“Don’t be afraid to be weak”

Sometimes a memory can knock me down.

Enigma – “Return to Innocence”

I haven’t heard this song in years.

The moment it started playing on my Pandora, though, I slipped like Alice into a wormhole of memories. No longer was I sitting in my office, idly inputting invoices. I was sitting in the back of a red Expedition, headphones over my ears, my personal CD player clasped in my hand, staring at him. In that moment, we weren’t talking… at least not verbally. We were speaking with our eyes - an affection impossible to convey in words. Was it love? Who knows? We were young. We had our lives ahead of us... Except he didn’t really.

I keep his picture on my wall at work. Occasionally people ask me if he is my boyfriend. I glance up at it, those familiar blue eyes cloaked in grey-scale, that hand propping up his head, that thick shock of hair through which my fingers remember sliding. That smile, lips parted, perfect teeth. I remember the way he tasted. “No,” I reply. “That’s Kip.” As if that explains everything.

We met when I was fourteen.  By twenty, our paths in life had taken  us in different directions.

He had a buffalo on his license plate. I loved the way he said certain words. I see him in the faces of strangers. I catch memories of his scent in the air. I slept with his note in my pillowcase for years.

He didn’t live to thirty.

I often wonder: If I had told him how I felt about him instead of just assuming that he knew, would he have still pulled the trigger?

We bought the CD together at a tiny hole-in-the-wall music store in Colorado. It was jumbled in a bin with other used CDs. It was three dollars. The case had a crack in it. Enigma. He pulled it out, eyes wide, corners of his mouth climbing into his cheeks. “Hey, you gotta get this one! You’ll like this one!” So I bought it, along with Rancid, Goldfinger and a fifty cent copy of Zero Mostel’s Fiddler On The Roof. The cashier looked at me strangely, but he was too busy perusing the impulse buys to notice. I was too busy watching him to care. I listened to that damned CD over and over and over when he wasn’t around.
I hated Enigma.

I never told him that.

Kip, I’m sorry your world couldn’t make you happy… but I’m grateful that you were in mine.

Thirty

It is 11:44pm. I am sitting up in bed. In 16 minutes, I am going to be thirty.

Thirty.

The word itself intimidates me. Thirty.

As I’ve been lamenting about this upcoming birthday, I’ve noticed something. Certain birthdays seem to have more importance than others. At 16, a kid is considered responsible enough to drive a car. At 18, they’re way more mature, so we allow them to vote or marry or join the military. At 21, we thrust bottles of tequila into their oh-so-responsible hands and tell them to drink! I personally attached a lot of meaning to my 25^th birthday for reasons that will remain vague. But 30….

People who have already cruised past the 30^th year tend to look at me with the same calm patient expression I give my niece when she tells me of her adventures in high school. The look that says “You just don’t know how good you have it!” People who have already bounced on their thirtieth lillypad tell me that they just wish they were thirty again!

But those of us still in our twenties, even if only for 10 more minutes, see the thirties as this horribly daunting prospect… Thirty means adulthood. Thirty means responsibility. Thirty means that I should probably give up the stash of comic books I have hidden in my closet and start buying Newsweek or Time. Thirty means that my guilty pleasure of trashy romance novels should be replaced by Wall Street Journals. Thirty means that my Xbox should be packed up, my games sold. Thirty means that my dreams of ever making it big as a writer should be tucked away in a scrap book to be pulled out on special occasions so I could remember how cute I was for thinking I had a chance…

Yes… Thirty seems like the end of the freaking world.

Yes, I’m being melodramatic.

So, here I am… five minutes away from adulthood… And I’m willing the clock to stop. I have so much more I want to do before I grow up.

True, when I was 25, my five-year-plan involved marriage, children, a dog, a house, and a published novel. Well... I have a dog. One out of five ain't bad... right? Here I am… three minutes from thirty… and what do I have to show for it?

What do I have to show for it?

I have a better understanding of who I am. I have an eerie grasp on what makes other people tick. I figured out why I am the way I am and how to love myself despite all of my imperfections.

And I have a very healthy respect for people that refuse to lose their inner child when they hit thirty.

So, here it is. Midnight. Make a wish, blow out a candle.

Sing me a song.

I didn’t just turn thirty….

I just leveled up.


Here’s to a great year!

One is the loneliest number?

*clears throat*

Hello everyone. My name is Jacque (“Hi Jacque”) and I’m…*hesitant pause*  I’m single.

