I do not really know how reliable the sources for some of the things I've been reading lately are. They are talking about building a giant dome over Houston, Texas. Apparently no one in Houston, Texas has read The Dome. I wonder how much your property taxes go up when you now have to pay for a several-billion dollar dome. Must be fun to pay to live inside what amounts to a massive experiment. There is much talk about how it will be oh so excellent for the environment, because hey, hasn't the environment always wanted a giant dome in the center of it?

Of course, there probably is some truth to the statement that a controlled environment will save on electricity, as millions of Texans will shut off their A/C. Of course, there is that implication that comes with the words "controlled environment" that kinda makes one think that there is probably going to need to be a massive, cartoon-sized air conditioner around somewhere in order to keep the giant, three-mile wide dome from becoming a giant, three-mile wide magnifying glass in the middle of summer. Maybe it will run on happy, left-wing thoughts, and will infact save power. Or maybe one of the dome's many features is a self-contained nuclear reactor, which will not only be clean, but without sarcasm, also likely safer than a coal powered plant. Who knows?

And of course, at least according to the people presenting this idea, this will help Houston from maintaining the dubious honor of having the U.S.' second highest greenhouse gas emissions. They don't explain exactly how reduction this will happen, but this is likely because it seems pretty obvious: All the dangerous pollution will just stay in the dome, which I guess will be good for the outside environment. Imagine no wind, wouldn't it be nice?

One of the little docudrama things I watch actually did go into addressing what happens if the air in the dome heats up too much and acts as a hot air balloon, floating away and knocking over nice, tall buildings. Turns out, they have REALLY, REALLY big ropes to tie the thing into foundations, which seems somewhat more mickey mouse than placing a band around the base of the dome to me.

It should be noted that a band is indeed also placed around the base of the dome, but it doesn't appear to really be of a design to stop floating problems, at least in the concept art I've been able to find. In fact, at least as far as I can tell from various design descriptions, the base band is there to keep the dome from springing out and flattening the city.

In all honesty, I actually fucking love the concept behind this. These sort of things were originally thought up by the exceedingly brilliant Buckminster Fuller, who not only sounds like a totally fictional cartoon character, but developed some of the coolest concepts in modern architecture, design, and many other things. In fact, he is so awesome that he actually invented a word to brand all of his wicked inventions, habits, and concepts with: "Dymaxion". Of course, some ideas, like this dome, are maybe not quite solidly thought out, or perhaps were, but are not well presented. As some more examples, what happens to the birds? If the dome is easily visible, what happens to the sunlight? What about those who have to live in the shadow? And, back to birds, how exactly are you going to keep the inside and outside of the thing clean? Despite how inherently strong a geodesic dome is, it's not like you can use water bombers to clean off the birdshit.

I think what really bugs me are all the motivations presented for doing this. IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE ENVIROMENT! It's really actually a terrible fucking idea on many many levels, at least as far as this implementation seems to be going. But it's certainly really, really cool, and a neat "what if". I think the world would be a much better place if we could admit that sometimes, we do things like building a giant, awesome, death dome big enough to have it's own atmosphere just be cause fuck you we can.


In other news, Salon magazine and several other similar rags are givin' props to that chick who played that rags-to-riches girl in that one movie that was adapted from a book based on a true story that someone made up. The tradepaper had a teal cover, originally, with the ipod sillouette of the aforementioned heroine. I want to say "Sapphire", but that may have been the author. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called, but if you're the kind of person who reads Salon or Us, then you've probably seen the movie or read the book (I haven't), and know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, the whole story frustrated me to the point where I'm not going to look up the book for the sake of my potential readership despite having plenty of internets right in front of me. Essentially, she is morbidly obese, and, in the eyes of many, has a ridiculously terrible fashion sense. While at some awards show, she decided to stop for a photo op in some horrendously awful outfit. This of course, caused many "negative comments". From the very little I've looked deeper into this, it seems that many comments at least mention her being morbidly obese, but that far, far more of the "official" ones were bashing her shitty fashion choice.

In reply to the hatez, yo, she said something along the lines of "To the haters, I want you to know I spent the whole night crying about what you said while on my private jet on my way to my dream job".

So of course, all the peeps had to be like "OH NO SHE DI'NT!" and give her the mad props for being such a witty, offbeat girl who is rightly proud of her body.

