stop touching your face, dave

I may have unwittingly began a chain of events that will result in something similar to the movie Contagion. (I didn't see it, because come on, as if there's one more thing I should be worried about; however, I'm familiar with the premise.)

But first, I must go farther back. Over recent months, I find myself slightly addicted to shopping at Value Village. My reasoning is twofold: I like having new clothes, and I don't like paying full price for stuff. Anyway, I was made aware of the fact that I might be a bit out of control when, on my last trip to Value Village, I dropped off some clothing from a recent trip to a different Value Village because once I brought it home and washed it I realized I didn't like it after all. Also I go to more than one. I don't think that's normal.

So I was in Value Village this afternoon, trying on a beautiful jacket from Smart Set that only cost $15! One of my requirements for a coat is that it have side pockets I can put my hands in, not just decorative front pockets. You'd be surprised at how many coats lack functional side pockets. I was disappointed by the fact that this was one of those lacking the pockets, but the coat was so pretty that I stuck my hands in the decorative front pockets to see if I could make it work.

I immediately regretted that decision, as my hand instantly emerged again, horrifyingly clasping a crumpled kleenex. As soon as I registered what my hand was doing, I dropped the kleenex on the ground, berating said hand for clasping it in the first place. After a few moments of disgusted shudders, I composed myself with the following instructions: Simply do not touch face with hand that has touched kleenex. No need to panic.

But then you guys, as I emerged from the change room, holding the jacket because I loved it despite the lack of side pockets/surprise used kleenex, my nose itched. As a reflex, despite the conversation I'd had with myself literally moments earlier, I SCRATCHED MY NOSE. WITH THE KLEENEX HAND.

Well, crap, I thought to myself. Now I'm going to die.

Because who KNOWS what was on the kleenex? It was crumpled, thereby assuring me that it wasn't a fresh kleenex. What could it have been used for?

Best Case Scenario:
- tears
- crumpled in anger but never used
- blotting up a water spill
- someone's phone number (I never checked!)
- a genius Math formula that was worth a million dollars and would solve the energy crisis (I NEVER CHECKED!)

Worst Case Scenario:
- contained the coughs of someone with a communicable disease
- harbinger of a new plague

So presently I feel fine, but pay attention to the news in case I die suddenly. Then you, reader, must take it upon yourself to report to the authorities that the origin of a new plague is in the third change room at the Value Village in Newton. Obviously I can't warn them now, because I would sound crazy.

meet and greet inside my brain

Sometimes I feel that I have the worst brain of all the brains. It's like there's a bunch of jerks in there, and their whole job is to mess things up. I will introduce you to some of them.

JERK #1: Reconnaissance
Its job is to find stuff that I'd mercifully forgotten momentarily. But then Jerk #1 is all, "Oh, did you forget about that giant headache you had? Here, let me scour the far reaches of your brain until I find it again for you." "Hey, remember that story you read that was so awful it made you want to vomit? Don't forget about all the details, okay? Those are super important."

JERK #2: Muse
This one is bi-polar and has terrible timing. It occasionally fills me with all the good words that combine to make wonderful stories, usually just as I'm about to fall asleep. Alternately, it randomly freezes any creative inspiration and sucks me dry of words when I want them.

JERK #3: Fixation
It likes to find the stupidest, most mundane detail and grab hold of it and NOT LET GO until I want to punch someone in the face. "Hey! Hey! Someone's making gross eating sounds!" "Hey! This person breathes weird!" "Hey! This person is tapping a random beat!" "Hey! This person is jingling their keys! Listen listen!"

JERK #4: Fantasy
This one is an excellent multi-tasker. It can draw me into a book or movie so deeply that I forget to differentiate between fiction and reality; it can fill my brain with imaginary conversations or scenarios that would never actually happen that way, causing disappointment and/or unrealistic expectations; it can make me afraid of the monsters in my closet. "Listen carefully; there's a haunted ventriloquist dummy scuttling around here somewhere just waiting to rip your heart out!" "Look really closely in that darkened, empty car - a dead body is going to slowly rise from the passenger seat and lock eyes with you." "If you talk to that guy over there, this is EXACTLY how it will go! There are no other possible outcomes!"

