RANT: Old & Awkward

I'm the 2nd oldest student in my Anthropology class, I AM the oldest student in all of my other classes. I know that logically, this shouldn't bother me. My age has no real bearing on my overall academic ability (my to-date straight-A record can easily attest to this) but I find it is affecting me in other ways that I just didn't think I'd have been able to anticipate. I can dye-over the grey hairs on my head, I have lost SOME weight since I've been riding my bicycle to class as often as I can, and as far as I can tell a t-shirt and jeans seems a pretty big step-up from the yoga-pants and draping tank-tops I see my younger classmates wearing: When I was their age, that's typically what I would sleep in. And yes, many of them will occasionally leave their dorms wearing pajama bottoms. I know I'm not exactly the most conventionally attractrive woman on campus, or anywhere, but keeping up appearances compared to my peers is neither the point nor the problem, here.

The point AND the problem is that I have absolutely nothing in common with 99% of the people around me on a day to day basis, and it's actually a frighteningly lonely & alienating feeling.

This isn't like the military, which is a good thing because I'm not lawfully compelled nor obligated to attend school and there are no life-altering repercussions against packing up and leaving. Unlike college, the Army gave me opportunities to participate in common activities and tasks with those on my level, for good or ill. Here, people sit in a room for an hour & a half, then get up and leave. Sure, most of my classmates have been generally pleasant and polite, but with the exception of the local secular students' group Occam's Razors, I can't rightly say that I have terribly many friends. Well, to be honest, any at all. 

I'm used to being on my own, but that doesn't mean that I like it. I feel like I'm surrounded by 18-19 year olds who've just left their parents' houses for the first time in their lives, and here's lil' ol' me having been to 6 different countries across 3 continents, half of which were trips I made BEFORE joining the Army in 2009. The other really weird thing about being an older student is this unshakable feeling that I "should already know" most of the subjects that we're going over in many of my classes: English, a subject I've always done exceptionally well with, threw me for the biggest loop because I honestly thought that I knew EVERYTHING that ANYONE ever needed to know about our most commonly spoken language (in the U.S., at least.) Nope, boy was I wrong, but that's okay because despite pretty much having to re-learn something I've devoted a lot of time and energy to perfecting, I still got the highest grade in my entire class. This semester, the tricky subjects are Algebra and Political Science: I never did all that well with math to begin with, it's easily my absolute least favorite subject. But History and Politics, man... again, if you think you have all the answers, you probably don't know a damn thing at all. 

Only two of my professors, so far, have been older than I am: One of whom by less than two months.

I never wanted to be one of these bitchy "older" women who constantly fret about how others perceive their age, but now I think I'm starting to understand why some of them do: Our culture emphasises youth with good times and potential opportunities. I get it, I should probably stop looking for clothes in the Juniors section of the store, but I'm not ready for beige undershirts from Talbots just yet, dammit! I think this is what the slow onset of a mid-life crisis must feel like, minus the breast implants or Corvette (Really, when you think about it, that's mostly the only reason why anyone would ever buy a Corvette.) I think part of the problem is that I may be just now realizing that I didn't get to spend anywhere near enough time during my teenage years telling as many people as possible to kindly fuck right off, and I'm surrounded by young women and men who are, in those respects, right about the apogee of those years where people can get away with that kind of behavior & still be classified as an otherwise functioning adult. 

I miss staying up until 2AM listening to Antichrist Superstar, smoking the weed that I bought with my hoarded lunch-money & painting my nails completely black because I couldn't find anything DARKER.

Funny how it takes losing your youth to really appreciate it: Not just because every album Mr Manson has put out since Mechanical Animals was sloppy and damn near painful to listen to, but because I can no longer get away with the same crazy shit. And THAT, embarassing as it is to admit, makes me a little sad. But y'know what? What I'm NOT going to do is live in the past. Sure, it's hard to look as metal as I used to with grey hair peeking out from under a cheap dye-job and spiked leather attire isn't exactly practical in the humid Southern States, but that doesn't mean that I have to be miserable as I age and let everyone see it. 

I'm trying to remain optimistic, I can continue to do well in school despite never truly fitting in among my peers. It's just a kick in the lady-balls expending all of this effort and for some reason not really being able to enjoy it like everyone else around me. I'm just not that into getting so drunk that my internal organs dissolve, and old people trying to prove that they've "still got it" are just pathetic.

