Thanksgivings

This morning I woke up around 3 AM here on the east coast (though I think North Carolina is more considered the south) and couldn't get back to sleep for more than half hour bursts at a time. Finally I decided to rise up before dawn, sit outside in the cold with a much-too-early cigarette, and then make myself some hot chocolate. Then I thought, hey! Why not channel all this energy (I'm lying - I have very little energy) into something positive? I thought my brain could use a break from thinking about all the things that are wrong with the world. Or at least everyone around me could use a break from having to listen to those things. While I plan to write a more extensive list come New Year's, let's talk about some of the things that have made my life worth being thankful for.

Family - Originally I felt like this was a cop-out since so many people list family first. Then I realized that these days that's definitely not a guarantee, since so many families kinda suck. My family does not suck, however, and I'm grateful for them every day. 

I have a mother who loves being a mother. When people ask me about her, that's the first thing I say. She just loves being a mom. She is not only the breadwinner of the family, but she cooks, cleans, organizes, gives advice, walks for causes, snuggles me when I'm sad, and overall rocks. I'm 100% aware that if she were to die any time soon, I wouldn't be able to function as an adult. Maybe that means I'm not very good at being an adult, but I do love relying on my mom and I know she wouldn't have it any other way. From her I get my love of meeting new people, which I didn't realize until recently. She's crafty beyond all reason, and she generally knows the answer to every question I ever have. Even if she doesn't, I just tell her to make it up so I don't feel let down. She and I have developed a pretty solid bond over the years and I love her immeasurably.

My father is a fighter for everything in life. He fights for the underdogs, and he fought when he had his stroke. People say I get my determination from him, but I think they overestimate me because his is far more terrifying. Every six months he goes through either a healthy phase or a heavy duty cleaning/ organizing phase. I do happen to get about 80% of my personality traits from him. We both love to travel, try new foods, be responsibly wild, and hide in our respective rooms when we don't feel like being social. He is often one of the only people who can calm me down when I'm anxious, and he's a brilliant role model.

My younger brother is one of my favorite people on the planet! We are at once complete opposites and exactly alike. He cooks for me and watches movies with me and listens to me rant. We finish each other's sentences, laugh at each other's jokes and constantly weird each other  out. I don't know how it's still possible for him to freak me out so often, but he's a strange guy. I'm always forgetting he's an adult, but he's turned into such a great one. 

My older brother and I aren't as close as we could be, but he's a strong man. He's financially stable, happily married, and has served our country for many years. He and his wife (my glorious sister-in-law) make a beautiful family that I admire and respect.

Love - I know friends was supposed to come next, but I broke that mold. I'm such a fan of love, guys. Such a fan! I'm convinced that love is the most powerful thing in existence. Love is responsible for friendships and enemies. Love creates life and beauty. Love is from God. As I always say, love is the gift that keeps on giving. It's the one thing that the more you give, the more you have. It grows. Love doesn't make sense. It's this crazy, wacky, messed up ideal that we struggle daily to comprehend. It causes us to make sacrifices that no one else understands. It makes us cry when we're happy. It's overwhelming and heartbreaking all at once. One of my favorite new quotes is, "There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never." I spend my life loving the shit out of everything and everyone that I can, and I'm constantly willing to fight for love.

Gratitude - I live my life in a constant state of awe. I resolved myself ages ago to never take anything for granted. It's a blessing and a curse. Everything amazes me constantly, which brings a new light to everything I do. I still don't understand how CD's work. Technology confuses me, and we use it all the time. Animals delight me. I try to actively humanize everyone I meet in order to remember that they are worthy of love, even when no one else thinks so. Science, which drives so many into thinking there is no God, only confirms for me how complex my Supreme Being is. I'm thankful that I have this ability, because it means my life is never boring. 

Friends - Here they are. I have an incredible friend base. I have an eclectic set of groups that I can rely on to satisfy all my human requirements. I have my faith based friends who I can talk to about God and life whenever I need to. They are there for me spiritually and emotionally, and I love them dearly. I have my wild groups that I can party with and spend time with. I have friends from every walk of life who accept me for who I am without question. I have an adorable boyfriend who gives me so many snuggles. I'm thankful every day for the people I've met in my life who have taught be valuable skills and assets and who love me.

Life - Again, this seems like a cop-out, but life is so incredible. I don't know what I've done to be blessed with a life that has done me more good than harm, but I definitely don't try to take that for granted either. I don't assume it will always be as wonderful as it has been for this past year, specifically, but I know that when new obstacles come my way, I've been given the tools I need to overcome them.

Overall, I'm very thankful on this holiday for the life I lead. Though I've gone through some crazy shit, I keep trucking because that's the only option. It's not a requirement to keep living, but it's the greatest gift. I don't want to squander it. 

