Soaring

I felt this incredible sensation when I came home from my vacation in August, like our society is on a great precipice. We could go crashing down, or take off, and soar. There are so many people out there, creating amazing art, and doing wonderful things. So many more people are seeing through the lies, through the bullsh*t than ever before.

There is a lot of talk about the generations, and it seems as if we have been preparing for the boomers to retire for a long time now. Only a few of them are retiring, right now, since it was their idiotic economic policies that drove the stock market up, then left it in the ditch. They also seem content on dismantling the social safety net that their parents toiled for, but only for part of their generation, and those that came afterwards.

This generation, my generation, once dubbed Generation Y, and now lumped in with millenials, grew up after all the generational fervor that the boomers went though. We noticed how they spit on their parents' traditions, and how their parents blamed them for everything wrong in their world, then sent them off to war.

We heard about how the greatest minds of their generation were destroyed by madness, only to be held down, ourselves, by the minds that were left over. We endured the same criticisms about our music that they endured about theirs, yet we didn't turn around and spurn the Rolling Stones or Motown. In fact, many of us own more vinyl now than they maybe ever did.

The boomers taught us, provided for us, gave us everything they never had, and when we grew up, we actually were grateful. Sad, however, that so few of them are noticing. The people my age seem to be respectful of their elders, and excited to hear all of the stories. I may roll my eyes when a man in his 60's speaks wistfully of the old Haight-Ashbury days, but that is only because I've heard it all before. The 20-somethings listening to him are indeed interested, and really do want to know more.

The Class of 2000 have families now, and I see them when I go for walks. They are outside, at the playground, with their kids. They are walking through the grocery store, picking out vegetables for dinner. But I also see them in other places, struggling in low-paying jobs, and using drugs to escape their turmoil. They are shying away from jobs with large organizations, because they don't want to give up their freedoms, and don't like the idea of stifling their creativity.

They may take a low-level job for the health insurance, but they will only do the minimum, because their heart isn't in it. Meanwhile, the person that wants that job is stuck in another job, for that same health insurance. Give them health insurance that isn't related to a job - ensure their guaranteed health care, no matter what they do - and the qualified but uninterested will quit, making way for the questionably qualified, but eager people, who are actually interested in doing that job. Then watch as the newly freed people fill up those abandoned storefronts. Imagine a downtown district that gets cleaned every day, creative shops, bustling eateries, and friendly neighbors.

We are on a great precipice this year. We can either go down the deep end, spurring anger, and riots, or we can stop this fighting, stop resisting reality, talk to our neighbors, jump off this cliff, and soar.

Apocaylpse Not

Today was, from my perspective, remarkably calm. I mean, the American southeast is still recovering from massive tornadoes, and the Mississippi is having the biggest floods in decades, but today, it seems that the flooding is lower than expected, and it didn't do as much damage as was expected. A volcano is exploding in Iceland, but rather than being a repeat of the April 2010 eruptions that closed several European airports, it seems to be rather run-of-the-mill.

It seems to be as boring as a day can possibly be. In my life today, I woke up and went out to breakfast with friends. After breakfast, I picked up some cute things at a yard sale, and relaxed all afternoon. After a nap, Steve and I headed downtown to see Bridesmaids at the Shattuck Cinemas. We got some fro-yo, and waited in line, only to hear that the 7pm showing was sold out. That was disappointing for us, but good for that movie. There were no other movies that we wanted to see, so we decided to go to the park by the high school and chill on the grass. After that, we headed back to my place, had some sausages, and watched some television. Right now, we're watching IFC free on On Demand, and we'll be turning in shortly.

So, now it is your turn. How eventful [or not eventful] was your May 21st, 2011?

Counter Commute

Last week, Amanda had a post on commuting, happiness, and how it relates to our current American political climate. The comment thread got too long for me to be able to read, because I have my own story that basically proves the point of the article.

• I commute 45 minutes to work one way, driving.
  
• I used to have a 3 mile, 10 minute commute before I moved here.
• I am much happier now than I was before I moved.

But wait, you say, that's the counter point? Oh, silly me, here is what makes me different.

• I often find driving at freeway speeds to be therapeutic, giving me time to sort out thoughts and practice explaining myself and my ideas.
• I live in a urban/semi-urban residential area, 3.5 blocks from a BART station. I routinely leave my car unused for entire weekends and spend the weekends with friends, shopping along Telegraph, seeing movies, planning events, and having engaging, intelligent, and fun conversations. My apartment here is not in some estate, it is one of 7 units in a building with character. I enjoy spending time by myself at home, and like making the place look good.
  
