If Trees Had Thumbs

What're YOU lookin' at?

I just performed a Google Image search for "if trees had thumbs," and the sea of randomness that awaited me was quite astounding.  Based on the results I received, I think I might've made Google have a brain aneurism.  The first picture was a cat lying on a bed.  The second was a dog lying on a bed.  The seventh was a creature with the body of a human and the head of a cat, playing a video game.  Next came an image of two creatures, one with a woman's body and a cat's head, and the other with a man's body and a dog's head, sprawled out on a boardroom table having a thumb war.  I don't know what I was expecting when I ran that particular search...but certainly not any of that.


Lately I've been thinking about what the world would be like if other life forms protested things the way humans do.  What got me pondering this question was the recent initiative to slaughter massive numbers of barred owls to make room for more spotted owls.  Now, if I were a barred owl and also happened to have a large frontal lobe, opposable thumbs, and access to the news, I would totally make little signs with slogans like:


Down With Haters!  Barreds Are Owls, Too! 
Stop The Slaughter!  End Spotted Privilege!

Or I would just zap them with my death ray eyes.

I think we would encounter a lot of this type of activity if other life forms possessed the handy combo of large frontal lobe + opposable thumb (+ access to markers and poster board, I suppose).  Lionesses, for example, would finally have a platform to protest the bullshit treatment they receive from male lions.  We might see signs all over the Sahara with messages like:


I Kill It = I Eat First!
Lionesses Against Sex Biting
Stop Killing Our Cubs, You Crazy Fucks!

I've had it - I'm just gonna rip out your tongue.

Grass could protest the genocidal behavior of weeds.  Krill could protest their defenseless slaughter by whales.  Sweet little creatures like impala could protest everything, because pretty much all they do is wander around waiting to get eaten.  And dogs and cats could just protest the shit out of each other.  They'd be our new bipartisan rivalry.


But I think trees would have the most reasons for full-scale revolt.  Poor trees.  They don't do anything but grow placidly, offer serenity, clean our air, and produce oxygen, and they get treated like crap.  They're chopped to bits, polluted, carved in, tagged, peed on, and occasionally occupied by patchouli-smelling weirdos.

Could someone please get this stinky hippie off me?

Poor trees.  I think if trees had thumbs, it would prove even more devastating for humanity than a cat-woman, dog-man boardroom thumb war.  They would totally kick our asses, and then we'd have to say that we got our asses kicked by trees.  And that would be really embarrassing.

The Most Terriblest Day

Sometimes I feel like the entire universe is conspiring to depress me, and I think that's very rude.

"Screw you, Al.  Fond regards, The Universe"

Since I am currently dealing with that very phenomenon, to help myself feel better I've decided to create a hyperbolically awful day.  I am hopeful that this process will remind me that things could be so much worse and therefore will improve my mood dramatically.

Let the terrible day begin!

You wake up late due to an overnight power outage that screwed up your alarm clock.  You jump out of bed and step straight into a pile of cat barf.  Hopping into the bathroom on one foot, you lose your balance and fall, hitting your hip on the toilet and smearing cat barf all over the floor and bath mat.  After cleaning up the floor and putting the mat into the laundry, you take a shower.  While you're showering, you look up and discover that the ceiling above you is covered in black mold.  The hot water runs out right after you've finished shaving one leg.

There are hardly any coffee grounds left, but you don't have time to stop for coffee before work, so you just use what you have and hope for the best.  Your coffee ends up looking like dirty dishwater and tasting like nothing.  While you're lamenting that fact, you burn your breakfast which sets off the smoke alarm.  The shock of the earsplitting sound inspires your cat to barf again.  Your housemate comes out of her room and, in a very loud voice, informs you that you are inconsiderate, obnoxious, and practically impossible to live with.  She also lets you know that she hates your cat.


When you get to work, the parking lot is full.  You have to park 5 blocks away.  As you limp to the office (due to the hip injury you received in the bathroom), a passing car hits a pothole full of filthy road water and soaks you.  As you yell after the motorist, some of the water drips off of your hair and into your mouth.


Work sucks.  No one appreciates anything you do.  Your hard drive crashes.  No one cares.  When you tell your coworkers about it, they just tell you about times in the past when their hard drives crashed and how those experiences were much worse than what you're currently going through.

Narcissistic jerks!

When the work day is finally over, you step out of the office into a spontaneous, torrential downpour.  After you trudge the 5 blocks to your car, you realize that you parked in a 1-hour zone, thereby earning yourself a parking ticket which monetarily eliminates 3 hours of the work you just did.