Happy Thanksgiving, my loved ones! I could not be who I am today without you.

In Which I Discuss My Awe for the Reproductive System

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're living in the 21st century where almost everything under the sun is acceptable, but I'm genuinely confused whenever I meet someone - especially a woman - who thinks childbirth or any part of it is disgusting.

There are two issues for me here that I should clarify - people who don't find childbirth as miraculous and awe inspiring as I do, and people who just find it plain gross. If I look objectively, I can maybe sorta kinda barely understand the latter, but I have a difficult time conceptualizing the former.

The entire biology behind creating a life (animals included) 100% amazes me every single time I think about it...which is a lot. Let's start at the beginning. I'll try to be brief about how the reproduction system works, since I know we all learned it ten or twenty years ago.

Here we have the common sperm. They are tiny, they are adorable (yes, seriously), they are many. What astonishes me about sperm is, in fact, how small they are. Human males dispense anywhere from 180-500 million sperm per ejaculation. This is especially incredible to think about when you take into account that sperm only make up about 5-10% of the seminal fluid. This means there are millions of these microscopic swimmers per drop of semen.

Next we have the average egg. While it was originally thought that women were only born with a certain amount of eggs, newer (yet controversial) studies are finding that we might be able to produce more after all. However, the egg only has one chance a month to be fertilized. The window is a mere 12-48 hours out of an entire month!

From here we all know that the sperm (with half the soon-to-be-person's DNA) eventually meets the egg (with the other half), a few break down the walls and one finally gets inside. I bring the two main components up because, again, I want to illustrate the size of them. They are both naked to the human eye and yet when they come together they create life. It's how every single one of us got here.

After this, the process of the zygote becoming a tiny person inside someone blows my mind. Did you know an embryo has a heartbeat by the second month? I've seen it. This little thing the size of a grain of rice has a heart. It's incredible. And think about the rate at which this whole human ends up being developed! I read somewhere (and I can't find the source to site, but I promise I read this) that if a baby grew outside of the womb as fast as it did inside the womb it would eventually become as large as Mt. Everest.

I could go on and on about the actual facts of reproduction, but what I'm most curious about is the effect - or lack thereof - it has on people. Of course it's a very common thing. It happens everywhere we look, and it's been happening since the dawn of time in regards to most things organic. Nevertheless, it's hard for me to understand the lack of awe people have towards it. We literally came from nothing, each of us. Not only that, but many of us have the power to make that happen again. Whether you choose to exercise that power is not my concern in any way. Whether you've given birth, lost one, had an abortion, or none of the above - I'm not here to judge. The fact that we can do any of those is what's so cool.

Having said all that, I think you can tell I'm not someone to be made squeamish by pregnancy. As appalled as I am by people's lack of wonder (in their defense, anyone can get used to anything), I equally react when I meet people who are actually disgusted by the process. You know what's totally weird? Women bleed out of their vaginas every single month. We get over that. Television advertises the detailed uses of tampons and pads. It's not a a big deal. You know what else is totally weird (in that really cool way I mentioned above)? Women push babies out of their vaginas, too. Then they often feed them nutrients from their own breasts which have naturally created sustenance.  For some reason, though, this is actually disturbing to people. Having a baby is a slimy, bloody affair. When something comes from your very insides, it's not going to be clean. When something has latched onto your uterus and stretched you out and pushed itself outside of an opening that you once thought would never allow it to, it's going to hurt and it's going to be visually shocking. But disgusting? So repugnant that you wouldn't want to be in the room to watch a loved one go through with it? I can't fathom it.

Despite the fact that I still haven't decided if I even want children or not, it's become extremely important to me that if I find a future settling down mate (also known as a "spouse") they don't have an aversion to reproduction and all it entails. As soon as someone tells me how gross they think it is, part of me is a little sad as I think about their future spouse (who isn't me at this point) possibly having to go through their labor alone.

So listen - I'm totally not telling you all to go out and have babies. I'll be the first to tell you we have a major population problem. I'm also not telling you to hug every pregnant woman you see, because I know most of them hate that. What I'm asking is that you maybe truly think about the actual wonder of it, just for a minute. To think about life that came from nothing more than an 5-22 second (truth) orgasm. It's flipping amazing.

Waste Not

I don’t know if you know this, but I love lists. I’m a freak about making them, and not at all swell at following them. I’m that girl who writes, “Make list” at the top of the page just so I’ll have something to check off later and thus feel accomplished. This is only relevant because that’s the format of today’s post.

Today’s topic is waste! It’s a mostly unnecessary rant about a few of the things I find most wasteful in today’s world.

(I apologize in advance to Scott who has suffered through most of these before.)

1)  Leaf blowers – The leaf blower was possibly invented in the 1950’s (no one seems to know for sure) and it was not, in fact, made for blowing leaves. It was originally intended to spray chemicals (right off the bat it was not environmentally friendly).

