Conflict Resolution

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Laurie B.

The fact of the matter is humans like to fight.

Argue, challenge, disagree, confront, dominate–call it what you would like, but human beings love to mix it up. If enough people read this essay, someone, somewhere, will disapprove of the sentence I used to begin it. (“It’s practically a fragment!”)

We have struggled since we learned to think. (I would say that we struggled since “time in memoriam,” but I don’t think I’m using that phrase right, or spelling it correctly. Am I? Bah. It doesn’t matter.) We’ve fought a long time.

At the time of this writing, us Americans are concerned about 1)Abortion rights in Texas; 2)Abortion rights in North Carolina; 3)Abortion rights in any state that is dominated by Republicans; 4)The Egyptian Uprising of 2013; 5)The George Zimmerman trial. 6)The way that America is being taken away from them by the other political party.

(Full disclosure: When I say “us Americans,” I am referring to those that bother to engage with political matters via Twitter. I have no idea what the rest of the country is concerned with. My Facebook friends simply want to re-post George Takei pictures/puns. I assume that everyone I don’t know is watching reality TV or shopping on QVC. So this is in no way a scientifically-based essay.)

The existence of our species has been entirely based upon THE STRUGGLE.

When we’re not focused on political struggles, when we take a moment to look within, we see that THE STRUGGLE rages furious within our private thoughts, too. You know what you struggle with. I do not need to speak for you. But, regardless of the George Zimmerman verdict, most of you reading this wonder if you could have done things differently.

I contend that the struggle, (my apologies, but I am not going to capitalize it again, as I am not a revolutionary in Che Guevarra’s army), is essential to our humanity. We are constantly fighting. Is it because we know that we are going to die? Perhaps. Is it because we want things to be different? Perhaps. Is it because we expect things to be better?

Perhaps.

I hate fighting.

But it’s essential to our humanity.

I think my biggest worry is that I’m not fighting for the right things.

Fighting forces us to explore the way we think. It’s only when you are confronted with an opposing believe that you realize that other people might think differently than you do. It’s not healthy to live in a bubble. It’s impossible to make everyone happy…but it is incredibly stupid to think that everyone believes what you believe. It’s only through the struggle that we learn that there are different viewpoints.

In the long run, I am not worried about women’s health, as it is being attacked by Republican states across this supposedly great nation of ours. Eventually, sanity will prevail. Because this legislation will have consequences. If you wish to outlaw safe abortion clinics, damn you, but God bless you. (Full disclosure: I’m an atheist.) And women will attempt to abort babies, anyway. And many more young, desperate women will die because of your callousness. You are doing this to them. And your laws will change. Unfortunately, many women will die in the process. But every struggle has its martyrs.

We take two steps forward and one step back. No advantage granted via the legal system should ever be taken for granted. We must fight. We must stand vigilant.

And when we are dealt blows and our rights are setback, then we must coalesce our forces and hit the legislatures harder than before.

And if that doesn’t work I guess we just have to move to Canada.

It’s Always Something

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Laurie B.

I am terrified to write today.

I am staring intently at a cobalt blue Bud Light keychain bottle opener that is l~~aying~~ ~~lying~~ resting on the desk in front of me. I am telling myself that if I can just get through this essay, if I can just get to the point where I feel comfortable posting it on my blog, I can reward myself with ~~one~~ ~~four~~ ten of the Negra Modelos that are currently chilling in my fridge. The only reason I’m writing is because I really need a fucking beer. (Oh, stop with the judgment! If my lover’s name was Zelda and strangers asked me, “Do friends call you ‘F’ or ‘Scott’?”, then a)it would be gin and b)I’d already be drunk. Not that I’m comparing myself to Mr. Fitzgerald. I’m merely reminiscing about an earlier, more innocent time, when blogging was new, no topic was off-limits, and everyone who did it was an alcoholic. Plus, I never really got into Fitzgerald. Or Hemingway. I preferred Sinclair. And Dreiser. Drunks. All of them. <wait for laughter here>)

The reason fear is gurgling up in me like pureed carrots in an over-fed baby is because I feel like I’m On The Verge of Something. Only I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how to express it, and there is a good possibility that it is going to Evaporate before I have a chance to Pull My Shit Together.

What I did realize today is that I need to take smaller bites of the apple. That is what I told myself as I diligently put my left blinker on as I slowed to a stop waiting to turn onto McClure Circle. “You need to take smaller bites of the apple, Laurie.” I can only assume that means the Something I’m On The Verge of is a very large piece of fruit. ~~Figuratively~~ ~~Allegorically~~ Metaphorically speaking.

So, (lucky for you), I am not–not today, at least–going to attempt to expound on the entire Something that is percolating in my brain. For starters, I am not nearly skilled enough to compose such a thing. And, for another, I’ve only recently, as in the past week or so, realized that I’m even onto Something. I haven’t figured out what exactly that Something is. But Something is in there. And I am going to try very hard to fertilize it, gestate it, and then give birth to it. From my brain. After which I will make a placenta smoothie and drink it. (Okay, what? That was uncalled for. And if I weren’t running purely on fear and adrenaline and a thirst for cold, cold beer, I would totally erase this entire paragraph. Placenta. I mean, ewww. Grow up, Laurie. Jesus.)

One step I took towards getting closer to expressing Something is that I stopped at an Office Depot today and paid entirely too much money for pens and a composition notebook. But, they are very nice pens. All twelve of them. Even though I just needed the one. (Editor’s Note: If you’re running short on time, you can just simply skip this paragraph. It is completely unnecessary. Laurie was simply excited that she bought new pens. It is in no way relevant to the topic at hand.)

As my metabolism since I’ve started “eating right” (sometimes) and “working out” (I can sometimes do 17 push-ups! In a row!) has begun to speed up, I now constantly feel like an elephant shrew that has to eat something every three hours or else I’m going to die. So, after I bought my writing utensils, I stopped off at a taco shop. (Today not being one of my “eating right” days.) I opened up the notebook and began to jot a few thoughts down. THERE IS A REASON THAT I AM TELLING YOU THIS. So, please, stop playing Candy Crush and just read this one thing. I won’t be too much longer. I expect to be drunk in less than an hour.

Here’s what I wrote:

I have to believe that most of us–those who are not so poverty-stricken that existence is nothing more than a vicious, desperate struggle for survival, leaving little room to contemplate existential questions or ponder the transcendental nature of the universe–strive for harmony and the divine. It is a noble goal. The problem arises partly from the fact that every person has their own definition of what those words mean, and they have very different visions of how to achieve them.

CAN YOU NOT SEE HOW THAT IS A VERY BIG SOMETHING TO CONTEMPLATE?

I probably did NOT need to shout at you just then. But, it’s been more than three hours since I ate. And, you don’t know this, but I deleted a big ol’ “FUCKING” from that sentence, just for you. So, you know. I’m trying, my friend. I’m trying.

But it is a lot to carry around in my wee little head. And I’m not thinking of these things because I have to write a grant paper or turn in a report on the state of bliss for the Pew Research Center or something. There is no reason in the world for me to be contemplating Harmony. Or the Divine. Or any other band led by Smokey Robinson. But I am. And, (lucky for you), someday you’ll get to read just what exactly I think about it.

See, here’s the thing, though:

After filling my small intestine with jalapenos, cheese, and Diet Coke, I headed to the library. I had a book waiting there for me to check out. I had ordered Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (I will succeed in reaching Harmony & the Divine when I can pronounce that name flawlessly without a moment’s hesitation.) Don’t ask me WHY I requested this book. I have absolutely no idea. I don’t even remember what compelled me to search for it. Perhaps someone recommended it to me. If so, the moment that happened escapes me. Perhaps it was on the NY Times Bestseller List. Turns out this book was written in 1990. So, you know. If it’s still on the Bestseller List it must be very good. The subtitle is “The Psychology of Optimal Experience,” and I’ve grown comfortable enough in my skin over the past year that that didn’t sound New-Agey to me and didn’t creep me out.

When I got home with the book, I notice that the chapters are very detailed. The contents of the final chapter caught my eye. So, I flip to Cultivating Purpose on page 218.

Please remember <look up> what I had just written not more than an hour before I ever set eyes on this book.

I would very much like to simply transcribe the six pages that I read, slack-jawed, dumbfounded, leaning on my kitchen counter. But, of course, I cannot do that. For one, I am pretty sure that is against the rules of publishing. For two, I told you I would be drunk by now. As the saying goes, ain’t nobody got time for that. But here is the first paragraph:

In the lives of many people it is possible to find a unifying purpose that justifies the things they do day in, day out–a goal that like a magnetic field attracts their psychic energy, a goal upon which all lesser goals depend. This goal will define the challenges that a person needs to face in order to transform his or her life into a flow activity. Without such a purpose, even the best-ordered consciousness lacks meaning.

I know, right? Sexier than 50 Shades of Grey, am I right, ladies? So, he (I assume Mihaly is a man’s name) elaborates–he talks about the different ultimate goals that have satisfied cultures, and he mentions different meaning systems that cultures have had. He then proceeds to cite someone named Pitrim Sorokin, (Who I also assume is a man. Not that it matters. Except that I find these names to be strangely lyrical and beautiful.), who divides all of Western Civilization into three types of meaning systems: sensate, ideational, and idealistic. <Stay with me, friend. Stay with me..> It’s really fascinating. <It really is!>

He then starts to discuss the psychology of the steps human beings need to take in order to achieve their ultimate goals. He said that the first step is each person needs to preserve themselves and their basic goals. If they can get to the point where their physical safety is no longer in doubt, then they can move onto to embracing the values of their community–their family, their neighborhood, their church, etc. He states that this leads to something called reflective individualism, which in turn leads to the final step, which is a turning away from one’s individual self “back toward an integration with other people and with universal values.” (That means you reached the harmonious and the divine, basically.)

