The Bull Well

A Personal Note (Why There's Nothing Exciting Here Lately)

2015-07-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going throw in a personal update here, because at least Taryn has been missing my real blogging, and it's something that I would like to find more time to do.

Part of the reason for the silence has been the recent madness with my real life (living situations, people, jobs, etc.) and subsequent total lack of time/energy for blog-writing; it may or may not be apparent that I put a significant portion of energy into these posts, so after I work for upwards of twelve hours a day on very little sleep, I'm barely up for living my own life, let alone sharing rants and observation in a remotely coherent manner.

Part of it is also that there is just SO MUCH that I want to rant about, that it becomes a little overwhelming. I used to have a sticky note on my desktop that had blog ideas on it, but that's either disappeared, or been deleted, which is fine, actually, because it was painfully obsolete anyway.

But! I have lately been settling into the new rhythms of my life a little bit more, and have been trying to recommit myself to my arts and the things that actually fill and sustain me and give me pleasure.

I'm on Redbubble!

2015-07-03T13:03:00.002-07:00

Guys! I officially have a Redbubble store! http://www.redbubble.com/people/klunkybootsart?ref=artist_title_name
So you should check it out and buy some stickers or something, and (as always) let me know what else you'd like to see. I have a whole mess of plans of in my head waiting to be drawn.
Also, keep your eye out for commission info soon, because I'm finally working on putting that together for you too.

An Open Love Letter

2015-04-05T14:33:00.001-07:00

I sometimes think that I don't let you know how grateful I am for you, even though you're such a huge part of my life. So I decided in the pale, predawn hours of this morning that I would finally tell you that I love you, write the words and really think through what it is that you mean to me.

Leaving you is hardest part of every day, and I look forward to coming back to you for hours after; sometimes even knowing that I'll see you later that day, I look forward to tomorrow and throwing myself at you all over again.

I don't always realize it, but you are one of the most important constants in my life. Every night that I have to spend without you is uncomfortable at best, and sleepless at worst. It's only when I don't have it, that I realize how comforting you are, how you are always waiting for me with open arms, willing to hold my blood, sweat, and tears, every emotion, every mood, day or night, with nothing but rest and safety for me.

You catch my tears and warm my coldest nights.

The trust that I have for you runs so deep that I've never even had to consider it. I place myself at your mercy at my most vulnerable moments, when I'm exhausted, or euphoric, or lost, and you never disappoint me. It has never once even entered my mind that you might not be there, or that I might have any cause to hold back with you; you've seen every side of me, and the intimacy we have is so profound as to be casual and thoughtless.

You carry my dreams like newborn chicks, cradling them gently for me until I can come get them, keeping them safe.

Bed, you are my rock, and I will love you forever, no matter what changes we both go through, no matter where you happen to be, as long as I can envelope myself in your softness at the end of the day, as long as I know that you are waiting for me, I can face any morning.

Self portraits

2014-12-06T14:44:00.001-08:00

I was thinking earlier about the way that I conceptualize who I am, and I got to thinking about the way that I draw myself, and what those representations say.

Inktober Highlights

2014-11-04T17:34:00.001-08:00

I doubt if those of you who are interested in my artistic escapades have missed these, since I've been whoring my stuff all over the internet--supposedly that's supposed to make a difference and make anyone at all care about my art or my goals--but I figured in the name of consistency and stalling on my already behind NaNoWriMo novel, I'd post them here too.

Those mostly don't suck. I missed three days total during the month, which I suppose isn't bad. I do feel like I got a little better at using pen, which is something I've been wanting to improve basically forever, so I guess that was good.

I find a like doing these month long challenges. I did a 30 day yoga series just before/during this, and I've theoretically started NaNoWriMo again. We'll see if that one happens. I've been kind of done with life, the universe, and everything lately, so finding anything in myself that genuinely desires to create or express myself has been a struggle. Right now I'm kind of waiting to see if a hugely personal, emotional outburst will find its way out of me, but so far I've remembered that I don't actually want to do that.

Oh, and here's my Halloween costume. I was busy the whole day, which is why I didn't end up drawing.

I tied in the costume contest at my sister's bar, so that was kind of cool.

Back to my hole I go.

Here's a video. Please watch.

2014-09-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

"If not me, who? If not now, when?" I know it's almost fifteen minutes, but everyone should watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-iFl4qhBsE

Gender equality is an ongoing fight, you guys, and we need all of the feminists in the world, men, women, and children, to step up and be open and critical. We need to have those conversations and educate ourselves and each other and start talking about and solving those problems that we, as a society, are still fighting.

Be proud to call yourself a feminist. It does not make you a man-hater, or a dyke, or brimming with penis envy. It isn't about "women's issues." It means you are a compassionate, aware human being that cares about and is willing to fight for the rights of your fellow humans.

Some Brain Spew on Weight Loss

2014-09-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Urg, internet. I'm all annoyed now, and it's not even about the subject of today's rant. It's making me want to start a tangent rant about stupid people and pet ownership. And empty threats and complaints without the intent of correction. But, I should probably leave all that to the side since it's all just happening right now in my real life. This is the price of suddenly being surrounded by young adults who think they know what they're doing.

Anyway, I've been weirdly focused on food lately, and at work today I heard a radio commercial that just filled me with horror and irritation, and then I decided to write a blog post about it.

There I was, filling up egg pans before the morning rush, half listening to the classic rock station, and then this commercial came on for a weight loss center. They advertised for both "natural and chemical" weight loss methods, as well as single day visits and lifestyle/nutrition counselors to help you half-ass your way into being skinny.

At first glance, there wasn't really anything wrong with the ad, but it still infuriated me, because I hate--hate with a fiery, righteous passion-- this idea of losing weight for the sake of being skinnier. There's this disgusting focus on that, and it's everywhere. If a celebrity isn't skeletal or impossibly toned, people will comment on their figure, and it's this idiotic expectation that everyone in the entire world should look that way. There's no regard for health, body type, psychology, motivation, method, or diversity. It's all about results. Really, a singular, poisonous result.

Here's the ugly truth, boys and girls: people have different body types. They're shaped differently. Not everyone can be slim, shapely, and muscular. In fact, almost no one is all three of those because of their intrinsic contradictions in a body, and the way that we are about being thin and about eating, no one is really likely to be.

The thing is, that's not an ugly truth. Those aren't ugly bodies. Healthy bodies are not ugly. I say that as an artist with an ongoing love affair with the human shape. I love drawing the figure, but I don't love only drawing hourglass shaped women (as much as I love my sexy pin-up girls), and I don't only love drawing Superman. When I took figure drawing, my favorite models were the ones that were interesting to look at and fun to talk to, and that usually means not having a conventionally beautiful or symmetrical face.

But that's not exactly where I originally meant to go. This whole obsession with an end without regard to anything else, like whether it's healthy, or longterm, or even beneficial is one of the things that's been on my mind a lot. It shows up in Western culture a lot, but especially education, medicine, and this.

I watched Forks Over Knives the other day, along with a whole mess of Ted Talks about food and health and whatnot, and it really made me start thinking about the way that we relate to our food,
("How can anyone have a relationship to food?" Shrinking Women)
and more and more I notice how profoundly sickening it is the majority of the time. People eat the worst crap all of the time, and then complain about health problems caused directly by their laziness and gluttony.

How can you be shocked that you're overweight or diabetic when you eat garbage all the time?

Most of the stuff I was watching contended that the majority of health problems we have in Western culture are totally preventable and even the existing, chronic ailments can be mitigated by controlling what we put in our body.