My problem with the leaf blower is obvious – they pollute the environment and they’re obnoxious. Let’s also take into consideration what they do. They blow shit from one area to another. You’re not removing the problem; you’re just pushing it aside. It’s like when you used to clean your room by shoving everything under your bed. That’s not making things any better; you still have to sort through that junk eventually.  

2)   Plastic:

a.       Sandwich bags – it is absolutely outrageous that we even use these. Imagine that you have one child who you send to school daily with a sandwich. That’s about 180 school days of plastic baggies that then get thrown away to sit in a landfill for hundreds of years. Now multiply that by every child in every school across the world.

b.      Straws – Yes, I complain about this on a weekly basis, but I’m dead serious about it. The other day a barista gave me double straws in my coffee and I was irritated for about an hour. Maybe I was overreacting, but really? Coffee lids (bad enough that they’re plastic too) have holes in them for drinking out of. It’s not rocket science. According to simplystraws.com, “More than 500 million disposable plastic straws are used in the United States every day and would fill more than 127 school buses daily, or more than 46,400 school bus loads per year”. I don’t know about you, but this literally gives me anxiety. 500 million per day, and that’s just the United States!

c.       INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED PRUNES This is another thing that I become positively livid over whenever I see them. I shit you not, these exist. I’m not sure why anyone needs to preserve prunes when they’re already a dried fruit. I’m also not sure who decides it’s ever necessary to eat only one prune.

d.      CD wrappers – we all hate these, mostly because they’re annoying as hell to open.  What you probably never even consider is that it’s just wasteful.

e.   Bottled water - Water is free, people. It's free! Approximately only 13% of water bottles actually end up getting recycled. That leaves the rest to sit around in landfills, leaching toxins into the air for hundreds of years. Stop it.

I think you can see by now that single use plastic is of the devil, so I’ll end that sub list here.

3     3)      Graveyards - I’m aware that death is something that we still don’t fully comprehend and are a little scared of. I think that most cultures agree by now, however, that if there is a soul it doesn't stay in the body once life has ended. As such, I believe cemeteries are taking up way too much space on our earth – millions of acres and counting. It would be one thing if we buried our dead without a coffin. In that way, they could decompose and give back to the earth like many of our ancestors did. This coffin business is out of hand, though. Caskets are hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. They have pillows and blankets and all sorts of fancy accouterments to keep the dead comfortable. Last I checked, though, the dead don’t really require a lot of comfort. I understand the desire to pay tribute to a loved one, and I understand that it’s hard to let someone go. Cemeteries offer a place for people to visit when they’re missing someone, but keep in mind that our population is up to over 7 billion. That’s a lot of lives and it’s going to be a lot of deaths. We’re already destroying enough of the planet while we’re alive; maybe once we die we could agree to cut it some slack.

(Check out this article on some of the ways other cultures used to dispose of their dead: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/10-extraordinary-burial-ceremonies-from-around-the-world/ I’m not advocating for all of them, but I definitely enjoy the ones where they leave the bodies outside to be eaten by wild animals)

4) Cat toys - You know what cats play with? Anything they want. String, grass, your toes, your hair, your nose, small woodland creatures. They don't need man made toys (...especially ones made out of plastic)

5) Baby toys - In that same vein, babies also don't need a lot of toys. They're babies. They play with basically anything cats do. As long as you're not letting them chew on electric chords, they should be fine. What babies really need for the first year of their life is lots of face time with humans and pets who love them. They need nurturing and someone to keep them safe. Interpersonal development starts young!

6) Any happy meal or vending machine toy - Again, these are just pieces of plastic that people end up throwing away because their kids already have too many toys. They don't promote creative development. They're a waste of the manufacturers' money and time, and they hurt when you step on them. 

7) Water - This one is pretty obvious, and one I'm pretty guilty of. I love long, hot showers. Think about all the times we let the water run just waiting for it to get hot. That shit is bananas. Just flushing the toilet uses anywhere from 1-5 gallons of water depending on the kind you have. That doesn't sound like a large amount until you consider how many toilets there are in the world. According to WWF, it takes 50 gallons just to make one latte. (http://worldwildlife.org/videos/change-the-way-you-think-about-your-morning-latte) I drink at least one latte a week, and I'm only one person.

8) Time - I don't think I even need to bother explaining this one.

For those of you interested in minimizing your carbon footprint, here are three (plus one for the pet owners) handy sites. I don't want you to think I'm just complaining without offering solutions.

http://simplystraws.com/the-collection
http://www.wehatetowaste.com/

http://www.reuseit.com/

http://www.westpawdesign.com/catalog/cats/best-cat-toys/eco-friendly-cat-toys (In case you really, really have to get your cat some toys)

Eradicate the "Gay"

Let’s do away with the label ‘gay’.

