Like Snakes on a Plane...

...only there's just one snake. And it's me. And the plane is my feminism class. And it has nothing to do with Samuel L. Jackson. Or really the plot, structure, themes, etc. of the movie as a whole. Point being, I'm starting to feel like a sneaky infiltrator in my feminism class, sitting there wide eyed, appropriately reacting, laughing, mocking....all against the big, bad oppressive patriarchy. We received our paper topics today. And like my professor kindly suggested, I think I'm going to take apart the movie The Little Mermaid as my literary analysis. The intellect that I am, I see no difficulty is analyzing the clearly sexist, classist story, bashing the overtones of "us" versus "the other." My words will change lives, touch the deepest parts of souls everywhere, tear down the walls of patriarchy brick by brick! My paper will be the afternoon delight of feminist critique.

And I won't take a word of it to heart. I'll still love Ariel, sing the songs...probably marry into the very patriarchy that I can so adequately theorize against. Because when it comes down to it, I'm great at mindlessly regurgitating. Thank you, Academia.

Nails and Needles (aka, what I'm going to name my band...)

Many of you know that my cousin, Mark, is over in Iraq right now, fighting the 120 degree weather (often without AC), restlessness, and low morale...among other things. Every now and then, he sends out an email update with cool stories about what they've been doing. However, this week, his story involved less gunfire and more hilarity, hence, I feel like I should share it with my little blog world. Without his permission. What are obnoxious little cousins for?

For those of you who know me best, this will serve as yet another classic “first impression Mark” story. So I have been dealing with an ingrown toenail for the past week, and I finally decided to go to the medics to get it taken care of since my self aid failed at repairing the problem. So I went there and while I was waiting, a cute nurse walks out from the back and did an honest-to-goodness double-take when she saw me sitting on the couch. I tried to act cool and unaffected, but I totally noticed and I tried not to laugh or let her know that I caught her even though we were both looking at each other. When I finally got called up, she walked up to the guy that called me and insisted on helping him out with me. For those of you who know my history with needles, you will understand why this didn’t make me feel good since I knew she was about to witness my “kryptonite” firsthand. Sure enough, during the patient Q&A with the guy and her taking my vitals, they asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1-10, and I answered with a 7. She asked if I was going to cry, and I told her, “not yet, but maybe when you break out that needle.” Then I went into my history with needles and told her that there was a good chance that I would pass out and that there was no way I would not be watching this operation. She seemed like it wasn’t a big deal, but it didn’t help me feel “cool” or tough anymore, especially since I have a legitimately cool job that I had worked into the conversation (and she had already seen my painted weapon, which always draws attention).

So I laid back on the table they put me up on (in anticipation of what would most likely happen once they started operating) and the doctor then asked if I was going to pass out, and I told him that there was a good chance. So he asked for the iodine or whatever they wave under one’s nose when they pass out. So this procedure calls for a “digital block” which consists of 4 needles to numb the toe. My buddy, Gibson, told me he had this done back in April, and he had told them to stop after the 2^nd needle b/c it hurt so badly, so I had that in the back of my mind walking in. So they start sticking me and the pain is WAY up there on the scale. I start breathing fast and long story short, they had to stop after the first 3 to give me a break, b/c I started hyperventilating and the doctor had to get an oxygen mask to put over my mouth since my rapid breathing caused a CO₂ buildup which resulted in the muscles in my arms, mouth, and tongue to spasm and contract, preventing me from controlling them as well as an additional load of lots of pain and inability to speak (I had to resort to mumbling and head nods from there on). Oh yea, and I don’t think I ever actually passed out, but the doctor did remove the oxygen mask several times to wave the whatever under my nose and coach me on taking deep breaths. So after some deep breaths, they proceeded with the 4^th, and what was supposed to be the final, needle. After which, they asked if I could feel them applying pressure and I still could! So another doctor offered me her hand to grab onto saying that I would need to squeeze her hand b/c the next needle was going to be “a big one.” As soon as they stuck this 5^th, HUGE needle directly into the top of my toe, I remember thinking that I wanted to break every finger in this lady’s hand as some measure of retribution for having a hand in all this pain. I guess I wasn’t squeezing as hard as I thought I was (since I really couldn’t control my hands at that point), b/c she didn’t even make a sound or tell me to let up, so I guess that was a good thing. At one point, that doctor even brought over the cute nurse to feel my arms since she was new and wanted to feel what a “normal” spasm, as a result of hyperventilating, felt like. You can imagine my excitement at realizing I had become a medical prop for this cute nurse that I have already lost major cool points on, but what could I do?

