Happy Birthday, Mo'Nique!

I'm feeling very strange. Do you ever do that thing where you think about what your life would be like if you had done something different in the past? And then you think about the possibility that your life would be better or different if you had done the other thing? And then you tell yourself that's dumb, because it's purely speculation and there's that thing about the grass being grassier on the other side? And then you think yeah, but what if I'm right? And then you just feel really frustrated that you can't create another dimension in which you can live your life the way it would be if you'd done one thing, and then in this dimension you could still live your life as if you'd done this thing, and then you could go back and forth between the dimensions so that you could monitor the quality of both lives and then decide on the one you think is better, or just maybe maintain both dimensions forever so you could essentially live two lives and have the best of both worlds? I do.

My hair was really big today.

What the fuck?

A week ago today, my cousin Adam passed away. Sunday night I got a text from my mom saying that his brother and dad had admitted him to the hospital with some mysterious illness. Monday morning, they diagnosed him with decreased liver and kidney function, but made no comment on his chances of recovery. Monday night, they said he was in the last stages of cirrhosis and there was no hope. Tuesday morning, he was taken off life support, and by 3:15 pm, he was dead.

A complex and dramatic web of family animosity is still brewing and it won't do to describe it here. Suffice it to say that the past week has been strange and exhausting. I haven't had the moment that most normal people probably do, the one where you are supposed to realize that someone is REALLY GONE, but the pervasive thought that keeps arising in my head is simply "What the fuck." Adam and I were close when we were younger, and he continued to be the cousin I connected the most with. Even though he was 13 years older than me, we could still always find things to talk about at family gatherings that no one else seemed interested in -- Family Guy, Danzig, stupid shit we did when we were younger, things we were mad at people about. Family Christmas parties were always boring, but if Adam was there, we could slip away from the geezers and go outside to smoke and talk shit. Why not? We were the funny ones in the family, the ones with the quirky sense of humor. I almost didn't go to last year's Christmas party when I heard that Adam wasn't going to be there; what's the point? I made Jay go to the previous Christmas party just so he could meet Adam -- "You'll love him. Once when I was little he held me upside down until I threw up spaghetti all over the linoleum." What the fuck? There's a comic book store here in Boone called Plan 9 comics. In preparation for last Christmas, I was planning on going in there to see if I could find something for Adam. When I learned he wasn't coming into town, I didn't. But every time I would pass by the store afterwards, I would think, "I should still go in there. I bet I can find something for Adam," but I never had time. Last night I passed by Plan 9 on the way to the grocery store and thought, "I bet I can find something for Adam in there," followed closely by "What the fuck?" After Adam died, his mom, my aunt Linda, adopted his boa constrictor. Its name is Belial, but Linda is renaming her Betty "because Belial means Satan." I wanted to keep her, but for some reason I was vetoed, even though I'm the only one who could feed her a mouse this weekend. I wouldn't have changed her name. What the fuck?

Never talk about Fight Club

Well, it is snowing like a bitch here in Boone. That's exciting, but of course I still have class. I like most of my classes individually, but it's hard to go through a whole day of sitting inside listening to someone talk about stuff someone else wrote in a book. Especially when it's snowing.

Halloween is Friday and apparently there is a big fat party on Hippie Hill downtown. I was going to dress up as Pyramid Head, but I have had no time to work on my costume yet and Pyramid Head requires a lot of work so I've abandoned the idea. Now I think I will go as the bar of soap from Fight Club. I think all I will need to do is draw "Fight Club" on a pink pillowcase and wear some pink tights with it.

I am so lazy but at the same time I'm always busy. I have a lot of homework this semester. In fact, I have a 7-page paper due Thursday that I haven't started yet. It's so easy for me to get stressed out over shit. I feel like I never have time for anything.

Am I a bad friend?

For real

I would like to share with you a couple of actual questions that were on the last quiz I took in my Abnormal Psychology class. (These are all verbatim!)

10. According to the text, you are more likely to develop an anxiety disorder if:
a. You are female
b. You are male
c. You are below the age of 11
d. You are a flaming, gaping ass hole

15. If you believe Generalized Anxiety Disorder is due to a universal fear of the limits and responsibilities of one's existence, you are most likely:
a. A cognitive-behaviorist
b. A sissy
c. A humanist
d. An existentialist

16. When your therapist helps you to overcome a phobia by actually doing the thing that you most fear (i.e. handling a snake, or letting a spider crawl across her arm, etc.) she is using the behavioral method of:
a. Showing you what a freakin wimp, whiner, girly man you are
b. Flooding
c. Modeling
d. Systematic frightening to death

17. If your therapist wants you to get over your anxiety and fear of heights by looking out the window of the 100th floor of a building until the anxiety dissipates, she:
a. Ain't talkin to my ass!
b. Is using the technique of flooding
c. Is using the technique of modeling
d. Wants to see a grown man soil his undies and then be reduced to a sniveling pile of jelly because she is a man-hating feminist turbo-diesel dyke

18. If you swallow all the anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depression drugs in the world at the same time:
a. You will gain five pounds and look like a great fat beached whale
b. You will develop immunity to psychosis, anxiety and depression but it won't matter you brainless dipwad because you will...not be only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead (from the Wizard of Oz, in case you wondered or didn't already know)
c. Why the hell would you wanna do that? Yeeeeesh, what a schmuck you must be!
d. Please mark "d" for this question on the bubble sheet, or you will get it wrong. And once again I accept your gratitude for yet another freebie five-pointer. You owe me, big time.

