No Sharp Divide

I have always maintained that the notion of a sharp divide between us (human beings) and our animal brethren (and especially the great apes) is preposterous.

It has always been convenient for human beings to deny important qualities in creatures we wish to exploit, whether they be other people or animals. We deny their capacity for pleasure or pain, for higher cognition, for anticipation or anxiety. We deprecate their intelligence. Whenever someone wishes to impute such qualities or faculties to these "lower orders" we say they are sentimental, and are projecting or anthropomorphizing.

I say that's just another form of rationalization. Anyone who has ever had a pet cat or dog knows of those mammals' capacity for ~ among other attributes ~ love, patience, and even certain forms of creativity. We are on a continuum with all living beings, and we have more in common with them than it is comfortable to contemplate. And if perchance you believe that you have a soul, I challenge you to investigate closely why you believe that some other being does not. Is your reasoning completely devoid of self-interest? Does it appeal entirely to external authority or derive from direct personal experience and observation?

But, you say, you want some science with that gooshy, touchy-feely crap? Okay, here you go. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: future generations will one day be just as ashamed of the way we treated other sentient creatures as we are of our forebears who enslaved and exploited one another.

Well

A. I am a little bit tipsy. Three neat shots of Jack Daniels will do that to a girl.

B. I took second in my A league. I rule.

C. There was the following conversation, after Mr. WPY busted out early and yet lingered around me:

"Do you want to get together later this week?" (Me.)

"Oh. I can't. I've got my hotel opening this week. But next week." (Him.)

"Give me a holler." (Me.)

"I'll give you a holler." (Him.)

He better fucking give me a holler. The ball is now blatantly in his court. I have done my part.

D. I gave Mr. Forearms a brief backrub (which I say with all due modesty I am very good at). He is scared of me. HIS LOSS.

E. Previously mentioned buff boy hit on me again. I gave him reason to hope. He is a gifted toucher and hey, I could use a little touching.

F. That which is forbidden becomes that much more desirable. If I'm going to get a security clearance, I must strictly eschew all illegal drugs. I don't do illegal drugs. Ever. But the moment they became strictly and forever out of bounds, I wished I could dabble. I won't, of course. So I got a little tipsy and I smoked a couple of cigarettes instead. (Regular smokers forget the effect that nicotine can have on the unhabituated. Major body and head rush. Very pleasurable.)

G. One of these boys is gonna give it up to me in the next month. It will either be Mr. WPY, or it will be Mr. Forearms, or it will be Buff Boy, or it will be Mr. Actuary (about whom I haven't written much, if anything). I am sick of sitting around in solitary splendor. Attention must be paid. And one of these guys is going to provide the requisite wherewithal. I'm just saying. First come, first served.

Tax Hell

Ugh. My Dad's. Mine.

The paper. The money. The horror.

No Sir

I am tall.
I have short hair.
I don't wear make-up.
I don't have long fingernails, nor do I use nail polish.
I frequently sport an oversized man's leather jacket with the too-long sleeves rolled up at the cuff.
I generally wear trousers, rather than dresses or skirts, when it's cold out.

But I am not a man. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
And I don't think I look like a man. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

It shouldn't bother me, since I'm all anti-sex-stereotypes 'n' all.
But it does.
It bothers the HECK out of me.

STOP CALLING ME 'SIR,' DAMMIT!!!

I suppose I could wear some make-up and ditch the jacket.
But make-up always makes me feel like I'm playing dress-up.
And I like the jacket.

I will never be a girly-girl, that's for sure. But am I really that unfeminine?

Lebensraum

There I am in the ladies' locker room in my gym.

It's divided up into bays and alcoves, and my preferred section has twenty full-length lockers in it.

TWENTY. That's 2 x 10 for those of you keeping score at home. Twenty. As many as most people have fingers and toes.

So why ~ for the love of all that is holy, sacred, and worthy ~ must women with many garments and tote bags pick the two lockers on either side of mine to use? There are somewhere between 14 AND 19 UNUSED LOCKERS, and they feel they must select the ones directly adjacent to mine why? For maximum crowding and inconvenience?

WTF LADIES?
Are you utterly dimwitted or do you just like to flock together like sheep?
Or both?

Great Features, Stupid Limitation

Like a good little Apple fangirl, I promptly updated my iPhone to 1.1.3, and happily and quickly customized my home screen(s), added webclip icons (including making a custom one for THIS blog, check it out you iPhoners!), and thrilled to the *reasonably* accurate location finder in Maps.

Software updates: yay!

