Hide the Scale. It's Thanksgiving.

Besides gorging ourselves, gaining 10 lbs and wanting to send our relatives to some permanent residence in Antarctica, Thanksgiving is pretty much a day for reflection. Not your actual reflection... that's altogether horrifying this time of year. No, it's a time to stop and realize that you have so much to be thankful for. Don't look at me like that. You do. You really do.

"But I'm in debt and my house burned down with my box of kittens still in it and my hair is falling out and I have chronic acne on my back!" I don't want to hear it. Even if you were just diagnosed with cancer, you still have your family. If you don't have family, then you have your friends. If you don't have friends, then there's no one to raid your fridge. There's always something to be grateful for.

Thanksgiving should be a day where we stop feeling bad for ourselves and we focus on the things that we already have. As some wise man or songwriter or drunk guy at a bar said: "It's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got." Too much of the time, we're not looking at what we have as blessings, but thinking that we can only be blessed by getting more. If you have some sort of dead animal on a platter and a billion sides, that alone is something to be grateful for. Because you're not starving. If you fight constantly with your family this holiday, remember that at least you have a family, and at least you were invited in the first place.

So go forth, my friends with renewed thankfulness! While you're slipping slowly into a food-induced coma, try and remember that you are blessed and loved.

Detox

I was angry. So I wrote. I ranted. Now I'm not angry anymore. And that is all I'll say.

To you, oppressor. Tyrant. Sychophant.

You judge me with your eyes and know nothing of my heart. I can do more and be more than you think. Than you've assumed.

You have eyes that do not see and ears that hear all but me. I have been dismissed. Devalued. Patronized. Pushed aside, let down.

But you do not know that I can move mountains. I can write with fire and create worlds. I can change lives. I'm more than you've made me to be. You cannot define me. You cannot contain me. You cannot supress me, damage me or belittle me.

I am strong. I am smart. I am valuable. I don't need you to prove anything. I really, really, don't.

So go back to your pedestal; the one that resides in a narrow, narrow dark cave, and leave me to be.

Karate Lesson #2: Everything's a Weapon

What good is a broom handle against an enemy? Plenty. You might be saying some smart assed thing right now like: "What are you going to do? Poke them to death?" to which I will answer with confidence: "Yes". The weapons in my style of karate started out as humble farming tools. Sticks. Scythes. Even horse bits. Why so freaking primitive? Asian swords are some of the finest in the world... so why were they were using sticks and boat oars?!

Back in the day (don't ask me for dates. Do I LOOK like a history book to you?!) the samurai decided to ban all weapons in Japan and Okinawa. As a result, people couldn't own swords anymore. They had to get creative. To arm themselves against the often corrupt samurai, ordinary people took some ordinary objects and made something extraordinary. Namely: karate. Not only did they find new functions for everyday objects, they adopted an effective fighting style when weapons weren't available. In karate, anything can be a weapon. Is it sharp? Can it bash? Even a hard cover book has sharp corners. The better to blind you with. The Okinawans were the Macgyvers of the Asian world. They made a lot out of very little.

This is the tip of a very huge karate iceberg, and I only know about Shorin Ryu really... but don't you feel at least a little more educated? Yes. Go forth and be enlightened. Also, please don't start beating people with sticks... unless they're dressed up like a samurai. :)

Another Poem for Your Reading Pleasure

I haven't posted in a long time. I suppose I haven't had much time to document my nonsense lately. Either that or nothing to rant about! haha. Anyway, here's another poem.

Instead

Everywhere I'd been led to sorrow.

All paths took me to something callous.

Who could wipe the dark tears from my eyes?

Not in vain, not in empty promises.

My soul thought to escape in sleeping sighs

but remained; though I know not why.

No shade of light remained and so

that day He took my hand.

We found a small clearing amongst thorns

and the color rose to my eyes.

When I smiled and looked back, He'd gone.

And standing there instead was you.

