I really should be getting to bed, but I haven't written anything in so long and I was feeling it. I have settled into a rather grownup routine when it comes to going to work in the mornings, and while it doesn't suck nearly as much as having to be at school everyday, it's still pretty terrible because while I can completely see how routine makes everything easier, it is SO DAMN BORING. Oh well.

I really thought I'd be in a different place at this time in my life, but it seems that that is not in my cards. I'm bad at predicting my own future, and it's probably a good thing that it never seems to work out my way, because if I look back at times where I wish I could have chosen a different path I can see how much worse things would have been right now. They are not terrible. I cannot complain. I guess I just get bored easily. Like my father says though, really nothing about life matters except water, food, and shelter. Without those things you would die. Other than that, and all of the other petty things we humans worry about, there is nothing really important. Yes, we assign importance to things - it'd get very old very fast without social interaction, or fun, or work. And work has to be done in order to have food and shelter. Without fun, we'd all go crazy anyway. So, since we are alive - and not sure what comes after life, we will keep on trying to do our best to fill our lives with something, that elusive anything that will give us substance and purpose, and make us more than just an animal with basic instinct.

I like to become introspective about the meaning of life at 12:3o am when I should be in bed because I have work tomorrow - to serve all the alcoholics their booze so they can forget about life for a while. I always have this sneaking feeling that we all try too hard sometimes to make life meaningful when really in the end it won't matter at all. Then again, for the time we are here, it does matter, to us, and those around us, and so we keep on going despite the facts of our existence. I suppose we wouldn't exist if we didn't matter, so we may as well try. I'm speaking in circles now that are beginning to make less and less sense. Books and bed call me.

Dispatch show

So, went to see Dispatch in Boston on Saturday. I struggled hard to think of a concert that it compared to, but I couldn't. Hands down, best show I've ever seen. Jess and I had pretty good seats for it on the floor that weren't too far from the stage, and although it was a hassle for her to get the day off to go it was far far worth it. These guys rock the house like no one else I've ever seen. Crazy. They played like a three hour set. I looked it up and they actually played 24 songs including the encore. The only song they didn't play was Out Loud, so I was really happy overall, and they ended with Elias which I think is a fabulous song to end with. I thought TD Garden was going to collapse. I can't describe the good feelings that were circulating around that place. Everyone was into it. Everyone was having a good time. We took the T back to where we parked and everyone stormed the trains but it was cool because we were all fans. Then on the way back a bunch of kids started singing on the T. I had such a good time I completely forgot to get my schedule from work and had to text my coworkers to make sure I had the day off today. I just wasn't caring about work. If I could have gone back to go to the Sunday show I surely would have. It's going to be really hard for future shows to compare to this one...and next time they come around, I'll surely be going. This show is going to stay with me a long time. Anyway, just thought I would update with the latest thing I'm excited about. Time to take a shower, out with some of my coworkers later for drinks.

The "Rapture"

There's nothing specific to write about at the moment. Life is changing at a rapid rate for me even though outwardly it probably looks exactly the same. I have started volunteer training to be a sexual assault crisis counselor/advocate. It is once a week. It's helping me immensely. I like the format, I like the people, and I am learning things that are extremely relevant to my future career path should I choose to continue on to grad school with counseling. The actual volunteering may not be as involved as the training. It has the potential to go either way. I hope that it works out for the best. For now, at least, I think it was a good decision. It's the first good decision I've made in a long time concerning my future.

It's nice to feel like I'm making progress even if it's going very slowly and taking a long time. I'll get somewhere eventually. I really don't have a choice. I'm always slower to get things like this done than other people because I am not as quick as other people to jump into things in which I will be miserable. I have to take my time and find something that suits me and my needs and in which I feel comfortable. I feel like I'm wasting time otherwise. At least life isn't boring at the moment. In fact it's rather action packed. I should learn never to complain about a boring spell in my life because as my life tends to go, it will do a complete 180 and suddenly everything will be chaos again.

Some crazy religious fanatic predicted the end of the world for this past Saturday. The Rapture, he called it, when all non believers would descend to hell and all the believers would be taken in by God and live in eternal happiness or some such nonsense. Mostly this was all just amusing to me. Lots of people used it as an excuse to drink and throw parties. I know the majority didn't take it seriously of course but there are always whackjobs out there who will believe any crackpot theory someone comes up with because he suddenly "decoded" the bible and came up with a bunch of numbers and a formula to make it sound like he actually knew what he was talking about. I have a feeling that if God were going to end the world, He wouldn't let anyone know about it. We'd all be taken by surprise, and then, we'd all be dead. And who knows what would happen after that.