I know, right? I agree, it is totally intense. Well, it’s not my book to lend, but you can totally check it out at your local library.

The part that sent shivers down my spine was just a little further along, after he has explained the stages people go through when attempting to merge with the whole. Let me just quote it for you. And, again–please remember what I wrote down as I was shoving a quesadilla in my face:

Not everyone moves through the stages of this spiral of ascending complexity. A few never have the opportunity to go beyond the first step. When survival demands are so insistent that a person cannot devote much attention to anything else, he or she will not have enough psychic energy left to invest in the goals of the family or of the wider community. Self-interest alone will give meaning to life.

I know, right?

So. I write down a random thought that has been percolating in my brain and less than an hour later I’m staring at the much more eloquent expression of those very same thoughts in a book that I had never opened before.

I don’t know what it means, either. Part of me feels exhilarated–that this Something that is in my brain has been studied and mapped and is understood by psychologists from around the globe. I can seek out this topic at the library! I can learn! I can become more enlightened! Yay for me! Part of me feels deflated–that this Something has been studied and mapped and is understood by psychologists from around the globe. You’re not educated enough to talk about this! No one cares what you think! Smarter people than you have already covered this topic! Suppress the need you have to discuss it! And, of course, part of me feels terrified. Because I AM On The Verge of Something. Maybe I will never be able to successfully write about it. But maybe I’ll grow to understand it, which will help me on my journey to find Harmony & the Divine. (9PM Eastern/8PM Central this fall on TNT.) Knowledge and self-realization can be terrifying sometimes.

Which is why a bigger part of me REALLY needs a drink.

Let Me Tweet The Ways

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Laurie B.

Of all the fucked up people I know, I am by far the luckiest.

At first glance you can’t even tell how fucked up I am, but I assure you: I am. Try to get to know me long enough and eventually you will see. Perhaps at 12:53am after that third shot of tequila. Perhaps when you innocently offer me mild & frank criticism in a casual tone. I can’t predict when the realization will hit you, but eventually it will come, divine revelation shared perhaps by God, just like those weird rules He shared with Moses: “Holy shit. This girl is fucking nuts.”

But, like I said, I’ve got a lot of blessings to count.

I mean the big ones, right off the bat, are that I’m not dead by suicide or self-destructive behavior* and I’m not institutionalized. And there have been times in my life when I certainly felt like those were the three most viable options. One night in 1996 I hit the Batshit Trifecta: After a night of ruthlessly hard drinking that should have shut my internal organs down, I was determined to kill myself by slicing my wrists open with a Swiss Army® Knife…but the three-legged cat I was talking with at the time convinced me to hang on for at least one more day.

I’d say that night marks the nadir of my existence. I’ve been slowly crawling my way up the ladder to “normal” ever since.

The list can go on and on: I’m not addicted to drugs, I’m not in prison. The trust & anger issues that have plagued me my entire life have not resulted in me currently living in an unsafe, violent environment. I am a homeowner, (albeit a nominal, probably temporary one at best). I have a steady job that pays a decent wage for someone without a college education who is content to be considered in the upper lower class of society.

I am also lucky in that I am not on anti-depressants. I’ve never taken one in my life, although God knows I’d make a great candidate. It hasn’t been easy, suffering through my inner demons and depressions and anxieties…but despite all the mental anguish I’ve endured, I am so glad that I have never let a molecule of one of those drugs enter my bloodstream and fuck with my brain chemistry.

The reason I suppose I’ve always been so anti-anti-depressant is because I’ve never felt like my brain was broken. Even in my darkest hours, I never felt like what I was feeling was unnatural. I felt like I was supposed to feel. My problem was that I didn’t know how to feel anything else. Taking drugs wasn’t going to teach me that.

My depression was created by some genuinely depressing events. I was raped for years by a friend of the family beginning at the age of four. Who wouldn’t be bummed after something like that? And then, just when I was trying to heal from that experience, (without therapy, mind you. I don’t think my stern Germanic vater believed in such weak-willed things), my brother hit puberty and decided that losing his virginity to me, his younger sister, (albeit not by blood!, he desperately reminded me as he was negotiating our sexual tryst), would make the most sense as “I had done it before.” So, you know. There went any chance of happiness in the 12th year of my life. (I never allowed him to fuck me, though. “Phwew!” I bet you’re saying to yourself. To get him out of my room, though, I did let him grope my ass once. I can still see his closed eyes and the pained, wrenched look on his face when, after I could take it no more, I turned around to get him to stop. The hurt on his face was genuine. As is the scar on my heart that moment created.)

Well, okay, you might be saying to yourself. That DOES sound pretty bad. I can see why you might grow gloomy and pensive from time to time.

But wait, there’s more!

In my 13^th year, my family fell apart. The father that I had barely seen over the past three years, as he had been working overseas, returned home to a line-dancin’, cheatin’ wife who demanded a D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Naturally, this did not make him happy. However, seeing as he was a survivor of 3 tours of duty in Vietnam, suffered from PTSD, and happened to be both drunk and high on cocaine when my mother told him to find a new place to live, he did what any man in his situation would do: He destroyed the house. Oh he didn’t set it on fire or anything disastrous like that. He simply shattered every piece of furniture, memento, and glass object that he could find. You could not walk into that house barefoot. Our poodle was scared shitless. I wasn’t there at the time, as I was babysitting, (Specifically, I was watching Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage concert on HBO as the children slept and my father raged two blocks away. “Funny how you remember,” as Bob Seger sings in Night Moves.), but I heard that when the sheriff placed him in handcuffs he broke out of them by wrenching his arms from behind his back. I heard he broke his wrist in the process. (Cocaine is a helluva drug.) I heard all of this second-hand because I didn’t see my father again for another three years.

As you can imagine, I did not enter my adult years with the strongest psyche on the planet. I attempted many times, as is expected by society, to find stability and love and trust. Suffice it to say that I failed miserably at every attempt. So now I have cats. Lots and lots of cats. Maybe it would have been easier to live (and love) if I had only discovered that Zoloft is right for me…but I wouldn’t have been me. I would have been some serotonin-coated, chemically-enhanced version of me. Completely fractured on the inside, patched together with pharmaceuticals.

But, enough about that. I do not wish to bore you with every sorry, sordid little detail of my life. (Although, since many of them are about lesbians, I bet you would love that.) This is not supposed to be a depressing autobiographical essay. Today I am writing about redemption and recovery and Rosanne Cash.

(“Wait. Are you sure¸ Laurie? Because you’ve written about some pretty dark shit here. I haven’t been able to stop crying for the past six paragraphs. ” Ssh. Ssh. I know. I’m sorry. It gets better. “And your brother sounds like a real asshole.” Well. We all have things we’re not proud of. I’m sure if he could take it back he would. But, yes. As far as I know, he is a complete douche. But, I could be wrong. We haven’t spoken in more than eight years. We all deserve redemption, though.)

My life is better because Rosanne Cash is in it.

Perhaps I should start at Square 1.

Does everyone know who Rosanne Cash is? (Although, in this day and age, with your Googles and your internets, and your Wikipedias, I’m pretty sure you could find out easily enough in about three mouse clicks. But, okay. Let’s just assume you’re too lazy to do even that.) She is a musician, a songwriter, a writer, wife and devoted mother of five. She has been making music since before the internet was invented and in my humble opinion pretty much all of it has been awesome. I don’t know what she does with the shitty songs the law of averages states she must write. Maybe she pawns them off on Taylor Swift. <zing!>

(Why I had to go out of my way to insult Taylor Swift is a mystery to me, too. I sure don’t like her, though. Yeah, yeah, okay. She writes her own songs. <eye roll> Sure. Okay, fine. Hey, listen. My dwelling unnecessarily on my unnatural disgust and disrespect for Taylor Swift is not helping the overall message of this essay, so do you mind if I just stop talking about that elfin poser for just…do you mind? I’ve got to get back to this thing.)

Some of her hits include Seven Year Ache—tell me you at least know that one, for fuck’s sake!—Runaway Train—no, NOT the one that Soul Asylum sang in the 90s—and I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me. Her songs are available for purchase at iTunes AND Amazon.com. (Yeah. She’s that good.)

I have had Rosanne Cash in my heart longer than Rick Warren has had Jesus in his. I listen to a wide variety of music, and I consider myself a fan of many different artists. Each and every one has their own story to appreciate and respect. But none of them have changed my life the way that Rosanne Cash has, and there isn’t one that I am more devoted to.

If we lived in a world in which social media did not exist, Ms. Cash, (or, more accurately, Mrs. L., since she is married to John Leventhal, a world-class producer and musician in his own—oh, just Google him!), would simply be my favorite artist of all-time, not the life-affirming demigoddess that she has become. But, thanks to Twitter, she gets to be that. Which must be thrilling for her, I’m sure. “My work here is done,” I imagine her saying as she closes her laptop for the night. “John!” she yells over her shoulder to her husband in the kitchen. “I can disable my Twitter account now! I’m a demigoddess.”

