Properly Awry

It was a nice day out so I took the dogs for a walk around the neighbourhood. Our neighbourhood is really quiet and full of dead-end streets, so of course on this lovely day I start thinking - which house is the best house for survival if there was a zombie apocalypse? Which house is the least defendable?

This is a variation of the game I play when I walk out my front door in the morning to head for work - if a zombie apocalypse happened today and all I had was what I wore to work and what's in my purse - how would I fare?
Some mornings I look down at my shoes and am like - well, I'd be fucked. Other days I'm like, yeah, I'd kick ass, but I should have worn a jacket.
Then I start wondering if I should add more apocalypse-appropriate gear to the cornucopia in my purse.
But then I think that sounds a bit crazy and if I had to go through security somewhere I'd get branded as a terrorist.

On today's walk I came to the conclusion that our current abode and location is probably one of the best in the neighbourhood to defend against zombies, but I should probably stock up on some water and extra large nails, just to be safe.

I only read 51 novels in 2011 - but I have convinced myself they were a lot longer than the 60+ I read in 2010 - below are the best of 2011, in no particular order:

I cried for a politician today, not something I thought I would ever do.
Jack Layton, the only politician I ever believed in and was proud to support and vote for died today.
With his death I feel the hope draining, the darkness coming forward.
I did not hear of his death until I was out picking up my lunch and I saw it on Facebook - the news caught me off guard, but even more so, my tears.  I am not a crier (I've been known to not even cry when someone I know dies), but the news took me by surprise and took my breath away for a minute.  The news and knowing the impact his death will have on our political spectrum and our country, the current NDP supporters that will drift away when a new party leader emerges - I mean, who would want to follow that act?  Who could fill his shoes and do what he did for so many of us by putting hope and renewed vigour and passion back into our hearts and government?  He put the fight back in so many of us and for that I will never forget him.  Let's hope his supporters honour his memory by giving the new leader a chance and keeping up the good fight.
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I realized the other week that TLC now has another Say Yes to the Dress show.  They started with a New York show, then added an Atlanta show, and now they also have the fat girls show (in the same New York shop, actually titled Say Yes to the Dress Big Bliss).

So, WTF?  Why did they choose to start a new show not based on location or budget but instead based on the size of the bride? 
What's next Say Yes to the Dress Dwarves Edition?  Say Yes to the Dress Segregation Edition?

It is both baffling and insulting - I see no reason to separate the so-called big girls from the girls they want you to call normal - to me, the only reason to separate the 2 is so they can make a spectacle of the big girls. 
What's wrong with having the original show be more realistic and show both types of brides on the same episode?  A bride is a bride.  They show brides of all races and religions, but for some reason decided to separate out the big girls.
They can't possibly think that big girls weren't watching the original shows to look the the dresses, they can't possibly think that now that there are 2 options the skinny girls will watch the original show and the big girls will only watch Big Bliss...can they?

I think having a whole separate show "dedicated" to bigger brides would make larger ladies feel worse about themselves, feel like they are freaks who need to be separated from the skinny brides, not thankful that they get their own show.

But maybe that's just me.
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Someone else summed up my thoughts:

Christianity:
The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magically tree.  Makes perfect sense. 

I don't care for religion, any religion.  Religion in general is a cult, a club that survives through its never-ending cycle of brainwashing.  Think about it - if you are religious, have a specific religion - did you choose it yourself?  More likely this religion is yours because your parents chose it for you, as their parents did them and so on.  Or perhaps your spouse had an ingrained religion and now that is your religion and the religion of your children.  It's pretty rare for a person to go out and seek a religion and make a personal choice - sure, it happens, but not enough. 
I believe a club is something you choose to be part of, not something you participate in because your parents did (if your parents were in a polka club would you be?  If your parents jumped off a bridge would you?).
I consider myself fortunate to have not been brainwashed into a religion growing up - the fact that my parents came from different religious upbringings meant that we essentially had no religion in our house.  My brother and I are not baptized or christened.  I'm pretty sure I only went to church once on Easter Sunday and once on Christmas Eve, any other appearances at church were for weddings or funerals.  My summer camp was a Christian non-denominational camp, and we attended "chapel" twice a day and they gave us Bibles and tried to convince us to let Jesus into our hearts.  I refused to be brainwashed, though I did like singing the songs, and camp was fun and it was what my mom could afford, so we put up with the religion.  I do remember there was one counselor who told us dinosaurs did not exist and were made up by scientists - which, even at 12 I thought was hilarious/crazy-town.