But doing that requires putting in effort. We don't want to be healthier or feel better. We want to wear a bikini and eat a gallon of icecream. Why do things that benefit your body and mental health when you can just throw money and pills at it, or become a slave to self-denial?

I think this will need to explode into a few different posts. There's too much that I'm trying to say right now, and it's getting very muddled and confusing, so I'll stop now and try to sort my thoughts a little. I think it can break down into two or three separate topics. They're just all very tangled together.

It's official

2014-09-17T10:35:00.002-07:00

I made a Tumblr account, so now, if you so desire, you can see more art stuff from me, and follow the updates there.

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/klunkyboots

Honestly, this is mostly because I'm kind of floundering. I've spent the last six months trying to get a tattoo apprenticeship, and the last year and a half trying to do something real with my art. Tumblr is a good way to get my art further "out there" and maybe create an actual audience/market for my stuff, from what I've learned in spite of trying to pretend it doesn't exist due to my hatred and disdain for most of the people I know that use it.

Art is really the only thing I actually want to do. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember, and since I was like nine or ten years old, I've been actively working to improve and expand what I can do, and because of that, my art is pretty good. Not great, but pleasing to look at and still improving. And spending so long with no practical results is starting to wear on me.

It's hard to want to make art when everything in me feels so gross ninety percent of the time. Art can save you sometimes, from whatever is going on, but sometimes it's too far away to reach.

So once I stop mechanically doing hand studies and anatomy practice that no one is ever going to see, I'll try and start posting real work again. Maybe finish the four or five pieces I started ages ago. In the mean time, I'll keep dragging my portfolio around the city and smiling hopelessly while every artist I talk to says my work is good and full of potential, but they still don't want me.

Sorry. That got way too personal. I hate writing about garbage like that here. But it's written so, why not hit post and get on with my day?

The Contradiction Between Beauty and Ink

2014-08-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hello, faithful audience. Do you feel smothered yet, or is this a nice break from my months of silence?

I actually haven't decided if I'll post all of these existing blogs I've written over the past few weeks all at once, or if I ought to space it out over a week or two. There's a very real danger of some of them never seeing the light of day (or at least the cold, artificial light of your computer screens) if I don't post them all once I have the internet at my place. It ought to be soon, because we twenty-somethings can't survive too long without Netflix.

On a side note, I'm officially blaming Facebook for my frequent silences on my blog. I always check it early in my cycle of websites, and after spending fifteen minutes on Facebook, I usually just want to get off the computer. That, and my social life. Since I've moved, I spend much more time alone, and therefore not discussing these things with actual people.

So, in theory, if I became a hermit, I would probably start posting like twice a week. So if anyone rabidly wants my thoughts published here, feel free to maroon me somewhere awesome. I only speak English fluently with some French and Spanish, so there's a whole mess of countries to choose from.

Anyway! I could write a whole other post about the internet and the weird combinations of isolation and community and artistic productivity, but now I'm going to talk about what I actually started with before I got distracted by kittens and musing about the internet.

There I was at work on sunday morning, taking orders and running the register, when this old dude and I start talking about my tattoo, and the conversation ended with, “You're too pretty to do any more of that.”

And then I laughed, because that's the career I'm planning on, and it's a three-quarter sleeve we're talking about. I've never seen anyone one get a sleeve and stop there. Aside from the three other tattoos I already have, I've got a few more planned.

But what I'm not clear on is the thinking behind what he said. Does having tattoos make me less pretty? No. I look exactly the same. My tattoo artist has told me several times I have wonderful skin; it's pale and smooth and it holds color really well, so it's suited beautifully for tattoos.

Also, why would tattoos make me look bad when having brightly colored hair isn't a problem? If the argument there was for the natural body being the ideal, why, sir, are you running around clean-shaven with glasses and a crew-cut?

I've never understood why it's okay to artificially color your hair blonde or black or red, but not to have pink or green or blue hair. None of those are your "natural hair" color, and if it exists on the color spectrum, it's technically a “natural” color. Blue appears in nature, as do the materials used to make things change color.

How is your burgundy hair with platinum blonde highlights any more professional than my pink and black hair?

I've tangented. Sorry.

My point here is that I don't get why people have a problem with some body modifications. If they're sanitary and not dangerous, who cares what people look like? Nature creates some impressive freaks, so why do we have issues with people altering themselves to suit their own preferences. And I say this as someone who opposes screwing with your natural body in most ways.

But I want to decorate my body the same way that I decorate my space. It's very similar for me to put art on my body and to put art on my walls.

I'm not talking about sex-changes, or cosmetic surgery, or whatever right now. That's probably a different post. During which I'll have to talk about the tiger guy, or the puzzle piece dude, or the tattooed, skin-condition girl, and horns and such.

I just don't get why people seem to be offended by tattoos. Over half the population over eighteen years old has at least one. And lots of people have tons. They're common and loads of perfectly respectable people of all ages have them.

Also, why do they feel like they have the right to tell me what I should and shouldn't do with my body? Do these people also go up to petite girls and say, “you're too pretty to have any babies. What do you think those hips are going to look like when you get old?” Or fat people?

I suspect this ties into all of the madness with everyone making women feel like they aren't allowed to have autonomous bodies. Maybe that's my feminism talking, but I seriously doubt that men ever hear that bollocks.

Seriously. Can you imagine seeing anyone go up to a twenty-something guy and saying, “you're too handsome for tattoos. What will you look like when you get old?”

My answer for that was, “I'll look like this, but older.”

The Problem with Relativists

2014-08-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Hello, future audience. This whole not having internet thing has been interesting. Kind of a mixed-blessing type deal, but I'm kind of over it now. I do feel kind of cool right now thinking about the fact that the things I'm writing right this second are going to be read by future Taryn and a handful of other future people. It makes me think of Stephen King talking about how writing is basically telepathy across time in On Writing. (Which is a fantastic read. I highly recommend it.)

Anyway! The topic at hand, in case you weren't aware is Relativism and why I hate it. More specifically, it's relativists and why I hate talking to them. About relativism, anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a really interesting conversation with a few people at a friend's house, because I hang out with the kind of people where we were all sitting at my friend's kitchen table (Michael, if you ever read this, I mean you), all having just made shots and drinks and whatnot, and his roommate sat down and started a discussion about the difference between ethics and morality. We spent a decent while on that, defining each and discussing our individual conceptions of both, but then we necessarily turned to the idea of objective/subjective morality, which is what we spent the majority of the night talking about.

I gave our lone relativist kudos for facing both me and Michael undaunted, since we both have some similar views on the cosmos and its objectivity, and I get very loud and animated when I argue.

Anyway, the whole thing ended with me demanding to know why he was even arguing with me if all of our perceptions were equally valid.

This is my issue with relativism, boys and girls: If everyone is right, then you can not, by the very nature of your argument, argue with me about anything. In a subjective universe, my perception dictates my entire reality and it is all just as true as yours is.

If you espouse that, then you can't even try to defend that, because every argument will go, “You're wrong because blah blah blah.”

“That's your reality, and that's what's true for you.”

No defense. Not even disagreement. Because you can't disagree with anyone about anything because it all becomes a matter of individual opinion.

For some things that's a totally sensible way of doing things. Like, when I say that icecream is probably the best thing in the world, and you say you're lactose intolerant, that's totally valid. I'll laugh at you and eat all of the icecream, but that is actually a thing that does depend on the individual, because it's a matter of preference that doesn't depend on an objective standard.

Let me be clear here. I believe in an objective reality that we necessarily experience subjectively by virtue of having individual perspectives. Morality and ethics are slippery things, but mostly they depend on having or not having an objective standard to refer to. I also don't take issue with people disagreeing with me. I had no problem with this guy being a relativist, apart from the fact that I think relativism is stupid and obviously flawed beyond use. Presumably he had reasons for arriving at the conclusions he did, just like me and everyone else.