Ok, so yeah, I think that's fair enough. As a fellow large mammal, there's nothing really socially wrong with being fat, and in this day and age, it doesn't really seem to limit your ability to experience many aspects of life in the day to day. I was a little horrified, however, at how many people in the comments section of the article seemed to think that being fat, really, truly fat, is somehow actually healthy, and that obesity-caused illness is a total myth. The general tone was consistently "she should be ok with weighing 350 pounds because it's good for you as long as you are happy with it". Maybe phys ed. has really just sunk in deep with me, but I find it really inconceivably stupid that anyone could actually think eating nothing but recycled cows and being large to the point that moving your arms makes you tired is somehow good for you just because you've accepted it. It's like saying smoking is good for you because it makes you cool, or that it's completely safe to light yourself on fire, as long as the heat doesn't bug you and you feel good about it.

I do also have a little problem with the comment itself, or rather, the incredibly overblow gleeful response the media has given it. Think about it this way: How would the media have reacted if it wasn't a fat black chick who said it?

Reporter: President Bush! Some of the people who voted for you twice now think you are infact a mentally retarded infant who is controlled by some larger conspiracy. How do you respond?

GW: Heh. I'mma cry on my private 747 all the way back to my airfield in the quarter of Texas I own. Heh.

I mean, yeah, she is obviously a little more defendable than ol' G.W., but it's really not the fantufuckotabluously amazing witty smart comeback that it's being portrayed as. It's a somewhat exaggerated "Who cares what you think?" (she is no way rich enough to actually own and operate a jet, and charter jets aren't that impressive when you see how cheap they can be), which is something her mom or friends should be congratulating her on, not the global media.


Bah, the world is a stupid and silly place.

It's taken me three days to write this - I started it, then Lisa got home (I don't like people reading over my shoulder), and then I forgot about it. But I think I was going to end this with a "People are goofy" thought.

Instead.


Hi Lindsay,

I don't know if you read this any more, but hey. I appears you are going through some fun stuff, and while I do actually have what I'd consider to be some valid input, I think I will refrain from giving it.

I really, really feel the need to say something here, as you've been trying to contact me recently, I just feel like perhaps some new parameters need to be established in our relationship.

Kinda hurts my feelings when you say "Oh gee I miss you how are you", when you haven't bothered to come see me in the numerous times you've been up to Dawson. I don't know if you realize this, but you never said thank you for driving you to Edmonton. You never really even tried to clean up the new years mess - I get Edward is weird, but he is a person too and that really destroyed his life for a while. Honestly, what I am getting at here is that I've really felt like maybe we have not been friends for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter or angry or anything. I would not count anyone from the old days, even Sophie, to be anything resembling a friend. And I'm aware I've made some mistakes too. Half-assed hitting on you all the time was probably annoying. Leaving my going away party for a while to go get stoned was kind of a dick move. And bringing Bri on the aforementioned Edmonton trip was likely not cool, though I would have loved to have been able to get rid of her at that point if I could redo it.

And I do appreciate the late night, cheer me up talks we had sometimes back then. I appreciate you bringing me Tim Horton's while I was too sick to find clothes and not minding my laying on the floor in a blanket. I remember thinking it was a pretty damned perfect day that time we snowmobiled to the rimrocks when we were dating, way back when. I really did and do fondly remember a lot of the more human, open moments we had.

So, I guess that's my thoughts. I don't know where I am trying to go with it, or what I am looking for by saying that. I guess in the end, I have some resentment I'd rather not have, and thusly feel the need to lay it out. I don't think resentment is quite the right word, but I am incapable of thinking of a better one. Don't take as a dismissal or a "hey, fuck you, we aren't friends" - it's not. I think that if I still knew you well, I'd likely find you as charming and interesting as I always have. But I don't think I really know anything about you that wasn't part of you half a decade ago, and I've just found as I've grown older that people aren't really worth it if you can't say these types of things to them and have it be a cause for dialog. So now that I have said them, I feel better about things, and perhaps we can be new old friends, or something.

Perhaps later I will put out my thoughts on your problem, though I don't think you'd find they help you come to any real conclusions beyond me being far slimier than you. But for now, I think that's really what I'd like to say, so we'll leave it at that.

Hope all is well elsewhere!

Steve



Aw, hey, one more thing, just cause. Guilt is tough. I think a lot of people who've known me for a long time think that I'm incapable of feeling it. Sometimes I've thought this too, and it's scared me - who wants to be a sociopath.

But I've come to a conclusion in the last few years. It's actually something a therapist told me many years ago, that I did not give much cred to until recently.

