Today at lunch I was reading the Westword and in the latest issue there is a cover story about returning Iraqi vets. I already know the numbers well from class; roughly 25% of returning vets have PTSD. That is an astounding amount, for those of you who don't spend all your time talking about trauma and PTSD, like I do.
Anyway, that's really not even the point. The point is, in reading the article about this particular vet, my heart suddenly cracked open and I nearly burst into tears, right there in Chipotle.
I have always been anti-war, pro-peace. Staunchly. People who supported war and/or went off to fight were always, to me, the enemy more than any foreign country or terrorist threat. Reports of dead soldiers from Iraq rarely even caught my attention as my thoughts were always...they knew what they were getting themselves into.
Geez, I can be such an asshole, right? Finally, today, I understood how callous I have been in my thoughts and feelings towards those in the military. Surely, most of the people who join the military really DO feel like they are doing the right thing, like they are fighting for a just cause, their country, their freedom, their families. And all I could ever do was look down on them and think they were full of shit, just because they didn't see things my way. I think of myself as open-minded but it took me 27 years to realize this? For shame.
I am truly embarassed about my lack of empathy in this situation and hope that in the future I can be more respectful towards serving-in-the-military-type issues.
On the other hand, I still just don't get it. While protecting your country, freedom, family or whatever may be deeply important to you, how can there be so many millions of people that think anything at all will be solved by killing others? That is such a juvenile way of dealing with problems, and yet millions of people make careers out of it, devote their lives to it. The success of societies through peace and not war is such an obvious truth to me that it absolutely boggles my mind that not everyone gets that.
Why, why, why is this not a universally accepted truth, like needing air to breathe or water to sustain life, or gravity to stay rooted to the ground?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Dating Tips
I've spent the last couple months dating a slew of idiots. In my defense, I didn't realize they were all idiots before I dated them. I spent a lot of time complaining to my friends about the men I was going out with and the dates I had just finished. But now that I have started school again and no longer have the time to meet new men, let alone date them, I look back on the last several weeks and can't help but admit to myself that it was kind of fun. It was fun thinking of date ideas. It was fun to get dressed up to go somewhere. It was fun once again having the possibility that it might be a boy calling, instead of my mother or best friend (not that I dont love hearing from my mother or friends, best or otherwise). Mostly it was fun dissecting the dates with my friends and laughing over the ridiculousness that is the single male population of Denver.
Of course, I did learn from my experiences. Which of course got me to thinking, I should write a blog about it.
Some lessons I learned:
1. Men do not look good in coats that go past their knees. I'm pretty sure the only man on EARTH who can pull this look off is Denzel Washington, and even that is iffy. But especially if you're shorter than 6ft, for the love of god...just get a shorter coat.
2. I need to stop the cussing. I should fucking know better, but dammit, I can't seem to stop letting the shit fly out of my mouth. Also, I have been taking my cue from my dates, and apparently that's not ok. Even if HE cusses, SHE still is not allowed to. Clearly I didn't meet my soulmate in the last couple months, because I believe that The One doesn't care whether or not I cuss.
3. Alcohol on a first date is not worth it. While it might make you more relaxed in the beginning, you will find on the second date that the sexy and interesting male specimen you met earlier in the week is in fact, when sober, kind of neanderthal-looking and outrageously dull.
4. If a guy says to you "You have such soft skin" and your reply is "No offense, but when is the last time you touched a woman?", he will get offended anyway.
5. Never, ever, ever sit in the front row at a comedy club. Oh wait, I already knew that. I guess the lesson here is never, ever, ever allow your date to convince you that sitting in the front row won't be that bad and that the comediens will not pick on you.
And would this post really be complete without a few tips for the guys? Methinks not.
Men:
1. Don't wear coats that go past your knees.
2. DO NOT EVER pull hair unless you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE she's into that.
3. If you are taking a girl out to a fancy restaurant date you might want to make sure that you know where the restaurant is, as well as how to get to the restaurant from your date's house. You might want to also make sure the restaurant is actually open.
And lastly, and this should not be new, but this is the most important part of being with a woman. No means no. No doesn't mean yes. No doesn't mean maybe. No doesn't mean try harder. No doesn't mean she's just "afraid it might feel good" (I still fume with rage thinking of this comment.) When she says no, she isn't just playing a game.
No means no. Respect it, or get the hell out of the dating world.
Of course, I did learn from my experiences. Which of course got me to thinking, I should write a blog about it.
Some lessons I learned:
1. Men do not look good in coats that go past their knees. I'm pretty sure the only man on EARTH who can pull this look off is Denzel Washington, and even that is iffy. But especially if you're shorter than 6ft, for the love of god...just get a shorter coat.
