We Do Not Exist Just to Breed

Something is said to be alive if it is an item that grows on its own and creates identical items that grow on their own. So it happens that the life patterns of humans would include a period of growth, then procreation. A major difference between humans and other species of life is that we don't just stop at making copies of ourselves. We create and build, we discover and invent, we fix and improve, sometimes never stopping to have more than one or two children.

But many people have it in their heads that our purpose is to breed, they may be forbidden by others from preventing pregnancy, and many are unable to resist sexual contact. In the past, the human population stayed stable because we were unable to keep a large segment of babies from dying shortly after birth. The population was further held down due to disease, war, and in Europe, witch burnings killed a significant portion of the young adult population. These days, science gives us the technology to limit the number of people we create and to take good care of the ones that we do create.

But now and then, the past comes back to haunt us. Will we make the right assessment of the problem and fix it? Will we discourage religious dogma and encourage contraception? I hope we do.

Santa Claus and the Baby Jesus

Two cute Christmas mythologies, both that people commemorate with little displays of the story every year. Only one that millions of people actually think is true past their childhood. My parents had a ceramic nativity scene that we would display under the eastern window in the dining room. We put some books down to act as a platform for the barn, then put a felt cloth over that, and placed the ceramic figures. We put fiberglass down next as the "snow" (or maybe that went down first).

When the Decorators in my house went atheist, we put the nativity scene away and used the space for other decorations. In college, I bought my parents some little snow-people -- two big ones and two little ones -- and they sometimes go there. I don't know the Christmas decoration plans this year though. The nativity scene and angel ornaments were the only casualties of our atheism, but now there is an angel on the top of the tree, where before we always had a star.

Today, at the Ashby Flea Market, I stumbled on this, and then haphazardly bargained it from $15 to $7.

The books (or rather, paperbacks in the dust jackets) have been there for a while, and this was the perfect location in my living room.

I Love You, Caren

So...by not going to SC and getting herself hurt or killed, Michelle Obama is oppressing the freedom-loving, conservative patriots who just want to express their “dissent” to her personally. Is that right?

On that note, I’m pretty fed up with theocratic assholes who think that their First Amendment right to be free from government impediments of speech means that they are allowed to force any particular person to listen to them.

Chicago just passed a law creating 50 foot buffer zone around abortion providers’ workspaces. Within 50 feet of the building, you cannot approach someone closer than 8 feet without her permission. The ACLU is actually on the theocrats’ side in this, evil socialists they are, b/c it’s hard to leaflet from 8 feet away.

Anyway, tons of screaming about how these wonderful people who never harmed anyone and have saved countless baybeez are being discriminated against and not being allowed their freedom of speech.

You can talk. You just can’t talk to a specific person if they don’t want to listen: that’s called harassment.

Specifically to this post, no one is stopping anyone in SC from dissenting. If they can’t behave like civilized people or like Americans, then it’s their own fault if they can’t have nice things like a visit from the First Lady.

-Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes

Here is My Cat

This is Kitty Amin, she lives in the barn at my parents' place in Wisconsin. My dad blames our family's acquisition of her on me, so she became my cat, but as I recall, I just wanted to give her some kitty treats, it was Dad that let her in the house.

See, when I was home after my brain injury, things were a bit boring. Splotches, the only cat we had at the time, was not very exciting since she was never really a people-cat. One day, as I was trying to pet Splotches, I saw a cat walking down the driveway. I called to my dad about the cat and he replied, "yeah, that's the cat that comes over and eats the left over cow feed!" I went out to give her some treats and then Dad let her come in the house. We thought she was pregnant because her belly was so big and she looked otherwise starved. But the gestation period for kittens came and went and no kittens. I had some friends that were on a dictator-cat-name theme, so I decided to call this cat "Kitty Amin". Her size fits her namesake perfectly, though I wasn't thinking about that when I named her. She is a very friendly cat, which is problematic because she smells like the barn.

Under New York State Law

I turned on the TV tonight and the only thing on was Seinfeld, so I caught the end of the "Bra as a Top" episode. Elaine is annoyed by an acquaintance that never wears a bra, so she buys her one as a gift. The woman wears it as a top, with a jacket and causes Kramer to get into a car accident. It could be said to be a distraction, but in Manhattan, toplessness is legal, regardless of sex.

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.

Just Don't

I love you, Energy 92. You give me the high bpm I need. You have Greg and Fernando, but wtf is up with playing the dance remixes of Pink songs? Who the hell is making those in the first place? No one wants to dance to her song about her dead friend, or her crumbling marriage. None of her other songs are fast enough for dance beats either. And let's not even mention Katy Perry, ugh! Are you trying to make her sound slow and retarded? Just stop - if I want to hear those songs, I'll listen to my CDs.

I Hate Zombies

I really can't stand them. Actually, zombies do not exist, what I cannot stand is the cultural obsession around them. There are all these stupid quizes and retarded hypotheticals about how they would survive a zombie attack that could. never. happen. Now people in the UK have wasted the world's time determining that humans could not survive an attack by this completely fictional entity.

Why aren't we spending time determining if the world could survive an attack of werewolves? What if we were infested with witches and warlocks that had a desire to do the world harm? How about a massive infestation of Big Foots? Sure, people are having fun, but this genre ceased being fun when people started putting zombies in every other movie, video game, and social conversation. Now that people are investing the world's conciousness in a stupid made up monster, it is just retarded.

Also, note that this post is a replacement for snarky comments on friends Facebook statuses. I have enough respect for the friends I have that find this interesting not to rain on their parade, but, as you can see, I hate the obsession with zombies.