In the end, I can only ever be myself.

Child-Free 101

A few of my closest friends have accused me of being "hostile against parenthood" or that I must "hate children" because of my previous statements about choosing NOT to have kids. That's not the least bit true, actually: I like kids plenty, I have neices & nephews that I love to bits. But don't mistake me openly expressing my personal sentiments on parenthood itself for being the same thing as saying all parents are just mindless breeders who will never know the taste of a truly free life. I don't want to have kids, I realized a long time a go that I am just NOT "Mommy-Material" and this doesn't upset me one bit. I have taken medical precautions to ensure this for myself and I have no regrets about it AT ALL, and I never believed in that "Biological Clock" bullshit, either. 

Your Grandmother very likely made up the "Biological Clock" myth to guilt your Mother into having YOU, probably for no other reason than that's what was expected of her.

And PLEASE don't think that I'm trying to be a complete asshole here, as I have friends & relatives who very recently had their frist kids becuase it's something that they really honestly wanted more than anything else in the world: They are intelligent, kind-hearted people and they'll be awesome parents because of it. I wish MORE people that had kids were like that, but I know that at least half of them could give a shit. I also wish that more people were brave enough to really think about certain social & cultural norms and honestly say NO if they find something undesirable being pressured upon them: No one in the United States ABSOLUTELY HAS TO get married, there's no law that required anyone to marry if they don't honestly want to, but I still support the rights of any consenting adult couple (or even a group of consenting adults, for all I give a shit) to marry if that's what they really want.

If anything, I think that people who engage in certain activities & institutions (marriage, parenthood, enlistment, celibacy, etc...) because on some level they feel like they HAVE TO and not because they really WANT TO, those people sap more meaning and fulfillment out of it than anything else. I'm far more offended by women who relegate themselves to the life of the eternal haus-frau and become 100% reliant on their husbands because "well what else am I supposed to do?" than I'll ever be of two grown men that love each other and want to publicly express their love and comittment in the face of that last-bastion of shitty argmunets that most people call "tradition." When I was begining my military career, I met A LOT of young Soldiers that really honestly DID NOT WANT to join the Army, but did so because family and friends pressured them into it: Many of these young men and women came from military families themselves, so they basically relegated themselves to upholding a family legacy in a day/age/society/country where for the most part, no sane human being would sign away their entire young lives during a time of war for that reason alone. Many of this misguided young'uns didn't make it through Basic Training, the rest were drummed out during A.I.T.

"Tradition" is the fall-back of those who have NOTHING LEFT of real value or substance to contribute to the conversation. And just like religious and military contexts, this is especially true in a familial one.

"Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, hey Mom, Mom, Mom, Mommy, hey Mommy, Mommy..."

There's no shortage of "lists" on the Internet, these days EVERYBODY has something they'd like the public to know about and the cybersphere often seems like the perfect place to brain-dump: I've done this myself many times, usually by way of this very blog that YOU, good reader, have managed to find and continue reading (and for that, you have my sincere thanks.) So I'm going to be a total cliche of myself and make another goddamn list of things often uttered by the unknowing or willfully ignorant about choosing not to have kids. 

