so tired

of feeling so stupid all day every day

i really need something to cheer me up today

i don't know why but i am fighting the strongest wave of depression i've seen in a long time

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

on being single

i have a lot to say about this so i wouldn't hesitate to suspect that there may be more than one post on this.

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.

*big breath*

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.

They are dead wrong. There's a little thing called diversity that, one might argue, is one of the greater more worthwhile aspects of life and all these little Mussolini's and Stalin's would have none of that.

being single can be a beautiful thing (just like being married can be a hideous atrocity to nature): it can teach you how to be silent, it can teach you how to live in solitude, it can teach you about the seasons of life and how there is a time for revelry and a time for mourning, it can teach you how to connect with people on any time scale, it can teach you how to invest in someone else without expecting a return, it can teach you how vulnerable you are and how inadequate you are and how much you need help (be it from God or someone simply being Jesus for you), it can teach you how to be spontaneous or how to plan for long-term goals, it can teach you discipline and afford you the opportunity to volunteer or sacrifice for a worthy cause. Being single is not a curse.

my next post on being single will cover the topic of sex

overheard on a friend's facebook page

"Beg for a Kindle for Christmas and free yourself from the bookstore... and from killing trees to make the books :)"

where do i start?

how about here: "or don't go to college, get a blue-collar job and never have to kill those trees to make the books you read for class or the papers you turned in for assignments or the meaningless mountains of paperwork/bureaucracy you produce as a student PLUS never have the desire to read those books so no need for a bookstore or a Kindle"

or here: "except that nothing is free and 'a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet' just like a heaping mound of rotting garbage would still smell like shit no matter what marketing twat wrote the first quote - you are still going to have to purchase the 'book' and so are still bound to an institution that deals in books, i.e. a bookstore.

FURTHERMORE what idiot doesn't think that endorsing and supporting a business doesn't result in paper being used!? we are f*cked up the whole world is f*cked up and when some POS product (which, i believe, uses DRM-encrypted data formats and so 'your' purchase isn't really yours) (which i'm not going to bother to fact-check, btw) claims to free you from guilt over being a consumer in a first-world economy (by, ironically, forcing you to be a consumer in a first-world economy) it is a steaming pile of marketing hogwash designed to manipulate you into spending your money and promoting their product. nothing more.

sorry. people are stupid and it makes me angry

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

pics... i told you

they aren't that great