Valentine's Day Cards for Activists

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 I say that not because I give a shit, but in an act of self-promotion. For my job, I made a bunch of Valentine’s Day cards specifically for activists and you should read them all and send them as e-cards (it’s free and easy!) to your crush. Because really - if you care about someone who doesn’t care about saving the world - you’re probably an idiot yourself.

They're Rubbish!

"For people who care so much about recycling, they sure are really bad at it."

- A comment I made five years ago about my environmentalist roommates who wouldn't fold and compress boxes before putting them in the recycling bin.

This is just a self-reminder that I can get really catty about some ridiculous things.

No, YOU'RE Wasting Your Vote

I'm voting for a third party candidate tomorrow, despite all the lectures people throw at me. My fellow Californians and non-swing staters (in other words, just about everyone), we are ALL wasting our votes. The electoral college renders our votes for president fairly pointless.

In my state, a vote not cast for Obama is not, as you assert, a vote for Romney. Maybe that'd have some validity in Ohio, but there is no chance California will go anything but blue, so why wouldn't I take the opportunity to vote my conscience?

The reason my vote for a third party candidate is less wasted than others' votes for Obama or Romney is because at least it symbolizes a want for real change. While I wouldn't argue that there are no differences between Democrats and Republicans, I would contend that they are frighteningly similar in the ways that should alarm us most. My vote for a third party is a rejection of the two-party system that uses its power to shut out alternative voices. It's a vote for someone who is not bought and controlled by corporations. It's a vote for a candidate who does not feel that constant war should be a foregone conclusion. It's a vote for someone who will actually acknowledge and substantially address global warming.

Will a third party candidate win tomorrow? No. But there needs to be a momentum shift. Some people need to take the leap initially before others will feel comfortable to follow suit. In a sense, my vote is one for a movement that will (hopefully) happen years down the road. How is that a waste?

If you're a non-swing stater and vote for one of the two major candidates, then you're buying into the myth that we need one of them. Ignore the rhetoric. "This is the most important election ever." Yeah, they said that last time. And the time before. And I kept ignoring my values and have little to show for it. Which election will be "important" enough to vote the way I want rather than the way I'm told I have to? At any given point, it may seem like a good time to choose the lesser of two evils, but at what point does it stop? Who wants to look back at their life and say, "I always voted for evil"?

This election, there are actually multiple third party candidates I wish I could cast my vote for. I wrote profiles up for 7 of the most prominent choices for Care2. Check them out, maybe you'll become smitten, too. Together, we can start the process of defeating a corrupt system by using one of that system's flaws - the electoral college - to confidently cast our votes for someone other than the two preordained choices with no fear of consequences. 

Or, you know, you could just waste your vote.

Culture Clash

While at a barbecue attended by a good blend of friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike, I saw this hippie guy I had met once before start chatting up one of my good friends who was eating a plate of food. Knowing him to be an oddball, I decided to stand within earshot of the conversation to see what he might have to say.

[Note - it's been a while since this conversation happened, so it is paraphrased to the best of my memory.]

"I made that," he said gesturing to the meat.
"It's really good," my friend said, perhaps politely, but I think genuinely.
"Yeah, I got lucky, you never know what you'll find," the hippie said.
"Oh yeah, that's the fun of shopping," she said.
"No, I actually got this from a dumpster," he said.
My friend laughed.
"I get all of my food from dumpsters," he said.
"Haha, okay, yum," my friend said.
"Stores throw out good food all the time, it's such a waste," he said.
"Yeah, we should eat that expired stuff," my friend said sarcastically.
"Exactly! It's barely expired when they toss it, it's still good to eat, so I get stuff like this from behind the grocery stores."
My friend kept laughing. "Okay, well then it's the best garbage I've ever had."

After he turned his attention elsewhere, my friend came up to me.
"He was weird," she said.
Having met him once before, I assured her that he was being serious about dumpster diving for food.
"No way!"
"I swear."
"I thought he was kidding! This is really food from a dumpster?"
"That's how he feeds himself," I explain.
"I don't believe you, that's so gross."