• "You don't have kids?" Is there ever any logical reason why, in our developed society amass with internet connectivity and large scale communication enterprises, this should ever surprise ANYONE?
• "Why not?" Because I don't fucking want to, what's it to you if I don't? Furthermore, would you be asking me this asinine question if I were a man?
• "It's your duty to continue your genetic line." I'm still waiting for someone to say this to a chick with Down's Syndrome, THAT ALONE should say something about how shallow and ignorant this "argument" really is.
• "Oh, but babies are so cute..." Google image search Harlequin Ichthyosis with the safe-search feature turned OFF. Go ahead, do it. I triple-dog-fucking DARE YOU, I hope you haven't eaten anything within the last half-hour or so. Even IF you can stomach the horrifying posibility of pushing such a monstrosity out of your own vagina, consider the possibility that even relatively normal "cute" babies don't stay cute forever. At right about 2 or 3 years, they tend to hit that phase of their young lives commonly known as "The Noisy Fucking Bastard That Never Stops POOPING" years.
• "You'll change your mind someday..." People have been telling me this since I was 16, I would usually hear this from my elder relatives. I'm 33 now, I STILL don't have any kids, I STILL don't want any, and I STILL get this same tired-ass line from time to time: Some people never learn, especially if they're lapsed-Catholic alcoholics (you know who you are)
• "You're gonna die old and alone!" Have you ever been to a nursing home? Go ask some of the residents and staff there how often their kids or grand-kids visit them. Maybe a few of them might get sporadic visits from family members from time to time, but if EVERY old-person's family ACTUALLY took care of them in their old age, I can't help but wonder if nursing homes would even exist at all. People live, they get old, then they die: I think the best thing that anyone can do is be smart about their finances & start saving for their retirement A.S.A.P. As soon as you first ask yourself "should I start saving for retirement?" START SAVING FOR RETIREMENT!
• "You'll need someone to carry on your legacy." And what is that legacy, exactly? I'm not the C.E.O of a company or an award winning scientist, I'm just ME. I'm weird, rebellious, promiscuous, creatively disturbed, socially awkward, quick to anger, slightly paranoid and stubborn as fuck: If I spawned a smaller, louder, hormone-driven version of MYSELF, I'm pretty sure one of us would kill the other in a Dragonball-Z style show-down.
• "Be fruitful and multiply" Riiiiight, because that's working out SO WELL in the Third World...
• "You're just afraid!" You're right, I'm mind-numbingly terrified of permanently disfiguring my lady-bits to the point that I'll run the risk of never being able to enjoy using them quite the same way ever again, not to mention the possibility of internal bleeding or someday dying from something called a Fistula (Yep, time for another Google image search! And don't you dare put that safe-search back on, ya pussy...) OR, more likely, the person that actually said this to me was just dying for me to knock his fucking teeth out from his ignorant, ugly fucking head.
• "Why do you hate children?" Why don't you ask the nieces & nephews that I hand-knit presents for last Christmas? I guarantee they'll just stare at you like the presumptious, jelly-headed moron that you probably are. Accusing me of "hating children" because I don't want to be a parent is like accusing me of "hating horses" because I don't own property large enough to have one: Between a kid and a horse, I'd rather have a horse. Horses are awesome.
• "But... you're a woman." Very astute observation, dipshit.
• "You'll change your mind when you hold one in your arms..." Someone at a family function (but not someone I'm actually related to) actually tried to hand me their baby once, they actually told me that BECAUSE I'm a woman I'll supposedly "figure it out very quickly." AW HELL NAW! I physically stepped back, tucked my hands into my back-pockets and proceeded to give this ignorant bitch the ass-chewing of her life in full view of EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING BUILDING. How I managed to survive a term in the United States military, at times, astounds me, because I don't handle people trying to force things on me very well. At all. I actually react VERY BADLY TO THIS, and though it wasn't my honest intent to make this woman feel bad for it's own sake, I wasn't exactly going to passively accept her sexist bullshit, either. My relatives were horrified, I was fucking infuriated, I never saw this woman again. I was later told that I scared her so badly she promptly pissed herself after leaving the room, the baby started crying, too: I feel bad for the baby, it didn't know any better. That, and the poor little fuck has an absolute moron for a Mom... The moral of the story: NO means NO, and if I have to repeat myself, you're going to regret it (and probably deserve it.)
• "Parenting can be very rewarding." So can playing the lottery, they're about on the same level in terms of input-to-result ratio in a lot of ways: I don't play lottery tickets, either.
• "You're missing out!" If I honestly WANT to treat myself to the experience of not sleeping for several consecutive days and having to constnatly keep an eye on someone who can't even take care of themselves or even speak a coherent sentence half the time..., I'll dig out my last good set of ACUs, steal the TARDIS, go to a place in Iraq called F.O.B. Warhorse in the year 2010 and basically step-by-step re-live the first half of my deployment there. Seriously, I would rather go back to war than be a parent: I REALLY don't want to go back to war, either.
• "But it's only natural..." It's only natural for some species to occasionally eat their own young, do you really want to have THAT conversation?
• "Well I LOVE MY CHILDREN!" So did John Wayne Gacy, NEXT...
• "Your life must be so empty..." Of course, I'm getting straight-A's in college and loving the ever-living piss out of my totally amazing husband for no good reason at all, really. I guess I've just been spending all of my time and effort getting the biggest academic bang from those G.I. Bill tax-payer-funded bucks, working very hard on sustaining a far-from-perfect but completely awesome marriage, volunteering my time and effort in publicly combatting the seemingly neverending plague of sexual assault/harassment and rape culture, recycling, NOT voting Republican, and finally just doing my damnedest to be a decent human being... for no reason at all -_-

I wanted to save the best/worst one for last, are you ready for this one? 

