You Think We're On The Same Page, But I Know We're Not

With 1 week until my Biology 101 final, I am in a place that I do not like.
I have never failed a class in my entire life, In high school I never got below a B, and I haven't gone below a C in college.

I have always worked hard in my classes, I have always been a good student.

My Bio grade is determined between 3 tests and a lab. I got a D on both of the tests so far. I aced the lab but it is only worth 20% of the grade.

I tried really hard. I went to class all but twice. I studied. I went to review sessions. I went to office hours. I read the text book. I still (almost) failed.

I know they say "D for degree" and I could technically still pass the class, but in order to get GUR credit a C- is necessary. I have never struggled this hard to earn a C-, I never thought that was something to really try for. I am going to have to really bring it up on the final in order to be done with science forever.

This fear of failing is something that I have never felt when it comes to school work.

I don't know what my fear really is though. I'm not worried about my school record, my GPA is still pretty solid and I know it will be even better when I am done with GUR's. I fore-warned my mother that I might get a D and she told me not to stress too much and if it happens, it happens. If I have to retake the class or choose a new lab science to take, then I can worry about it then. What is my REAL fear here?

I think maybe fear can be a mechanism we use as motivation. I am motivated by my fear to work really hard studying for the final even though I have still scored low on the other tests. If I didn't have any fear of my final grade, I wouldn't have the "get-up-and-go" attitude and would say, "Fuck studying, it didn't do me any good before."

I think my schoolwork can sometimes fall to the wayside, and even when I should be getting A's, my attitude will be so lazzes faire that I settle for a B. Maybe the fear is just enough to keep me stimulated. Not so much interested, but engaged.

Anyways, I am glad that this finals week I have only to worry about Bio, because it is going to take all of my energy. Fear is EXHAUSTING.

Update as of 1:35 AM March 10:
This plurk (http://www.plurk.com/p/43pbo7) has made this situation 1000x better.

You Should Have Known By Now, You Were On My List

I don't know if I will ever get married.
My list of demands is just so... detailed and specific.
Also, I am only 20, so I could just keep adding stuff to this list.


My future husband:
--Kills spiders by squishing AND flushing them and will do so at all hours of the day/night.
--Loves scary movies regardless of the quality
--Doesn't mind adopting children rather than having our own
--Knows me well enough to get me a silver/white gold/platinum ring, NO GOLD
--Will allow me to have the wedding in Lucerne (up lake from Chelan)
--Doesn't mind puking children, I can handle changing diapers but I lose it when people throw up
--Supports me having a job or making as much/more money than him
--Does not smoke cigarettes/chew
--Likes my family/is liked by my family specifically Jenna/mom/dad
--Hates winter and will live somewhere where it is sunny year round
--Loves to travel and will sacrifice nice cars/expensive shit to do so
--Likes to read
--Wants a cat and a dog
--Does not wear Ed Hardy/Affliction or spend more time on his hair than I do
--Falls asleep to TV
--Accepts only 2 days a week devoted to Sports programming
--Allows me to act like a 7 year old when I'm sick
--Knows how/likes to cook and will do so a majority of the time

Who would want to marry someone that makes a list like that?

Like A Rolling Stone

Kacie Rahm
Thought Experiment 2
Parasites

Like A Rolling Stone

Me and sleep have always had a tumultuous relationship. In my first Parasite-themed blog, I wrote about my history with night terrors. “When I was younger, I had night terrors. I would awake in the middle of the night from some half-conscious nightmare that was so real, I would be literally paralyzed with fear. I would hide under my blanket and quiver uncontrollably for hours at a time, until I would finally pass out from exhaustion.” I have not had many of these terrors since childhood, but every now and then, usually at times of high stress, they resurface. After the night terrors there was “the man outside the window,” which is the name my sister and I gave to the ghost that haunted our house. He would pace loudly outside the corner of the house that happened to be my bedroom just about every night. I was able to fall asleep despite him, because a familiar ghost starts to lose it's frightful qualities after a while. Once I reached high school, the nights began getting later and I became more of a diva about how I would eventually end up in dreamland.