Basically I hate them all.

o how vile a stench springs from thou, angelic beast

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO STOP HAPPENING:

- music videos that are a big long story with a bunch of talking at the beginning
- people using the words "ironic" and "literally" incorrectly
- classroom teachers thinking they are making my day easier by having it be a project work day ALL DAY
- being unable to differentiate between bored and hungry
- feeling like I need seventeen naps just to get through the day because my iron pills aren't filled with enough iron apparently
- the commercial to song ratio on the radio being like 3:2
- my ears keenly listening for the disgusting sounds people make when they eat, and then fixating on them for the entire meal until I hate everyone
- my dog's farts, especially when his bum is right by my face

dentist woes

This is another thing that happened that demonstrated to me that I am a terrible grown-up. I went to the dentist in March, and my dentist was like, "Here are some issues. You seem to grind and/or clench your teeth at night, so you need a mouth guard. Also, some old fillings are falling out, so you need replacements." My response is, "Mmhm, yeah. I've just been to the dentist for the first time in several years. I've done my duty by my teeth."

At the time of this dental visit, I had dental coverage from my job in Campbell River. The coverage extended until August, and the dentist recommended I get all this sorted by then. But I'm all, "Nah. I don't like the dentist, so I'm just not going to go back."

I went back this week. And the dentist said to me, "So, your teeth are sort of breaking each other apart with the whole grinding thing. Also, there are these fillings, remember the ones I told you about? They're still falling out. Plus, you have a chip in your tooth, which I think is from the grinding."

I said, "No, that's from my dog." Because one time Charlie was like, "Surprise!" and whipped his head back into my teeth and his little skull chipped my tooth. I thought this was an important detail.

The dentist and the hygienist both gave me a look. "Okay," he said, "but you still need to fix it."

So now I have to pay for all these things, with no dental coverage, because I didn't feel like going when I had dental coverage. Do you know how much all these things cost? So much! Right now I'd really rather spend that money rebuilding my collection of nail polish, because did you know that when nail polishes get old they become goopy and difficult to apply? True story.

a really long rant about bias

I spent a lot of money to get a Psychology degree at Trinity Western University. For five years of my life mostly I just read and took notes and listened to people talk about different psychologists, theories, methods, and so on, so one would imagine that I have a lot of knowledge kicking around in my brain about this topic, right? Apparently the time I spent zoned out and/or playing Solitaire on my laptop and/or skipping class to go to movies interfered with the transfer process from short term to long term memory, because I can only remember like three or four things from my entire degree.

One of these things is BIAS. The one thing that I recall from my awful Statistics course is that there is bias in everything. In dog food commercials they say, "90% of people prefer this brand to grocery store brands," but they don't tell you that basically nobody buys their dog food from grocery stores, they buy their dog food from pet stores, so of course most people are going to prefer some crap from a pet store than some weird stuff from the grocery store.

In toothpaste ads they tell you that "9 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothpaste," but they don't tell you how many people they asked (was it only 10?), who they were (were they the buddies of the guy who makes the toothpaste?), or what exactly the question was (Survey Guy: "Would you recommend this toothpaste over brushing your teeth with icing sugar?" Dentist: "Why yes. Yes I would." Survey Guy: "Bam! 9 out of 10.")

Basically what this means is that I don't trust anything. On Tuesday I went to a Bible study I'd never been to before, and somehow the topic of Bible translations came up, and this one guy showed me a chart his church had done, ranking the translations in order of what is best/most accurate (King James) to what was the worst/why even bother (The Message). Another guy said that he uses the ESV because his church had researched it and said it was the best.

What I thought in my brain but didn't say out loud because I was new and they were both really nice and possibly right after all was, "Yeah, right." Because, one time when I was paying attention in a RELS class at TWU, the prof said that the King James Version is called such because King James was all, "Hey, make me a translation of the Bible." Now, Wikipedia tells me that he wanted everything to be accurate and as close to the original text as possible, but he was the king. If he had a particular view of what he thought should be in the Bible, and some dude is the guy in charge of translating the Bible, might he not be desirous of translating it in such a way as reflects what the king wishes it to say? Because otherwise he might become murdered or something?