I’ve been single since April. *uneasy swallow at the collective group gasp* I know, I know, it’s tragic. I guess that’s why I’m here. It bothers my parents. It bothers my friends. I know they’re worried about me. I can see it in their eyes. I can hear it in their voices. They’re trying to help me. It was when my step-mother tried to pair me up with one of the lawn-mowing men who is twenty years older than me that I realized the depth of my problem.

*Deep sigh*

I wasn’t always this way. I was in a relationship. Sure, I’ve dabbled with being single over the years, but that’s normal, right? Everyone tries being single once in a while, don’t they? I didn’t think it was going to be a problem. I was in a relationship, and before that, another. I was a good girl, doing what I am supposed to do. But at some point, I… I just… *tears welling in my eyes* I just became single.

*collective group hug*

I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to be single until I fell out of my last relationship. It was time. When I fell into being single, I fell into it hard. Every day I was single. Hell, every second of every day! I wrapped myself up in singleness. At first, it was tough. It’s a tough pill to swallow at times. But then I came to realize how much I liked it.

I am not proud.

I know, people my age are supposed to be happy in relationships with at least one child under their belts, but singleness is a slippery slope. Once you get into it… well… they say it’s hard to get out.

Okay, enough Single People’s Anonymous.

Apparently, being single is a bad thing. At least, that is the impression I’m getting from people. Some well-meaning friends invite me out and make sure to mention how many single guys might be there. How many times have I heard: “Oh, you and *insert male name here* would get along so well! You should meet him!” and then the inevitable add-on: “He’s single.” As if it’s a bad thing! I’ve determined that being single must be almost as tragic as being an alcoholic, having an eating disorder, or a debilitating skin condition. I can almost hear people whispering behind their hands. “That’s Jacque. She’s single!” and the following gasp of shocked disapproval… or is it pity?

When did being single become such an anomaly?

“I remember when I was single,” someone once told me. “It was awful! I was so glad I found *insert name here*.”

Really?

Really?!

I wish I could say that the person to whom being single was a nightmare was the only person who has given me such comments. Unfortunately, no. There have been many. I have met many people who seem to base their own internal happiness on not being single. They all have their reasons. Some are afraid to be alone. Some are very needy and just need someone to take care of them. Some are the opposite – co-dependent to a fault – needing someone to take care of so badly that they would settle for anything.

I admit to being in both of those categories at one point or another in my life. I could go back and list the people I’ve dated and let you know my motivations in every relationship. Some of those relationships, looking back, I wonder what the hell I was thinking. For instance, five years of my life (from the age of 20 to nearly 25 – the ‘best years’ they say) was completely wasted with someone with no ambition who did nothing but hold me back. Of all of my exes, he is the one I wish I could go back and un-do. Why did I get into the relationship in the first place? Because I was deathly afraid of being alone. I was so afraid, I literally just let my life slip by while I clung to something I thought would make it worth it. Truth? It didn’t.

Over the years, I’ve settled for things. I would settle in restaurants when people got my order wrong. If my steak was overcooked, I’d keep my mouth shut. If the lady at the nail salon made my nails too long, I’d just go home later and file them down myself. If someone said something I didn’t like, I’d let it go. Why? Because I settled. (There is a point to this, I swear.)

So. Yes. I’m single.  I have no urge to run out and find someone to complete me. Finding someone with whom to share my misery does not appeal to me. Do I want a relationship? Oh, of course. In time. Do I need a relationship? No.

Why?

This scourge of being single has taught me one thing. I’ve learned who I am. Not the me that I became to make other people happy. Not the me that I became in adaptation to someone else’s them. I have learned who I am and I am continuously learning who I am. Being single is not that dark space between relationships. Being single is not a feeling of failure. At the collapse of my last relationship, people came out of the woodwork to tell me they were sorry. “Oh, Jacque, I’m so sorry!” My reaction? “Don’t be. It’s alright.” And it is. Being single is not a regrettable state of affairs. Being single is exciting. It is fresh and fluid and different. It is an adventure. Does that mean that I wasn’t fully invested in my previous relationship? No. I was. But this single thing? This is my chance at a new relationship – a relationship with myself.

So yes, my name is Jacque and I am single.

And damnit, I love it!

We are all human, and that is the most beautiful thing of all

“Osama Bin Laden is dead!”


Emphasis on the exclamation point.

When the news of the death of the former leader of Al-Qaeda hit the US, people celebrated. People came out in droves in Times Square and in front of the White House to rejoice in the death of America’s Most Wanted.

But not me.

