Give Someone A Chance

Today I got my acrylics filled.I'm a creature of habit and go to the same place and usually, the same person does my nails, so I walked in with the expectation that I'd be sitting down in front of David. When it was my turn and a stranger walked up to me, asking "what color?" (I go to a Vietnamese nail salon, so the broken English is no big deal) I was surprised. I had never seen this person before. Usually, the owner and her husband and another lady were all that worked there and here was this new person?

What if she drilled too close to my cuticles and cut me? What if the drill got too hot? Oh my god why does the acrylic look white? My fears were all for naught, as she did a wonderful job and didn't proactively try to shorten my nails (I like them long, not Jersey long, but I have short fingers and David sighs every time I ask him to go longer when he's trimming down a new set). She gave me a shy but grateful "thank you" when I handed her her tip. I think my fears of seeing a new nail tech stem from when I first got acrylic nails (at this very salon) and then needed them filled. I went to a highly-recommended salon just down the road from my house and left really disappointed. So disappointed that I painted over them and waited for them to grow out.

I could have been a snot and requested David to do my nails. But let's use my trip to the nail salon as an allegory about giving people a chance. Yeah. That's my deep thought for the weekend.




I love the clicky sound of my nails on the keyboard. Yay!

Get That Brush Away From Me!

I've been sitting on this for a while, as I like to digest thoughts like so much brainfoods. Plus, I've been really busy (and for the infrequent updates, I apologize). I try to celebrate differences, especially in my relationship, but sometimes disparity can be taxing, especially when it comes to politics. I try hard to keep politics out of my personal, work, and romantic life, but when you have a romantic partner who stays so actively informed and is so intelligent (and I'm lucky I do) it can be difficult to keep the political discussion off the table. John is a Republican, and identifies as fairly conservative (although I would argue his conservatism is more fiscal in nature, rather than social) and I am a Democrat, and very, very liberal.

Within the last month or so, John has used the phrase "liberal propaganda" at least twice in conversation with me:  once, while writing his admissions essay for grad school, and once venting that his roommate's kid is not smart and is just "repeating the liberal propaganda that's fed to him at school" (for the record, this kid isn't smart at all). His use of "liberal propaganda" bothers me, and here's why:  I am liberal, but I don't fall into the liberal stereotype. I am an individual who thinks on her own and makes her own decisions about things. Take the gun debate, for example. Conservatives would say that liberals want to ban all the guns. While I don't necessarily understand a person's need for a semiautomatic weapon, I don't think they should all be banned. Stricter regulations? Yes. An all-out ban? No.

On the obverse, I am a liberal who is incredibly anti-drug. I don't support medical marijuana whereas the stereotypical liberal would fight for legalization. Not me. Ban it. And when it comes to Schedule I drugs?-- Doctors and pharmacists need to work closer with law enforcement to prevent resale of opiates, which is a big problem in my area.

One of the beautiful things about free thought and independence is the ability to form one's own thoughts. I value my intelligent boyfriend and friends, but I loathe being painted with one broad brush. I try to avoid labels for this reason, and I understand that he vents to me because there's no one else, but sometimes it rankles. It's not just him, though; a lot my Facebook friends are very conservative, and seem to think liberals are evil, gun-taking abortion monsters. I'm not, I just get very frustrated when people won't just talk about issues instead of laying blame. People-- and their opinions/socio-political leanings-- come in multiple colors. Let's recognize that.

Commodifying Fear

I have been stewing on this ever since the Boston Marathon bombings happened, since I tend to have a less-than-popular stance on most things. I also had thoughts that I needed to develop into fruition and that took some time and my commute to and from work (some of my best thinking is done in the car) to develop. So, along the same lines of my 9/11 post, I kind of want to tell America, "let it go." I know it sounds extremely insensitive, just a week after the blasts, but hear me out.