2. I need to stop the cussing. I should fucking know better, but dammit, I can't seem to stop letting the shit fly out of my mouth. Also, I have been taking my cue from my dates, and apparently that's not ok. Even if HE cusses, SHE still is not allowed to. Clearly I didn't meet my soulmate in the last couple months, because I believe that The One doesn't care whether or not I cuss.
3. Alcohol on a first date is not worth it. While it might make you more relaxed in the beginning, you will find on the second date that the sexy and interesting male specimen you met earlier in the week is in fact, when sober, kind of neanderthal-looking and outrageously dull.
4. If a guy says to you "You have such soft skin" and your reply is "No offense, but when is the last time you touched a woman?", he will get offended anyway.
5. Never, ever, ever sit in the front row at a comedy club. Oh wait, I already knew that. I guess the lesson here is never, ever, ever allow your date to convince you that sitting in the front row won't be that bad and that the comediens will not pick on you.
And would this post really be complete without a few tips for the guys? Methinks not.
Men:
1. Don't wear coats that go past your knees.
2. DO NOT EVER pull hair unless you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE she's into that.
3. If you are taking a girl out to a fancy restaurant date you might want to make sure that you know where the restaurant is, as well as how to get to the restaurant from your date's house. You might want to also make sure the restaurant is actually open.
And lastly, and this should not be new, but this is the most important part of being with a woman. No means no. No doesn't mean yes. No doesn't mean maybe. No doesn't mean try harder. No doesn't mean she's just "afraid it might feel good" (I still fume with rage thinking of this comment.) When she says no, she isn't just playing a game.
No means no. Respect it, or get the hell out of the dating world.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Some Questions
This is kind of the sister blog to my entry several months ago that was "Some Observations." Actually, I dont remember what I called it, but that title would make sense to me.
Here are some questions that I would like answered. If anyone knows the answers, you should definitely let me know.
There's a good chance this blog will get added on to as time goes by.
As of 1/10/10, these are a few thoughts I've been mulling over:
1) Where do good looking single men grocery shop? I go to grocery stores all over the city, depending on what I am doing, and where I am, and I NEVER see hot single guys in the stores. One hundred percent of the time when I see a good-looking guy getting groceries, he is either attached at the hip with a woman, or wearing a wedding ring. WTF.
2) What in Jesus's name is a 'beautiful nightmare'?
(This next question makes me really really glad that I only tell a few people about this blog.)
3) People have phantom limbs, right? And if someone has lost a hand (or whatever) they can still feel pain in it, they can still feel cramps in it, it will even itch. The other day I found myself wondering, do eunuchs feel phantom balls? And since you can feel pain in parts of your body that are no longer there, do they ever experience...phantom blue balls??
Stay tuned for more brain-wrinkling musings.
Here are some questions that I would like answered. If anyone knows the answers, you should definitely let me know.
There's a good chance this blog will get added on to as time goes by.
As of 1/10/10, these are a few thoughts I've been mulling over:
1) Where do good looking single men grocery shop? I go to grocery stores all over the city, depending on what I am doing, and where I am, and I NEVER see hot single guys in the stores. One hundred percent of the time when I see a good-looking guy getting groceries, he is either attached at the hip with a woman, or wearing a wedding ring. WTF.
2) What in Jesus's name is a 'beautiful nightmare'?
(This next question makes me really really glad that I only tell a few people about this blog.)
3) People have phantom limbs, right? And if someone has lost a hand (or whatever) they can still feel pain in it, they can still feel cramps in it, it will even itch. The other day I found myself wondering, do eunuchs feel phantom balls? And since you can feel pain in parts of your body that are no longer there, do they ever experience...phantom blue balls??
Stay tuned for more brain-wrinkling musings.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ahh, Kids
I have a clinical internship this year, and one of the things I've been doing every week is group therapy for 8-10 year olds. Its supposed to focus on communcation skills.
I'm pretty new to the role of teacher type person slash...someone who is ever around children at all, so I've been getting a kick out of a lot of the stuff they say. A lot of the funniest stuff is not relatable with the written word, but this week I think we got one that I can pass on.
We've spent the last several weeks discussing how to share and how to all come to an agreement about things as a group and, about a month ago, we even introduced the word "compromise."
I thought my co-therapist was jumping the gun on that word, they are pretty young, but after a couple weeks they were using that word left and right without our prompting and it seemed like they were really getting the idea. We even had a kid carry it over into his individual therapy and talk about how he "compromised" with his sister by sharing the last cookie.
We were beaming with success and so proud of our super smart kiddos.
This week a new girl joined group. My co-therapist says "What do we do when we don't know someone?"
A resounding answer: "Com-pro-mise!"
So much for THAT victory.