While seemingly everyone patriotically praised the actions of the President and the Navy Seals who executed a perfect (execution?) mission, I was left with furrowed brows and a frown. “Osama Bin Laden is dead!” people would tell me. Yes. Yes he is… “Well, aren’t you happy!? Justice has been served!”

Has it?

I think my biggest mistake the following day was made at work when a very large and outspoken transplanted Texan (who also happens to be ex-military) came into my office to cheerfully tell me the news. “They killed the bastard! Bin Laden got what was coming to him!”

To which I replied: “I feel sorry for his family.”

Can you hear the needle scratch across the record as the whole world seemed to stop and look at me with a raised eyebrow? Can you hear the crickets? Can you picture the throbbing vein in Mr. Texas’ forehead as he tried to understand my words?

“What?”

“I said, I feel sorry for his family.” Figuring this gave me a moment to elaborate, I tried to explain myself. “I mean, no matter how bad a person is, no matter what they’ve done, they still have people who care about them.”

Immediately, I was given an earful about exactly how I was wrong… and how my simple statement about empathy for Bin Laden’s family was completely unpatriotic. How caring about how the family of a terrorist felt cheapened how the family of a victim of the terrorist attacks felt. I didn’t think so, but when a man who towers over you by at least a foot is telling you how wrong you are, you just listen.

However… when he was done, I stuck to my guns. “Yes, I understand that the families of the victims of 9/11 lost someone they care about too. I understand that grief. I do. But a person is a person… and regardless of what they’ve done, whether they deserve death in your eyes or not, they have people who care about them… people who will grieve… people who will miss them… I feel bad for THEM.”

Still, he wouldn’t hear it. I lost a lot of his respect that day, and while that bothered me, I still honestly firmly believe what I believe.

I will never celebrate a man’s death.

Let me repeat that: I will NEVER celebrate a man’s death.

I’m not normally very politically minded. I’m neither a Republican nor am I a Democrat. I don’t feel I identify well with any political party. There’s too much bickering and arguing and finger-pointing and mudslinging for me to care too much about politics. I don’t want to associate myself with either side. I believe what I believe and it doesn’t fit nicely into somebody else’s box. If I had to claim anything, I would claim that I am a Humanist. I’ll have to expound further on what this means to me in a different blog entry, however, for sake of argument, that is what I will claim for now. I will not hold your opinions against you because that is the beauty of this country: We are all entitled to our own opinions… whether those opinions be religious or political in nature, we are free to have them. We are free to express them. I am free to write what I believe, and you are free to stop reading if you’d like. It’s a lovely thing.

However… with all that said… This country makes me so sad.

“Rot in Hell!”


Is it for us to judge? Boiling everything down, simplifying everything, at the very root of it all, Osama Bin Laden thought that his actions were right for his people. His opinions and beliefs conflicted with our own. I’m not saying he was right. In fact, he was very very wrong, as far as I’m concerned… but do I think he was wrong because he disliked our government? No. That was his opinion. Where he crossed the line into the unforgivable is when he started killing people.

In my opinion, humble as it is, death is never the answer. Never.

Never.

Do I think that the victims of 9/11 deserved justice for their untimely deaths? Of course. Do I think that it is ours as humans to dole out? No.

Death begets death.

Yesterday, they executed Troy Davis. Did he deserve it? In my opinion, No. It has nothing to do with guilt or innocence to me. It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with any of the stuff that people are outraged about. It has to do with the fact that, like you or me, Troy Davis was a PERSON. Death is death and death is forever. Forever. It is a concept that I don’t think people really understand. Forever is forever. There is no taking it back.

Why was he executed? Because we, as a people (a democratic country, a system of laws), determined that it should be so. An eye for an eye. Death penalty for murder.

But isn’t the death penalty, in and of itself, murder too?

So, if Troy Davis or any of the 9,722 people who were sentenced to death between 1970 and 2009 deserved to die because they were murderers, shouldn’t the people who flip the switch or press the button to preform the execution also be executed? And so on and so on… an eye for an eye? Where does it stop?

Who are we to say that our lives are any more important than anyone else’s? Throwing religion aside completely, we were all created the same way. At the heart of it all, we all started as a sperm and an egg. Regardless of your religious beliefs, regardless of your political beliefs, regardless of your opinions, your sexual orientation, your race… we all have one thing in common.

We are all human.

And that is the most beautiful thing of all.

Why can’t we recognize the humanity in each other and make decisions outside the boxes designated by religion and politics?
Why can’t we all just get along?