My problem was that debating with a relativist is like having a cage match with a pacifist. It's a contradiction to the entire philosophy and a waste of everyone's time.

That said, I think humans might benefit from lending more validity to subjective experience. We seem to think that everyone who perceives differently from us is always wrong or threatening or inhuman. Empathy goes a long way in that respect.

I'd Rather Be Blogging

2014-08-23T21:54:00.001-07:00

*This, my dear, deprived audience, was written not long after I moved, so like around three weeks ago. It's been sitting on my desktop with a few other files waiting for your voracious eyes.*

Hello, theoretical readers.

As I was on my way home today, beginning to roughly compose this post, I was originally planning on starting with an explanation of my sleep and internet deprivation, but then I went on a mental tangent, and now I feel the need for a sentimental side note.

I don't think you guys have any idea how much it actually means to me that I'm actually growing a real audience. Not so much on my blog, but as an artist aspiring to professional art, it makes me ecstatic to know that people not only like my work but actually want to see more of it. Every single Favorite, upvote, share, bookmark, like, and comment is a victory for the part of me that keeps insisting that maybe I could actually do this. So thanks for that, guys. You don't hear about me celebrating the number of followers I have (unless you've heard about my newly founded religion, that is), or being excited about my pageviews, but I totally do, so thanks for that, those of you who I know and those I don't. Almost more you guys, because you have no obligation to be supportive and you don't already love me as the shiny human thing I am.

Anyway, now that rubbish is out of the way and can't be unsaid (I say while typing in an unsaved document without internet), on to the actual ranting you guys really come here to read!

As previously mentioned, I was driving home from work today, and for at least half the drive, I was behind this guy with a bumper sticker that said, “I'd rather be riding my Harley Davidson” with the logo and all that nonsense.

Every single time I see those horrible bumper stickers—“I'd rather be running, biking, swimming, kayaking, fishing, etc” (Can we tell I live near the mountains?)— I mentally scream, “No you wouldn't, dickhole! If you would actually rather be biking, you wouldn't be driving that douchey SUV!” Because they could be biking. That is a perfectly feasible way to travel in the city for like half the year. Even for things like rock-climbing, I still say “You could be.” No, you can't always be a responsible human being and only do the things you want to do all the time, but you also have the option to be be irresponsible and awesome.

Like many things, this annoyance translated to a larger issue in my head; very frequently, I hear people say “Oh, I wish I could do ____,” and my usual response is “So do it,” even to things like “I wish I could be a professional silk dancer in the circus,” or “I wish I lived in a house-boat,” or “I wish I could build a hover car.” Because usually what prevents people from doing those things, even the awesome ones like putting a ball pit trampoline room in their basements, is something as stupidly simple as that they just aren't willing to pursue it.

It's not a hugely complicated idea to pursue doing what you want to do. Yes, in practice, maybe it's a little (or a lot) more difficult to make a living as a professional Netflix Browser, but a lot of how possible that actually is depends on ow much work you're willing to put into it and how dedicated you are to making it happen. And I say that as someone who hopes to make my living by playing with paint and pens and tattoo equipment and computers.

It's like reading. I can't describe to you how cool it sounds to get paid for reading. In one of my recently favorite moves About Time, the protagonist's future wife tells him that she's a reader for a publishing house, and he says something like, “No. That's like saying, 'what do you do?' 'Oh, I'm a breather. I breathe for a living,'” and that's kind of how I feel about that idea. BUT I haven't gone around to publishers asking about becoming a reader or an editor, and do you know why? Apart from all of the inevitable disappointments and mountains of crap you'd have to read through, it's mostly because I haven't decided to do that and then taken steps to make that a reality.

Yes, biking to your job twelve miles away from where you live is going to be tiring and time-consuming and sweaty, but you could do it if you were willing to put in the work. And that's my problem, dear children. THEY DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO.

Don't say you'd rather be doing something you aren't even trying to do. Either put your money and time and effort where your mouth is, or stop bitching that you want something else.

This is something I've definitely been learning for myself lately, and it's both awesome and frustrating. The days that I don't want to drive all the way down to the tattoo shop to sit and watch and talk and ask questions, or when the juices aren't flowing and I don't want to draw something crappy and uninspired, are the days that I put on my grownup voice that I use to ask small children if they want to lose the toy they're playing with, or miss snack, or sit in time-out, and go, “Rachel, how much do you actually want to make this happen?”

As a very eloquent, Floridian gentleman once said, “Nut up, or shut up.”

I'm Not Dead!

2014-08-23T14:16:00.001-07:00

This is me, by the way. Coming out from under a rock.

I just thought I'd take a couple of minutes to let you guys know that I didn't cease to exist, or anything. I just was in the process of moving, and then I didn't have internet for the last month or so. But as of last night, my roommate and I (mostly me, since I don't have a smartphone) have rejoined the 21st century! I have a few posts already written from my time under a rock, so I'll post those over this next week or so.

Where are the Disney MEN?

2014-07-11T16:37:00.002-07:00

I apologize once again for my long absences, voracious readers. Sometimes time gets away from me, and I find that suddenly it's been months since ____. Lately there's also been lots of distracting things going on in real life, so even when I do think of exciting things I want to post about, I end up just stashing them in my juicy brain storage places, and there they molder sometimes. Like my post on the dreaded "Friendzone" and some surrounding issues, or my post on The Feminine Mystique and its relevance to my generation. (Both of which I still fully intend to write.)

Either way, I thought today I would write about the thought that struck me the other day, which was this:
Where are all the Disney men?

Disney is my childhood, and as a feminist, I've spent way too much time thinking about Disney, their princesses/other female protagonists, and how it relates to the way that women are treated and perceived by our culture. But the other day, someone posted on Facebook (my blogs come from this way too often lately), yet another of the squijillion covers of "Let It Go" from Frozen.

Even if you've never seen this movie and know literally nothing about it, you know every word to that song, and it fills you with fury.

Which is absurd, because the best songs in the entire movie are OBVIOUSLY

"Reindeer Are Better Than People," and "No Heat Experience."

This cover, though, was a genderbend. For those of you who live in a hole, this means that they changed the characters sex to the opposite one, in this case being a male Elsa prince thing with generic vocals to make the radio rock world proud.

But this got me thinking. Where are all the really good male Disney leads?? The actual men that we want to see portrayed as a positive representation of what men are like, or are supposed to be like (as in the case of all the princesses). I wracked my brains while washing dishes at work that day, and all I could come up with was Tarzan and Aladdin. And maybe Jim Hawkins. Is Treasure Planet Disney? I doubt it, but I love that movie.

Yes, I suppose you could argue that there's also Peter Pan and Pinocchio, but Peter is a gigantic prick and Pinochio is irrelevant to everyone. Honest John and his cat sidekick are the best part of that entire movie.

Someday, I'll have a friend to dress up like this with me.

One of the things that struck me was that all of the male characters that immediately jumped to my mind for awesome, sympathetic, admirable, animated men were almost exclusively non-Disney, like Cale from Titan AE, or Dimitri from Anastasia (I'm sure it's a total coincidence that they also have almost the exact same character design.)

My point here--as I frolic gleefully away from it--is that we have this ridiculous double standard presented, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone question it. No one is upset that Prince Charming has even less personality than Cinderella, the most saintly, plain-whitebread-toast woman you can imagine. We spent so much time complaining about what Disney is doing to little girls and then praising characters like Belle and Mulan and Merida that I don't know if it ever occurs to anyone to ask what it does to our boys.

