Made in China November 6, 2009

I’ve long been teased for appearing to be of Oriental descent. I fit the (often wrong) stereotype: tiny, dark hair, and eyes that disappear into slits when I laugh.

The other day we were talking about iPods and I got to thinking about Josh’s that Pat and Jan gave me…and how it refuses to function. It keeps showing me a picture on the iPod of an iPod with a frowning face.

So, what does my iPod have to do with China? It’s the fact that a broken iPod is disposable. The only thing separating me from another one is a scant 2 or 300 dollars; NOT the fact that there are no more iPods being produced. The fact that this generation can easily run out and replace whatever is broken is a departure from the generations before us. Back then there were limited quantities. Now we are in an over-saturated market with very little concern of exhausting our resources, and we are losing our ability to place value on things.

And that idea made me think about people. Since when did we start buying into the notion that the people in our lives are disposable? The idea that we can use them, manipulate them, change the original way they came to us to fit our likes and dislikes, and can toss them aside when we’re done with them (should we lose them, break them, or just flat wear them out)? I’m afraid that the notion that everything we want in a person can be found in an Oriental Trading catalog – to fit our mood, our season, in a plethora of colors and more of them than we could ever want – has seeped in.

Do we REALLY value the people in our lives? I’m pretty sure there are no other Tina’s like me. I didn’t have a twin (even if I did, we’d have different personalities), there’s not a robot-version of me (I’m not a craaaazy Stepford wife) and I’m pretty sure if you got rid of me, there’d be a Tina-shaped hole in your life that no one, no matter how much better or worse then me they are, will fill.

This idea goes both ways. For example. I will forever have an Aaron shaped hole in my life. Even if and when I move on and find another relationship, he came into my life and changed the landscape of it – and his departure will leave a mark.

I occasionally feel non-existent or replaceable in other people’s lives, and I feel like my friendship is of so little value to some people that it and I can be tossed aside whenever I’m not performing right or being right or fitting their ideal; but what really saddens me is that I did those same things to him.

PAUSE

& HEAR ME NOW: I do not want him back. We didn’t work and that’s ok. What’s not ok is that I had this unrealistic man in mind. I was broken and even though I said I didn’t, I expected him to be the ideal. He couldn’t. I wanted to take the man and change him, beyond the line of what is normal. I wanted to tailor him to the catalog specifications. However, I couldn’t, and there’s only one of him.

Now. This too goes both ways. He replaced me in his life. When he was done with me he would move on to the next thing (and trust me, that list was lengthy).  The little plastic toy that our relationship had become, the one that was picked up and put down with ease, is also the one that will leave a memory or two; hopefully some of them fond. I was remarkably dispensable but still left a hole because he allowed me into his life for relationship with him.

And so, I look at our broken relationship in which we each bear responsibility and at the other relationships in my life. How many more people am I doing the catalog search on, in which I order them as the product and then insist on changing them, instead of valuing their normalcy, their flaws, and their brokenness? How many people will I see as replaceable, and how many will leave a hole that I won’t even realize the size of until they are gone?

What in society has caused us to think this way? Why can’t we [all just get along] all just accept the people in our lives for who they are – even when they don’t know who they are? Why play games and try to change everyone and then toss them aside when they aren’t meeting our standards?

Why not do the following: give them room for their bad moods, their stress, their hurt and pain? Why not treat them like they are the only one (because they are) and cherish that while we have it? Why not cherish each relationship at whatever stage it’s at – because some will grow, but some will disappear? Why not stop looking at everyone as use for our selfish gain, our play-thing, our person to create and mold and instead simply commit to relationships, even when they SUCK?

If we are Christians, isn’t that what we’re taught to do anyways (in kinder, gentler words and with scripture notation)?

Why not embrace the real and the limited and value it like we know we should?

Maybe no one else in society thinks this way, and I’m just engaging in the classical game of transference. But, maybe not.

**Yeah – THIS mindset drives me CRAAAZY: The Onion’s New Device, Old Device

Hi & Bye July 4, 2009

Well. Life has been so busy lately I haven’t had time to do much of anything except eat, sleep, laugh often, stir a little bit of trouble, CAMP, and skim a few articles.

It’s that last one that is receiving my full attention for this post. I LOVE to read articles about interesting stuff (and often times nothing in particular); if they have random tidbits of information and are witty I’m instantly hooked.

I have a set folder of tabs that I open daily; and throughout this week I have opened them, left them open all day long, and then re-bookmarked them because I didn’t have a chance to do much except raise an eyebrow and ooooh at the name of the article.

I will admit: I have not read all of these in their entirety, some I have and thought were noteworthy, some contain foul language (sensitive readers cover your eyes) and some probably aren’t true; which will later (August) cause me to twitter once more about an article and result in Jeff calling me to remind me that you have to fact check the world wide web.

