Come to Jesus, I am not my possessions
This is a big CTJ, one that I stubbornly (thank you, German ancestors) and hot-headedly (thank you Black Irish, Basque, and Mohawk ancestors) have resisted and been in some sort of denial about for many years. No wonder it was like passing a pumpkin when it finally came about.
My name is S________, and I have been in a codependent relationship with my house for 10 years now. I realize now that I do not have the power, nor the obligation, to save this house, and that continuing to live in denial in this relationship is unhealthy for both of us. I do not have the funds to fix the foundation, or do the many other repairs that need doing, even if we had a willing/able neighbor to split the cost. I do not and will not have the funds to float said non-willing, non-able neighbor his half of the costs of the repairs. I will not, most likely, win Lotto just in time to save the house and save ourselves (supposedly). I am not and will never be willing to sacrifice every other goal in my life just to save this house. I will no longer contort my life around this 104 year old, 3 story, altered Denver Square, crumbling stucco, house. I have no duty to be the one who saves it from crack-heads, shady real estate investors, bad tenants, and irresponsible-beyond-belief trust-funder dope-heads who choose to spend their money on drugs rather than take care of the house.
A home is supposed to shelter and comfort you, not cause you endless stress and anxiety and borderline homicidal fantasies. (ok, not borderline. They were epic-ly homicidal.) It did shelter us, splendidly, for a few years total. But any relationship should be a give and take, with the balance on the positive side.
Sorry Detroit Street, but this relationship has been toxic for more than half of it.
Sure, when we met and fell in love, things were great. It was our first place together. Our first place that we OWNED. We had legendary parties there. (before the child came along) We stored a lot of crap there for free, ours and that of friends in transit. We took in at least 4 stray cats and 2 stray dogs. Our beautiful daughter was conceived there, and it was her first home until she was 2 years old. She still remembers it fondly though. We have some fantastic memories there, and some pretty awful ones. Which I will not reiterate, because I am trying to forgive everything about it.
Recently we put the house back on the market, and it is most likely going to be a short sale. A week before, I had my friend James come over and do some energetic clearing of the place, and of me (his idea) because as it turns out- um, yeah. It was like 75% my energy that was keeping things stuck, or at an impasse, with the house. The neighbor’s half is going on the foreclosure auction block in a few weeks, but he is still squatting there. James very neutrally explained, “because he’s still here, I’ll have to come back every 10 days or so and re-clear the house.” That’s one hell of a diplomatic way to put it. He also explained forgiveness in a new, totally refreshing way that resonates with me. As he put it, imagine forgiveness as "allowing someone, or something, safe passage THROUGH your place of judgment.” (My emphasis on THROUGH).
Your place of judgment, aka the Ego, aka Lizard-brain, sees things in black and white and is really just trying to protect you from all danger. If something has hurt you once, best not ever go near that thing again. But things frequently get stuck there because of all the hurt, anger, rage and pain that they’ve caused. Your lizard brain just can’t let go of them. And if you can’t let go of something…. Well, things are probably going to stay stuck. So this is how I assuaged my lizard-brain about the house/neighbor situation:
Me and my heart of Loving Kindness: Dear one, if we do not allow this individual and this whole experience to safely pass through our place of judgment, then he will STAY – for who knows how long. And we don’t want that, now do we, dear one?
Lizard brain: Rrrrrrrrrr.
MMHLK: Do you see?
Lizard brain: RRRRRRrrrevenge!!!
MMHLK: No, no, honey. Believe me. Remember what’s happened to all the people who’ve fucked you over in the past? All the sexually-harassing bosses? All the corrupt workplaces? All the stalkers and bad boyfriends? Hmmm?
Lizard Brain: rrrrreeellllll…… they did get what was coming to them. Without us having to do the work. But that was so--- unsatisfying. I didn’t get to punch anyone.
MMHLK: I know, I know. But that’s what those churchy people mean when they refer to the Seven Deadly Sins- God simply says, “Vengeance is mine.” As in, don’t you worry your pretty little heads about it, or pollute your hearts with it. I will smack down, smite, and otherwise seriously fuck with anyone who breaks my laws. What goes around comes around. Have faith. The Universe always comes through, doesn’t it?
Lizard Brain: Yes but- Can’t I just hit like, one person?
MMHLK: When the time really comes for that, I will let you off-leash.
Lizard Brain: Promise?
MMHLK: Promise.
He made me pinky-swear actually. My lizard-brain is a five-year-old boy. I need to treat him as such. So that’s that. It’s no coincidence, I think, that for the first 8 weeks of this year I was helping to clean out, clear out, clean, clear, and otherwise evacuate my parents’ old house in Parker after my brother got them moved to Arizona.
I haven’t spoken to them in 10 years. (see other blogs for more on that) The deal was, my brother would do the front end, and as soon as they were at least 1,000 miles away from me, I could clean up the mess. Besides, I’m a professional cleaner now, so I could approach this with some professional detachment, like any other job. But still, it was a helluva lot more work than I anticipated. At any rate, it’s done. It’s not only on the market, it’s under contract, and we’re just waiting for the banks’ approval. (another short-sale).
And yes, to answer your question, it was very healing for me. Very healing to THROW OUT all the junk that they’d stored, squirreled away and sequestered for decades, rather than make their living relationships a priority. My parents valued their stuff more than their children, and the thing is, their stuff is absolute junk. I am not kidding. There were waste baskets in there dating to 1968, and coated with grime I remember putting on there in my childhood. No exaggeration.
We put all my mom’s old artwork and supplies on the front porch, and on the FREE part of Craig’s list- and it was decimated within a day. Decimated. The nice neighbors very nicely helped clean up the debitage and threw it in trash bins. A truck-load of stuff went to the VVA. I took everything of value in a moving van back to our place. Sold some of it, gave a lot away, put a lot in storage in the garage or basement. Much is going to HazMat disposal.