Shang!

Captain Lee Shang from Mulan. There's another genuinely admirable, multi-faceted Disney man. He's overtly masculine, and yet still works with and for a strong, smart woman without being threatened by her, and he learns to adjust his culturally skewed notions of what women can and can not/should and should not do.

Interrupted thought over.

There's this Ted Talk that I think is very connected to this. It's about marginalizing men in the pursuit of feminism, which is just stupid for everyone. "Women's issues" are not just relevant to women. These issues are people issues, problems that we as a society and as species experience. Presenting weak, stupid, disproportionate women as idealized princesses is a serious problem, but I think making men irrelevant is also a very real problem. Boys are given the choice between choosing bad male role models, or weak, practically nonexistent ones. There's a whole set of gender expectations that little kids are being poisoned with, and that's exactly where we don't want to propagate the centuries of repression and violence.

Not every girl wants to be a sylph-like damsel, so why can't we remember that not every boy wants to be a shining prince, or a cartoon animal?

Racist Comments

2014-06-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about race, shall we? I have the fun experience of being a white female, which puts me in an interesting position somewhere between historically privileged and historically disenfranchised, and I'm also a noisily opinionated creature, which is unrelated to those things.

Someone on Facebook a while ago made the ignorant, painfully stupid comment that you can't be racist against white people, because apparently she understands neither the literal definition racism, or what constitutes a race, and since then I've been contemplating posting my two cents about racism and its place in the world that exists right now. Of course, I may not be the best person to talk about racism, simply because I don't get it. This has nothing to do with the fact that I am a white member of the middle class. I've experienced my share of bigotry, either firsthand or by proxy with people I'm close to. I don't get racism because I'm not a cave-dwelling douche. It makes no sense, and it has no place in a modern, global society. Hate people for something valid, guys, like something they can choose.

I've definitely had serious antipathy for several black people, and hispanic people, and asians, and lots of white people, but it had literally NOTHING to do with the color of their skin. Because that's literally the dumbest reason I can think of to hate someone. Even hating them for their clothing is more valid, because it's within their control and actually says something about their personality and preferences, even if that's still a superficial, weak reason to be prejudiced against someone.

I used to hear a lot of kids in my high school talking about slavery and Jim Crow laws with a chip on their shoulder. Does that seem stupid to anyone else? These kids were raised in a world where they didn't even experience anything remotely like that. Don't bitch at me about how your ancestors were enslaved by my ancestors, black kids. First of all, my ancestors were mostly in Sweden eating herring and not partaking in the "West Indies" slave trading (stupid Columbus, ruining terminology for the rest of time. "Look, it's not Europe! I must have gotten to India by now."). Second, Africans sold Africans to Europeans; selling prisoners of war and criminals and debtors as slaves is a time-honored tradition that every culture ever has participated in. Humans have been enslaving each other as long as they've lived in groups large enough to have enemies. Which brings me to my third point. Slavery is not a race issue anymore. If we're going to talk about slavery, why not concern yourselves with the slavery and human rights violations going on right now, you stupid people?

There is literally no reason to be racist anymore. It used to stem from the kind of fear and supremacist feelings that people have when encountering something alien to themselves. They aren't like us, therefore we immediately make this into an us and them polerization, and we have to win. But we are no longer surprised or frighted by people with different skin colors. Our maps no longer end with sea serpents and question marks. We know what's in our world, we know who lives here and what they look like. No, not every people group is intimately connected to every other, but in a time when you can talk to people on the other side of the planet instantaneously, how in the world can we still be dividing along the lines of race? That's just stupid.

So is hyphenating races, by the way. You shouldn't call yourself "African American" unless you are actually from both continents. If you immigrated, cool. The country/landmass your people come from has very little to do with your race except as Darwinian cause. White people shouldn't run around demanding to be called European Americans. And what would you call people from South America in that situation? What about the Brazilians descended from the Portuguese? Being the same color as the people of a place doesn't make you from there. If your people came from there and went somewhere else, you are not from there. It's so much absurdity.

My Day, or Five Reasons to Become a Mechanic

2014-04-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Hello, audience. Believe it, or not, I've actually started several posts that kind of miscarried and never made it to finished and posted. Maybe someday they'll see the light of day, but today, I decided to share some thoughts stemming from my day.

In addition to getting up and working eight hours before noon, I got to take my car to the mechanic for some routine maintenance before I take a road trip next week. Isn't that just the best? Is there anything better than taking your car to a dubious stranger so that they can demand obscene amounts of money? It's probably my favorite thing.

I came to the conclusion today that I should become a mechanic. Screw my artistic aspirations and the apprenticeship I'm pursuing. Tattoos are clearly the wrong business, and here are five reasons why.

1. Appearing competent
When you work in a field like auto-repair, you have the comforting knowledge that 90% of your customers are completely ignorant. You tell them that a mischievous gnome has ripped holes in their car's mass air intake, and they'll probably nod sagely (so as to avoid looking incompetent or uneducated) and thank you for your attention to detail. And this is without even having to do any actual work to prove your ability. You could probably accomplish the exact same appearance of expertise simply by putting an oil-stained rag in your pocket and speaking authoritatively while standing in the office of a garage.

You can tell he's experienced by the way he's trying to use a wrench

on a tire attached to nothing. And he has coveralls!

2. Charging for your presence
The accepted term for this is "labor," but as far as I know these fees require no actual labor. Glancing over a car long enough to say, "Your front tires exploded and the hood is folded in half," counts as an inspection and therefore ground for labor costs. You can spend an hour in the same room as a car and it qualifies as billable time.

3. Innumerable reasons for fees
Cars, as you may or may not ("Meyer may not") know, are a complex, interdependent system, so that one problem may stem from many underlying issues, or the other way around (one underlying issue causing many problems, for those who couldn't quite keep up.), so there are a thousand different things that could be wrong, and each one of them is a reason to charge more. Because time is money. So the more theoretical time you might spend on a thing, or the more complex it is, the more you charge. See how that works? Potential time for a repair + actual amount of time spent on a repair + between two and four times the costs of parts + number of things that could potentially have been wrong = total bill.
So, if, for example, you could have spent eight hours on a repair, and you actually spent three, the part costs fifteen dollars, the problem was loosely connected to the exhaust system, and the moon is waning, you would charge the soul of their firstborn and two months wages. Simple, right?

4. No necessity to do actual work
Especially when you run your own place of business (this isn't limited to mechanics), there are often underlings of a lower pay grade whose sole existence is to perform grunge work, so when one is a mechanic and hired to fix an automobile, one's primary job is to stand in the office and explain to bewildered (soon to be penniless) customers what exactly is wrong with their car, and how that gnome seems to have expanded his activities to the throttle body and the transmission, at which point the appropriate thing to do is show them a neatly outlines list of the things that need/might need/might actually be done in order to correct this problem. Of course, including the expected costs of parts and labor -_-

5. Ensuring future employment
If you recall, as I hope all of you without crippling short term memory loss would, I mentioned in #3 that cars are delicate, interconnected systems that all build on one another to create a two ton metal box for you to give rides to drunken friends, and many, many different things can go wrong within that complex machinery. A common practice that has recently gotten a lot of attention is slightly tweaking a few things in that mess of systems so that cars run less than optimally.

Yes. There are mechanics that break cars so that you have to come back and pay them some more to look at your car and say knowledgeable things.

If you think about it, it's a brilliant way to make money (assuming you don't have any qualms about stealing or ruining people's lives, but, really, who does these days?). What more effective job guarantee could there be? It's like a homicide detective going out and murdering people on the slow weeks.

I feel like there's a show about that...

