Dead Things

"They" say bad things come in threes, right? Well, apparently dead things come that way too. This afternoon, I found a dead bird laying in the middle of my living room. I scooped it up, tossed it over the fence, and went upstairs. Two hours later, I went down and found a dead chipmunk laying on my floor, my dog Cooper looking really proud. I thanked him for his efforts at feeding me, assured him I could survive on the stuff in the freezer and pantry, then tossed it over the fence. This evening, I came out into my mom's kitchen (I live in the downstairs apartment) and found yet another dead bird. So that should be it, right? No more dead things for a while?

I'm wondering if it's some sort of freaky omen or something. I'm generally not all that superstitious, but things have been kind of off lately all over the place in my life. I've been feeling low, anxious, and sad quite a bit. I miss my grandparents more and more every day. I thought it would get better with time, but it's not. I'm scared about not having a job, stressing about money on a daily basis. I'm frustrated with my current situation and inability to figure out how to make it better. Life has gotten harder than I ever imagined it could, and I'm just trying to deal with it the best I can. Then dead things turn up all over the house. Does it have a deeper meaning? According to my superstitions book, a bird in the house means death. If it's dead though, does it mean the opposite? Of course I'm looking too much into this. It could just mean I have too many cats. I'm feeling rather melancholy though, and I've always been prone to random depression in the summer months. It's just too darn bright and cheery out.

Wii EA Sports Active Personal Trainer First Impressions

I took a survey a few months ago, and found out a few weeks ago that I qualified for the 30 Day Challenge through Ammo Marketing, which got me the game for free. Yay for free stuff! I've been waiting very anxiously. It came today, and I was to start using it right away because the challenge also started today.

So I ran home, opened the box, opened the box inside the box, put the game in, unplugged the DVD player and plugged in the Wii (only our front AV things work), turned on the Wii, updated the Wii, figured out how to put the leg band on, put the leg band back on after it fell off and got started. Five minutes later, I had my profile entered and was already cursing at the perky trainer. "You want me to do what? Run? Seriously? Why? Am I being chased by a cannibal?"

So far, the game is pretty awesome. I only had to do a twenty minute workout, and you're never doing the same thing more than maybe two minutes at a time, so in theory, it should go fast. To me and my non-exercising self, it seemed like an hour went by. My first medium intensity (this was my first mistake, by the way) workout consisted of walking/running (more running than walking, I don't think it's right that they tease you by implying that you'll actually get to walk for more than three seconds), squats, boxing (my favorite, it's always fun to hit stuff!), side lunges (see my issues with the game below), bicep curls with the resistence band, some horrible bent rowing thing, and inline skating (which I've never done with skates, so I don't know how to do it without). These exercises repeated two times. It's like a cheaper version of Curves, except not as fast paced.

Pros-
-It's cheaper than Wii Fit, but if you do have the balance board, you can use it.
-Constantly changing exercises, so I didn't get bored too fast
-Pretty good, in-depth videos that explain everything.
-A fairly complete workout
-Can just do whatever exercises you want if you don't want to take the 30 Day Challenge.

Cons-
- I wish I could put my own music in it, or that it at least had some way to choose just the stuff you want to hear beyond just choosing a genre. Overall, the music was by far the weakest part.
- That crazy nunchuck doesn't stay in the leg band right, or I'm not clear on how to put it in right (the one flaw in the video, she does it too fast and I can't see which way it's supposed to go), so the game kept telling me I wasn't doing the side lunges correctly.
-After a while, the leg band does fall down. Especially when running. Of course, I was wearing pajamas that are like two sizes too big, so the pant leg was crinkly. This could have contributed to the problem.

So far, I would reccomend this game. I'll update this when I've seen more of what the game has to offer.

Ticking time bomb or future King?