I can't fall asleep without some kind of noise. I prefer television, because the soft glow is also something that lulls me to sleep, but in a bind I can handle an oscillating fan or easy listening music. I know people who can't sleep without eye shades or a tempurpedic pillow, but for me there's nothing like a dull roar to distract my mind. I personally have troubles falling asleep at night. I'm no doctor, but according to limited research on Web MD, I show symptoms of clinical insomnia, such as “trouble falling asleep” and “daytime sleepiness and irritability.” I can never seem to turn my brain off at a reasonable hour and have tried many things to remedy this. The combination of Valerian Root tea and cartoons on the TV has been doing the trick recently, but I still wish I had the ability to just fall asleep without it being a process.

Sleep occupies roughly 1/3 of our entire life. A huge fraction of our time here on Earth is spent horizontally, eyes closed and minds open. I think sleep, although a state and not a place, is where I feel truly “at home.” I have struggled to define the word “home” for myself, especially recently since I have lived in 4 different places in the last 2 years. In another blog that reads kind of like a poem, I first revealed to myself the connection between home and sleep. “Over the mountains I feel uncomfortable... I lack that total familiarity that can melt me into restful sleep.” I know that I tend to sleep better in my own bed, but since I wrote that blog I've realized that my bed has changed just as often as my house. Maybe it's not the bed, but the sleep that makes me feel at home. I also linked comfort to home in that blog, which is something that I have thought about extensively since writing it.

If home is the place where you feel the most comfortable, then it could definitely be a state of mind rather than a physical location. I feel most comfortable when I am traveling. I don't mean physical comfort, because who in their right mind is comfortable on an airplane or train? I mean that place in your head where you are completely satisfied with where you are and what you are doing. I want to go everywhere and see everything that this world has to offer. Whenever I am in a new place, especially with a foreign language or major cultural difference, I know I am one step closer to that goal. Some people get overwhelmed by culture shock, or frustrated by under-developed conditions, but I embrace it. I know that I will still go to that familiar state of sleep even though I am surrounded by the unfamiliar all day. This got me thinking, maybe the reason I don't feel like I have a home, is because I'm static. I've been living the lifestyle of a poor college student and funding for vacations is just nonexistent.

I think that when we become too familiar, we stop growing. In high school, English classes were a joke. I had the five paragraph essay down, and I enjoy reading and writing. I could go through “To Kill A Mockingbird” and highlight all of the bird references, or explain the symbolism of T.J. Eckleberg in “The Great Gatsby.” I got a solid A on every assignment in every English class up until graduation. Even in college where I felt challenged by my English classes, it was more because of the reading level than the actual thought process. Then there was Parasites. The very first day of class I knew it would be a different experience. Now here I am, writing a paper without a prompt. No direction, no clear idea what I want to say, and that completely unknown feeling that I am stepping into a vortex. However, my discomfort and my unfamiliarity with this classroom structure has made it one of the most propulsive learning experiences I've had. Once we get locked into a little cage, “the box” if you will, with our comfort foods and our sweatpants and our five paragraph essays, we cease to learn.

Though the class started out as a thought experiment, it has mutated into some kind of dysfunctional family. We are starting to know first names, or at the very least match plurk names with faces. We are opening up, sharing more of ourselves with each blog or comment in class, and we are communicating ideas more freely with each other. So if I have this family, one that is struggling with the same issues (readings) as I am, then does that make this something like a home? If we stick with the idea that home is where you feel comfortable, then no, absolutely not. I have felt many things in this class, but comfort is not one of them. The only kind of comfort I have felt has been from the consistency of my note taking.

The first day that I took notes on Plurk was January 15, two weeks into the course. I wanted to take notes but found the idea kind of absurd in relation to the way class is run. No, bullet points on a college ruled sheet of paper would simply not work. Plurk had a different feel though, my fellow classmates could contribute their ideas, and I could attempt to wrap my head around the things we had learned. I have since written notes every day that I have been in class. It has gotten to the point where I am known for this practice. On February 22, I was late to class by about 10 minutes. That was all it took for, “Dahamburgler is starting the notes thread in the absence of our notetaker!” to ding into existence. Have the note threads brought a level of comfort and familiarity into a class that is anything but organized? There are about three people who consistently contribute to my threads and a few people who favorite them every day, but this alone is not enough to make me feel at home.