The whole experience made me pity them more than hate them or fear them. From what I know, pity is just to the right of hatred. It's the same way I feel about Republicans now. So they too, are being allowed safe passage through my place of judgment, at last. It helps that they are 1,000 miles away and otherwise physically, mentally and spiritually completely unable to show up on my front porch someday and somehow force me, at emotional gunpoint, to take responsibility for all their mistakes and failures. I needed to see and feel just how incapable of that they really are though. I'm kinesthetic. That's how I roll.
And now I can roll along much more easily, because I am not my possessions. I am not my parents. All I am is free. And grateful.
Come, little children
Read 1st Post for Instructions
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, August 8, 2008
Come to Jesus, I'm Fat, not P-h-a-t
Recently things got so bad with my personal space (e.g., I was oozing out of it) that Jesus came to visit me. He tried to be nice about it, but honestly, as a 1st -Century B.C. Israelite, he doesn't have a helluva lotta sympathy for us fat, 21st Century Americans. He patted me on my large knee and said, "Sooz, you know that old saying about Mohammed coming to the mountain? Well uh, pretend I'm Mohammed. And you're the mountain. Ok, that's extreme - sorry- but, for the love of God, come to Jesus. You're fat. Lose some weight, get back in shape for Christ's sake, before you turn 40 and all hope is lost. Don't let me see you on Maury in 10 years, bawling your eyes out and breaking his damn chairs with your vast ass. Seriously. You're better than that." Then he took all my chocolate and left. Bastard.
So anyway, I'm fat. This was going to be a tangent on my blog about accosting the yuppie bitches in the bike lane, but it's literally and figuratively too big to be just a tangent anymore. I've never had a flat stomach, but what was once a little "pooch" or my "panz-ita" is now it's own continental shelf. (Stay the hell away from me with your drills, Dick Cheney!! Oh wait, did you say free liposuction? And you'd pay ME for the trouble...well, hang on.. don't leave without givin' me yer phone number...) My butt was never tiny but I used to think that it was mainly gluteus in that maximus, with a healthy layer of cushion and/or insulation. Now, it's like a melting glacier. Speaking of Vice Presidents, somebody notify Al Gore. Except that my glacier is melting directly into my upper thighs, and causing quite a bit of erosion along the way. Not a pretty sight. And speaking of legs... I used to have them, and be quite proud of them. If I was vain about anything, it was my legs. They used to be toned and muscular, sometimes tanned, and in the summer- get this- I would even SHAVE them. Now- I don't even want to talk about it.
Well, I do, a little. Because I have started doing something about the situation, back in May to be exact. I re-joined the employee wellness center, and started going every damn day, on my "lunch hour." (as if we state wage-slaves actually have one). Cardio stuff roughly 3 times a week, and strength training or weights the other two days. On top of that, since it's gotten warmer I've been biking to work about 3 days a week. It's only 25 minutes each way, but it helps. Anyway since then, my quadraceps HAVE resurfaced and become visible again, underneath that arctic-seal layer of fat.
But no matter, I can SEE them! Even on a cloudy day! This, to me, is awesome. And it gives you an idea of what I've been reduced to, in terms of vanity and sanity. For me now, seeing my quadraceps=happiness.
Pre-baby, I pretty much took my body for granted. Sure I put on a few pounds every winter/holiday season, but they melted away quickly come spring and summer when I was either working outside all the time, or biking and walking everywhere. I didn't deprive myself of the foods I liked, because after a brief flirtation with anorexia at age 14, decided that dieting is one of the quickest paths to mental illness and an early death. Also, I suck at it. Once tried fasting in solidarity with a friend for Yom Kippur- didn't even make it til 5pm, and that was with all the juice and water I could hold. And in my profession, when you're out in the field at least, you're constantly moving, so you're constantly grazing. You'll eat whatever anybody throws at you, especially if it's free. We had M&Ms for lunch once, followed by an entire can of Pringles. It was yummy. I was skinny.
So ix-nay on the iet-day. I love food, I love eating, I think now that I'm an adult I make pretty intelligent, informed choices, so leave me alone.
Exercise has also always been the way I've dealt with emotional stress since I can remember. At first it was just to get the hell out of my family's house for as long as possible and not freeze to death, so I'd take the dog and we'd wander the plains for 3 hours at a time. She chased jackrabbits and prairie dogs, I learned to love the beauty of yucca and prickly pear in the snow, and walking without a particular destination in mind. I still prefer walking to any other form of transportation, even biking.
Then.. in 2005 I became pregnant, as planned, but I put on something like 97 thousand pounds, not as planned. And that with going to the gym at least 3 times a week, doing the prenatal yoga, walking as much as possible, etc. Happily, I lost most of it during the first year of her life what with the torrential, 24-7 breastfeeding and pumping, and no sleep. Then, the DAY she turned one year old, something happened. My body said, "enuf." The nurse-practitioner/midwife who saw me a few months after my re-ballooning told me very matter-of-factly, "oh, you need to sleep." Apparently women's bodies hold onto fat when they/we are in crisis mode. Evolution has taught us that when there is prolonged stress (like not sleeping for a year and providing at least 1,000 calories a day to another human, oh, and working full-time), there is likely to be even more stress to follow, like starvation. The mens, they don't do this so much, but we women hold onto our fat for just such an emergency. Oh, goody. So I'll survive longer than some skinny man in a blizzard (that's sort of a given, anyway). I'm sure I learned that somewhere in my Physical Anthropology 101 class, but I forgot it like everything else (except that all calico cats are female) right after the exam.
This new information sort of made me feel better, and sort of din't. I signed up for a weight-loss challenge at the WellnessCenter which officially started June 23rd, and I'm still at the exact same weight I weighed in at. Which is roughly 30 pounds over what I used to consider "normal" and acceptable.
My other/earlier point though was, the exercise is as much for my mental health as it is physical. Mentally and metabolism-wise, I'm like one of those self-recharging wind-up flashlights. If you don't wind me up, I just plain ol' don't work. And what with my incredibly tedious, boring desk job right now (and for the last 5 years) that has almost no advancement potential and no rewards aside from "if I work hard today maybe I'll only get 20 lashes instead of 30, and maybe I'll be able to buy a bag of groceries this weekend!!!" - yeah, I need some other fucking stimulation or I will slip into a fucking COMA!. Seriously. The other side of that coin is, and this is how it ties into the accosting yuppie bitches thing, (thanks to all of you chirping crickets who actually read it) the more I exercise, the more my rage is effectively managed, the less I'm likely to actually beat the shit out of someone and wind up in jail with a costly lawsuit on my hands. So you see, it's not just for MY health, it's for EVERYONE'S health!