I just sat down to write something that I thought would be therapeutic about an event that took place when I was fourteen. Something that, as I'm finding in therapy, has affected me far more than I gave it credit for doing. I thought if I wrote it out just for myself, and wrote out an "alternate ending," I would feel better. I still plan to do that, but then a thought occurred to me. If an adult writes a fictional piece about people killing others for any reason, sometimes revenge, other times for sheer joy, no one blinks. Some adults make a rather lucrative living off violently slaughtering fictional innocents in ways far more terrifying than via a shooting spree. If Stephen King wrote about a high schooler going on a killing spree, it would be a best seller. (It is possible that he already wrote about this. Wasn't Apt Pupil about that? I'm sorry Mr. King, I haven't read all your stuff. I'm more of a Koontz girl. But I love your movies and think you're awesome. Although I'm a little bitter about that damn clown.)

However, teenagers, frustrated with the social pressures and ridiculous games played out in high schools across the country, are not permitted this same freedom of creative expression. If a senior English Lit student writes about slaughtering his classmates, he's yanked out of school, expelled at best, and arrested at worse. It is assumed that he is mentally unbalanced, plotting another Columbine. He needs to be removed, studied, possibly sent far away for the protection of the other children. He is immediately guilty of harboring a desire to turn his fiction into reality.

Where is the logic in that? Where is the logic in denying a creative student an outlet for all that teenage angst intensified by adolescent hormones? Have there been actual scientific studies stating that if a teenager writes about murdering his classmates, he'll actually go out and do it? I'd like to see some hard, unbiased data on this. I'm pretty sure all across the country, teenagers are scribbling in their journals (do they still even use paper journals anymore?) about flaying the homecoming queen or castrating the quarterback. If every kid who wrote or thought about it actually did it, we wouldn't have very many high schools now would we? So where is the logic? Preemptive strike maybe? The US seems to be very fond of preemptively striking against other countries, so it shouldn't be surprising they'd do it to even the youngest of their citizens.

When I was a senior in high school, several years before Columbine turned the school system into a place of paranoia and over-reaction, I wrote a story in which another student I did not like was brutally impaled by a hockey stick. I handed it in to my teacher (a Catholic nun). She wasn't thrilled, she told me I shouldn't harbor such feelings of hatred, but that was the end of it. I still received a good grade for the quality of the writing. I did not go on to kill anyone. I never would, except possibly in self defense. I grew up to be a pretty good person, or at least I think so. I shudder to think what would have become of me if I handed that in today.

I feel for teens today, I really do. As obnoxious as they can be (I'm sure I was just as bad), it has to be more than a little disconcerting to know that if you write or say the wrong thing, even if it's just an innocent creative writing exercise, your entire school career can be destroyed. But don't despair, just keep your mouths shut and your pens still until you graduate. Then, suddenly, you're no longer a threat to society if you write about killing the prom queen.

"I can do it!"

I am beginning to really dread those words when they come out of my almost-four-year-old. As a mother, I am certainly very proud of how independent Jacob is becoming. I'm proud that he uses the potty and never has an accident, I'm proud that he can dress himself, clean up his own messes (when he chooses, unfortunately that's the one time he says "I can't do it!"), and has mastered the mouse and keyboard so he can endlessly play at NickJR.com. Really, I'm very proud of my son. He's amazing, he learns something new every day, and he has limitless energy.

But as a human being prone to great impatience, hearing those four little words- I can do it!- in a tone that says "back off Mommy, if you try to button these pants, I'm taking out your eye!" makes me cringe on more occasions than not. The phrase usually comes as we're trying to get out the door for an appointment for which we're already late because Jake had to make sure the Wonder Pets really did save the day, or Map gave proper directions for Dora to reach her destination, or those meddling kids and their dog actually could solve the mystery. So we're already late, and my darling boy is trying to button the most impossible pair of pants, because Mommy didn't make it to the laundry mat (our washer is broken) and those are the only clean pair left. The mere suggestion that sometimes it is okay to ask for help sends him into a tantrum.