I am, as she described, an empath. I get these hugely overwhelming feelings from people, to the point where I have trouble telling the emotions behind statements apart from the statements themselves. For example, if someone is really mad at me, I do not hear them saying "Well, hey, that's not right", I hear them feeling "WELL FUCK YOU YOU LITTLE SHIT".

Thusly, when I cause someone pain, I am more than capable of realizing it.

Besides that, I am somewhat convinced that as long as you do not need dates or lengths of time, I have a frighteningly good memory. I can remember being in the womb, and hearing conversations my mother had before I was born. Hell, I can even tell you what she ate. I know this seems unlikely, but I have had the luck to actually collaborate this with her, having met her in the last few years.

I remember being born. I remember my new parents getting me. I remember pretty much everything from that point on, really. In fact, when I was a kid, I spent so much time talking about possesions I've never owned, and travelling to places I was too young to have even heard of with excellent clarity. And when I was really young, I would scare myself so badly that I'd get taken to emergency, because I remember suffocating to death with an umbilical cord around my throat, being killed during what I now believe could have been the firebombing of Dresden, and falling from a roof and impaling myself on a fence. I remember the last words I may or may not have been able to say to my family before I died as an old person with some illness. So I'd go on a limb and say I can even remember past lives, if such a thing exists and is or was not simply misfiring neurons or dreams confused with reality in my childhood brain.

And with that, I remember all the bad shit I've done. I can quite clearly recall kicking Kevin Derfler's baby sister (like, 4 or 5, not baby baby) in the head just cause when I was really little. I remember the first thing I actually did really really regret, which oddly enough was breaking a little laser-pen toy I had because I didn't work - you can always get the legomen who wouldn't stand up right back out of the vacuum cleaner, but it turns out you can't fix a laser reader after you throw it down the stairs. I remember making up a vicious rumor in order to try and get a teacher fired in elementary school. I remember going a little too far in an argument with someone I'd still like to be my best friend in grade 7 and losing that friendship. There are really, really very few things I think I've forgotten, at least in terms of the narration of the story of Steve.

So, I guess to me, not feeling too bad about things is just how it is and has to be. There are some things, like ditching someone on their prom night, that I will probably always feel bad for, but by and large, I simply cannot afford to let myself feel too bad about much of anything, or I will become even more depressed and unstable.

I know this is something that likely would not come easy to a more normal person, so here's three tips:

1. Remember: They would do it to you, given the chance. This applies to everything. What friends I have are good ones, but are more than happy to let me pick up the tab, or use my stuff without asking, or generally do stuff I'd consider to insensitive. No one is perfect, and forced into the choice, everyone is indeed looking out for number one in the end. Does this mean everyone out there is mean-spirited, hates you, and is spiteful? Not at all, see tip three.

2. Realize that in the end, it really doesn't matter. So something's fucked up. Or broken. Or whatever. Who cares? In 20 years, it would likely have fucked itself up, or broken, or whatever. In the end, there is really no point to anything in life. You live, you make some mistakes, and you die. Within 10 years of that, it's really likely that no one will have even remembered who you were or give a shit about your little life.

3. Realize that morality is not black, white, or grey. Right and wrong as infalliable concepts is kinda bullshit. Hitchiker's guide to the galaxy makes a good example - aliens want to destroy earth and all life on it to build a highway. Does this make them evil? Well, maybe, as they are killing billions of people. But at the same time, not really. They aren't doing it out of spite, they are doing it because they want a commuter lane. So when you really back up and look it, the concept of "bad" and "good" does not really apply to general life. I can do bad things with good intentions, and vise-versa. In the end, I feel this: Did you do it because you wanted to hurt someone, or because you thought it would make you feel better? If you aren't trying to hurt someone, then it's pretty hard to feel bad about it. I will let myself feel bad if my actions cause pain, but in the end, I can safely place that in the hands of the hurtee - I'm sorry I hurt you, but I didn't mean to, and frankly it's your problem, not mine, that you feel like this.

I think the other reason I find three to be very easy for me. Admittedly, it's not the way to win friends and influence people, but in reality, most people are unintentionally pretty rude and cruel, even without meaning to be. I will not take the time to delve into this right now, but it's somewhat proven that subconsciously, even the way humans have of talking to and interacting with eachother on a day-to-day basis is pretty harmful. While I think I'm pretty good at being much more aware of the feelings of others than a lot of people, I really don't see any need to CARE about those feelings - really, do other people care about mine, even if they aren't as obvious? No, not really.

I am tired. My hands hurt. I think that's really, really it, though I'd like to sort of explore this a little more sometime.