Jesus lurves it when we're all non-selfish like that.
So anyway, I'm fat. This was going to be a tangent on my blog about accosting the yuppie bitches in the bike lane, but it's literally and figuratively too big to be just a tangent anymore. I've never had a flat stomach, but what was once a little "pooch" or my "panz-ita" is now it's own continental shelf. (Stay the hell away from me with your drills, Dick Cheney!! Oh wait, did you say free liposuction? And you'd pay ME for the trouble...well, hang on.. don't leave without givin' me yer phone number...) My butt was never tiny but I used to think that it was mainly gluteus in that maximus, with a healthy layer of cushion and/or insulation. Now, it's like a melting glacier. Speaking of Vice Presidents, somebody notify Al Gore. Except that my glacier is melting directly into my upper thighs, and causing quite a bit of erosion along the way. Not a pretty sight. And speaking of legs... I used to have them, and be quite proud of them. If I was vain about anything, it was my legs. They used to be toned and muscular, sometimes tanned, and in the summer- get this- I would even SHAVE them. Now- I don't even want to talk about it.
Well, I do, a little. Because I have started doing something about the situation, back in May to be exact. I re-joined the employee wellness center, and started going every damn day, on my "lunch hour." (as if we state wage-slaves actually have one). Cardio stuff roughly 3 times a week, and strength training or weights the other two days. On top of that, since it's gotten warmer I've been biking to work about 3 days a week. It's only 25 minutes each way, but it helps. Anyway since then, my quadraceps HAVE resurfaced and become visible again, underneath that arctic-seal layer of fat.
But no matter, I can SEE them! Even on a cloudy day! This, to me, is awesome. And it gives you an idea of what I've been reduced to, in terms of vanity and sanity. For me now, seeing my quadraceps=happiness.
Pre-baby, I pretty much took my body for granted. Sure I put on a few pounds every winter/holiday season, but they melted away quickly come spring and summer when I was either working outside all the time, or biking and walking everywhere. I didn't deprive myself of the foods I liked, because after a brief flirtation with anorexia at age 14, decided that dieting is one of the quickest paths to mental illness and an early death. Also, I suck at it. Once tried fasting in solidarity with a friend for Yom Kippur- didn't even make it til 5pm, and that was with all the juice and water I could hold. And in my profession, when you're out in the field at least, you're constantly moving, so you're constantly grazing. You'll eat whatever anybody throws at you, especially if it's free. We had M&Ms for lunch once, followed by an entire can of Pringles. It was yummy. I was skinny.
So ix-nay on the iet-day. I love food, I love eating, I think now that I'm an adult I make pretty intelligent, informed choices, so leave me alone.
Exercise has also always been the way I've dealt with emotional stress since I can remember. At first it was just to get the hell out of my family's house for as long as possible and not freeze to death, so I'd take the dog and we'd wander the plains for 3 hours at a time. She chased jackrabbits and prairie dogs, I learned to love the beauty of yucca and prickly pear in the snow, and walking without a particular destination in mind. I still prefer walking to any other form of transportation, even biking.
Then.. in 2005 I became pregnant, as planned, but I put on something like 97 thousand pounds, not as planned. And that with going to the gym at least 3 times a week, doing the prenatal yoga, walking as much as possible, etc. Happily, I lost most of it during the first year of her life what with the torrential, 24-7 breastfeeding and pumping, and no sleep. Then, the DAY she turned one year old, something happened. My body said, "enuf." The nurse-practitioner/midwife who saw me a few months after my re-ballooning told me very matter-of-factly, "oh, you need to sleep." Apparently women's bodies hold onto fat when they/we are in crisis mode. Evolution has taught us that when there is prolonged stress (like not sleeping for a year and providing at least 1,000 calories a day to another human, oh, and working full-time), there is likely to be even more stress to follow, like starvation. The mens, they don't do this so much, but we women hold onto our fat for just such an emergency. Oh, goody. So I'll survive longer than some skinny man in a blizzard (that's sort of a given, anyway). I'm sure I learned that somewhere in my Physical Anthropology 101 class, but I forgot it like everything else (except that all calico cats are female) right after the exam.
This new information sort of made me feel better, and sort of din't. I signed up for a weight-loss challenge at the WellnessCenter which officially started June 23rd, and I'm still at the exact same weight I weighed in at. Which is roughly 30 pounds over what I used to consider "normal" and acceptable.
My other/earlier point though was, the exercise is as much for my mental health as it is physical. Mentally and metabolism-wise, I'm like one of those self-recharging wind-up flashlights. If you don't wind me up, I just plain ol' don't work. And what with my incredibly tedious, boring desk job right now (and for the last 5 years) that has almost no advancement potential and no rewards aside from "if I work hard today maybe I'll only get 20 lashes instead of 30, and maybe I'll be able to buy a bag of groceries this weekend!!!" - yeah, I need some other fucking stimulation or I will slip into a fucking COMA!. Seriously. The other side of that coin is, and this is how it ties into the accosting yuppie bitches thing, (thanks to all of you chirping crickets who actually read it) the more I exercise, the more my rage is effectively managed, the less I'm likely to actually beat the shit out of someone and wind up in jail with a costly lawsuit on my hands. So you see, it's not just for MY health, it's for EVERYONE'S health!
Jesus lurves it when we're all non-selfish like that.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
COME TO JESUS PEEPLE, THOSE EMO JEANS LOOK GOOD ON ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE!
Really I could just end the blog right there. Nuff said. We all know it, it's simply, apparently, my karmic duty to blurt out the blatantly obvious to everyone within earshot.
