their beaver-selves. They are the rich real-estate moguls (that happen to be child-murdering serial killers) of the forest. And sure, killer whales play around with their food before they eat it, but so do I. Killer whales don't go around, pick up a seal, baby or otherwise, and say, "Hmmm, I like seal but I always feel like it is gone too soon. I wish there was a way to keep it around longer so it served a purpose other than just food. I know! A roof!" The only other animal I can think of that is just as creepy is the spider that lays it's eggs in the dead bug it killed so the baby spiders have food when they are born, but spiders are already icky so that isn't too surprising. Beavers are fuzzy and have fat, cherub cheeks and buck teeth and a ridiculous looking tail. If anything, they are supposed to be the adorable chunky kids that look a little funny. But no, instead they decided to be creepers and demented beings that even make Satan wet his pants.
This is the face of pure evil. I had a dream with beavers in it once. It was a zombie dream. It was about me and my family and some of my friends all on the run from the zombies that, for some reason, were all centered around a bayou in Louisiana. That's a cool dream, but the scary part was how people became zombies. It wasn't a disease or anything remotely reasonable. You could only become a zombie if a beaver bit you and TOOK AWAY YOUR SOUL.
I remember the cartoon Angry Beavers. I don't remember much other than there was a cartoon with beavers who lived in a cool house and they weren't too many redeeming qualities about them. I also remember the episode where one of the two decided he wasn't going to chop down any more trees and the other one said he had to chop down trees or his teeth would keep growing. And the teeth did. Have you ever seen a picture of someone with nails they decided not to cut? It looked like that. (This, by the way, was on around the same time as Rocko's Modern Life and AAAH! Real Monsters so you can imagine the kind of kid I was.)
Little known fact: Whatever drug it was the artists at Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network took in the late 90s and early 2000s no longer exists. They smoked all of it. Adventure Time and Spongebob is just straight up acid and weed, respectively.
The point her being that not even the makers of a child's cartoon could find enough reason to make the characters in their show nice because they too knew what you and I know now. Also, if the thing about beavers' teeth is true, then trees are beavers' food, building supplies, and their fucking dental hygenist. The natural habitat for beavers is around water. The same is true for ducks. As any sitcom is bound to point out, if you live next to someone long enough, it becomes a situation full of sexual tension and "will they/ won't they?" Not for beavers. Not at all. Have you ever wondered what the hell is up with the platypus?
Ornithorhynchus anatinus That is a face only a mother could love. You just can't help but look at that thing and think that it's the result of a drunken one-night stand between a beaver and a duck. Evolution had some play there, I'm sure, but before evolution came in, I'm thinking that one night a beaver and a duck got really drunk and did the nasty and the beaver vamoosed. By the way, the duck has to be the mother in this situation because that sad sack of confusion up there lays eggs. Now not only are beavers serial killers, they are also absent fathers. Good job guys! And the poor abomination that is the result of this union is forced to move out of the country to Australia. You know, the country that's a continent and is known for kangaroos, koalas, and more deadly or dangerous animals of every variety than you can shake a stick at. That, I imagine, is where evolution came in. Australia is chock full of poisonous animals, which makes it a place one does not want to live without being properly armed. You know what that means don't you? Evolution took pity on this horribly disfigured child and blessed it with a poisonous spike. And yet the beaver still thrives, killing trees and not taking responsibility for the child it abandoned or the weird childhood I had. Jerks.
First, I think I figured it out why I was so hesitant to make a blog. I think it is because they seem like a vanity project or some way to hog the spot light all on your own in a way that facebook and twitter won't allow because everybody else is always posting their own crap. I like facebook and I suppose this writing and what not is fun, but I figured out why it bothers me. I am afraid to tell my friends because then I think they will not want to read because it looks like a blatant attempt to be an attention whore. And I don't want this to be that kind of a place. This is going to be an oasis of awesome and superdy-duper-ness. This is my plea unto you, fair reader, that wherever it seems like I am being needy or like I am looking for attention, please don't hesitate to call me on my bullshit. I promise that this will be nothing less than cool.
I recently learned that if you break a pinkie-promise, it means the breaker of the promise must cut off their pinkie. I like my pinkie. It suits me quite well and I don't wish to part from it any time soon.
