I'll start by stating the obvious: the idea of Prop 19 passing here in California makes me highly uncomfortable.
Not the idea of legalized marijuana - that I can understand, and in some sense, even support. The idea of cutting off funding to drug cartels, and taxing the living daylights out of it to assist the state economically... those seem like reasonable things to do, to me at least. Other countries have well enforced, well regulated legalized cannabis - it's not that humans are fundamentally incapable of managing it.
The part that I have a tough time with is the way that this legalization is being done - specifically that they're allowing personal private ownership of small quantities for personal consumption, rather than making the business a state run institution. How about something like a bar, where people come in, order what they want, and smoke it there? Just check their keys at the door.
It also does relatively little to address the unintended results of such legalization; it seems to me that the vast majority of people who want to legalize this are socially irresponsible, emotionally immature individuals. Allowing that maybe my sample population is off (it could be - maybe there are a ton of socially responsible, emotionally mature people that want this stuff legalized too)... Should our society, our kids, and myself personally be at effect of people who abuse the legalization of this substance? Do we really want to make a gateway drug legal? Underage drinking is a rampant issue, as is drug use by high schoolers (they buy it from dealers, or - shy of that - raid parents medicine closets, sniff glue, etc)... do we really want to make it easier for kids to be using this stuff?
It's not like we're legalizing it in a way that kids would be introduced to it in a safe and sane way - it'd be illegal for people under 21 to possess it - we're just making it legal for the adults. In making it legal for the adults, and confining it to private areas (like the home), we're now potentially legalizing the exposing of all those little babies to the second hand smoke of marijuana.
How about those people who are in recovery? All those people in rehab/drug programs/etc who are trying to get their stuff together - do we want to make it harder for them? By making it harder for them, we make it harder (and more expensive) for ourselves as a society.
What about people who don't follow the new regulations, and don't contain it to their private quarters? With law enforcement already stretched its limits with emergencies and violent crime, laying people off left and right, I find it hard to believe that they'll be responding to calls that sound like, "Excuse me, there's a gentleman toking on the corner of 7th and A Street. What? No, he's not hurting anyone, but it's illegal and it offends my olfactory senses."
I don't see this being regulated anywhere near as well as people seem to think it's going to be.
And how about the unforseen medical expenses of health issues down the line? Who's covering those? I have a hard enough time already knowing that my tax dollars pay for people's medical expenses whose diseases are self inflicted (from smoking, overeating, drinking too much, etc)... I apologize for sounding insensitive, but I'd really rather not add one more thing to the list of ways people can harm themselves at my personal expense. Illness you didn't do anything to get? Sure, no problem! When you do it yourself? ...Idiotic and irresponsible.
I love a lot of things about California.
This is most definitely NOT one of them.
I really hope it doesn't pass.
No on Prop 19.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A Little Overwhelmed
You know... I'm married now.
It is strange, and a wonderful feeling.
It's really nothing that I could ever describe; there's so much going on in my head.
I am overwhelmed with emotion.
I regularly want to cry.
When I realize that I've promised to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. When he comes to bed after me because I go to sleep before him, and he drapes another comforter around my shoulders to keep me from getting cold in the middle of the night. When I wake up at two AM and find his arms still wrapped around me. When he tells me that he loves me, for no reason at all.
When I realize that people flew in from three different countries, and unknown numbers of states to be at our wedding. When I think about all of the feathers I found; when I think about the hawks playing and calling and blessing our ceremony. When I think of all the love and beauty that surrounds me, all of the people that turned out to show their support as W and I went from "he and I" to "us".
When I realize that - due to circumstances beyond anyone's control - a tab is running up against my savings until such circumstances get ironed out. (Eventually, that money will make it back in there, and until then, it's a balancing act of trying to know at what point do I say, "I cant run the tab any higher.")
Between the wedding, the moving, and legal fees associated with the move, W and I are absolutely stretched to our limits financially.
It feels awkward and vulnerable to put that out there, to acknowledge publicly and to the Universe, "Hey, I don't know how this is going to work out here. I don't know where to draw the line. I don't even know if there's a line to be drawn. I don't know that there's a 'right' answer, I don't know that there's a 'wrong' answer, I don't even know that there's an answer. I could use a little bit of clarity...maybe some relief here."