If you feel you need religion to get through the day, to feel better about yourself, to purge yourself of your so-called sins, that's fine, that's your choice, even if it wasn't initially your choice.  But if you have children, is it fair to make that choice for them?  Baptizing or christening your child as a baby is the first step in taking choices away from them. Do you want them to grow up feeling obligated to the religion you chose for them, or do you want them to grow up feeling free to make their own choices?

Copied from new multi-authored site that I am part of (plus, stupid feed for this site seems to not be updating on blogrolls again and I cannot figure out why)

Work.  What would I do without it?
Well, we'd be poor and I'd be very bored, and when I'm bored I spend money - but that wouldn't work because we'd be poor...and the circle of life continues.

I like my job.  I am a different person at work.  I am certain, authoritative, people think I know what I am talking about.  People listen when I speak (and maybe sometimes it's because I'm loud).  I  like knowing what I am talking about, I like that people use me as a resource of information because they trust me to know the answer, or to find the answer if I don't know it.  I like telling people what to do.  I like process and order.  Not that you can tell that from my desk, which is usually an explosion of paper.  My desk is the only think that is like I am when not at work - scattered, messy - ordered only to me as I know what's where and why.  My brain is wired differently than most people, I think differently, I see things from a different perspective, and sometimes that makes me the black sheep or the odd one out (after all, I am an INTJ aka Mastermind), luckily, in my current work, this usually helps me and (I think) mostly my crazy brain goes unnoticed.  Mostly, though I think my outrageous nail polish (really?  who knew nail polish could be considered inappropriate by some?), my odd jewelry choices, tattoos and clothes are noticed more than my craziness.

My work defines me as a person to an extent, but as I've noted before, you can't just put me in a box and call me Project Coordinator or Document Controller, because I won't let you.  These words are too small to actually define me.
Just like Teacher, Banker, Secretary, Manager, Vet, Stay-at-Home-Mom or Housewife (etc, etc.) might be things that you are, things that you do, but they are not you as a whole - you need to remember that - and don't let them put you in a box with a neat little label on it - there is no label that can describe you as a human being, we are novels of words, not post-it notes.

(now I feel I must say "Nobody puts Baby in a corner")

My memory is quite horrible when it comes to events, to things I did. I remember specific dates (birthdays, anniversaries, deaths), but not much else. It's always been this way with me. Older generations will remember when James Dean or Elvis died. I remember when River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain died (and for some reason when Brandon Lee died). It's been 17 years since Cobain's body was found. I was in 11th grade, on a field trip to visit a local university. It was before Twitter, it was before texting - you still heard news on the radio or television or by word of mouth. News travelled fast but not at light speed. You could hear something and still doubt it until it was confirmed by a newscast of some sort - you did not rush home and Google it only to find 10,000 stories had already hit the web confirming it. That's all I actually remember though - I think, because we were on a field trip and therefore "out of touch" for most of the day, we did not get an inkling that our Kurt was dead until the big yellow bus ride home, and even then, it was word of mouth to be doubted, it was unbelievable and needed to be confirmed, it had to be a bad joke.
Of course, it was real, it was confirmed. I know I cried, I know I wrote overdramatic why why why poems. I know I wore all black for at least a week, but no one noticed because I generally wore a lot of black anyway. I know my heart wrenched when Courtney broadcast his note on TV a few days later. Already dark, depressed, disillusioned and at sea, this event impacted me. I was not a crazy Cobain fan, but Nirvana was one of my favourite bands at the time (but I've always preferred Eddie and Pearl Jam), I suppose a big part of it was I was just 17 and Kurt was ours and grunge was ours and it was dead and bad things happen.
Would he still be making music now had he lived? I don't know, but I do know I fucking cringe when I hear the Foo Fighters on the radio. What is is and can't be changed (at least not in this universe), his music and self impacted my life and it's been 17 years and it still makes me sad if I think about it.
It's been 17 years, and the 25 year old who sits next to me at work does not know what Nirvana is or who Kurt was and doesn't care.