Nooooooooo!!!!!

The drive home is a perfect shit storm.  There is gridlock traffic, which offers you ample time to hear lots of songs reminiscent of past break ups, tragedies, and dreams never realized.  You witness a cat getting hit by a car.  One of your front speakers blows out.  You stop off to get your favorite dinner as a pick-me-up, but that meal has been removed from the restaurant's menu "due to lack of interest."  After you eat a pathetic, disappointing alternative dish, you return to your car to discover that your window's smashed and your stereo has been stolen.

At least this negates the speaker blow-out issue

You call the police, and it takes them an hour to send an officer to take your report.  When the officer arrives, he laughs at your crappy car and remarks that the stereo "couldn't have been worth more than twenty bucks, anyway."  Since it's raining, the interior of your car is soaking wet, and you endure a windowless, cold, soggy drive home.  When you're about ten minutes away from your house, the rain turns to hail.  


When you arrive home, ready to collapse into a miserable heap on the couch, your housemate decides that now would be the perfect time to bring up issues regarding your lack of responsibility with dishwashing and completing other household chores.  Since you (a) can't remember the last time your housemate washed a dish, and (2) have had a really shitty day, you shout at her and call her a hypocritical asshole.  She proceeds to start crying and tells you that she just found out her dad has cancer.


Your cat then begins running around the house barfing.  The dog runs after the cat, eating the barf, which makes you want to barf, so you yell at the dog, who then cowers and looks at you like this:

How could you be so cruel??

You decide to go to bed early in an attempt to end this day.  When you pull back the covers to get into bed, you see 3 fleas jump off the sheets.  You proceed to stay up for most of the night, scratching, twitching, and only briefly falling into bouts of anxiety-dream-ridden sleep.

Wait...WHY did I go shopping naked again?

All right, that worked.  I do feel better.  Compared to all of that, my life is going just swimmingly.  Hooray for downward social comparison!

The Times They Have A-Changed

Last weekend, I attended the Portland Chocolate Festival.  I chose to go on the opening night, even though the entrance fee was twice as much, because it was a 21+ event and I didn't want to deal with running, shrieking, sticky-fingered children at a gigantic, candy-based festivity.


As a kid, I found the concept of "adults only" incredibly offensive.  I couldn't understand why adults wouldn't want kids around for everything.  After all, kids were cute, smart, funny, and in general simply made situations better!  Why wouldn't you want a bunch of them frolicking in the public pool while you're trying to swim laps?


As an adult, my opinions have changed dramatically.  Not only do I enjoy kid-free events, but I also find things repellant that I used to love as a kid, and vice versa - I now enjoy things that I associated with pure doom during my childhood.  For example...


WINTER


When I was a kid, winter was one of the greatest things ever.  Winter meant snow, and snow meant forts, snow ball fights, days home from school, sledding, snow men, and hot cocoa.  But this is how I feel about snow nowadays:

If I didn't have to shovel it, clean off my car, or drive in the crap, perhaps I'd still like it...although I've also developed a strong adversity to being cold, so actually snow can just suck it.  Winter can suck it as well. Winter is cold, wet, dark, and stupid.


QUIET TIME


As a child, the following image would have embodied the pinnacle of coma-inducing ennui:

But now when I look at it, I think - wow.  That looks lovely.  How do I get to go there?


When I was young, I was never bothered by noise and equated silence with boredom.  I remember once being on a road trip with my older sister and parents.  During the long drive, my sister and I played game after game (e.g., I Packed My Grandmother's Trunk; I Spy; 20 Questions; Who Stole The Cookie From the Coo-Coo-Kie Jar; etc.).  After a couple of hours we ran out of games and asked my parents for suggestions.  My dad said, "How about if we play a game that's absolutely silent?"  While my sister and I had been trying to entertain ourselves to keep from going stir crazy, my poor father was about to lose his mind after listening to hours of his children's endless chattering and laughter.  At the time I didn't get it, but now I do.


As an adult, I think it's funny that I used to consider it a punishment to be sent to my room.  These days, I would love to get sent to my room to think about what I've done.  That sounds very relaxing.

Ahhh...time to myself.  What a luxury.

BEDROOM LIGHTING


As a kid, I had no tolerance for darkness in my bedroom at night.  I slept with a nightlight on *and* the door open about halfway, with the hall light on.  I needed lots of light.  This would've been a good product for me in my youth:

Seriously?  It takes up the entire fucking wall!

