...and an Electric Belt will Adapt the Body to Climatic Changes

I especially love the headlight so she can "find an honest man" (hee.):

http://www.maniacworld.com/1930-prediction-on-2000-fashion.html

Best Sentence Ever

From The Natural History of Religion:

We may conclude, therefore, upon the whole, that, since the vulgar, in nations, which have embraced the doctrine of theism, still build it upon irrational and superstitious principles, they are never led into that opinion by any process of argument, but by certain train of thinking, more suitable to their genius and capacity.

Oh, that Hume. He cracks me up. (And I thought I used a lot of commas.)

Call Me a Prude... REDACTED

So my sister, Jamie, didn't feel like I was being very charitable to either Ask Amy or dear "Confused," and I'll jovially admit that I wasn't. I was just blowing off steam in the ten minutes I had before jaunting off to class (I've been under a lot of stress lately, please forgive). But specifically, my sister wondered if I really expected Amy to advise anyone to shirk their moral values, and shame on me for pooh-poohing "Confused"'s values at all, how dare I. And I think she's right; I was a little hasty, so let's dispense with the snark and re-examine what was happening with "Confused"'s letter:

1) "Confused" says: I really want to have sex with my boyfriend, but my religion says that's bad. On the one hand, I identify with my religion; on the other, we're old enough and committed to each other (and we really, really want to). I don't know what to do.

Translation: My moral values were great up until the point I wanted to get laid. Don't tell me not to have sex; if I wanted to hear that, I would have just saved time and asked my local priest. What I really want to know is if it's okay to think for myself and question the relevance of many of the doctrines of my religion (oh, and I've been screwing my boyfriend for two months now, and it's great, thanks for asking).

2) Amy says: You can never un-do sex.

Translation: You can never un-do years of forced chastity, either. Or some STDs. Always use a condom.

3) Amy says: Don't go against your values.

Translation: The problem's with your values. They're the only thing keeping you from getting freaky-deaky between the sheets. And also: What else did you expect me to say? I already get enough hate-mail from you people. Learn to read between the lines.

To sum up, Jamie was right, I was being uncharitable. All along, Amy was advising "Confused" to do exactly the right thing: question your religion and make adjustments as necessary. Also, play it safe.

Speaking of sex, my ex confessed to me today that he thought I had an unfair advantage in the getting-laid arena. This may be true. But the reasons he cited weren't the obvious, such as my scathing wit or dashing good-looks, no. Rather, he was concerned that I had an edge because I attend a very large university where, in his fantasies, thoughsand of beautiful, available men run wild in the streets, and also that I must spend several hours of every day beating them off me with sticks.

Umm, no. Though I am sure I wish, somewhere deep down, that this were the case, my university is populated instead with numerous undergraduates, often fresh out of high school and by definition unattractive; two graduate students; and many, many professors who are, also by definition, Off Limits. And he, my ex, is a dj at a freaking nightclub, where he is surrounded by a multitude of women who are not only attractive and available, but also frequently drunk and scantily-clad. For christ's sake. I spend my free evenings playing Scrabble. Who has the competitive edge here?

Sheesh.

Call Me a Prude...

Dear Amy: I have found the love of my life! He is amazing and wonderful. We are only 21 years old and don't plan on marrying until we graduate from college. It will probably be three or more years until we marry.

The thing is, I'm Catholic and promised myself I wouldn't have sex until marriage, but I really want to share that experience with my boyfriend.

I feel so conflicted. I know I should feel that God wants me to wait and that I should follow this rule without complaint. It is just hard because sex is so prevalent.

My boyfriend has been great and says he can wait, but sometimes we both have a weak moment and have come close.

I don't know what to do.

—Conflicted Catholic

Dear Confused: You need to be true to your values. You could explore this further by talking to a member of the clergy, who could clarify your spiritual teachings.

You must also think about birth control. Educate yourself by visiting your campus health center. (Your church also has a point of view about birth control—so that is another tough choice for you to make.)

Sex is a bell you cannot un-ring. If you are unsure, then you should delay until you are. Please, do not have sex because of a "weak moment" and then rationalize—or perhaps regret—it later.

As you mature, you will need to embrace the idea that you can't always know what God has in mind for you; God's plan is most often revealed in retrospect, when you look back at your choices and their consequences.