I stand there watching, waiting, alternating between thinking "I am throwing out every damn pair of pants that has buttons," "Please kiddo, please just ask Mommy for help," and "gee, I'm so proud of my little boy!' Seconds tick by, Jacob likes us to count to see how long it takes to put on his clothes. Each article starts back at zero. Eight seconds for undies, 15 for socks, twenty seconds for a shirt because he has to turn it round and round to make sure the tag is in the back. Then the pants. I stop counting at around fifty.

So intent on doing things himself is my son that he talks about it in his sleep. He woke up screaming last night. As I got him calmed down, he was crying over and over "I can do it, I want to do it, I can do it!" I asked him "What baby? What can you do?" His response- "Be Spongebob." Uh, alright kiddo, that's one thing Mama can't help you with, so go for it.

I'd rather be smart than sane

As you can tell, if you're paying attention, I lost interest in the whole "self help" experiment days ago. I tried to take it seriously, but every book I checked out of the library bored me practically to tears. It's not that I don't want to be helped, I just think there are better ways of going about it. I go to therapy every other week. My therapist is awesome. She tells me that all the things I feel, all the things I worry about, are perfectly normal. I'm not a freak, I'm not all that insane. We make progress. I figure that by making myself go every other week, I'm helping myself. So why drag myself and anyone who may actually be reading this through a tedious experiment when I think we all know what the end result would be. I am trying to change my way of thinking, but not because a book told me how to do it. I'm trying to be more positive, less doom and gloom. Although quite often, the only thing I'm "positive" about is the fact that I'm pretty screwed right now. But at least I'm positive about something! Yay for that!

Instead of self-help, I'm going back to my great love: self-education. Ever since Jake was born, I've grown lax on my goal to learn everything there is to know about everything under the stars. I did go to school and took some pretty difficult and intense classes, but that can't be classified as self-education. I used to pick a subject, absorb as much information as possible on it, then move on. I learned more about sleep in a month than most people learn in a lifetime (although none of it stuck apparently, because here I am at 2am wide awake. I'm usually just getting off the phone about now, but someone got his ass kicked by cold medicine, so I'm making do with the internet).

I think the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most important adventures a human can take. I think too many people are too content to learn only what they need to know for their chosen field, or worse, learn nothing at all and let other people figure things out for them. I want to know everything. I want to know how the human body works, how ancient civilizations survived, how a microscopic bug can wipe out millions, why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. I don't understand how so many can be happy to just know how to eat, sleep, breathe, and fuck.

So instead of reading random, boring self-help books, I'm currently reading Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum. I've learned a lot about the horrible things our country has done to other countries in the world. I don't understand how we, the people, did not know about these things before, and if we did, why the hell we would let it continue. It hasn't exactly been the cathartic, healing sort of experience that I would have gotten from, say, the Secret, but it's been enlightening and at least I'm learning something.  I highly recommend it. Next, I'm either going to further educate myself on censorship of the press throughout history, or read about the various parts of the human brain more in depth than I went into in nursing school. Someday, I'll have amassed as much knowledge as my hero Ken Jennings, and will be able to kick ass on Jeopardy. That's always been the goal. Sane is great and all, but I'd really rather be smart. I kind of don't think you can have it both ways.

I Hate May

May is the worst month financially for me, because it is the month I have to register my car, get car insurance, and get the car inspected. I have yet to just take my car to be inspected and leave after paying the simple $20 fee. Last year, it cost over $500 to get it inspected, because it needed tires, bushings (I think that's what they're called, I keep calling them the wrong thing, they make your car not tip over when you turn), a tune-up, transmission fluid flushed and refilled (or whatever they did with it) and a few other things. Not all of these things were required to pass, but the guy made it sound like my car would explode if I didn't get it done, so I just kept saying "fine, whatever." This year, I don't have the money for "fine, whatever." So when he came at me with a list a mile long of things I needed to do to make my car survive another year, I burst into tears and started bawling in the middle of the Midas car service area. The list was narrowed down to four things that HAVE to be done, coming out to $350. Now, apparently, I'm getting a "good" deal on the work and parts, but when you don't have a damn job, $350 is an awful lot of money.