Here's the thing: I have had a few friends who dumpster dive, and I think it's a fine personal choice. That said, serving up perishable food that's been unrefrigerated and in the trash at a party without giving any warning is not kosher. My friend couldn't even fathom someone actually doing that, to the point where she assumed he was joking each time he was trying to tell her the truth.

However, if you still insist on serving up your free dumpster food to strangers, then you know what? Don't tell them. What they don't know won't hurt them (aside from food poisoning, I guess), but don't go up to them when they have a mouthful of your food and say, "I fished that out of the garbage!" and expect everyone to be down with your radical politics.

The Lorax

The Lorax is a great book with a great message, but I preemptively soured on the movie version when I learned that the film had over 70 corporate promotional tie-ins. Calling it hypocritical for a book that is anti-corporation and pro-environment to lend its characters to a car commercial is an understatement. Viewing it as willfully ignorant of Dr. Seuss's central thesis, I was so apprehensive to see the movie, that I insisted on getting three sheets to the wind first.

Maybe I was liquored up enough to be forgiving, but I'm pleased to report that the movie itself is not a bastardization of Seuss's work. Evidently the marketing team didn't bother to watch the movie when they took over, but as far as the screenplay goes, it clearly illustrates unrestricted capitalism's destruction of the planet.

My friend Alex argues that it's important to look beyond the hypocrisy and just be thankful that big companies are still willing to make a movie about environmentalism at all. While the issue is a little more gray than that, I can agree that I'm glad that this message is out there. I say that as someone who got so worried about the earth that I had to leave a K-Pop night club early this past weekend. My friends were having a discussion about how much longer the human species could survive with the way we're destroying our own planet (consensus except for one: we're screwed soon unless we act on a massive scale, like, yesterday). I'm not upset the conversation happened, we need to talk about these things more often, actually, but I couldn't transition back into a place of "let's do shots and laugh at Korean pop music videos."

We're polluting, destroying our own food and water supplies, and using plastic like it's not a major problem. We protect the right for a small number of individuals to make money over our collective right to live. Today's big shots seem to forget that you can't make history if we don't have a future. Plus, even though we'll face an overpopulation epidemic soon (which I suppose climate change, famine, and disease will wipe out in time), this country is still subscribing to beliefs that make practicing birth control immoral and global warming is propaganda. We need to come together and use our intellectual capacities to solve these problems rather than listening to the fictions of the elite, but even that is increasingly unlikely as we let our educational system erode and promote a society that is discouraged from thinking critically.

I feel like the more I pay attention, the more depressed I get. I'm definitely not as "fun" as I used to be. It's a weird situation where I know I could just choose willful ignorance and have a relatively good, happy life. I could live in the now and let future generations deal with the problems that will hit them even harder. However, I can't shake my sense of responsibility. The Lorax is right, it's time we all start caring a whole awful lot.

Why Groundhog Day Is a Sham

Before you wish any more people "Happy Groundhog Day", it's time you know what a bullshit holiday it is. And I don't mean that in just a "How can a groundhog predict the weather?" sort of way. I'd actually trust a rodent over some of the goofball meteorologists I see on local TV.

In February, groundhogs in cold regions are still hibernating hardcore. From October until March or April, groundhogs burrow themselves underground and significantly slow their heart and breathing rates. That is no light nap, so what the fuck does the groundhog care if there's six more weeks of winter? He was planning on hibernating that long anyway until his survival-based sleep schedule was interrupted by humans playing make-believe.

The whole tradition rests upon whether the groundhog sees his shadow. Is it sunny out? Can you see your own shadow? Then the groundhog will cast a shadow, too, it's that simple. The lore that the groundhog is "frightened" by the sight of his own shadow is pretty preposterous, too. Groundhogs are scared of dogs, bears, and - in that particularly crucial moment - camera crews and a crowd of nearly 18,000 people booing him for indicating additional weeks of winter. His shadow is the least of his concerns.