Give or take a minor setback or temporary nervous breakdown or two, my life has been steadily improving since that night in 1996 when Lefty the Calico Cat convinced me to put the knife down. A couple of friends had helped me grow along the way. Their appreciation for me and patience with me went a long way towards healing my broken soul. Because, by 2008(?), I was pretty shattered. I was functioning, but it was almost all façade. Again, I don’t want to get into all the details, but there had simply been one too many nights curled up in a fetal position on the bathroom rug, sobbing, feeling wide-open and raw and exposed by some relationship that had once again failed. I had isolated myself, emerging from my coccoon long enough to work or perhaps go out and drink with acquaintances long enough to make jokes and get a good buzz on. But, I didn’t like myself, didn’t really ever confide in anyone, and was just walking farther and farther down the Road to Ruin. And then one of them convinced me to sign up for Facebook.

Before I joined Facebook, I was convinced that it wasn’t for me. Facebook was for people who had friends! And I just had the two. There was no need to be on Facebook for that…I could simply text them. Of course, I was completely wrong. Facebook turned out to be more rewarding and influential than I could have possibly imagined. Perhaps one day I’ll devote an essay exclusively to how much that has changed my life.

(“Is this an essay, Laurie? Or is it the Bhagavad Gita? Because you’re running a little long here, lady. Can you possibly maybe wrap it up soon? I’m pregnant and my baby is due in three months. I’d like to maybe get up from this chair once before my water breaks.” Your sarcasm is not good for your unborn child, Random Reader. It imbues the umbilical cord with bile, I read somewhere. But, fine. I’ll try to move quicker. I’m not excising that paragraph about Taylor Swift, though. That’s staying in.)

So, anyhoo.

By the time I joined Twitter and started interacting a little with Rosanne Cash, I had already emerged somewhat from my shell on Facebook. I was feeling better about myself, reuniting with long lost friends, and I was thrilled that my list of friends grew from two to four. And then to seven. But, I found myself falling back into the same patterns that had led my entire life to isolation and unhappiness. I was using humor to engage with people I hadn’t spoken with in years, but I remained distant and wary and hyper-vigilant about offences and insults. Part of me enjoyed conversating, (That’s right. I used it in a sentence. Roll your eyes if you want–I like it and it stays in.), with them, but another part of me was just positive that they hated me. (I know that sounds weird, but please remember the second line of this essay.)

A helpful thing to know about Rosanne Cash is that she is incredibly smart. Like, okay? She doesn’t simply craft these amazing songs that are mystical and layered and romantic and rich with emotion…she thinks about real-world stuff, too, and makes a lot of sense when she discusses issues. She is not some vapid excuse of a pop-star like some current Cover Girl spokeswoman who shall remain nameless but who is not P!nk! I love P!nk. I was talking about the other one. No, not Janelle Monae. Oh, you know what, never mind.

Another thing you need to know about Rosanne Cash and her Twitter account is that she will actually talk with you if you write to her. I could spend half a page describing the various ways that celebrities use Twitter, but this is not a Twitter tutorial. Suffice it to say that I have never seen anyone use Twitter the way that she does. She tries very hard to respond to as many people as she can. I can only imagine how exhausting that must be. I was waiting in the lobby at her show in Williamsburg back in February and overheard a man describing, with awe in his voice, the tweet that she had sent to him. So I hope she knows that people genuinely appreciate it.

There’s this quote attributed to Ms. Cash that flows constantly across Twitter. If you look hard enough for it, you’ll find it. “The key to change is to let go of fear.” Twitter keeps saying she said that, so I guess it’s true.

And, when engaging with the one person on the planet you respect and adore more than all others, I suppose it’s easy to feel a little intimidated. But, unbeknownst to me, I took her advice, let go of my fear, and just…tweeted. And things have been changing ever since.

I can’t ascribe all the improvements to my life to the fact that Mrs. L. talks with me on Twitter. But she has definitely helped set a lot of it in motion. She has been the key to so many seismic shifts.

Ms. Cash is devoted to the English language. Luckily for me, I enjoy using it, too. And, so, what she has helped me discover, in the back and forth that we’ve had over the years, is my voice. Without even being aware that she is doing it, she has helped me bring my thoughts into sharper focus. It’s one thing to babble back and forth on Twitter with your dipshit second cousin who only writes in abbreviations and is drunk half the time and who isn’t going to remember it, anyway. It’s another thing entirely to speak with a Grammy-award winning musician who covets words the way Hugh Hefner covets playmates. I want to be absolutely sure I know what I’m saying to her–tone, language, quality–because I don’t want that tweet to be the one in which she finally blocks me. (“This dipshit reminds me of my drunk second cousin.” <block!>) I write with more intent now than I ever did. I’d like to think I am a better communicator because, like, you know, I’m all, like, on point and shit. (See?)

Ms. Cash has also helped me meet new people on Twitter. I don’t have a ton of connections on Twitter but, essentially, the ones I do have are all followers of hers that I started to follow, too. I barely even bother “retweeting” (rebroadcasting a tweet that someone else wrote so that everyone who pays attention to your stuff can see it) anything she writes because everyone that follows me follows her. I realize this is a very myopic view, but basically I don’t think Twitter exists without Rosanne Cash in it. Nothing in my world disproves that. Meeting new people on Twitter has, again, helped loosen up the shackles on my imprisoned mind. I mean, clearly, Ms. Cash has nothing to do with the friendships I develop amongst her followers–the bonds I build with them are entirely between us, and based on things that we have in common–but I still credit her for helping in that regard.

I think she also helped my self-esteem. I mean, I can’t say for sure, because there are some days that I can’t find it…but I am almost positive that she makes me feel better about myself. Yeah. She does. I mean, it totally sounds like star-fucking, but it feels really good when I can make Rosanne Cash laugh. Don’t get me wrong–it feels good to make ANYONE laugh. I have this one co-worker who sometimes chuckles and says, “Laurie, you’re so stupid,” and I LIVE for her “You’re so stupids!” Makes me so happy, you don’t even know. But I think being appreciated by Rosanne Cash turns a light-bulb on in my brain in ways that other interactions couldn’t. It’s not that her attention is more valuable to me than that of others–it’s that it is so rare and relatively difficult to obtain that it resonates louder. But, ultimately, her attention benefits everyone in my life because, of course, as I start to feel better about myself, I become a better person for people to appreciate. And my co-worker gets to call me stupid more often. It’s a win-win for everyone.

But, most importantly, by interacting with me, chatting with me and, in the surrealist moments of my life, allowing me to visit with her backstage, Ms. Cash has allowed me to do the one thing that I desperately needed to do. She has allowed me to love her. And for that I will never be able to repay her.

When you’re traumatized, scarred, shattered and distrustful, the last thing you know how to do is love. Oh, I cared about people, of course. Don’t forget there were those two friends who played such pivotal roles in helping me grow as a person. They gave me love, and I knew that, and I appreciated them so very much. And I loved them, I did. The best I knew how, at least. But in the back of my mind, I had a trapdoor in which I could escape. If they ever stopped loving me, I would be ready. I always kept something in reserve. For my survival, you see. I was never going to let anyone devastate me again.

And then Rosanne Cash, this woman I had admired since before I don’t know when, the woman who’s music penetrates my soul in ways that I’m pretty sure would violate laws in several states if it wasn’t consensual, listens to me when I tell her I adore her.

She has provided me with more comfort, entertainment, solace & wisdom than she can ever possibly know. I cannot fathom why anyone with her talent and career and intellect would ever bother to pay attention to someone like me. But I’m so grateful that she did.

The simple act of being able to open up my heart to someone has had more of an impact on my life than I can possibly explain. No one else but Rosanne Cash could have elevated me to that level of understanding, though, that’s the beauty of this revelation. I had expectations of everyone else I love in my life. I expected reciprocity. Naturally, being highly distrustful and suspicious and unable to see my own worth…well. As you can imagine, the bonds to my heart have never really been unlocked, and I’ve never quite figured out how to feel love without feeling bad about it. But letting Rosanne Cash know I adore her solves that dilemma. I don’t expect anything from her. She’s given more than I could ever possibly return. She’s not supposed to love me–that’s not in the rule book. And just being able to tell her I adore her…I don’t know. You people with your loving children and your happy marriages of 15 years, wow. You’ve really got something special there. Maybe you don’t even appreciate what you have. But for someone like me, someone so repressed that showing any kind of vulnerability was something to be afraid of? Being able to do something like that was unimaginable.

It goes without saying, (or it should), that I am referring to love in the platonic sense here. I know, I know, you would really like me to write more essays about lesbian fantasies, (“Even if you have to make them up, Laurie. Even if you have to make them up.”), but this awakening of my soul has nothing to do with sexuality. It has to do with my humanity and my ability to trust people and to live inside my own skin without wanting to crawl out of it. It’s about knowing my strengths and owning up to my weaknesses and not feeling ashamed all the time. It’s about not living in fear every goddamn second of every goddamn day. She’s looked me in the eye. She has endured with much grace and patience as I have tweeted her praises. And she hasn’t blocked me.*

And through all that she has taught me, I feel like some enormous pressure has been lifted off my chest. I feel closer to my humanness than I ever have been before. I feel more aware of my intelligence and my sense of humor and the power I have and the vulnerability I feel towards others. I am more alive. I am more present. I am more terrified than I have ever been, but it is a completely different kind of fear.

So, I thank her. I thank her in my dreams, I thank her every time I see her, I thank her in every random act of kindness I commit. She is so much more than a collection of songs. (Although, don’t get me wrong. Those are VERY good.) She is a life-affirming demigoddess.

Of course, all that’s more than a little fucked up. But, AS I CLEARLY STATED WHEN I STARTED THIS ESSAY, I’m one of the luckiest fucked up people I’ve ever known. Because I’ve met Rosanne Cash.

(*Yet.)

Square Dancin’

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Laurie B.