Oh, barf me a river. Why is it that I always feel the need to reiterate what seems so blindingly obvious? Sex is sex, people. Sometimes it's good sex, and sometimes it's meaningful (there is a difference, just so you know), and sometimes it's... not. Who knows. You try to choose a promising partner, you practice safe sex, but there's no guarantee either way and there's really nothing you can do about it. That's not what "Confused" is confused about, but it bugs me that it isn't. People that have never had sex forget that there isn't anything in the ABSENCE of sex that is inherently meaningful, unless, of course, you think your abstinence is going to win you favor in the eyes of God. Or something like that.

What can we say about this? Why would God want us to remain virgins? In Biblical times, it made sense: you live in a desert, for one; there aren't many resources available to you and it helps, politically and economically, to make sure that your kids are taken care of before you go around doing the things that create said kids. There were no condoms (actually, I've heard stories, but I won't repeat them here). Oh, and women were property. There's that issue.

But say those things aren't problems anymore; what now? I addressed this in my proof "Why It Doesn't Matter if There's a God: A Hedonistic Approach to Life," which I won't relay here, but it will suffice to say that I am not convinced that a good god would not create us, give us desires, and then condemn us to hell for acting on them (and if he did, he's not a very good god, so screw him). So we're left with two, maybe three possibilities regarding God's view of our virginity: a) He doesn't care, have sex. b) He does care; he wants you to have sex as much as possible (why are you wasting time? And your youth?) or c) He does care; he wants to torment you as a test and see if you are really worthy of the kingdom of heaven (Hint: Jesus died for your sins, you Catholic, as long as you repent before you die you're golden!). So what "Confused" is really asking is if Amy has any insights on whether her God is a Good God or a Phony, and if maybe she shouldn't be getting it on while she waits for answer.

What I really think "Confused" wanted to hear was this: Do it! You're practically married already! God LOVES that!

And that's totally what Amy should have said. Because "Confused"'s problem isn't that she ISN'T ready; it's that she is, and, in fact, she's nearly comatose from the efforts to restrain herself.

But let's say she does wait. Maybe Amy's right, maybe you really can't tell what God's plan is until it's all over and done with already (this should be a red flag; anyone talked to Fodor lately?). In which case, say you wait for three miserable years to marry this person and then you find out the sex sucks. If you're Catholic enough to wait till marriage, you're Catholic enough to not believe in divorce, and have I got news for you: God's message is going to come out something akin to "I told you to take him for a test-drive, and you didn't listen. Suck it!"

Puffs O' Air

Lyra and I have been on a Fruity Pebbles kick. As in, I buy three boxes and we race to see who can scarf the most bowls in one twenty-four hour period (or until the cereal is gone, whichever comes first). Lyra tends to win, but I can put up a pretty good fight, considering that my bowls are about five times the size of hers and I have more rules, i.e. I limit myself to eating with a spoon only. But these so-called “pebbles” are delightfully delicious. (Ever wonder why Fred Flintstone drives a high-tech dino excavator? He works in a quarry, and this cereal is what he’s mining for.) They come in all different colors, reminding you that there are not one but many fruits of which our taste-buds can partake, but the flavor itself is just ambiguously fruit-reminiscent. As if the people at Post or General Mills or wherever the hell this cereal is made were all, hmm. What if we took all the fruit flavors and mixed them together? Would that taste good? (Answer: it wouldn’t.) And it didn’t work so they just kept adjusting it until they had captured The Essence of Fruit Flavor, stamped it into little weeny pieces, boxed it, and sold it to millions of children (and their parents) everywhere.

My god those pebbles are tasty.

Yet, like all artificial and delicious things, overindulgence leaves me feeling a little… empty. I almost feel as if… what do you call it? Right, like I haven’t eaten ALL DAY. Because I haven’t been, really, not by any stretch of the imagination; I certainly haven’t been doing what normal people call “eating.” Rather, I’ve been copiously spoon-feeding myself of what amounts to AIR. Tasty, flavored air, but air nonetheless. Which leads me to realize that the people at Post or General Mills or wherever the hell this cereal is made are geniuses. First they lure me in with brightly-colored packaging and Fred Flintstone’s beaming face, then they keep my coming back for more with their addictive fruit “flavor.” Best of all? They’re not even selling me anything! It’s just air!