But here's the most important thing: the whole thing is a facade. You see, whether the groundhog sees his shadow is determined in advance by a group ominously known as the "Inner Circle". It's irrelevant whether the groundhog casts a shadow, let alone whether he sees it, because a group of old white men in top hats and tuxedos just make up what they feel like saying anyway.

They're rich dudes who have taken over an American tradition. And even with an event that I think most people recognize as being completely arbitrary, they still feel the need to wield their authority and fabricate the results. What's worse is that even with the rigging, they're still only right 39% of the time! They're better off flipping a coin.

Could this "Inner Circle" be any more representative of the 1%? Why are we celebrating lies and manipulation of the elite who prove to be unreliable? Why must they disrupt nature in the process? And how do we get 18,000 people to wake up before dawn and amass for something that actually matters?

Ugh. #OccupyGroundhogDay

How Many Reasons Are You Going to Hell for?

Thousands of Occupy Wall Streeters marched following the Rose Bowl Parade this year, and I believe it went well. From what I saw, more faces in the crowd were receptive to the movement than opposed, which is encouraging. Still, that doesn't stop a lot of critics from saying it isn't an appropriate place to protest corporate power in America (at a parade where most floats have a corporation's name prominently displayed, no less) and others who just don't like that it "breaks tradition". The truth is that demonstrators have been permitted to follow the last float for several years now, but usually it's just a couple dozen nuts who are intolerant in the name of Jesus. So unless you think it's a shame that cheers of "God hates fags!" were drowned out, there really shouldn't be any objections.

I have a fun game: look at the sign and tell me how many reasons you're going to hell. I fit 9/30 categories (of those that I understand - what do some of those even mean?), which leads me believe that I'm already in too deep with the devil to repent. Knowing a few bloody thirsty women, I bet some of you are even more damned than me.

What's your score?

My Halloween Costume

When I was little, my favorite animal was a giraffe. I even dressed as one for Halloween one year. While searching a closet at my childhood home recently, I actually found the old costume I made (with ample help from my mom, I'd bet) in fourth grade. In the spirit of reusing (all 3 Rs are important, guys), I decided to be that same giraffe. Sure, the 18-year-old costume was in disrepair, but with some bent coat hangers and a whole lotta duct tape, I whipped it back into reasonable shape.

Let me tell you, this classic costume was a hit, you guys. The neck made it sort of hard to dance in sometimes, but it held up surprisingly well in my romp around West Hollywood last night. Dozens of strangers stopped me to take pictures with them, most of whom were attractive young women. Word to the wise, dudes: giraffes are chick magnets. I personally thought that my Rufio costume last year was more impressive, but it's the giraffe that got all the attention.

While all of the wear and tear has definitely put the giraffe costume back on the endangered list and back into retirement, I'm happy that he got one last go. He even made a friend when I found a giraffe pinata at a warehouse party. When I sat on the pinata to pose for a photo, it broke, which made me feel like a loser. In retrospect, however, breaking a pinata usually means you've won, so perhaps I'm still a winner after all.

Begley's Best

I found this bottle with some other cleaning supplies under the sink. I'm not convinced that this isn't just a prop from an old Saturday Night Live parody. Who knew there was a market for environmentally-friendly cleanser with Ed Begley Jr.'s face on it?

Also, why is it dressed in ribbons as if it's the belle of the household cleaner supply ball?

It actually works pretty effectively, so good on you, Mr. Begley.

The Flight Attendant

So I participated in the world's youngest chain gang again this weekend. (It's volunteer, not court-mandated, but thanks for asking.) This time, I didn't find any car deeds or hypodermic needles, but I did encounter a life-size cardboard cutout of a flight attendant.

As much as I would have liked to keep the whole thing as a souvenir, I just settled for bringing home her head.

For the record, she was already decapitated. Attribute all kinkiness to whomever brought and abandoned her on the highway median.