Sometimes when I get home from my 8 to 5 job I am torn between sitting quietly in my living room with a book reading and sitting quietly in my office with my computer writing. There are only so many hours left in the day before I have to start the inexorable grind all over again, after all. Is it better to fill my head with the insight and knowledge that only reading a new book can bring, or would I be using my time better by taking time to share my opinions on my blog? In other words, is it more important to become more educated or to express one’s own personal opinion?

As it turns out, in my case, since I am a celibate shut-in who lives with four cats, the answer is neither. All that matters is that I just sit here quietly. And perhaps occasionally empty those cat litter boxes. Please.

But, with this recent NSA scandal continuing to brew, I just want to continue to comment upon what is unfolding, as I think it is fascinating.

If you have not read my previous blogpost, (and judging by the statistics WordPress happily accumulates for all of its contributors, you haven’t), I am not a fan of the massive data collection program being undertaken by our government. I would link that post to you here, but I’m incredibly fucking illiterate when it comes to how to do that. So, you know. It’s the next one down. Read it if you want to.

What I’ve noticed is, just as with every other gigantic scandal that has taken place in my lifetime, that the movers and shakers in the opinion world have divided into two camps. A few people who proudly identify themselves as liberal are opposed to the program, or at least suspicious of it. But, of course, the majority seem to be in the “The man who leaked this material is a coward and a traitor and needs to be strung up by his balls” camp.

People: I don’t know if it has occurred to you as forcefully as it occurred to me today, but we are SURROUNDED by the status quo. And, if you’re not careful, the status quo will tell you how to think.

If you are, like me, a simple citizen who has never researched anything deeply or seriously except perhaps lesbian porn, (Editor’s note: My apologies–Laurie is simply trying to maintain your attention, and all the marketing research shows that saying “lesbian porn” is a great way to keep your eyes on the page. Not that she has read any marketing research, being busy watching lesbian porn and all.), and who doesn’t have an advanced degree or a subscription to The Economist, but if you’re also like me in that you like to pretend that you have Educated Opinions about The Issues, then you listen to NPR and read opinion pieces from the most respectable news outlets. Oh, you try to read a variety of people from a variety of sources but, if you want to be Taken Seriously, then you read mainstream views from Respected Columnists. The Status Quo, in other words.

This, of course, means that you are at risk of thinking exactly what the status quo wants you to think. So please be careful.

As best as I can gather, so far, virtually all opinion makers who wish to be viewed as either moderate or right of center are firmly on the side of the government on this issue. That fact alone should give anyone trying to make their mind up about this scandal pause.

The basic defense of this massive invasion of privacy seems to be this: a)3000 people died on 9/11; b)this isn’t hurting anyone; c)Americans want their government to do anything and everything (within reason, which this clearly is) to stop terrorism.

And to that I respond: what happens when the next successful terroristic attack occurs? (And it will.) What will we agree to endure then from the government, in the name of preventing terrorism? Embedded microchips? Why not? I mean, if scooping up every foreign telephone call and every email, (and every blogpost), isn’t enough to stop terrorism, (and it won’t be), then maybe we need to think of some more invasive methods. We all want to remain safe, right? You don’t have anything to hide. In fact, why DON’T we have embedded microchips already?

As to the defense that this isn’t hurting anyone, that this isn’t a big deal because no ones’ rights have been violated, I would simply like to point out that WE DON’T FUCKING KNOW THAT. I mean, call me Einstein, but we don’t. We have absolutely no idea if anyone’s life has been affected by this. And all those movers and shakers, those opinion makers, those erudite journalists who have come out so quickly to say that this hasn’t hurt anyone? They realize it, too. They are fully aware that they don’t have all the details. They have no clue whether or not people have been unfairly railroaded into accepting guilty pleas for terrorist activities because of this program. That doesn’t seem to stop them from asserting as quickly as they possibly can that “no ones’ rights have been violated.” If they were taking their roles as journalists seriously, they would ask that question first, and frequently, until they got definitive answers. If they weren’t simply propagandists for the Status Quo, they would hesitate before leaping up to assert that the Constitution is safe. But, they didn’t hesitate. Because propaganda has to strike while the iron is hot. They have to jump out in front of the issue, to quash dissent, to control the story, to manipulate public opinion. Which is exactly what they are doing.

I have read inane comments such as “Google has all of your information, why shouldn’t the government?” I mean, I don’t know, let me think about it. Hmm. Wow. The answer came so lightning quick to my brain before I even had a chance to prepare myself for the answer that I don’t know if I’ll be able to dictate it properly. But lemme give it a shot:

BECAUSE GOOGLE CAN’T PROSECUTE YOU AND EXECUTE YOU OR IMPRISON YOU FOR LIFE IF THEY DEEM YOU TO BE AN ENEMY OF THE STATE.

Is the easy answer.

But maybe the government having the power to do that is not something we take seriously. Which in and of itself should scare the shit out of any citizen anxious to prevent Totalitarian Creep.

The status quo is powerful. If you’re an opinion maker for a national news outlet or webpage, you adore the status quo. Oh, you’ll occasionally say something to get under some politician’s skin…but it’s all theatre. You create your drama to create tiny stirs and to boost ratings or page views, but all of it is essentially designed simply to…to maintain the status quo. It’s quite a beautifully well-oiled machine. Complain about Politician A. Defend Politician B. Demand Politician C resign! immediately. But…when the shit truly hits the fan and the entire political apparatus is being threatened…then you circle the wagons, by God, and protect ALL of the politicians. Whatever you have to do to keep getting invited to those cocktail parties. Keep sipping scotch with the policy makers, and laugh at all of us lesbian porn watching, (Editor’s note: That was me this time, actually. Laurie was droning on. I needed to punch it up a bit.), uneducated, idiots who aren’t smart enough to realize how the world really works.

So, as this scandal swirls around you, ask yourself, as you either try to ignore it or formulate an opinion of your own: Is this really how I think? Or is the status quo massaging me to think this way?

I, for one, say fuck the squares.

The status quo is NOT always ideal. Part of freedom means fighting the power. Americans are so passive it frightens me. Anyone who has read 1984 is familiar with the concept of an all-powerful government…but we seem decidedly undisturbed when we are presented evidence that it is actually happening. What’s ironic is that, anyone who has the slightest remembrance of history knows that the country was appalled in the 1970s when it was discovered that the FBI had files on thousands of innocent people: Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, gay rights activists, etc. We were once so appalled by that overreach that we put strict rules in place to limit those kinds of intrusions. Keeping the government in line used to be important to us. This generation, though, seems to yearn for a police state. I see very little evidence that people are resistant to the idea. All because 19 criminals did something terrible one day in 2001.

There was one opinion maker from China who seemed to recognize the great power that America is exhibiting. He pointed out that when people feel like everything they are thinking is being monitored by the state, creativity and ingenuity die. People begin to self-censor in an effort to avoid scrutiny. And he only had to point to his homeland for evidence.

But I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. David Brooks says it’s fine.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some litter boxes to clean.

And lesbian porn to watch.

Rage Against The Machine

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Laurie B.

I am not a great intellectual, put on this earth to ponder the great policy intiatives that our debated in state capitols and in Washington DC by our elected officials. I am not an advocate for causes, either great or lost. I am not a mover or a shaker. No one cares what my opinions are about the issues of the day. And yet I just have to take a moment to express how I feel today. Because I’m furious.

I am a simple woman. I love two things: my cats and Rosanne Cash. Not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily with the same intensity. (But don’t let my cats know–they can get fiercely jealous.) Oh, and I love one other thing: The Illusion of America.

Even though I’m cynical, more bitter than your average bear, and determined not to have my emotions manipulated by pure propaganda, I can’t help but confess that I’m a sucker for the American Dream.

Oh, sure, economically the middle class is collapsing, that much is true, as we are losing millions of decent, dependable, good-paying jobs every year. Millions of us find ourselves newly constrained by the rusted shackles poverty every passing year in this millenium as we continue to slide down the economic ladder. We not only watch our own dreams for retirement die, but those of our children as well, as it dawns us that most of what we want for them–a good education, a nice job, a solid home in a secure neighbor–is out of reach.

But, even as I see with these jaded eyes that bleak future before us, I cling tightly to the belief that America represents something Important. The things we Value, generations before us fought valiantly for. They are supposed to be mean something. Our values are supposed to be more than just empty rhetoric muttered mechanically by corrupt politicians for cheap applause.

We are supposed to Respect Human Dignity. But, we don’t. We imprison men without trial, without rights, in harsh conditions with no intention of releasing them in some sort of Kafka performance piece in Cuba. We will keep these men in prison all of their lives, even though they are innocent of any crime. We will keep these men alive to endure their inhuman, undeserved prison sentences by forcefully shoving tubes down their throat and pouring nutrients into their bodies so that they cannot die of starvation as more than half of them are attempting to do.

We are supposed to Respect the Rules of War. But, we don’t. We launch devastating bombs in areas that are not even legitimate war zones, and we kill thousands of innocent people a year in an effort to eliminate our “enemies.” Who are these enemies? We the People don’t need to know that. Who are the people that we are killing? We don’t need to know that, either–the childen, the women, the wedding parties. If they died by a bomb that we launched, then they were guilty of something.

