30 day meme, day 13 (day late and a dollar short)

Day 13 - Somewhere you’d like to move or visit.

i don't really know. lately i've just wanted to leave. i'm becoming more and more disgusted by the american sense of entitlement, the "gimmie gimmie" mentality and the firm belief that you're right no matter what, and you'll fight to the death to back your belief (even if proven completely wrong). i'm not saying there aren't good people here, they're just hideously outnumbered.

i guess given the option, i'd want to go someplace anthropologically interesting, something completely out of my social realm (and not in the autistic way). justin and i have been watching anthony bourdain's "no reservations" because he is a confessed food addict and i really have no opinion as to what we watch for the most part. while justin is oooing and aaaahing at the food, i've actually been really amazed and interested in the cultural aspects of the show. we watched one last night where tony went to malaysia and had to hike up a mountain to a small village. he did this because he didn't want to see the commercial/tourist side of things, but the actual people and culture. when he got to the village it was customary that the visitor to the tribe had to slaughter the pig for their feast by running it through with a spear. while this was really disturbing (they didn't show it, but you heard it), i thought it enunciated the cultural aspect of the show and i found that endlessly interesting. there was also an episode where he was in beirut in july 2006. if you recall, this is when hezbollah took two israeli soldiers hostage and killed 3 more sparking one hell of a firestorm. just before this happened, he was walking down the street with his guide who's talking about how lebanon was in a sort of renaissance and so full of life. then, almost like it was planned, hezbollah supporters begin to flood down the street out of seemingly nowhere, screaming and cheering about the capture of the israeli soldiers. tony turns to the guide at some point afterward and his face had totally dropped, then he said that he knew war was coming next. i can't imagine living like that, knowing that at any given moment war could break out in my country, and the rest of the episode isn't so much about food, but about the shocked point of view of tony and his staff after israel bombs the airport, leaving anyone who was a visitor stranded.

its not that i want to experience a war-torn nation or crippling poverty looking for a novel experience to write home about, i just feel that we as americans are culturally deprived. we're so busy with our McThis and microsoft that, i feel that we lost sight of what is important in life. we're so busy getting into petty political arguments and filibustering whatever we don't agree with because we MUST win, that we've lost sight of the fact that its a pretty awesome thing that we're even allowed to do so. that we can sleep at night knowing we won't be awaken by air raid sirens, or that our nation isn't constantly teetering on the brink of invasion - hell - even having clean, running water are all things that i think are taken for granted. i guess what this all boils down to is that wherever i visit, wherever my travels hypothetically take me, i'd want to construct a more accurate world view, and understand life from a completely abstract (comparatively) viewpoint.

but i'm also on 3 hours sleep, so who knows.

30 day meme, day 14

Day 14 - Your earliest memory.

i think time lines tend to get mixed up as far as memories go, and its hard to pinpoint what really was our earliest memory. that being said, i'm at least going to try to remember the earliest to the best of my ability.

i want to say it was when i was attacked by a dog when i was maybe 3 or 4. we had this german shepard mix that was kind of a dickhead, but me being the strange "i can't tell if someone or something hates me" little kid i was, i still tried to pet and cuddle him. according to my dad, i pulled his tail. according to my mom, i laid my head down on his side while he was laying down. i honestly don't remember who is right, i just remember teeth and lots of blood, my dad grabbing up the dog by its neck and everyone screaming. i remember my dad and the dog disappeared while my mom was trying to scoop me up and get me in the car, and i remember hearing a *pop* sound from the woods as we drove away to the hospital.

at the hospital, i remember not really understanding what was going on. retrospectively that was probably for the best. then i was on a table, strapped to some kind of board. i don't really know if that part is true, but i remember the big-ass surgery light and people with masks over my face and chest, then everything slowly fading away.

i woke up and my mom was next to me. at some point a doctor came in to talk to us and he brought me a banana popsicle. to this day i still love those damn things, and i hate bananas. i'm pretty sure we went home soon after, my face and chest all stitched up. when we got home, i remember calling for the dog to tell him it was okay and that i forgave him, but he didn't come. i searched the whole house and didn't see him. i went out back and he wasn't there. finally i asked my dad where skipper was, and this is when i learned about what death was. my dad took the dog out into the woods and shot him so he wouldn't hurt anybody else. i remember not really being affected by it, i don't know if it was because i didn't really understand or if i was just like "oh, well, that's what dad says, so i guess that's it."

looking back that's pretty fucking morbid, but there it is...