Postulate: A group's collective IQ is only as high as its lowest member...

SO. I'm sure by now that you've all seen the video "everything amazing and nobody's happy". (If not, take a moment and click that link.) Just a commentary on that.

You know what is incredibly frightening? Mob mentality. Thinking as a group, acting as a group. It's like the collective IQ of a group is only as high as it's lowest iq'd member. It's incredible - people do things in groups that they would never do by themselves. It's like the whole idea of consequences goes out the window. When it's a "we", people feel more comfortably acting stupid, racist, violent, sexist, ignorant, or any combination of the above.

ANYWAY - getting back to my point - I noticed how you have to very consciously decide not to participate in whatever group attitude is prevalent. I was hurrying through the airport this morning, annoyed at everyone and everything, when I realized - I have nothing to hurry for. (As evidenced by my current state of partial dress in my apartment...) I have no reason to find that clueless foreigner annoying. They're just trying to figure things out. And all those short women who walk slow? Join arms and create a barricade! Why not?

I guess I'm just musing about the fact that we never actually have to feel pissed off, hurried, annoyed, or any of those negative emotions. Choose to enjoy the experience.

That is, after all, what life is all about right? Learning to be happy even when things aren't perfect?

P.S. I just have to say, though, that I find short people who complain about airplane seats REALLY obnoxious. Really? You think you're uncomfortable? Try growing 8 inches and then tell me how you feel.

VS.

Coming home

Today, I just wanted to make a list.

Coming home is:

Chilling with my parents.
Chick flicks with my sisters. Not the new, predictable kind - the 80s ones or the classic-novels-turned-into-a-british-miniseries kind. North and South anyone?

Joking around with my dad.
Howling with my dog. If she weren't so afraid of the camera, I'd show you that.
high heels. I ALWAYS forget flats when I come home.
Shopping. Thrift stores, to be specific. LOVE THEM.
Mexican food. Mostly from hole in the wall places, but my chipotle lime chicken can hold its own.
Not driving.
Inn - N - Out.

The Lakers flag on my parent's car at the airport. They think it makes them easier to see. They don't even know the name of 1 Lakers player.
Warm food.
Free ingredients for said warm food.
A big bed. With a feather mattress.
Being able to chill in my pajamas until 4pm.
Hot cocoa, vanilla steamers, and tea. All the freaking time.
Movies. Lots of them. In the theater, at home, on TV.
Yarn working. Crocheting and knitting, people. I've gotten GOOD at it.

This is the scarf I'm currently working on. Mine doesn't look quite this good...

So here is my question. What is "going home" to you?

I'm not dramatic. Drama and I just have a high correlation

My sister Debby once described me that way.

Well, I guess this weekend lives up to that reputation. Let me tell you about it.

First of all, I found something I like about winter. I like late afternoon showers that are so hot they turn your skin pink. And I like getting out of them, when no one is home, and seeing the bluish winter light coming through the blinds. That's what I love. So picture this - I'm all blissed out from finding just one little thing I like about winter, and then, Sunday morning, I come out my job to find....

My car was dead.

Now normally, that would mean that I was retarded and left the lights on, but after 20 minutes of trying to juice up the battery (thanks Bryan), it still wouldn't start. So just picture me in my 4 inch leopard print heels prancing around the MTC parking lot. Awesome. Luckily, some nice stranger and his attractive son popped the clutch, and I got going.

Then, I get to church, and I park. I closed my eyes in hopeful anticipation, and killed the engine. And it wouldn't turn over.

Well, if you know anything about me, this next part won't surprise you. My quid pro quo is to freak out and then get over it. So I have this sobbing breakdown in church, and everyone's like looking back at me as I'm heaving and sniffling. It's fine. It doesn't help that I'm already a ward project..... I think they think I'm inactive. Whatever.

Anyway, so long story short (I know, too late), I had to pop the clutch one more time this morning to get it to the mechanic, and in order to do that, I had to push it (thanks to my friends Adam and Drew), and.... no one stopped to help. We had a GIRL pushing a CAR people! What the heck?! It's fine.

Add to all this that I had a final this morning at 7 and one this afternoon at 1, and that I got up at 4:30 to study. And that I took an epic nap on the wooden benches at school. Awesome.

Just freaking out a little bit.

To the middle - class, double X chromosomed collective of America

Here comes another venting sesh.

SO. I have a beef with women who like to tell me how oppressed I am. That because some women don't get paid as much for the same positions as men, or because most of the art featured in museums was done by men, that means we all have to join an eternally offended and overly vocal crusade against our heterogeneous chromosomed counterparts. I have one thing to tell all of them.

I am not oppressed.

Now, I would never deny that there are women in the world, and even in the counterminious  United States, that ARE oppressed. Women who have been trafficked, abused, oppressed, and underprivileged for years. I, however, am not one of them. Neither are most of us who belong to the middle class of this country. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we're not.

You know what else?

When you claim to be oppressed, you are mocking the real pain of those women who actually suffer.

So STOP IT. Count your freaking blessings people. I don't want to hear it. Neither do most of the men that surround you. Neither do most of the educated women.

Oppressed

NOT oppressed.

Thank you for your time.