But. As we speak I'm downloading a rental of The Simpsons Movie. I'll load it up on my iPhone so that I'll have something to watch on my bus ride to AC this weekend if I get bored of listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me while the scenery rolls by. The catch is that once I start watching it, I have to finish watching it within 24 hours. So, for example, I can't watch half the movie on my way out of town and the other half on the way back.

THAT IS JUST STUPID. Let me repeat: the 24 hour window to watch a rental that is available for 30 days is STUPID. In case I failed to be quite clear: this restriction is DUMB, IDIOTIC, and downright BRAINDEAD.

I cannot see how this limitation solves any concern that either Apple or the movie studios might have about piracy. It's just pointless. And aggravating.

The Good and The Bad

The Good

The turnaround continues: I won a local home tournament last night and replenished my bankroll. I played a highly disciplined tight-aggressive game, made a few effective bluffs, and got lucky when I needed to. I also cashed fifth in an online 90 person tourney. Extremely pleased about this! I have two more big nights of poker tonight and tomorrow, and I can only hope the trend continues.

The Bad

Some items that are irritating me very, very much at the moment. In the grand scheme of things things, they are trivial. (Compared to my family crises, for example, they are meaningless.) Still:

1. The Whirlpool
   
   For god's sake, woman, can you not read??? See that sign, the sign that says: PLEASE SHOWER BEFORE USING THE WHIRLPOOL. Did you not just work out??? Are you not therefore exuding many substances which it would be better not to share with others? Do you not notice that I am in the whirlpool also? Perhaps it has escaped your attention that other people exist. Oh, the inconvenience to you! Oh the solipsism! No wonder the goddam jacuzzi water is as murky as the Potomac.



2. The Cold Sore
   
   Apparently, it's not enough for one's life to be filled with stress. One must also experience the joyous physical manifestations of stress. Hence, the giant, painful, protruding blister on my bottom lip. Thanks so much, immune system! I do appreciate it.

Knee Deep in Lawyers

Where there is death, where there are taxes, there also must be lawyers. I have already spent many hours talking with expensive lawyers and I know that more of the same awaits.

Cleverly, no two of them can be found to agree on anything. Do you suppose they teach them that in law school, or it part of associates' apprenticeship?

I say this despite the fact that some of my very best friends are attorneys.

How to Build Consumer Goodwill: Assume I'm a Thief and a Drug Dealer

Okay, so predictably with all the work and the stress, I have another major cold. This is the second in three months, which is something of a record for me.

So I go to my local drugstore to pick up some Sudafed. I want the the real Sudafed, you know, the stuff that actually works. I made the mistake of buying the new, non-pseudoephedrine stuff last time and it was utterly useless.

In order to purchase this CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE now, you have to pick up a card off a rack (which conveniently has no prices associated with the various products and sizes of products) and go to the pharmacy. You are then required to surrender a photo ID, your name and address, and provide a signature. FOR ONE STINKING BOX OF DECONGESTANT PILLS.

Let us count the ways that this is fucking idiotic.

1. Meth manufacturers are surely going to buy boxes of Sudafed one at a time. Yeah, right.


2. Meth manufacturers are going to use legitimate ID and their own credit cards when they buy their single boxes of Sudafed. For sure.


3. Meth manufacturers are frequently middle-aged women with runny noses and stuffed up sinuses who go to the same drugstore year after year.

To add insult to injury, the razor blade cartridges I like are now behind the counter too. So I had to pay for my cold medicine at one end of the store, and then buy my pricier than gold razor blades at the other end. Maybe if the razor blades weren't SO PREPOSTEROUSLY EXPENSIVE they wouldn't get boosted so often. You think?

Modern life is degrading and depressing. Of course it beats the heck out of any other period in human history, but still.

The Oppression will Be Televised

The bad news is that police do stuff like this.

The good news is that, when it happens in public, technology gives eyewitnesses an opportunity to record what happens and try to get accountability.

I have no idea what happened before this video started: the tazed student did seem very disturbed already and his reaction was clearly politicized (one report says that he thought he was being profiled). Nonetheless, I can conceive of no excuse for the repeated tazering of a handcuffed person, or for the threat to taze bystanders who susbsequently asked for the cops' identification.

I think criminal prosecution of the campus police involved is possible and a civil suit is a 100% certainty.

On some level, I find the comments appended to the YouTube version of this video even more disturbing than the video itself. I am deeply distressed by the number of people who seem to find it a) funny (wtf?!?) because of the way the guy screams in pain or b) an example of just deserts because of failure to immediately and silently comply with authority.

And for those commenters who complain that the students didn't do more to intervene... when was the last time YOU jumped in between bullies and their victim (extra points for cases when the bullies were armed with disabling weapons and you were unarmed; extra super bonus points for occasions when the bullies were legal authorities). No? Okay then: stfu.