As an adult, however, when I go to sleep at night, I want my room to look like this:

I don't want to be able to see a single thing.  If there's a sliver of moonlight coming in through a crack in the curtains, I feel like:  "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!  LIIIIIIIIGHT!"  Whereas when I was a child, at bedtime I was more like, "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! DAAAAARK!"


FOOD


Glasses of milk and huge amounts of red, rare meat were on my preferred menu when I was a kid.  I also hated spicy food and would question spice-eaters regarding how they could enjoy a food that made them hurt.  Nowadays, the thought of drinking a glass of milk makes me want to barf.  I haven't eaten meat since 1994, and I enjoy food so spicy that it would cause most people's taste buds to supernova.

Mmmm...give me some of whatever he's having!

Of course, there are plenty of other differences between me at 6 and me at 36.  I don't need to be told ten times (or at all) to pick up after myself.  I can't imagine why anyone would enjoy playing make believe games like "school" or "house," because now I've lived those experiences, and they're not very fun.  I don't like playing the same game, listening to the same story, or watching the same movie over and over and over because that is just fucking insane.  And I have excellent motor skills.  I remember being really envious of adults' motor skills when I was a kid, and now I've got them.  Ha!

Yes, the times they have a'changed.  Thirty years ago, I would've merrily crawled out of my snow fort, eaten a burger with a big glass of milk, asked for the same bedtime story three times in a row, and fallen asleep with the lights on.  But tonight I'm going to crank up the heat and pretend it's summer, stand on one leg while I eat a habañero spiced tempeh wrap, send myself to my room to think about what I've done, and fall asleep in pitch darkness.  Sounds lovely.

America, The Gingerbread Man

Unfortunately, in the USA, we have just entered another presidential election year.


While I do my best to avoid political yammering, recently I've heard a great deal of nonsense from yucky people who claim to love America. When I hear their claims, I find myself confused, because *I* love America (or rather, the United States of America; I'm not overly familiar with the other Americas, although I've heard nice things), and yet I tend to believe I have little in common with these 'Murica-lovin' yahoos.


This strange situation has gotten me thinking about what it means to love America. What are the American people made of? What do we value, and what is there to love about this country? Therefore, I have decided to map out exactly what I believe Americans love about America, and the canvas for my map will be this cute little gingerbread dude:

I am America!

[As I lead us through the mapping process, please keep in mind that I am aware the USA is flawed. While outlining the reasons why America is lovable, I will utilize broad, sweeping generalizations that may, in fact, be founded primarily on myth. But try to stay with me here.]


As Americans, we have the right to think what we want. This can lead to inventions, brand new theories about existence and the universe, and annoying, drunken debates at parties. While there are all sorts of devious entities working to manipulate our thought processes, we ultimately have the freedom to think however we choose. And that's a nice thing. Here it is on the gingerbread map:

Americans love their freedom of speech. Unfortunately, freedom of speech can lead to people saying dumb and hateful things, but it also allows for other people to inform the haters exactly where they can stick their dumb opinions. For obvious reasons, I will place our love for freedom of speech right on the mouth:

Yay, I can say dumb things! And you can tell me to shut the fuck up!

Americans are adventurous. We enjoy and find value in exploring new lands, seas, and solar systems.  We travel widely and bless the world with our Americanness. Ah ha ha ha ha...anyway, I'll put America's love of adventure on the little guy's feet:

This cookie was made for walkin'.

There is, in the heart of America, a desire to help those in need. We send both funds and ourselves to other places in times of crisis. We work to protect endangered species, rainforests, and other vulnerable stuff. In short, we care. [Except for those of us who don't, but let's not think about those people right now.] The gingerbread man's little helping hand will symbolize that aspect of America:

America values creativity, and we demonstrate this through our fashion, music, movies, and other forms of art. A lot of it is horrible, but whatchagonnado? One man's poop on a plate is another man's masterpiece.

Only creative gingerbread men have snazzy bow ties.

Here is the part of the map signifying America's love for Strawberry Shortcake:

???

[Okay, that came out of nowhere. Really I just have a bunch of Strawberry Shortcake stickers and am trying to get rid of them. I'm not implying that Americans don't love Strawberry Shortcake. I just don't think that our love for her is intricately woven into the fabric of this country.]


America has created brand new industries (then promptly shipped them overseas) and is a country of workers (or at least people who are looking for work). Whoops...I think my rose-colored glasses must've slipped off. Just a moment, please...