I guess that’s all most cereal is, just flavored air, and that also explains why I’m always mystified when I can’t scarf ten bowls of Grape Nuts. It would also explain why on the commercials they always show the cereal being served with toast, eggs, juice, hashbrowns, and a side of bacon, because let’s face it, the cereal just tastes nice. It doesn’t really do anything.

Whatever. Tomorrow’s another day, and if I have to earn my right to my Fruity Pebbles by serving up a side of bacon, so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes. Those pebbles are mine.

Cough, Hack. Boring!

I’m thick. Not as in around the middle, but in the sinus-congestion I-can’t-pronounce-my-esses sort of sense. It thucks.

More importantly, I’ve declared a war against the Evil Seductress That is Procrastination and banned myself from all non-immediately-pertinent academic reading. All those interesting books on my desk? Not reading ‘em. Nope. Not one bit!

What am I doing instead? Writing a blog.

Nothing to Say

The last few days I've begun to have an idea of my perfect day: wake up, coffee, grading papers, snails, writing, bed. This schedule doesn't sound very exciting, no, but it's strangely rewarding, and I'm not going to question that.

I guess there comes a time in the life of every writer where they realize they have nothing to say. For a writer, this is detrimental, but for a human being, this is... bliss. Having nothing to say means that you somehow achieved success: you've reached the pinnacle of human existence. There is nothing to want. Nothing to analyze. Nothing to complain (or wax ecstatic) about. This is good.

Of course, I'm going to say something anyway, because that's what I do. And it's all okay, because no one here is forced to read this, unlike the constipated little papers that I write at three in the morning that my professors are certainly overjoyed to read and grade. See? I can even write sentences like that one, and you can even believe it's true.

The world is so free in cyberspace.

I like writing because it's a form of emotional purging, like if I write all this stuff down but word it just so I can actually rewrite the event in my memory and make it somehow more poignant, or, even, forgettable. The posts are like little creativity babies, like the drawings I used to make in second grade that my grandmother would hang up on her wall as if they were important. Next to the pictures drawn by her other thirty grandchildren (my family was Baptist. And Catholic. Which makes me wonder if my grandmother was ever upset that my father married a fish eater... if she was, her manners were too impeccable for her to ever say so. Directly, I mean. My grandmother was a fine woman.). Writing all these dinky little posts makes me realize that I spend very little time in the process of revision, by which I mean that I write them and immediately publish them and don't generally bother to re-read them before I do so (in case you were wondering what revision meant). I don't do this with my paper-papers, either, but I will with The Paper - the one that's my ticket to graduate school. Once I write a rough draft, anyway. There's still time.

Speaking of The Paper, I wrote one idea-vomitous sketch in Tucson, as well as two outlines concerning different topics. I had a better idea when I was falling asleep the other night, discussed it with a few friends, but still haven't put it down on paper. I'm having trouble choosing. I could write them all out and see which one my advisor likes best... which just sounds like a lot of trouble, but if I neglect them all I'm condemning myself to the fate of Not Meeting Application Deadlines. Which is no fun. The real trouble is that I don't even know if I'm doing philosophy or psychology anymore (and the worst case scenario is that I'm doing neither).

Ahem. Back to nothingness.

Right now: there's wine, delicious fare, beautiful tulips which Lyra has thoughtfully de-petaled, and something akin to silence in this house (actually, that's a lie, but I like to think it's true). Ginger is happily munching on a banana. You can see a picture of Ginger here:


And also here:


And since nothing is pressing upon my mind, not even thoughts about The Paper or wonderings on whether bananas are specifically bad for Corgis, I will end this little blog. Good night.

Poorland State

To the people who so graciously covered every last hall and walkway with these signs: "Poorland State University" and "Faculty are Seeing Red" : take them down. It's disrespectful. You're characterizing our faculty as naive victims who are unable to divide an offered salary by 12, not the generally highly-educated and intelligent people that they are. I'm not saying that university faculty shouldn't be paid ridiculous sums of money; I'm going to be one of them someday, and I like money as much as the next person. I'm also not saying that the academic job market isn't beyond difficult to crack into. It is. But those of us going into academia accept those terms with our eyes wide open, preferring to risk poor job-placement and median income so we can spend a lifetime indulging in whatever intellectual exploration we like best. Besides, what are you really expecting that we do? If PSU does start paying faculty more, you're going to start posting signs saying, "Portland Rape University: Respect Students! Lower Tuition!"

