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The
problem with today's youth is that they have way too much time on their
hands. If they have enough time to go make ugly little gang designs a
dozen different places on the building I maintain, well, I say give these
kids another place to expel that excess energy.
It's
a new age. Technology hides
in the simplest things, like watches.
Whatever happened to sundials?
Weren't they good enough for us?
No. It is time to move
on. I have long said that you
have to keep moving to stay the same and you have to move even faster
if you actually want to get somewhere.
In Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen and Alice run
furiously. "Faster!
Faster!" When they finally stopped, Alice looked around her in great
surprise. "Why, I do
believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it
was!" The Red Queen explained, "It takes all the running you can
do, to keep in the same place. If
you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as
that." It is the Red Queen phenomenon.
Even in this world, life doesn't progress. Technology
never flourishes. The history
of mankind cannot be charted on a line, nor can it be charted on a circle.
Life is a spiral. True,
technology progresses life, but only to the extent that we repeat the
things we did in a new and "more advanced" manner. It
is life's paradox. 100 years
ago it was unheard of for a woman to be working.
Instead, women spent their days in the house cleaning.
It took them a while-we didn't have fancy cleaning products that
are specially designed to pick up dust, get out stains, clean glass and
surfaces. There weren't any
washing machines. There
weren't any vacuums. Cleaning
was a difficult task. In
addition to the heavy task of cleaning, women had to cook meals for their
families. Women were not
sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
Today, in 2001, women spend their days going to work.
They work to make money. They
make money to pay for the expensive appliances they use to clean the house
in less time. They make money
to pay for the more expensive ready-made meals that they no longer have
time to cook. And in the
end… women spend their days working-just like they did 100 years ago.
Technology hasn't saved us time.
Technology costs money and money is time.
Life's
paradox.
I
think too much. I
think about thinking too much too much. While
walking about the parking lot picking up trash, I started thinking about
thinking too much. I realized
that I think about the same things over and over.
I turn them over in my head until I misplace the topic and move on.
Nothing is ever really resolved.
I think purely because I can't help it.
So
maybe I know I have a better grasp on stupid things like the United
Nations or socialism, but in the end, my thinking does no one any good.
It might possibly provide for interesting conversations which are
as aimless as my thoughts. I
think about the silliness things. Today
I noticed a flock of seagulls soaring over the parking lot at the grocery
store. What are they doing
here? I wondered. Seagulls
over a parking lot would sure throw some tourists for a loop. It
comes down to a fundamental question:
What do we live for? Do
we live to change the world for the better?
Or… what? I
don't live in this world to reek goodness.
I live because I haven't died yet.
Something
is wrong when, at the end of the day, you can only vaguely remember what
happened that day. The days have been increasingly shady and my mind has
been a fuzz. I
know more clearly what I did in my dreams. I was at a zoo. I was petting a
giraffe. And I was being chased by motorcycles in the parking lot. They
were trying to arrest me. I found the chocolate chip cookies in the
toilet, but it didn't look like they had gotten at all wet. At
that point, just as I was about to snack on a cookie, the phone rang. It
was 8 o'clock. Jason was on the phone from college. It seems his keys got
locked in the van, along with his backpack. I
couldn't help but think, "Idiot. Idiot." He's walking home now.
Totally sucks for him. I
found the spare key after about 30 minutes of searching. It was on the
floor of the office. I don't know how he's going to get back to the
college. He'll probably have to walk again. Maybe he can take a bus.
Yesterday
I loaded the worship slides onto Steve's computer and he says,
"What's it titled?" "oh-one-oh-nine," I responded.
"Isn't today the tenth?" "No, I don't think so."
"Yeah, it's the tenth." What?!
Crap. That means I missed a day. Somewhere along the line, an entire day
passed me by without acknowledging that I was there. I think it was Monday.
Oftentimes,
I sit just out of my garage leaning against a tall bookshelf and read my
school books. The ants frequently distract me. They'll be walking along,
dragging other dead ants up, walking single file, straggling by
themselves... whatever. If I'm out coloring my biology diagrams, I might
take my colored pencil and follow them with it. They're all over the
place. They
panic when they get knocked down or when a flood of water pours over them.
They
writhe in pain when I cut them in half with my fingernail. But
mostly, I just watch them march. I stare at the cement floor which is,
upon close inspection, made up of thousands of tiny little rocks. To the
ant, these rocks are enormous! It's amazing what ants put up with. I
was sitting up one night leafing through the pages of my Bible and
"Ants Marching" was playing on my player. "Driving
in on this highway And
all the little ants are marching The
lines of the songs suddenly struck me. People are just like ants. They're
so small and there are so many. If one of them dies, no one even really
cares. I mean, our social structure is more complex... but if you allow
all the intricacies to simply melt away--well, we reduce to ants. Ants
marching. No words spoken. Not enough time to speak. Stumbling over the
obstacles and writhing in pain. Living.
Eating. Working. Dying. Isn't that what we all reduce to?