America is a country of workers! We are an industrious bunch, continually building, developing, sitting at desks doing God-knows-what, marketing, manufacturing...uh, sewing, and...um, cobbling, and doing other stuff. I utilized the gingerbread man's buttons to symbolize American industriousness because somehow that seemed appropriate:

Americans love their families and are committed to humanity. We love our friends, totally care about our neighbors (what were their names again?), and appreciate diversity, as long as it doesn't make us too uncomfortable. The gingerbread man's little purple heart will signify this commitment:

Finally, we come to a part of America that some people love, and it is this part that distinguishes me from the sociopathic politicos I've had the misfortune to hear speak lately. It is an aspect of Americanism I don't associate with, but I also realize that, unlike Strawberry Shortcake, it is indeed something that is woven into the fabric of the USA. That part is this: In America, some people have the ability to accumulate and hoard huge amounts of wealth, which they then utilize for their own grossly excessive personal gain.


I'll put that part right where it belongs:

I call this America's anus.


America's anus doles out a lot of crap, both crap we have to deal with in this country and crap we get overseas. People who love America's anus will do anything to accumulate wealth, even if it means building a gigantic fortress from the skulls of babies, puppies, and endangered species. For whatever reason, it is vital for them to amass as much of the world's resources as possible, and they can take it with them, goddammit it, so don't tell them they can't or they'll send their teams of lawyers after you.


As a rule, I try to have limited contact with buttholes, so while I maintain my love for the USA, I will do so without paying homage to its anus. I'll leave that to our nation's wealth addicts. I just wish we had some form of methadone to wean them off the green stuff, as the harmfulness of their addiction radiates outwards, squishing all in its path.


If I were President, I would end this post as follows:


"God bless you, and God bless the United States of America, even its anus. Because I guess shit needs to come out somewhere."

I Love My Mom

This morning, my uterus tried to kill me.  Over the years, I have come to the unfortunate realization that my reproductive system apparently was constructed by Satan himself.  And Satan, who seemingly is particularly cranky during the Christmas season, thought it would be a very funny thing indeed to give me the gift of menstruation during my Christmas vacation to my parents' house, and just for extra giggles, he decided to make this month extra super duper torturous by sending his minions to do this:

After four ibuprofen failed to make a dent in my crampage this morning, and because I was in so much pain I could hardly move, I texted my mom, who was downstairs, and asked her to please bring me some bread, water, and more pills.  She came up right away with everything, and as soon as she was in the room, I burst into tears.  You'd think that the mother of a 36 year-old wouldn't have to deal with owies and tears anymore, but clearly that's not the case.


After I calmed down, my mom let me know that, right before she'd received my text, she'd gotten a phone call from my sister, who was in the living room, asking her if she could please bring her a warm washcloth.  Considering the methods we were utilizing to contact my mother, one might believe my parents dwell in a palatial estate, but actually the only thing between the family room (where my mom was) and the living room (where my sister was) is a hallway.  However, at the time of the phone call, my sister was in the process of nursing her newborn son, so she wasn't exactly mobile.  That hallway might as well have been the size of Canada.


All of this is to say that my mom, who has a terrible cold, spent her morning receiving calls and texts from various rooms in her house and then dashing from room to room, saving her daughters.  That is because my mom is a hero.

Here she is flying up the stairs with water, bread, and ibuprofen

If I were to expound on everything my mother has taught, told, or done for me throughout my life, this post would be 10 million words long.  How could I explain everything someone who has loved and cared for me unconditionally for almost 4 decades has done?  Suffice it to say:  if it weren't for my mother, I would be dead thousands of times over, and if I weren't completely dead, I would be utterly physically, mentally, and/or emotionally deranged.


When I trained mentors for children in foster care, I told them that all children need and deserve unconditional care, and the way I defined that for the trainees was:  the kind of care a person can take for granted, knowing that it will always be there.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up

I'm sorry to say that I know I've taken my mother's care for granted plenty of times over the years, but that's just because she's so damn good at being unconditional!  So I blame her.  


Okay...not really.


I'd also like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to my dad, who did me the great favor of going to the store today and making his first ever, after 68 years of life, purchase of a box of tampons.  Thanks, Dad!

Here are four of my favorite living creatures on the planet

Blog Block

I think I may have run out of things to say, or perhaps just the will to say anything.  Since I hit my one year anniversary, I seem to have come down with a severe case of Blog Block.  Occasionally I'll get a flash of potential subject matter, but soon after the flash, negative self-talk begins.  My brain tells me things like:

• That's dumb.
• No one cares.
• That'll be complicated to write.  You don't have the skills.
• You should just watch another old "Lost" episode and go to bed.