I also thought that perhaps the research the church read before endorsing the ESV may have, perhaps, been sponsored by the people who sell the ESV. Because they wish everyone to purchase their translation instead of all the other ones. In another course I took, a lady was doing a speech on healthy eating or something similar, and she said that the reason why the Heart and Stroke Foundation endorses Becel, saying it's the best for your heart etc., is because Becel sponsors the Heart and Stroke Foundation. What if someone who worked for the Heart and Stroke Foundation did some rogue research and found out that Becel is actually crap for your heart? I do not think that the H&S F would be like, "Hey, yeah! Go ahead and publish that. We totally don't care that Becel would be so mad they'd stop paying for all our stuff."

Anyway. I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with bias all of a sudden, in such a way as that I don't really see the point in researching what kind of biblical translation is best, or why we chose some Old Testament laws to continue following and some to not follow anymore, or what kind of toothpaste to use. Because nobody tells the truth in these kinds of things anymore.

is that my heart floating up there

Today, it was stormy. I was in the middle of watching a new t.v. show about this girl who moves to Alabama to be a doctor, and she meets this super handsome, charming fellow. At one point, they are standing out on a dock and she's telling him that she's moving back to New York, and despite how cheesy the whole thing was, it was well done in that you could see that they both wished she was sticking around so they could figure out how they felt about each other. (Even though later you find out he is ENGAGED to this really mean lady. Aren't they always.)

Anyway, so I was in the middle of that when I went outside with my dog briefly. I was wearing my plaid gumboots and my ugly brown raincoat because it was stormy. Like, really stormy you guys. And I was watching the sky, with the huge dark clouds rolling by, different shades of gray and black swirling around, when I saw a strange shape flying around up there. Is that an eagle, I wondered. Could it be a heron?

I stared at it until the wind shifted and it turned out it was a big heart balloon. The red of it was a stark contrast to how black the sky was. It had a tail string, and seemed to glide and bob around leisurely despite the tumultuous wind surrounding it. I watched it until it disappeared above the clouds.

Then I thought, what is the significance of this balloon. How does it metaphorically apply to my life? Was it saying that my heart is at liberty to dance in the wind and go wherever it so chooses and I can adventure and not be encumbered by another person. Or was it saying that my heart is utterly alone in unstable and uncharted territory, because everyone I know is married and there are no boys that like me and I will die alone.

If I hadn't been watching an emotional boy-girl scene on t.v., I probably would have looked up and said, "Hey, neat. A balloon."

well, some people use their imagination

Old, forgotten review #3.

20. Beauty and the Beast (1991) - Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson. I rented a bunch of old Disney movies from the library, and decided that since they are full of singing and dancing, they count as musicals. In this one, as I'm sure you recall, a prince gets turned into a beast because he's a big fat jerk. There's a pretty girl named Belle, whose father stumbles upon the enchanted castle, and turned into a prisoner. Belle takes his place, and falls in love with the Beast, which ends up breaking the spell and they live happily ever after.
         What I liked was nostalgia for my childhood! I watched this movie in the theatre with my family when it first came out. Also, when the Beast saves her from all the wolves, and also when he tries to eat porridge with a spoon. All the songs were fantastic, and since it was the Special Edition, I got extra songs! And, even though I was gasping and GASPING throughout the entire scene (even though I knew what was going to happen), the fight scene between the Beast and Gaston was pretty spectacular; especially the participation from the furniture. :)
       There were some things I did not like, mostly because they didn't make any sense. First of all, the Beast got his curse in the first place for being unhospitable to a stranger. So would that not, therefore, make him inclined to assist all future strangers to appear at his doorstep? When Maurice goes to the castle to escape from those blasted wolves, the Beast completely rages out and throws him in the dungeon. If I was him, my first thought would be, "Hey, maybe this dude is another sorcerer trying to see if I've become a nicer person!"
       Also, all the furniture is people now, because of the curse. There is no furniture that doesn't talk or whatever. My question is, did he not have furniture in the castle before the curse? Where is it all? There should be a great deal of furniture that does not talk, as it existed as furniture before all the staff was cursed into furniture. WHERE IS THAT FURNITURE?
       Also, there's a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on throughout the entire thing. Which, you know, is always creepy.