Notwithstanding orgasms and paying off debt, the first sip of coffee in the morning is one of live's grandest treasures. We are a fatigued people, worked sometimes to death (be it literal, of body, or figurative, of soul), and anything to alleviate that incessant weariness is a gift from the heavens. Fortunately, we are also a business-minded people and have finagled our way into some of the best agricultural communities in the world to ensure that the we will have the supply to meet the demand of the people. But these thoughts are the furthest from my mind as I settle into my little corner of office, remove the lid from the $1 coffee from the cafe below my place of employment, close my eyes, deeply inhale, and experience those first precious drops that hit my tongue and work their way into my system. One of life's greatest legal potentially harmful substances, for many, coffee is to the workplace what confession is to Catholics: a chance to be reborn a better servant to The Man.
....is what I wrote after reading my dad's email about how we have to find a passion and go with it and not set life goals based on money. Appreciate the little things or seek greater things? Is there a balance?
Sometimes I'll call places that I know will keep me on hold forever just so I can dance to their music. This is one of the those times. HP Service Desk Muzak, I salute you!
This is what I wrote for my writing assessment:
"I do not know where I first raed the achingly true and perhaps infamous quote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unahppy family is unhappy in its own way,' though it was not in its original publications from Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina.' Despite the lack of contet, the idea that dysfunction results in uniqueness is comforting. The fallacy in the statement is that it seems, in literature and in real life, that happy families do not exist. No group of people, let alone blood relatives, is without its problems; therefore, it would seem that every family unit is special in it's own uniquely dysfunctional way.
Take my family, for instance. On the outside, my home life seemed perfectly functional as a whole - indeed, I was thrilled with my family life until three years of therapy exposed its inherent flaws. I am a perfect combination of my parents: I received from my father a good set of teeth, an uncanny athletic ability, and a lifetime's worth of self-denial. From my mother I was given a petite figure, a quick wit, and a ridiculous sense of perfectionism. My brother has a similar mix of physical and mental attributes. Growing up in my house, our strikingly similar minds clashed incessantly. A typical day concluded with the requisite family dinner which would begin quite innocently as we all discussed the achievements and upsets of the previous ten hours. Inevitably, my alcoholic father would end up yelling at my brother for not being the son my dad wished he had been, my mother would try to alleviate the situation by removing the wine from the table and changing the subject, my dad would storm out of the dining room, my brother would angrily turn his baked potato into mashed potatoes, and I would mentally document every moment for material for my satirical memoir: 'Memories from a Happy Childhood.'
I'll agree with Tolstoy that no one else's family was unhappy quite like my own. Many families were much worse off while others, though quite certainly not perfectly content, functioned more easily. However, if a truly happy family, a family without financial hardshipes and stress and parents that don't break promises and children who never lie, actually exists outside of children's book, I have yet to experience it. Therefore, I haev no way on knowing if these mythical happy familes are indeed 'all alike.'
Even if these happy families do exist, who wants to hear about it? I, for one, have accepted the fact that my children will hate me at some point in my life just as I hated my parents for a year or two. Furthermore, I am comforted by the fact that my uniqueness is essentally guaranteed. Even if happy families did exist and were, as Tolstoy insists, 'all alike,' society could not function properly without the distinct differences our miserable childhoods provided for us. If every family was the same, w could not grow as individuals and as a society because there would be no lessons to be learned, no differences to overcome and relish in. We would be a society of mindless robots - where's the fun in that?
But I digress. Tolstoy was correct in his observation that 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' but I cannto grasp the concept of a happy family and, thefefore, cannot believe that they are 'all alike.'"
It was an in-class essay and he served up the wrong topic: family. I don't think the teacher dug it, but I got a check (it was a check or a check minus) so it's all good.
I'm reading the latest Newsweek about evil 527 groups and here's what I have to say: people are idiots. There's an ad being broadcast that quotes some guy as saying that Kerry dishonored his country by protesting the war in which he fought. Wtf? He went over there, did his duty, saw that it wasn't right and chose to utilitize his freedom of expression. Anytime you take advantage of your rights as a citizen, you're honoring your country and you're honoring those who gave you those rights. If we continue to allow the country to be led by totalitarian, Manifest Destiny-believin', inarticulatin', middle class-hatin' douchewads, we're dishonoring our forefathers because that goes against everything this country was founded on.
Sorta.
The queen bee calls; the worker bee cowers. Off I go.
one year ago today: "if this is the best i can do, i don't know why i should try.
two years ago today: "i can imagine our couch being the type of place thatthings have been that you wouldn't want to touch."
three years ago today: nothing.