We are supposed to Respect the Rights of Our Citizens. But, we don’t. We search them unnecessarily, coldly, callously, heartlessly, from the cop on the street to the Attorney General of the United States. All in the name of “rooting out evildoers.” We scoop up phone records of everyone and sift through it laboriously, as if we have a right to do so, looking for clues, hints, that some of us are doing something, somewhere, contrary to the laws of this land. If the things our government are doing had been reported as having been done by the Chinese instead, we would have sanctimoniously pointed a finger at their oppressive Communist government and crowed, “Ah ha! THAT is what a police state looks like! Only a government afraid of its own people would go to such links to spy on the innocent. We do not have that problem here in America. Here we are Free.”

Once these outrages are revealed, are our leaders ashamed? Embarrassed? Fearful of an angry public? No. They brazenly assert to any journalist that sticks a microphone in their face that “this has been going on for years.” (Dianne Feinstein, (D), CA) “I’m glad this is happening.” (Lindsay Graham, Senator, (R), SC) “This has helped us catch countless bad guys.” (Saxby Chambliss, Senator, (R), GA) (Countless, I imagine, in the sense that it is impossible to count a thing that does not have a quantity.) And, most chillingly: “This is what protecting America looks like.” That last quote was also from Senator Feinstein, a supposedly liberal senator from the supposedly liberal state of California. Oh, really, Senator? THIS is what protecting America looks like? Because I thought that THIS is what destroying America’s values and liberties looks like. I thought that this is what pissing on the Constitution looks like. I thought this is what government overreach looks like. But, you say this is what protecting America looks like. Must be my mistake, then. Please let me get back to looking at funny pictures of dogs on Reddit & reading snarky tweets about fascism on Twitter while you continue “protecting” us. Sorry to get my panties in a bunch.

With this latest revelation of the NSA phone records scandal, as well as the way the White House has subpoened records from the Associated Press to root out a whistleblower who, they say–and why should we ever doubt the sincerity and truthfulness of the United States Government?–compromised national security by leaking information to the press, in addition to the way the White House is persecuting a Fox News reporter for the work he did, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sit by and watch our violent, overly-secretive, abusive, unrestrained government continue to act unilaterally at home and abroad in all of our names.

I am, in a word, furious.

That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you for reading. (Unless you’re an NSA agent and, let’s be honest, you probably are. In which case you can go fuck yourself.) I’m going to the dream I have of America, where none of my cats throw up on the carpet, and they gladly share quality lap time instead of trying to claw each other’s eyes out because I let one sit in my lap and another wants–*meow!* *hiss!* *spit!*–

Sigh.

Ahem.

The dream I have of America where all my cats and I live in harmony, listening to Rosanne Cash music, dreaming of a better America.

Weight, Weight Don’t Tell Me!

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Laurie B.

On June 4th I will have reached a milestone of sorts, so I thought I would take a moment to reflect upon the last year of my life. Oh, I could join the rest of America tonight and binge-watch the new season of Arrested Development on Netflix, but then what will I do tomorrow as I laze upon the couch, hungover, in my pajamas? (Obviously, with that last remark, you can deduce that June 4th does not mark the date I stopped drinking.)

As all three of you that are reading this know, I started exercising a year ago. Monday, June 4th, 2012, to be exact.

What’s the big fucking deal?, someone other than myself surely must be asking.

Well, let’s start by giving you some visual evidence to comfort your curiousity.

Here I am almost two years ago today, in desperate need of both a haircut and a stylist to tell me that, oh, girl, pink is definitely not your color:

I still hadn't lost the baby weight (from that baby I never conceived, much less gave birth to.)

And here I am about ten minutes ago, still in desperate need of a haircut and a stylist:

Do you notice a difference? I do. And I guess that’s what I’ll chat about for a wee bit tonight.

(That’s all the visual evidence you’re getting, though, so I hope it suffices. I’m not a Jenny Craig ad, people. You will not see full body “before” and “after” shots of me in shorts and a sports bra. Some imagination is required.)

Tonight’s little essay is about the transformation I have undergone in the past year, but the natural question to ask before discussing all of that is “How the hell did you get so obese in the first place, Laurie?” (And for all of you relying solely on the Pretty in Pink picture above who are reflexively, perhaps out of Christian kindness, wanting to protest with a “You don’t look that fat to me, Laurie,” ssh. That’s sweet of you, but, trust me, there are boobs and a pot belly just below frame that would make John Goodman look svelte. I was a sausage. People that knew me at the time are piping in: “Mmm hmm. It’s true. She was a fatty.”) That is a more complicated question to answer. I will try to delve deeper into it at a later date. But, a multitude of factors contributed to my growing weight problem: I didn’t like myself, I was made uncomfortable by people’s advances towards me so I tried to eat my way into invisibility, as years passed I became more sedentary, etc. I was an all-star athlete in high school, and I walked on to my university’s volleyball team, but even then, my heyday of athletic achievement, I did not enjoy exercise.

Fast forward through twenty years of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and you create the pulpy pink mass that is peering out at you in the picture above.

I wouldn’t even be thinking about exercise or weight-loss were it not for my friend Amy’s initial encouragement. All the progress that I’ve made this past year is due to her influence. She signed up for a boot camp exercise program through Groupon, and if she had not pestered me to sign-up with her, I’d probably be shoving chili cheese fries in my face while watching Arrested Development on Netflix right now, (which sounds awesome!), instead of writing about this transformative year. She coaxed me to sign up at the end of March, with the idea that we we start on April 1st. Well…she started. I sighed and ignored her.

I ignored her for two months. Of course I did. I wasn’t really interested in working out. Why would I be? I hated exercise! And I had lived without it for years. I couldn’t imagine being able to do a push-up, much less surviving an hour of calesthenics. But, she led by example. I could see her energy levels were rising and she seemed to be enjoying it, so I thought I might as well give it a try.

And so I started. On June 4th, 2012.

As you might possibly imagine, (or remember, from my tweets and Facebook posts a year ago), starting was painful. Every muscle in my body screamed in resistance. I had absolutely no stamina and could do very few things without stopping and gasping for breath.

After exercising on June 4th, 2012, this was my first tweet:

I’m alive. But, I haven’t broken out into a sweat & felt nauseated so quickly since entering that raw oyster eating contest. #exercisesucks

And this was my follow-up:

Did you hear that? I just climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor and my thighs screamed “FUCK YOU!”

By the second day of exercise, (Wednesday, June 6th):

I just shouted “Fuck!” so loud when I sat down to pee my neighbors must think I bought the audio version of 50 Shades of Grey. #ThighPain

So, at least I was finding the humor in the agony I was enduring. That was a good sign. (Honestly, though, I did scream “Fuck!” I remember that as though it were yesterday.)

Friday, June 8th:

Tonite we had to do dead man crawls into pushups for 30 yds. I faceplanted into the astroturf after 10. I literally munched carpet.

And from the 12th:

“Okay, Poop Shoot. I ate a salad. Talk to you in an hour!” is what I WOULD tweet, if I didn’t have self-restraint and a filter.

(That last tweet has nothing to do with exercise. It simply makes me laugh.)

From June 13th, 2012:

During tonight’s workout, I grunted so loud a nurse came over to see how dilated my cervix was. She said it was too late for the epidural.

And on it went, each day to the next. I kept showing up for more abuse. Possibly because I was looking for inspiration for more hilarious tweets. Or possibly because I was beginning to feel better.

I knew by the end of the second week that exercising for an hour three times a week was having a beneficial effect on me. So I just kept going. And now it’s been a year.

Oh, I have not followed the three times a week regime religiously. And there have probably been weeks where I’ve eaten and drank more calories than I’ve burned off. But I have kept going, through the highs and the lows.

And somehow, after almost a year of fluctuations and undisciplined behavior, the past two weeks have been incredible. So, maybe it takes a year of improved diet, (oh, I haven’t even begun to discuss the changes in my diet that I’ve endured over the past year, but that has contributed mightily to my transformation), and exercise before someone like me can feel the genuine benefit. I have never felt better in my life than I have this month.

What exactly does “feeling better” mean, Laurie?

Why, thanks for asking, random reader!

I simply feel, for the first time in my life, like I have energy & strength. My core muscles feeling steady and sturdy enough to control my frame. (I never knew what a “core” was until I met my trainer, Tre.) I feel like I have genuinely strong muscles. (Clearly this statement is limited to my age and my experience. I’m not trying to say I feel like I have superhuman strength or anything. In fact, I tried to pull weeds and shovel in my yard this weekend and I felt like dying after about thirty seconds of effort. So, you know. I don’t even know what saying I have “genuinely strong muscles” means. Because clearly my genuinely strong muscles are useless for yardwork.) I feel like my breathing and blood pressure are balanced. I am not suffering from chronic aches and pains. I feel like I’m starting to carry the amount of weight that my body was designed to carry. And I am enjoying the workouts now. Finally, after a year.

It always terrifies me to make proclamations like that. Because, of course, I have no idea what the future will bring. I write to you seemingly confident that I’ve “hit my stride” when it comes to the three times a week exercise regimen that I’ve been trying to maintain for the past year…but what if next week I grow absolutely bored with it and give up going all together? What if it starts to hurt? What if my desire for gelato and cheeseburgers and craft beers overwhelms whatever desire I have to exercise?

Part of me is afraid of backsliding. And part of me doesn’t even care.

The lesson, of course, when it comes to exercise, is that the motivation for this sort of thing has to come from within. You’re the only person that can motivate you to exercise and sweat and push yourself to painful limits. I can’t imagine doing this for anyone else’s approval. It’s not about your lover or your husband or your parents or your children or your friends. It really is only about you and how you want to feel about yourself.

I have been exercising for almost a year and, if a fashion designer is being generous, he would say I’ve shrunk down from an 18, (I never bought 18’s, but I probably should have), to a 10, (although I doubt I’m in 10’s comfortably. 12’s, maybe.) All that shrinkage hasn’t helped my social life, though, I’ll tell you that much.