LA River Cleanup

This morning I participated in the LA River Cleanup. I came home wet, dirty, sweaty, and bloody. In other words, it was fun. I was a pretty eager volunteer and put myself into precarious situations in, around, and over the river in order to retrieve litter. I consider this courage extra generous considering that I'm uninsured. I felt like Liz Lemon on this past week's 30 Rock stopping at nothing - or almost nothing - to get a bag out of a tree.

Volunteering did not just mean picking up trash - I also looked after the elderly. An older hippie man saw a plastic bag tangled high in a tree that I had already passed by because I couldn't reach it. I told him it would be difficult, but he said he was up for the challenge and began climbing this tree with thin branches. After watching him fall twice, I went over to spot him because I was concerned for his well-being. A few minutes later, an even older man came to "help" and started climbing up the tree that could barely support one of their weights and definitely not both, so now I was trying to give a boost and chaperone two old men in a tiny yet tall tree. It took half an hour to accomplish, but they got the bag. I think it would have been smarter to skip that considering how much other trash that needed attending to, but they failed to see the forest through the trees, or past the bag in the trees, as it were. Also, I don't think killing the tree in the process of retrieving a bag really constitutes saving the earth, but I was focused on saving the human lives in this case.

Most of the trash consisted of plastic bags. Somehow they'd wrap themselves around trees in a way that it would take legitimate effort to peel them off. There were a few other fun items I came across however:

* golf balls
* a doll torso
* a banner wishing CONGRATULATIONS
* sports apparel
* a large kitchen knife
* cute heart-shaped sunglasses, which I might have kept were they not right next to the large kitchen knife
* gloves - evidently people who had been cleaning in previous years didn't really get that leaving the gloves behind added to the problem

The grossest thing I found was actually a winter hat. I picked it up and reeked of poop. Since it was right next to a shopping cart, I suspect that a homeless person had been using it as toilet paper. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves.

The most dangerous thing I encountered is when the curled remains of a mattress box-spring that had been pulled from the river rolled back down the hill right at me as if it were a tumbleweed. I saw it with plenty of time to get out of the way, but had I not, I'd be missing an eye and dealing with nine kinds of tetanus.

I may look like a cutter with all the scratches up and down my arms, but you haven't killed me yet, LA River!

Tree Hugging Is Child's Play

Happy Earth Day! Today I celebrated by a digging a little hole in the soil and planting... my dick in it. There's nothing like a little (sing it with me) "EarthDay Sex." Mother Nature is the hottest MILF in the game.

AAARRRANNGGE

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! The Homeland Security Advisory System is under attack!... by our own government? Looks like the Obama administration is getting rid of the color-coded terrorist warning system. Its termination is especially sad for me because, back at its inception, I was one of its biggest, most vocal proponents.

My advocacy started on a lark. My friend had bought some fabric to sew her own dress to wear to her West African Dance class and then wanted to find a use for the leftover scrap so that it wouldn't go to waste. After that last sentence, I suppose it goes without saying that I attended a hippy-dippy liberal arts college. To help her out, I agreed to find a use for the orange fabric; since at the time our government had us under an orange warning, I hung up the swatch to advise my peers accordingly.

Apparently, we've always been on heightened alert. Not once in the past ten years has the terror alert color dipped below yellow, meaning that not once has it been all right for you to feel safe. I did my best to contribute to the paranoia by sometimes taking the fabric off the wall and wrapping it around my head. From there, I'd run around the campus screaming "ORANGE!" Usually, I said it like I were a pirate, so it'd come out "ARRRRANNGE!" If anyone were to ask what I was up to, I'd inform them to be on the look out for terrorists - you know, characters even more suspicious than myself.

I could be really fucking weird back then. ("Back then?" calls the chorus. Shut up.) But at least I was contributing to a lot of people's safety... even if I had to literally freak them out to do so. I would totally make a great government employee.

