The things that go through my head

Yes, I realize that it’s a day late and a dollar short but Merry X-mas anyway. I have to admit that I was dreading the whole painful ritualistic ordeal. As a mother of two children, a consumer in a wealthy privileged honky white society and a tool of the patriarchy, I am under enormous pressure to spend money I don’t have on crap that I don’t need. I did have a Christmas tree covered with shiny useless gaudy junk but I did adorn it with cephalopods and tiny stoned Jamaican angels. I didn’t buy my child that Nintendo DS that she had her heart set on but I did buy Rock Band 2. I am spoiled and pampered enough and I have enough free time that I got bored of Rock Band 1. I didn’t buy Rock Band 2 as a Christmas present but as an impulse buy on Boxing Day. Yay consumerism!

What business do any of us have buying this junk while we teeter on the edge of ecological collapse? I should be spending my extra spending money on replacing my storm windows and recycling my milk jugs or new fridges! It’s too bad that my meager efforts will make a minor difference in the whole grand scheme of things. That’s how I justify my lifestyle to myself.

I am trying to convince myself that going back to school and getting an education so I can further my career is a terrible idea. I mean, once I get tired of my current role in the educational institution I can always sell furniture or work at Wal-mart. I know that carrying on in my current role as an educational assistant just might drive me crazy, but how do I know that I won’t go through the same thing once I get done with school. I don’t and that’s what bugs me. Oh well. I will just play Rock Band and forget about it.

I also have to admit that I used to read Lucy Maud Montgomery from time to time. She specialized in flowery chick lit. All the stories upheld patriarchal values in some way. The main female character desperately longed for love and marriage and babies and lived happily ever after. Anne of Green Gables did get a bachelor of education and teach school for three years but she also wasn’t truly happy until she got married and became Mrs. Dr. Gilbert Blythe (typing that makes me feel nauseous) and relieved her achy, throbbing uterus syndrome with 7 children. Seven children! They didn’t believe in birth control back then and it showed. Even a doctors’ wife can’t avoid child-bearing, even when it almost kills her!

At this point you are probably wondering why I am going on at length about old Lucy Maude, that cornerstone of feminine Canadian literature that she is. You see, even though I know that she wrote some of the most atrocious fiction, the beginnings of feminism took root. I remember reading one of her books, not the Anne series, and there was an older female character who admitted that she would do anything to have the opportunity to get an education. The characters did contemplate that perhaps they should be allowed to vote or go to school. This was just like the real world, like any half-decent fiction is. I often wonder what our ancestors from a mere 100 years ago would think of our current world, with its totally uprooted social mores. What would they think of me spending hours playing video games when I could be doing something useful, like getting an education or becoming some sort of loud-mouthed activist? Don’t I just take all my opportunities for granted?

Not only that, but I have to admit that school gets to me sometimes. I see the problems with these institutions and hierarchies that we humans love to create. The educational system is full of them too. I see these problems and feel helpless to do anything about it. What is one educational assistant against hundreds of years of tradition? I can’t even shelter my own children from the problems of school. I can merely teach them how to tolerate it. Should I get a degree and become one of them? I do love learning new things and explaining all about it in great detail to anyone who will pretend to be paying attention. Don’t you know what this means? I will be an awesome teacher. I will be so great that the whole institution will reform its ways and kittens and rainbows will follow me wherever I go.

I just want school to be about learning, instead of encouraging conformity and asserting your authority because you can, even when you shouldn’t. I want school to quit being pointless busywork and drills and rote learning in isolation from the real world. I am sick of marks and grades and ranks and head pats and report cards and evaluations and the whole lot of it. I am sick of the way that I can launch into a “teacher speech” without even thinking about it, to berate some kid for making a mistake.

In conclusion, either I have to figure out a way to live with school or I have to change careers.

Will I ever find my very own Edward?

Oh wait, I already had an emotionally abusive bad boy that treated me like crap. It’s over-rated girls, it really is.

A recovering Mormon read the Twilight series so you don’t have to. Go ahead and read and laugh.

This was good for a laugh.

The drug war gets stupider. Today’s story is about the manufacturer’s of plastic penises, known as the Whizzinator, marketed on the internet to help you pass your drug test. George Wills and Robert Catalano face up to eight years in jail and a $500, 000 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy.

Instead of realizing that drug testing is a wasteful fraud and doing something useful to help addicts that need it, the Feds go after the creators of the Whizzinator. I wonder how long it will take for someone to find a different way to foil your drug test. A google search turns up many other products designed to help you continue your drug habits without letting THE MAN get you down. It looks like they will be really busy if they plan to arrest all these people.

Of course, putting a stop to drug abuse isn’t really the point. That is impossible and I believe that most people who give it some thought, realize that. Instead, we should be trying to limit the harm that drug abuse can do to people. If they want and need some help and support to quit a harmful habit, give them the support they need. If people are using drugs in the privacy of their own home and not harming anybody else, leave them alone. Arresting drug users and imposing expensive and useless tests that can be foiled with equipment widely available on the internet is not the way to go about “helping” drug abusers.

This made me lol. I will have to finish reading this when I get home from school.

I don’t know why but I find this story hilarious. A couple split up because of an affair that the male half of the couple had while on Second Life. The couples’ whirlwind romance which led inevitably into the trap that is known as the nuclear family and monogamous marriage, began on the internet while the couple were playing Second Life. They met and fell in love but did not live happily ever after. I have no right to make fun of these people for falling in love while indulging in an incredibly nerdy game, as I myself met my life partner (but interestingly enough non-husband) while interacting with an online community. But I really do have a difficult time imagining myself getting upset because of what my partner does online. Maybe I am not nearly clingy enough. Oh no, he had imaginary sex! I can’t imagine having imaginary sex on Second Life either, though. It’s just weird. What is the point? Give me the real deal anytime.

One time, after reading Jesus General, I decided to join Second Life to see what all the fuss was about. I downloaded the game and I started making myself an avatar. As a delicate fragile female creature, I only had the option of being a dainty, skinny hotty. That prospect did not sit well with me, as I am hot and skinny enough in real life and I wished to have a different body type while playing make-believe. But that was not an option unless I went to some extra trouble. Then I got bored because there was a picture of a kitten in my RSS feed and that was the end of that. RPG’s bore me to death. But I sure do like my Wii that my BFFFL bought for the family. I can drive race-cars and throw turtle shells at my family members and pwn them off the race track. I can also play rock songs badly and shoot blocks for points.

What’s the point of this rambling post? Oh yeah, marriage is pointless. Don’t ever get married, not even if you’re lavish marriage ceremony takes place on a computer server and doesn’t cost you a cent. Even on Second Life in a fantasy world, marriage confirms to troublesome patriarchal societal values. The bride still wears a white dress and the groom wears a tuxedo. He probably swept her off of her feet and made her wait for a hokey marriage proposal on bended knee where lifelong allegiance was pledged in exchange for control of sex organs. It’s still an ode to male dominance and female submission. Romantic rituals make me itch. Don’t do it! Run while you can, ladies. Only get married if you like being a complete and utter tool of the patriarchy.

I found this awesomeness at Caroline McCarthy’s blog via Pharyngula, of course.

Anti vaccination nut gets pwned. I am very impressed that this got past the censors. I guess that’s what you get for not knowing what a rickroll is.

I know that the video is hard to hear but listen to it a few times anyway. It’s worth it.

PS: I love this song. Call me cheesy all you want!

More funniness from Sarah Haskins.  Since the embedding doesn’t seem to be working, here is a link.