I don’t get asked out on dates, and all I get are strange, uncomfortable stares when I approach women. (Although there was this bikini-clad exotic dancer who seemed happy to meet me for one brief moment.) Becoming fit does not necessarily improve one’s prospects. If anything, I feel more celibate now than I did a year ago. (But, that’s an issue I have to deal with, and clearly a topic for another essay.)

About the only thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve started to shed weight is that people look at me a little bit longer than before. They don’t talk to me, per se. (They certainly don’t ask me out on dates.) They just let their gaze linger. Occasionally they smile. Probably because I remind them of someone. I have that kind of face, you know. Well, my picture is at the beginning of this blogpost, so you can see for yourself. “You look like someone I know,” is something I’ve heard more times than I can begin to count. (Someday I would like to meet all these people I look like.) Cashiers and servers and people in the hospitality industry generallly act nicer to me now. But I don’t know if that’s because they’re happier to be serving a thinner person or because I’m giving off better energy because I’m not such a miserable fatty.

The above workout was one I did back in December, 2012, right after Christmas. I remember feeling SO PROUD that I finished it! That is why I had Tre take a picture of the workout and send it to my friend Jackie, who sent it to my hotmail account…(life is a little difficult when you don’t have a smartphone, okay?)

It was SO intense. It really was.

I look at it today, six months later, and I’m thinking, “Not only could I finish that, but I could start a second round.” That’s progress, baby, right?

By the way, I have no idea how much I weigh. Thanks to doctor’s visits, I know I weighed over 205 lbs before I started this exercise regime. The last time I was weighed, back in August, 2012 or so, I think I was at 186, if I’m remembering correctly. I have no idea how much I weigh now. (Probably 181. I’m kidding and being self-deprecating or whatever the phrase is for people that talk bad about themselves.)

One of my trainers, after I had been exercising for about a month or two, wondered outoud why I was exercising. She was curious to know my motivation. “What are you doing this for, Laurie?” I didn’t answer her then, and I doubt I could answer her now.

Maybe in a year it will come to me.

Stop The Insanity

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Laurie B.

It is important to remember that humans have lived on the edge of hysterical apocalypse as far back as our written history takes us. Knowing how humans love to be terrorized, it wouldn’t surprise me to discover that our ancestors were whispering fearfully about the imminent end of the world long before they invented written language. It’s just that once we learned our letters, we couldn’t wait to start writing about how soon we were all going to die.

It’s not simply that the End Times play prominently in the final chapters of the Christian Bible, for example–although that is a glaring example of the hysteria that I’m talking about–it’s that the entire basis of the Christian religion was that a)God was basically pissed at humanity, (this is after he was so pissed at us that he flooded the entire planet and started over with Noah), and the reason he even bothered to make a baby with that delightfully coy Mary was because it was time for him to kick some ass and take some names, so you better choose the right team, brother, because bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you? The prophecy of the Messiah was fulfilled when Jesus was born and aww, shit, dawg! You better watch yourself, because the Lord don’t play!

True believers were convinced that the Power at the time, the Roman Empire, had met its match and would be decimated.

True believers eagerly traveled from town to town, singing Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” to any Jew smart enough to listen and be converted. They weren’t trying to convert people because they wanted to share a message of love: they were doing it because they believed God was coming down to destroy the unrighteous and the end was near. This shit was going down. Jesus was going to reign victorious, so you better hop on the bandwagon, (Sure, the band only sings that one Tracy Chapman tune, but you get used to it), because he wasn’t going to take any prisoners. They meant it.

True believers were more than a little stunned when their divine little Terminator was unceremoniously executed by the very same Romans he was sent to destroy. (“I did NOT see that coming,” one of them was overheard saying later that night as he dipped his pita bread in a dish of olive oil at Jerusalem’s Macaroni Grill.) But, they quickly reset the narrative to include the highly improbable, contentious resurrection, that thing that single-handedly defines Christianity, and which, after thousands of years, has come to be associated with colored eggs and chocolate rabbits. After they successfully managed to explain away the seeming impossibility of how the Divine could be so easily killed by a mere mortal, they quickly went back to promulgating the impending end of the world, with their side being victorious. But this time they meant it.

True believers were even more stunned when, in 70 A.D., the Romans unceremoniously destroyed the most amazing temple ever built…but they quickly folded that impossible disaster into the narrative as well. (Brilliantly, I might add: “Jesus WILL come back! Oh, yes, he will! When this completely destroyed, unreparable building is rebuilt.” <a ha! Gotcha! That should keep you stumped for a few thousand years.>) And they quickly went back to promulgating the impending end of the world, with their side being victorious. But this time they meant it.

And so it’s gone on and on and on for two thousand years. Back when humans were generally ignorant and uncertain of the properties and principles that govern the universe, that fear that the end of the world was near was almost understandable in a way. After all, if you don’t know that the plague-infected fleas are what are killing all of Europe, of course you’re going to think God is trying to destroy your civilization because you slept with your sister. But, the panic, the uncertainty and the irrational belief that God is trying to murder us haven’t gone away even as we’ve grown more intelligent and have come to realize that our sleeping with our sisters in no way affects God’s mood. Polls still show that entirely too many of us believe that we’re going to be the last living generation on the planet…and we live in an era where we can transplant a face…ONTO SOMEONE ELSE’S FACE! Who is generally someone who has been living for years…WITHOUT A FACE! But, that enhanced knowledge doesn’t seem to make us feel a bit better. Every time something horrible happens,* it’s a sign that God is hell-bent on destroying us and our sinful ways. You’d think, since the Lord is all-powerful and super-duper strong and stuff and has clearly been disappointed in us ever since he created our species, (This DESPITE us having invented Angry Birds and the ballpoint pen. There’s just no pleasing some people.), out of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, he would just play marbles with us and flick our infinitesimally small planet directly towards the sun and <poof!> problem solved. He could start over on Mars and get it right this time. (Not that God makes mistakes.)

The tenets of Christianity are a useful way for me to illlustrate how comfortable humans are existing in the last moments of time. But Christians are, of course, just one sliver of humanity–granted, a fairly large, very sanctimonious, sliver of humanity, especially in this country–that has energized itself with the warmth of impending fire and brimstone. There are other religions that do that, too. (I say confidently, so as not to make Christians out to be the most paranoid of all the Gods-fearing people on earth, but the truth is I have no idea. Are there? Sure.)

But, there has to be something evolutionarily necessary about this fear of impending doom that we’ve been hauling around for generations. It has to have a purpose, right? Or else how could something so blatantly unnecessary and stupid survive generation after generation, despite all evidence showing its worthlessness? (Like religion itself, say.)

Is the fear of impending death what spurs civilization forward? Because it does seem that the communal, peaceful societies, the ones that accept death and destruction as a symmetrical part of life that is not to be feared…they don’t seem to last very long do they? It seems like the cultures that believe an angry God metes out death and destruction as punishments find those peaceable peoples and roar right over their adorable little communities like locusts on a wheatfield.

There has to be a way to wind down the insanity, though, doesn’t there? Do we really have to get so bent out of shape over every goddamn thing that doesn’t fit perfectly into how we believe the world is supposed to be? Because it doesn’t feel very healthy to me. I don’t get the sense that our civilization is “evolving” into a higher state of consciousness. The way we scream at each other about things we don’t understand. The desperate way we try to glean divine meaning behind completely random, violent acts of Nature. Nancy Grace.

Try not to get caught up in the apocalyptic waves that are constantly pummelling this nation. Our civilization did not collapse, and we were not reduced to eating our young when 19 men used planes as bombs on 9/11, so stop freaking out about Muslims destroying this country. Just because millions of Mexicans and Guatemalans want to live in this country with dignity and respect, that doesn’t mean that we’re all gonna be speaking Spanish, watching Telemundo, and praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe. We’ll survive with them out of the shadows. In fact, we’ll live better because of it. Please stop acting like being forced to endure a background check when purchasing a gun means that civilization is going to end. Wanting to raise tax revenues so that we can pay for our society to function does not mean that we’ll be forced to live like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, using a filtration system to drink our own pee. If we have to raise the age of social security a year, it doesn’t mean that all of our elderly are going to die in the gutter, alone, smelling like Kevin Costner’s pee.

(Of course, the irony of this is it sounds a wee bit like I’m suggesting that, if we don’t stop acting like every bad thing that happens signifies the end of the world, it’ll mean the end of the world. Give yourself a cookie if you figured that out, too.)

Maybe I would just be happier with zeitgeist panic attacks if the people who are upset would hold up more accurate signs of protest. Why not just say what’s really on your mind?

“I CAN’T UNDERSTAND HOW THIS PLANET COULD POSSIBLY FUNCTION WITHOUT ME!”

“I HAVEN’T HAD A CHANCE TO BREED YET!” or, if you regret your offspring, “I HAVEN’T MADE ONE I’M PROUD OF YET!”

“I DON’T WANT SOME RANDOM STRANGER TO HAVE THE POWER TO RANDOMLY KILL ME.”

“I DON’T WANT TO DIE OF STARVATION, THIRSTY, SHOVING DRIED CORN INTO MY MOUTH!”

“I WANT TO BE IMMORTAL!”

“I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO CHANGE, EVER, BECAUSE CHANGE ALWAYS MEANS SOMETHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN.”

“SERIOUSLY, FUCK, YOU MEAN I’M GOING TO DIE? ARE YOU SHITTING ME?”

