The $#!%storm

So I have this acquaintance who is getting a puppy.  This friend makes very little money and has a very small car and is buying a dog from a breeder!!!  And he is getting a BIG breed of dog.  I'm not talking golden retriever big, I'm talking mastiff big.  Completely impractical.  This guy can't afford $5 to go to the gym (which he needs to do...he's trying to be a cop and needs to be able to run 1 mile in less than 8 minutes and do 20 push-ups in one minute to be selected.  And can't thus far) but he is expecting to be able to afford $100/month in dog food?  The only way I can see this working is if he eats kibble with the dog.  Mmmm...yummy!  And then he can load up his 100 lb dog into his...you guessed it:  mini cooper and drop him off at the shelter when he realizes that he made a (literally) huge mistake.  Maybe I'm a jerk, but there is one thing worse than people adopting dogs they can't afford and that is people getting rid of said animal.  No wait, I take that back.  It's people PAYING a breeder so they have incentive to bring a new dog into this world that is going to end up in a shelter.  Did I mention the mini cooper?  Yeah.  I went on a date with this guy (thank you match.com for making all my dreams come true.  bahahaha...) and one of the first things he told me was that he doesn't have much money for food so he eats a lot of pasta...right after he rolled up in that freaking new impractical car that he thinks he can afford on a camp counselor salary.  What the hell is wrong with people?

Anyways, so the title of this is $#!%storm, which is what I'm currently experiencing.  You know how they say when you stop looking for someone to date and whatnot they show up.  And you know how they say when it rains it pours (or should I say poors???).  Fellas, I'm sorry but "I can't afford to eat" isn't a good pick-up line.  Well it's like it's raining men only it's a (refer to title).  It reminds me of this joke my dad used to tell me about the vampire who sings "Drained Wops Keep Falling on My Head" because it's like I'm getting showered with useless corpses.  I'm not trying to be insensitive just that joke gives me a crazy visual and I can't help thinking it now, although it's not Italians who are falling it's just idiot Durangatans.

So the most recent "date" if that's what you call it was a night when I offered to buy this guy who I thought was cute dinner and a few beers because he just got laid off.  He was a chef at the nicest restaurant in town and they were closed for the season but then decided not to reopen.  Assuming (yes, oops) that he would get any sort of job until he figured out what he was going to do, I made this offer.  Originally he had been talking about working at the culinary school in town but went back on that because he had something coming up in a few months.  I was assuming it was some sort of great opportunity but turns out it was the opportunity to cook at a dude ranch in Wyoming.  Yippee kaye?  In the meantime, no job, no money.  Every time that the bill showed up it was like playing hot potato, only I was the only one playing.  I mean it was incredibly awkward and there was just this overwhelming sense of, "Why the hell would you think I'm going to pay?"  So I did, because it's just money but by the end of the night I was getting pretty fed up with paying for everything.  And then my family went, "yeah duh, what were you thinking, he's a chef".  Well all I can say is Spanglish, thanks a lot for nothing, you have totally led me astray.

So last night I was going to tell him I wasn't interested but decided he's too dumb to even mention anything.  The unemployment he's been waiting for for weeks finally came through and rather than saying, "Oh hey I see you guys are drinking beers, can I get you another of what you're drinking?" he ordered a double shot of 1800 tequila.  For himself.  And then, when we were going to go to this other bar with a cover charge he says, "Jamie, you should pay for all of us to get in".  I almost lost it, but he's friends with my friend so I can't say anything too harsh...except I AM going to tell his friend that he is a d-bag.  Oy!

Election Hopelessness

I woke up this morning with very low hopes for the future. This is a result of a full years worth of bad judgement as far as men are concerned, dissatisfaction with my job and my impact in the world and the upcoming election. Let's discuss the election.

I've been very frustrated and upset along with I think most of the rest of the country with the focus of the campaigns for this election. In my (albeit biased) opinion, Obama has been forced to spend a lot of his time fighting smears and the result has been the deterioration of focus on both sides of the real issues. Long story short, I spent 3 hours discussing the election with 2 different conservatives, with whom I really tried to put the whole character defect thing aside and discuss the real issues. I was convinced that if we could just put all the accusations aside we could probably come to an agreement about the things that really mattered: What to do about healthcare, what to do about the economy, etc. Maybe not perfect solutions but something that could be agreed upon. Unfortunately after raking my way through the sea of garbage and looking at the real heart of the matter, I began realising this might not be possible. To them, the left is too close to socialism, which is in their opinion a fails. To me, I see the values of capitalism but I also see it's undeniable faults and resulting failures. Neither system is perfect and the ideal answer seems to be evading us. Is progress important? Do we stick to capitalism because it is a the best of a bunch of bad ideas? Do we go towards socialism because competition and greed are ruining us? (btw, I wrote towards socialism not TO socialism). Or do we look for the answer that we don't yet have? Is there any way that we can all compromise? Unfortunately the overwheliming feeling I am getting is that it would take rebuilding from a civil war to do so. Until then, we will continue to argue about which imperfect system we chose to support. And that's if we can even get past all of this character bashing.