Calendars
are so unfeeling and inhuman. It's almost sickening. It's
always been a habit to write down every important facet of my day on my
calendar. My little signposts that remind me of what happened when. So
whether it be baby-sitting or having a friend over, the event is written
on my calendar. As
such, at the end of the month, my calendar is a mess of black ink. Times,
places, things, and scribbles. It's probably not even intelligible to
anyone but me. At
the end of the year, I've made it a tradition to flip through my
calendar-trying to make sense of the scribbles. What an incredibly long
year! I don't really even remember the first five months. I suppose I do,
but everything that happened seems like it was from another year, or
another time, or maybe that it was only something that happened in a
dream. But alas! It is written in my calendar so I know it must be so. The
first five months of 2000 consisted of basically baby-sitting, school, and
debate. I could probably cut out all those months and not miss a
beat-that's how utterly worthless they were. However,
June, June was the catalyst. My calendar listed the things that happened.
Graduation, go to the zoo with my grandparents, vacation in Washington
state, come home… Come
home. Just
two little words that I penned in the little white box of June 16th. They
mean nothing. My calendar knows nothing. In fact, the entire calendar
means nothing to anyone else but me. "Come home." Come home to
house that did not welcome me. Come home to a house that no longer was
mine. Come home to my mother's miscarriage. Come home to my dog in heat.
Come home to a troubled van in need of mechanical repair. But
my calendar reflected none of this. All that was written was "Come
home." Or
skipping ahead to August 8th, when I went to the zoo with Rudy and Matt.
What a day! It was the best of fun just wandering about the San Diego zoo
with 9-year-old Rudy and Matt, laughing, watching the monkeys, making fun
of Rudy… But
the calendar can't describe my sentiments. The
calendar knows nothing.
Hello,
my name is Kirsten and I pick up pennies. Especially
if they're heads up. Because that's lucky. I used to argue with my friend,
Aileen. She said that it was only lucky to pick up pennies if they
were tails up. But I think she's wrong. When
you think about it, you can probably pick up a penny in about 1 second. At
that rate, you're making $36.00 an hour. That's better than I make
baby-sitting or cleaning. Of
course, the critics respond with, "Maybe if you could pick up pennies
for an hour. Then it would be worth it." But cripes, the math still
works out the same. "It's not worth it for a split-second," my
brother aptly responds. Of course not! I wouldn't pick up a split-second's
worth of a penny. That would just be stupid. But
a whole penny. Hey, why not?
I
can't stand books and movies and television. You know why? They steal all
the good ideas. 'Cause you know what? I even saw something like this idea
on television. It was on "Dharma and Greg". They were out to
dinner with their friend and a poet. They were trying to hook them up. "Oh,
I never read poetry. I have to be a blank slate." If
I never read novels or watched TV and movies, would I still come up with
ideas? I don't know. This
morning in church, everyone was standing and singing "Where You Lead
Me" and a couple of older women in front of where I sat hugged
briefly. But
then, oh, man. The dark-haired woman tried to pull away from the embrace,
and she found she was stuck. Her snowflake earring had gotten snagged into
her friend's sweater. It was so funny. They struggled for several moments
before they finally got it free. Amy,
Chantal, and I all exchanged glances and began to smirk. I coughed a few
times to cover up for the laughing. Every time I got myself back together,
I would look at Amy and see that she was still on the verge of a good
laugh. And then that got me going again. Something
just like this happened in a book I read a long time ago. The two women
were actually chatting during the worship, and it was their hat pins that
got tangled... but it's the same concept. So
much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when
shouldn't it be the other way around? And
isn't that a line from "You've Got Mail"? People
just keep ripping off my ideas.
I
like Chinese food. It's better than Japanese food because they give you
fortune cookies. Have you ever noticed how forture cookies aren't usually
fortunes? Take the ones I got last night: "You
are a classic" "You
have firm convictions--stand strong behind them" Those
aren't future tense. They're present tense. I hate that. I
had Chinese food for lunch today. My brother burnt the pizza, and so I
cooked some rice and ate the chicken leftover from last night. As
I scooped out the rice from the bottom of the rice cooker, I was struck
with a sudden realization: Cooked
rice closely resembles maggots.
Hey,
sweet. I just won a game of Solitaire. [censored.] That game is really
difficult. I lost a lot before I won. I
was thinking yesterday as I lay down to sleep... Reality
is subjective. No, reality is relative. That sounds better.
At
that point, I was still trying to figure out if I had woken up yet. Of
course I've woken up. I can tell the difference between a reality and a
dream. But
not really. In my dream within a dream within a dream, each time I
"woke up" I thought I was fully awake. In fact, the second time
I "woke up" I remember thinking how silly I was to think I had
gotten the hives. I remember thinking how wrong the whole dream was
logically speaking. But my new reality seemed very normal, even though
looking back it was incredibly unrealistic. So
what is realistic? It all depends on your perception. And that's why
reality is relative. And
I'm still waiting to wake up. "It's
crazy I'm thinking
I
lied on the day bed. A pink-striped comfortor with lavender hearts covered
the bed. I propped up my head with some pastel pink throw pillows. Her
name was in big pastel letters on the wall: "O L I V I A" The
curtains were pink. Light purple hearts decorated everything. Man,
I thought, this room is so girly. But
then, Olivia is a girl. And she's only 3-years-old. And her favorite
colors are pink and purple. But
if I was her age, I would detest having a room like that. Ew. Maybe
if I grew up exposed to such colors, I would have grown to like them. Hey,
wait. I did grow up in a pink room. I wonder if that helped to fashion my
intense hatred for the color pink.
