Speaking In Circles Posted by Sad Blogger , 27.1.11 at Thursday, January 27, 2011, in

Today I started writing a story because I thought I had an important idea to share but figured just coming right out with it wouldn't be creative enough. I've been struggling with my own ego lately. I tend to think that I'm a rather spectacular person but realized yesterday that I basically do nothing with all this potential that I think I have. I spend a lot of time telling myself that it doesn't really matter if I do nothing with my spare time because I'm pretty much awesome all the rest of the time. But yesterday I watched some videos of a guy who is actually going out and getting acclaim by doing exactly what I think I'm good at. Then I created a little mental video in my mind of me watching him doing what I think I'm good at. If you compare the two videos, I'm the loser. Even if you don't, the fact that I was jealous of a guy that is doing something that I could be doing...yeah either way I'm a loser.

SO!

I sat down with my notepad and brainstormed about what I had to tell the world. I wrote this in class while my professor droned on about the definition of family:

There is an unfortunate difference between having something to say and simply saying things. I hear people in my school talking all the time. A constant stream of hollow, self-obsessed babble. I have to wonder if their friends are thinking the same thing I am: Nobody cares how long you let your phone charge last night. Some of them think they have an important thought to share, but it's mostly recycled anger from smarter people who had a good point several decades ago. So much of their reactionary cynicism is inspired by people they didn't know and can't even identify with. Get your own righteous indignation, I say!

I have since reread that passage and find it to be empty and wholly unoriginal. You might even call it hypocritical...bitterly scribbling words out of the pretentious presumption that I was being intelligent and superior.

So after having my crisis of self-esteem yesterday, I figured I'd sit down this morning and actually create an original piece of work. I landed on the idea I felt needed to be shared and began to type out the following

I would like to tell you a true story about a seed. Most stories that that people tell you that have seeds in them start with the seed getting planted and then growing into something good and lush and covered in moral leaves and plot-twigs. In this story, a seed gets planted which is quite bad--a bad seed you might say--but then that seed plants another seed which grows into a thing that is full of ambiguity-buds and possibility-bark.

That's how far I got before I decided I was really going nowhere with a rather plain idea that wasn't necessarily going to have an effect on anybody. Anybody. I am, after all, a blogger. I should be getting my shitty opinions across in short, to-the-point...well...blogs. So here's the point plain and simple.

I think internet culture is leading to an eventual universal acceptance of homosexuality. As it is, internet and online culture is charged with homo-eroticism that I would guess most of the people it affects are completely unaware of. Being that it originated from hatred and intolerance, it makes sense that they wouldn't even realize it. But the truth is that the overexposure to eat-my-dick and you-know-you-want-it "humor" has made homo-eroticism normal and widely accepted among a generation that started out drenched in 'gay is bad' propaganda.

Like I said, eventual. It's a long-run sort of thing but I think it could be a good thing some day. I dunno, maybe I'm naive and hopeful. Anyhow, I got my point across goddammit! Chew on it.

Still pretty sure I haven't said anything,

- Sad Blogger

Can You Use it in a Sentence? Posted by Sad Blogger , 17.1.11 at Monday, January 17, 2011, in

I can't quite recall the first time I heard anybody use the word "ginger", but I remember how wrong and not-allowed it seemed. I must have been close to 10 years old, maybe older, and all I wanted to do was go home and quietly repeat the word to myself. It wrapped so pleasantly around my tongue and gently slid off the tip like a fried egg out of a pan. I hadn't really known any gingers at the time. There were a few of them at my school, but they mostly flocked together so I had no way of identifying with them.

I met my future friend, Jonny, at a youth retreat when I was in the seventh grade. I didn't pay much attention to him at that time; not knowing anyone, I had latched on to his friend, Mike, and paid only a minimal amount of attention to Jonny. It was the first time I'd really ever joined in conversation with a ginger, though, and I was surprised at how normal he was. Following that retreat, I can't say I started going out of my way to befriend any other gingers, but I certainly wasn't as quick to judge or avoid them.

I didn't see Jonny until two years later, when a mutual friend suggested him as a drummer for a band I was trying to put together. We immediately began bonding over our love for music. As well as a friend, I gained a window into what life was like for his people. I would often tease and affectionately call him a ginger, to which he would weakly protest, but never take offense. However, following one particularly scathing session of mockery on a day trip to Edmonton, he finally broke down and admitted that "the ginger thing" was funny now and then, but that I had to consider the history of the word and what it meant in a social context. I had to admit that at that time in my life, I'd never been fully conscious of the meanings of words. To me, they were just collections of letters, but Jonny was right. Over time, the Gs and the I and the E and the R and the N have come to represent so much more. They have been used to oppress and subdue. In Jonny's case alone, years of verbal abuse and ritual bullying at the hands of those monsters we call schoolchildren had transformed a simple word into fears and insecurities. In a slightly less political context, having grown up somewhat overweight, the tear stains in my childhood pillow slips can attest to the effect words like "fatty" and "chubchub" can have on a person. I can only image the torment gingers have gone through to be something like my miserable, tubby little broken heart multiplied by a thousand.

I became increasingly aware of when and how "ginger" wormed its way into my life and the lives of my friends. I commonly heard people justifying their use of the word with the excuse that gingers commonly use it within their own community. We really have to respect that if these people, as a group, choose to reclaim the word as their own, it doesn't mean the rest of us have a right to its use. Even as the friend of a ginger, I have not earned the right to take a word with such a storied past and toss it around as if I am some working type at a party and it is a joke about lawyers. One does not gain the right to perform life-endangering surgeries by cutting oneself while shaving, and one has not earned the right to called a ginger a ginger simply by having seen one on TV.