"Gaaahhh!!" Definition: Unknown

Thesis.


the.sis [thee-sis] – noun, plural: -ses

“A dissertation on a particular subject in which one has done original research, as one presented by a candidate for a diploma or degree.”

Thesis.



Nightmare.

night.mare. [nahyt-mair] – noun

“1. A terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, etc.
2. A condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare.”

Nightmare.



Overwhelm.

o.ver.whelm [oh-ver-hwelm] – verb

“1. To overcome completely in mind or feeling.
2. To overpower or overcome, especially with superior forces; destroy; crush.”

Overwhelm.



My Thesis.

my.the.sis [my thee-sis] – noun

“1. A dissertation on the Americanization of the Holocaust in which I have done original research, intended to be presented for a degree.

2. An overwhelming nightmare that has consumed my life, causing me to experience feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, fear, inadequacy, a crippling fear of failure, incompetence, hopelessness, apprehension, angst, nervousness, worry, fear, panic, and general ineptitude.

3. Side effects: irritability, upset stomach, headache, dizziness, high blood pressure, difficulty breathing, IBD, indigestion, increased food consumption, blurred vision, weight gain, hypersomnia, agitation, fatigue, self-loathing, atypical depression, chronic migraine, increased smoking, malaise, frustration, snarkiness, lethargy and ADD.”

My Thesis.

Response to an Australian friend on "Why is 9/11 such a big deal?"

If you want to know what happened on 9/11, you can find a bazillion different websites offering different views, different perspectives, different theories and different degrees of memorialization. But you didn't ask what happened. You asked why it was such a big deal. So... Settle in, my lovely... These are the Words According to Jacque, and thus, should not be counted as gospel or truth, but merely an opinion... an unresearched and uncited opinion. Any facts I use to back up my arguments will not refer to their source and should, therefore, be taken with a grain of sand. It is the first thing a researcher must do to separate fact from fiction. Facts can easily be made up... but facts and opinions backed up with legitimate sources are more credible than those that cannot be.

With that out of the way... Why was 9/11 such a big deal?

I could start with the facts that most of us know by now. The whole two planes crashed into the World Trade Center thing... the whole two big buildings fell down and lots of people died. This is like saying that a grocery store sells food. It's narrowing down a million different individual pieces of information, twisting each thread into one huge generalization. Each of those pieces of information is important though. I'm not going to get into specifications on most of those pieces of information. I will tell you my opinion on why the events of 9/11 are such a big deal.

First... Let me paint you a picture of America pre-2001. American History... it's long, drawn out, going back a long time... but not super long. First there were the Indians who lived here. Then Vikings came and did Viking stuff along the coasts - buried treasure and all that jazz. Then Christopher Columbus, the idiot, thought he was sailing from Spain to India, but he got all confused because he forgot to stop to ask for directions and ran into land... so he called the people he saw Indians because he was a white man and white men are never wrong... So, people were like 'Wow, land? Let's settle it and claim it in the name of (insert country name here)!' So people from Spain came over, and from England, and from France and everyone was like 'I saw it first! It's mine!'... and they got all fight-y about it... So there were wars and stuff... and the English were being such douche bags about it that everyone who settled here got mad... they were like 'Don't tell us what to do! We're over here on this side of the water and you're over there on that side of the water and you can't control me!'... and the English were like 'Yes we can!'... and the French were like 'Eh, that's not nice. We don't like the English' so they helped the colonists fight the English because they were fuckers.

Okay... so that's this whole Revolutionary war thing... where we (the colonists) fought for independence from self important imperialists (England). Long story short, the colonists won the war and  1776, they decided to write up a piece of paper that said "Hey, ya'll, we're a country." That's the Declaration of Independence. It's an important document to us. Like the Constitution.

The important thing about this is this: The United States was founded on the idea of Freedom. Okay. Freedom. What is it? (Alright, I know I said I wouldn't cite my sources, but it gets pounded into you when you're writing papers for classes, so I can't help it... and this is a VERY important point I'm trying to make - the basis for my entire argument right here... so... I'm gonna get all scholarly and shit. Deal.)  According to Dictionary.com, Freedom is... wow... it's a lot of things... but I'm going to pick and choose from the definitions it gives to give you an idea of what freedom is to an American.

Freedom is: "the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint."

It is: "exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc."

It is: "civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government."

It is: "the right to enjoy all the privileges or special rights of citizenship, membership, etc., in a community or the like."