Hypodermic Needle

I volunteered on Saturday morning. Funny how an event billed as "tree planting" turned into "picking up litter on a highway median." The area's gotta be clean before you can plant trees, though, so I get it. The majority of the volunteers were kids, so with our bright safety vests and trash bags, we must have looked like the world's youngest chain gang to the cars whizzing by.

You'll find a lot of interesting things cleaning a highway median. Mainly there are beer/liquor bottles. I found an unopened tall can, but figured since it was the AM and there were children, I would just toss it. Better than beer, I also found a plastic folder containing the deed to a Rolls Royce. I threw it out, but maybe I should have tracked down the car and been like, "This is my car now, and I have the documents to prove it!" The headlines would read, "From Sanitation Volunteer to the Flyest Driver in LA." I'd have mad honeys in my car and we'd go for joyrides, but we wouldn't litter out our windows, because even though I'd have come a long way from cleaning others' trash, I wouldn't forget where I came from. You know, a modern day "Jenny from the Block."

However, the most disturbing thing that was discovered was a hypodermic needle. A little girl comes up and says, "Uh, I found a needle..." On the walk over to the syringe, I panicked. As a kid, it was firmly entrenched in me that if I were to see a needle, I was not to touch it, and to tell an adult. Clearly this girl had learned the same lesson, but now I was the adult. I may have gotten older, but no one ever told me what the adult is supposed to do in this situation!

I think we improvised a decent solution given the circumstances, but it wasn't following the letter of the law, which should have been adhered to considering the letters of this law spell A-I-D-S. And while AIDS isn't a goal of mine (it's not on my ten-year-plan anyway), I'd rather contract it through something fun like sex than wading through trash on a dirty freeway median, thankyouverymuch.

Halloween in the Halls

In college, the single project I worked the hardest on wasn't even a school assignment, but a giant installation art piece.

Each year, kids who didn't have a safe place to trick-or-treat were invited to collect candy throughout the dorms, and residence halls were encouraged to compete to see who could decorate the best.

Since our hall was packed with artsy types, we decided to go for it and turn our hall into a giant monster. With no budget and little time, I thought this was an impossible feat. Fortunately, I've never seen a team synch up so well together, and we managed to collect nearly every material by dumpster diving.

The kids loved the experience of walking through a monster's body.
We even created had that thing that dangles from the throat.


The heart.


The ribs.


And the guts.


In a vast oversight, I failed to take a picture of the monster's butt that the kids had to spread the cheeks to escape from. If that doesn't sound juvenile enough, there were also a bubble machine and fart noises playing.

For our efforts, we actually won the contest and earned a $100 Root Beer Float Party. We never cashed in on this prize, however, preferring to attribute the money toward the fines we amassed by getting paint and trash everywhere. Regardlessly, it was easily one of the best college and Halloween memories I've ever had.

Monkeying Around

On Saturday, I volunteered at the Tour de Fat cycling event. If bicycles and Mardi Gras were to have a baby (and you KNOW Mardi Gras would sleep with anyone), it would look kind of like the Tour de Fat. Music, costumes, drinking, and cycling: not a bad day, so I donned my famous monkey costume and headed over.

Stationed at the beer tent, I was tasked with pouring all of the Ranger beer and keeping ahead of the demand. It flowed from a spigot from a truck, but every cup I filled was way too heady. No matter what tricks I tried, my beers were at least half foam, which was pretty embarrassing as I watched the others pour effortlessly.

Naturally, I felt incompetent. I assumed the problem was me, since I’m easily the dumbest smart person I know. Considering I can foul up the most menial of tasks, I wanted to quit so I didn’t keep delaying the beer line. The other volunteers, some dressed as Superman, Sweet Dee, and a gender-bending tooth fairy, though friendly, kept critiquing my style because they “knew” what the problem was. The quickest way to get them to shut up was to let them take a turn at pouring and realizing that they couldn’t do it much better.

For once in my life, the problem wasn’t me! Apparently, this kind of beer and overheated and would just be interminably foamy no matter what, so I just had to do the best I could with it. It kept me busy, anyway. My solution was to shake out the foam and combine the liquid from a few cups into a single cup that would have an adequate amount. Essentially, I was pouring three beers for every one that got served.