If I am not at home in school, where I pay tuition, then I should feel at home when I come back to the place I pay rent. This has not been the case. I love my little two bedroom house. I love my seafoam green kitchen and my sun porch and my carport. I even love my roommate, she has been my best friend since ninth grade. However, I don't live with her anymore, I live with her stuff. She spends about 90% of her time at her boyfriend's house and that's her choice, but I can't make this a home without her. My parents house isn't a home either, they have a new lifestyle and three grandsons to worry about. For the first time in my life I feel like I could go anywhere.

Some people might think its depressing not having a home. I think I could make a home wherever I please. Like a rolling stone, anywhere I lay my head is my home. If we go back to the beginning, the part where home is just a state of mind, maybe sleep, then I do have a home, or many homes. Maybe we're placing too much emphasis on this idea of having one place we call home. If you make any place home, then you will never get homesick. If you make any place your home, you can invite anyone over at any time.

This thought process has liberated me to the point of no return. I have no reason to stay here, in fact I have an overwhelming desire to get the hell out of here. All of my connections to people are strong enough to survive time apart, or weak enough to cut ties entirely. My sister, the person closest to me and also something like my alter-ego, left on a whim to Korea for a year. If she can do it, I can do it. I have always enjoyed traveling and have had an awesome amount of opportunities to do so, but never alone. I have never just packed my life into two suitcases and started over.

This isn't the same as running away. Running away means there is something pushing you to leave. What I have is something my Anthropology teacher would call a “pull factor.” There is some unknown force pulling me out of my cozy little life and forcing me in the direction of anywhere else. Besides, I don't even have anything to run away from, I'm not in debt, no psycho ex boyfriends, haven't committed any felonies. What I want is to find that unfamiliar place where I can grow, much like Parasites has been for my education. I want to wake up in a foreign place, wake up in a train, wake up in an airplane. I know that I can make any place feel like home, because I decided that home is not a place anyways. Home is anywhere I decide it is, and I decide it is not here anymore.


You know what is surprising? I feel like I'm going to sleep amazingly tonight.

Inspirations and limited citations include: every plurk ever, especially the note threads, every classroom discussion thus far, http://www.WebMD.com, my blog at http://kaciesays.blogspot.com, every book I have ever read, my own mind, my sister's blog at http://adventuresintherok.blogspot.com, my life experience, my absentee roommate, and of course, Tony Motherfucking Prichard.

I Don't Like The Drugs But The Drugs Like Me

Kacie Rahm
Thought Experiment #1

I Don't Like The Drugs But The Drugs Like Me


I have dealt with many interruptions in my life, some of them so frequently that I barely consider them interruptions anymore. The disrupting act of packing and traveling, whether temporarily or permanently, has become so common recently that I feel like I have never fully unpacked. The constant buzz of my cell phone in my pocket is so commonplace that I check the screen even when there is nothing new to see. Illnesses no longer require an absence from school or the attention of my parents. Yet there is one interruption that I have not been able to nonchalantly adjust to, however. That interruption is drugs. Drugs come in many forms, and the interruptions do as well.

The first interruption I can relate to drugs was to my family dynamic. As I mentioned in my blog, entitled Maybe You're Better Off This Way, “I have dealt with an older brother who struggles with an addiction to Crystal Meth. I have known this since before I truly understood what drugs were. I knew he was 'sick' and 'different.'” My brother's name is Jason, and he is an addict. He has been interrupting me for my entire life between collect calls from King County Jail and becoming the “other mother” to my three nephews. There was the countless interventions, family visit days at rehab, his relapse at my high school graduation, witnessing the Jerry Springer moments between him and his wife, and driving him to the birth of his third child because he was too wasted. Each time he seemed to be getting better I would believe him, and then the interruption of his failure would occur again.

In my blog I explored the thought that drugs might be parasites. I have approached the word metaphorically. To me, a parasite is something that enters a host and physically or mentally alters the behavior of the host. After realizing that the thought experiment would require challenging ideas and comparing notes with my peers, I decided to see what they had to say about the subject. On Plurk, I posed the question: “Do you think that drugs (or any other self-induced 'parasite') counts as a parasite at all?” I had not counted on receiving over two hundred responses, but felt the discomfort necessary to experiment with the thought. I saw that not only did people disagree with me, but more and more questions evolved from the original. I asked if something is voluntary, does it count as a parasite? The first response that caused me to rethink my original idea came from Jesse8162. He said, “It's not really completely voluntary once the original person is taken by addiction.”

