natural burial

i've always thought that the way we deal with our dead makes no sense. we take out their organs, pump them full of preservatives, dress them up, put them into expensive and beautiful coffins, and bury them under 6 feet of dirt. but... why?

as a kid i used to want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered (instead of kept in an urn). then my dad told me about the neptune society (tho, thanks to his poor english, i always thought it was lipton society) which gives you the option of scattering your ashes at sea. sounds fun!

in high school i thought maybe it would be cool to be buried under a tree or whatever, something natural. then sometime in college a read stiff by mary roach. she described a bunch of alternative "burials" including promession or cyromation. when you die, they quick freeze your body using liquid nitrogen, then they smash it to pieces. that stuff can now be used as fertilizer! your body is mostly organic anyway, and plants / soil need nitrogen. also, nitrogen is very abundant, and this process creates by little by-product, unlike traditional cremation which creates air pollution in the form of carbon dioxide. so awesome!

but the other day i saw the above video on ted about the decompiculture society. founder jae rhim lee was also worried about the environmental effects of traditional burial so she came up with a new idea: a body eating mushroom suit! when you die, you wear a special outfit that has "infinity" mushroom spores on it. your body is then buried and the mushrooms decompose your body. they also eat up all the random chemicals and stuff in your body, which is really great. apparently our bodies are chock full of poisons and stuff that normal decomposition would have a hard time taking care of. but the mushroon death suit takes care of all that. pretty smart!

but as intrigued as i am by decompifulture i think i still prefer promession. it's faster. not that faster means better, but it also seems... safer. what if the mushrooms don't work? what if wild dogs dig up my body? what if unknowing people stumble upon my body and dig me up and think i'm a cult victim?

anyway, i totally recommend reading stiff by mary roach. but if you don't have the time for a full book, this article pretty much sums up a lot of the stuff covered in the book.

anyone else give any thought as to how they want to be "buried"?

wigglewigglewiggle

i'm sure you've heard the idiotic song by lmfao, sexy and i know it. i thought it was the dumbest thing ever cause i thought they were being serious (just pay attention to the lyrics) but then rip showed me the music video and now... haha, i feel differently. it's hilarious!

church or jail?

Bay Minette Lets Offenders Choose: Jail Or Church

how the fuck can this even be legal?! i'm not even going to rant much about this because it's so obviously unconstitutional!

...tho it is interesting. as offended as i am, i wonder which i would choose? one one hand, i don't want to go to jail!! but on the other hand, i don't want to go to church either! and not because i'm afraid i'll burst into flame or anything, but because i feel very strongly that the government shouldn't force me into any religion. especially if i can't even choose that religion! (if the govt could force me to attend religious services, i would probably try to visit a new one each week. that might be interesting.)

also, even if this were legal, the idea behind the whole thing is just bullocks. in the article, pastor robert gates is quoted as saying, "You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I'll show you a person who won't be a problem to society but that will be an influence and a help to those around them."

right, cause religious people never commit crimes. ...

hope is the thing

from christopher cokinos - hope is the thing with feathers

"the statistical palentologist david raup reminds us that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on the earth are extinct and that, on average, a plant or animal species vanishes after about 4 million years."

"...the great evolutionary theorist alfred russel wallace would write, 'the most effective agent in the extinction of species is the pressure of another species.'"

cheaters2

"Study Claims Men Resent Sexual Infidelity, Women Jealous Of Shared Love"

"while men felt guiltier for cheating on their partner sexually, women felt guiltier about being unfaithful emotionally. Men... would feel guiltier about having a one-night stand than falling in love with someone else (without sex). Women had the opposite response."

another study asked "400 people if it would be more upsetting for their partner to form an emotional bond with another person or sleep with them, men tended to be more disturbed by sex and women by the emotional bond."

i wonder if this might be true in my case. altho i have liberal views about sex outside of relationships, i think that sex (or anything relating to it, even fantasies [i know that sounds crazy. but if you're to do it, you shouldn't indulge your fantasies. and please don't fucking tell me about it]) within a relationship should be between the couple only. in other words: no fantasies about others, no porn, and certainly no sex workers (e.g. strippers and whores).