I once heard someone say that becoming a Mom was her life defining experience and that she deserved praise for not only procreating, but for coming to that realization. Look, as I've already said, I know people who ARE parents who are awesome folks and have awesome kids, and I'm happy for them all. I would never want to diminish their happiness or invalidate their experience, but nobody gets a fucking cookie because their uterus happens to work a few times. 7 billion "miracles" later, this should be obvious! If you're happy with yourself about being a Mom, then that's all well and good in it's own right, but it doesn't make you BETTER THAN a woman who ISN'T. Because what if she WANTS TO but CAN'T? What if she HAD ONE and her kid DIED? What if her kid grew up to be a peice of shit, despite her best efforts to set her/him straight? Are you somehow better than her because you have a self-defecating humunculus permanently latched onto your tit? Are you somehow morally superior to ME because I have a different set of goals in life than you did? 

If procreating is your greatest achievement in life, then your standards must be pretty fucking low.

But hey, if it's praise you want for fulfilling an every-day occurrence of biology... 

... Enjoy your "legacy", but I think I'll pass.

Fuck the Pope

I always get a little giggle in my heart when I start taking (arguably deserved) cyber-hate for smashing modern-day "Idols" online, I can think of few more deserving than Pope Francis. I get it, he wants very badly to re-create the Vatican's image from horridly corrupted child-fucking wealth-mongery to simple and humble child-fucking wealth-mongery. He's making public appearances left & right decrying poverty and violence, but all of this pomp and public fluffing doesn't change the publicly acknowledged & well documented fact that the Vatican under his administration has done damn near NOTHING to crack down on the Catholic Churches' long-standing pattern of abuse against children. And yet, who's the asshole for pointing this out? ME. But I'm fine with that, I really am. It says nothing about me or my character, if only that I am at least capable of backing up my claims with actual evidence instead of just telling people what they want to hear.

And the "discussion" is STILL deteriorating...

A polished turd with gold filigree and gemstones delicately inlaid into it is STILL VERY MUCH A DAMN TURD.

This is the thing about people who are put up onto pedestals, for good or ill: You can't blindly worship anyone, or ANYTHING, while conveniently ignoring the things about them that you so happen to not like or want to talk about. Public image aside, Frankie is no different and no better than the child abusers themselves as long as he insists on protecting them as hard as he does: If you purposely enable evil, you ARE evil. 

These are the same people who will also cry out "Oh, well nobody is perfect!" Okay, fine, you're right about THAT, so then what's the point of having a damn Pope then? Furthermore, if you acknowledge that no-one is flawless, why does pointing to someone's wrong-doing upset you so? Just because you happen to like their particular brand of bullshit? Nope, sorry, but if "no one is perfect" then that means that NO ONE gets a free pass for being a shit person.

Leonardo DaVinci was a brilliant artist and inventor who was, arguably, centuries ahead of his time in many ways: He was also a prolific and ravenous pedophile. He even, at one point, had a warrant for his arrest after "assaulting" one of his male models.

While this does not invalidate any of DaVinci's discoveries or creations, it does shed a pretty fucked up light on who he was and where his priorities were. Helicopters or no, he still did (quite a few) very bad things. If personal achievements granted absolution of wrong-doing, people would be worshipping Mr DaVinci instead of an old man in a very expensive hat & robe. They're BOTH still very bad people at heart.

And it should go the other way around, too, if it were true that saying or doing a few things to public benefit absolves one of being an asshole: Adolf Hitler was a very strict vegetarian: ABSOLVED! Saddam Hussein was a wildlife conservationist (I've personally been to one of his old "habitats" complete with fish-ponds and water-bird nesting grounds) ABSOLVED! Nero was an avid patron and supporter of the arts: ABSOLVED!... they are/were still very bad people. 