In my haste, I spilled a lot of beer on myself, making me grossly sticky. I was also getting drunk. We were not allowed to drink on shift, but if we were to randomly step away with a beer for a few minutes and return without explanation, that was okay, wink wink.

While pouring foam out into the grass toward the end of the day, a pair of people approached me, saying they knew me from somewhere. Not recognizing them, I figured they must be mistaken, explaining that I wasn’t normally dressed as a monkey and covered in beer. After guessing a bit, one pinpointed how he remembered me (the real context is too embarrassing to share, so we will henceforth refer to it as “art class.”) Then I joined them and like ten other people in a port-a-potty for karaoke. It was a handicapped stall, so roomier than your average transportable toilet, but as a dozen people flailed around singing and dancing to “Love Shack,” I was concerned that we might end up tipping the port-a-potty over.

As much as I’d like to say I rushed home to shower after these unhygienic experiences, I ended up spending the next ten hours barhopping with these near-strangers. Well, considering I just took one person’s word for it that he knew me even though I had no recognition of him, I guess it’s fair to call them complete strangers. Not only did they not judge me for lugging around a monkey costume all night and having hands so sticky that people recoiled when they shook my hand, these strangers also didn’t rape and murder me. So, like, new friends!

Local Music Festival

This past weekend was my neighborhood's annual music festival. I love it because it establishes a great sense of community as the main street is closed down and I get to sample local bands. Except that this year, I barely listened to any music, which I feel bad about, but I had other priorities, apparently. Instead, I got: a) drunk b) exercise c) jock itch.

Since I'm just a brief walk away, I hosted a barbeque before the event and an unexpected twenty people showed, putting us off to a late start. Despite power walking the mile+ to our friend's band's show (his stage was the furthest away possible), I didn't arrive literally until the closing notes of his last song. Of course, I acted as though I had been there for much more time when I spoke to him briefly, but I can honestly say those ending seconds were legitimately a "good job." As Allison arrived at the stage, she beelined for the bathroom out of desperation, then accidentally peed on the floor.

The night had barely started.

The next band was this new age thing with a harp. Even though we all agreed they were good, the vibe was for stoners rather than drunkees. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been a problem for some of my friends who had just got caught smoking weed in an alley by teenagers. Regardless, the decision was to leave for a different atmosphere.

We didn't even make it to the next stage before getting derailed at the local restaurant. People wanted beer and a bathroom. The bathrooms both had "out of order" signs, which I think were faked to avoid having thousands of people use them throughout the night, and the line for drinks was at least half an hour long. Allison and I, who you can hardly call exercisers, decide we will walk the mile or so back to my house to pick up alcohol for everyone.

We were desperately thirsty and desperately had to pee. The more we had to pee, the more we just decided that the solution to our problem was moving faster. When we finally arrived at my house, despite practically leaking from my genitals, I did the gentlemanly thing and allowed Allison to pee first (in part because of her, uh, accidentally earlier.) You know how you get to a point when you are THIS close to a toilet that you mentally let yourself go a little bit and you have to pee harder than ever before. I had to bounce up and down for a full minute before the bathroom was available in order to avoid wetting myself.

Allison dumped out the entire contents of her purse to make maximum room for beer, while I lined my pockets with bottles of rum and coke. Before we left, I applied jock itch medicine to my groin after having worked up a scratchy sweat from walking so intensely. Unfortunately, this medicine caused my testicles to stink on our walk back to everyone, but at least we had beers we could covertly drink to soothe the pain. Before encountering police, we ditched the cans where a homeless person would be appreciative to find them (they were gone the next day!) but if I could do it over again, I'd have left him a full one, too, for his trouble.

When we finally got back, you've never seen a group of people so thirsty. As it turns out, all of the alcohol we could smuggle in only lasted about twenty minutes with our group. And it made everyone have to pee again. Unable to wait the hour in line it would take to access a real bathroom, Sarah, Ted, and I crept into a nearby yard to conduct our business. Sarah is a new friend, so what better way to bond than to simultaneously urinate a few feet a part while nervously scanning for angry property owners?