Freedom is a lot of things. There's a bajillion different definitions on Dictionary.com... but I realized as I was transferring them here that I'm making this boring. Scholarly shit is boring. This is not scholarly. This is... well, it's me trying to 'splain somethin.

Essentially, some of the main things you need to think about, the most important thing you need to know about America is that we were founded on freedoms. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. Freedom of the press. Lots of Freedoms, lots of Rights... Because at the beginning, we were all sick of being oppressed by that dude over in England. (He liked to tax us, so we threw tea in the harbor to piss him off)

Ok... so.. 1776, this country was founded... Yay. There was a civil war in the 1800s between the north and the south, people who wanted to abolish slavery vs people who didn't... it was nasty... but we got over it. The north won, slavery was abolished, cotton still grew.

Our country got to be pretty proud of itself... I mean, we're kinda a new-ish country... and we were prosperous and we could be pretty much self sufficient without the need to have to trade with other countries... but we decided we liked electronics, so we traded wth Japan... and we liked cheap plastic crap so we traded with Taiwan... that kinda thing... But essentially, we got big heads... we got comfortable... In the early 1900s, WWI broke out in Europe... and we came in with this "Don't worry, we'll fix it" mentality... and we were on the winning side! Yay! So we decided "Hey, guess what! We're military geniuses and we like to keep the peace, so we're going to put people in your country to tell you how to run your country because our Democracy thing is fucking awesome and ya'll should do it too..."

Well, some people didn't like that. Like Japan.

During WWII, America once again was all "Hey ya'll should stop fighting because we said so and we're awesome because we have all these freedoms and stuff"... And Japan was like "Fuck you" and they bombed Pearl Harbor (It's in Hawaii). So America went from being the biggest bully on the playground to suddenly getting slapped in the face in front of the whole world by this tiny little Asian kid...

Yeah... It wasn't pretty. It was the first time war had ever been brought to American soil. The Revolutionary war didn't count because we weren't a country then... and the civil war didn't count because that was us hating on each other. This was a foreign country bitchslapping us...

So yeah... we did the whole WWII thing, fought, killed people, won... Got to be the biggest bully on the playground again after bombing the everloving fuck out of that tiny Asian kid, putting him in a fucking coma.

And then 9/11 happened... 60 years later. (Irony = The movie, Pearl Harbor, was released in 2001.... the same year as the second attack on American soil....)

Ok.... So... why is 9/11 a big deal?

On September 11, 2001, I was 19. I was home alone. My parents were in Colorado for the summer, which was normal for them. I had class that morning. Gerontology - the study of old people... normally I slept through the class because it was an early morning class and I generally didn't give a shit. I took the class only to get my sociology credit and rationalized it to myself that my parents were old... so I was learning about my parents.

My alarm woke me up that morning. It was set to the radio. When my alarm went off, it was nothing but sirens... screams... chaos... pandemonium. Not a normal thing to wake up t, and definitely sets your mood for the day. I went upstairs to flip on the tv and I saw the World Trade Center, one of the buildings, smoking. What the fuck? At this point, I wasn't creeped out or anything... shit happens. Wow that sucks, hope everyone's okay, gotta get to class.

And then, as I stood there, I watched the second plane fly into the second tower... right... there... live...

Just like practically all of America... we watched these people fly into this building... we watched these people die.

Still, we stood there, watching the tv, the entire country was crowded around televisions, radios... all of us... the ENTIRE COUNTRY... watching this... because someone hijacked these planes... At first, there was so much confusion about everything. We thought bombs, we thought... accident?... but that second plane... the one we all watched... As a country, we all gasped, our hands to our mouths in horror... All of us... as one.

We thought it was over then... the attack was done. Clean up the wreckage, move on.... And then the first building started falling.... The World Trade Center was like a national icon... It was to New York what the Statue of Liberty is... It was to New York what the Golden Gate Bridge is to San Francisco, what the Pyramids are to Egypt... what the Opera House is to Sydney.... In that moment, the World Trade Center WAS America...

And it was falling.

There were thousands of people still inside... trying to get out... calling home for help... jumping from the windows to plummet to their deaths just to escape the hell of the fire that was inside.

That was just when one building fell.

And then... the other fell.

Just like that... All those lives... all that symbolism... nothing but smoke...ash...

The whole country watched the whole thing.

So why was 9/11 such a big deal? Because it wasn't just America that it hit... I was 19 years old... living in Omaha, Nebraska... middle of the country... far far away from the World Trade Center... I knew nobody in New York... I knew nobody directly impacted by a death, a loss, a missing person... But I will NEVER forget 9/11...