Anyway, the only conclusion I can come to here is that I should become a mechanic and make money hand over fist. I've done work on my car, and it's pretty easy stuff if you know what to look for.

And that tiny fact-- "as long as you know what to look for"-- is the basis of the entire trade. As long as you know something someone else doesn't, you can make them pay through the nose for that ignorance, right?

More From the Service Industry

2014-03-22T13:45:00.001-07:00

Hello, ever-present internet! I'm not dead, despite my absurd absence this year. Things have just been busy and exhausting and lazy and lots other things that really come down to "Rachel hasn't been blogging, because she does that sometimes." Though since I finally got a new job (and quit my old one), my schedule has been totally different, which is often the result of switching from primarily evening and night work to early morning and mid afternoon work, but I'm still adjusting to it.

Bonus: the worthless scourge that is Daylight Savings (saving no one daylight since 1930) has had no power over me. Taking one puny hour from my life cannot control me when I've been getting up at four in the morning rather than going to bed then!

Anyway, I thought I'd take a few minutes to blather online about a few of the things that have been floating around in my head that make me go, "hey, I should write a post about that," but then, as you may have noticed the past few months, I never do. I also have like three or four snarky list posts floating amongst my mental debris (by which I mean safely saved in note form on my phone, because I can't remember that kind of thing), but they'll wait for a different day.

So at my new job (I now work at a coffee/bagel shop rather than a pizza place), we have these surveys that all the cashiers are supposed to tell the customers about so that they can tell Corporate how satisfied, or dissatisfied, they were with the service, and now as added incentive, everytime someone mentions an employee by name in their surveys, that person gets a sticker on this chart in the back, and as if stickers weren't reward enough, after so many stickers, you get free stuff.

Though, I'm at a distinct disadvantage there, since I don't take orders right now. I just make them and bring them out to people, so even though I now get a name tag (at my old job, we were all faceless drones), I don't really interact with customers enough to be memorable.

My thought today, though, was that there should be customer review surveys for the employees. I had a huge group the other day (from a well- known Christian organization, no less *coughcoughHCJB*), and they were super messy, rearranged all of my tables, and then just left everything there, and it was super annoying and inconvenient, so I was thinking how unfair it is that customers get to treat us in the service industry like crap and then complain about the service, and all we can really do is bitch about how awful they were back in the kitchen.

Seriously, guys, a friendly customer or a good tip can totally make someone's day. I go out of my way to pre-bus tables and leave at least 25% tips whenever I go out to eat.

Anyway, there should be a system where service people get to review their customers, and then the good ones can get discounts or something, and we can unnecessarily inconvenience or charge the people who suck, because there should be consequences for being a dick to people just because they're paid to take your money in exchange for bringing you goods or services.

The fact that you are the customer doesn't make you better, or entitle you to being an inconsiderate cur.

On Interviews

2014-01-08T20:55:00.002-08:00

Hello, audience. I'm going to talk, yet again, about being an adult. I seem to do this every couple of months, but that's okay. Few enough people read this blog that I feel entitled to talk about whatever I please. If you want to read other things, read other blogs. It's really that simple.

Actually, that pretty much describes my philosophy toward most things about myself--I'm abrasive. Get over it, embrace it, or move along. No one is making you interact with me.

Anyway, the subtext here is that there is no greater farce than adult life. It's so much BS that even I have to cringe a little inside, and that is speaking as a confirmed bullshitter. Adult life is based almost entirely on lying all of the time to almost everyone. Intimate relationships are set apart in adult life, because those are the people you either lie less to, or lie about different things.

At least when we were teenagers, everyone knew everyone was lying about who they were and how they were doing and whatnot, and it was not encouraged. As a child, there's this ringing chorus of "be yourself! Trust people! Be honest about who you are and what you believe!" and then you get out of school.

Suddenly it's all dating people because you're supposed to be in a relationship, and trying to get a job.

To be honest here, theoretical readers, I haven't had that many job interviews. I've had enough, though, to know that they're all about both interviewer and interviewed pretending they want to be there.

You walk in, and (after making you wait long enough that you know you're at their mercy) the interviewer shakes your hand and introduces themselves, a name which you promptly forget, because you were busy wondering if your handshake was firm enough, or if you smiled when you said it was nice to meet them, or if they notice that your pants are still kind of wrinkly, or wishing you had brushed your teeth before you left.

After they sit you down and start "trying to get to know you" the real pretense starts. You have to convince them that you're worth hiring, which they have probably already decided based on your initial application, and they spend the entire time pretending to be interested in hiring you.

It's like a date, where you both try and convince someone that you're exactly what they're looking for, even though you're lying through your teeth, and so are they. "Quick! Pretend you're way smarter, funnier, more competent, more attractive, more outgoing, and more dedicated and hardworking than you have ever actually been."

Because for some reason, we think that is a good basis for any kind of relationship. Especially when the chances are that they decided whether or not they wanted you in all of three minutes.

And the answer is usually no.

This basically defines adult life. There's this demand that you seem totally together all the time, regardless of whether or not you are; it doesn't matter if you're a broke alcoholic and all of your relationships are crumbling as long as you can seem like you're a successful human being.

Maybe this is one of those "fake it 'til you make it" things (a favorite saying of my mother's), but mostly it just seems like total crap. Does this ever help anyone? I mean really. Did I just miss the day where they handed out grown-up starter kits full of instruction booklets about how all of this makes sense?

Rambling About Goals and stuff.

2014-01-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hello, audience. Here's my first post for 2014, though since I haven't been especially good about posting regularly ever, I wouldn't read too much into it. It honestly just occurred to me that it's New Years day, so expect no lofty resolutions from me. I don't have plans for a regular posting schedule, or anything like that. I do intend to do more writing in the near future, but I'll have to be a little (or a lot) more disciplined about everything.

Damn you, Discipline! You and The Pendulum can just go away, and I'll keep wasting a lot of time.

This game may or may not have eaten nearly half a day since I bought it like three days ago...

Actually, discipline is closely related to the thing I was actually intending to muse on. (Publicly musing seems dangerous, and yet it's one of my best ways to think.) My older brother was in town "for Christmas" (he actually arrived on the 26th), and something he said to me while he was here was that "you are either moving toward a goal, or moving away from it." Or something quite similar to that, anyway, and I've been thinking about that idea.

I have several goals, some of them more nebulous than I'd like to admit, and I am (despite what seems to be popular opinion,) actively pursuing at least some of them.

Admittedly, the one I'm moving toward most actively is moving into an apartment, followed by finding a different job, but those either don't seem to count, or seem depressingly impotent.

But I'm not sure I agree with my dear brother. The essence of that thought is definitely something I agree with, and it seems a little nit-picky (ewwwww....nits.) to bother disagreeing at all, but I do. Goals are not always something you can actively pursue; sometimes there's a time for such things, or sometimes goals don't always have clear paths to pursue.

This sounds a little defensive, now that I say it out loud (or in print), and I don't deny that I could definitely be working harder on most of my goals, but it's something I think is still true.

There seems to be this trend, especially in my generation--I don't know about you older or younger people, but I suspect that it's also prevalent--that you are supposed to have a Direction, and a Plan. People begin asking about such things literally the second you graduate high school, and they always disapprove if you don't have an answer, because if you don't have a mission for your life, the expectation is that you will hop into the grooves worn by previous generations and go to college, get married, reproduce, and do something professional in fields you tested well in during school. Usually in that order.

God forbid you don't have a distinct list of goals, complete with dates, deadlines, and color codes. Because the people that don't have a Plan grow up to be losers. You don't want to be a loser, do you?