I saw a little bit of the Submarines, the one band I was really excited to see, but was sort of underwhelmed. And then most people asked to go back and hang out at my house instead, which required a lot more walking - and irritating my jock itch - but whatever. It was a lot of fun. But next year, I'm going to listen to a lot more of the music. Or, more likely, do it exactly the same way again.

Bus Ride

Last weekend was free museum day, so Andrew and I met downtown to see a couple of museums that we would otherwise never pay for: the Grammy Museum (tourist trap!) and the Neon Art Museum (seizure-inducing but kitschy fun). Rather than trying to deal with parking, I took a bus. Most people I know rag on public transportation, but I like it as it is eco-friendly, affordable, and I can read during the commute. Also, you get to encounter some strange and trashy people and things that you could only encounter on a bus.

Sitting in the back of the bus (it's cool, Rosa, I chose that seat), I smelled marijuana and spotted this shady dude unabashedly lighting a pipe and taking a hit. You can get away with that shit on the bus apparently. It reminded me of my teaching days in that sometimes I saw mischief occurring in the back of the classroom that I should have addressed, but it was just easier to pretend I didn't notice and push forward.

A few stops later, this guy, limping and loud, came on, screaming the stoned dude's name. He sat down next to him, popped open a bottle of beer, and explained that he hadn't been around for a while because he had been incarcerated for the past seven months. It was easy for him, he claimed, because seven months is nothing compared to what he's had to do in the past. Also, he had the love of a bus driver waiting on the outside. Not our current bus driver, but "a bus driver." He was in love with a bus driver, and each time he referred to her, he didn't use a name, just calling her a "bus driver." I wasn't even sure the bus driver was a she until he pulled out his phone and showed a picture of the bus driver to the stoner, who replied, very unenthusiastically, "Yeah... she's all right."

At one point, the drunk guy stood up, and when the bus braked hard, he tipped over, spilling his beer and landing on the laps of a mother and young child. The family promptly moved to the front of the bus, and the bus driver-lover acted as if nothing had happened. He then started telling his same exact story again ("in prison... in love with a bus driver") because he only had a few things to talk about and the stoned guy abruptly said he had to get off, even though I'm pretty sure he just wanted to not be a part of this scene anymore. You have to be pretty crazy to scare a guy who just smoked weed on public transit off of the bus altogether.

The drunk guy finished his beer and lit up a cigarette. I don't know if these people think that being on a bus is like being in international waters and they can get away with anything, or if he just assumes his bus driver girlfriend could get him out of any trouble that might result from his behavior. Within a couple of stops, a man with a shirt so tattered that it could only be considered "clothing" nominally greeted the drinker-turned-smoker. Now it was his turn to hear his friend's simple tale of jail and love, and it was no less horrifying/amusing to listen to a third time from my position a few seats away. I was tempted to lean over to see the picture of this hottie bus driver he was showing yet again, but decided that I'd rather be a passive audience member than a part of the fiasco.

I know this experience isn't the type of story that is going to make people say, "I should really take the bus more often," but there is no way you're going to get that much amusement while sitting in traffic on the freeway.

A Soaring Employee

I'm having a difficult time understanding why I'm underemployed. I am a great employee: In just one day I singlehandedly prevented a PR gaffe, criminal charges, and ecoterrorism for the state of Connecticut.

When I interned for Hartford's Chamber of Commerce many years ago, one of my projects was to keep the other interns in the area happy. A lot of business students would work in the city for the summer, realize there was nothing to do, and vow never to come back. Our goal was to find ways to entertain them so that they would seek full time employment in Hartford after they graduated.

This assignment was particularly challenging because there is, in fact, nothing to do in Hartford. One activity we planned was a sporting event, except that Connecticut doesn't have any professional sports teams, so we sent them to a minor league baseball game. Contain your excitement, please.

