Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I Have 1 Year and 4 Months Left to Live

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend of mine about planning for retirement and the fine balance between working and living life. He was saving based on the age at which his father (or possibly Grandfather) had died at, assuming that he would also die around this age; which was 63. He did not have very high hopes that he would live much past this age.

This conversation reminded me of a book that my friend Jennifer gave me when I was 18 or 19 years old called Motherless Daughters. The book was meant for women who had lost their mothers at a relatively young age. In this book it said that many women who approach the age at which their mother had died begin to feel morbid about life, and start thinking about their own mortality. Check.

My Mother died when she was 33 years and 3 months old, I was barely 14 years old. I am 31 years and 11 months old. So I have approximately 1 year and 4 months left to live by using these two schools of thought; although, my Mom died unexpectedly and very quickly from sepsis. I guess I better start having more fun, and worrying less about trivial things that don't matter in the grand scheme of things, I could be dead fairly quickly.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

The Fine Line Between Creativity and Blasphemy

The violence against Americans and Western cultures in the Middle East has arose to a frightening level  this past week. This violence was brought on by the release of an independent film called "Innocence of Muslims" where the filmmaker has depicted the prophet Mohammad as a womanizer, a pedophile, and a degenerate. Innocent Americans as well as innocent Muslims have been slain due to this film being released and it is a scary thought. It is a scary thought that the artistic expression of an "infidel" can invoke such hatred among the extreme.


Religion has long been the source of battle, not just Islam... the Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Sunnis, Shiites, and Jews have also waged war over religion to defend their god(s) and any perceived threat to their own religious freedom. The part that strikes me as odd is that most of these religions teach love... the unfortunate part, is that many of the books for these religions have a lot of open room for interpretation due to vastly differing times as compared to when they were written, so all it takes is one person to interpret the teachings in a negative way and all hell breaks loose once they gain a following because men are sheep. As a whole, the human race is a population of sheep that is waiting for a Shepard to lead them. It is why there are so many leadership courses taught, and why CEO's are paid the big bucks... because a good leader (Shepard) is hard to find. Unfortunately, not all who are good leaders have good teachings.

As an agnostic person who is bordering on atheism 50% of the time, all this does is make me angry. I live in this world too and I don't believe in any major religion, yet I am subjected to the violence that erupts from it. I get angry at the people who burn the Qu'ran in front of Muslim inmates, because it is an ignorant, dick-move. I don't care if you believe in the Qu'ran or not, this is extremely offensive to a Muslim so why would someone do it? It is a direct violation to Rule Number 1.

I am all for the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression, but there seems to be this fine line between creativity and blasphemy to certain religions... Scientology being one of them. It is a very hypocritical fine line at that... as in, we can pick on your religion, but do not pick on ours. 

I laugh at ALL the comedies that pick on religion. I absolutely loved Bill Maher's documentary "Religulous," and I laughed my ass off at Sacha Baron Cohen in "Bruno" when he turned the garb of Orthodox Jews into a sexy-time outfit and was nearly stoned to death for it. I laughed hysterically at South Park when they made fun of Scientology, and I'm sure I will laugh at "Innocence of Muslims" as well... because they are funny to me. Religion is funny to me because in my opinion, religion over the centuries has done more harm than good. It is meant to be good, and yet it has been poisoned by human nature and has become a form of control. During the days of the IRA, and the Catholic/Protestant fighting in Ireland this was seen perfectly. The Irish Catholics held majority of the land, and control of the country... as compared to the Protestants who were poor, and were the ones that suffered from the decisions made by the ruling Catholics. It was a class war in reality hiding under the veil of religion.

As the late, great Mahatma Gandhi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." You can insert any religion in this statement, not just Christians. Christ taught love and acceptance, yet many "Christians" do not practice this. They judge harshly, they accept no one who is not like them, and their love is conditional. The Qu'ran teaches that Allah "Loveth Not" but it does not call for violence against the things that Allah "loveth not." The room for interpretation in religion has spawned multiple denominations of the same sect of a religion, and in the self-righteous way that humans have about us... we reject everything else that is different, or we try to change what is different from us.

It is ironic to me that Mahatma Gandhi preached love, acceptance, tolerance, and non-violence and he was assassinated. It is incredibly ironic and sad to me because the extreme Muslims who are going to extreme lengths to avenge Allah's honor, are doing harm to the millions of peaceful Muslims who promote peace, love, and tolerance. These Muslims are the ones who are going to end up suffering the most during these troubled times, just as Gandhi did.

America is a super power, we have a huge military, nuclear weapons, and the ability to wipe out nations just by stopping our foreign aid to them. America is going to be alright in the end. A few more might die during these protests, but overall we will be ok... non-extreme Muslims are going to be the ones who end up being persecuted because as we all know, racism is alive and thriving in the United States still. It has gone from racism against African Americans to racism against Japanese Americans, to racism against Latino Americans, and now on to Muslim Americans.

It is a sad world we live in. An incredibly ignorant and sad world indeed.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Patriotism

Sometimes I feel as though it is my place to speak about the elephant in the room. I don't know why, I just feel addressing issues up front is the way to go. Living life out loud (i.e. the way you live privately to also be the way you live publicly) is very important to me. I am pretty transparent and I do not hide much from people... for this reason, you either hate me or love me.

As of late, I have seen a lot of posts on Facebook and on the news criticizing President Obama's choice to not bomb Libya over the attack on the U.S. Consulate there. I am not going to say one way or the other what I think about this, as this blog isn't a place to push my political agenda. What I am going to do though is give my opinion on these people who are so quick to start a war. You know the type, the ones who are quick to scream WAR whenever something happens in the Middle East that they feel was disrespectful to the the United States.