But seriously. The rest of the "emo" look I really don't have a problem with, except that it's a blatant rip-off of '80's punks (or really, 70's) mixed in with a little bit of whatever's on sale at Claire's Boutique.
The hair, kinda spiky, except instead of mohawks or devil horns they're apparently trying to look like 3D versions of Japanime heroes. That's cool,that's somewhat original even.
The upper-body apparel - ok, that I have a wee bit of a problem with, especially if the accent is on SKINNY, and let's face it, skinny teenage boys don't need to accentuate their stick-figure-ness, and teenage girls sure as hell don't need another reason to become anorexic.
Especially those "French-sailor" horizontally striped shirts- they've got to go. They are cute on no one. They were ugly in the Eighties, they're ugly now. If you're a grown-ass person wearing one of those ugly revivals, I can't even talk to you.
But mainly... I can't even say it. It's ...the...pants. Jeans? Can you even call them jeans, what look like they were painted on you and you can practically see all the individual yeast cells jumping up and down on your crotch, with joy, because they've never had such prime habitat for infection?
Yuck. I realize that as a kinesthetic person, maybe I'm more sensitive to this stuff than most. When I see another person wearing ridiculously high heels, or too-tight pants of any kind, for the sake of fashion, I wince in pain as if it's being inflicted on me. But these emo pants, or "leggings" or whatever the hell they are- if they are for the sake of fashion, then isn't every kind of fashion supposed to make you look sort of, I dunno, GOOD? Or failing that, COOL?
These pants, oy vey, have got me audibly groaning like a grandma from the old country. "Look vat they are do-ink to the children!! aaaauuughhh!"
Especially the boys. Normally I have no sympathy for whatever they do to themselves, fashion-wise, but this is extreme.
Don't they realize that if they squeeze their nuts up inside them like that all day, they'll NEVER be able to have sex with anyone, of any gender??
And the backside- ooof! They are cutting off all circulation to the backside! Not good! With the young ones, I feel like, ok, maybe they just didn't get the memo. Here is the memo, please forward to all young ones you know:
Girls, and gay men, last I checked, like a little tookus. Not a huge tookus, but ya know, a little junk in the trunk. A little moose in the caboose. Some air in yo' derriere. A nice round butt, is what I'm saying.
Am I wrong to assume that as a universal? Most guys already know this, I think, and if they work on their lower bodies at all, at the gym, they do hip sled rounds, or squats, or maybe the leg press- all of which look very manly and as if ya know, "ah, dudes' just pumpin' iron ya know, gettin' huge" but secretly, they are trying to build up the gluteus maximus so that at SOME POINT in their lives, they might get some action.
Perhaps some of these gym dudes should take on one emo kid each, and mentor him out of the insanity. Ya know, man-to-man. As a woman, if you tell boys anything.. well, you're wasting your time.
Our good friend Zach's oldest son is totally emo, which is a crying shame because he's really cute, has a decent, well-proportioned, pseudo-athletic body, and he chooses to mutilate it, every day, with those damn emo jeans. In fact, yes, I'm going to go ahead and say this- emo jeans are the male equivalent of Asian foot-binding for women.
I never thought a clothing item would make me nostalgic for "Baby Got Back." There it is.
But seriously. The rest of the "emo" look I really don't have a problem with, except that it's a blatant rip-off of '80's punks (or really, 70's) mixed in with a little bit of whatever's on sale at Claire's Boutique.
The hair, kinda spiky, except instead of mohawks or devil horns they're apparently trying to look like 3D versions of Japanime heroes. That's cool,that's somewhat original even.
The upper-body apparel - ok, that I have a wee bit of a problem with, especially if the accent is on SKINNY, and let's face it, skinny teenage boys don't need to accentuate their stick-figure-ness, and teenage girls sure as hell don't need another reason to become anorexic.
Especially those "French-sailor" horizontally striped shirts- they've got to go. They are cute on no one. They were ugly in the Eighties, they're ugly now. If you're a grown-ass person wearing one of those ugly revivals, I can't even talk to you.
But mainly... I can't even say it. It's ...the...pants. Jeans? Can you even call them jeans, what look like they were painted on you and you can practically see all the individual yeast cells jumping up and down on your crotch, with joy, because they've never had such prime habitat for infection?
Yuck. I realize that as a kinesthetic person, maybe I'm more sensitive to this stuff than most. When I see another person wearing ridiculously high heels, or too-tight pants of any kind, for the sake of fashion, I wince in pain as if it's being inflicted on me. But these emo pants, or "leggings" or whatever the hell they are- if they are for the sake of fashion, then isn't every kind of fashion supposed to make you look sort of, I dunno, GOOD? Or failing that, COOL?
These pants, oy vey, have got me audibly groaning like a grandma from the old country. "Look vat they are do-ink to the children!! aaaauuughhh!"
Especially the boys. Normally I have no sympathy for whatever they do to themselves, fashion-wise, but this is extreme.
Don't they realize that if they squeeze their nuts up inside them like that all day, they'll NEVER be able to have sex with anyone, of any gender??
And the backside- ooof! They are cutting off all circulation to the backside! Not good! With the young ones, I feel like, ok, maybe they just didn't get the memo. Here is the memo, please forward to all young ones you know:
Girls, and gay men, last I checked, like a little tookus. Not a huge tookus, but ya know, a little junk in the trunk. A little moose in the caboose. Some air in yo' derriere. A nice round butt, is what I'm saying.
Am I wrong to assume that as a universal? Most guys already know this, I think, and if they work on their lower bodies at all, at the gym, they do hip sled rounds, or squats, or maybe the leg press- all of which look very manly and as if ya know, "ah, dudes' just pumpin' iron ya know, gettin' huge" but secretly, they are trying to build up the gluteus maximus so that at SOME POINT in their lives, they might get some action.
Perhaps some of these gym dudes should take on one emo kid each, and mentor him out of the insanity. Ya know, man-to-man. As a woman, if you tell boys anything.. well, you're wasting your time.