a big part of me not wanting my boyfriend to engage in any sexual activity outside of me (not physically me, you understand) is that i feel that i should be enough. if you're sexually satisfied, then you shouldn't want to look at / touch other naked people. if you're not sexually satisfied then we should work on that. i also think it's a matter of respect. i have all the same parts as any other woman (tho not the same size), and since you love me, you should prefer mine. and since i do not deny you access to my  lady bits, you should enjoy mine exclusively.

my boyfriend does not see it this way. apparently porn and strippers are just visual stimulation. nothing to do with me, our relationship, or emotions. i don't see how this is possible. if you see something you like, and you don't currently have it, don't you start to make comparisons and maybe start to wish you had it?

example, i can't "shake it" (nothing specific, but i don't have much to shake on top, and i don't know how to shake what i do have on bottom). if he sees some naked lady shaking her stuff in a way he finds pleasing, wouldn't a natural progression of thought lead to "i wish stephanie did that" (if he even bothers to think of me at all!!). maybe he'll describe the act to me, which i might try and fail at. he'll see her in his mind, very adroitly shaking, and forever more, whenever he thinks about shaking lady bits, he'll think about how great she was and how damn lousy his girlfriend is.

obviously comparisons will be made about other things, "that other girl tells jokes better than stephanie," "that other girl is prettier than stephanie." but none of it as personal as sex.

our relationship has some pretty serious issues from the beginning, so many of our arguments come back to that i don't feel like i'm the number one girl to him. which, of course, is a pretty damn terrible feeling. especially considering that i'm generally pretty self-confident, this sits particularly unwell with me. so i guess for me, cheating either way hurts equally. no matter what, i'll feel like i'm not a priority to him and that he'll always think someone else is better.

oh, btw, that second study i quoted "also implied that these reactions to cheating have to do with more than just gender and are rather explained by how a person was raised to deal with intimacy. ...both men and women with "dismissive" or "hyperindependent" senses of detachment -- meaning that they were taught as a child to avoid intimacy -- were more jealous of sexual infidelities. Those with "secure" attachment, male or female, were more likely to be disturbed by emotional infidelity."

this is actually kind of funny, because when reep and i were "fighting" the other day about porn i brought up that i think he's emotionally stunted. turns out science might actually back me up on this!

cheaters

"Infidelity Linked To 'Sexual Personality': University Of Guelph Study"

"Men who were easily aroused and men who suffered from "performance anxiety" were more likely to be unfaithful. Their sexual satisfaction within their "monogamous relationship" was irrelevant--they'd cheat whether the sex with their partner was good or not. Conversely, for women, happiness with their long-term sexual partner was paramount--women who felt sexually unsatisfied were more likely to cheat."

in other words, regardless of who cheats, it's always the man's fault! well, unless she's gay. :) but seriously. it's no one's fault but your own!

miss representation

extended trailer from miss representation, which premiered at the 2011 sundance film festival.

you can also find screenings of the movie at their website. i hope something comes up close to us because i want to see this movie!!

school on wheels

finally went through all the donations for the school on wheels drive which ended two weeks ago. my uncle came back from taiwan so i didn't have a lot of floor space for sorting.

in any case, i think the drive was a pretty big success! in addition to having a lot of stuff in general, we have a good variety. btw, the photo doesn't show everything. i left a lot of the smaller things in the backpacks.

unlike with shoes or glasses, school supplies aren't easy to count up. so my didn't count every little thing. just the easier stuff.

15 backpacks!!!
32 legal pads
7 composition books
37 spiral notebooks
7 "other" notebooks
6 packs liner paper
21 folders
21 binders
6 sets index cards
2 index card boxes (with rings)
16 post-it pads
1 set math flashcards
9 math supplies (rulers, compasses, protractors)
10 calculators!