20. If you had made up this question, you would:
a. Attach a twenty dollar bill to the answer sheet when you turn it in.
(this was the only answer listed for this question.)

And that is for real. College sucks a lot of dick sometimes, but once in a while you get a teacher like Dr. Wilson who doesn't take things so seriously. Don't get the impression that he's a total putz -- he is an awesome teacher, and I have learned a lot from him in the two semesters that I have had him. He just has an awesome sense of humor and once in a while he cuts us a break when he knows we have been going over some really hard material.

In short, Dr. Wilson is the balls.

Shoring up the umbrella of jobs and health trade spending reform money job shores...is essential

Say what you want about Jack Cafferty, but he rules most of the time.

Boring things about things

So, I think I might join a club. This is a big deal, because I've never been very social school-wise since I started college, I guess because I never lived on-campus and all. I mean, I've never even, like, been to a football game (except for 1/4 of one last year but it was cold so I left before halftime). Anyway it's called Psi Chi and before you get any willy-nilly thoughts in your head about sororities or any of that, it's not one, and if you know me you will probably agree that pigs will shit out diamond cheeseburgers before I decide to join a sorority. It's a Psychology honor society that will basically look good on paper and maybe get me some scholarships. Also, unlike a lot of other clubs I have considered, they don't make you do shit like build fences for the whales or any of that. I guess psychologists generally aren't very benevolent people (truth). It's actually got some kind of stringent requirements about GPA and number of hours and stuff, but I just checked and I'm pretty sure I meet them (I'm a genius). Last year I got invited to join some other thing, Psi Gamma Beta or some crap, which was also an honor society, and I joined it and forgot about it, but membership is lifelong so I can still put that bitch on my resume. So I suppose if I do decide to join this thing, the two will look nice together and people will throw money at me for the rest of my life. Right?

I know what you're thinking...Y SO BORING?

for the lulz

Well, I started damn-ass school yesterday, but it is not so bad. Yesterday I had Family Development Over the Life Cycle, Social Psychology, and Teachers Schools and Learners. Then today I had Abnormal Psychology and Statistics. Starting next week on Mondays and Wednesdays I will be "mentoring" at Blowing Rock Elementary School in the 5th Dimension program, and I think when they tell me I will be "mentoring" they mean I will be "babysitting until the kids' parents get off work and pick them up like a bucket of chicken on Friday night," but it's half of my credit for my Teachers class, so I have to do it. That's sort of lame, because I'm not even a teaching major, but I have to do all this teaching stuff for this class. Not a big deal, not like I've never done that stuff before, but it's kind of a drag because one of the reasons I switched my major from Elementary Ed was because I hated all the internships and field work and I figured if I hated that stuff already, I'd be a pretty shitty teacher. But now I'm stuck doing it again. It's like I can't get away! I think I'm the only person in my class who isn't an Education major. But anyway, like I said, I'm not pissed about it or anything. It's only for one semester, so I'll live.

That reminds me of an incredibly long and boring story. Last semester I was required to visit my department advisor before I could register for classes. This was right after I declared my major as Child Development with the Psychology concentration. See, I want to be a guidance counselor (don't judge me) so I think this is a pretty logical course of study -- as do all the other professors I've talked to. Anyway, so I go to my advisor, and she's all asking me what I want to be when I grow up, and I say a high school guidance counselor, and she gets all fresh and says "Well, why are you majoring in Child Development then?" So I says to her, I says, "Because I want to be...a counselor...notice the Psych concentration..." And she acts like I am just this huge dumbass who has never been to college and I could not have PICKED a worse major for what I want to be. So she basically tells me I'm all wrong and that I'm fucked, and mentions the name of the head of the graduate counseling department in the process. So she gets me all stressed out, right? So I go home and decide to email the department head and ask her if I'm totally fucked. I get an email from her a couple days later and she says that Child Development/Psych is a perfect major for her Counseling program. CHECK and MATE, bitch. Anyway, the point is, guess who teaches my Life Cycle class? My advisor. I don't think she remembers me, but maybe she does, and she spends the whole class thinking about what an imbecile I must be.

I'm in the school library right now, nerding away, because Jay is down the street at his friend's house playing DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. I'm not judging, but...I'm just throwing that out there. You decide.

Breaking news

...Hey guys, did you hear John McCain is a total fucko?

tl;dr

I have a question for the two, maybe three people who read this collection of vast wisdom and virtue I call my interweb-log.