Our good friend Zach's oldest son is totally emo, which is a crying shame because he's really cute, has a decent, well-proportioned, pseudo-athletic body, and he chooses to mutilate it, every day, with those damn emo jeans. In fact, yes, I'm going to go ahead and say this- emo jeans are the male equivalent of Asian foot-binding for women.
I never thought a clothing item would make me nostalgic for "Baby Got Back." There it is.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
FOR CHRIST'S SAKE HILLARY, COME TO JESUS!
You heard me. Need I even elaborate? The past week has made me, and several of my like-minded friends, neighbors, co-workers and peers, remember why we hated politics back when we were young and idealistic. Because with all this money and power involved, it very quickly devolves into playground squabbling, followed by verbal defamation, possibly some hair-pulling, muck-raking, and then pretty soon all of us are gathered around the opponents in a frothing-at-the-mouth throng chanting "KILL HIM/HER! KILL HIM/HER!! JUST KILL SOMEBODY SO WE CAN GO HOME!" Sure the media does its part in amplifying all this mass hysteria, but CTJ folks, sometimes it seems like all of us have taken leave of our senses by not simply refusing to consume the pap that passes for news these days.
That said, Hillary needs to drop out of the race, and soonish. I should provide the disclaimer here that I was/am a pledged delegate for Obama in my in county convention just yesterday. However, before this past week of scorched-earth playground politics, I could have honestly said that I would be fine with voting for either candidate, provided we get a Democrat in the White House come next January,and then we can set about putting this country back on course. Not anymore. The race-baiting, the silly-ass "red phone" ad, the snarkiness and just plain incivility of her comments toward Barack and his record - nuh-uh. Not good enough. I mean, it's clear she's grasping at straws and going on the attack because in reality he outshines her in every way, but this sniping is damaging the goodwill of the voters, could destroy her political career forever, and if she actually allows the Democrats to do what they're best at and snatch Defeat out of the jaws of Victory, this country will be destroyed. We don't have 4 more years left to trifle away in delusional denial. Heck, we didn't even have the 8 years utterly wasted thus far under the Bush cartel's regime. Now we have even LESS time to get these assclowns impeached, imprisoned, and generally rendered impotent for the foreseeable future before an economic / environmental disaster befalls us.
If you haven't noticed, people here don't prepare for disaster, even the ones that are clearly in sight and headed right for us, for shit. In Anthropology this is known as proximal vs. ultimal cause. Humans are really pretty good at avoiding immediate (proximal) causes of danger or death, say, a lion chasing them, but our brains are still way too grounded in that ol' reptilian cortex to think about the causes of death & danger that are far away (ultimal). In "civilized society" where most proximal causes of death are removed (aside from freak accidents, which most people just chalk up to "fate" and decide not to worry about)people grow soft and complacent and usually decide to do nothing about the ultimal causes as well, even though our brains are big enough now, and we have more information at our fingetips than at any time in history, to avoid just about anything catastrophic. Thusly, you see people still smoking even though they know it will eventually kill them, driving like bats out of hell for as long as they can get away with it, and for that matter, driving SUVs to the grocery store even though we all know (don't we? Is that a separate CTJ?) that global warming is very likely going to wipe out all life on this planet ... in a hundred years or so.
Another way to look at it is what I termed the "Mardi Gras" effect back in 1991. People are well aware that many of the resources/conveniences/cheap luxury goods are going away, and fast, but does that make them conserve what we have now? Hell no! Drink up! Big 40-days of fasting coming on, Live it up before we die! Dying's inevitable anyway, who cares if its tomorrow! Woohooo! Real-world example: right after the 1st Gulf War, in which untold 100's of people lost their lives so the U.S.A. could continue its voracious consumption of petroleum products unabated, American car companies gambled that the Mardi Gras effect would hold true as ever (given that everyone with more than 2 brain cells knew the Gulf War was the first toll of the bell for the end of cheap oil) and started manufacturing loads of these weird, ugly little passenger trucks termed "Sport-Utility Vehicles" that got an average of 15 miles to the gallon. They gambled correctly- Americans went out in droves, like so many ego-compelled lemmings, and bought them, even though the most precarious thing they ever drove through was maybe a mud puddle.
but I digress.
Hillary's critics were always complaining that she was too "ambitious" way before I thought so, and she's been accused of putting herself and those ambitions way ahead of the country, and the people. I really thought that was just so much sexist bullshit agita before this past week. But now, she's proving those critics correct, and showing her true, blinded by ambition, face to the American people. Let's hope her supporters CTJ before she does and give her a wake up call. That's one red phone I'd love to see ringing in her house. :)
That said, Hillary needs to drop out of the race, and soonish. I should provide the disclaimer here that I was/am a pledged delegate for Obama in my in county convention just yesterday. However, before this past week of scorched-earth playground politics, I could have honestly said that I would be fine with voting for either candidate, provided we get a Democrat in the White House come next January,and then we can set about putting this country back on course. Not anymore. The race-baiting, the silly-ass "red phone" ad, the snarkiness and just plain incivility of her comments toward Barack and his record - nuh-uh. Not good enough. I mean, it's clear she's grasping at straws and going on the attack because in reality he outshines her in every way, but this sniping is damaging the goodwill of the voters, could destroy her political career forever, and if she actually allows the Democrats to do what they're best at and snatch Defeat out of the jaws of Victory, this country will be destroyed. We don't have 4 more years left to trifle away in delusional denial. Heck, we didn't even have the 8 years utterly wasted thus far under the Bush cartel's regime. Now we have even LESS time to get these assclowns impeached, imprisoned, and generally rendered impotent for the foreseeable future before an economic / environmental disaster befalls us.
If you haven't noticed, people here don't prepare for disaster, even the ones that are clearly in sight and headed right for us, for shit. In Anthropology this is known as proximal vs. ultimal cause. Humans are really pretty good at avoiding immediate (proximal) causes of danger or death, say, a lion chasing them, but our brains are still way too grounded in that ol' reptilian cortex to think about the causes of death & danger that are far away (ultimal). In "civilized society" where most proximal causes of death are removed (aside from freak accidents, which most people just chalk up to "fate" and decide not to worry about)people grow soft and complacent and usually decide to do nothing about the ultimal causes as well, even though our brains are big enough now, and we have more information at our fingetips than at any time in history, to avoid just about anything catastrophic. Thusly, you see people still smoking even though they know it will eventually kill them, driving like bats out of hell for as long as they can get away with it, and for that matter, driving SUVs to the grocery store even though we all know (don't we? Is that a separate CTJ?) that global warming is very likely going to wipe out all life on this planet ... in a hundred years or so.
