positive thinking and the wonderousness of choice
talked to christina on the phone. christina was in the most melodramatic mood i have ever been privy too. granted, I'M melodramatic and you know if i'm calling someone out on being a drama queen it's got to be fairly serious.
she's got hives. this equals the "end of her life". she tried to tell me there's a study that says "smart women don't ever get married." i tried to correct this statement by saying maybe they meant "career women." as i know several smart women that are married, or want to GET married.
what disheartens me is, even though i'm not particuarily gung-ho about marriage, about dating, about WHATEVER, is that people look down upon it like it's not a wonderful thing. love is great. marriage is great, if you're doing it for the RIGHT reasons. of course people get married because they're in love or they think they're in love and it might not be the best choice for their life, because matters of the heart and matters of the head are two different things. just because you want to never get married and have a great career, don't begrudge the woman who wants to raise a family. YOU try and raise a family. then you talk. people can do whatever they want as long as it's making them happy and it's not hurting anyone. besides, there's no reason you can't do both. a little harder, yes, but you can do both. anyway, maybe only the "smart" women are taking this test because the "stupid housewives" are too busy changing little jimmy's diaper, and wiping up puke. that is NOBLE. (and exactly why i'll have a nanny.)
she took my views as "unempowered".
she then got into how pointless war is and why can't people just get along etc. etc. i calmly tried to explain to her that that's not going to happen. then i began, in what is probably the weirdest thing in my life, JUSTIFYING war.
so i start busting out with things like U.N. policy and the france's role in the american revolution, and the geneva convention and all that, how we get to say things like "we hate the government and it's policys because we've got that right and we're not gonna get dragged out of our homes at 3am and shot in the middle of the street as an example..." Then, before i can bring up our role in WW2, christina says--I SWEAR TO GOD--
"What about that time you killed all the jews?"
there are several problems with this sentence. let's make a list.
1) i've never personally killed any jews. or anyone. i've killed bugs. but bugs, as far as i know, do not belong to the jewish faith. (i have seen no spiders in yamaca's)
2) let's say, she meant "you" in the you AMERICAN's sense. christina, is an AMERICAN citizen. granted her parents came from vietnam, they didn't go to the UK. they came to AMERICA. she was born here. she's included in that sentence.
3) i wasn't alive during the 40's. neither were my parents. and my grandparents didn't fight in ww2, because they all are plagued with medical ailments. therefore, i hold no responsibility for killing jews in ww2.
4) ...americans...exterminating the jews? i don't think THAT'S right.
so it continues.
"um...christina. i think you mean HITLER."
"i KNOW history. the HOLOCAUST"
"yeah...but, i mean...uh....we got involved after the japanese bombed pearl harbor. i mean, we put people in camps and that's not right and it's really embarassing that we ever thought to do that, but lord, they weren't death camps!"
"whatever. people were still in camps."
"japanese."
"it was the JEWS"
"THAT WAS HITLER! IN EUROPE!"
"oh. whatever."
i went through america's history of wars next, and layed down how some wars are "good" and some wars are very very bad, but that's sort of human nature. and people kill each other because that's what people have been doing forever. check out the bible. i taught her about the atrocities of the world (that i learned in amnesty international...woohooo!) about female circumcision, and all the delights in the world. i told her that if all we've got to worry about is the mindfuck that is the media telling us all we've got to be skinny and my vagina can stay intact and it doesn't have to be sewn shut, then i think i'm okay with that. but she was not quite finished.
"well what about when you killed off the native americans?"
my people hail from CANADA. we don't kill anything but trees. of course, the "exterminated" native americans are now employing 1/2 of my immediate family, so.....
anyway, different times. you can't judge actions that have happened in the past baised on today's standards. and how this war, this stupid war, well, it wasn't so much us trying to CHANGE people's religions and such (as christina was saying it was) but it was more like trying to give people a choice and choice is beautiful. but i think choice is bloody, too. everything has it's price. and it does suck that that price is one that we're bearing too. but i guess that's sort of how the world works. (and i'm NOT saying it's not for economic reasons too, i'm not so naive to think we're just doing this just for choice and love and flowers and babies across the world. but to be fair, in the civil war, lincoln said if he could keep slavery and keep the union together he WOULD have.)
i'm not sure when i've become patriotic. maybe it's all the american flag cups my dad has purchased.
she then talked about how she's a psych major and she knows stuff that i don't know, too.
all i called for was to tell her that karin's dad is having major heart surgery tomorrow and it might be nice if a) she called her and b) she was thinking about karin and hoping for the best. positive thinking and all that. i know karin would appreciate it anyway. it turned into christina fest 2005.
it's like a rabbit of selfishness has burrowed its way into peoples lives. and it's multiplying, like rabbits are prone to do.