It feels a little bit sad; I miss my parents' house, and the security (or at least obliviousness) of being under someone else's roof. I miss my dog and my reptiles; I hope that the tanks I ordered are ready soon, so that I can move the scaly babies into the place that I am living in now.
The help comes in faith I guess. Remembering that life has always worked out - that the universe has always worked /for/ me, not against me. Remembering that somehow, the ends have always been kept together long enough to get them tied.
I am uncomfortable; I wish I could make that feeling go away, and I figure that the best I can do right now is to simply acknowledge it and know that this too shall pass.
It is Sunday, it is drizzly and gray; there is nothing to be done but enjoy the day.
The rent check is not due for another two weeks, doesn't need to be written for a week and a half. Things will be done before then, maybe bringing some clarity, some relief.
I saw my parents and my animals this morning, and I'll see them again in not too long I'm sure - they're really very close; I could literally walk over in less than an hour.
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.” -Erich Fromm
It is strange, and a wonderful feeling.
It's really nothing that I could ever describe; there's so much going on in my head.
I am overwhelmed with emotion.
I regularly want to cry.
When I realize that I've promised to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. When he comes to bed after me because I go to sleep before him, and he drapes another comforter around my shoulders to keep me from getting cold in the middle of the night. When I wake up at two AM and find his arms still wrapped around me. When he tells me that he loves me, for no reason at all.
When I realize that people flew in from three different countries, and unknown numbers of states to be at our wedding. When I think about all of the feathers I found; when I think about the hawks playing and calling and blessing our ceremony. When I think of all the love and beauty that surrounds me, all of the people that turned out to show their support as W and I went from "he and I" to "us".
When I realize that - due to circumstances beyond anyone's control - a tab is running up against my savings until such circumstances get ironed out. (Eventually, that money will make it back in there, and until then, it's a balancing act of trying to know at what point do I say, "I cant run the tab any higher.")
Between the wedding, the moving, and legal fees associated with the move, W and I are absolutely stretched to our limits financially.
It feels awkward and vulnerable to put that out there, to acknowledge publicly and to the Universe, "Hey, I don't know how this is going to work out here. I don't know where to draw the line. I don't even know if there's a line to be drawn. I don't know that there's a 'right' answer, I don't know that there's a 'wrong' answer, I don't even know that there's an answer. I could use a little bit of clarity...maybe some relief here."
It feels a little bit sad; I miss my parents' house, and the security (or at least obliviousness) of being under someone else's roof. I miss my dog and my reptiles; I hope that the tanks I ordered are ready soon, so that I can move the scaly babies into the place that I am living in now.
The help comes in faith I guess. Remembering that life has always worked out - that the universe has always worked /for/ me, not against me. Remembering that somehow, the ends have always been kept together long enough to get them tied.
I am uncomfortable; I wish I could make that feeling go away, and I figure that the best I can do right now is to simply acknowledge it and know that this too shall pass.
It is Sunday, it is drizzly and gray; there is nothing to be done but enjoy the day.
The rent check is not due for another two weeks, doesn't need to be written for a week and a half. Things will be done before then, maybe bringing some clarity, some relief.
I saw my parents and my animals this morning, and I'll see them again in not too long I'm sure - they're really very close; I could literally walk over in less than an hour.
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.” -Erich Fromm
Monday, October 4, 2010
A Collection Of Thoughts - Six Days To Go
Here I am, six days away from being locked into holy matrimony with my very best friend - you would think that, more than anything, I'd be a mess of excitement, nervousness, and anxiety about the upcoming nuptials. This is what I've been led to believe, anyway, through love songs and televisions series, and the various people peppering me with questions about the wedding and my emotional state upon approach.
The reality tends to be something less than expected (by myself, any ways); it's exhaustion (both physical - from burning the candle at both ends with planning and preparation and allergies, and mental - the stamina required to do wedding planning in nearly all of my down time for the past several months is incredible, and I'm about running on fumes at this point), anxiety (not about the wedding, but about moving out of my childhood home), childish anger, incompletion, and resentment toward partners from past relationships (one in particular), and a very deep seated calm (as if I am doing exactly what I were placed on this planet to do).
There are moments of excitement, some moments of nervousness (closer to a doubt, really), some rare moments of all of the above... and mostly, a forward look to the relief of being able to take a breather from this sort of activity once everything is done.