Escaping the Meaningless

I've come to a self-realization recently. It's nothing fun, but self-realizations rarely are. They're usually things like: I eat my weight in carbs everyday or I curse more than a sailor with tourettes syndrome. My realization is this: On a daily basis, I fill my life with more junk than anything meaningful or productive. Sometimes that applies to my eating habits, which sometimes include more Chipotle than salads... but mostly I'm just talking about what I do with my time.

Though I have a few days during the week when I could do volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity, what usually ends up happening is I'll vow to go right after I check my e-mail and I turn on the computer. Then I'll start Facebooking, which turns into You Tube and so on. Before you can say "Brain Slurpee", half of my afternoon is gone and I've done nothing of value. All I've accomplished is turning oxygen into carbon dioxide and converting pop tarts into fat. After filling my head with so much nonsense, it literally will start to hurt. I'll seriously get a headache from all the crap I've watched. And it is crap. Why do we insist on watching these meaningless videos? It's a mind-numbing addiction.

I find that I won't work on my talents, like art, because I have this craving for the meaningless. After all, art requires skill and thinking. It seems that some days, thinking is just asking too much. Instead of accomplishing something real, I'd rather devote my time to a fake accomplishment that means absolutely nothing in the long run. Such as reaching the next level in whatever game I happen to be playing at the time. All I get from them is a false sense of accomplishment and many wasted hours.

After so long, I began to feel ill. Just sick and empty. Isn't there some novel out there that I could be reading instead that has some kind of moral to it? Something that'll make me think and not have to do with the undead, vampires and werewolves? Do such books exist any longer? Is there a movie I can watch that won't make me lose IQ points anymore? After such ponderings, I forced myself to go outside and I felt better. I made myself read some non-fiction (which is blissfully vampire-free). Once again I realized that I'm here for a purpose, and none of it involves status updates on Facebook.

I guess what I'm saying is there's too much junk and some of us are making ourselves sick with it. What you fill your life with is important because it affects what you get out of it. Have adventures, don't just read about them. Learn something that isn't celebrity related. Turn off the TV for an hour and watch a sunset. If you're filled up with garbage, there won't be room for anything meaningful! In conclusion, if I see another stupid vampire novel become popular, there's going to be a mass book burning in the very near future.

Incline-d to Hike

Above Manitou Springs is a vertical line going straight up the mountain. It's huge. What the heck is it? A really short ski run? No, wait, a really giant slide! Made... of...dirt...

Upon closer inspection, said vertical line isn't anything as fun as a slide. In fact, said vertical line is pretty much the opposite of fun. It used to be tracks for a cable tram that went up to the top of Mt. Manitou. Now all that's left are wooden ties, ridiculously large spikes driving them into the ground, rebar sticking out everywhere and rusty pipes big enough to fit the basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets in. It's something that us locals refer to as "the incline", or as some might call it: "Heart failure waiting to happen". Who, I ask, who took a look at that abandoned railroad and said: "Hey! That would be awesome to hike on!"

Conveniently, the wooden ties make up some 5,000 uneven steps (give or take a couple hundred) that are often covered in loose gravel for your slipping and falling pleasure. Personally, it takes me about 2 hours to get to the top because I adopt the pace of a banana slug. Otherwise I'd never make it. Some, however, do this sort of sick torture every week and can practically run up the thing. These are, more often than not, skinny old men who insist on being shirtless and look as if they embraced the 60's a bit too much.

The incline is only .9 of a mile. Now, before you judge and say: "You take 2 hours to hike .9 of a mile?!" Let me say this. To go up Barr trail (which runs parallel to the incline) 4 miles and then jog back down, it takes me 2 hours. 8 miles in 2 hours. Incline= 2 hours because it's death. It gains almost 2,000 miles of elevation in that .9 of a mile. It ain't called the incline for nothing my friends. Some steps are more like lunges and some I literally have to climb up onto. About halfway up, it seems to start ascending to heaven. In fact, halfway up you sort of start thinking you might experience heaven quite soon.