maybe jeremy was right.
maybe in your mid 20s you DO become an asshole.
she's got hives. this equals the "end of her life". she tried to tell me there's a study that says "smart women don't ever get married." i tried to correct this statement by saying maybe they meant "career women." as i know several smart women that are married, or want to GET married.
what disheartens me is, even though i'm not particuarily gung-ho about marriage, about dating, about WHATEVER, is that people look down upon it like it's not a wonderful thing. love is great. marriage is great, if you're doing it for the RIGHT reasons. of course people get married because they're in love or they think they're in love and it might not be the best choice for their life, because matters of the heart and matters of the head are two different things. just because you want to never get married and have a great career, don't begrudge the woman who wants to raise a family. YOU try and raise a family. then you talk. people can do whatever they want as long as it's making them happy and it's not hurting anyone. besides, there's no reason you can't do both. a little harder, yes, but you can do both. anyway, maybe only the "smart" women are taking this test because the "stupid housewives" are too busy changing little jimmy's diaper, and wiping up puke. that is NOBLE. (and exactly why i'll have a nanny.)
she took my views as "unempowered".
she then got into how pointless war is and why can't people just get along etc. etc. i calmly tried to explain to her that that's not going to happen. then i began, in what is probably the weirdest thing in my life, JUSTIFYING war.
so i start busting out with things like U.N. policy and the france's role in the american revolution, and the geneva convention and all that, how we get to say things like "we hate the government and it's policys because we've got that right and we're not gonna get dragged out of our homes at 3am and shot in the middle of the street as an example..." Then, before i can bring up our role in WW2, christina says--I SWEAR TO GOD--
"What about that time you killed all the jews?"
there are several problems with this sentence. let's make a list.
1) i've never personally killed any jews. or anyone. i've killed bugs. but bugs, as far as i know, do not belong to the jewish faith. (i have seen no spiders in yamaca's)
2) let's say, she meant "you" in the you AMERICAN's sense. christina, is an AMERICAN citizen. granted her parents came from vietnam, they didn't go to the UK. they came to AMERICA. she was born here. she's included in that sentence.
3) i wasn't alive during the 40's. neither were my parents. and my grandparents didn't fight in ww2, because they all are plagued with medical ailments. therefore, i hold no responsibility for killing jews in ww2.
4) ...americans...exterminating the jews? i don't think THAT'S right.
so it continues.
"um...christina. i think you mean HITLER."
"i KNOW history. the HOLOCAUST"
"yeah...but, i mean...uh....we got involved after the japanese bombed pearl harbor. i mean, we put people in camps and that's not right and it's really embarassing that we ever thought to do that, but lord, they weren't death camps!"
"whatever. people were still in camps."
"japanese."
"it was the JEWS"
"THAT WAS HITLER! IN EUROPE!"
"oh. whatever."
i went through america's history of wars next, and layed down how some wars are "good" and some wars are very very bad, but that's sort of human nature. and people kill each other because that's what people have been doing forever. check out the bible. i taught her about the atrocities of the world (that i learned in amnesty international...woohooo!) about female circumcision, and all the delights in the world. i told her that if all we've got to worry about is the mindfuck that is the media telling us all we've got to be skinny and my vagina can stay intact and it doesn't have to be sewn shut, then i think i'm okay with that. but she was not quite finished.
"well what about when you killed off the native americans?"
my people hail from CANADA. we don't kill anything but trees. of course, the "exterminated" native americans are now employing 1/2 of my immediate family, so.....
anyway, different times. you can't judge actions that have happened in the past baised on today's standards. and how this war, this stupid war, well, it wasn't so much us trying to CHANGE people's religions and such (as christina was saying it was) but it was more like trying to give people a choice and choice is beautiful. but i think choice is bloody, too. everything has it's price. and it does suck that that price is one that we're bearing too. but i guess that's sort of how the world works. (and i'm NOT saying it's not for economic reasons too, i'm not so naive to think we're just doing this just for choice and love and flowers and babies across the world. but to be fair, in the civil war, lincoln said if he could keep slavery and keep the union together he WOULD have.)
i'm not sure when i've become patriotic. maybe it's all the american flag cups my dad has purchased.
she then talked about how she's a psych major and she knows stuff that i don't know, too.
all i called for was to tell her that karin's dad is having major heart surgery tomorrow and it might be nice if a) she called her and b) she was thinking about karin and hoping for the best. positive thinking and all that. i know karin would appreciate it anyway. it turned into christina fest 2005.
it's like a rabbit of selfishness has burrowed its way into peoples lives. and it's multiplying, like rabbits are prone to do.
maybe jeremy was right.
maybe in your mid 20s you DO become an asshole.