Not that I can say much in answer to that mentality. I'm an artist.

Some people I've known have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish with their lives, and they're doing what they think is necessary to making those things happen, like getting the pertinent degrees and certifications and suchlike, and in some ways I definitely envy that, but I don't think it's necessary. People say all the time that life is a journey, and it's about the journey, and other variations on that idea, but it seems like no one treats it that way. Experiencing life as a series of shaping events and experiences is seen as short-sighted and lazy even as people post inspirational photo-manipulations and quotes on their social networking pages saying just that.

But only if you have a defined destination. We don't want tourists or explorers.

I think this falls into the same category of "no winning" as the housewife dilemma. For those who don't know what I mean, even after years of women being allowed to work and have careers, there is still this idea that if you have a career, you hate your kids, or are selfish for having your own life and not having kids, but on the other side, if you choose not to have a career, and stay home with those same children, you're wasting your potential, and it's seen as a total cop out of having your own life.

The difficulty with these situations, I think, is that they're both not true, and people are forcing their presumptions on someone else, and demanding that other people make the same choice for the reasons they would, when that is impossible.

Not everyone has to do the same thing. It's okay to do and think and be different. We don't have to hate people for that.

Another thing that people say and don't do...I think the internet is going to call everyone on their hypocrisy someday.

I hope I'm not online that day.

Just a few words, since they're needed elsewhere

2013-11-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

Hello, audience. I thought I'd pop back in to remind everyone that my blog isn't dead, or anything. I've just been all over the place. Halloween was kind of insane for me, and since then I've been doing NaNoWriMo.

For those who are somehow unaware, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where those of us who harbor illusions/aspirations of writing novels go to be forced into accountability and put words on the page. The goal is 50,000 words in thirty days, and it's utterly insane.

Which is why this post is going to be short. I have work in a few hours and several hundred words to write before that. I don't know how anyone who has school or work full time even does this, but somehow they do.

That's the awesome thing about NaNoWriMo, though. It's this awesome way to force yourself to create. I know November is also Make Art Every Day Month, and I find that amazing too. I'd love to participate in both, but I think it would probably kill me. It makes me kind of sad, though, that I need to force myself to do things that I love to do. The creator in me hangs her head in shame that the joy and accomplishment I find in creating well isn't enough for me to force aside the demands of my fairly undemanding daily life to make.

More and more the past few weeks, I'm finding that passion isn't enough; desire isn't enough; enjoyment isn't enough. I put those things aside to do other things that matter less to me, because somehow that makes sense. The only thing that makes this happen in discipline.

And that sucks.

I'm not an especially disciplined individual. I find it difficult to make myself do things that I don't feel like doing, which, yes, is a common problem. Discipline doesn't come easily to anyone.

My sister said once that self-discipline is just parenting yourself. You have to override the mental whining child, and just go to bed, or get our of bed, or eat this or not that, or clean your house, or whatever it is that needs done that you don't want to do.

I bribe myself shamelessly most of the time. Not so much with my novel, because thankfully that little graph showing me how on track my word count is makes a really good incentive system for me. I want to hit my word count even if I don't want to write.

And speaking of which, I should really shut up and do that.

On Gifts and Narcissism

2013-10-06T15:56:00.001-07:00

Hello, audience. Happy not-quite-Halloween. It's been a little while since I've posted anything...Like since August. I haven't forgotten my blog, though. I'm still here to spew my nonsense into the ether by force. I've just been somewhere between unmotivated and busy. Not that anyone reading my blog is wildly invested in what I do outside of my blog. NO! We are here to be amused, not regaled with accounts of my monotonous daily life!

Any, this is actually a combination post of something I've been considering writing about here for a while and something I've been considering privately due to recent events fringing my social circle.

The second shall be discussed first!

Everyone likes presents, right? Gifties that other people give you that are both free and pleasing. That's why we go so freaking berserk over gift-giving events (Christmas, birthdays, weddings, baby things, and so on). But the other side of gifts is the giving part.

If only these weren't both right hands...

There's two sides: the giving party and the getting party including at least one person each. Unless this is a present to oneself, in which case, the whole discussion here is moot.

(Which is, on a total side note, one of my favorite words to say for irrelevant nothing things. Like jack, squat, and BUMPKIS!)

This is possibly because of my upbringing (and my mother's upbringing), but I have a very turtle-parenting approach to gift-giving.

You all understand this comparison, right? Turtles--sea turtles, I believe--have a hands/flippers-off parenting method: they lay their eggs on a beach, and then take off. "Good luck, fetal turtle spawn! Come find us if you ever hatch!" Once they lay those suckers, their job is done. Off they go to frolic in the ocean and be endangered.

This is how I give presents. I choose something I think the giftee will like/appreciate/use/etc, I give it to them with or without any kind of ceremony or pretty wrapping (usually without either, because I procrastinate). The end. Once I've given something to someone as a gift, it's theirs, no strings attached, no expectations or conditions about what happens after that. They can cut up, regift it, or leave it in their garage for the next fifty years for all of the involvement I expect to have. Yes, I'll be somewhat hurt if they don't like it, but that's not the point of giving a gift.

Recently, someone received a gift from relatives, who promptly sent a note a month later to explain what a selfish douchwaffel she was for not sending an effusive thank you note. Because everyone knows a GIFT is actually an exchange of goods/services for thanks/services.

WTF, bro?

I've actually known a few people who get really butt-hurt about not getting thanked in the form of a card, or who don't get a return present at the next possible opportunity. This irks me because you are as obligated to give people gifts as you are to feed wild animals.

Barring those "gifts" that are actually help when people genuinely and desperately need it, but I would call that help, not gifts.

The point is that they're not necessary. If you don't want to give someone something, don't. It's that easy. The thing about gifts is that they're not supposed to even involve obligation or entitlement. Gifts are not deserved, and they're not relational commerce.

And that was about all I had to say about that. It seems remarkably self-centered to give someone else a present and then have expectations and demands for something you freely gave.

Speaking of self-centered: Narcissism!

As much as my siblings joke about being narcissists when referring to our vanity and general fabulousless and self-assurance, we are aware that there are other people who also important and living their own lives totally separate from us.

We're probably not always aware of this, but I don't think anyone is.

Because I have news for you, people (assuming you've read this whole post, which is not inconsiderable in size)

YOU ARE NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHER PEOPLE. Your time is not worth more; your agenda is not more pressing; your plans are not more important.

Unless you have managed to earn a place at the top of the human pyramid, you're just as worthless as all those people you speed past in traffic and all those people you thrust your money at without even glancing at.

I'm beginning to have this theory that everyone is some level of sociopath. Yes, we sometimes experience empathy for people we already care about, and we can sometimes dissect other people's actions until we can understand and condone them, but we all operate from our own little world of me, me, me, me, me, and me. We are the only person we consider about 90% of the time.

And, honestly, I'm mostly cool with that. I think Ayn Rand had a lot of things right (unpopular and insane as she might be), but as one of the millions of people on this planet regularly treated like crap for a paycheck, and as someone with what looks like Tourette's in heavy traffic (or light traffic. Or any traffic, really. If there are other cars in the street, I hate them with a fiery and very verbal passion), I'm noticing more and more just how much we seriously don't give a crap about people, because it doesn't even occur to us to consider them as fellow human beings. They're props and inconveniences in our story, not people with lives and plans and hopes and motivations and needs all their own. (See Cracked's article on the Monkeysphere)

It's kind of appalling.