I'm clearly not a religious person. I wouldn't call myself an atheist but I tend to ignore most of it and not care very much. Some religions and religious ideas are interesting, but I certainly won't blindly follow a faith. Some people need that faith. I was raised without any religion, therefore I don't need it. It's completely unimportant to me and my life. I enjoy living life on my own terms, doing things as I wish to, and following my own moral code that has nothing to do with a book written a long long time in the past. I feel completely content knowing that I never have to feel guilty for the things I do and the choices I make. People are by nature imperfect, so you just have to do your best in today's world to be the best person you can be. Basically, I am untroubled by God, religion, religious rules, etc. My family is Catholic, so at times I do attend church for a wedding or funeral. There are definitely nice aspects of church and faith and good things that they do, but at the same time I know I'll never find a need to attend church on a regular basis. Anyway, this is also completely irrelevant to the point of religious fanaticism which I was trying to make. Pretty much all the fanatics do is provide entertainment for the non fanatics, so I suppose in a way they're still doing something good for society.

Another Quote

Another quote I pulled from a fashion blog I read religiously but never comment on because the comments entertain me fully. projectrungay.blogspot.com

""As we found out later, Joe doesn't really do insincere politeness. He's genuine, and when he says "Let's have lunch or drinks," he really means it. Believe us, in the 5 years of publishing this blog, we can't tell you how many people who never have any intention of doing so, say "Let's have drinks" to us."

Oh, I believe you all right. I literally did not know the meaning of the word "flaky" until I had met an American person for the first time.

But how could I have known that "We should hang out" really just means "goodbye", with zero intention of ever actually hanging out?""

I felt this was worthy of a comment as I think this is a flaw of the majority of Americans. I don't understand why Americans assume no one ever wants to spend time with them, and if someone says they want to, more likely than not, you never will. I think it's a combination of things. It's a "coolness" thing. An "I'm so busy I have no time for anyone thing, therefore I must be cool," combined with a poor confidence factor of "If I actually talk to this person they are going to think I am creepy and stalking them". The obvious answer to this dilemma for most Americans is to friend the person on facebook so they can stalk the shit out of them at their leisure without consequence. I guess I never realized it was a cultural thing until I read this comment though. To me, as an American, it's almost proper etiquette. I can remember times being distinctly weirded out if someone contacted me after meeting at a party only one time to hang out. It seems to be some sort of unwritten rule that you have to see someone a certain number of times before it becomes ok to spend time with them outside of that setting in a friendship type manner. Dating is excluded from these rules. I think it's because forced awkwardness is another unwritten rule of dating, and meeting someone only once and seeing them again almost guarantees awkwardness. I would like to point out that I am sure there are people to whom these rules don't matter and who march to their own drum, but I agree with the commenter that it is a distinctly normative thing to assume in our culture that even if you say that you want to "hang out sometime" you really don't mean it in most cases, and the other person is supposed to accept that without question and without getting offended. People are fucking weird. All of us.

Social culture is so strange when you break it down. I guess it becomes more obvious how ridiculous something like this is when it is mentioned to you by someone from the outside looking in.

Someone's Comment

"Man, mid twenties is a hard time. I feel like there's this societal pressure to have all our shit together, and that people who even vaguely do pretend that everything is super awesome and they're super together - and you know what I've discovered, whenever I've gotten close to anyone? No one has their shit together. Everyone has some aspect of their life, usually several, where stuff isn't together. And that's OK. That's being human. There's a lot on our plate in the modern world (really, any world - how nice is it to not worry about Tetanus and Cholera, amirite?) No one is all the way together. Let's celebrate the good we have. Sometimes our houses are messy. Sometimes we don't know what we're doing with ourselves. And I should stop drunk LJing. But so be it. Life is OK. What you're doing OK. "

A comment on a post from TQC, aka The Question Club, my absolute favorite community to stalk on Livejournal, and also the reason that I never delete my Livejournal account. Thank you. I needed this comment. Too fucking true. Anyone who wants to refute this point and try to prove their perfection...go ahead. All that means is that the next day your cat will die, your car will break down, you'll get laid off, and then to top it all off a bird will take a shit that happens to land on your head. Sorry people, that's just the way the world works. Appearances are just appearances. The people who are truly happy in their lives are the ones who are able to roll with whatever happens and laugh through the rain.

