Tag: Just b/c

Just because I want to

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Guilty pleasures

I have a confession to make, which you may or may not find surprising, depending on how well you know me. I am totally in love with junk reality tv. Channels like Bravo and E! tend to suck me in, especially when they run marathons. If I find a string of episodes of a show I’ve been missing, oo wee, look out! There goes Saturday. (ha! yeah right, i mean there went saturday. i haven’t been able to sit down and watch a tv marathon in ages)

The top contenders in my tv land would probably have to be My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant (terrible, i know, but i just can’t help myself!), and pretty much a nation-wide blanketing of the Real Housewives. The RH of Orange County are my favorites and Beverly Hills surprised me last season by coming in a close second, but the rest of them I actually can’t stand. New York have just gotten beyond ridiculous (except Bethenny – i love her! oh – all of her shows make the list too, whatever it will be called for the next season. and her skinny girl margaritas aren’t half bad either. anyone tried the sangria yet?), New Jersey are annoying as hell, D.C. were horrendous, Atlanta are now even too ghetto for me, and was there a Miami, too? I never watched that one. I could tell from the start that I would hate them.

Wait what? You haven’t seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding?? Holy shit. Well what are you still sitting here for? Go find it! It is seriously crazy. These gypsies (called irish travelers, living mainly in england) all get married super young and have the most extravagantly tacky, lavish weddings I’ve ever seen. It’s awesome! I watch most episodes with my mouth hanging open in incredulity at what these people find “pretty”. And how do they afford this stuff? I’ve even gotten R to watch this one with me because some of them are so mind-boggling. It appears that most of the women on the show are cleaning women of some sort, the guys work in scrap metal, almost no one makes it past grade school, yet they have ginormous weddings and the girls’ dresses cost like $50,000-$100,000. I’m not kidding! And the crowds at these weddings? Unreal. The kids are all grinding on each other in the hopes of finding a mate, yet they’re super strict when it comes to girls “doing anything” before they’re married. I can’t even explain it all – you just have to go watch. I think this one’s actually on TLC.

What’s with the Teen Mom, you ask? Well, that one I’ve actually watched those girls since they were the first season of 16 and Pregnant, so that means I’m automatically hooked. The newer seasons of 16 and Pregnant, though, I haven’t followed at all. And this one isn’t very high up on my list. If it’s on and it happens to be a rare night when R’s already gone to bed and I have free reign of the tv I’ll watch it, but I don’t clear my schedule for it or even put it on the dvr list.

R always chastises me for watching these shows. “This shit is what’s wrong with society,” he will say. “People thinking these shows are real.” Um, hello, I in no way, shape, or form think these shows are anywhere near reality. In fact, I’m always so happy watching them that they are not my reality. That’s part of their appeal – that some people are so far out there that they have shows like these for me to watch. Pure mindless entertainment, plain and simple. I’m definitely not taking notes on how to get my lips that big or hair that bleached or lifestyle so ludicrous, don’t worry. I just like to veg out for half an hour or 47 minutes and watch my trash-fest. So stop hating, Mr. Man Caves, Deadliest Catch, and Man v. Food Nation, among countless others that totally fill our dvr so my little shows have no room to be recorded anyway. (and i always sit through all of his shows with not a peep or complaint. why can’t he just shut up on the very few occasions that he happens to catch 5 minutes of one of mine so i can actually hear it?)

So fess up. How about you? Got any guilty pleasure trash tv shows that you love to watch? Chances are I’ve seen all of them at some point along the way, too, even if I didn’t deem them worthy of repeat viewings.

 

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Good deed?

Yesterday morning on my way to work I gave a homeless man some money. It was the first time I’d actually done so, even though I’ve seen numerous homeless people with signs asking for help over the years. And many of them I’ve seen on the same corner on which this man was standing with his small hand-written sign that read “HOMELESS PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS”.

