1. All recreational drugs - and by "all", I mean ALL - should be legalized. Someone very close to me once battled a nasty smack habit. It was heartbreaking, horrifying and something I wouldn't wish on any person - or their family. And y'know what? It only strengthened my belief in legalization. While arguments for criminalization are abundant, I have yet to find one which holds water.
"But what if heroin were cheap and everywhere?"
Heroin IS cheap, and it IS everywhere. Given half an hour and the cash I have in my pocket, I could easily score a bag.
"But then EVERYONE would do it!" Would you do it? Would your child do it? Fear of a governmental ass-whupping is among the weakest of motivations for one's acts. A sense of personal ethics is just that - personal. It cannot be codified or handed down from on high.
"But society would collapse!" In 2005, the federal government spent $12 billion fighting the "War on Drugs", as well as an additional $30 billion incarcerating those convicted of drug-related offenses. $42 billion seems like a ludicrously generous chunk of change to help ease the social changes that legalization would bring.
I could debate this endlessly.
2. When discussing the delightful differences in male and female anatomy with young children, proper anatomical terms should be used. For the love of Flynt, it's a penis. Not a "pee-pee", not a "wee-wee", not - as one ex-boyfriend's mother disturbingly deemed it - a "tallywhacker". It's a penis.
"But what if heroin were cheap and everywhere?"
Heroin IS cheap, and it IS everywhere. Given half an hour and the cash I have in my pocket, I could easily score a bag.
"But then EVERYONE would do it!" Would you do it? Would your child do it? Fear of a governmental ass-whupping is among the weakest of motivations for one's acts. A sense of personal ethics is just that - personal. It cannot be codified or handed down from on high.
"But society would collapse!" In 2005, the federal government spent $12 billion fighting the "War on Drugs", as well as an additional $30 billion incarcerating those convicted of drug-related offenses. $42 billion seems like a ludicrously generous chunk of change to help ease the social changes that legalization would bring.
I could debate this endlessly.
2. When discussing the delightful differences in male and female anatomy with young children, proper anatomical terms should be used. For the love of Flynt, it's a penis. Not a "pee-pee", not a "wee-wee", not - as one ex-boyfriend's mother disturbingly deemed it - a "tallywhacker". It's a penis.
Ed. Note: From That Point Forward, I Resolved to Both Shave AND Don Pants More Often
Jul, emerging from the shower: "Hi, J.Q.! Did you have fun coloring while mommy washed up?"
J.Q., staring in fascination at Jul's groin: "Mommy have... BUGS on it?"
Jul: [stunned silence] ... "Um, no... no, baby. Not bugs."
J.Q., venturing another guess: "Mommy have SPRINKLES on it?"
Jul: "I wish, baby. It's hair."
J.Q.: "MOMMY HAVE HAIR ON IT!"
Jul: "You're going to say that on the bus, aren't you?"
3. Even if you're not PLANNING on doing so - even if you're going to be carried around on a plush dais, being massaged with fragrant oils and fed slivers of medium-rare lamb - your shoes should be conducive to running.
This isn't to say that you should pair fugly, mud-splattered cross trainers with a Prada dress. However, you can always choose a nice pair of maryjanes over, say, those towering Balenciaga monstrosities which could also be used to lobotomize unwanted suitors.
4. Extrasensory perception... but not the type which can supposedly be controlled, manipulated and used to win big bucks via scratch-off tickets. I believe that humans are interconnected in ways we can't really comprehend. Whether these ties are vestiges of an ancient time or a tiny hint of evolutionary progress, I couldn't say. But existence nonetheless seems to be a colloid - an invisible, ever-shifting web of linkages. When you experience a tiny, inadvertent spasm, your hand flails out and you happen to brush against another spot on the web... that's ESP.
5. Assuming all other factors are equal, engaging in a higher percentage of non-consumption, non-production activities will lead to a proportionately higher level of happiness.
6. Babies under a year old should be carried as often as one's spinal column and constitution can tolerate. Nasty old ladies who sneer, "That child is NEVER going to learn how to walk if you keep carrying him!" should be (bitch-slapped with their own Valu City bags, garroted with their own plastic rain bonnets, tersely informed, "And YOU'RE never going to get the vigorous dicking you clearly require and which might make you less of a shrill, dessicated old hag, you shrill, dessicated old hag!").
7. Artificial sweeteners' purported nasty side effects could not possibly be worse than the effects of eating an equivalent quantity of "real" sugar (a product so far removed from its natural source as to be semi-synthetic itself).