I believe this type of thinking is indicative of the fact that I am entering, or have already entered, a state of dysthymia.  To those of you unfamiliar with that term, dysthymia looks, and feels, much like this:

Apparently, Dysthymia is also a defunct, Icelandic metal band.  Who knew?

Essentially, dysthymia is low-level depression.  Everything that a dysthymic person perceives is filtered through a lens of general cynicism and despair.  When one is in this state, friends seem like acquaintances, acquaintances seem like strangers, and strangers seem like enemies.  Nothing is particularly good, and most things are potentially awful.


Several years ago, my husband had an interaction with a stranger which perfectly illustrates dysthymic perception.  He went to a beach in Santa Cruz and was staring out at the ocean when another man walked up and stood by him.  They stood in silence for a few moments before the man said, "The ocean is filthy.  It's completely full of shit.  Whale shit, human shit, bird shit, fish shit.  It's just a giant toilet bowl."


Some people look at the ocean and see a beautiful, majestic, supremely powerful entity.  Their perception of life changes as they stare out at a seemingly endless, timeless body of water.  They feel insignificant and powerless, yet simultaneously serene and enamored by the beauty of this planet.

Apparently, other people look at the ocean and see this:

Those people are experiencing dysthymia.  And so am I.  I intend to be over it as soon as possible.

Yay For Me

So first of all, I just need to say that I already wrote this fucking post.  Yesterday I wrote the whole thing and saved it as a draft.  Earlier this evening I was simply taking a final look at it before pressing "publish post," but then I decided I wanted to alter one image, so I selected the image and hit "remove image."  However, instead of removing that image, the entire post deleted itself and then saved itself immediately in its new, completely blank form.  I guess I should have specified that "remove image" meant "remove this particular image that I have clearly selected" rather than "remove image, and by image I mean the entire fucking post."


FUCK.


Okay, time for the recreation process.  Have you ever written an entire paper, lost it somehow, and then had to go through the mental exercise of deciding that the next draft would be better?  Yeah, I never believed it, either.

Today is If Satan Were Anal Retentive's one year anniversary.  Fweet!  Let the party begin.


The last year has been eventful.  I returned to kickboxing after a yearlong hiatus.  I became a volunteer dog walker at a local shelter, making the transition from volunteering with humans, which I did for 10+ years, to volunteering with dogs.  This was a stellar move.  Plus, I became an auntie.  All of these things have been quite cool.


I have also come to a couple of critical realizations over the past year which may or may not have serious implications.


Realization #1:  I am currently that adult who, when entering a classroom after being away for a brief period of time, causes an immediate hush to fall over the room as students quickly and guiltily return to their assignments.  Yup, that's me.  It is so disturbing.  Students also ask me if they may be permitted to go use the bathroom.  I cannot even begin to explain how weird that is.  I have been granted the authority to dictate if and when young people relieve themselves.  That makes me feel like this:

Sit down!  Shut up!  Memorize your multiplication tables!

I am not a teacher, but apparently I impersonate one at my workplace.  I suppose that, through the eyes of students, any staff member at their school is a "teacher."  All school-dwelling adults guilty of the crimes of attempting to impart knowledge and maintain some semblance of order and productivity are smacked with the label "teacher."  However, I'm not a teacher.  I've never wanted to be a teacher.  Hmph.


Historically, whenever I've left a job, it has been with a list of prerequisites for my next job.  For example, when I retired from the domestic violence field, it was with the understanding that none of my future job titles could contain the words abuse, violence, or assault.  My latest requirement for future employment is that I will in no way, shape, or form be responsible for other people's toileting practices.  You wanna go pee?  Go pee.  I don't want to be involved.


Realization #2:  Despite the loveliness and many fine qualities of this city, I am not a Portlander.  I know one of the things that attracted me to Portland is that it has a dark edginess about it which I appreciate.  However, what I've realized over the past few years is that my darkness, which is anger-based, actually isn't a fit with Portland's darkness, which is melancholy-based.  And while I do realize that anger is something people use to cover up uncomfortable, gloomy feelings like overwhelming sadness, I think the reason people do so is because sadness is...well, a total bummer and really fucking depressing, while anger generally feels, if not particularly good, at least pretty powerful & cool.


In short, currently I feel like a Pantera Girl living in a Morrissey World.  For you visual learners out there:

This is me

...and

This is Portland

Well, there's my year-in-review analysis, folks, and I'm stickin' to it.  I look forward to bringing you all plenty of additional non-magnanimous ranting throughout the coming year, or at least until 12/21/2012, the world's scheduled date of implosion.