“I AM AWED AND OVERCOME WITH TERROR KNOWING THAT NATURE CAN MANIFEST ITSELF IN WAYS THAT WREAK SUCH DESTRUCTION THAT MY 2,100 SQUARE FOOT HOUSE CAN BE REDUCED TO FIREWOOD IN ABOUT FIVE SECONDS AND I AM HELPLESS TO DO ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT SO IT MUST BE THE WORK OF GOD.”

That last one might be a little too long to fit on a sign. That person might need to hire a banner-pulling airplane.

You’re going to die. You won’t be nearly as famous, respected, rich or remembered when you die as you wish you would be. You’ll be lucky if all of your kids even like you. (The ones that act like they do secretly just want your money.) You probably won’t die when you want to, and it’ll probably be a lot more painful than you’d wish it would be. That doesn’t mean that you should freak out about every little bit of news that collides with your worldview. Bad shit is going to happen to you. It doesn’t mean that God is punishing you. It just means that you’re alive. Just try to enjoy that.

*(I mean something grand in scale, of course. Someone getting their face eaten off by achimpanzee or another human being clearly high on some malevolent narcotic is not seen as a sign of God’s vengeance. Probably because that would make God seem to be pretty petty and psychotic, a Hannibal Lecter with a Messiah-complex.)

Bad Fish

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Laurie B.

“Oh, I have many problems. And one of them will end when I hang up the phone.”

My oldest friend in the world told me that tonight. Right before he hung up the phone.

Just now.

The words are still ringing in my ears.

*ring* *ring*

Oh, it’s alright, people. I’m listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “You’re Missing” on a continual loop. I’ll be fine.

(If you have never heard “You’re Missing” before, know that it is quite possibly one of the most depressing (yet beautiful) songs ever written, particularly since it was written after the attacks on 9/11. I have been driven to streaming tears as I drive when it pops up on the iPod. Listening to this song should be more illegal than texting, as it makes me want to steer unconsolably into traffic.)

(Way Back Machine Editor: I am still pissed that Norah Jones won the Grammy over Bruce Springsteen. I am. I’m not Sicilian, but…I am still pissed. It was a fucking travesty, and I need to see a horse head in a bed. NOW.)

(Politically Correct Editor: That last comment about the horse head was wildly inappropriate, and it does not reflect the views of WordPress.com)

(Way Back Machine Editor: We HATE the Politically Correct Editor.)

My longest friend plays video games with me.

He doesn’t discuss intimate or personal details with me.

Until he does.

It takes a lot for my oldest friend to reveal information to me.

Tonight, he let something off his chest.

He revealed that, ten years ago, I went out to the movies with him and the girl I met on the internet, and it looked like I fingered my girlfriend.

He couldn’t remember what movie it was. I couldn’t remember fingering my girlfriend.

What I love is that he has just retained this information. Like, this moment has irrevocably altered him as a human being.

Listen, people.

I’m in a hopelessly diseased relationship, and now you get to see a wee part of it. So, if you’re maybe ever thinking “Wow, I wish I had her life,” just fucking talk yourself out of it.

Why I Love The Patriots

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Laurie B.

I grew up in San Diego. We mocked hockey, had a baseball team that was mostly known for its Chicken mascot, and chased away a sports team, the San Diego Clippers, to a market, Los Angeles, that already had a basketball team. San Diego has it nude beaches, its dog parks, and its mountains and it doesn’t need your judgment, man.

Christ, I loved football when I was I kid, though. Oh. Oh. Yes. I did.

I collected the football cards and memorized the stats. (The only stat that has stuck is that Ahmad Rashad and my brother were born on the same day, March 16th.) I would watch the telecasts in my living in a three-point stance, moving in sequence with the Chargers’ offensive line as soon as I heard “hut.”

I believed in Air Coryell.

Then, you know, life happens. You move out of your home town and mingle with people that maybe have lived in cities where actual championships have actually been won. (San Diego, I think, is in that rarified air of being one of the most populous cities that has never actually won a national title in any sport–but, hey, dude! The America’s Cup in yachting was won there so, you know. Shut up.)

I didn’t love the Patriots when I first moved to Boston.

They were just another loser team, struggling with coaching and management. I was disgusted by the Pete Carroll coaching, and wasn’t thrilled by the personnel. Then, apparently, some drama occurred when Bill Belichick became the head coach. WHAT. EVER. I wasn’t really that focused. I was thinking about the San Diego Chargers.

I couldn’t stand Drew Bledsoe. I don’t hate pocket passers as a general rule but, Jesus, that man was slow. His slowness caused so many sacks. (Snore. If you’re not into football, you don’t even care what I’m saying.)

What I DO know, however, is that, as soon as Tom Brady took the field, there was a spark. I saw it. He pounded on the shoulders of his lineman. He pumped people up. He was involved in every play. He noticed what the defense did.

Drew Bledsoe kinda sorta realized that that was what Tom was doing, so when Tom went down with an ankle injury during a crucial playoff game, he was able to step up. Thank God.

I didn’t know who Tom Brady was when I fell in love with him. But I sensed that he was a winner. He wasn’t a winner like Cam Newton is a “winner.” He wasn’t a winner because he thought he was all that and a bag of chips. He was a winner because he believed in his team, he worked hard, and he was a leader.

I fell in love with the Patriots around the same time that the towers fell during 9/11. I didn’t do it intentionally–that was simply the time that Tom Brady stepped in, pounded his linemans’ shoulder pads, and made a difference.

Thanks to the tuck rule, the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl that year. Man. That was a long time ago.

That call could have gone either way. Wow. It’s like thinking about parallel lives. Who is going to be victorious, the Raiders or the Patriots?

And, yes. All of it seemed blessed. Too much fortune. You wouldn’t be here but for…

I had all that worry. I sat in my little room in Newton, Massachusetts, biting my nails, consumed by the certainty that the St. Louis Rams were going to DESTROY Tom Brady and the Patriots.

And then.

You know how sporting events are. You get that…rumble in the jungle! moment…and every individual athlete gets his due. Ray Lewis gets his dance. Michael Irvin. Troy Palomalu. Teams call their players out. They come out of the tunnel to individual accolades and power. And I’m pretty sure that St. Louis did that with the reigning Super Bowl Champs. They had their individual moments.

But My Patriots came out as a team.

The moment they came out in unison from that tunnel, for that first Super Bowl, in 2001, after the towers collapsed on 9/11, I knew that they would win.

They’ve won 3 Super Bowls since I’ve seen them in that tunnel, but things aren’t as predictable.

I don’t have the confidence that I did when they emerged from the tunnel as a single unit back in 2001. Thank Christ they don’t rely on my confidence to keep going. They keep coaching, and keep scheming, and keep winning, despite me. Good for them.

But I love them. They’ve epitomized success as a group. Tom Brady has been the superstar of the team…but he is such a humble, human superstar that you almost find it hard to believe that he is married to a super model. And yet you do believe it. Because he is that blend of modesty and power, that combination that we yearn for and yet never find. He is the All-American Quarterback that lives in the American dream.

What will happen when Bill & Tom leave New England? I don’t know…I’lll probably drift to another team. I’m shallow like that.

But I love these Patriots because they are so disciplined. I want my football team to react as a team and not as individuals.. And that is what the Patriots do. I am turned off by the individual star. That cockiness revolts me. In many ways, the New England Patriots are like the modern day New York Yankees. Only better.

People call the Patriots cheaters. They refer to Spygate. Do you even know what the Spygate Scandal is supposed to be about? Well, from what I understand, an assistant coach of the Patriots would video tape the opponents’ practices (with sound) that would give the Patriots such an advantage that they would dominate. That sounds terrible.

Only, the year after that practice was exposed, they went undefeated.

I would think that, if a person had only succeeded through cheating that, when they were caught cheating, their numbers would fall off. Kinda like Jason Giambi and David Ortiz, the baseball players who have been caught injecting performing enhancing drugs. The year after David Ortiz was exposed, he hit, like, .143.

I knew, when those men ran out of the tunnel in 2001 as a unit, that they would win, as a unit.

I love the Patriots because they are not about egos. They have one of the greatest quarterbacks in the league that has ever lived, married to one of the hottest fashion models that has ever existed…and yet you don’t see him selling us Sony TVs and PapaJohns Pizzas.

It is hard to see my Patriots fail to win the ultimate prize. They try so hard.

But, all things considered, they are the most consistent of teams. They are relatively crime-free. They are populated by smart men, honorable men, who give to their community.

I love the Patriots, not because they win, but because of their ethic.

It’s just nice to see their ethic prevail.

(Many people might see this post and say “Spygate!”—to which I say, you know, that lack of blood flow to your head is dangerous–Also…giving that Spygate was so real, and so important…once the scandal was exposed, why did the Patriots then go 16-0 the next season? The Saints were exposed for BountyGate and couldn’t make the playoffs. I would like to submit that, since we have no idea what goes on when preparing for games, we probably shouldn’t speak.)

I don’t have faith that the Patriots will always win. But I do have faith that they will always win well. And that is all that matters.

How To Live Without Ironing

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Laurie B.

I recently read a tedious, long-winded, nonsensical opinion piece in the New York Times entitled “How To Live Without Irony.” It’s the kind of self-absorbed, self-righteous, vacuous essay that makes me sigh deeply and weep for humanity’s intellectual decline. I got the distinct impression that the author, (An associate professor at Princeton, no less. This is not some part-time teacher at Butler Community College. She teaches at Princeton! Where smart people go!), cobbled her essay together paragraph by disjointed paragraph in between hefty doses of Ambien, Lexapro, and Cabernet Sauvignon. If it hadn’t been published by the New York Times and written by an associate professor at Princeton! <gaped mouth O!M!G!> I would have assumed it was written by an anxious, over-achieving 16-year-old who was cramming at midnight to complete an essay at the last-minute for her AP English class that she is desperate to get an ‘A’ in so she can maintain her class-leading 4.87 GPA, who the following day starts cutting herself when her (non-Ivy League-educated) public school teacher gives her a C minus on it.

