Drunken Spectacles

There is literally a period from 12 to 3 on weekend nights when I go out to roam the halls just to check out all the amusing things the drunk people are doing. Highlights: getting told it was super hot that I was having sex in the shower (this did not actually happen despite intoxicated individuals thinking it did), getting begged at, "don't hate me," by my class president's girlfriend, getting half-tackled by a boy who, earlier in the night, dove on a beer pong table and spent the rest of the night covered in beer, and hearing my very straight-edge RA yell "I swear to God, I'm going to kick his ass," at one of the few sober people on the floor (albeit, he's annoying sober or drunk).
Also, one of my friends is sleeping on my extraneous mattress because he has been sexiled, and, just before we went to sleep he lept up and ran to the bathroom to "get there before it got thrown up all over." This was probably a good call on his part, but only time will tell.

Untitled but Remembered

I can remember my grandma telling me, somewhat jokingly, when I was little that she knew she was old when her friends started to die. She told me that, one day, I would feel that, too. But I doubt she had my seventeen-year-old self in mind. Yet, I have only experienced the loss of one person my age. That was hard, but somehow, losing people who I am close to who are also much closer to an age at which it is appropriate to die, has been astronomically harder. Perhaps it is because those who we expect to die soon we have much longer periods to accumulate sadness for than those who die suddenly. Two people I have dearly respected have died in the last six months, one of whom I considered almost a grandmother and one of whom I considered a hero. Mortality has never troubled me greatly; I'm not worried about souls or people being forgotten, but I am worried about making sure the people who didn't get to know these women know what they did. My surrogate grandmother died at five this morning and my grandmother, mother, and I have been charged with finishing her present to her newborn granddaughter. We are building a dollhouse, because Meredith needs to know her grandmother and know how much she was loved.

Self-Image Project

This is a project recently assigned for my Visual Literacy class. We had to make a compilation of images about us. Our professor said he was always surprised by how revealing they were. So, this is me. And a lot of it is insanely personal, but there's no reason anyone but me would understand any of it. Also, this is perhaps my favorite song ever (it happens to be by Girlyman, Ty wrote it).

The Art of Seduction

In general, I would assert that throwing one's self on another human is kind of, lets face it, trashy. Recently, I have been confronted with one particular man that seems to get people throwing themselves at him all the time, I may even be a tad guilty (though, to clarify, I'm distinctly uninterested). I've met three such guys in my life, at least that I know of, that are great, but in no way, physically or otherwise, completely irresistible (I feel I can say this because I have had a crush on all of them at some point). I never fail to be baffled by these seemingly ordinary men constantly having the attractions of an obscene number of women. One I have dated and two have been best friends. Two are also bisexual. All of these things continue to puzzle me. At any rate, one of them I've been spending a lot of time getting to know recently, and he has now been dubbed an "accidental man-whore" because of all the girls he has circling around him. What I find especially fascinating about these guys it that they rarely seem to recognize that their experiences are, in any way, not normative. So, the men are intriguing, but the women command equal intrigue. When one knows a guy is, for lack of a better term, a man-whore, why would one continue to pursue them? Why is it that we find so attractive something that will, inevitably, cheat on us or break our hearts in some other manner? 

Grace

One of my friends just mentioned how she liked that my blog had this title because, even though it is thoroughly unrelated, Grace also happens to be my best friend's name. This got me to thinking about one of my long standing life philosophies which I thought I'd better share. Another best friend told me many years ago that he had always thought that the person you were supposed to end up with, life would give you a lot of chances to find. Now, I am not remotely traditionally religious, but I consider myself very spiritual, and I am still toying with my personal beliefs about fate, but I truly like and believe that statement. The world will give you as many chances as you need to get things right even if it isn't how you initially planned them. While this was referring to love, I find it has quite broad applications. Grace, for instance, came up in these to scenarios. I also have a particular affinity for the number 17 or 7 specifically. It makes it a lot easier to take full advantage of the world around you knowing that there will always be more opportunities.  

Pit Bulls

I will say upfront that I'm fuming as I write this, but rather than start a shouting match it seemed appropriate to complain to the readers of the blogosphere. I don't understand why people are voluntarily mean-spirited without any provocation.

I have returned since I originally wrote those first few sentences now that I am less angry. Basically, my mom made a Facebook status about how it's sad that people don't adopt pit bulls and think they're vicious when really that mostly comes down to the way they are trained. So then this lady, comments that her husband is a doctor and they see so many pit bull bites and that the dogs deserve all the scrutiny they get. While it may be true in some places that pit bulls cause a lot of bites (locally, it is not), that wasn't the point of the post. So I commented that I the spirit of the original post was good-spirited and she should just let it be, at which point this individual commented again about how much damage pit bulls do and how mean they are. I have met plenty nice pit bulls, and I have come across some mean ones. That isn't the point. The point is that my mom made the post to be nice and bring up an issue. It doesn't matter if you disagree, what on earth would inspire someone to be that rude and mean-spirited, especially on Facebook. If I see a post, unless it is truly offensive (it which case it is probably a better idea to message the poster and let them know it may not be appropriate), that I disagree with I just ignore it. I don't understand why anyone would go out of their way to make the poster feel bad for trying to make a nice comment.

Anyways, I was troubled.

Poverty Project

In US Society a few days ago, we were talking about the social construction of poverty. Now, that's interesting but not a huge shocker to me. What was a shocker was this simulation, playspent.org. It makes you make financial decisions for a single mom and child for a month and kicks you out of the game if you run out of money. You have to talk a month. The game lasts about fifteen minutes and is insanely stressful. Don't feel bad, everyone kills the dog.