• The traffic congestion in the Bay Area is always in the opposite direction of the direction I am going [with the exception of random accidents -- 3 in 8 months].
• I work in a suburban area with strip malls, manicured lawns, and multi-million dollar homes. When I lived there, I could not walk anywhere that I wanted to be. I sometimes spent my weekends in Berkeley or San Francisco, but it required a lot of preparation and I was far from home. Other weekends were spent inside my apartment, completely alone and bored just because I didn't want to drive anywhere, even at freeway speeds. And my apartment was a stifling place, with beige carpets, oversized rooms, and no character. In short, I hated the place, and I had no desire to keep it looking nice, ever.

Not only do I not sit in traffic while I commute, I live in a real community area, validating Amanda's point about the factors that do influence happiness.

Names So Much

Three years ago, I got into Project Runway. I finished Season 3 and saw Season 4 to the end. Somewhere in there, I forgot TV and/or got busier, so I missed Season 5, maybe 6 too. Anyway, suddenly, I'm into the show again and Episode 2 had a maternity wear challenge. Pregnancy experience seems, to me, like a rare occurrence in popular culture and the winner worked with a model who had a 2 year-old. The Losers shook out like this:

• Ra'mon: an interesting optical illusion dress with contrasting color choices to create a bowling-ball-bag look.
• Mitchell: cute outfit, horribly sewn.
• Marvin: concept design to feature pregnacy: a mother hen.

. I don't remember as much about the winners, except that they were all women and Sharin won cuz she had an awesome dress and a super hot coat. I'm interested to analyze what I do know, however.

In other news, Project Runway is on Lifetime now, which allows me to see Lifetime commercials, including those for other shows on Lifetime. They all have incredibly emotional plotlines that can usually make me cry from intensity and wear me down. I have heard of a study claiming that having severe emotions one day reduces your physical ability to cope with the mental stress the next day. In other words, Lifetime stresses people out and the commercials are painful to me and I try to avoid them.

Why I Use Natural Products

One time, after a shower in my flat in Cape Town, I noticed that I had not rinsed a bit of soap off of my leg after I got out of the shower. It was a small amount and I dried it off. A day or two later, I noted that I had acne in that area. Lesson learned, I paid even more attention to rinsing myself off in the shower.

Six years later, I was reading an Alternet article about something or other and saw a comment about natural soap products, specifically natural hair care products. The commenter mentioned that normal products contained petro chemicals that made your hair feel clean for a short while, but actually made it dirtier. With Whole Foods right across the street from work, I decided I would try out these products and find out for myself if my hair was any cleaner. This was how I learned about the value of "lather, rinse, repeat", and noticed that after a day without washing, my hair did seem a little bit cleaner. It wasn't until my three day trip to Houston when I used hotel [conventional] shampoo every day, yet couldn't wait to get home to finally wash my hair [with natural] that I really observed the difference.

So I stopped using conventional shampoo, but still used conventional products for everything else. About a month ago, I ran out of my deodorant. I used Secret Platinum, which had 19% of the active ingredient. Secret Clinical Strength, which was half as much for twice the price, was 20% of the active ingredient. It didn't matter which one I used though, I still had big rings of sweat on the pits of my clothes most days. It was usually small enough that I could conceal them by not raising my arms too high, but of course, that just made the sweat patch get bigger. I was out of deodorant, but only wanted to go to one store - Whole Foods or Target that night, and I needed dinner. Whole Foods had fresh food, Target didn't, so I tried out one of the natural deodorants at Whole Foods. The first day I tried it, no sweat. The second day I wore it, no sweat, and so on, for about a week. The main problem was that it didn't cover up my BO as well, but no one except me noticed - even when I asked people. Then I was chatting with a guy I know in the deli at Whole Foods and he suggested Crystal Stick deodorant, so I bought that. That takes away the smell and still, no sweat.

So my hair is clean, I smell good, and I'm not sweating like crazy anymore. Back when I was in Cape Town, I had brought with me my first ever bottle of Neutrogena's body wash. I remember seeing the commercial. It had nice, clean looking white teenagers standing on a white sound stage, confessing that people get breakouts on places besides their face. Being able to relate to that, I noted the product and bought a bottle when buying my toiletries for Africa. To be honest, however, I can't say that Neutrogena's body wash worked any better than any other soap for reducing acne on other parts of my body. It did help when I rinsed all the soap off, of course. Earlier this year, I started using natural soaps for my body more often, and now I use them exclusively. This weekend, I realized that I no longer had any body acne. In fact, I haven't noticed any breakouts or even single zits for a few months. I'd have to go back to conventional soaps - maybe I could use up all my Bath & Body Works things - to fully experiment on my body, or maybe I could just keep using this soap and see if I get acne anyway.

In my life, a number of things have caused me shame. For the last 12 or 13 years, one had been random breakouts, and in the past two years, another had been excessive sweating. They seem to be gone now, without making medication changes, without going to so-called "stronger" products. In fact, because my hair stays cleaner longer, I have less incentive to shower than normal. Though, now I will shower and not wash my hair more often because my hair is getting obscenely long.