As I’m sure we all know by now, the word originally had everything to do with a cheery, joyful disposition and nothing at all to do with a person having sexual relations with someone of the same sex. What you may or may not know are the several other transitions the word has gone through before it arrived at where it is now. (If you’re interested, check out this article for its intricate history: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/02/how-gay-came-to-mean-homosexual/)

(Note: tangent ahead)

My problem is not so much the word itself but the way it’s used these days as a label - a blanket statement for anyone who may have homosexual tendencies. Our culture is obsessed with labels, of separating people into manageable boxes that we can move about and handle throughout our lives. Starting as early as elementary school we begin migrating into social circles based on generic interests. These grow steadily into the cliques we see throughout middle and high school. By the time we get to college, part of us starts to realize the world shouldn't be like this, but by then it’s too late. With our sororities and fraternities, our glee clubs and sports teams, we’re reminded that in order to keep our social connections we shouldn't broaden our interests too much or it will be harder for us to find anyone else remotely like minded.

The obvious problem with labels is that once they’re applied to us, they stick. What we have failed to realize as a culture thus far is that, while labels may help us to individually relate to people, they do more harm than good in the long run by causing us to judge one another when someone does something uncharacteristic of one's label. Bible thumpers can’t smoke cigarettes or have sex. Tree huggers better be recycling and saving the whales or they don't fit in with the rest. Goths shouldn't smile, emo kids should always have the same hair and tight pants.

By now I think you know where I’m going with this, and I can almost hear you protesting that being gay is definitely not the same thing as being a hipster. I disagree. These days being gay is either a stigma or a blessing. Homosexuality has never had this much steady media exposure, and it’s been made abundantly clear that you better choose a definitive, exuberant side on the topic or so help you. If gay is too broad a term for you, we can even break it into smaller subcategories like 'lesbian' or 'bisexual'. What matters is that you have an exact label for what you do with your love life and that you share it with all of us.

Here’s where we get to the tricky part. What about the people who, after a while, aren't 'gay’ anymore? Or what about people who have lived their entire life as a ‘straight’ person but are reevaluating that? I’ve heard the arguments about people who have kept their sexuality repressed. I've heard about the people who are confused about their sexuality and therefore it “doesn't count” until they've discovered their “true selves”. I've heard the arguments for being born gay, for nature vs. nurture, etc. Of course I know many people who definitely prefer one gender over another. While those will all eventually be discussed in later entries, what I’m bringing to the table now is this – it shouldn't matter. Not only should it not matter, but what gives any of us the right to relabel someone should their preference ever change? How dare we.

I knew a woman who was dating a man who used to be gay. He’d been dating men for several years before meeting her and falling in love with her. There are generally three common reactions for a situation like this:

 1) “He obviously wasn’t really gay.”

2) “He’s still gay and denying that side of him.”

3) “He’s not really gay. He’s bisexual.”

Let’s think about this. Was this man involved in happy, fulfilling relationships with other men previously? Yes. Is he now happily involved with a woman? Yes. Does it change who he is fundamentally as a person? No. Most important question of all – should it matter to anyone else?

What it boils down to for me is that it’s really no one’s business who you’re interested in/ attracted to.* While I find it absolutely mind boggling that there are still states that can fire you for having relations with the same gender, I’m ten times more appalled by the fact that anyone should care. I cannot emphasize this enough: your love life does not define who you are as a person. And! It’s up to no one else to heap titles upon you and then change them based on your own choices.

Humans were born with the gift and bane of curiosity and indecision. What a blessing it is to be able to change our minds or follow our hearts wherever they may lead us, yet how exhausting! As if being a complex human isn't wearying enough, we are also cursed with the burden of having our very peers label us, segregate us, compartmentalize us. What if this were something we didn't have to deal with anymore? Can you imagine how liberating it would be? 

We wouldn't be fighting this battle for ‘gay’ rights because we would be focusing on the rights of all humans equally.

When I brought this topic up to a friend of mine recently he asked, “Well what word will we use then?” My answer was, “We won’t.”

I admit that in the past I've been guilty of using these terms. By all accounts, I was raised in this same culture you were. I admit that it’s more comfortable (and by all means easier) to tell someone you’re not interested in them because you’re straight or gay. I pledge now, however, to work my hardest to change all that. The next time someone asks me my sexual orientation, I will politely decline to answer. I no longer even want to think of myself as having one, because that sounds like a limitation. I’m a human, after all. I’m prone to change as often as I breathe, and I plan to.

*Note: While it does not matter what gender you prefer, there are obviously some standards I have when it comes to sexual encounters. Sexual abuse/rape, pedophilia, and bestiality are never, ever appropriate.