I can't claim to be perfect, though. On the first day of one of my second-year college classes, I was talking to a friend and a ginger sat down at the desk immediately in front of us. There had been one in a class we'd taken the previous semester and I couldn't help muttering, "Look, there's one in every class. The good ol' token ginger."

I guess I'd been loud enough for even the professor to have heard me. She called me out on my attitude and I apologized to the young man, but I regret that I continued to harass him in both my writing exercises—the kind that get read aloud—and conversation—the kind that is not quiet or in any way inconspicuous.

As I got to know my classmate better, I began recalling Jonny's wise advice all those years ago in his mom's Impala. Looking inside myself, I knew that I had no issue with this ginger. I had no problem with any gingers. How is it that a prejudice can be pulled over our heads like a scratchy, woolen sweater and we just accept it without protest? So some angry people a long time ago were biased against certain sections of the color wheel. How did that become any of my business? I'm proud to say I've since gotten over my prejudices.

I've also started therapy to get over my dyslexia. I think I'm doing quite well. I've improved to the point of only messing up a small collection of words. Unfortunately for my ginger friends, they'll just have to wait. See? There I go again.

With crimson love and ginger affection, -Sad Blogger

Three and a Half Weeks Posted by Happy Blogger , 3.1.11 at Monday, January 03, 2011, in

Three and a half weeks ago, I entered a foreign house.

A couple months ago I was asked by a friend of a friend of mine if I could house sit for them while they were away in Austrailia over the span of three and a half weeks starting December 9th. Desperate for money, I agree. You see, I'm going to China with school, and I kind of need to pay for some of it, and so with a promise of money at the end of this adventure I commence.

I'll be honest, initially it was kind of weird. I mean, you have the keys to someones house, you're watching someone's pets, taking showers in their showers, watching their movies and sleeping in their bed- not to mention you are going from an obnoxiously loud house to a barren house. The first night was a little rough, and I barely slept... however that soon changed as the days went by.

So, the main goal was taking care of the three pets. Lacy the dog, Sparkles the cat, and Skittles the hamster.

Lacy looks reminsicient to a bijon shitzu, however she is much thicker boned and she is covered in fluffy black fur. If I'm honest, she looks like a mini "Ewok", and so that's the pet name I usually called her. Not to mention her incescent need to be comforted at all times. She always wanted more. It starts with me sitting on the couch, and her on the floor. She whines, and she jumps up. I casually stroke her back, however that's not enough. then she climbs up onto my lap, and I continue to stroke. The next thing you know she's licking your entire face and if you don't continue to pet her, she whines like no other until you begin to pet her. I will state that she was probably the cutest of the three, however he constant need for attention became redundant and exhausting.

Then there is Sparkles the cat. Coming into this job, I wasn't really a cat fan. It's probably because my friend used to throw her cat at me and I was scared, and ever since her cat and I have a mutually disliking. However, she was the kind of cat that was routine. Get up at 6:30, feed her, on occasion give her a treat, and then at 11:00 at night, she would go on the bed that I slept on, would roll around begging to be petted and then would sleep at your feet. On occasions if you were sitting down, the cat and the dog would be competing for your attention, as they were both 'lap' pets. Towards the end I would chose Sparkles and I began to like cats. Apart from the name, she was my favourite.

Then there was the Hamster. If I'm honest I think hamsters are disgusting creatures and I don't understand why any one would want one, however I kept him fed and watered. Then there was the day, it was probably about the 15th day in, and I went to go change the shavings in the cage because it was starting to stink, and I went to go move Skittles, but he wasn't moving... after further examination, he wasn't really breathing either. I called to my sister who had slept over, and she came over and looked. We stared for a couple minutes hoping for a miracle, however the hamster was dying and there was nothing I could really do about it- I mean, it was really old.

So I came home to a officially dead hamster, put him in a box and put him outside where he could become frozen. I couldn't believe it! I killed their hamster! Imean, ofcourse he died, I did all I could, I fed him and what not... but I couldn't believe it! So I sent an e-mail, and it only gets worse from here. In the e-mail I sent, I addressed the Hamster as a girl and wrote that her name was Oreo (where I got this name I'll never know). I later found out that the hamster was in fact a boy and was named Skittles, and I was further embarassed and in complete shock. When Christmas came around, the news of me killing a hamster spectulated and I became the laughing stock- all in good fun though.

As a began to spend more time with these animals, I realized that I was kind of like the dog and the cat in some ways, mainly the attention. Now I'm not saying I always need to be in the spot light- I'm referring to the stroking and petting. I kept thinking about all the times at home when we are watching a movie that I beg for one of my sisters of my mother to 'play with my hair' or 'brush my hair' and massage my back. It was then that in that respect, I was like a dog.

The house was relatively easy to manage. As for food, I would go to my house for supper, and conviently, my house was only a couple blocks away. I bought some breakfast foods and bags of salad which did it's job. After the first night I began to sleep much better- and discovered that the bed was possibly the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. The Tv was great, because they have lot's of channels that I don't usually get so that was great. In the basement they had a ton of old 80/90's romatic comedies that I eventually watched.

I couldn't help but think 'this is the life'. I could stay up as late as I wanted, I could sing in the shower and not worry that I would be annoying someone. I could dance around the kitchen to music and sing to the dog without anyone knowing. I could get up and play the ABBA CD every morning when I was making breakfast. I could lay on the couch the entire day without being told to get up and do something.

For three and a half weeks I managed on my own and it was great. I discovered that I could in fact run a house on my own (naively however, seeing as I'm disregarding the money aspect, and any electrical/plumbing issues). I also discovered that when I am older, I want a cat over a dog- they can be just as cute and loving- and easier to manage.

Three and a half weeks later I have a cheque to put in my bank account and a souvenir koala shirt from Austrailia.
Three and a half weeks later, I am back at home.

-Happy Blogger