Another way to look at it is what I termed the "Mardi Gras" effect back in 1991. People are well aware that many of the resources/conveniences/cheap luxury goods are going away, and fast, but does that make them conserve what we have now? Hell no! Drink up! Big 40-days of fasting coming on, Live it up before we die! Dying's inevitable anyway, who cares if its tomorrow! Woohooo! Real-world example: right after the 1st Gulf War, in which untold 100's of people lost their lives so the U.S.A. could continue its voracious consumption of petroleum products unabated, American car companies gambled that the Mardi Gras effect would hold true as ever (given that everyone with more than 2 brain cells knew the Gulf War was the first toll of the bell for the end of cheap oil) and started manufacturing loads of these weird, ugly little passenger trucks termed "Sport-Utility Vehicles" that got an average of 15 miles to the gallon. They gambled correctly- Americans went out in droves, like so many ego-compelled lemmings, and bought them, even though the most precarious thing they ever drove through was maybe a mud puddle.
but I digress.
Hillary's critics were always complaining that she was too "ambitious" way before I thought so, and she's been accused of putting herself and those ambitions way ahead of the country, and the people. I really thought that was just so much sexist bullshit agita before this past week. But now, she's proving those critics correct, and showing her true, blinded by ambition, face to the American people. Let's hope her supporters CTJ before she does and give her a wake up call. That's one red phone I'd love to see ringing in her house. :)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
COME TO CHEEZUS
COME TO CHEEZUS :)
Category: Religion and Philosophy
HEE HEE. So I realize this "come to Jesus" thing is pretty damn intimidating for most people, who may think I'm asking friends and strangers to bare their souls and confess past sins and whatnot, and that ain't necessarily so. Confess if you want, but Comin' to Jesus is more about admitting big AND little things that aren't going according to plan, going well, going anywhere... and it's time to "give up the ghost" as it were.
IN that vein, I offer up another small CTJ that I performed over the weekend.
Since the Superbowl, I've had this leftover nacho cheese dip wrapped in plastic, at the back of the fridge. It was still in the handy removable crock-pot tray that we had heated it up in, so, theoretically, still heat-up-able and edible.
I had such high hopes for this cheese dip. I insisted on making it, with a pound of Albertson's brand Velveeta and a couple cans o' Ro-tel spicy tomatos, and lo and behold, not even my hollow-legged husband could finish it all.
So we froze the remainder, and one month later, took it to a friends' housewarming party as our potluck contribution. No, I'm not kidding. However, said husband forgot to ;put water in the bottom of the crockpot this time, so the cheese dip never really heated up, and only one person partook of it. (me)
Disappointed, we carted the dip home once again. And this time, put it in the back of the fridge where things tend to freeze.
ANd every weekend, i said to myself "I'm going to heat that stuff up and snack on it all day."
Well friends, guess what. Yep. Never happened. With a heavy heart, I had to come to cheezus, acknowledge that my own rule of food consumption - "No Visible Mold" had been broken, and chuck the stuff this past weekend, a full 3 months and 3 weeks after its creation.
And lo, I am sorely relieved. :)
Category: Religion and Philosophy
HEE HEE. So I realize this "come to Jesus" thing is pretty damn intimidating for most people, who may think I'm asking friends and strangers to bare their souls and confess past sins and whatnot, and that ain't necessarily so. Confess if you want, but Comin' to Jesus is more about admitting big AND little things that aren't going according to plan, going well, going anywhere... and it's time to "give up the ghost" as it were.
IN that vein, I offer up another small CTJ that I performed over the weekend.
Since the Superbowl, I've had this leftover nacho cheese dip wrapped in plastic, at the back of the fridge. It was still in the handy removable crock-pot tray that we had heated it up in, so, theoretically, still heat-up-able and edible.
I had such high hopes for this cheese dip. I insisted on making it, with a pound of Albertson's brand Velveeta and a couple cans o' Ro-tel spicy tomatos, and lo and behold, not even my hollow-legged husband could finish it all.
So we froze the remainder, and one month later, took it to a friends' housewarming party as our potluck contribution. No, I'm not kidding. However, said husband forgot to ;put water in the bottom of the crockpot this time, so the cheese dip never really heated up, and only one person partook of it. (me)
Disappointed, we carted the dip home once again. And this time, put it in the back of the fridge where things tend to freeze.
ANd every weekend, i said to myself "I'm going to heat that stuff up and snack on it all day."
Well friends, guess what. Yep. Never happened. With a heavy heart, I had to come to cheezus, acknowledge that my own rule of food consumption - "No Visible Mold" had been broken, and chuck the stuff this past weekend, a full 3 months and 3 weeks after its creation.
And lo, I am sorely relieved. :)
CTJ: NIRVANA SUCKS/SUCKED
Come on now, it's 2007. Can we all Come to Jesus about the fact that Nirvana sucked? Has Cobain been dead long enough so that we can respectfully cut the crap about his overrated, lame-ass, whiny little attempt at "alternative music" and move on? I think if we could CTJ about this, we could probably solve the crisis in the Middle East as well. Piece o' cake.
Admittedly, I'm using this as a litmus test for the MySpace community, and trying to goad die-hard Nirvana-sucks Deniers into commenting or responding in some way.
Bring it on!
Maybe they were the soundtrack to your grunge-soaked, halcyon college days during which you a) lost your virginity b) partied hard c) made the best friends ever or d) all of the above - but that still doesn't change the fact that they sucked.
Admit it, you were listening under the influence.
With enough beer, and no adult supervision, Nirvana rocked your world and so did that frat boy you lured back to your dorm room.