Subjecting yourself to the incline is not only sweaty, heart-pounding fun, but it's also illegal. Yeah. Every one of the dozens of people on that thing every week are trespassing. In fact, we pass a "No trespassing" sign on the way up. It might as well be a squirrel. We're still going to hike the damn thing. Because we're sadistic. Many have tried to make it legal for the public to keep scaling the incline, but truly, I don't see that happening any time soon. Mostly because last month alone 3 people had to be rescued on it. One involving a heart attack, another: impalement by rebar. No kidding. But that's only because the guy was going down the incline. Which is pretty much a guaranteed way to blow out your knees. Or apparently get impaled by some rusty metal.

Dangers aside, the incline is a really good work out. Instead of closing it off to the public, maybe they should just post some "hike at your own risk" signs. I mean, we see the jagged pipes. We know it's going to be an unhappy afternoon if we decide to run down the thing. If you're in the area, and want to burn off 3 days worth of calories, go ahead and try the incline. Just make sure to bring your defibrillator along for the hike.

Book Review: The Devil in Gray

Book review time!

The Devil in Gray by Graham Masterton

If you're not a fan of gore or ghosts, pass this one up. And gore there is. Buckets of it. The Devil in Gray is a well-written, easily read book that follows the murders of several people who seem to be killed by nothing, or no one, and detective Decker who's trying to figure out what the heck is happening. For example, a man is just hanging wallpaper when a deep gash suddenly appears on his arm. Before he can utter: "what the...?" he's been cut so many times he ends up in the hospital and his wife is decapitated. Then there's this guy that gets boiled to death in his own bathtub... but I don't want to give too much away. Honestly, the reasoning behind these killings is slightly silly but intriguing anyway.

This book reminded me of final desination in a way, except instead of death being after everyone, it's a pissed off civil war ghost. And how to get rid of the pesky critter? Well it's obvious isn't it? Voodoo. Santeria. A girl with down's syndrome who has freaky visions. Hmm yes. Pssh. You know nothing. Not kidding about the girl either.

I think that Decker is too accepting of the supernatural and doesn't really react in the way that most of us would (usually ending in ruining a good pair of pants). In the end, it's a good horror novel if you can get past all the wierd Voodoo stuff. There are scenes that made me gag and cringe and really, what more can you ask of a good horror novel? My rating: B+

But... Marty McFly Never Had To Do Algebra...

I've been told that the more you look back on the past, the more unhappy you are with the present. Perhaps that's why I not only look back on the past, I dwell. Don't get me wrong, I love most aspects of my life. Just not the one where I'm not the successful person I set out to be. I think, if I had a Delorean what would I do with it? Well for one, I'd go back in time and kidnap, I mean borrow, 20 something Michael J. Fox because really, what is time travel without him? Then I'd have to figure out what year to go back to so I could be all important-like and rolling in the dough. (Incidentally, I tried rolling in dough once, but my mom grounded me for a week and I spent 2 hours picking bisquick out of my hair).

In all honestly, a Delorian probably wouldn't do much good... I need to be able to start over, not have 2 of me running around in 1990 and face potential space/time continuum collapse. What I need is to be able to go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning, 5 years old again but with my 24 year old brain intact. Huh. This is sounding a lot like 13 Going on 30 in reverse isn't it? Meh.

So I'd be five again. A freaking genious in school. Hey I might even try to give that math thing another go round! I figure that if I was able to go back a second time and get an additional 12 years of math under my belt, it'll probably bring my competency level up to that of, oh... a 6th grader. At least! Oh man... imagine.

I'd drive my parents nuts with my mind-blowing intellegence. I'd tell my dad that smoking cigarettes is horrid and to cut that crap out. (No offense smokers. Well, actually... yes. Offense. Cut that crap out.) I'd attend college at 12 and be the world's youngest millionaire and buy a swimming pool for the sole purpose of filling it with strawberry Jell-o. Ah yes, It's all coming together now.