I'm pretty new to the role of teacher type person slash...someone who is ever around children at all, so I've been getting a kick out of a lot of the stuff they say. A lot of the funniest stuff is not relatable with the written word, but this week I think we got one that I can pass on.
We've spent the last several weeks discussing how to share and how to all come to an agreement about things as a group and, about a month ago, we even introduced the word "compromise."
I thought my co-therapist was jumping the gun on that word, they are pretty young, but after a couple weeks they were using that word left and right without our prompting and it seemed like they were really getting the idea. We even had a kid carry it over into his individual therapy and talk about how he "compromised" with his sister by sharing the last cookie.
We were beaming with success and so proud of our super smart kiddos.
This week a new girl joined group. My co-therapist says "What do we do when we don't know someone?"
A resounding answer: "Com-pro-mise!"
So much for THAT victory.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Thoughts from Shantaram
I've been reading Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Its quite an impressive book. Its an autobiographical account of his time living in Bombay as an escaped convict from Australia. He is so insightful. He writes with such beauty, some of his simplest descriptions make me want to put the book down and cry. And, always a bonus, he is funny as well. I absolutey recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it.
I'm only about 100 pages into the 1000 page book, but there's an issue he's already brought up a couple of times that I have been getting stuck on. He describes India graphicly and honestly, making note of some shocking things he witnesses, such as a child slave market. He goes on to discuss his attitude that there are a lot of extremely horrible things in this world, and the only way to make them worse is when someone tries to help, and this seems to be his argument, his excuse, the balm to his conscience as to why he never takes action in any of these situations.
Now, I agree that there are a lot of instances where people are trying, with the purest of hearts, to improve a situation and all they do is screw it up in a myriad of new ways. Especially when you have all these westerners trying to enter different cultures and dominate the relief effort, without taking the time to understand the nuances of the very people they are extending their "aid" toward. Identifying these kinds of situations is, in fact, a big part of the master's program that I am in. Its also a big concern for me, that in my desire to work abroad I may find myself in a job that perpetuates a problem instead of alleviating it. I would quite honestly never ever work abroad than to be in that kind of position, and in fact have lately wondered if I should even puruse international work anymore. My point in all this me-focused rambling is that I do, quite deeply, understand that when there's pain in the world, it is no simple matter of just entering the scene with good intentions, and all becomes well.
But does that mean we shouldn't even try? Everyone should just keep their eyes on the ground, not reach out to other human beings, just because any condition, no matter how bad it is, could always be made worse? That is an awful, lazy, dismissive way of interpreting the world. I'm not saying Roberts could have fixed everything he witnessed, not even close, but damn, he could have at least tried. And maybe he does, later in the book, but I really don't think so.
This issue comes up when he's talking about being taken to a child slave market. He remarks on the starving children, and their ragged clothes, and their palpable fear. Then he frankly admits that he took not a single step to interfere with this process, to inquire about it later, to examine the system and see if there was a way to break it, to crack it, to even get one or two children out. Again, the argument about being a foreigner, about not making things worse, about trying to look at the bright side. The bright side of the situation, as he sees it, is that these kids would have starved to death, or died from disease if their parents had not sold them into the slave market. For every one Indian child that found themselves sold into the slave market, dozens more simply perished. Who is he to say that a life of slavery, of sexual abuse, of being treated as property is better than dying? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it depends on who you are. But it certainly isn't so simple as to say "in fact, these children are lucky to be slaves, because the only other option for them is death." Targeting death as the very worst possible outcome is in itself a very western attitude.
Interfering in any problem, whether it be micro or macro, always carries with it the possibility of making things worse. Its important to recognize that. But I can not, I will not believe that doing nothing is the best possible option.
I'm only about 100 pages into the 1000 page book, but there's an issue he's already brought up a couple of times that I have been getting stuck on. He describes India graphicly and honestly, making note of some shocking things he witnesses, such as a child slave market. He goes on to discuss his attitude that there are a lot of extremely horrible things in this world, and the only way to make them worse is when someone tries to help, and this seems to be his argument, his excuse, the balm to his conscience as to why he never takes action in any of these situations.
Now, I agree that there are a lot of instances where people are trying, with the purest of hearts, to improve a situation and all they do is screw it up in a myriad of new ways. Especially when you have all these westerners trying to enter different cultures and dominate the relief effort, without taking the time to understand the nuances of the very people they are extending their "aid" toward. Identifying these kinds of situations is, in fact, a big part of the master's program that I am in. Its also a big concern for me, that in my desire to work abroad I may find myself in a job that perpetuates a problem instead of alleviating it. I would quite honestly never ever work abroad than to be in that kind of position, and in fact have lately wondered if I should even puruse international work anymore. My point in all this me-focused rambling is that I do, quite deeply, understand that when there's pain in the world, it is no simple matter of just entering the scene with good intentions, and all becomes well.