So now that whole shebang is cleared up, I had a thought on the way home from my class today. There was some guy walking across the street. I had never seen him before and I figured he probably lived in the house that never has any lights on. Sort of like a house that Chad's unassuming parents would live in. Anyhoo this guy was walking across the street and I like to be rude and shout at people when I am driving by myself and all the windows are up and no one is around to judge me or hear me so I had to slow down, quite a significant bit, and wait for this guy to hustle across the street. It's not a very large street and it was quite obvious there was a car waiting for this gent to pass. I can understand being old and not being able to move as quick as one used to, but a little quick-step in that shuffle would have been nice. In the end I guess it doesn't matter and honestly I had no issue waiting for this guy to pass, I just like to be impertinent. So, there I am, waiting as he passed in front of me and there he was probably waiting for his feet to catch up when I had the urge to pretend to be a cab driver and shout some insult in the safety of my car. I got as far as "Move it, old--" and then I got stuck. This is the transcript of my mental conversation, as follows:
Old......what? Guy? No, that won't work, how about cracker? No, that won't do, I use that too often. Wait, there's something trying to work it's way forward, it begins with an....F? Yes, F. I'm trying to say old....fucker? No no no, that's too mean and quite frankly too easy. It's F...O...Fo...Fogey! That's it! Old Fogey! Move it, Old Fogey!!
This is Josiah Fogey, patron saint of old crabby dudes and crotchety outbursts at the youth of today.
By that time I had made it back to my driveway and the fellow down the street had crossed it successfully. The thought I mentioned was that I quite enjoy the term "old fogey" and wish that it was applicable to more everyday situations.
I apologize of course if anyone found that to be offensive, but let's be honest, we all are indecent asshats when we are alone. It's that damn societal nonsense that tells us we can't shout "Old Fogey" and gentlemen, who quite frankly could be genuinely kind people and are just innocently crossing the street. Like I have stated before, I am not what one might call active so the shouting at people in the car is my form of catharsis. I like shouting at people. Especially when they are stupid (unlike the old guy from the previous story), because let's face it, if we don't shout at them in the security of our cars then they may never be called out on their bullshit.
No, I will not put a picture of Ryan Gosling. Instead I will put this:
I am doing my second post. I know, this is scary and probably moving a bit fast, but if we stick together it will all be okay. I sent the fair and wonderful Mary the link to this little thinga-mah-jig and she gave her approval, which is a rare gift indeed.
This is Mary:
A good picture, but in order to truly know Mary we must look deeper inside. If we zoom in a bit, say to here
We are now zoomed in on her eye which appears to be a lovely color of pixelated dark color, and yet we are still so far from our goal. We need to zoom in a bit more:
There you go!
This is of course not an exact replica because if one were to recreate such an awesome power, one might create a hole in the space-time continuum, and we all know what a drag that is.
I suppose I will grow to like this blog, but only when I figure out a cooler word because I think of those dead squishy logs you find in the woods after it has rained and the termites have had their way with it. It's not an attractive thought.
Again, I apologize for the downer and also for any male friends who were alienated by yesterday's picture. This should mend all wounds:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Madames and Monsieurs, Welcome and Congratulations! You have found the Holy Grail that is my blog. And yes, that was sarcasm. This is a mediocre work at best and not at all holy. In all honesty, this is being made on a whim and at the behest of my mother and a few friends. I don't succumb to peer pressure easily, but this is an activity that doesn't require much movement, so I don't need much persuading. Although, I couldn't keep a diary as a child so that kind of hints at what level of commitment we are looking at here. By the way, my name is Lucy. Thought you ought to know.
So, what does one write on a blog? Also, where does the word blog come from? I get the"log" part of the word, but the "b" throws me off. I really don't know what I'm doing here. This probably won't be read by anyone but my friends and relatives and some creeper named Chad who lives in the basement of his mother's house with 16 cats and re-enacts the battles of Lord of the Rings in full battle armor and his assortment of live-sized Pokemon character cut-outs as stand-in friends. To be terribly honest, I'm picturing a guy that looks like the fat serial killer in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.
And now, this is how you too may visualize Chad. Don't worry, Chad, the reader ends up feeling sorry for him in the end. By the way, I just read that a couple of days ago so I apologize for any other references to it.
To wrap up, I suppose, this is my blog. Don't worry, you don't have to feel like you have made a commitment to it by reading this introduction. It may be my only post.
What a dreary way to end something. I'm sorry about that, that's incredibly rude. Here, for your troubles:
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