There's also the knowledge that this sort of thing (hopefully) comes once in a lifetime, and that it might be worth living all of it up - soaking in every moment of logistical nightmare, ex-hating, anxiety-ridden-packing, frenetic scurrying back and forth to make sure that we have everything we need for the big day...
There's a sort of humility in knowing that we're going to stand up there and declare to the Universe, "Forever!", and hope that the Universe nods and goes, "So it shall be." To hope that the both of us continue to place our relationship at the forefront, continue to build walls where there should be walls and windows where there should be windows, and not take our eyes off the blueprint of partnership and love.
There's a lot of books on marriage - how to keep one healthy, how to avoid damage, how to repair and rebuild... I don't see that stuff in wedding planning books. Maybe its because I'm not looking for it, maybe its because I'm looking in the wrong places, but I think that there are a lot of things that aren't addressed... There's an entire romance about weddings that - while necessary, and exciting, and - well, romantic - is detrimental I think, in the sense that people don't acknowledge that it's only a part of the story.
People don't talk about how to keep a family from crashing and burning when they don't like your chosen partner, they don't talk about the mental overload of details, they don't talk about maintaining stamina, or going into debt, or nearly going into debt, or the strain that can put on people. They don't talk about how to say no, or how not to lose yourself, or how not to live through your children; they don't talk about boundaries and space and time and how to be good to yourself as best as you can, or how much time planning will take and how to work that in on top of your already jam-packed schedule. They don't talk about meshing cultures as seamlessly as possible, or how to be okay with other people being angry at you while they process whatever it is that you're doing; they don't talk about how to stick to your guns without drawing them on someone. They don't talk about coping with your parents being angry, or unsupportive, and they don't talk about how to respect your child's wishes, and treat them like an adult in the truest sense of the word.
There's just a lot of things they don't talk about.
The reality tends to be something less than expected (by myself, any ways); it's exhaustion (both physical - from burning the candle at both ends with planning and preparation and allergies, and mental - the stamina required to do wedding planning in nearly all of my down time for the past several months is incredible, and I'm about running on fumes at this point), anxiety (not about the wedding, but about moving out of my childhood home), childish anger, incompletion, and resentment toward partners from past relationships (one in particular), and a very deep seated calm (as if I am doing exactly what I were placed on this planet to do).
There are moments of excitement, some moments of nervousness (closer to a doubt, really), some rare moments of all of the above... and mostly, a forward look to the relief of being able to take a breather from this sort of activity once everything is done.
There's also the knowledge that this sort of thing (hopefully) comes once in a lifetime, and that it might be worth living all of it up - soaking in every moment of logistical nightmare, ex-hating, anxiety-ridden-packing, frenetic scurrying back and forth to make sure that we have everything we need for the big day...
There's a sort of humility in knowing that we're going to stand up there and declare to the Universe, "Forever!", and hope that the Universe nods and goes, "So it shall be." To hope that the both of us continue to place our relationship at the forefront, continue to build walls where there should be walls and windows where there should be windows, and not take our eyes off the blueprint of partnership and love.
There's a lot of books on marriage - how to keep one healthy, how to avoid damage, how to repair and rebuild... I don't see that stuff in wedding planning books. Maybe its because I'm not looking for it, maybe its because I'm looking in the wrong places, but I think that there are a lot of things that aren't addressed... There's an entire romance about weddings that - while necessary, and exciting, and - well, romantic - is detrimental I think, in the sense that people don't acknowledge that it's only a part of the story.
People don't talk about how to keep a family from crashing and burning when they don't like your chosen partner, they don't talk about the mental overload of details, they don't talk about maintaining stamina, or going into debt, or nearly going into debt, or the strain that can put on people. They don't talk about how to say no, or how not to lose yourself, or how not to live through your children; they don't talk about boundaries and space and time and how to be good to yourself as best as you can, or how much time planning will take and how to work that in on top of your already jam-packed schedule. They don't talk about meshing cultures as seamlessly as possible, or how to be okay with other people being angry at you while they process whatever it is that you're doing; they don't talk about how to stick to your guns without drawing them on someone. They don't talk about coping with your parents being angry, or unsupportive, and they don't talk about how to respect your child's wishes, and treat them like an adult in the truest sense of the word.
There's just a lot of things they don't talk about.
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