But does that mean we shouldn't even try? Everyone should just keep their eyes on the ground, not reach out to other human beings, just because any condition, no matter how bad it is, could always be made worse? That is an awful, lazy, dismissive way of interpreting the world. I'm not saying Roberts could have fixed everything he witnessed, not even close, but damn, he could have at least tried. And maybe he does, later in the book, but I really don't think so.
This issue comes up when he's talking about being taken to a child slave market. He remarks on the starving children, and their ragged clothes, and their palpable fear. Then he frankly admits that he took not a single step to interfere with this process, to inquire about it later, to examine the system and see if there was a way to break it, to crack it, to even get one or two children out. Again, the argument about being a foreigner, about not making things worse, about trying to look at the bright side. The bright side of the situation, as he sees it, is that these kids would have starved to death, or died from disease if their parents had not sold them into the slave market. For every one Indian child that found themselves sold into the slave market, dozens more simply perished. Who is he to say that a life of slavery, of sexual abuse, of being treated as property is better than dying? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe it depends on who you are. But it certainly isn't so simple as to say "in fact, these children are lucky to be slaves, because the only other option for them is death." Targeting death as the very worst possible outcome is in itself a very western attitude.
Interfering in any problem, whether it be micro or macro, always carries with it the possibility of making things worse. Its important to recognize that. But I can not, I will not believe that doing nothing is the best possible option.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Another Snapshot
There is another scene that keeps coming to me over and over when I think about my summer.
Autumn* and I walked to work together, most days.
One morning we were walking and it was particularly windy. Leaves and trash were swirling around everywhere. My eyes were half shut so I wouldn't get dirt in them.
A plastic bag came shooting toward us, pasted itself against Autumn's leg, and stayed there.
"What the fuck!", was her reaction.
Hahahahaha.
As if the wind, or the bag, or even Bosnia had done it on purpose.
*Name not changed to protect her identity.
Autumn* and I walked to work together, most days.
One morning we were walking and it was particularly windy. Leaves and trash were swirling around everywhere. My eyes were half shut so I wouldn't get dirt in them.
A plastic bag came shooting toward us, pasted itself against Autumn's leg, and stayed there.
"What the fuck!", was her reaction.
Hahahahaha.
As if the wind, or the bag, or even Bosnia had done it on purpose.
*Name not changed to protect her identity.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Its the Little Things
I had a GREAT summer. I traveled all over the place, made new friends and visited some cherished old ones, learned a lot of painful things about war and politics, saw a lot of breathtaking scenery, and never once denied myself anything that looked like a pastry. Or like chocolate. Or just anything tasty looking.
One day found me in Northern Ireland, wandering all over Derry County (on the all-inclusive Freedom of Northern Ireland pass, no less) having many adventures and misadventures with my friend Dacia. After a long day we were finally on the train home back into Derry the city and we were sitting across the aisle from a family playing cards.
I'm a card-game geek so I was watching them play, trying to figure out what game it was. Dacia and I sat and stared while father and son both flipped over every single card in their hand until the deck was out. And that was it. Nothing else ever happened in this "game".
"That was it?" I muttered. "What a crap game!"
Dacia, always a little more patient and tolerant than me, replied "Well, sometimes its the little things."
No sooner were those words out of her mouth when we hear the eight year old boy exclaim "What the HELL?!" Apparently he wasn't impressed with this game either.
Dacia was right though. Sometimes it IS the little things. That tiny, insignificant moment in time is one of my favorite memories from this summer, one that makes a laugh bubble up in my chest every time I think of it and I will probably will remember it much longer than a lot of other events from the summer.
One day found me in Northern Ireland, wandering all over Derry County (on the all-inclusive Freedom of Northern Ireland pass, no less) having many adventures and misadventures with my friend Dacia. After a long day we were finally on the train home back into Derry the city and we were sitting across the aisle from a family playing cards.
I'm a card-game geek so I was watching them play, trying to figure out what game it was. Dacia and I sat and stared while father and son both flipped over every single card in their hand until the deck was out. And that was it. Nothing else ever happened in this "game".
"That was it?" I muttered. "What a crap game!"
Dacia, always a little more patient and tolerant than me, replied "Well, sometimes its the little things."
No sooner were those words out of her mouth when we hear the eight year old boy exclaim "What the HELL?!" Apparently he wasn't impressed with this game either.
Dacia was right though. Sometimes it IS the little things. That tiny, insignificant moment in time is one of my favorite memories from this summer, one that makes a laugh bubble up in my chest every time I think of it and I will probably will remember it much longer than a lot of other events from the summer.
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