And the next morning, you should have puked and repented all three.
Just like I puked when I heard that Cobain and Grohl (or whoever, lay off me I don't know their damn names) listed one of my favorite bands, the Meat Puppets, as one of their prime influences.
Instant migraine, there. Seriously? HA! They WISH they had been influenced even a smidgen by the MP's - but alas, they could only aspire wistfully to the amazin' blazin' talent the Meat Puppets possess/possessed.
Still not convinced?
Listen to your old CD of "Nevermind", sober, and then listen to, oh, almost anything else, sober - but preferably someone who lampoons the likes of Nerve-blah-nah, like Todd Snider's "Talkin' Seattle Blues." Laugh your ass off at your old self, laugh at the grunge bands now long since deservedly dead, laugh at how seriously people took themselves during the greatest economic expansion in US history... just laugh, and reminesce. With Jesus.
Admittedly, I'm using this as a litmus test for the MySpace community, and trying to goad die-hard Nirvana-sucks Deniers into commenting or responding in some way.
Bring it on!
Maybe they were the soundtrack to your grunge-soaked, halcyon college days during which you a) lost your virginity b) partied hard c) made the best friends ever or d) all of the above - but that still doesn't change the fact that they sucked.
Admit it, you were listening under the influence.
With enough beer, and no adult supervision, Nirvana rocked your world and so did that frat boy you lured back to your dorm room.
And the next morning, you should have puked and repented all three.
Just like I puked when I heard that Cobain and Grohl (or whoever, lay off me I don't know their damn names) listed one of my favorite bands, the Meat Puppets, as one of their prime influences.
Instant migraine, there. Seriously? HA! They WISH they had been influenced even a smidgen by the MP's - but alas, they could only aspire wistfully to the amazin' blazin' talent the Meat Puppets possess/possessed.
Still not convinced?
Listen to your old CD of "Nevermind", sober, and then listen to, oh, almost anything else, sober - but preferably someone who lampoons the likes of Nerve-blah-nah, like Todd Snider's "Talkin' Seattle Blues." Laugh your ass off at your old self, laugh at the grunge bands now long since deservedly dead, laugh at how seriously people took themselves during the greatest economic expansion in US history... just laugh, and reminesce. With Jesus.
COME TO JESUS, SISTHREN & BRETHREN
OK FOLKS- You read the headline, here's the deal. I've been wanting to hold some kind of forum online for people of privilege, specifically, to come forward and 'fess up to the fact that all of their entitlements, adventures, wealth, good things in general are due to their wealth and privilege and NOT due to any specialness that they have themselves created. Then I thought, wow, won't that be a dead forum. The blog equivalent of crickets chirping, essentially. Because seriously, when's the last time you heard a rich white guy just suddenly say, out of the blue, "You know, none of this (waving a martini-shaker at his swimming pool, fabulous house, trophy wife, M.B.A from Yale on the wall...) is due to my own intellectual, physical, or spiritual prowess. I was handed everything on a silver platter, plus myriad other favors, entitlements, and privileges that I'm not even aware of because I've always lived in this very insular, financially protected bubble that I don't remotely deserve..." Seriously, if anyone has actually heard a person of privilege admit to that- notify me. Post on this blog. Please.
Plus, just a wee bit negative on my part since I do tend to rail about trustfunders and how they drive me absolutely bonkers (perhaps because my beloved home state of Colorado is OVERRUN with them.)
Also, it's just a little bit narrow.
Why then, you ask, even bother? Welp because (here comes the pompous Anthropologist Pronoucement- brace yourselves!) I've come to believe that if this century is going to be anything, it's going to be the Century of Comin' to Jesus on a grand scale. Our time of self-delusion, inflated pride, unearned wealth and privileges is rapidly coming to an end. If for no other reason than it's simply unsustainable. And this is a good thing. (I'm speaking mainly to Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans here- the rest of all y'all have your own problems) Por ejemplo, Americans especially need to Come to Jesus about the fact that this country was founded on the genocide and theft of Native Americans and not God's Divine Plan for White People Who Must Be Naturally Superior. The ignominy of this founding was quickly followed by its twin sister, slavery, and centuries of brutal, oppressive racism that has seeped into every pore of our government and so-called "free" society and poisons it to this day. Denial of these basic facts only shoves those twin poisons deeper into our collective psychic wounds and makes them more difficult to heal.
Which brings me to my segue- so, the healing. Obviously these are huge issues, huge thingies, huge wounds that could take a person an entire lifetime to heal, and for a country, it's going to take generations. So, we-all-of-us, sisthren and brethren, need to start small. Really, all of us have things we need to Come to Jesus about. To make it easier, I've posted some of my CTJ's that originally appeared on my MySpace blog (and which got virtually no attention, as I have very few friends. Go figure.) as examples. Keep in mind, it doesn't have to be about YOU and your personal life for starters. If it is, my advice is to start REALLY small - as in, "Ok, I have to Come to Jesus about this hair scrunchy that I've been wearing every day for 6 months. The elastic is dead, the colors are faded, it's starting to smell, and it doesn't make my hair look good at all. Maybe it's time for a new style."
Or like, in a post of over a year ago, when I had to come to Cheezus about the fact that I made way too much Ro-tel nacho cheese dip for the Superbowl, which no one ate, but I kept it in the back of the fridge for months thinking "Someday! We will eat that! Can't let good Velveeta go to waste!" Sigh.
Definitions: Coming to Jesus, for those unfamiliar with the phrase, is about giving up your grand illusions/delusions about yourself or something/someone dear to you, facing facts, and in turn for this act of humility and self-awareness, receiving the sweet embrace of forgiveness in the arms of the "lord", or in my mind, the bosom of the Virgin Mary. If you're Catholic, or if you've read "Bless Me Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya, you know Mary's a helluva lot more understanding and forgiving than her son. She also runs around in the costumes of other cultures pretty frequently (or vice-versa, really, most of them pre-date Mary)as Tonantzin, Kwan Yin, Hera, White Buffalo Calf Woman, on and on. She is the nurturing face of the Goddess, the mythical unconditionally-loving mother to all who will always hold a distraught child to her breast to comfort them, no matter what stupid accident they've just caused or crawled out of. (so why not call this blog "Come to Mary?" doesn't sound as good.)