Addiction and drug use are not synonymous terms. I find this to be true because I would say that most of my friends and family members fall into the category of “drug users.” My mother and sister love their wine, my father his beer. My friends partake in drinking, marijuana smoking, and cigarette smoking. However, I would never compare them or myself to “addicts.” Addiction, according to Dictionary.com, is defined as, “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.” The only time I ever remember someone close to me having severe trauma from the cessation of drug use is when my four month old nephew had to come down from the opiates his mother had passed through her breast milk. After realizing that the occasional drug use I condoned and accepted in my daily life had never seemed parasitic before, I altered my original thought. In response I wrote, “I think that's the way I'm leaning, like addiction is the true parasite, drugs are just a substance.”

Just as I felt conversation had halted, user betzi asserted, “It could be the biologist in me, but 'parasites' implies a living organism.” Because we had been discussing technology and language as parasites in class, I had not really explored the idea that only living organisms could be true parasites. Right as I realized what this idea would propose, betzi expanded on her point, “The parasites aren't the drugs but the people using them.” It was hard for me to really consider this idea, perhaps because I am biased. Having an addict so close to me, I found it nearly impossible to consider him a parasite. I felt angry that someone might even suggest this possibility. Who was this betzi, and how dare she call my brother a parasite? Instead of closing my laptop and ignoring further response, however, I decided to see it her way.

If I were to take the definition of parasite at face value, maybe I would think differently about my whole argument. Dictionary.com defines parasite as, “an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment .” I feel that calling the addicted person a parasite would not be scientifically sound by this definition. The addicted person does not enter any kind of host and obtain it's nutriment. I think that it could be argued by the dictionary definition, drugs could very possibly be considered a parasite. Many drugs come from natural ingredients, i.e. tobacco, marijuana, heroin, opium, cocaine, hallucinogenic mushrooms and alcohol. Even chemical based drugs such as methamphetamine and prescription drugs are synthetic versions of natural drugs. If we consider these natural ingredients living organisms, which enter the body of the drug user and react according to their body chemistry, altering their behavior, then they are definitely a parasite.

User Jesse8162, who was very vocal in response to my Plurk inquiry, suggested that I read his blog. It was actually written as a response to my original blog about drugs as a parasite. Upon reading his post I found a similarity within our experiences with drug users. His blog reads, “When someone is strung out on drugs, it's almost as if they change identities from who they were before. The brother/sister/mother/father/husband/wife that was known before is no longer the person they once were.” The idea that drug use changes behavior is not beyond the average person's understanding. Any medical reference will tell you of the side effects to various drugs. However, when drug use and addiction is close to you, you understand that it does not only change the person's behavior, drugs change the person. In my own blog I wrote, “You could see it in his eyes, or rather see nothing in his eyes. He looked like any trace of his soul was gone,” in reference to my brother under the influence. In many of the books I have read about drug abuse, there is support to this idea. The book Crank by Ellen Hopkins tells the story of a sweet girl named Kristina who becomes addicted to meth and takes on a completely new personality. When she is high, she uses her “other” identity, like in this passage, “her tongue curled easily beneath my teeth, and her words melted between my lips. 'My friends call me Bree.'” This common idea within my research helped support my original notion that drugs are a parasite, especially because of the connections I made to Shivers.

In Shivers, the slug-like parasites change the behavior of the hosts to the point that one could barely refer to them as people. Besides appearance, they held almost none of their original selves. For example, their actions were lust-fueled and erratic, innocent little girls became fierce predators, and they seemed unable to express most emotions, besides crazed or blissful. The difference, however, is that the hosts of the shivers did not want to be infected. Most of the movie involves a character's attempts to escape the building uninfected once aware of the parasite. First time drug users make the conscious choice to partake in the drug use, with the exception of date rape drugs slipped into drinks. It is hard to be unaware that you are wrapping your lips around a pipe or snorting powder up your nose.

This is the part where I decide that if anything, addiction is the true parasite. The act of using drugs is voluntary. Once a drug user reaches the point of addiction, the point where they suffer extreme withdrawals without the drug, the point where they are using drugs to feel normal rather than “high,” that is when the parasite is in power. This is an involuntary situation, as nobody believes when they start using drugs that they will get addicted, and a lot of people never reach the point of addiction. I also feel like the drug user can not be the parasite, because then there is no host. Though I understand the argument that the drug user is the only living organism involved, I do not agree with it. As cephalopod responded to the Plurk inquiry, “Everything manmade, everything tangible, is natural.”