Was I scammed? Was he really not homeless and just trying to get some extra money? Was he some sort of addict and turned right around to use my money to buy drugs or alcohol instead of a meal or other necessity? I don’t know. But what I do know is that every time I see a homeless person holding a sign asking for help and I drive right by, pretending I don’t see him to avoid actually catching his eye, I feel ashamed. For what if he really is homeless? What if he really does need help and will use whatever money he gets to find a meal or save enough for a shirt or a shower? What if he really has exhausted every other avenue and has finally been reduced to the humiliation of standing on a street corner with a small, unassuming sign, putting himself at the mercy of total strangers to spare some change or even a dollar? If those “what ifs” are true, then who am I to speed right past him, not even acknowledging that another human needs help, and deem him unworthy of my assistance?

So today I finally gave. Do I want a gold star for my generosity? No, I’m just telling an anecdote. I had seen this particular man once before, and I just felt like helping. I wanted to give him $5, but all I had was a $10 this morning, so I guess today was his lucky day.

And it may have really been his lucky day if he was, in fact, just out there scamming people and already had a boat-load of money and didn’t actually need to be standing there. He might have yelled “Sucker!” as I rolled up my window and drove away. But all I heard was his quiet, “Thank you,” and this time I wasn’t ashamed.

 

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Last of his tribe

Things like this amaze and fascinate me. The fact that there are still uncontacted tribes in the jungles and forests of the world. That there are still indigenous peoples living among us, on a planet that we generally think of as fully civilized. How awesome is that?

The “Last of his Tribe”

I can’t even imagine this man’s life. A single, solitary soul in his native jungle land, the lone survivor of his entire people. Fending off cattle ranchers that would gladly hunt him down, trying to grow food for subsistence while having to harvest it undercover so as not to be poached like the rest of his tribe. Having no one with whom to communicate, as the people documenting and trying to preserve his existence have no idea whatsoever of the language he speaks. And not even knowing that some of those strangers following him through the land are really trying to protect him, not kill him.

Could I survive as he does? Probably not. How does he do it? How does he find the strength to keep on in the face of the constant reminder that everyone he has ever known and loved is gone and he will never again find anyone like him? I don’t know that I could. Or does he even know that? Does he know that there is no one else like him out there? Or are there really more and we are the clueless ones? Maybe he’s a lot more cunning than we assume.

I would love to catch even a tiny first-hand glimpse into worlds like these. Worlds so entirely different from the one I’ve always known. Worlds so unique and astonishing that we will never be able to fully appreciate them from the comfort of our 4-walled, heated and air conditioned, fully wireless living rooms. Worlds that might make us really appreciate all that we do have and admire and respect those that have none of it yet are equally happy and well-off if not more so than we are. Worlds that force us to realize we aren’t the only ones living here, so stop trashing the place.

There’s much to learn from the Last Man. I hope we can.

 

p.s. another one of our friends had her baby boy early this morning! congratulations T, with baby S!!!

 

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I want to go

On a trip around the world like this.

 

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

 

How awesome is that? One of my best friends and her husband took like 6 weeks and did an around-the-world trip a few years ago before they had kids, and I was insanely jealous. That is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’d still love to someday, but who knows when we’ll actually be able to now. I’m hopeful, though. I love to travel and see new places.

All 3 parts of that clip are really good – Move, Eat, and Learn. Damn, makes me look totally boring.
 

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Freeganism anyone?

Have you heard of this? Freeganism? I never had until today, but now I’m intrigued. Check out this article I found on HuffPost:

Gio Andollo, Freegan

From the first paragraph of the article:  “Freeganism is a lifestyle in which one employs “alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.” Gio Andollo is a writer, artist, musician and freegan. Andollo became a freegan when he realized that artists don’t get paid much, but he didn’t like the idea of working a “crappy, part-time job” to pay the bills. So he found another way. Andollo performs on the subway for about 20 hours a week, typically in two-hour intervals. He makes $10 to $50 per shift and has a love/hate relationship with busking. Andollo will buy food, but very rarely. The majority of his food comes from trash touring, or dumpster diving. To learn more about Gio, visit his personal blog and portfolio here, his living-on-a-shoestring-in-New-York blog here and his blog about washing dishes here.”