After this happened... I decided I didn't want to be alone. I drove to my best friend's house... and I took watercolors and paper... and we sat and talked about it, painting on her porch. It was eerie... because not only were there not a single plane in the sky... (there was a no fly rule across the whole country that day... Although President Bush flew into the Air Force Base just south of Omaha and we watched his plane, terrified that it was another hijacked plane, that it would crash into us...) The birds wouldn't even sing. There was no traffic. Everything was... dead. It was like everyone just... held their families close that day... everything else was put on hold and we all... held on to what we had.

What was 9/11 such a big deal? Because we all watched it happen. We all saw them die. We could do nothing... and we learned then that we really aren't the biggest meanest boys on the playground anymore.

We got a taste of our own mortality.

And we didn't like it.

Thoughts on Parasites

Every morning, when the alarm goes off far earlier than I would like, I find myself reluctantly pulled from typically the most interesting dreams of the night and thrust into this nightmare known as ‘Responsibility.’ First, before I continue, I’d like to send an imaginary middle finger to the concept of responsibility. 

Alright, that done, I would like to give you, my imaginary reader, the heebie jeebies… (otherwise known as the willies, the jitters, the creeps, et cetera)… I guess I’m sadistic like that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

After being pulled into reality every morning, I begin my normal daily routine. I won’t get too in depth about the boringness that is my life, but I will give you a wee glimpse. After yawning like a grizzly bear post-hibernation, I lumber out of the bedroom in a rather disgruntled fashion. My minion, Savannah, follows me sleepily, but, as is normal for her, happily. Sometimes I wish I was a dog. They’ve got it so easy. Every morning, I devote a few moments to scratching her behind the ears, kissing the velvet soft fur between her ear and the top of her head, letting her know that I’m grateful that she’s my dog. Seriously, unless you’ve had a dog that you’ve truly loved, you wouldn’t understand.

Well, this morning started off like every morning. The annoying beep of the alarm intruding an interesting dream in which… well… now that I think about it, the dream made no sense… but I found it interesting. With a groan, I hauled my bulk from the bed like the Kraken rising from the sea. As normal, I started giving my pup some morning lovies with my sleepy eyes half closed in memory of the sleep from which I was so rudely awakened. Kissing her between her ear and the top of her head, I noticed something VERY wrong.

That, my friends, is a tick. A ginormous ugly disgusting gag-inducing tick. Needless to say, I was instantly awake… If I have one thing I fear, detest, and loathe more than anything (even more than spiders… and that’s saying something), it would be parasites. Ticks, fleas, lice, tapeworms, etc… parasites make me… oh dear god, I can’t even explain it. I just… *shudder* Yuck. Just… just yuck.

So I started my day kissing a tick. Faaaaannnn-tastic. After freaking out… no… that’s putting it mildly… I flipped the fuck out… Then I had to remove it… I’ll spare you the details because I feel like throwing up just retelling my traumatic experience.  Here’s the sonuvabitch post-removal, pre-vomit…

Yes. I threw up. Twice. Gross.

So, this was how my day started. Parasites. All day, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

… and then my co-worker started talking about the ‘Miracle Of Childbirth’ *insert impressive sounding theme song here*…

…and I got nauseous…

The definition of a parasite (and goddamnit, I don’t feel like citing my source… Go to Google, type in ‘define:parasite’ and read it yourself if you’re that damn anal) is: ‘an animal or plant that lives in or on a host, it obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host.’

How is pregnancy not parasitic? It most totally is. A thing… growing inside a female… feeding off of her… growing… depending on her… and then, after a while, it tears itself out of the host body with NO regard to the female’s comfort or well being… and lives outside the host, but is still parasitic – feeding off of her until it is able to chew… and that’s just the ways a baby is physically parasitic…. I haven’t even mentioned monetarily, mentally, emotionally or just… goddamnit babies scare me.

So… every time I hear a mother go on and on about how babies are so wonderful and such miracles, I scoff… They’ve clearly been brainwashed by the little parasites they’ve carried. How is a mother prancing their baby around any different than a person naming their tapeworm and showing strangers pictures of their ‘widdle sweetheart’?  Know what I say everytime someone asks me when I’m going to have a baby? “Pregnancy scares me. Ever seen Alien?”

Okay, I’m babbling. I’m tired… and grossed out.

The point is this: Parasites are gross. Babies are parasites. Therefore babies are gross.

And ticks…. Goddamnit ticks are nasty fuckers.