Do
our surroundings make a difference in our person? They have to have
some sort of impact. The
places and people we grow up with make us who we are. What amazing power our parents yield over our lives. Heck, they even get to choose our names.
Someone offers you a choice of two envelopes and tells you that one has twice as much money in it as the other. You pick one envelope, open it and find $100. The other envelope thus must have either $200 or $50. When the proposer permits you to change your mind, you figure you have $100 to gain and only $50 to lose by switching your choice, so you take the other envelope instead. The question is, why didn't you choose that envelope in the first place?
Fact:
Debaters are weird. Shucks.
You
can debate without being weird or dweebish, but you won't be any good at
it. If you're good at debating, then you are necessarily weird and
dweebish. It's part of being a debater. That's
who I am. That's
why I click with every single person in my debate club. We are all
intrinsically debaters. Through and through. I
must say, I'm the coolest debater out of them all. That really isn't
saying much... Friday
night became Saturday morning as I worked on my case. I had it written,
but it had to be 8 minutes... and well, it wasn't. Try 10 minutes. Blah. From
there I had to chop and cut and reword everything. And then time it. And
then chop and cut and reword the things I thought were vital. And then
time it. And then cut out "however" and other useless words. And
further cut into the parts I thought were vital. And then time it. Bah. I
hate this part. I've got a good case, good evidence, and then I have to
trim it down to eight minutes! Bah.
I
need to keep a good attitude about debate and partners. Remember what I
am. Remember why I'm in
debate. Then
I think I'll be okay. I
can analyze just about any situation to death. And logic myself out of
emotions. Good or evil? I don't know. Sometimes
I don't know who I am. If I am who I am. Or if I am who I made myself. Or
if who I am is only who I think I am and I am actually something else... I
can't wait until I find myself.
"Eeek!"
is the sound I just made. I
browsed through a couple new immigration articles on CIS. My head bopped
along with the music playing in my head phones. My hand calmly rested on
the mouse as I scrolled here and there. I
reached over with my left hand to scratch an itch. "Eeeek!"
A
giant spider was scrambling across my right hand, inflicting the
"itch". In
one swift movement, I leaped up out of the chair, the head phones and the
spider went flying on to the floor. "Die,
fiend!" I cried as I slammed a yellow floppy disk over the spider
time and again. "Die!" I
shivered from shock. A close encounter with death will do that to you. Why
is that a spider maybe a centimeter in length can walk across my hand and
I shriek and shiver from shock? For goodness sake! I'm like, a million
times bigger than he is. The spider was maybe a third of the size of Lego
people. And yet, I'm still spooked over the whole affair. Maybe
this is another instance of being brainwashed by, who else? space aliens.
They've trained us to react to teeny tiny spiders by shrieking and being
terrified. I mean, if you really pause long enough to consider, logically,
the scare-factor a spider presents you with, it's really not frightening
at all. But oh no, space aliens have trained us to react in fear.
I
had to baby-sit for a baby tonight. Just one. Her name is Isabel and she's
20 months old. She's very spoiled. But that's okay. I shielded her
away from the cleaning supplies causing her to scream hysterically. But
fear not! I pulled out a bit of brownie and she smiled, laughed, and took
the brownie. Talk about your mood swings. She
was going nuts with the baby powder. She wanted to play with it, so I
poured a bit into her hand and blew it in her face. She laughs. More baby
powder. She blows it out. Laughs. More baby powder. She blows it out.
Laughs. I poured a small amount into my hand and sprinkled it in her hair.
I wiped off my hand on my jeans. She gets a little more and she dusts off
her hands, and then wipes her hands on my jeans. Crazy. Babies are nuts. She
wanted some water in a sippy cup. It was hot pink and shaped like a lion.
You drink out of the cup by sipping the tail of the lion... Isabel knew
this (I think) because she did that to begin with. But she went to drink
of the lion like a normal cup... and she might've gotten some of the water
into her mouth, but most of it poured out of the tail and onto her
pajamas... I just sat there laughing. There was a pretty big puddle to
clean up afterwards though. You
can practically see the light bulbs go on in babies' heads.
You can almost read their minds.
Isabel picked up a plastic phone.
"Phone…" she thinks, and her thoughts progress.
"Phone…mouth…phone…mouth…phone…mouth… phone in mouth…ewww."
The thoughts progress and become jumbled.
I've witnessed this in my friend, Dayna.
We were at summer camp and she held my toothbrush in her hand.
The thought process was nearly identical to that of Isabel.
"Toothbrush…toilet…toothbrush…toilet…toothbrush…toilet…"
And then, as the thoughts intermingled, my toothbrush was dropped into
toilet. I
leave you to conclude whatever you will about the mind of my friend Dayna. |