I went into this thought experiment with an energy and a vigor for the parasite that has interrupted the majority of my life. I barely touched on the subject in my blog, and once I posed the question to my peers, I realized that I am not the only person passionate about the subject. Some of the people most involved in the conversation were not even classmates. One might believe that the drug is the parasite, the user is the parasite, that the addiction is the parasite, or even none of the above. People advocated each option to me. In the end, I believe that the state of addiction is the parasite. It feeds off of the host, changing their priorities, involuntarily taking them over mind and body. I have watched the transformation in many people, and I can not in good conscience blame them entirely for their vices.



Works Cited
Gortner, Jesse. "A Very Real Parasite Problem." Web log comment. Story Time With Uncle Jesse. Jesse Gortner, 26 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Hopkins, Ellen. Crank. New York: Simon Pulse, 2004. Print.

Rahm, Kacie R. "Maybe You're Better Off This Way." Web log comment. Kacie Says. Kacie Rahm, 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

Shivers. Dir. David Cronenberg. Perf. Lynn Lowry and Allan Kolman. CDFC, 1975. Videocassette.

SpaceyKacie, Jesse8162, Cephalopod, and Betzi. "SpaceyKacie asks..." Plurk. Kacie Rahm, 29 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. .

I Was Sittin' There, I Had A Comfortable Chair And That Was All That I Needed

I need to pay the bills.

I need to buy an external hard drive.

I need to get Skype.

I need to put my clothes away.

I need to babysit tomorrow.

I need to write this blog post.

I need to put the cookies away.

I need to get a C- in Bio.

I need to get more sleep.

I need to find my passport.

I need to call mom and dad tomorrow.

I need to get healthy again.

I need to confront my roommate.

I need to get new tires for my car.

I need to read Rickels.

I need to remember dad's Birthday.

I need to buy more Bedtime Tea.

I need to relax.

I need to go on a vacation.




All I want is for my to do list to disappear for a little while.

Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now

I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I feel like I've been listening to them as long as I've been alive, more accurately though I became aware of them at the same time I became aware of having a personal taste in music.

So of course between my fandom for RHCP and my past experiences with drugs, I had to read this:



In the book, Kiedis takes the opportunity to explain some of the meanings behind their songs. For "Give it Away," Anthony Kiedis drew inspiration from the German singer Nina Hagen, when he came across one of her jackets that he liked. She insisted he take it, explaining that giving stuff away creates good energy.

Ever since I was younger I've been donating my old clothes to Good Will or smaller friends and little cousins. I remember seeing a young girl at the park in Chelan who was wearing my old orange and yellow tie-dye shirt. I knew it was mine because there was a purple stain (though it fit in on the shirt) from when my dad left a ball point pen in his pocket when we did the laundry.

Today, I decided it was time to get the clothes off of my floor finally. When I realized I had overflowed 3 separate laundry hampers with clothes still in the closet, I knew it was time to purge. I don't like or don't wear about 30% of what's in there.

If I can get a little good energy sent my way, then I guess it's a win win. If I sell it to a consignment shop for store credit, I can even get a few new things in return.

Buy when you buy used clothes, or hand-down your old ones, there are multiple lives carrying them. It got me thinking about that little girl in my tie-dye shirt. What attracted her to that shirt, why did she have to shop at St. Vinny's, and did we have anything else in common besides that shirt?

It's the same thing that makes me wonder about who has lived in my house before? It was built in the 20s, and assuming it has been a college student rental for the last 15 years or so, then some 30 families or people could have lived here. It's like they say, "if these walls could talk." What stories would they tell? What about my clothes? What stories would they tell?

Am I a parasite to my clothes, my house, or are they parasites to me?

And for the love, when will they learn to write?

I'm Wasted And I Can't Find My Way Home

It shouldn't bother me, but it does.


Should I feel like I have no home?
"Home is where the heart is."
But the place which holds my heart is being occupied by somebody else.
I am not welcome in that place.
Where I reside holds a deadline.
Where my parents reside is a lifestyle unrecognizable.

