Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
i really need something to cheer me up today
Sunday, November 15, 2009
half a limerick
naught but an ape
who has learned to fake
his way into shoes much too large
i shaved off my hair
with nary a care
and buried my past in the yard
Saturday, November 14, 2009
on being single
Let me start by pointing out the elephant in the room - we, all of us, are expected to get married at some point in our lives and have children (thus the expectation is that we will marry young). This is all part and parcel of the social norm here in the West - get married, have kids, buy a house, get a 9-5 job, have a couple of cars, live in suburbia, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
notice there is no gray area, there is no caveat or clause here for those who will not get married. I think that says a lot. We have a few tired, generally positive caricatures for chronically single people that we use: the playboy (i use that word loosely) uncle, the spinster aunt... The other caricatures are decidedly not positive: the D&D-playing basement dweller who never manages to move out, the creeper rape-van man, the crazy cat-lady... you get the idea: despite the fact that a large percentage of 20-somethings are single and without prospects (myself and many of my friends included), the option to not do as your parents and grandparents did is simply not an option, at least that is how most people will behave.
Most people will get married, I am fine with that. I am even fine with most people getting married in their late teens and early twenties. I am also ok with the fact that most people date for the majority of their teen years until they find someone they think they want to marry and I am even ok with the fact that, as a rule, people who get married aren't ready for it (divorce rate, anyone?)...
But when someone comes into my life and breathes contempt down my neck for not dating or when someone gets in my face shouts at me from a bully pulpit that i should be doing every damn thing in my power to be un-single... watch out, jackoff. Who, exactly do they think they are to be telling a total stranger how to live his life? Who died and made them omniscient and infallible to be telling me my choices in life are wrong? What do they know about my past and my history with relationships? Or my own personal struggles and issues with trust? What do they know about my priorities or the trade-offs I've made for what I consider the greater good? They don't know shit and what's worse is the fact that they don't know that they don't know shit; they think they have it all figured out - all the world cut up and deposited in little labeled boxes. Well, here's the stone-cold truth, folks: life is messy. There are no rules that work there are no boxes, it is all 'gray area' and none of your anal-retentive, type A personality-driven obsessive compulsive analysis and judgment or (false) Western culture-enforced conviction that we are masters of this universe is going to change that.
People who say you shouldn't be single are saying two very important things: one, they think that they have the answer to life, the universe and everything (and that it is to be exactly like them and do as they say because, if they were God, then there wouldn't be any problems in the world) & two, there aren't any other answers: whatever you may have managed to cobble together to get you through the days isn't legit.
Monday, November 9, 2009
overheard on a friend's facebook page
Saturday, November 7, 2009
stepping on a hornet's nest
and not even knowing it.
sometimes i think it's the theme of modern "American" life. it was the theme of my day on Friday. i saw an article on the BBC here and i thought it was funny so i posted it to facebook. you can see the ensuing guilt trip there. and yet i still think the article's funny and i don't think my comment is offensive and here's why: there is a stereotype that asians are bad drivers and i can tell you that even many Americans i know of asian descent will affirm this and laugh about it and i can tell you that i have had to share the road with numerous bad drivers some of whom are asian or of asian descent; i.e. stereotypes exist for a reason. But that isn't necessarily what makes the article funny (although that is one layer to it). What also makes the article funny is the fact that I know and have ridden with numerous good drivers who happen to be asian or of asian descent thus there is irony in the fact that this poor Korean woman took forever to pass her written driver's test. What is further funny about all this is that if the world weren't an evil, broken place, then that story either wouldn't exist or wouldn't be run because then the stereotype of bad asian drivers wouldn't be propagated and good asian drivers could go about debunking the stereotype of bad asian drivers. Except that is crap because the world is a broken place and good and bad drivers of all heritages populate the highways and byways of the world so there is an element of despair in this to which the only healthy response is laughter because, if you can't fix it, what are you going to do about it? finally, my comment mirrors the content of the article and, although it may be deemed offensive, was not meant to be hurtful or destructive. i did mean it as a good natured elbow-nudge which, i realize doesn't come across too well in print. however, if you know me (and if you can see my posts on facebook, you probably do. i think i set that setting right anyway), you probably know that i don't think stereotypes are necessarily accurate to any trustworthy degree and so, hopefully, you would catch that joke, too.
and to be completely forthright, I didn't give the article any thought as being offensive until a friend of mine pointed out that it might be. let me stress might here because that is what has been nagging me for the last two days. i don't want to hurt people with my posts - i typically want to make them laugh or be in awe of something amazing and the idea that this article and my comment are offensive was upsetting to me. But, at the same time, that might seems awfully flimsy to me and I don't really buy the argument that hordes of asians and asian-americans are going to beat a path to my door and give me the third degree for the posting or that they are hiding in their rooms, crying over the posting or even just a little bit sad on the inside. I could be wrong about this (like I can be wrong about anything I think or believe) but most people i know of any color or heritage are a bit stronger than that and would either shrug it off or laugh themselves. *sigh* who knows? maybe all the asians who saw that article got pissed and so I am guilty of offending them and so i should apologize and maybe people need to learn how to laugh at stereotypes (and themselves, if that's appropriate) and maybe the world would be a better place if we didn't try to avoid offending each other (i.e. the 'colorblind' theory) but, instead tried to affirm each other - especially those from the same place/cultural space as us so that when we do accidentally step on each other's toes we are strong enough to laugh about it because, let's face it; we are never going to be 1. aware enough 2.knowledgable enough 3.vigilant enough 4.motivated enough to ever avoid insulting/offending everyone. there are just too many ways to hurt somebody (especially in our culture where people look for ways to hurt or be hurt) and too many people out there