Planned Parenthood

The issue of Planned Parenthood has been brought to Congress, and while I usually avoid talking about politics, as a woman, it's an issue that just can't be ignored. It's also an issue I feel very strongly about. The issue here is to cut government funding for Planned Parenthood in order to lower our deficit.

One word can sum up how I feel about this. Ridiculous. Oh, also ludicrous. Completely backward, irresponsible, and quite honestly a little disgusting. It is pretty easy to see the arguments, and the people behind them. For whatever reason, Planned Parenthood seems to be in popular media associated almost exclusively with abortions. People who don't know any better and are anti-abortion think this is entirely beneficial. Except...the money that the government gives to Planned Parenthood does NOT cover abortions and never has. The government does not fund abortions in any way. If I want to kill my fetus, I'm paying for it myself, out of pocket. Planned Parenthood does, however, perform abortions if a woman chooses to have one, so it's pretty obvious that this "brilliant" plan to reduce our deficit is a masked attempt of conservatives to push along their anti abortion agenda. They don't want to back an organization that provides abortions to girls whether or not the majority of the services offered and utilized by women there are extremely beneficial to women and women's health. PP offers routine gynecological care as well as free screenings for all STI's and cervical cancer. They also offer many different types of contraception, pregnancy planning, etc etc etc. PP is great because it is easy, and it is anonymous. Their primary mission is to keep women healthy and educated. There are statistics that prove that they have succeeded. I have always felt at ease knowing that no matter what happens, I can rely on Planned Parenthood to be there in case I need it. I, in fact, did utilize their services at one point. I wanted to go on birth control. Not living at home at the time and not wanting to wait for an appointment with my regular ob-gyn, I used PP. It was easy, it was quick, and it was anonymous. For girls who can't afford a regular OB, Planned Parenthood is there. It makes me very angry to see this country even considering a piece of legislation so backward. It seems as if they would rather our country regress. America needs to stop being so afraid of change and move forward. We should be a nation of progress. It frustrates me that we are seeing things like this happen in today's day and age when women in the past stood up and said, hey, boys. We matter. We count. Our health counts. Our happiness counts. We can take care of ourselves. We want to take care of ourselves. And we're going to do that if you like it or not. Women have proved themselves, for years. We have proved ourselves to be intelligent and competent. Women successfully raise children while holding full time jobs. These things happen every day. In spite of all of this progress, we are still faced with politicians who can't come up with a better plan to reduce their deficit than denying millions of women preventative medical care.

My answer is, to the men: You are not women, and you will never understand what it is to be faced with even the prospect of carrying a child, and the life changing consequences that can have. You don't know what it feels like to worry constantly that you may get pregnant and not be able to support a baby, and that the guy might disappear as soon as your baby is born, and you might be left alone. You will never understand what it is to make these choices because you will never have to. Please, listen to the women who have fought hard to have things like Planned Parenthood available to them. Cutting funding will only increase the number of children born into unfortunate circumstances because of lack of access to proper contraception. More women will die, and we will spend more treating diseases and cancers in their later stages rather than preventing them or treating them early on. Planned Parenthood may provide a service that goes against your morals, but that is not the service you are cutting. Give us women a chance, please.
To the women (who are for this legislation): You insult us, and you drive us further backward in time. Do not deny the millions of women that have benefited from PP's services in favor of your own selfish beliefs.

I have a very hard time understanding women who speak in favor of things like this. It makes me think that they have never had anything denied them in their life and have always been able to afford quality care. You have to learn how to step out of your own shoes into another person's. You have to learn how to be critical of your own upbringing, and see where your beliefs truly come from. Educate yourself, learn, and read, and exercise compassion even when it is difficult. You never know where a person is coming from.

Downfall

Well, it's been a pretty boring two days but Sunday into Monday usually is. Last night I watched a German film called Downfall which is an account of Hitler's last 12 days in his bunker in Berlin. I forgot I had rented it, but I suppose it was mostly because it had so many good reviews. As far as movies go, it was very very well done. I am not too familiar with all the details of Hitler's time in power, but I spent a good amount of time today doing basic research about the main characters and events in the movie. The movie followed what I read very accurately. Some of the events are downright disturbing, but I suppose you can't expect much else from a movie about a psychopathic dictator. The most disturbing event is when Magda Goebbels systematically murders her six children. I had difficulty watching it. It wasn't gory, and it wasn't violent, but it disturbed me so much that I had trouble sleeping afterward. I've seen movies where children are violently shot and killed, but for some reason the calm and matter of fact way in which Magda went about it was especially bothersome to me. It's a scene that isn't going to leave my head anytime soon.