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I'm winning my battles slowly by slowly...

01/22/2002

Aight, I was making dinner and my mom's like, "Are you going to make vegetables?" "No. I don't like vegetables [the frozen kind]." "Then you don't have to eat them." WOOOOHOO! Now I don't have to hide them in my napkin anymore! ;)

First no vegetables, next, I will take over the world! <insert evil laughter here> 
 
The Amputation

01/19/2002

Today was over cleaning at the church when I saw a homeless man. This struck me as odd. I mean, I live in a relatively prestigious part of the city and we just don't have homeless people hanging around. Nah, we like to remove them all downtown. 

I got to thinking about that. Why do all the homeless people hang around downtown? If we really wanted to help them, downtown is not where they're going to be best off. No one has the time, resources, or desire to help them there. They can be conveniently forgotten.

Ding ding ding! That's why we make them all go downtown. So we can forget that they exist. I was reminded of a circumstance from the movie The Beach. The premise is that a group of people has removed themselves from society to an island where they can smoke pot and have no obligations. Pretty cool, huh? But no one else can know about the island, or else it would become a tourist attraction. Consequently, problems accrue when two of the members of the community get attacked by a shark. One of the members died. The community held a funeral. The other member was seriously injured. What to do? 

"After the funeral we all tried to get back to normal, but it just didn't seem right. After a while it became clear that the problem was Christo. You see, in a shark attack, or any other major tragedy I guess, the important thing is to get eaten and die, in which case there's a funeral and someone makes a speech and everyone cries and says what a good guy you were, or: get better in which case everyone can forget about it. It's the hanging around in between that really pisses people off."

What to do...in the end, the community just removed Christo to a secluded location where he was left alone (to die) so everyone else could move on and forget that bad exists in the world. Utilitarianism at its best.

"It would be a lot easier to condemn our behavior if it hadn't been so effective, but out of sight really was out of mind. The bad smell was gone - it was like we had amputated Christo from our community and after the operation was over, we felt a whole lot better." And that's all that really matters, isn't it?
 
Further evidence that I am a moron...

01/18/2002

Hey...look, there's a hole in the rods that hold up my desk...wow! That looks like it would be just the size of my little finger. I think I will insert my finger into that hole. Heheheheheheheh.

One Problem: Like many holes or spaces, the actual diameter of the hole mysteriously "shrinks" after parts of the body are inserted. 

Conclusion: My finger was stuck. I mean, really stuck. I pulled. I heaved. I yanked. I pried. All of this to no avail. That baby was not coming out.

Solution: (after discarding the notion of cutting off my pinky or sawing through the desk...) I decided to pull...even though the sharp edge of the metal is cutting into my skin and making me cry "Ow!"

I did eventually get my finger out (yay). My knuckle was purple and I cut the skin and I was still screaming "Ow!" but at least I had my dignity. I mean. Um. My liberty. Yeah, that too.
 
Cold winter months...

12/29/2001

In the winter, my appendages get very, very cold. You know how people say, "Agh! My toes/feet/ears/nose/fingers feel like ice"? Well, guess what! It's been proven, honestly, that during these cold winter months, MY fingers really DO turn to ice! It was cool, until my brother cut them off and put them in his Coke. Then they got all sticky.
 
Conquering fears

12/25/2001

My dad got a nose hair clipper for Christmas.

I picked up the never before used utensil and looked inside at the menacing blades. What kind of a freaking idiot would stick that up into a sensitive bodily orifice?!

Nevertheless, I felt terribly wimpy that I was afraid to stick that thing up a nostril. So I thoroughly examined the packaging for any "WARNING: USE OF PRODUCT MAY BE FATAL" labels. Nein. No such thing. 

Hmm... Do it, Kirsten! You can do it!

Eh.. eh... eh... NO! I can't!

And then I felt even wimpier because I should be able to do whatever I darn well please. 

Eh...NO! still can't. =\

And then, goshdarn, I just did it. BZZZZZT

Epiphany of the Day: Nose hair clippers tickle!
 
Christmas expectations. PFFT.

12/15/2001

On a recent commercial for some new conflabagasted toy, I heard: "'tis the season to be greedy" sung to the tune of "Deck the Halls." Way to celebrate the "holiday cheer."

I'm really sick of the way we currently do the whole "holiday cheer" thing. Really conflabagasted sick of all the expectations.

Don't you remember on Christmas day? You had finished opening all of your lovely gifts and you then looked around you, glancing briefly at the new toys and games and clothes (gasp! no! not clothes!) and... you heaved a great sigh. A sigh of disappointment. One that spelled out, "Is that all?! Gosh! I didn't get the Super Deluxe Kit for Beginning Astronauts that I wanted!"

There is something intrinsically wrong when a child gets a million new, lovely things and is ultimately disappointed.

To heck with the expectations of Christmas! I really am sick of them. I'm sick of feeling like I have to buy presents for people. I'm sick of inevitably being just a bit disappointed when all the gifts are unwrapped and "that's all."

I'd much rather be in the giving spirit all year round. If my kid admired a new toy, I could spring for it. Not for Christmas, but because I wanted to. Then how thrilled would they be? They didn't expect it! Good things are greater when you don't expect them.

But we couldn't all do it this way. Retail stores depend on Christmas splurging to make profits... wouldn't want to throw off the economy or anything.
 
The Paradox of Wanting

12/10/2001

One thing I have noticed in my existence as a child is that if I am looking forward to something, time comes to a standstill. If I want very much for it to be two weeks from now, it will take at least a month for two weeks to pass.

On the flipside, if there is something I am dreading, time passes like lightning. If I want very much for Tuesday to keep its distance, Tuesday comes upon me in a right hurry.

This isn't fair!

And it's beginning to piss me off.

Finals, for instance... Yes, I'm dreading them very much. It's not that I think they will be so very difficult, I just need time to prepare. But here they are. Upon me. Wednesday is coming rapidly, durnit.

The trick, then, is to find a balance. You must find something to dread AND something to look forward to that fall on the same day. Then time doesn't know how to drive you mad, so it just ticks by at a normal pace. At least, that's the theory...