My finds for the week:

Can I just say that I love MentalFloss? I floss daily:
The Rand Corporation – heard of it, never knew what it was till now
Drunken Fruit Flies, the Truth about Gangs, and Other Science Discoveries – I plan on telling Pat that item #3 explains why I can’t add straight. (That’s my their story & I’m sticking to it)
How Cults Rewire the Brain – I have had people ask about the “compound” right off of 81. Then I usually say “the campground? Yes…that would be where I work.” (Awkward silence) I’m fascinated by the title, simply because of the fact that the world in which I love and work could be considered one by an outsider. Plus, we’re not a cult. There’s a God.

Ok. Done flossing. Well almost – these next two I am pairing together, for obvious reasons. It’s hard for me to believe that I once owned a walk man; harder still to believe that someday I’ll tell my kids that when I was their age, I had a record player. Even though it’s 30, I’m not. And even though I can’t get my ipod to work, I’m not going to revert back like this British lad. I’ll just suffer in silence.

These next two I’m pairing together as well. They relate. For the longest time (up until two years ago) I didn’t have a cell phone plan that allowed for texting. Now, I have “unlimited” – and boy do I use it. It’s great for sending a friendly hello, getting Pat irritated (he hates texts) and is quickly becoming a way that I communicate. The thing I like about texting is that if I send you one, it means it’s nothing urgent. If I need you, I’ll call. If I just randomly think of you then I’ll text. And the beauty of texting (for me) is that it allows me to contact you when I think of it, but you can respond on your own time frame. For some people in my life, like Luc, it’s sort of one long open-ended conversation that just quietly strolls on through our lives, allowing us to share both the silly and important. The downside to texting is that my vocabulary has gone from being quite verbose to 160 characters (Twitter is only 140!). There’s actually a pro and con there: Pro – it forces me to censor, Con – sometimes I censor the wrong things and start massive miscommunications that only jack up my life and the other person involved. Plus “gr8″ just flies all over my nerves. While I see and reap the benefits of texting, these two articles raise interesting points: Kids These Days and 7 Ways the 21st Century is Making You Miserable (please disregard the language and notice point #3)

Based on the above paragraph and those two articles, it ties in nicely with this train of thought: What (or who) exactly are we becoming? How much have we gained, how much have we lost? This is a fine day and time to study psychology, in particular psychology and the internets.

This made me laugh, and then immediately review our posts. 7 Deadly Sins Please be kind and DON’T point out our writing flaws.

I hope everyone saw this coming: The Gap

Living alone has been one of the best things for me. I genuinely love it. However, it does provide one challenge: I’m not MacGyver (or MacGruber, whichever you prefer). Therefore, since I’m not a man and don’t have man muscles or man problem solving abilities, I do the best with what I can. I’m not nearly as bad as these people, but I’m pretty close. Plus I tend to say “there, I fixed it” ALL the time to the animals in my ark; I say it almost as much as LOVE ME.

Blob. Get the vd. 75 decades of service. That’s a stick out. There’s HELP for the afflicted: Tip of My Tongue

I absolutely LOVE this. First I like the pretty colors, secondly I like seeing how many people are in my boat for the day, and it helps to provide balance: there always will be people who are better & worse off than you. We Feel Fine.

Not all of us have a Mac and it’s amazing-take-over-the-world-awesomeness. For those of us in PC land here’s a site to help us create all those cool picture effects without using Photoshop.

I WANT TO DO THIS. Only a few, minor problems: 1. I’m not an artist and 2. I’m not a homeowner. But if I were, lookout Staples and your “buy a Sharpie one at a time” display because I would buy you out and have an amazing basement guest room.

I love my big small town and our amazingly historical state. Honest, I do. Our giant star is tacky, our mountains are beautiful, our ham is wonderful and our weather is pretty spot on. This article about some recent laws that were passed cracked me up. Can I just say that regarding the Driver Safety classes for the elderly, I would like to know what elderly person can’t drive yet can get on the internet. I have a feeling if you can do one, you can do the other. They might want to reconsider another option, although I applaud them for looking for a solution to the problem.

I’m not ashamed to say that I have so done this. I only wish it’d been around last year for Pat – aka “Power Man”. My hand-drawn seal wasn’t as good as it could’ve been.

I’m pretty sure everyone who knows me or Luc, or has visited our brilliant and beautiful site (yes, the one you’re on right now) has noticed our fine fascination with some former church-going boys and their man vests. We saw all 7 at the Kings of Leon concert, and this article made me reminisce and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Well, that’s it. As Jan says often “I’ve emptied my brain” of anything that could remotely interest anyone. The rest of it is so full of camp that it hurts most days. This is my Hi & Bye for the month of July, I’ll return sometime in August!