dominos

lately, i've found myself looking back on my life and bundling each event into a domino.

my conception. one domino.

my birth. another domino.

my first step. yet another domino.

and on and on and on until there is a whole mess of dominos lined up, one after another, each a stepping stone on its own and the sum of my life in its entirety.

and i can't help but wonder where certain dominos came from. why they were necessary. what their purpose is. fascinated that they exist and exactly where they existed.

i'm curious as to what the next domino will be and what it will mean to my whole line of dominos. will this be the domino to topple them all?

i think we all have a habit of thinking our life started sometime when we were barely young or barely in existence.

i am here wondering if my life is just beginning to start, if all that has happened and how it happened just the beginning of something greater.

just putting it out there

i am not a holiday person

"we want to help you, but we want to own you"

danish artist kristian von hornsleth has decided to make a statement in uganda.

he will strike a deal with any ugandan. a pig for your name. by providing an animal (much needed by the detrimentally poor ugandans), the individual will officially change their name to hornsleth.

and the people are grateful.

hornsleth claims that this is a political statement--one that exposes how humanitarian and government sponsored aid groups are merely abiding by the motto: "we want to help you, but we want to own you."

george sabadu hornsleth, who received a pig, makes a good point:

"Africans adopting European names for gifts - we've been doing that since colonial times. Why do you think I am called George?"

it's an interesting idea that certainly gets the artist's point across.

and while i agree that the message and hypocrisy is legitimate, what angers me is that in the process of his artistic protest, hornsleth is degrading the people of uganda who are attempting to rebuild themselves as africans and survivors of genocide.

use yourself as a medium for protest.

use your artistic abilities.

use your voice, your heart, your money.

but don't use people who have nothing.

don't take your photos, create a book and invite your stuck up first class society to a party with "drinks and a dj" to show off your 100 new hornsleths. its on the same page as bum fights.

when will we learn to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves?

but then, i am in the privileged situation where i need not worry about where i put my head to sleep at night, where my next meal comes from, which of my family will be raped, killed or contract AIDS...i have the luxury to be angry about injustice.

i guess hornsleth has effectively made his point...mankind can be boiled down to being a society of pigs

source: Ugandans grab 'pig-for-name' deal and Hornsleth's website

addendum

the more i think about it, the more disappointed and saddened i am that my blood type is B positive.

there are two people who i know are in need of a kidney and i really wanted to be able to offer one to them. but one is A positive and the other is A negative and short of removing a spleen (a surgery that is still experimental), i'm incompatible.

i am aware of how ridiculous this sounds.

my kidney is sad.



but! blood bank of alaska was in need of B positive blood, so at least i fulfilled a need somewhere.

B positive

this morning, i found out that my blood type is B positive. according to a japananese research institute, people of certain blood types share a similar personality. here's mine:

you're a rugged individualist, who's straight forward and like to do things your own way. creative and flexible, you adapt easily to any situation. but your insistence on being independent can sometimes go too far and become a weakness.

some B positive facts:

*8 out of 100 have this blood type

*i can receive O-, O+, B- and B+ blood

*i can only give to AB+ and B+, or in emergencies, AB- and B-

source: http://www.bloodbankofalaska.org/about_blood/types.html

maybe if my blood type was A-

i decided that should the opportunity arise for me to become a living kidney donor, i'd get a tattoo by the scar of a girl sitting in a bathtub full of ice.

unrelated tattoos to follow:

rebirth

for the past three to four days i've been in an unexplainable bad mood, causing me to become incredibly irritable at the drop of a hat.

now, bad moods like this do not strike me too often and when they do, i take a moment to sit down and work myself out of it. this often takes the form of doing a "good work," which is what persuaded me to donate blood on friday for the first time (i'm a bit nervous around needles) and sign up for the bone marrow donor registry.

[if you haven't, i'd encourage everyone to do both. and if you are an ethnic minority, i especially encourage you to add yourself to the registry--a tissue match is more likely to come from someone of the same ethnicity and there is a lack of minority donors]

and this morning i woke up feeling so much like myself it was uplifting.

advice to the chef: how not to lie

some advice for aspiring liars, manipulators and betrayors of friends.

(1) do not proclaim (with an odd sense of pride--find something else to proud of, please) how good of a liar you are.

(2) when a friend does you a favor, don't pay it back with lies. wait until you don't owe any favors to be a bastard.

(3) there really is no need to lie after a (drunken) heart-to-heart. you just make your friend feel more like an idiot later on and that won't possibly bode well in the grand scheme of things.

(4) when executing that well-thought out lie, do not repeat the one fact that is crucial to making your lie work. a good mark for a lie is when the liar repeats a fact because it is that fact that needs to be taken at face value for the lie to work. you are an idiot and you obviously assumed i was one too. whoops.

(5) do not ask for additional favors after poorly executing a flawed lie. it makes you seem even more like the evolutionary pond scum that you are.