3 jump drives
1 day planner
7 pairs of scissors
6 tape dispensers / refill rolls
20 glue sticks
5 bottles of glue
2 staplers 
5 boxes of crayons
7 boxes of markers
4 boxes of colored pencils
6 pencil boxes / pouches
assorted staples, paperclips, binder clips, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pens, highlighters, sheet protectors, book covers, dividers...

thanks to everyone who contributed. big shout out to those pearl and arlene from space who went out and bought tons of stuff to donate. and to emilio (also from space), who donated 6 backpacks full of binders and writing stuff!

paperself

paperself makes some of the most AMAZING false eyelashes. seriously. i kind of want to just buy these, put them in a shadowbox, and display them!! those of you wanting to see them irl can find them at sephora.

parents first

kate gosselin has been "freaking out" and doesn't know how to support her droves of kids now that her tv show has been cancelled.  in other news, she recently bought a new car. it's an audi coupe. she probably didn't pay the $40k base price since she's a "celebity" but... let's face it, even if she wanted a car that could only fit one child, she could've gotten a much cheaper, tho still somewhat sporty mazda mx-5 for nearly half the list price.

also in celebrity gossip, ella nolan from "the bachelor" and more recently "the bachelor pad" recently underwent five plastic surgeries: nose job, boob job, lipo in three places (article). what makes this story 'interesting' is that while on the show, she kept saying that she needed to win the $250k prize money for her son. at every moment she would remind people that she wanted to buy a house for her son. "i'm doing this all for my son." "this money means more to me than anyone knows." yet, even though she didn't win the money, she went and spent probably upwards for $20k on plastic surgery. i get that $20k isn't enough for a house, but that's still a lot of money she could've put towards that house, or a condo.

(btw, did you catch kate and her "droves of kids" in a post about her car? haha!)

relationship status?

from an article by leslie dorman in an issue of elle: "i've used my husband as conversational bait while pondering whether i'd sleep with another man" (full article [worth reading!])

i don't feel like i've done this. when i complain about my boyfriend or my relationship, it's because i'm just complaining; i'm not hoping the guy i'm complaining to will "get the hint" and try to "rescue" me from said relationship. also, when talking to "strangers," i'm pretty careful to bring up that i have a boyfriend pretty early on. my boyfriend said that he mostly only mentions me if he fees like the girl he's talking to is interested. i usually don't bother gauging interest before mentioning my relationship status.

i used to be different tho. i didn't deliberately insert "my boyfriend" into conversation because i thought it would be pretty egotistical of me to assume that the person i'm talking to would even care that i had a boyfriend. i felt like pointedly telling every guy i met that i had a boyfriend implied that i thought every guy i met was attracted to me. which is, of course, crazy. later i realized that it doesn't mean i think i'm irresistible, i'm just careful. and so now i always try to remember to say something. (this is funny tho because a good friend of mine was recently in an awkward situation where she hadn't mentioned her live-in boyfriend to a guy she'd been talking to because he'd never shown interest, so she didn't bother. but after a few months she didn't know how to mention her boyfriend!)

in matters of the heart, i think it's best to be careful.

fur ban

source

west hollywood in california recently passed a law banning the sale of new clothing containing animal fur. i wonder what this will lead to. (warning: slippery slope fallacy ahead!) if we ban fur in clothing, i'm sure eventually it will lead to banning fur in other stuff: furniture, decor, bedding, jewelry, shoes... the activists are arguing that we should ban fur because it's cruel to animals. so what about stuff using leather? or feathers? there are synthetic furs and leathers, but i don't think we have fake feathers yet. and while birds do lose the occasional feather that maybe reusable, but about down feathers that go into insulating cold weather gear? there is synthetic down (which is usually just fabric filler), but i don't know that they've come up with a better insulator in jackets and sleeping bags than down feathers. (tho i know barely anything about this kind of gear so i could definitely be wrong.)

source

and other than using animal products for "non-essential" stuff like fashion or decorating, what about eating meat? you can't argue that eating meat is less cruel to animals than using their fur or skin for stuff! i doubt a whole town will ban meat tho. that would be crazy!