To the person who designed the advertisement for the documentary about human trafficking: writing FREE! in big black letters above the poor slave's head probably wasn't such a great idea.

To the cafe on the corner of the south park blocks: I love you. You're food is tasty, your coffee is even better, and you manage to keep your place clean and attractive without being pretentious. For these reasons, I will walk six blocks out of my way just to visit you. But that's not all. I appreciate the fact that you will only serve me cream from hormone-free cows, and
that you make it easy to recycle. You care about, not just our health, but the environment, and I know that this is the reason why there are no napkins for me to take, that you're afraid I'm going to start stuffing them in my pocket and therefore kill trees. I respect this. I know that you care, and if I order food, you will make sure to provide me with precisely three napkins to keep my face and fingertips free from crumbs or errant mayonnaise. But. I beg of you: if you are only going to provide me with these three dainty napkins, and if you're not going to allow me to simply get up to snag a few more, please, please! do not place the napkins DIRECTLY UNDER MY FOOD. I don't know if you've noticed, but this defeats the ENTIRE purpose. The napkins that you have hoarded in an effort to remain eco-friendly are delivered to me pre-soiled. This is not nice.

To the older gentleman I met at the same cafe: No, I do not know the actual odds of us bumping into each other three days in a row but yes, I do imagine they're low. No, I do not think it is a sign. The universe is not trying to tell you anything, except maybe stop hitting on younger women.

Finally, to the weather: I know, I know, I talked to my friends and we all agree that you are not an intentional system. But pleeease start thinking happy thoughts. Consider anti-depressants. We miss the sun and are tired of wearing multiple sweaters and woolen scarves (dashing though they may be). We have even decided we will do an anti-rain dance, if you're into that sort of thing. We'll do whatever it takes. Just make it warm.

The End of an Era

My relationship, the one that lasted five years and the one that I'm going to talk about today, is over.

Bloggers tend to steer clear of discussing their own relationships. The reasons are fairly apparent: your partner, for one, does not necessarily appreciate a play-by-play dissection of your sex-life (or lack thereof), how you're driven nuts by the strange way that he or she eats, the gentle misunderstanding last night that culminated in a horrible array nasty epithets, or his or her unhealthy relationship with food/shoes/money/parents/insert-favorite-fetish-here.

Secondly, while people may be quick to laud the adorable wondrousness that is their Relationship, no one is quite as willing to admit to the less ecstatic moments. No one wants to bring up last night’s argument because doing so will mean admitting to one’s own personality short-comings, that, yeah, your partner was the one that poured your favorite bourbon down the drain while explaining in no uncertain terms JUST HOW INSENSITIVE you are, but then maybe you really shouldn’t have said that particular thing about her thighs before breezily mentioning how good her sister looks these days.

Or, you know, whatever your particular argument happened to be.

My own relationship was never punctuated by such colorful displays, defaulting instead to a remarkably stable experience filled with contentment, ease of conversation, and an overall compatibility that made living under the same roof serene. We like the same music, we share similar goals, and both enjoy laughing at the same damn commercials. We are more than fond of each other. I have loved this person with a force that I am blessed to have been able to experience, and there isn’t a moment of this relationship that I regret.

What is my point, you ask? My point is that this relationship was a success.

See, I know that soon we're going to be inundated with phone calls and emails. While many may be expressing sympathy and consolation, many more are going to ask "What happened?" and "I thought you were going to be together forever!" and, worst of all, "If you only would have tried harder, you could have made this work."

Neither one of us is looking forward to this.

I have a problem with the fact that the ending of a relationship is equated with its failure. "Failing" implies that there’s a reward at the end of every relationship-brick-road (like courage, or a brain, or a heart), and that this is something that you’re going to actually receive. I have a problem with measuring the success of a relationship in terms of longevity, which necessarily leads to the conclusion that the only successful relationships are the ones that end in (non-spousal-homicidal) death. This is not the reward I had in mind.