(6) don't lie to me (or anyone for that matter). you haven't known me long enough to know that i usually always find out when i've been lied to. it's almost a god-given gift.

however a concession: some lies are acceptable. those are lies that don't harm anyone. i.e. you just had a bad personal experience and need to work some things out for yourself, so you don't let on what's going on. that's understandable, even if not 100 percent desirable.

i'm in a bad mood.

i'm done trusting

giving the benefit of the doubt

putting your sorry ass feelings before mine

defending

being taken advantage of, whether that be monetarily or emotionally

i'm in a bad mood.

sweating honey

first tap casualties:

*beer #2, half full when E wacked it out of my hand during some craaaaaaaazy dancing. crazy.

*beer #3, also known as replacement beer #1, which was only two-thirds full when random-crazy-dance-lady busted a cap in its proverbial ass

*sweatshirt, which soaked up a good portion of random-crazy-dance-ladies bustacapinyoass beer spillage

HOWEVER:

*sweating honey is incredible, esp. trumpet/vocals who looks eerily like ex-not-boyfriend D

*first tap beer is delicious, more so if you like a nice dark porter

*and E/D as friends who know when to tell a girl to go out, listen to some good music and drink some good beer

adrenaline, rollercoasters and guilt

i ride guilt like a rollercoaster. i've got my ups and i've got my downs, and other times i'm blazing through it at high speeds.

every so often i find myself in the middle of a guilt trip, usually for no real reason.

and more often than not its caused by a sense that i have become too self-centric, too concerned with my own life and not enough with the lives of others.

i find myself asking...what have i done lately to help mankind?

or even to help someone outside of myself?

i know this probably registers high on the bullshit meter for some of you, but i think those people who know me the best know that what i say here is sincere.

right now i'm so consumed with my own activities:
1) i go to school...for myself.
2) i go to work...to make money...for myself
3) i work with HOBY...okay that one is absent of guilt, though i'm sure if i thought hard i could make it into some selfish activity
4) i work out at the gym....for myself

but see, 90% of my day is devoted to those activities which are really to better myself. sure, my graduate degree is in public administration, which is arguably a means to serve my community/government/etc. yet, this endeavor is still a means to get a better job, with better benefits...for myself.

it is at times like these that i want to drop my life and go to some godforsaken country and volunteer for several months, a year, several years

i want to make a difference to someone. i want to put myself aside wholly. i want to be passionate, driven and motivated to change the world.

but i have responsibilities to my family, my friends, my volunteer activities. so i suppose my next best option is to make do with what i can do for my community here and now.

i've got a few ideas in the works and i'm excited

don't mess with the kung pao chicken

saturday night three chinese buffet hopefuls descend upon the twin dragon. we will name them aziz, amir and amanda.

the three joyfully finish a wonderful dining experience. amir leaves to visit the men's room while aziz and amanda settle the check.

posted at the register is the cashier, we'll call her maggie. maggie is pretty hot, in case you were curious.

amanda, being the smart one in the group, reads a sign by the register: "we do not accept checks."

"aziz!" she cries, "they don't accept checks!"

"oh really?" asks aziz while maggie, the hot cashier watches out of the corner of her eye while doing some sidework.

aziz and amanda loiter near the door for a few minutes, waiting for amir and walk out the door. maggie, suspicious, walks to the table to find that aziz has taken the check with him.

enter amir.

"hey," says maggie, "your friends left without paying."

"what! i saw him write the check," says the surprised amir.

maggie walks amir outside where his friends are waiting for him in the car. her gut gives a churn, which prompts maggie to take mental note of the make/model of the car and the license plate number.

"guys! where's the check, they said you didn't leave it," says amir.

amanda looks wide-eyed while aziz searches his pockets. "oh hey! here it is, sorry about that."

maggie checks his ID, memorizes his driver's license number and notices he's a minor due to the vertical orientation of the card. the three drive off.

however, the story is not yet complete. for the check is the sort one receives upon opening an account and must handwrite their name and address. maggie gets a queer feeling that this is a bad check.

come monday afternoon (that would be today), maggie drops by a wells fargo and inquires on whether there are sufficient funds in the account. there aren't.

now maggie is pissed and a tad curious as to whether aziz would really write down his actual address. so she maps it and drives to the house.

*knock knock*

enters mrs. aziz.

"hello, is aziz home?" asks maggie.

"no, what's wrong?" asks mrs. aziz with a look on her face that reads: "aziz is in trouble again?"

maggie explains the situation and tells aziz's mom that she'll be back later tonight.

now, maggie is a tad concerned that aziz may have put down the name and address of someone else, but doubts it. so after her evening class and a lovely dinner with a classmate, she returns to the house to see if the same car is there.

why yes. yes it is. as it is 10:30 in the evening and maggie, being the hot and considerate cashier and amateur sleuth she is, does not want to disturb aziz's parents. so she writes a note.

aziz:
you wrote a bad check to twin dragon on dec. 2. this is your opportunity to be responsible. please pay your bill ($40.97) and the $25 fee for a bounced check (total=$65.97) at the twin dragon by WEDNESDAY (Dec 7). i ask that you take this opportunity to be responsible, otherwise i will have to approach the police regarding fraud. please be reminded that i have your drivers license number, address and make and model of your car.

thank you for being understanding and responsible.

sincerely,
maggie from twin dragon.

...to be continued.