The Beauty In Not Knowing

I have very bad vision. Have since I was a child. It sucks when I go camping and I want to lay out and fall asleep watching the stars. It sucks when I want to go running and my eyes need a break from my contacts. Recently my eye got infected and I had to wear my glasses for a few weeks. It sucked wearing my glasses because when I hike or run they slide off my nose when it gets sweaty and my depth perception isn't very good with them. So I stopped wearing them. I just went "blind" as it were. And then I realized that I can still see with my glasses off, it's just different, although I probably shouldn't drive without them. I've always been more of a "lumper" than a "splitter" as we call it in geology. Maybe that's how I was born to be? Things kind of blend together in my natural world. Maybe I'm not meant to recognize people from far off. Maybe I'm not supposed to see everything perfectly clear. Maybe I'm just meant to see clearly enough. And then I started thinking about this in terms of other things in my life. I tend to be impatient and want to know the ending right away. I always want to know what boys are thinking. I always want to know if I made a mistake or not. And that's fine, but I get frustrated when I don't and I think that's my problem. Maybe the beauty is in not knowing? You know how parents sometimes shelter their children from things they don't need to know, maybe because they are painful or wouldn't understand? Well maybe someone designed it that way. I'll give you one further. Personally, I believe in God. Long story short I take solace believing that some entity out there knows exactly how many hairs are on my head at any given time. I see how I have been blessed in my life and it seems like more than just a coincidence. There are people out there who don't believe in God, and that's just fine, they are totally entitled to that belief. But for the people out there who don't believe in a God because there just isn't enough evidence...well maybe there is something to be said for having faith. For just knowing something, even though you can't prove it.

Maybe in my life I shouldn't worry about the things I do. Rather than letting things pan out, I have the tendency to try and control situations and the truth is I'm just not that good at it. I sometimes lack the oversight necessary to fully understand situations, and when I see myself in a spot like that, maybe I should just go with the flow. Obviously (or maybe not so much) there are situations that require action, but maybe I can just stop trying to control the situations that are really out of my control.

What Makes Us Who We Are?

My dad and I had a conversation once about whether character is inherent in someone or whether it is built. The analogy I like to use is that maybe it's like building a house: We are given certain tools and building supplies but it is our job to actually build the house with what we have been given. Sometimes we might build our house and a storm comes and we realize we weren't prepared and we might have to rebuild, this time keeping rain, high winds, fire, snow, etc. in mind. I guess my question now is what makes some people "good" or some people have character and what makes people "bad" or "lacking character"? Is it laziness? Is it upbringing? Is it that they haven't seen the storm yet or don't realize their house is dilapidated? I read another quote the other day that I really liked: "The finest steel has been through the hottest fire".

The other day a friend sent me an email and in it he mentioned Gavrilo Princip, who I looked up on Wikipedia. The article said he was a Bosnian Serb who assassinated the archduke of Austria, one of the events which led up to the start of World War I. It also said that he had bad health growing up and a rough upbringing and was treated as if he was "small and weak", and that this led him to need to prove himself. AKA led him to assassinate the archduke. Well I just think that is total bologne. Blah blah blah people with rough lives doing lame things...Guess what. All of our lives are tough and not equally so. Some people have it really rough and some people don't. I'd say I've finally had enough happen to me that I haven't totally had it easy, but think about it this way: people who have had really hard lives have had more opportunities to better themselves than I have. And either they have done so or they haven't. I guess the difference is that I had someone around to show me how to learn from what has happened and from my mistakes. But then again, they say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear and I do believe that.

So anyways, I'd say I've had a pretty good life. The only place I think it has really sucked is with guys. It's just not working. I'll be 24 in a few days and I haven't been in a relationship much longer than a year, and that was only one time. I honestly feel like I am this amazing person, some guy's dream girl, only he just doesn't know I'm his dream yet. But anyways, what I wanted to say is: To everyone who has done me wrong, Thank you. To every guy who has broken my heart, Thank you. You have played an important role in my development and I wouldn't be who I am without you and your behavior. I hope that you have learned from what you've done and not repeated your follies, although we all repeat our mistakes sometimes. But you have been just as important as those who have taught me how to recover and who I want to be, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I wish you the very best. I don't wish you happiness, but I don't necessarily wish that for myself either. I think too much happiness is not a good thing. More on that later.

Fear of Committment in Men a Genetic Flaw? Are we slaves to social norms?

I saw an article today about there being a gene that may cause men not to form strong bonds with their partners.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7593301.stm

Basically it says that this gene may affect how a man's brain uses vasopressin. Strangely enough this gene has also been associated with autism. There are a bunch of married men in their surveys and I guess the married men with this gene are much more likely to have marital problems and their wives are more likely to report unhappiness with their connection.