That prick that swerved in front of you is just a bloody moron, but if you abruptly swing into another lane, it's because, crap, your turn is coming up, and you didn't realize it. Or when someone zooms past you, weaving lanes and cutting ahead, they're inconsiderate and irresponsible, and that idiot shouldn't even have a license, but when you're late, you can rush through traffic in whatever way gets you there quickest. It's okay to leave your table in a restaurant a mess, but if you have to sit down at a dirty table, someone is rude and disrespectful.

We have these absurd double-standards that dictate that we can do no wrong, and everything that inconveniences us is because everyone else sucks.

There's some fantasy novel I read at some point. It may have been Green Rider, where there's this water bucket hanging from a tree by the road so that travelers can drink, and above it is a sign asking whoever drinks to refill it for the next person, so that no one has to come to it without being able to get a drink. So don't be a douchebag. People come before and after you, and they matter just as much to themselves as you do to you. It's the frickin' "golden rule" that everyone leans as a wee, little child. Just apply it, and everyone will hate each other less.

Also, here's an article with some nice suggestions to do just that.

On Shyness

2013-07-28T23:00:00.001-07:00

Hello, audience. Based on my blog stats, you actually exist, which is gratifying. I assume you do, anyway. That, or things are randomly linking to my page, and people search things that I posted pictures of.

But I thought I'd take a few minutes tonight to explain to the internet at large why I HATE HATE HATE shy people.

Do you know why it is?

Because they're so full of crap.

We've all met the people who are just quiet. They don't talk a whole lot, and they're cool being on their own, and they don't need you to tell them it's okay. That's being called self-contained. When people say they're shy, you should automatically read that as "I'm an attention whore with a propensity to martyring myself." Because we've also all met those people. I've met several.

Let me take a moment here, my dear, faithful, presumably interested audience, to explain something: I am loud. I am opinionated. I am comparatively oblivious, and I don't cater to anyone in conversation (excepting age, because some things can't be said around the over-thirty-five/under-seventeen crowds). Get over it, sweetheart.

Someone posted this thing on Facebook that said something akin to, "I'm the friend who always gets cut off mid-story, and walks behind everyone else, and invites people to hang out so that I'm not excluded, and I will always be that friend, because wah wah wah." Or something like that. And being the diplomatic angel I always am, I commented.

I have been Bitched Out on more than one occasion (at least twice by the same person, who was the kind of "shy" I'm talking about here) for being a verbal bulldozer, being rude, interrupting, being pushy, loud, etc. And you know what? I am those things most of the time. But you know what else? Most of the people who actually enjoy talking to me (like my friends and close family members) can deal with that. They talk over me, and I talk over them, and it's not because either of us thinks we're more important than the other. We're just talking. We're comfortably sharing ideas and stories in a free manner.

This isn't frickin' LD Debate here, guys. I don't make an opening statement, followed by your opening statement, nd then my rebuttal, and your rebuttal, and my follow up, and your response, and then our closing thoughts. Conversation is a free flow thing. If you can't handle that, maybe you should only talk to people via text, because instant messaging, email, and texting all take place line by line where no one steps over the other.

Come to think of it, most of the whiny "shy" people do spend all their time online...

Anyway, the thought I had originally started with is this: People who claim to be shy are usually just looking for someone to validate them. And there are two things I have no respect for, and when people exhibit them on a regular basis, I stop talking to them so that no one gets throttled.
1) Stupidity. This is the cardinal sin in the Book of Rachel.
2) Excessive insecurity.

Let me clarify here. Everyone is insecure about things. No one is totally confident, totally happy, or totally together. We all have duckies that are getting away from us. But most of us have the decency not to cram it down everyone's throat.

In my experience, people who are "shy" are looking for excuses to martyr themselves so that other people feel sorry for them or pay excessive attention to them. So that when you don't make way on a red carpet covered on rose petals for their every little thought, you're a dick for not letting them speak.

Because I have news, babydoll, no one can tell you that you don't matter. No one can make you feel insignificant or unimportant. No one can make you shut up when you want to talk. No one can make your opinions less important.

UNLESS

you lie down in front of their feet and explain softly that you're a worthless doormat, and if they would be so gracious as to make you matter...you'd bitch them out for being so thoughtless and selfish as to think that their opinions matter. How dare other people be aware of their own worth when you need yours given to you by external forces?!

When you need validated and told you're a beautifuw snowfwake and we all appweciate evewything about you, it's your own weakness.

There you go, friends and neighbors. I think "shy people" are weaklings, and full of their own selfishness and arrogance on top of it. You don't get to condemn me or anyone else for asserting ourselves just because you need permission to say anything unless it;s to complain about your lot for being the self-proclaimed victim.

Shut your whore mouth, you freaking shy people. Get over yourselves.

Recent Thoughts on The Little Mermaid

2013-07-20T15:46:00.004-07:00

Hello, ever-present audience. (Nevermind how accurate or inaccurate that is.)

As you may or may not have seen on my Facebook (I try not to let those mix) I said I might have to post about The Little Mermaid after watching it the other night. Thursday, I believe.

Like many of the pure joys of my childhood, revisiting it as an adult (we'll ignore the fact that I watch at least four Disney movies every year for the last decade or so) can be both disappointing and hilarious.

In my Facebook post, I summed up the movie this way, "The Little Mermaid: the three day journey of a sixteen-year-old girl getting body modifications for a guy she's never met, culminating in catastrophic, magically created weather and their first kiss/wedding."

I guess technically the story takes about five days.
1) The missed concert/first sight/storm/rescue
2) Rescue song/destruction of Ariel's horde/ decision to solve things with plastic surgery via Ursula/ meeting Eric formally
3) Tour of the kingdom/ "Kiss the Girl"/ "Vanessa" appears out of nowhere
4) Stall the wedding/ final battle with giganto-fat-octopus-woman/ sparkley dress and first kiss
Cut to wedding

Watching this the other night, during their wedding scene, my first thought was, "oh my god. Is that their first kiss??" Followed closely by "She's SIXTEEN! D8"

I just did some intense Googling and Youtube clip watching, though, and as it turns out, it technically isn't, because when her poor, misguided father takes the advice of a crab and turns his beautiful daughter back into a ravenous "fisheater," she runs out of the water, totally ignoring that gift and the paternal approval it represents, and drives into the arms of this near stranger for a passionate kiss. Which then fades into that shot at the wedding.

Also, there's totally a Top 15 Disney Kisses video, and I take issue with the numbering of most of them.

But here are some of the things that I had to yell at the movie for:

First, King Triton constantly refers to humans as barbarians and fish-eaters. I refuse to believe that mer-people don't ever eat fish or sea creatures of any kind. That's impractical and unrealistic. Use the resources available. What else are they going to eat? Krill?

Just imagine Ariel swimming around with her mouth wide open all the time....

But they have teeth, I say! Teeth just like human teeth, or so I assume based on the fact that Eric never recoiled and went "Oh god! What's wrong with your mouth?!" And human teeth are designed to break apart both meats and plant matter. That's why we have pointy teeth and flat teeth (a.k.a. molars and incisors).

Also, who is the heavily bearded, naked, old guy to call anyone a barbarian? I've only played a handful of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, but from my not inconsiderable experience with fantasy, the less clothing someone is wearing, the better indication that they're either a sexpot or a badass, and if they happen to a well-muscled, scantily-clothed male, they're almost definitely a Barbarian.

So there, fork man!

Speaking of the magical three-pronged instrument of death and hurricanes, another issue I had. When you're a kid, suspension of disbelief is no problem. But with Disney movies, not suspending your disbelief and pondering the consequences of the world they operate in is way more fun.

Like why didn't the country (France) in Beauty and the Beast have serious political troubles when they spontaneously lost their monarch for ten years, only to have him pop up out of some woods in the middle of nowhere?