Really though, the more I think about it, the more I'm glad I don't have a random Delorian. I'd screw something else up in this alternate life. I wouldn't end up down the path I'm supposed to be on and I'd probably be so full of myself that no one would want to hang around me. (Even more than right now I mean)... And even though I'd a rich genious, I'd be miserable! Honestly, life's more fun when you're poor. You just have to be creative because you're too damn poor to go out. It might suck, but it builds character. These are the things I tell myself to feel better.

So in conclusion, Delorian's are pretty damn cool and so are hoverboards. Why hasn't that idea taken off? Where the hell is my Mattel hoverboard?!

Warning: Poetry May Cause Bleeding of the Eyes

Poetry! I do occasionally write it, though it's hard to write anything good. Most people have had horrid experiences with poetry, mostly from teachers telling them they suck. Or saying that their interpretation is wrong... which I always found dumb. An interpretation is... well... an interpretation. So really there is no wrong answer unless it's clear that you're just bullshitting. Anyways, whatever the reason, I think poetry has a bad rap. (In fact, bad rap started out as bad poetry, but I digress). Some of it sucks, but some of it's pretty good. To me, a sucky poem is one that could be written by a 1st grader with ADD. Something along the lines of:

Scratching dogs

on my door

bring sparkles

into my cocoa puffs

at midnight

sleep.

Hmmm... yes. Not so much. Unfortunately, some of us write and write and work super hard on a piece of poetry-ness for hours and it ends up looking like we chose random words out of a dictionary and crammed them into some flimsy structure we try to pass off as prose. Which, actually, come to think of it, might be fun... Anyway, if you try and tell me that you hate all of it, that it's stupid and pointless (much like geometry or Aqua Teen Hunger Force), or that it's only written by overly sensitive metrosexuals who have mommy issues, then I would like to:

A) smack you and B) remind you that your favorite song lyrics are freaking poetry. So shush. On that note, like it or not, here's one I wrote:

Walk away and see

the years gone by so fast.

Not alone but without.

Love comes and goes

til one day a memory

returns, somehow.

How I remember, and

slightly not.

Still there, alive

still breathing somehow

living in me, around me

this memory

this ghost

strange to be here

after all these years

and nearly forgetting

what I want to remember.

I don't think it's so bad, but what do I know? Just for fun, what's your interpretation? Oh wait, don't bother. You're wrong anyways.

Karate Lesson #1: Try Not To Throw Up

Ok kids, it's time to learn! Since karate is a mystery to a lot of people, and I'm a woman of limited interest, I figure I should share. Today's word is: kata. Kata is a pre-arranged fight with an imaginary opponent. Oh my yes, we fight imaginary opponents sometimes. What... this sounds lame? This might sound useless to some because, really, shouldn't we be fighting real life people? How can one properly learn to maim if the opponent is in your mind?! Kata, my friends, is practice. By repetition your body learns how to move and how to act in certain situations. It's a way to stop hesitation. Or at least lesson it... because hesitating is usually how I roll.

When done properly kata looks like a dance. It's even more impressive looking when there's a huge group of people all doing it at once (all perfectly synchronized and on count... right sensei? :P). One movement should move fluidly into the next. Each kata consists of anywhere from 8 to 50 movements generally. In my art alone there are a dozens of katas. In my experience, over time they get mixed up in your brain and try to mash themselves into one giant super kata which goes on for days at a time, leaving you dry heaving and your sensei confused and horrified. But enough about me.

Some katas are performed with much screaming and vein-bulging. Not so much in my art. Generally, there's one yell (a kiai) somewhere in the kata and strong but not binding movements. This video is much how I learned; in a small group. This kata is called "Pinan Shodan" and is learned as a white or blue belt. Yes, it's younger kids, but you get the idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLFyzzVGX7M

Ah yes, be enlightened. Go now and reflect on what you have learned and eat some sushi, green tea ice cream and other asian-type delights. Be sure and tune in next time for more karate-ness you never wanted to know.

