Thursday, December 20, 2012

I've started like four blog entries in the past six days and left them as drafts. All of them were pretty modular, so I will combine parts of them here:


I.
I think the chia pet may be the embodiment of several things that are wrong.

1. WHO WANTS THIS AS A PART OF THEIR LIVES? Look at it. If I want a ridiculous decoration, I'll start collecting novelty nutcrackers or something.

2. Chia is incredibly nutritionally dense. Per anecdotes I have heard (trust them accordingly), Aztec soldiers used to eat a handful of chia seeds to keep themselves going for like 24 hours at a time. It has a ton of protein, omega fatty acids, and nutrients, and it makes (from what I hear) a delicious gelatin-like suspension that you can use as a base for smoothies, in addition to just eating the seeds as-is. This is a food that could probably do a lot for the world. Instead, it is the hair for head-shaped terracotta planters.

See also: Amaranth: not just a purty purple flower.

II.

I'd like to stress that I hope we can all agree that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is creepy. INTERESTING FACT: the two vocal parts were not designated as "man" and "woman" or anything like that; instead, they are labeled "wolf" and "mouse."

III.
So my parents have been getting Christmas cards, with the requisite chatty Christmas letters, from a ton of family friends. Ok, maybe like four. But still. It's weird. I don't think my family has ever sent out a Christmas letter, because we're just not chatty people. I appreciate people who keep their letter to one page, preferably without margin adjustment, because I think it shows skill. Maybe the next step is to shorten it even further, by doing holiday limericks or something. Try this at home, readers!

IV.
Sewing gives me a profound sense of agency. Like, oh, you mean these pants used to be too long? BAM. Altered -- by me. I have changed the world to fit my needs.

V.
The days immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting were interesting, because you got to watch everyone construct completely one-sided explanations. Half the world was like, Mental illness made him do it! The other half was like, Guns made him do it! I think some of that has tempered and moderated a bit, but it was a weird time.

VI.
I'm like 90% sure that autism/Asperger's is not a mental illness and is in no way linked to violent behavior. So let's all get on the same page with that. And can we all finally admit that mental illness really truly does exist? Like, it's not just people not trying hard enough. I've spent years lobbying that fact and had a surprisingly hard time with it.

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