2ndclepunkbuddha

Many people in life, myself included, have missed out on opportunities.  Sometimes it was a scheduling conflict, a transportation issue, or a demand from another party that stopped us from doing something we really wanted to do.  Some of the thing we miss out on are trivial, some a serious, and many are somewhere in between.  A person who chronically does this is a person who does not wish to socialize and also criticize those who want to do social things.  Essentially, this is what the person "does for a living": In that they choose not to have a social life and rip apart the self esteem of others around them.  They find fault or reason as to how and why someone should not do something, it's a waste of time, it's ridiculous, it's boring, etc.  All or some of these observations may be true, but the ultimate problem is that the one who constantly does this is setting themselves up for a lifetime of regrets.  No one regrets that they took that crazy trip...

I always thought that bottled water was the biggest rip off of the 20th century, second only to indoor tanning beds.  Every person on earth would get it for free and suddenly we were paying for it, a tactic of marketing.  For the success of the marketers, I give them credit, but it was hardly an industry that was brand new or created just recently.  Of course the eco terrorists are still telling us how much additional plastic waste it creates, and I think that every time I take out the trash.  Since ancient times people have transported water from other geographic areas, it seems in the 90s sales all of a sudden quadrupled and we were sporting them everywhere we went, spring and purified tap water remain the best sellers in a billion dollar industry.  It remains the world's most precious resource.  And I gave it to him the last time I saw him. It was not a particularly strange day, not much if anything had happened of note.  The phone rang, he said h...

The other week, I was at my local library.  I have always enjoyed the library, more than most people I think.  Although I haven't frequented the library as much as I did in previous years thanks to advances in technology, I have always and continue to enjoy my time there.  It's also one of the best places to get movies, as my library always has currant and popular titles as well as the more high ended things, and one can always find whatever it is they are looking for depending on mood or circumstance.  I loaded up in the DVD section on some horror movies I had not seen in a long time and some I had not, then took my items to the front desk for check out.  When I approached the front desk, I had this feeling like I knew the person who was waiting on me but could not quite place her.  She appeared to be in her early to mid twenties, how did I know her?  And suddenly, it occurred to me. About nine years ago, I was in karate class.  We were doing s...

Famed English poet Alexander Pope once famously wrote "To err, is human; to forgive, divine."  One does not realize the depth of these words until you have, like many other things, experienced it firsthand.  Please be advised that I am not looking for religious significance in this statement, I am about as far away from being considered a religious person as you can get.  I have experienced firsthand the hypocrisy, guilt and contradictions of the so called "religious person" or even "spiritual people".  When one frees themselves of the fundamentalist guilt we have been taught, one is at last free to live a moral, fulfilling life.  But that's another story.  Humans are not perfect creatures by any means, we mess a lot of things up here and there.  How many times has one done or said something that we shouldn't have, don't we all have so many dirty little secrets no one knows about.  We have all been on the giving and receiving end of cruel mistr...

I've been on the dole for over six months now.  Of course this is nothing new due to my rather hilarious work history that took a severe nose dive about ten years ago, but this is the world we live in now.  When one's been kicked in the ribs multiple times, aside from what it does to your physical and mental health, one has to face a lot of humility and say that one must make certain adjustments.  Suddenly it's tightening the belt and not trying to spend on things that you used to so frivolously before, realizing that it's not about the worst thing that could ever happen to you (and suddenly you realize maybe it was), and having a new change set into one's mind that you didn't think was going to happen.  In the quest to make something happen for myself, I decided to look for a summer job.  Summer jobs are, like their name suggests, are seasonal employment opportunities, usually catering to those between the ages of sixteen and twenty one during their high sch...

In the last few years, we have been bombarded with these anti-bullying campaigns that are prominent in schools now.  When I was teaching last semester, I was curious to see exactly what changes were being made for this.  The only additional changes outside of the basic classes was a new addition called Character Building.  Out of curiosity, I asked to sit in on these classes to observe exactly what this was about.  Most of these things are concerned with being nice to one another.  Some are presented with situation that they are to interpret in a variety of ways.  Execution of this can come in the form of role playing games, a "what would you do" Choose Your Own Adventure, or debating topics.  These are helpful exercises in that it gives the teacher the ability to preform things that may or may not fall under state requirements as your standard health classes may or may not say (the introduction of birth control / sex ed, healthy eating habits, etc.)...

This documentary has been much anticipated in the last few months.  Montage of Heck is a documentary about the life of Kurt Cobain, front man of Nirvana, leader of the Grunge Era of the 90s, who had hoped to sell and gain as much as Sonic Youth and ended up being the last great rock band to close out the twentieth century.  Last year was the twentieth anniversary since his death (see a previous blog on reflections for this), and it was with a rather heavy heart that I watched this documentary.  I was one of those Nirvana fans, as many know.  I think the timing was right, I was the right age who came into my own right when they rose to fame and the climate shifted over into the supernova of hipsters that was the beginning of the 90s.  Of course, I had much to learn, much taste to acquire and more experiences in life to have, but I didn't know it at the time.  But I digress... Here is my reaction to the film because I wanted to state my reaction. We start o...