Come Back Later. I'm Busy Being Irked.

Strange things annoy me sometimes. Not sure what it is... I probably just need to calm the hell down. Then again, you might agree with me. Here goes.

1. When I go to the gym, pick a locker, leave and come back the locker next to mine is always taken. Which is fine except when there's a million open lockers everywhere else. Then you might ask, why is that such a big deal? Why? Because we'll then share awkward, cramped locker space when I could otherwise be getting dressed without someone 6 inches from my naked butt. Unnecessary.

2. People that ask if I'm "serious" with my boyfriend. Do I come across as a casual dater? Do you see me flirting with all things male? Unless you see me dating other guys, I'm pretty much exclusive. Isn't everyone who isn't casually dating "serious" with said partner? And honestly, it's not so much serious as it is goofy as hell.

3. Farmville. Vampire wars. Mafia wars. Really Facebook? Really?

4. When the easy open packaging is anything but. Also, I can't get the damn cap off of the child-proof bottle of Tylenol.

5. When I keep swiping at a hair that's tickling my face and there's no freaking hair there.

6. Static electricity. Good for a laugh. Bad for your skirt.

7. Conspiracy theorists. More specifically, conspiracy theorists that insist on talking to me as if I'm interested. Please, take your crazy to someone who cares.

8. People who talk during sermons (you know who you are). Do you mind? I'm trying to get saved here.

9. When I walk into a classroom in business attire with my "guest teacher" badge on, carrying the attendance rosters and lesson plans and the kids go: "Where's the teacher?" Bite me.

10. Just to avoid changing the roll of toilet paper, someone leaves a single square, not adequate enough to wipe a mouse's ass, on the roll.

Does the list go on? Oh my yes. But to continue would just make me look like a whiner wouldn't it? I hope I'm not insane and someone, anyone, can sympathize.

Hey, There's Some Sham On My Rocks!

Don't you just love St. Patrick's day? Shamrocks! Green beer! Cheap plastic beads left over from Mardi Gras! Yay! Ah yes, it's truly a day to appreciate your local pub and to annoy people with your horrific fake Irish accent.

Ok, it might not sound like it, but I really do like St. Patrick's day. No particular reason really. Maybe because I get to pinch my non-green wearing friends. I dunno. But I got to thinking that there's got to be more to this holiday than corned beef (ick dude) and drunkeness. So, in the spirit of American holidays that we've butchered, I've done some research.

St. Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland but was, in fact, born in Britain. (Patron saint, by the way, simply means a protector of a certain nation). History tells us that he was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave. As a slave he was forced to cook cabbage all day and went mad from the smell and began to hallucinate visions of the Virgin Mary drinking green tea. It was during this time that he discovered his calling for ministry. For 6 years he stayed in captivity and eventually escaped and commenced with the baptising and holy-doings.

His story is fuzzy and laced with myth, but really, what saint's isnt? Legend says that he banished all snakes from Ireland and sent them all to Australia. Or perhaps the Amazon. The popularity of the shamrock symbol supposedly comes from St. Patrick's explanation of the holy trinity.

St. Patrick's day can either be celebrated as a religious holiday or as just a day to celebrate Irish culture. Which apparantly means buying some red hair dye and getting rip-roaring drunk. It makes me wonder... if you were to go to Ireland today, would they all be getting drunk as well? Or is it more of a pious thing to them? Also, if there were a patron saint of America, what would other countries do to celebrate us? Get drunk off of cheap beer, dress up in red, white and blue and eat cheeseburgers and apple pie? Yeah, you're right. To properly celebrate American culture they'd just sit on their couches and watch "American Idol" marathons. *shudder*

The Perils of Being Mono-riffic

Generally, I don't really post blogs on how my body is functioning. It's creepy. No one wants to read that crap. However, I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that's just to craptacular not to share. Never, my friends, get mono. Don't do it. See, unlike those of you who may be...promiscuous kissers... I got mono randomly. From the kitchen utensils at work, the airborne spit of dozens of library patrons- who freaking knows. But I got it. At first I thought: "I need a nap. I'm kind of achy," and that eventually turned into: "I can't shower today because I can't get out of bed." Unfortunately, I'm not exaggerating.