Finally the procedure was over, and when I regained control of my hands I tried to sit up, but had to lie back down since I started feeling woozy. When I sat back up again, the guy who originally called me back and was questioning me said, “man that was awesome, you turned totally pale and hyperventilated.” And then the cute nurse chimed in that I “really took it like a champ and didn’t even pass out.” My response to both was that it was the complete OPPOSITE of awesome and not fun. The cutie just smiled at me while I shook my head in shame at her. I can only imagine what she was thinking after all this. I didn’t end up saying anything to her after that, b/c I couldn’t really think of anything good to say nor could I figure out how I would even see her again unless, I feigned illness so I could go back. However, she happens to work in a medical tent that is different from the one I am supposed to receive treatment in so even that probably wouldn’t work. So yea, I came up empty handed on this one, but after the guy gave me some Tylenol for the pain, he said I would probably be back later for something stronger once the numbing meds wore off, and I figured if I saw her again at that time and she had a favorable reaction, then I would say something. However, when I did end up going back later, she wasn’t there so no dice.

So, am I upset that this didn’t have a happy ending? Nah, I can still take away the satisfaction of the “double take” she gave me as well as her jumping on the chance to take care of me. And (maybe more importantly), she is still an Army chick, so I may be seeing her through 8-months-of-deployment-eyes anyway. Man, really I need to come home already! =)


Ahh Markle Sparkle...how I love you!

A Little Bible Never Hurt Anyone

On my way back from the Mud-run on Saturday (if you don't know what I'm talking about, just you wait till the pictures go up on facebook), I pulled out my Bible on cd, flipped...or rather skipped...to the appropriate track and caught up on a little 2nd Chronicles. And now, for the paraphrase:

So King Ahab of Israel wants to buddy up with Jehoshephat from Judah to go to war, and Jehoshephat is like, ok, sure. Let's do this. But he's smart so he says, check with the prophets. So Ahab's prophets are all like, "yeah, go to war!" All enthused and such. But Jehoshephat says, "naw man, do you have any prophets of the LORD? (Like all caps kind of LORD, which means Yahweh, not any of those other gods that one might translate to lord in the lower caps sense of the term) Cuz you ought to check with them." And Ahab is like, "yeah...well we've got this one guy, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me. Only disaster."

Um...duh! Of course Ahab hates the guy. Turns out the prophet, Micaiah had some major bad news for Ahab: this crazy vision about scattered sheep on the mountain and a spirit who lies to all the other prophets. Granted, Ahab gets pissed at this, puts Micaiah in jail, and goes off to war anyways. Then he gets jacked between the scales of his armor, his crew loses, and he dies watching the battle go south.

And this has been Bible stories according to Meredith. Funny how people care more about what they want to hear than what is actually true.

And because I'd hate to end this post on a thought-provoking, dramatic twist, here's another lovely tidbit from a couple of tracks later:

"and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out, day after day, because of the disease. The LORD aroused against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabs who are near the Ethiopians. They came up against Judah, invaded it, and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king’s house, along with his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son. After all this the LORD struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. In course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his ancestors."

That's pleasant.

Let me know if you find the key.

I apologize for my absence lately, but I haven't found much that I wanted to write about. Actually there are plenty of things going through my head right now, but none of them seem blog-worthy. I promised myself when I started this blog that it would never turn into a secret diary from whence I could refer to people (that happen to be my readers) in hopes that they get the secret encoded message and respond in the way I would like.

The same principle applies to myspace profile songs--I mean--what do those things mean anyway? If they are an expression of how you feel currently or about life, then WHAT IN THE WORLD do they really mean? It's the inherent problem of poetry: it rarely means what it sounds like on the surface, which is both the draw and the frustration of the beast. Not to throw anyone under the bus, but what am I supposed to assume when I hear lyrics like, "Everybody know that I believe if you spell it out for me. Spell it out so everyone can see. All that really matters now to me is I could set you free." Besides the fact that I'm not sure I quite understand the song itself completely, I catch myself over analyzing: who is said friend hoping will hear and respond to the song? And what should is that person supposed to be spelling out? And what about my other friend with her Amy Winehouse song: "I cried for you on the kitchen floor. I cheated myself like I knew I would. I don't ya I was trouble. You know that I'm no good..." What makes certain music resonate with us? I'll be the first to admit that my favorite stuff is usually pretty emo (I was raised on country, what do you expect?), and I'm often guilty of encoding messages in everything I say. Perhaps I'm doing it right now--trying to avoid expressing myself by talking about how difficult it is to express ones self. (tricky huh?) So I'll go ahead and claim hypocrisy when I say that I think you should stop doing this--the whole game of saying things covertly. I understand that having a filter is important, but I forget what is withheld for wisdom's sake and what I'm just afraid to say.

But, Well, It's Christmas...

Tonight I caught the tail end of Love Actually, which my roommates were watching while I studied. Actually I fell asleep studying, but that's beside the point.

So at the end of this movie, almost every story is resolved by someone finally admitting their feelings to the person they love, and it always seems to include the phrase, "I know this sounds crazy, but, well, it's Christmas...and if you can't be honest on Christmas, then..." So then the two get together, I start to cry, and they cut to the next story, which begins the whole process over again. (Because, for those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it covers a whole slew of different love stories) Apparently what I missed about Christmas all these years was that it's a time when we can finally be honest about how we feel. I guess this means that now I have roughly six months to work up the nerve to tell people what I really think of them.

Thank goodness I don't participate in any Christmas-in-July extravaganzas.