What irritates me about them doing this, is most of these people have never been in the military. They have not had to send their loved ones off to combat zones, they have not had to live through deployments, and the hardships of military life. These people are quick to scream war when it is someone else going off to war to fight for their freedom, yet they never did their duty to their country. They have never lived off the crap pay that the military gives you. They have never dealt with the bull-shit training that you are constantly going through in the military. They have never had to sacrifice their personal comfort to defend their nation. They have not had to deal with the homesickness that comes with being away from the comfort zone of your loved ones.

So to all these people who are quick to scream war, quick to bomb, and quick to send someone else off to combat zones... I think you should keep your trap shut unless you have been in the military and know the challenge of living a military life. If you want the right to send people off to die for your freedom or even have an opinion on the matter, I highly suggest you enlist in the military, or marry someone in the military. Do your duty and then you can have a say on the matter, until that time I feel a lot of these people should just STFU.

This service announcement brought to you by a veteran who did her duty to her country.

Friday, September 14, 2012

A Big What. The. F*ck

I am in a chipper mood this morning. I feel like the world is right and I am so lucky to be part of it. I woke up to two emails from two of my dearest, and most cherished friends, I brushed my hair, my bra and panties match... Seriously, y'all - I have got my shit together this morning. I might be able to attribute this to the fact that I had 2 hours of sleep last night because my legs were restless and my dog decided my face was where she wanted to put her ass while we both tried to sleep, but who knows really - it could be a host of different things.

I was driving to work this morning at an ungodly hour - drinking a 42 gallon mug of coffee and just reflecting on how awesome I feel about everything today. I have great friends who inspire me every day to be a better person, to follow my heart, encourage my dreams, and to do what makes me happy. I have two nephews that I just love the crap out of, a full life that challenges me physically and mentally, and great hair. Seriously, my hair looks amazing today and is just begging to be pulled... now to find a man to take care of that for me. I want to write about it now because I have to work 12 hours today, I probably won't be feeling so inspired in 11 hours.

Then... I logged into my email account this morning and I got pissed. On the front page, the first thing that popped up was "Lessons from the Worlds Ugliest Woman."  Now let me tell you, that hurt my heart and sort of killed the pep I had in my step. I clicked on the article and it brought tears to my eyes. What the hell??? Who is to say she is ugly? It pissed me off and made me angry that society would judge her so harshly for being exactly what it pushes on women every single day in magazines, television, commercials, etc. - extremely thin.

Her name is Lizzie Velasquez, and she has no adipose tissue. She can not gain weight and she has 0% body fat. All that kept going through my head is how effed up it is that society has dubbed her "the ugliest woman alive" based on the fact that she has no fat... yet this same society pushes the extremely thin, airbrushed models as the epitome of beauty. There was a youtube clip made about how ugly she was and it bothered me that people can be such jerks. Rule number 1 in life: DO NOT BE A DICK. Look it up, it is really the only rule you need to live by in life. I can do nothing but wonder what happened to someone to make them take their self-worth issues out on someone else and to push their own self-esteem issues off on someone else.

Who are they to judge someone else and the way they look?? Who are they to call someone ugly? I can only imagine the self-esteem issues that this poor woman had growing up in addition to the complications from her disease and for some assholes to go and make a video about her calling her ugly, I think that is ugly. I think those people should die a million deaths in a fiery pit for being huge, colossal douchebags.

Society wants to dub her as ugly as they tout how "beautiful" some of these celebrities are that endorse sweat shop labor, endorse animal testing so they can have the latest and greatest make-up, endorse animal cruelty by wearing their fur wrapped around their gigantic heads, wearing dresses made of meat (and being called a fashion icon... no, you are just an asshole), hoard their money and do not donate to charity or the betterment of the human race. I guess as long as your face is symmetrical though, inexcusable behaviors such as these are excusable. God forbid you have a face that isn't symmetrical though and you donate your time and money to the betterment of the human race, you encourage compassion, and you have a general caring for other people and their well being.

Physical beauty fades. We are all going to have saggy asses when we are 80 years old - yes, you heard it hear first, we are all going to be wrinkly and we are all going to look the same when we are 80. What matters is not how skinny we are, how perfect our skin is, how straight our teeth are, how tight our abs are. What matters is whether or not we are caring. Are we compassionate? Do we love with our whole hearts? Do we put others before ourselves? Our capacity and ability to show and feel emotion. Our ability to show love. Our ability to not be assholes to the other animals and humans on this planet that we all have to share.

I was recently judged pretty harshly by someone because I have a lot of tattoos... this shocked me to be perfectly honest. For a brief second, I let this person make me feel like I was white trash because I have a moustache tattooed on my finger, and a cheeseburger on my bum. This person thinks that tattoos will be a disappointment to his parents and he told me that I was "rough around the edges," and for a very brief second I thought he was right. When he asked me how I planned to cover up my tattoos when I got married, for a millisecond I actually thought about it. Then I remembered who I am, what I stand for, and the values that I hold to be true. The tattoos I have do not define me. They do not define my character, they do not make me uneducated, they do not make me white trash, they do not make me unworthy of love, they do not make me tough, and they do not dictate how I live my life. I am not a thug because I have a lot of tattoos, and I am not uneducated white trash. I'm quite the opposite, actually. If this person thinks I would be a disappointment to his parents or look trashy in a wedding dress, all I can really do is be sad for them that they will never get to know me.


Let's make today Don't Be An Asshole Day in honor of this woman, Lizzie Velasquez. Let's make it a day to be kind to our fellow humans and to stop all the god damned judgement of one another. If you must judge, judge a person's worth based on their character - which is what truly defines a person's worth.