My boss wanted to turn the event into a photo op in order to generate publicity, so she dreamed up a scheme in which we'd procure hundreds of helium balloons and have the interns simultaneously release them into the air from the stands as some sort of grand symbol of Hartford elevating to higher levels.

I was opposed to the idea. First, it was another example of misunderstanding what twenty-somethings consider fun (just buy them beer, they'd appreciate it more than a balloon). Second, it struck me as horribly irresponsible from an environmental standpoint. Why not just tie soda can rings to each balloon's string so that we could maximize the litter and animal fatalities?

Consequently, I lied to my boss that I was unable to find a party store that could supply that many balloons at such short notice. She put someone else on the task who successfully arranged it almost immediately. Frustrated, I tried to think of another way to thwart this eco-attack. Surely this sort of thing should be against the law.

And so I consulted state legislation. Much to my elation, there was a law preventing such a thing.

Connecticut General Statutes > Title 26 > Chapter 490 > § 26-25c - Release of lighter-than-air balloons restricted. Penalty
(a) No person, nonprofit organization, firm or corporation, including the state and its political subdivisions, shall knowingly release, organize the release of or intentionally cause to be released into the atmosphere within a twenty-four-hour period ten or more helium or other lighter-than-air gas balloons in the state.

Although I was sabotaging my boss' wishes, I came out the hero that day. After I shared the law with her, she was extremely thankful that I helped them avoid a snafu. She had already contacted the media, so the headlines would have read something like "Government employees break law, hurt environment." Not quite the press she was hoping for.

Okay, now someone tell me how to effectively reflect this experience on my resume.

Health Care Reform

Woooooo! Health care reform!!!!!!!!!1! It makes me want to break out some old episodes of Jackass; surely the disclaimers about not recreating the stunts at home no longer apply now that I have some guaranteed hospital coverage.

In all seriousness, this is exciting news for me, since insurance companies have already labelled me permanently damaged goods. Since my "severe TMJ" is so unsexy and minor to my overall health, I would have never thought I'd be restricted on the grounds of having a pre-existing condition, which I have explained in more detail previously and don't feel like getting into again.

Unfortunately, what should be so exciting is rather bittersweet. It's hard for me to be happy when other people are not, and seeing a good portion of this country up in arms (literally, even) about health care reform is really leaving me in a funny place. I just don't get it. I don't understand why people feel so passionately that I shouldn't have access to emergency care. I tend to pride myself on looking at other people's perspectives and finding commonalities in our differences, but I'm having a lot of trouble seeing anything but pointlessly angry, manipulated fools involved in this Tea Party movement. I want to understand them, but I don't! As a result, my mental health is taking a real beating, and I need some coverage pronto.

Take this girl, for example. She's clearly angry, but how can she understand? Not that I want to discourage young people from being politically active, but what, other than misinformation, could drive her to make this video?

I-mSayingNoToGov.HealthCare

It may appear that I'm making fun on a little kid, but she must be older than we'd assume because in one scene she's behind the wheel of a car, so all jabs are fair game, I figure.

1. Nice use of a Michael Jackson song. I think his lyrics directly contradict the "let's let people die without health care" message, but okay. Besides, isn't MJ's death a prime example of privatized medicine gone wrong? Also, if you're going to be racist and refer to the president as a "bugg eyed MONKEY" (sic), you should be aware that MJ was also black, despite appearances.

2. She's littering, and it's not even worthwhile, since the papers she holds up are not visible to the viewer. Even better though, is the older person trying to get to her car without interrupting the video shoot. At the end of that segment, she breaks into a half-run that I cannot stop laughing at. Half runs are always funny.

3. This girl should really wish she has guaranteed medical coverage. First a truck nearly hits her at the beginning, then she either gives birth to or poops out a monkey, neither of which is normal.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm glad YouTube wasn't around when I was a kid, because I would now be in permanent hiding for all of the dumbass ways I would embarrassed myself.