No big shiny hat nor rank on your uniform will EVER accurately reflect who you are as a person nor wether or not you have anything vaguely resembling character or virtue.

I've done some pretty bad shit in my day, sure: Drugs, violence, I was an asshole as a teenager. I used to be an outspoken and virulent homophobe in my youth, but I eventually got a hard dose of reality and swallowed my pride, I learned from my extremely embarrassing mistake and rose above it. But the ultimate difference between ME and somebody like FRANKIE is that if I caught one of my employees hurting a child I'd shut that shit down in a heart-beat and make sure that poor child got the help he needed.

Oh Tim Minchin, you ARE a delightful squid...

I really don't like having to rely on celebrity words to better substitute mine, most celebs are fucking idiots but TIM MINCHIN makes my brain-pussy wet and quivering. But Tim DOES pretty much summarize my issue against "Idols" in general, that people love them SO MUCH that they apparently do no wrong, even when they DO do horribly and cruelly wrong.

Besides, if people could REALLY think for themselves, would we still have Popes at all?

Want vs Need: Kids

I've known since I was 16 that I didn't want kids, ever. Don't get me wrong, I love children, I just don't want to ever be a mom. Sad, you say? If that's how you feel about it then fine, but would you have that same sentiment toward me if I were a man? Screw making a point, what if I just have other things I want to do with my life that children will just get in the way of?

My wants and needs are more than just what my reproductive organs chemically dictate.

I have three nephews and two nieces that I absolutely adore, I knitted them all scarves for Christmas and this year I want to make them hats. I don't want kids of my own, my family is thoroughly aware of this and they say they're fine with it. NATURALLY, should I find out otherwise, I still won't give a shit. There are more than seven billion people in the world and not enough food for all of them, as far as I'm concerned I don't think that's fair to the children that do go hungry every day.

John and I have been married for four years, we have on-and-off had some discussions about kids but we just can't come up with a solid plan. We even consulted a doctor about what our odds were at our age, he insisted we were worrying about this too much and to "just go for it, don't over-think it."

Maybe I AM over-thinking this, but bringing another human being into existence is a permanent game-changer: I think it bears some very serious consideration and planning indeed.

I have a good friend who has been trying for years to have a baby with her husband, who recently returned home from a Deployment. She's had surgeries, taken medications and even even hormone-based birth control to balance out her system (as is her right, to Hell with what others think) and still no luck. I feel terrible about it, if anyone I know would make a kick-ass mom it's definitely her. But I guess my "biological clock" just never ticked that loudly.

On that note, who came up with that "clock" nonsense? It sounds so 1980's sit-com, doesn't it? As if my worth as a human being is determined only by my desire and ability to procreate! Bitch, please. What century do you think this is? I think the myth of the "biological clock" was just something our grandmothers made up to nag our mothers into having US. 

"Settling down" and starting a family is all well and good, if that's what you want, but that IS NOT a legitimate life goal in of itself.

Women are running developed nations, going into space, and just recently exploring a more broad spectrum of opportunity in the American Armed Forces (You serve with women: Get used to it or get the fuck out.) Motherhood IS NOT everything people make it out to be, or so my friends who are parents tell me. Sure, there are hugs and cuddles and birthday parties, which are awesome. There's also bodily fluids, overflowing diaper-bins, screaming fits and such as well.

If you have kids and you love them, I'm happy for you. Obviously you're confident in the decision you made or else you wouldn't have had them. But no one NEEDS to have kids, not in this day-and-age. We no longer live in the times of family farm-steads and heirs and/or heiresses (for the most part) procreation isn't a miracle it's a common natural occurence.

My first year in the Army another Soldier once told me that the only reason she wanted kids was so someone would take care of her when she got old. I thought that was incredibly selfish, to create a human life with the sole purpose of changing your Depends. That's not a family, that's an inherited slave! She didn't take too kindly to my explanation, in her defense I probably should have thought a bit more carefully about dropping the term 'slavery' in an already heated conversation with a black woman.

Besides, without kids around I can have as much loud-and-rowdy guilt-free sex as my body can handle.

AND get a night's sleep afterward.