First off, this Yahoo! article hit the nail on the head and said so many things I wanted to say. I am not from Boston. Sure, I visit there from time to time, but I'm not a native (I refuse to lump "north of Massachusetts" into the "Boston" area) and I have no emotional tie to the city. Yes, the loss of life and injury are tragic, I'm not denying that. But, I'm not a Bostonian, I didn't leap to solidarity immediately like all of my Facebook friends seemed to.

Let's talk about social media for a minute. I love social media. Amongst my friends and family, I'm probably the most connected, with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, Klout (I still haven't figured that out yet), Tumblr, and somewhere in the black hole of the Internet, a MySpace account still exists. If it's social media, I'm all over it. But this week, I didn't even need to open Facebook on my phone to know what was there. Generic, self-serving "thoughts and prayers" posts, the same five memes shared over and over, offensive racial-profiling, memes offering to pay back violence with violence. It was nauseating, but it also made me think. Early Friday morning the FBI and police had the suspect cornered. There was a live feed, and man, if someone was watching it, they mentioned it-- with up-to-the-minute posts-- on Facebook. All I could do was shake my head and think "why is a live feed necessary?"

As a society, Americans love tragedy. We love being afraid, feeling vulnerable and then rising up in a fleeting display of extreme patriotism ("you can't stop 'Murrica!") while actually sitting safely and without harm in our homes. This addiction to fear has become a commodity. Think back to 9/11: it seemed directly after the attacks, there were American flags everywhere. Apparently, for Chinese flag makers, it was good business:

American flag sales peaked at $51.7-million last year, $34.8-million of it for star-spangled banners shipped from China to meet domestic demand. In the week after the attacks, one of the nation's largest producers of American flags, Annin & Co. of Roseland, N.J., produced more than 50,000 flags -- about 10 times the normal amount. At the Flag Co. in Acworth, Ga., sales of 12- by 18-inch American flags have increased by more than a million in the past year.

$34.8 million for flags. Fast-forward to this past Monday. The dust hadn't settled before people were putting Boston Marathon and Boston memorabilia on ebay to make a buck on the tragedy. Not only were runners selling their medals, but immediately after the bombings, people looted souvenir booths to sell the jackets and other memorabilia for sale. I would hope that people can understand my cynicism toward the whole thing-- and tragedies in general-- when Americans seem to only want to cash in or have a piece of the tragedy instead of actually helping by donating money, time, or blood. We're a nation that's happy to post "thoughts and prayers" to feel better about ourselves but do little else. In part, the media is to blame. There is an over-saturation of media coverage everywhere, to the point that it's hard not to hear about a current event. Unless it's just a fertilizer plant explosion, then no one seemed to care and there was barely any news coverage.

It's okay to feel bad when a tragedy strikes. What's not okay is to cling to it, to linger over the bad feelings and continuously suckle at the teat of media streams for more. Let it go. Take the appropriate mourning period, process what's happened-- get a therapist if you need to-- but holding on to the fear and grief (especially from a tragedy that never directly impacted you in the first place) is not healthy. And for the love of god, stop buying the memorabilia, unless it's going to a legitimate charity!

Academia

As a reasonably intelligent person, I enjoy thoughtful discourse and talking to/surrounding myself with other intelligent people. It's no surprise (for people that know me) that I miss college and have been thinking about grad school. John is currently in the process of applying to an accelerated program to earn his LCSW to become a clinician, and I am incredibly proud of him. My problem is, I still, at age 33, don't know what I want to be when I grow up. In an idealist, fantasy life where I've won the lottery and practicality doesn't matter, I'd bury myself in early English and Anglo-Saxon literature and just be a professional student. In a more practical sense, I've considered studying sexual health, gender studies, and public health (but really, in a nutshell, public health). I'd also considered writing again, and focusing on editing, but really, how practical is that? Considering my current job, I'd even toyed with business management or some sort of MBA.