This bizarre assumption leads to myriads of unhappy people, struggling to “get it right” and “try harder” because they sincerely believe that relationships are like training for the Olympics or a bar exam. They may not be happy (in fact, no one involved may be happy), but they will be damned if they're going to be the one to call it quits. They may even spend years “working” on their miserable relationship, but are they called out as masochists? No, they’re rewarded with labels such as “determined” and “mature” and “realistic.”

Of course, all of those things – maturity, realism, and a certain amount of willingness to compromise – are necessary for any healthy relationship, but that’s entirely beside the point. What’s important is that we’re failing to recognize that by perpetuating relationships that have long since past their expiration date, we’re actually committing a great harm. The relationship, presumably, was not always Work. At one point, the relationship was Joy. And turning Joy into Work into Misery is not a great and noble deed; it’s cruelty. It’s irrational. It’s destructive, and it's disrespectful not only to the partner but to relationship itself.

Treating a relationship with so little dignity, albeit in the name of keeping it alive, is horrific. I wish it was an accepted practice to recognize and respect the end of a relationship, but our bookstores are not filled with books on how to gently end a valued relationship, but rather with such volumes as "We Can Work it Out," "A Step by Step Program to Help Low-Sex and No-Sex Marriages," "When Bad Things Happen to Good Marriages," and "Divorce-Proofing Your Marriage." For Christ's sake, people. Have the strength to end your relationship while it's still a happy one, not wait for it to die a long and painful death.

Ok. None of this is to say that when I realized that my relationship was over - and I mean really realized, not just wondered - I didn't cry, or that the crying didn't last maybe a little bit longer than it should have. I adore this man. I just don't need to wait until I hate him to break it off.

He's not going to read this post. But if he were, I would be sure to tell him that I love him, that I've treasured this time that we've spent together, and, especially, that I have been blessed to have such a remarkable, inspiring, and sympathetic partner. I would be lucky to love anyone half as much as I have loved him.

Welcome to the Dollhouse, or, Back Away Slowly, Now

Last night, I innocently asked Chris if he wanted to watch a movie, knowing full well he had no idea what he was in for. Ever seen Welcome to the Dollhouse? It's only the second most emotionally wrenching, awkward movie ever made, and for that reason, it's brilliant, even if there were a few moments where I had to restrain myself from pulling the blanket over my eyes in fear of the awful adolescent display on-screen (oh, and the first most awkward movie? Happiness. Same director.).

I apparently was the one who had no idea what I was in for, because by all appearances, Chris was unaffected. But then, why would he be? He apparently had no awkward stage; his personal and sexual identity is secure in the knowledge that he always slept with the hot girls and never had spitballs aimed at the back of his head.

But that girl - that beyond-clueless, borderline ugly, socially repugnant girl - I felt like I was watching the unwritten saga of my life, the alternate reality of my potential pubescence, the what-would-have-happened-if-things-had-been-just-a-little-bit-different. That girl could have been me. I was the uber-dork. For years, I was the one who had the bottle-thick glasses and horrible haircut, the one with no friends, the one whom popular boys would "ask out" in the sixth grade just so they could see the look of surprise and delight on my face, only to stand me up at the movies (yep, really happened!). To be fair, I wasn't quite as intellectually challenged as the girl in the movie; the boys mocked me because I read books at school and liked talking to the teachers, not because I wore sweatpants that came up to my armpits.

To be really fair, once seventh grade hit I got my revenge, and it came in the form of a surprisingly symmetrical face, a feminine physique, plaid catholic skirts, contact lenses, and a merciless "oh, did I get 110% on the algebra test again? What did YOU get?" attitude. (Hey, I was twelve. Lighten up.)

Occasionally, though, such as when I watch movies like this one, I have to remember the good ol' days of chronic fugliness, social anxiety, and that terrible feeling that comes from never fitting in. It was a fate narrowly escaped.

Although... honestly? I like to think that this reality couldn't have been mine. I like to think that there is something fundamentally different between me and this character that goes beyond plaid skirts and hip-to-waist ratios; that I didn't accept that reality because I was blessed with a cute nose. Not just that I'm smarter, either... rather that when God or whoever dealt the cards I asked for a difficult hand, but a hand where I could discover my limitations and transcend them, not just have to relearn the harsh realities of being unloved and unwanted, over and over again.