My hometown holds meaning in my past,
But the ghosts of successful people seem to reverberate through the mountains,
Their small lives screaming like sonar across water.
It offers no new knowledge, only bad crowds and bad decisions.

Over the mountains I feel stimulated, but uncomfortable.
I am growing, but I lack that total familiarity that can melt me into restful sleep.
I am happy, but I am not safe.

Perhaps home is an unattainable place.
My standards are too high,
My definition is flawed.

Perhaps traveling is where comfort comes from.
A stationary life is bringing me down.
My itch to leave is becoming unmanageable.


"I met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved,
If I were her I'd paint my body 'til all my skin was gone."
--Something Corporate, "I Woke Up In A Car"

Where will I wake up tomorrow?
In a bed? My bed?
A house? My house?
A town? My town?

Home?

I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

I Just Wanna Let It Go For The Night, That Would Be The Best Therapy For Me

I have recently had my lifestyle change in drastic ways.

When I was a Junior in high school my parents decided I was finally old enough to know how broke we were. Chelan is an expensive place to live and since we remodeled the house and sent my sister to the most expensive college in Washington State BEFORE the economic crisis, we were in debt. They said that it was realistic that they would have to find higher salary jobs, and that they would most likely have to move.

My mom found a job in Bellingham, and that meant that during my entire senior year, she would be living in Bellingham while my dad and I stayed in Chelan. It was really hard for me without my mom. My dad knows how to make a total of four dinners and knows nothing about the urgency for tampons that my mom handled so well. I love my dad, but him and my mother's partnership is one that just...works.

Once I was deciding on colleges, I had spent a lot of time in Bellingham and really wanted to go to Western, but could I really handle being in the same place as my parents when all I really wanted was freedom and space?


After my sister graduated from college with a Bachelor's from a great school, top grades, and insane experience via internships and volunteer work, she still struggled to get a job. After she got one, she was laid off. Then she took a waitress job while in transition, and got laid off. She finally found a job where she was really happy, one that she felt good about. Sadly, she got laid off. This all happened within one year.

I watched her go through bouts of depression after each termination, and it led her to a whole slew of life plans. She considered the Peace Corps, Law school, Grad school, and eventually landed on teaching English in Korea. She flew out of the country today and will be gone for at least a year.


Let's not forget the three nephews, ranging from six months to 5 years old, that were "dropped on our doorstep." I love my nephews, my parents love my nephews, but they are too old to raise them until they're 18. It's hard to have a lot of faith in my brother or his wife to ever get their shit together. I've just watched them fail at parenthood too many times.



With all of these interruptions, my comfort level in life has dramatically dropped. I am now constantly guarded, waiting for the next lifestyle change.

I do not always handle conflicts well. I am somewhat of a bottler, and my emotions can eventually boil over into a flurry of fights. Last week I had an epic battle with my roommate/best friend and my mom. I wish I could handle my emotions better, but I don't.

My life might be a little turbulent, but it could be worse.
I feel like this is a defense mechanism we often use. "It could be worse."

"I could be starving, I could not have access to clean water, I could have lost my parents, I could have died at birth."

Is this a healthy way of handling things? I mean, what is a healthy way of handling things? It seems like there is something wrong with everything we do, according to the person who psychoanalyzes our coping mechanisms.

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

Maybe Baby I Just Wanna Forget

http://www.hulu.com/watch/5348/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-joining-the-cause

Ok, so abortion isn't funny.
But "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" is.

I figured this one would need a humorous beginning because it's heavy stuff.

Let's just put it out there: I'm pro-choice. I have never been pregnant, so in the event of a pregnancy there is no way for me to predict what I would do. I just know that I would want the option of abortion and I don't think I or anyone else has the right to take that option away from others.

More than likely, I would have an abortion if I got pregnant in high school or college. It's not something I take lightly, because I protect myself and there is no reason I should ever get pregnant anyways. But any time I enter a physical relationship, I have to talk about my options, and think about them.

If I were to get pregnant soon after college, I would be like this girl:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/5348/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-joining-the-cause

Adoption is a good option to have. I don't intend to ever be pregnant and have always wanted to adopt myself. I think that having an overpopulated world and unfit parents who are looking for better lives for their children, it is the responsible thing to do.