Car insurance is another fun thing. I've never had a ticket. I had one accident five years ago involving a turtle, but that's it. Yeah, okay, so that turtle incident totaled my car, but I had State Farm at the time and the bastards didn't even give me half of what my car was worth. So why does it cost $300 for six months just for liability? I had to drop everything else in order to afford the insurance. We had two cars on our old policy, and Rich had like five tickets and four accidents in the last seven years. Everything was covered, and that only cost $688 for six months. Why is mine so high? That doesn't seem very fair.

May is just a crappy month. On the one hand, I hate living in a state that forces inspections, but on the other hand, if they didn't force it on me, I'd have no idea that my car was the death trap they claim it to be. I also think it's ridiculous to have to register your car every single year. A car should be registered once, unless you move. It's just another way for the state to steal more of the money I don't even have. May is coming to an end, and I still haven't registered the car or fixed all the crap that needs to be fixed. Screw you May.

Self-help for the self-helpless

Today, after applying for yet another job about which I'll probably never hear back, I decided to peruse the library for an hour. I love the library, filled with thousands of books (however, none of my extensive Amazon wish list books can ever be found there, much to my chagrin), people being obnoxiously quiet, and stacks high enough to hide me indefinitely from the outside world (also too high for me to actually reach anything, but they are kind enough to provide stools every three feet, so they get points for being short-person friendly). I like to go and just randomly browse a section or two in great depth. Today I somehow managed to choose the section that contains self-help books, followed by true crime and conspiracy books. Yes, I believe there is a connection between the two, but do we really want to get that far into my muddled way of thinking? Even my therapist gets a bit confused at times, and she is trained to understand crazy little minds.

I honestly do not get the appeal of the self-help book. This is a multi-million dollar market. The New York Times Bestseller's List now has, at least on Amazon, an entire list devoted to these types of books. Entire books dedicated to telling me how to transform my entire life by just changing the way I think. Books that tell me how to get rid of self-defeating behavior, how to think positive, how to think more like a man (oh the places I could go with this) , how to let go and let some form of higher power take over, and how to not "sweat the small stuff." All I have to do is read thier book, and my life will instantly be better.

Does it actually work for anyone? I really want to know. Will I read a book about the power of positive thinking and suddenly be freed from all the anxiety about my lack of gainful employment. Will I be struck with an epiphone about my true calling in life after reading a few passages from the ever famous "What Color is Your Parachute?" Can I learn to love myself and find self-worth by reading a book of the same title?

I don't think it can work. My mother is an adamant believer that it can. We have argued this point many times. I think we all know ourselves well enough to understand our own mindset. Saying to ourselves "snap out of it, think positive!" is not going to instantly change our lives. I am, by nature, pessimistically optomistic at best. When my serotonin levels are up, I think everything is going to be just dandy, and everything will work out the way it is supposed to. When they're down, I'm convinced the universe is conspiring to keep me miserable for the rest of my life. I already know exactly what is wrong with me. I know where all my problems stem from, I know what makes me the way I am. Can a few thousand words on a page actually change my entire life?

So I'm embarking on an experiment. For the next two months, I will read every self-help book that I can fit in to my already busy schedule of moping around, crying about my lack of finances, and stressing over the lack of color in my parachute. So, probably about four. I'll actually follow the advice in the books. If, at the end of that sixty days, I have found some major insight into my own way of thinking and managed to completely turn it around, won the lottery by the sheer power of positive thought, or even found a job I actually love, then I'll admit defeat. If not, well, I get nothing, because I can barely take on a multi-million dollar industry and convince them to admit they're wrong. I get the satisfaction of knowing that I'm right though, even if no one else feels the same.

So watch for the new "Pretty Nameless Self-Helpless Experiment Blog," which I'll link here as soon as I create it.