What I don't understand is why the heck did these guys get married? Did social norms make you do it? If you can stand before God/a church full of witnesses/your "loved" one and swear to cherish them and love them for better or worse, etc., etc. and you don't mean it...you have a problem. Sometimes I wonder if my desire to love and cherish one man, and my desire for a white picket fence, a 2,000 square foot house and 2 children is based on social "norms" if it's part of my biology or if it's just part of "me". I'll save this for another post but let's just say most men I've seen romantically treat me like crap and I'm coming to the realization that these desires may not be my maker's ultimate plan for me. If it's social norms that got me here, I wish someone would go against the social norms when they disagree. Perhaps they could break me from this need I feel.

They say that psychopaths and sociopaths are aware of social norms and niceties but don't "feel bad" when they break them. Does going against them make you a psycho/sociopath? I think where I am going to draw the line (with my very limited knowledge on the subject) is that when you knowingly hurt someone, that is "bad". I'm not saying that men who struggle with commitment need to be put in an insane asylum. I think what I am saying is that ignorance is forgivable--to a point. When we turn a blind eye, when we *avoid* the right thing, when we are lazy and don't spend any of our time trying to better ourselves, ignorance becomes inexcusable just like stupidity and blatant meanness.

I wish I were a better writer because I have a lot of thoughts in my head but I run into difficulty conveying them eloquently.

A Huge Moral Question

So there is this guy that I was working with last week and I know he is cheating on his wife and I don't know what to do. I barely know him, I don't know his wife, and I met his girlfriend very briefly once. He is friends with Lucifer, the cheating bastard that I dated (obviously his name isn't actually Lucifer but he earned the nickname quite well) so I can see his myspace page, which links to this guy's, which links to his wife's. His wife's page has this quote on there that just makes me cringe in agony: "Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option!"

This situation totally sucks, mostly because they have children. Apparently she busted him for cheating in the winter or spring but they are all good now. Or so she thinks. This guy is totally off his rocker. He was telling me that I should write Lucifer a letter so he could take it to him in jail because I was saying that I don't wish him ill, I just want him to get better. (And yes, in a roundabout way I put him in jail...roundabout way, though, I mean he really did this to himself, I just exposed him for who he really was).

So anyways, now I am sitting on this information and I don't know what to do. I know for a fact that going to someone without hard evidence about an affair is really unproductive and destructive. I know when I was cheated on, it was his close friends that had children and families who didn't tell me with whom I was really upset. Although, if one of his random myspace friends had told me that I probably would have given their claims some thought because there were things to be suspicious about. Anyways, I really feel like it's not my place to say something, but I worry I'm just saying that so that I don't have to deal with it, so that I can turn a blind eye and I'd like to think I at least have *some* moral courage. I could use some thoughts on this one. I feel like ultimately I'm powerless in my situation and all that can come of this is discrediting myself, the good Sumaritan.

Honest Tea

I'm pretty into honesty, but Honest Tea is pretty rad, too. Firstly, they fill the bottles to the brim. You can't even shake a bottle without taking a sip first. You know how when you buy a bag of chips, you usually open it and it is only half full or less? But this is like the total opposite of that. I'm sure they need some room for air in the packaging so the poor little chips don't get all crushed up and that I can understand, but I've never seen a bottle so full. They also have some pretty sweet quotes on the inside of their bottles. My favorite so far is:

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"
--Ghandi

And this one is pretty good, too:

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
--Confucius

And one more:

"If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out."
--Oscar Wilde

I actually wouldn't really consider myself a quote person, but maybe that's just because there are a lot of bad quotes out there. There are some good ones, too, but I guess my problem with quotes is that something can sound really catchy but might misleading or even untrue, or maybe I don't like them because I disagree with them. Like the quote about it being better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. I don't agree with that personally, but I guess that's just my opinion. Anyways, here's my attempt at a quote. I swear I came up with it myself, although I suppose it may have been said before:

"If life were always blissful, it would never be blissful."

What I mean by that is it takes the bad for us to appreciate the good. It takes suffering to learn. Sometimes it takes a conscious effort to be happy. I believe I am a happier person now than I would have been if I had never suffered. But most of all what I mean by that is what I first said, that if we never had bad things happen we wouldn't know the good was good. We enjoy the things we have earned for ourselves the most. Perhaps you could say, "A cookie earned tastes better than a cookie received," or something. Maybe that is dumb, I'm not sure it's even true, just an idea. The one argument I have with my own quote is that I think there comes a time in life when one can be blissful while suffering. Call me crazy, but I have thanked God while I've cried myself to sleep about something bad that has happened. Notice I said while, which is very different than being thankful for something bad happening years after the fact because you realize it was actually a blessing in disguise. Maybe I've reached some higher state of being, maybe I'm just nuts.