That being said, her piece of shit opinion piece sure did give me something to think about.

Now, I don’t expect you to read her essay. But if watching bad reality television or listening to painfully bad Usher songs aren’t filling you with enough of that delicious kind of agonized self-loathing that make you want to repeatedly stab yourself in the neck for the horrible life choices you continue to make even though you’re a grown-ass adult and you should know better by now, by all means, knock yourself out. I linked it above. Happy stabbing. I’ll still be here when you get back from the ER.

Or, in an effort to save time, (and valuable plasma at the Blood Bank), I could just give you the gist of her arguments here:

1)All we do is live ironically now.

2)Hipsters are the worst at this. The absolute worst. Some of them even have moustaches and play trombone! I mean, for shame!

3)Living ironically is bad. Ironic living makes it hard to make real connections with other people, serious subjects, or your own feelings. It also makes you incapable of looking people in the eye or buying heartfelt gifts for your friends.

4)The author came-of-age in that glorified decade known as the 90s, where no one was ironic. People were grungy and apathetic back then, which was WAY better than being ironic like today’s hipsters.

5)Why?

6)It just was. It might have something to do with the superiority of flannel over tiny shorts, but she does not really flesh this out. Perhaps because it is such an obvious truth that no explanation is necessary.

7)You can try to reduce the amount of irony in your life by trying to behave more like a four-year-old. Or a person with severe mental disabilities. Or a plant.

(Now you probably want to read her entire essay to find the part where she encourages you to live non-ironically, just like a ficus. (Yes, she does. I assume that particular paragraph was written after not one but two bottles of Cab Sauv.) Happy stabbing. I’ll still be here when you get back from the ER.)

At no point did she tell those damn kids to stay off her lawn, but we do not know for certain at this point if that was merely edited out for size.

So, clearly, this essay made me grit my teeth and want to punch the next person I see reading The Atlantic Monthly. I never quite understand why intellectuals are so reviled by most normal people, then I read pretentious crap like this, a wee little lightbulb goes off in my head, I hear a precise, metallic <ding!>, I raise my forefinger in the air and think, “Ah ha!”

But, since I’m actually spending my valuable time responding to it instead of watching Dancing With the Stars, who’s the real idiot? <ding!>

Now, I would like to couch my response to her with a few disclosures: I was born in 1969, (which means that I’m 43, for people that do not want to bother with the maths.) I am not a 20-something standing up in solidarity for my skinny jeans wearing, Frappucino-drinking brothers and sisters. And I am not John McCain, suffering from the shock of yet another lost election cycle, ranting nonsensically about how unqualified this woman is to be Secretary of State. I am, ironically enough, of the same generation as the author, although I am clearly much more rational and clear-thinking. (I’m guessing that’s because I am not on her same diet of antidepressants, booze and sleeping pills.) I also do not have a sociology degree or anything else that would remotely allow me to call myself an expert on this subject. I certainly don’t teach at Princeton. (I don’t even teach at Butler Community College.) All I have is a wee bit of common sense and a slightly larger worldview that this hopelessly addled author.

So, let me break it down for you:

America is a diverse country. We have never been a laconic, static nation. Our borders are filled with bustling, energetic groups of every ethnic and religious background imaginable. Our “culture” is an amalgamation of hundreds of different subcultures. It is fascinating, breathtaking, impossibly large in scope, ridiculously challenging to get a handle on, and always shifting.

What you can NEVER do, (not without sounding like a complete moron), is ascribe an entire ethos, (in this case, irony), to “the hipster.”

The hipster is no more a blight upon this nation than the flapper was, or the beatnik, or the hippie, or the slacker. The hipster certainly flavors our culture, but in no way does he control or dominate it. And so if you’re trying to make the point that our lives are filled with too much irony and we need to learn to be more sincere, it makes no sense to point an accusing finger at a man in a vest and skinny jeans wearing horn rimmed glasses shouting, “There’s the culprit!”

Which do you wish to excoriate, hipsters or irony? Because they are two totally different things. Since you entitled your essay “How To Live Without Irony,” I am going to assume that irony is your main buggaboo.

So. Let’s look at irony for a minute. There certainly is a lot of it in our culture. Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report has clearly perfected the art. We have more late night talk shows than ever skewering national and world news on a daily basis. Comedy podcasts like the Bugle tackle meaty subjects with humor as well. And, of course, South Park and the Simpsons and other animated shows still manage to poke at revered icons and taboo subjects. Irony is not necessarily a bad thing. In many cases, it can be quite hilarious.

Irony is not the same thing as cynicism or apathy. It is also not necessarily an indicator of anti-social behavior. Just because a very masculine man wears a Care Bears t-shirt, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know how to listen to his girlfriend or carry on a conversation about serious subjects.

In fact, let’s just take a look at what this country has endured, at least in my lifetime:

1)Vietnam–a war we were lied into, were drafted into by the hundreds of thousands, that we didn’t want to fight.

2)Watergate–a clear-cut example of the President of the United States employing dirty, immoral, dishonorable tactics in order to win re-election over a political opponent

3)Nuclear Arms Race–people in the 70s and 80s lived with the extremely real possibility that we would all be blowed up real good any goddamn day now.

4)AIDS

5)Stock market collapses

6)Cyanide in Tylenol. Remember how we almost shit our pants over that one?

7)Toxic shock syndrome. Your tampons were going to kill you. Seriously.

8)The attacks on the World Trade Center. More frightening than your tampons.

9)Ten or eleven years of perpetual war. Or maybe it’s twelve years. Is anyone still counting?

10)The cola wars I can’t take it anymore.

Through the past ten years, our protests against the system have been weak and ineffectual, our wages have shrunk, our college debt has risen, we’ve been told that we’re greedy for expecting social security to remain solvent, that we’re fools for believing that global climate change is man-made, that Janet Jackson is the Devil for flashing her nipple at our children during the Super Bowl, that we’re criminals for trying to download a Young MC song off of Napster, that we’re going against God’s will, prophecy and ALL THAT IS WRITTEN for believing that gay people are should be treated like people, that we’re morons for thinking that electric cars and solar power are going to make this globe a better place, that we’re socialist terrorists if we think Barack Obama is an effective leader, that we’re going to Hell for not believing in Hell, that we’re bringing on the destruction of the country for expecting our immigrant brothers and sisters to be treated with dignity and respect, and that we’re unpatriotic if we don’t blindly support a military that seems to derive an inordinate amount of power and pleasure from blowing people up.

And yet you have the audacity to lament the prevalence of irony in our society?

I submit that the only thing that has kept this pulsating mass of a society from losing its collective mind in my lifetime is its beautifully honed sense of irony. You want to know who WASN’T ironic? Timothy McVeigh. That Heaven’s Gate cult leader. The dude who flew his plane into the IRS building down in Texas. A lack of irony will kill you.

Irony does not allow people to shy away, hiding in public, as you so ignorantly claim. Irony allows people to face serious, complicated, painful issues head-on, by laughing at them. Being able to laugh at those that wish to harm you is the ultimate way to have power of them. Having power over the things you fear gives you strength. It gives you the ability to think. It gives you the ability to formulate a response. It gives you the ability to feel more in control when faced with forces that are much more powerful than yourself. America has a long and proud history of mocking the Establishment that controls us. It doesn’t matter whether we do that on a political stage or on a marketing stage or on a cultural stage. It is all, to a certain extent, a form of rebellion. And in a corporate society dominated by oligarchical thinking, sometimes it is those little forms of rebellion that keep a people collectively sane.

Now, clearly, there are effective limits to irony. You certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting at your friend’s hospital bed as he’s battling cancer, saying, “Yeah, I know how you feel. I had the worst headache yesterday.” There is a clear difference between irony and being a dick. And there might be a lot of 20-something dicks in the world. You may have a point there. But, you know what? There have ALWAYS been 20-something dicks. Alexander Hamilton was a huge 20-something dick. So was General Custer. And others! That has less to do with the prevalence of irony in our culture than it has to do with the fact that 20-somethings think they’re invincible and amazing and that they’re going to change the world. But, they’re also awkward and arrogant and incredibly self-absorbed and stupid. It’s okay. They’ll grow out of it. Or die young. Unless they’re Donald Trump. Or Charlie Sheen. (Also two very non-ironical guys.)

Lastly, while I hope I’ve shown that irony as an ethos is not necessarily an indication of society’s decline, I would, however, like to point out that not everything about our country is steeped in irony. We are still an amazing country of charitable givers. We still are incredibly benevolent when it comes to rescuing dogs and cats from animal shelters. Many young people–those hipsters that you scoff at–are passionately involved in global climate change initiatives, gay rights, and other political projects. There are also many young people passionately involved in their churches, advocating for all the things I hate, like abstinence and anti-abortion efforts. (Again–not ironical people!) But they’re doing it! Yay for them!

We Americans are just kinda tired of being shit on politically, economically and militarily.

Don’t blame us for turning ironical. Be grateful. It takes a lot of intelligence to grasp the nuances of irony. Don’t feign disgust at people who appear to be living ironically. Feign surprise and pity for those who aren’t.

Please. Hold Your Applause 'Til The End.

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