Interesting. Too bad he didn’t live in NYC the same time we did, or else I’m sure I would have passed him at least once on my countless subway rides.

I’m having trouble deciding if I could do this or not. Employ my skills (which ones? that i have no idea) to make enough money without having a job to keep a home and pay bills, and dig through others’ garbage to find food for my meals? Hmm, that sounds pretty haughty of me, no? For if faced with the need, I’d like to think I would do anything I had to in order to feed my family. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that right now. But it sounds like Mr. Andollo doesn’t necessarily have to go on trash tours, rather he chooses to because he doesn’t want to work a conventional job to make the money he needs for such necessities. All right, to each his own of course, as long as whatever you’re doing isn’t a detriment to the rest of us. And his backstory is pretty interesting if you check out his blog. It’s honestly one of those lifestyles about which I always think, “What if I lived like that? Would I be able to pull it off like they can?” I don’t really think it’s a lifestyle to which I’d be well-suited, though, seeing as I’m not an artist of any sort and I do enjoy getting my food from sources other than discarded trash bags, but I think it’s kind of cool how there’s a whole subset of our culture out there who lives like this. Like the complete opposite of me. And they can.

What do you think? Could you be a freegan?

Also, I feel guilty because I threw away a plastic cup today that should have been recycled. Ick.

 

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I’ve heard Neptune is lovely in the summer

Let me start off on a tangent here for a second. Yesterday I had to get 3 fillings at the dentist to seal some sensitive areas at my gumline. Hey, at least they weren’t cavities. Yeah, whatever, they were still fillings and involved drilling. Fun. So anyway, why do dentists try to make small talk as they’re preparing you for this oral nightmare? I mean really – I’m sitting in the chair, one quarter of my face is numb from the giant Novocaine shots, I can’t move my lips properly to actually form words anymore, and you want to know what my plans are for the rest of the summer? Come on. I’m trying to psyche myself up for the fact that you’re about to drill holes. In my head. Let’s cut the chitter chatter and get this over with. Now don’t get me wrong, I really like my dentist’s office. The girls who work there are awesome, my dentist himself is really good, and if I’m just in for a routine cleaning? Fine, I’ll shoot the shit all day long. But when I have to get needles and drills shoved into my mouth, please don’t waste any time and prolong the torture. Ok, that’s all. And now back to our regularly scheduled posting.

I knew there was a reason I don’t like to read the news that often. Take a look at some of these recent headlines. And they all appeared on the same front page of a national news website. I didn’t even have to do any scrolling or anything!

“Norway hunts answers after massacre”
“Landslide kills 32 in South Korea”
“Gulf storm could become cyclone”
“U.S. Olympic skier kills himself”
“Why was skeleton in bank chimney?”
“Amy Winehouse’s final days”
“Teen bride talks sex with husband, 51”
“Actress: I got compliments for looking emaciated”

And over here we have some lovely ones from a local news site:

“One acquittal, one conviction for man in execution-style murders”
“City records fifth unsafe sleeping death of infant”
“Suspects in custody after armed robbery, exchange of gunfire with Milwaukee Police”
“Sheboygan teen charged with assaulting 7-year-old” (ok, well, that is from sheboygan)
“1 dead, 1 missing after boat accident in Minnesota”

And my personal favorite:

“Woman sues man for her herpes, seeks $350,000”

No, I promise I did not make that last one up either. I can send you the link if you really want it.  But seriously, what a grim state of affairs in which to be living. Not to mention all the debt ceiling bullshit that’s going on in Washington right now too. Where’s the good news? Is there even any to report? Is there nothing out there to uplift our spirits, or are we stuck with political battles, natural disasters, death, and STDs?

Maybe we can just hightail it outta here and set up shop somewhere new. One of the outer planets, maybe? Who’s in? I’ve got an aerobed and a bag of marshmallows for roasting. Jumbo size ones, too!