Why would you have kids? Ever? On purpose? My reasons for not doing so:
1. We already have enough people.
2. Kids stink.
3. They poop on all of your stuff, and they don't care.
4. They ruin your life by crying at inappropriate times, pooping at inappropriate times, making you stay home all the time, making you ugly, and using up all of your money so that you can't spend it on things you need, like grown-up food.
5. They get a little bit older, and hate you.
6. They wreck your car, probably.
7. They continue to spend all your money.
8. There are already thousands of kids living in childrens' homes and the like who don't have families and are growing up alone in suck-ass conditions, and if I was going to raise a kid, I would want to help a kid who already exists and has a shitty life than to just make a new one, when there are already billions of people in the world, millions of whom are starving, and if there isn't enough fucking food for the people who already exist, why are we making new ones?
9. They cry in the grocery store and make everyone else in the store want to explode.
10. They will give you sicknesses they catch from other children. Probably lice, too.

Not that people who have kids are bad people. I suppose I can understand the motivation to have kids -- instinct, and all. I guess I was just born without it. I have no desire to have children. Am I a monster? Aren't women my age supposed to be jumping on the maternal-instinct bandwagon? It just seems like our culture glamorizes motherhood so much. Again, not to say that our moms don't deserve respect -- of course we love our moms -- but squeezing out a kid does not automatically make you a saint. Am I right? Everywhere I look I see all this shit about how having kids is, like, the best fricking thing ever and if you do it you are automatically going to heaven because it is just the most wonderful fricking act anyone in the universe could ever do, because no other creature in the world squirts out its own offspring. Your life will rule if you have a baby! Your baby will be so cute! Go ahead, do it! Look at this happy pregnant lady! She's so happy because her fetus is leeching all the calcium from her bones!

Okay, I just read over everything I read up to this point and I think it is safe to say that I am fucking crazy and I should probably go see a doctor. Well, crazy people don't know they're crazy, right? Like I said earlier, I'm a monster.

Anypants, I'm going to the beach for a week tomorrow, so I won't be writing anything for another week probably. Like I updated every day to begin with, amirite!

I present to you: the most XstraightXedgeX motherfucker in the world! The Arcata Eye interviews Scott Burns, "second-in-command of national drug policy."

A couple of gems from the article (you should really read the whole interview if you have time):

The Arcata Eye: ...How can we reconcile that with the government telling us what we can ingest and what we can’t?
Scott Burns: ...Well, in some instances we just say your, quote, “constitutional rights” and your freedom to do certain things gets trumped by the rest of us who say, “You know that’s just not a good idea.”

The Arcata Eye: Is it realistic to keep marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, in with cocaine and heroin?
Scott Burns: Yes it is, and I’ll tell you why. ...Everyone that is addicted to drugs in this United States, started with either alcohol and/or marijuana, and they started when they were 13, 12 or 11. ...[It] is the same as cocaine and methamphetamine and heroin.

If you read the article, you'll notice that Scott Burns, who is deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (a completely necessary agency, I'm sure!), completely misses the point of the Eye's allusion to the double standard between marijuana and alcohol. No one is saying "Hey y'all! Alcohol ruins lives. That's awesome! Let's legalize pot and make our lives really, really terrible!" The point is, why is it that space cadets like Burns are busting their asses to make sure that America's innocent, cherubic youth remain eternally ignorant of the very existence of cannabis...while there are TV commercials, newspaper ads, and billboards advertising hard liquor (and even a NASCAR car emblazoned with the Budweiser emblem - how's that for irony)?

There is no answer to that question. The only estimate that comes close is that Scott Burns lives in a bubble like Jake Gyllenhaal in that one movie, and that he never goes outside, has never met another human being, has never read a book, and has never stopped to consider rational thought in his entire mind-bendingly vacuous life. I'm glad we have dudes like him trumping our Constitutional rights!


Oh, hey guys, don't mind me...just spinnin' in my grave.

Thanks to Tim.

Still not as bad as "vlog"

I resisted getting a "blog" for a long time, mainly because I hate the word "blog" and whoever it was that coined it -- that guy must have thought he was one clever douchebag. Anyway, I still have livejournal, but I can never write anything on livejournal because whenever I try, I remember when I was sixteen and writing entries about marching band and birthday parties, and it makes me sick and I curse the site and feel like deleting the whole internet. Also, no one reads livejournal.

Another thing is that the only time I ever feel like writing things on the internet is when I am pissed off about something. This is a problem. This is maybe why no one reads livejournal. On the other hand, a lot of times I like to read other people's pissed off blogs. On the other hand, I tend to get pissed off about things like bicyclists.

Anyway, as far as first entries go I probably shouldn't start talking about things that piss me off. However, this is totally boring and anger might liven it up a little. I'll just make a short bulleted list:

• I can't believe that one of these dudes is going to be THE PRESIDENT

I guess that's about it.