After my last blog post, I was challenged on plurk:
awritedesign asked: what about those who don't want a baby, have the education and the resources, but don't have the control to "wrap it up" all the time?

First I say, if you don't have the control to wrap it up, get on the pill or the patch or the shot or what have you.

Second, I think if you have the means to take care of a child but don't want one, your options should be the same as those who do not have the means. I may not agree with them all, but ultimately it is not my decision or business to make those decisions for others.

I think prevention is ultimately the best option, and if you're not responsible enough to protect yourself then you shouldn't be having sex. Plain and simple.

I think that ultimately it is a personal decision, between the mother and father, in some cases just the mother.

I don't know why this topic is one that I kind of obsess over, as I said I have never been pregnant. Maybe it's because I always wanted to adopt, even before the nephews proved my point. The fact that I don't have that "mom" gene, the one that makes me want my OWN child, has always perplexed me. It doesn't bother me, but I do find it strange that the desire is completely absent to be pregnant.

Anyways, this was rambly, and unfortunately late (thanks for forgiveness Tony).

But! I will post double bloggage this week!

Let's Talk About Sex (Babies)

It's time to have "the talk."

Or at least one of them. I feel like a parent already because I've been discussing the harmful effects of drugs and drinking and what not.

But something else has been weighing on my mind. Something I am frightful of, not because I think it has any chance of affecting me, but because I have seen it swallow up my friends and acquaintances, and even complete strangers.

That thing is unsafe sex. Yes, it’s that talk, “the birds and the bees.”

I am not of the delusional ideal that sex is reserved for marriage. It's not realistic and it's already too late for most of my audience, I'm sure. I think that what you do with your own body is your own business, to a certain extent.

If you're the village bicycle, cool. If you really are going to save your virginity for marriage, cool. It is not my business or my concern how often or with whom anyone experiences sex.

But for the love, PLEASE protect yourself. It becomes more than an individual choice when a baby is involved.

Teenage pregnancy was a very real thing at my high school, and in Chelan in general. Off the top of my head I can count 14 girls who got pregnant in high school or within a year after. This might not seem like a lot, but it's a small town. Also, these are just the girls that carried their babies to term, I am also not of the delusion that nobody ever had an abortion.





Even though both of these shows try to focus on how hard it is to have a child when you haven't finished high school, it still seems like people aren't learning their lesson! In an age where birth control is existent, easily accessible, usually free, and simple, I find it insane that people are still experiencing unwanted pregnancies. I know that some religions don’t believe in birth control, but nobody follows all the rules all the time, and I think this might be a rule worth breaking.

Although I know there are people who obsess over having a child and poke holes in their boyfriend's condoms, I don't think that the majority of these pregnancies are the result of that. If you’re willing to sleep with a homeless man just to get pregnant, you need help far beyond what Sex Ed can give you.



I hated listening to those dumb girls on Maury after school everyday, but there was nothing else on TV.

What I do enjoy is the occasional Lifetime movie, and the executives at Lifetime must have shit themselves when they heard about this:




There is a lot of information out there that debunks the actual existence of a pregnancy pact at Gloucester, but there was 18 pregnant girls in a small town. Lifetime definitely over-dramaticized the story, and formed some kind of unrealistic story to the tune of:



The fact of the matter is that even if there wasn’t a pact, there is proof that a lot of these girls intentionally got pregnant.
For more information check out: http://www.gloucester18.com/index.php

My peers in Chelan are getting pregnant at an alarming rate as well. One of them I know to be trying to trap her ex boyfriend into a relationship, unsuccessfully. One of them had a disturbing home life and couldn’t wait to start a family of her own. One of them felt like a baby was the only person that could possibly love her.

I understand that a lot of people have issues. Baby syndrome might be kind of like an eating disorder, a control issue.

But for many, pure ignorance causes these unwanted and usually unsupported babies.

I mean, it doesn't take much of an education to use a condom, or take a pill. The fact of the matter is that people just don't want to, or they're afraid to buy condoms at the store where someone's mom works, or they don't like the feeling, or the worst: they think pulling out works.

I have seen that even married couples who try to have a baby might not be capable of taking care of them. It is important to protect yourself and to protect the unborn life. DO NOT HAVE BABIES UNTIL YOU ARE READY. If you want to have sex, fine, but you should do what I’m about to do to this blog:

WRAP IT UP.