Maybe I'm afraid of the commitment. Student loans are a huge burden and how will I know for sure that what I choose is what I want to stick with? It's almost like a relationship: you fall in love with the idea of love, but when it happens, it's not what you imagined at all. There's a bit of vulnerability and self-doubt involved, like in a relationship.

And, perhaps, I'm just a coward.

In the mean time, I'll read great books and talk to wonderfully smart and insightful people and still ponder what I want to be when I grow up.

Dumbing Down History

And important part of a Maine child's education is learning about the state of Maine in the 4th grade. You do projects, presentations, and take field trips to the capitol . You think you know every little fact about Maine by the time you're done, but really, some things have been not been taught. As a 33 year-old, I went to the Maine State Museum for an afternoon with John. I hadn't been since I was a kid. He told me there was a whole section about "white guilt," and intrigued, I asked to see it early on. It was the Malaga Island exhibit, telling the tale of the mixed-race colony on Maine's Malaga Island and how the state forced them off the island and several into an asylum.

It got me to thinking about the education system and how much misinformation is actually presented to students in history books as fact. Why do we do this? Why are we constantly hiding the ugly aspects of history? Sure, looking at the Malaga Island incident, it's a shameful aspect of history, but still an important part that we should learn from and teach going forward. Omitting and outright writing our own history in favor of the less desirable facts is a disservice to young minds and to the future of our  species as a whole.

Girl Gamers: Stop Making A Big Deal of Yourselves

In the recent months, there's been a lot of flap about girl geeks and if they really exist, with the geek girls loudly proclaiming "we exist!" for all to hear while uptight patriarchal types point fingers and slut shame and everyone on both sides just acts a damn fool. It reminds me of all the aggressive girl gamer bullshit I see all the time, like the below screenshot that was posted to Tumblr:

I absolutely abhor the attitude that girls like the original poster in this screencap have. "Yes, I'm a girl, I game, I'm a special snowflake, bow down to me, bla, bla, bla HOW DARE YOU ACKNOWLEDGE I'M FEMALE YOU SEXIST PIG!" Hate to break it to you ladies, but you're not rare animals any more. No one cares and the ones that do care that you're a girl and a gamer are the creepy mouth breathers you wouldn't come within ten feet of you anyway.

You know what I do when I game? I sit back, relax, shut my mouth (unless I'm talking shit to my TV, because I never play multiplayer on XBox) and enjoy my fucking game. There's no point in making a big deal about being a girl gamer. There just isn't. It's like you're asking to be hit on, and that to me indicates some serious self-esteem issues. If you truly love gaming, just game! It's not a hard concept, and not one we need to bring gender roles, sexism, and  ridiculous gender barriers into having fun and killing stuff, going on quests, and getting EPIC LOOT. Seriously, Ladies. Can we chill the fuck out with proving that we have vaginas and play video games?

Quick, Add This to Your Wine List!

Last night I drank a bottle of Roscato Rosso Dolce for, er, scientific reasons. I'd seen so-called "red moscatos" at the grocery store and wanted to give them a try, the only problem was that the only ones available were on my Absolutely Undrinkable list (ie; Gallo, Barefoot, etc. as listed in My Not-Quite-Difinitive Wine List). I felt defeated as I started to leave the wine aisle, but then as I got closer to proseccos  I saw the Roscato Rosso Dolce on the shelf, for the right price of $9.99. Let me preface this by saying I don't like red wine. I've tried. I just don't care for it. I did approach this bottle with trepidation, and when I sniffed after opening, I was apprehensive. It smelled like red wine. I took a sip. It was like cherry-grape with raspberries and pink bubbles. It was delightfully sweet like traditional moscatos, with just enough bubble, and none of the harsh tannin flavor that I associate with traditional red wine. Folks, I have a new favorite that will grace my fridge! And judging from this online wine distributor (who sells it for only $107 a case!) I'm not the only one who fell in love at first sip as it has received glowing reviews. If you're not a fan of reds like me but like sweet wines, definitely give this a try.