Those who follow my Facebook posts and read with regularity know that every once in a while I will have made a reference to my neighbors in the apartment building in which I live.  Honestly, in the many years that I have now lived her, there is little to complain about living in this building.  It is populated by mostly older people (as in those who are well past their retirement age), most if not all are mindful and silent, and have made living here, for the most part, pleasant.  There are few if any younger people here, and I'm happy to know that there are a few older women who live here who I consider to be my friend.  And that's a good thing, which one cannot imagine doing in this day and age to have an actual friend outside of an academic setting where one is free to do and say and feel freely rather than the nonsense that has become the world that we live in now.  But that's another blog of course...  If you have never had a terrible neighbor to deal ...

I got a letter in the mailbox today asking for a donation to my high school's annual fund.  I have supported these things in the past, it helped shape who I am today like it or not.  The summer before last, I decided to go to my 20th high school reunion.  I asked myself why I did this, to this day I am still asking myself why I did it.  One often times ends up wearing their yoga pants and wearing "This is what Awesome looks like" T shirt down to the mailbox and nearly choking on that bag of cookies you are eating when they open a letter like this.  You then break out the yearbook and wonder what happened to the one voted Most Likely to Succeed, and realize you did not live up to that and would be voted Most Likely to Wear PJ Pants During a Late Night Trip to Wal-Mart.  This letter today asked me, the alumnae they are asking a donation from, to reminisce about their favorite memory from high school.  Here are some of the questions they asked: 1)  ...

One would have to argue that I have had some rather hilarious experiences in life.  Much of it comes from a love of travel, a tendency to risk take, be slightly blinded by enthusiasm until it hits me in the forehead, and want and need to collect freaky, eccentric, and anywhere from slightly to extremely unstable people.  The other week was just such an adventure; and, oddly enough, involved a-ha.  As many of you know (or have just learned like the majority of people in the US), a-ha broke up in 2010 after a twenty five year history together in fits and starts.  Quite by accident, I discovered that they never had another hit in the US after their super single "Take on Me", did some internet searches, met some people, etc.  When they announced their break up, we, the US a-ha fan clique, was disappointed and saddened.  One thing that we loved to do as a group was to have a weekend together.  In the host city, we would arrange a tourist acti...

I saw a newsfeed through YouTube the other day saying that they are encouraging a project among the kids.  You are to make a video of yourself and post it on said website for the world to see of what advice you would give your younger self.  Although I am not so young anymore and clearly past the demographic that they are aiming for, I did think on this.  It's a good thing to be able to have others see, have others see what you can and have done with yourself, and how you reflect upon your experiences.  I do this quite a bit to begin with, and some do not.  So I take on this project in the form of a blog rather than a video, because I didn't want to put on my Sunday best nor be bothered with hair and makeup adjustments at this hour.  For all of those out there who may be reading this whose paths have not crossed with mine, this may be of some value to you.  So with the assumption that I am speaking to my high school aged self, here is some advice and p...

(I took a trip to Graceland in February 2005 with my old boyfriend.  That was a long time ago now but as I had just reread some passages from Priscilla Presley's memoir Elvis And Me and thought I would share some thoughts on it.  Plus this was before I had put my blog onto this forum.) She stood before me at the front desk while checking and unzipped the garment bag she was carrying.  Inside was a big, poofy white wedding dress bedecked and spilling out sequins and sparkly things on the carpet.  I asked what this was about, she had traveled from Ireland and was getting married tomorrow at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in the Woods, adjacent to the Graceland house across the street.  I was in Memphis, Tennessee at the world famous Heartbreak Hotel and had come to take a long anticipated trip as all rock and roll fans aspire to take one day, I had come to see Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley.  Exactly why I was here, I was not sure.  In the b...

Today I took a standardized test.  This is my inner old lady coming out, but I seem to remember in my day that standardized tests were not as corporately controlled nor was it such a process and check in security as they were in my day.  The last time I took a standardized test, I was still in high school taking the SAT.  On that day twenty plus years ago, I was shuffled into a large lecture hall at a local public high school with about seventy five to a hundred high school juniors and seniors (none of which I knew) who remained in relative silence.  You could see the range of emotions in the eyes of them, which varied from anxiety to apathy, as we were designated to our seats.  I listened to the instructions of the monitoring person, then began in the language arts area and leading into the math section.  On occasion the monitoring individuals would pause at the end of the rows, of which I was on the end of, silently checking up on the test takers.  I...

Valentine's Day is once again approaching.  This is the commercialization of love once again which is totally annoying, when we are to show someone that we love them by increasing the national debt.  I know plenty of men and women from all walks of life who have things to say on it.  Stereotypically women will show their inner gold digger when they do not receive diamonds or roses for this day, men want to vomit on their TV sets when they see commercials for said diamonds or roses and get bent out of shape when they don't get sex out of it and make fun of women who think it's about romance novels and chick flicks.  (You won't believe this, but studies show that women who openly or secretly read romance novels have twice as much sex as women who don't.) On this coming Valentine's Day I am, once again, unattached to anyone in particular.  It's not the worst thing that could happen to anyone, of course, but I choose in my annual V Day blog to be a sort of con...