Maybe I'm reading to much into it, but I don't think so (I mean, I read too much into everything, but that's not it). It's just that everyone that sees that movie has to identify with some aspect of that girl, to some extent, and then breathe a sigh of relief that that isn't who they are, now, but maybe it was who they were then, or maybe they just break down and cry with the sadness of it all because they never overcame that horrifyingly awkward stage of their lives; they never got to the part where they did feel loved and wanted. I mean, we all feel that way, at times, right? Don't we?

Right now I'm listening to this thunderstorm. Last year on my birthday we had a thunderstorm here in Portland, the only one of the year. I felt like it was a present; that it came just for me so I could think back to my childhood in Louisiana and all the thunderstorms and the crickets and the frogs and playing with the dogs on the levy and riding in the backseat of a crappy old El Camino named "Hully." It was for me, that thunderstorm, the same way this one is for me: cleansing and violent, just how I like all of my revelations to be.

Chew, Chomp, Crunch

Maybe it’s just because I’m, oh, I don’t know, TESTY. Easily irritated. Generally willing to stick a fork in the arm of that guy that chews JUST THAT LOUDLY.

But seriously: why me? Why am I always the one stuck next to the guy who, during a formal presentation, proceeds to shovel not one, not two, but entire handfuls of sunflower seeds into his mouth, then spit them one by merciless one into his disgusting, irretrievable, not-even-satan-would-accept-such-garbage spit can. Thwuh-plunk. Thwuh-plunk. Phluuurp. For an hour, people. FOR AN HOUR. Shovel, spit, repeat.

God, I hope it’s just me. I can handle the knowledge that I am simply set in my anal ways, and use that knowledge to donate a little more generosity to the people that surround me. But then again, I’m no manner maven myself. Truly, it is only on the rarest of occasions, when the end-result of a blatant breech of social protocol is not only within ear-shot but also transcending the natural human boundary of Personal Space, I can get a little crazy. Rarely do I act on it. I swear.

What I do, instead, is write venomous little missives in the hopes that this particular offender will somehow stumble upon them, see himself reflected in their light, and change his ways forevermore for the betterment of all society, the end. Calculate the probabilities on that one.

Bloggity-Blog-Blog! Or, When Procrastination Attacks

This is why I don’t do blogs: for one, because despite what you may have heard, a day in the life of a philosophy undergrad and perpetual invertebrate sorter (and occasional, accidental invertebrate I-squeezed-too-hard-with-the-tweezers destroyer) is not as exciting as it sounds. I know, I know, my life is riddled with accidental pleasures and the brief but exciting moments of intellectual validation, but as a whole, I’m beginning to think that I’m going to spend all of my younger years with my nose, eyes, ears and fingertips to the grindstone. That is, behind a desk (except in my fantasy there’s also a ball and chain, and I’m working with a quill pen, by candlelight).

Fortunately, hard works pays off, producing in its wake a solid stream of procrastination. Procrastination! What a beautiful word! How I long to caress your sweet vowels and spicy consonants, languishing rapturously in the long, carefree hours of your bosom, drinking in the scent of… crap. That’s not love, that’s a deadline. If procrastination is my wanton mistress, deadlines are the jealous, overbearing wife that I can’t afford to divorce. Deadlines are deceptively clever. They lie low at first (“Of course you can go out! You know I don’t mind… go! Have a good time.”), just waiting for the drop-date to pass, the sign that I’m fully committed. Suddenly, the sweet-talk’s over; that twenty-page paper that looked at me so lovingly yesterday now gives me the stink-eye while I’m walking out the door (“You didn’t come home until three o’clock last night – don’t think I didn’t notice! Who were you with? Why didn’t you come home? If I find out you saw that cheap… you did what?!”). Yeah. A real bitchy streak. But I know I can’t get out of it now, so I pacify the deadline with a token once-over of the material, maybe I’ll re-write an outline or two (that’s useful), and then as soon as she falls asleep I sneak out and play with procrastination. So what if she’s cheap?

Which is what I’m doing right now, obviously. Actually I showed up two hours early to put in some quality-time with the snails (my other, other mistress and the true love of my life), but my researcher’s out in the field and no one has a key. Which is great, because now I have this blog, and as long as I don’t feel the need to keep it updated (meaning I don’t have to start procrastinating on my procrastination), the two of us should be quite happy together.