Mono makes you tired. More tired than you've ever been in your whole life. So tired that watching anything longer than an episode of Family Guy is physically exhausting. And I was weak. Like, I have to sit down after walking up the stairs weak. All you can stomach is liquids. That's if you can swallow the orange juice because now the lymph nodes in your neck are the size of lemons and feel like they've been scrubbed down with a wire brush. Also, the inside of your throat looks like and feels like raw hamburger meat. Joy and rapture! About a week into it, a sharp pain started to develop on my left side. It's ok. It only hurt when I breathed...that would be my swollen spleen. Which I was warned could rupture if I went to karate or snowboarded or did anything more strenuous than lift a fluffy kitten.

About this time, I started looking online to see how long I had left to live. I've been really sick before. With stomach flu and bronchitis. I didn't think anything could ever make me want to see God in person more than the stomach flu, but I was wrong. From what I read online, I got off easy. There was one kid who wrote about having to be carried to the bathroom because he was too weak to walk down the hallway. Holy crap. Another person had horrid symptoms for a good 3 months. Mine only lasted for 2 weeks. The most fantastic mono-riffic fact of all though is that once you've had mono, you have it forever. And you're a carrier. So now and again the virus is active in your saliva. That's fabulous.

So in conclusion, swollen organs equals bad and forks from your workplace kitchen should probably never be used. And also... what the hell is a spleen for?

Well, Back in MY Day....

There's something very disturbing going on. Something... fluffy and sterile and sanitized. Something overprotected. Kids. "Kids aren't sanitized... they're sticky!" Well, yeah. They are... but I'm talking about their lives. At least the majority of them. I'm only 24, but I've been around long enough to know that kids are getting wimpier by the decade. They're afraid of everything. Germs. Outdoors. Non-organic tomatoes...

What's going on? Since when is staying inside better than playing with your friends outside? Since when do 7 year olds carry sanitizer in their backpacks? I've met some parents that absolutely freak out when their kid goes out of the house. They call them every 15 minutes and demand the kid update their twitter status so they know what they're doing every moment. Ok, I exaggerate. It's every 20 minutes. Seriously, all my parents ever said when I went to a friends house was: "Wear a jacket. Be home at 7". The most fun I ever had as a kid was when I was climbing trees, catching grasshoppers and riding my pink huffy down the street without a helmet at an alarming speed. Now kids can't climb trees because they might get hurt. They can't catch bugs because they carry disease. Sure, they can ride a bike... if they wear so much protective gear that they could be goalie for the Avalanche.

Granted, some of these fears are legit. There's a lot more wierd diseases out there now and rapists and pre-processed meat products (now with more cow eyes!), but we should relax a tad with the kids don't you think? Let them go out and get hurt. Isn't that how we learn? What is it that Alfred says? "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."
Now, I know every generation says stuff like this. Our parents think we're too soft and lazy. Now we're saying the same thing. I'm pretty sure my dad played with toys painted with lead and my grandfather just played with rusty nails. It's how it is. I feel like the little crumb munchers are missing out on so much though. Yeah, they've got cool technology to grow up with, but will they ever know what it's like to build a tree house? How in the hell are they going to grow up and function if they're never allowed to scrape a knee or poke a dead bird in the eye?! How can they be expected to grow up and be independant when they're such pansy, obese, self-absorbed people?

Honestly, if Darwin was correct about natural selection and survival of the fittest, everyone born after 1980 would probably be dead by now. I guess we'll see what happens when I get an ankle biter of my own. "Ryan! Get back here! You didn't go through the sterilization chamber before you came back inside! Don't you give me that look or I'll take your PS 6 away for an hour! That's right, a whole hour young man!"