In the Baptist American tradition, it's the term for when congregants literally crawl on their knees up to the pulpit, weeping and sometimes rending garments, asking the preacher but more importantly their co-religionists to forgive them for ______________. Usually, some version of "living a falsehood." For example, perhaps you are unemployed, and desperately broke, but for some reason are still holding out for that $100k a year job, rather than facing reality or "coming to Jesus" and getting some sort of temp job so that you can pay your bills and put food on the table.
Yes, it generally involves giving up on a pipe-dream, or fantasy, not ACTUAL, legitimate dreams of what you really want to do with your life. In other words, "Put down the Pipe! Dream!"
If you've ever "Come to Jesus" about anything, you know there's a profound sense of relief that washes over you when you finally do. Unlike a confessional, where you just feel more guilty and dirty afterwards, this has immediate rewards (again, appealing to the Americans in the group).
Maybe I should mention that I'm culturally but not spiritually a Christian, and I mean no disrespect or "ironic" snarking by invoking Jesus' name here- I'm invoking it because I think a lot of people can relate to it, Christian or no. So don't waste precious comment space getting all offended that I'm blaspheming your god or something, because I'm not. Jesus seemed like a really good guy from what I can tell, trouble is, his teachings are incredibly hard to follow in real life and most of his "followers" only pretend to follow them, to keep up appearances.
I have to moderate this for hate-speech etc., but other than that, go for it.
Plus, just a wee bit negative on my part since I do tend to rail about trustfunders and how they drive me absolutely bonkers (perhaps because my beloved home state of Colorado is OVERRUN with them.)
Also, it's just a little bit narrow.
Why then, you ask, even bother? Welp because (here comes the pompous Anthropologist Pronoucement- brace yourselves!) I've come to believe that if this century is going to be anything, it's going to be the Century of Comin' to Jesus on a grand scale. Our time of self-delusion, inflated pride, unearned wealth and privileges is rapidly coming to an end. If for no other reason than it's simply unsustainable. And this is a good thing. (I'm speaking mainly to Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans here- the rest of all y'all have your own problems) Por ejemplo, Americans especially need to Come to Jesus about the fact that this country was founded on the genocide and theft of Native Americans and not God's Divine Plan for White People Who Must Be Naturally Superior. The ignominy of this founding was quickly followed by its twin sister, slavery, and centuries of brutal, oppressive racism that has seeped into every pore of our government and so-called "free" society and poisons it to this day. Denial of these basic facts only shoves those twin poisons deeper into our collective psychic wounds and makes them more difficult to heal.
Which brings me to my segue- so, the healing. Obviously these are huge issues, huge thingies, huge wounds that could take a person an entire lifetime to heal, and for a country, it's going to take generations. So, we-all-of-us, sisthren and brethren, need to start small. Really, all of us have things we need to Come to Jesus about. To make it easier, I've posted some of my CTJ's that originally appeared on my MySpace blog (and which got virtually no attention, as I have very few friends. Go figure.) as examples. Keep in mind, it doesn't have to be about YOU and your personal life for starters. If it is, my advice is to start REALLY small - as in, "Ok, I have to Come to Jesus about this hair scrunchy that I've been wearing every day for 6 months. The elastic is dead, the colors are faded, it's starting to smell, and it doesn't make my hair look good at all. Maybe it's time for a new style."
Or like, in a post of over a year ago, when I had to come to Cheezus about the fact that I made way too much Ro-tel nacho cheese dip for the Superbowl, which no one ate, but I kept it in the back of the fridge for months thinking "Someday! We will eat that! Can't let good Velveeta go to waste!" Sigh.
Definitions: Coming to Jesus, for those unfamiliar with the phrase, is about giving up your grand illusions/delusions about yourself or something/someone dear to you, facing facts, and in turn for this act of humility and self-awareness, receiving the sweet embrace of forgiveness in the arms of the "lord", or in my mind, the bosom of the Virgin Mary. If you're Catholic, or if you've read "Bless Me Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya, you know Mary's a helluva lot more understanding and forgiving than her son. She also runs around in the costumes of other cultures pretty frequently (or vice-versa, really, most of them pre-date Mary)as Tonantzin, Kwan Yin, Hera, White Buffalo Calf Woman, on and on. She is the nurturing face of the Goddess, the mythical unconditionally-loving mother to all who will always hold a distraught child to her breast to comfort them, no matter what stupid accident they've just caused or crawled out of. (so why not call this blog "Come to Mary?" doesn't sound as good.)
In the Baptist American tradition, it's the term for when congregants literally crawl on their knees up to the pulpit, weeping and sometimes rending garments, asking the preacher but more importantly their co-religionists to forgive them for ______________. Usually, some version of "living a falsehood." For example, perhaps you are unemployed, and desperately broke, but for some reason are still holding out for that $100k a year job, rather than facing reality or "coming to Jesus" and getting some sort of temp job so that you can pay your bills and put food on the table.
Yes, it generally involves giving up on a pipe-dream, or fantasy, not ACTUAL, legitimate dreams of what you really want to do with your life. In other words, "Put down the Pipe! Dream!"
If you've ever "Come to Jesus" about anything, you know there's a profound sense of relief that washes over you when you finally do. Unlike a confessional, where you just feel more guilty and dirty afterwards, this has immediate rewards (again, appealing to the Americans in the group).
Maybe I should mention that I'm culturally but not spiritually a Christian, and I mean no disrespect or "ironic" snarking by invoking Jesus' name here- I'm invoking it because I think a lot of people can relate to it, Christian or no. So don't waste precious comment space getting all offended that I'm blaspheming your god or something, because I'm not. Jesus seemed like a really good guy from what I can tell, trouble is, his teachings are incredibly hard to follow in real life and most of his "followers" only pretend to follow them, to keep up appearances.
I have to moderate this for hate-speech etc., but other than that, go for it.
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