In The Little Mermaid, I think the trouble is the weather. I take no issue with the idea that ocean and all of its surrounding weather are controlled by a fish man with a magic weapon (which, by the way, begs some interesting questions about Triton's omniscience or lack thereof), but presumably he operates in a safe and sane way, causing storms the natural way. What happened to the world when Ursula gets hold of said magical trident and starts causing storms and whirlpools to come out of nowhere? All that water and air pressure had to go somewhere, right?

Also, how old is Eric, anyway? It can't be more than like eighteen or nineteen, because then we start wandering creepy statutory rape country. And if he is that young, why is his steward, or whatever Grimsby is, pestering him about getting married? Do they just have an incredibly short lifespan there? Because everyone in Eric's town seemed to be pretty healthy and content. Plus all of the palace staff seems to be at least middle-aged...

At least in most Disney movies, they never actually say outright how old they are. Except possibly Rapunzel, who I believe is turning eighteen in her movie. Legal adult, boys and girls.

Also, there's two cool Disney movies coming out I heard about recently, one of which is Frozen, which will be awesome, because The Snow Queen was one of my favorite stories as a kid.

Now if someone would just do East of the Sun and West of the Moon in a good way, because the only movie that I know of is The Polar Bear King, which is one I also liked as a child, but is definitely lacking when compared to how cool it could be.

And then I guess there's this movie about the making of Mary Poppins with Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney, and that sounds a little implausible, but pretty cool.

Speaking of movies coming out, my vhs copy of Little Mermaid had all these new exciting movies coming out, like Mulan, A Bug's Life, and the unfortunate Pocahontas sequel coming out in...1998!

Yeah....I felt old. Do you guys realize that was like fifteen years ago? Madness I say!

Reduced to Children by Grownups

2013-07-17T11:19:00.002-07:00

While my thoughts on my last post were still swirling into irrelevance, I got a wonderful taste of what total crap that belief is thanks to everyone in my life over forty-five.

I have the lovely misfortune of still living at home due to my pathetic income and lack of ownership of my car, so I get to be here and watch all of the "grownups" that I know treat me like I am too young.

My realization here is that everyone immediately starts saying, "I was never that young, and even if I was, I was smarter/more responsible/more experienced/etc." Nevermind the fact that my parents and two of siblings were married in their early twenties. I'm clearly too young to be treated as the adult I legally am by the people who know me well enough to know how I behave and how smart I am.

I first started realizing this at my parents' church. After I graduated high school, I floated around interacting with the collage-age and grown-up people there, and realized I was going to just be caught between the youth group, which I was now too old for and no longer allowed to attend, and the grown-up things, which I was not considered part of because I was too young. This isn't really a problem when kids go off to JBU (as most of their children there do), and only come back once in a while until they've graduated and gotten married, but with me and a handful of others, when you're there and they can't remember whether or not you're out of high school, no one will take you seriously.

I can accept that from strangers at a church I only go to because of my living arrangements. They're not expected to know what I'm like. It's irritating, but a necessary evil. It's when people that do know better do the same crap that it pisses me off.

We are not children set loose in an adult world to explore and do as we will. About half the time, we are adults being denied the world we have earned. We aren't trusted to make our own decisions, and when we assert our rightful independence, it's looked on with condescension and/or disapproval. We get advice and admonitions rather than encouragement, because god knows we're idiot children and don't know any better.

They will never take us seriously or respect us as our own, intelligent, autonomous individuals, because they'll never think of us as adults or their peers, regardless of how old we are. Thirty-four, three kids, a career, and you'll still be "just a kid."

We Are Children in an Adult World

2013-07-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, Audience.

You know that scene in Yes Man where Zooey Deschanel is at a concert, and she calls all the fans by name? There's like five of them, and then the rest of the venue is totally empty except for like two guys at the bar? (My brain just filled in Wallace and Other Scott before I realized what it was doing)
That's kind of how I feel referring to my nebulous "audience." Somewhat silly, but I think it would be sillier still to actively address my posts to specific people, because then it would just be a total waste to post them like this. That's the kind of thing that should place as a conversation or email or something. And usually does. Besides, how awkward would it be to name specific people who may or may not actually read my posts? Just because they're following my blog doesn't mean they actually follow my blog.

But I was having a conversation this morning about the awesomeness of being this age. The girl I was talking to was telling me that she's going to dye her hair white-blonde, and this is the time she can do it without looking ridiculous, because right now, we twenty-somethings are old enough to do what we want and make our own decisions, but not so old that we're expected to act like grownups.

I think I act more like a child now at nearly twenty-two than I did when I was nine or ten. You know why? Because I can, and it's fun. I have all the energy and madness to be a child, and I have all the privileges and legal abilities of an adult. Plus some disposable income, which only means I get to play even more.

I know I've said all this before (especially here), but I'm periodically reminded, and it strikes me as kind of awesome every time. We don't get to stay in the middle forever, and presumably someday some of us will have to start behaving like functional adults (like in our late seventies, or when we die), but right now we have this enormous gift of being young without being children.

All of our stupid, wild decisions get written off as being idiot kids, and we have control and accountability for ourselves. So if I decide I want to slide off a roof (which was awesome) and twist my ankle (which was hilarious), that's totally up to me. And the people who slid before and after me.

I am at the age when I can go have a couple of beers and then go play on a playground. And I do.

So go do something juvenile and awesome, guys. And if you're too old for that, mourn your wasted youth. Because your life isn't complete until, as an "adult," you've ridden the side of a shopping cart through Wal-Mart singing spy music, or chugged a gallon of chocolate milk, or eaten cookie dough and raced down a roof.

Words No One Should Use (Part 2)

2013-05-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Because I am largely a creature of my word, I shall finish my list of annoying words and phrases. Hopefully quickly, so that the posts are in the same month in the drop down menus. It's also going to be quick, because I have other things to do, and I'm in a less ranty frame of mind than last time.

-Pejoratives for race, gender, sexual practices, etc
This is just a common decency thing with me. If you're not a total worthless douchewaffle, you don't decide people are not worthy of respect based on anything other than their character. Treating them like crap because you don't agree with them is totally not okay. You don't get patted on the head for it, but you don't deserve to be lynched either. Using words to demean someone because of their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc just makes you more of an ass than you're saying they are. Except hipsters. It's okay to hate on them.

-The One
As you may have noticed if you've read basically any of my other posts, I passionately hate romance. When people talk about "The One" in any context other than The Matrix, it basically means you can write them off as a sappy moron and ignore anything else they have to say about people.

-True Love ____
Waits, is whatever, and so on. These phrases just irritate me, because they're not only stupid and/or obvious, they refer to "True Love," another idea I have absolute disdain for, because they mean it in the Disney sense. If we're talking "true" as in real or genuine, I have no issue, but those are far in the minority. People like the idea of having a Destiny, because they're not smart enough or strong enough to take responsibility for their own love life. Or most other things.

-Expecially
This just makes you sound like an illiterate waste of a free education. Can you not read phonetically? Sound it out, you imbeciles.

-Nucular
See above. If you look at a word letter by letter, you can probably say it right, and with simple words like this, there's no excuse.

-Punny
Who even invented this word? Why would people decide it's okay? It's obnoxious. Puns are supposed to be clever, and they're usually more annoying than not. This is some bastard child of "pun" and "funny," but it's totally unnecessary.

-Pointless letter changes to diffuse profanity
Here's a novel thought: Say what you mean! If you're going to use profanity, use it. If you're trying to be sensitive to people who may be too old or too young to hear those words, get a better vocabulary, and use a different word. Everyone knows what you mean, so you may as well have just used the obscenity you had in mind.