8. It is far preferable to be alone than to be in a relationship where you must persuade your partner to stay with you. Desperate coercion is odious enough - just look at the guy who sold you your Taurus. Selling yourself to someone who should (in an ideal situation) be your strongest advocate? It kicks your soul in the crotch. Then, while said spiritual entity is writhing around on the floor, moaning curses of positively corporeal vulgarity... it kicks it some more.
9. I don't want to know where I'll be in twenty years.. Knowing one's future seems dull, depressing and horribly confining - you can squirm out of a straightjacket more easily than a two-bedroom condo in Levittown. But I do have a very strong mental image of my future self.
I'm soaking wet, fully-clothed and knee-deep in a warm ocean. The tide is picking up; little waves splash my legs as the sun and the wind dry my face. The beach is a far cry from Club Med; it's covered in wild tangles of foliage and towering, moss-slicked rocks. The sun is sinking behind a jaggy black outcropping. I am calmer than I've ever been in my life.
I believe in this image. I'm waiting for it to happen like some people wait for their 401(K) contributions to mature. It's a smooth little stone I carry in my pocket. It busies my fingers when I worry. It comforts me with its weight.
So... what do YOU believe in?
Jul, emerging from the shower: "Hi, J.Q.! Did you have fun coloring while mommy washed up?"
J.Q., staring in fascination at Jul's groin: "Mommy have... BUGS on it?"
Jul: [stunned silence] ... "Um, no... no, baby. Not bugs."
J.Q., venturing another guess: "Mommy have SPRINKLES on it?"
Jul: "I wish, baby. It's hair."
J.Q.: "MOMMY HAVE HAIR ON IT!"
Jul: "You're going to say that on the bus, aren't you?"
3. Even if you're not PLANNING on doing so - even if you're going to be carried around on a plush dais, being massaged with fragrant oils and fed slivers of medium-rare lamb - your shoes should be conducive to running.
This isn't to say that you should pair fugly, mud-splattered cross trainers with a Prada dress. However, you can always choose a nice pair of maryjanes over, say, those towering Balenciaga monstrosities which could also be used to lobotomize unwanted suitors.
4. Extrasensory perception... but not the type which can supposedly be controlled, manipulated and used to win big bucks via scratch-off tickets. I believe that humans are interconnected in ways we can't really comprehend. Whether these ties are vestiges of an ancient time or a tiny hint of evolutionary progress, I couldn't say. But existence nonetheless seems to be a colloid - an invisible, ever-shifting web of linkages. When you experience a tiny, inadvertent spasm, your hand flails out and you happen to brush against another spot on the web... that's ESP.
5. Assuming all other factors are equal, engaging in a higher percentage of non-consumption, non-production activities will lead to a proportionately higher level of happiness.
6. Babies under a year old should be carried as often as one's spinal column and constitution can tolerate. Nasty old ladies who sneer, "That child is NEVER going to learn how to walk if you keep carrying him!" should be (bitch-slapped with their own Valu City bags, garroted with their own plastic rain bonnets, tersely informed, "And YOU'RE never going to get the vigorous dicking you clearly require and which might make you less of a shrill, dessicated old hag, you shrill, dessicated old hag!").
7. Artificial sweeteners' purported nasty side effects could not possibly be worse than the effects of eating an equivalent quantity of "real" sugar (a product so far removed from its natural source as to be semi-synthetic itself).
8. It is far preferable to be alone than to be in a relationship where you must persuade your partner to stay with you. Desperate coercion is odious enough - just look at the guy who sold you your Taurus. Selling yourself to someone who should (in an ideal situation) be your strongest advocate? It kicks your soul in the crotch. Then, while said spiritual entity is writhing around on the floor, moaning curses of positively corporeal vulgarity... it kicks it some more.
9. I don't want to know where I'll be in twenty years.. Knowing one's future seems dull, depressing and horribly confining - you can squirm out of a straightjacket more easily than a two-bedroom condo in Levittown. But I do have a very strong mental image of my future self.
I'm soaking wet, fully-clothed and knee-deep in a warm ocean. The tide is picking up; little waves splash my legs as the sun and the wind dry my face. The beach is a far cry from Club Med; it's covered in wild tangles of foliage and towering, moss-slicked rocks. The sun is sinking behind a jaggy black outcropping. I am calmer than I've ever been in my life.
I believe in this image. I'm waiting for it to happen like some people wait for their 401(K) contributions to mature. It's a smooth little stone I carry in my pocket. It busies my fingers when I worry. It comforts me with its weight.
So... what do YOU believe in?
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Menita, at 9/20/2007 4:40 PM 
Polly asked me about it the other day when I was changing her and I said "that's your Vagina"
Polly: my China?
M: Your VAGina
Polly: China! My China!
And yes, she did proceed to tell everyone we saw that weekend about her China.