So I'm sorta tired of writing about wild rice...thank goodness I finished the last of my wild rice up today! I got two five-gallon buckets full of rice...about 90 lbs of rice total, which I guess would cost about $540 if I'd just purchased it.
After a little over two weeks of work; I feel satisfied that I got a good deal out of this; mostly because of lessons learned. Some important ones include:
1) Cities really suck after a week or so spent in pristine wilderness...when you come back to the city, you realize how noisy, crowded and dirty cities are....and it makes you vow never to have kids and overcrowd this crowded world even more then it already is. I'm planning on researching how much it costs to get my tubes tied very soon...I'm sure its expensive, but a hell of a lot cheaper then having a kid. Minneapolis seems like an even louder city then most, by the way...constant airplane and helicopter noise, as well as all the other normal city noises drives me crazy!
2) I'm a really, really tough lady. I already sorta knew this, but I needed to prove this to myself once again....periodically, I have to push my boundaries and prove that I can do things like chop wood, build fires, hitchhike alone, live without creature comforts and not cry when boys disappoint me. I amaze myself, and that is a great feeling.
3) People don't have to be sexually attracted to me...people don't have to do anything they don't want to do. Also, everyone doesn't have the same needs as I do at the same time(s).
4) I can have plutonic relationships with people of the opposite sex, and actually, it is very, very nice...everything doesn't have to be about sex.
5) Punk houses take some getting used to...I've been staying at a punk house called the Shitbiscuit and there is a reason for that name...it is filthy, what with three dogs and currently ten people living there...and people all have different schedules, so sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, other people are drinking or talking or dancing or whatever. I guess what I'm trying to say is, community living is always a challenge, in one way or another. Since high school, I've been living in a variety of community situations, and I still often have a hard time with them; I love having a sort of "built in family," if you will, people to talk to in the evenings, people to cook with and share tasks with, but, at the same time, when living in community, you often have to deal with slobs, really noisy people, people's drinking/drug habits, people like me who have ancient typewriters and who like to stay up really late clack-clacking away, people who don't think inviting their freeloader boyfriend to live on the couch without paying any rent is a big deal. All these little things can lead to disharmony in community settings. You have to be really careful, most of the time, not to step on anyone's toes. By the way, my favorite community house I've lived in, to date, was with this elderly guy named Frank who ran this sort of unofficial hostel for visiting artists in the glassblowing town, Corning New York. Most of the people who stayed there only stayed a week or two, but Frank had a couple of more permanent renters, one being me, and one being this extremely reclusive guy named John. It was an awesome place to stay because of the glass artists, some of whom where semi-famous in the glass world who would come stay, because Frank was a huge movie buff and would watch a different movie every night of the week almost and would always invite anyone who was around to sit in the living room with him and have wine and popcorn and watch the movie. He owned nearly a thousand movies and also rented five or six per week from Netflix. Frank was awesome. Being elderly, he always had excellent advice for me as well. Sometimes he'd say things like "when are you going to dump that boyfriend?" Or "a lady like yourself shouldn't be hanging out in bars..." He made me feel very ladyish, and like I should be treated well....something most of my boyfriends have failed to do.
I miss Frank, and I wonder, where are the men of my generation who are gentlemen? Do they exist?
Love ya,
Carrot
Please, please don't send anything to the e-mail address above...that is not my e-mail, it is a friend of mine and I have no idea how it got into the title; I must have accidentally copy-and-pasted it.
I repeat, please, please do not e-mail anything to this address!
Love ya,
Carrot
I took the email address out of the title for you. :-)
For the future, you can edit your posts after submitting them. There is a tab at the top, under the title, that says "edit" (next to one that says "view"). You can edit your title, blog, and tags with this after you've posted. :-)
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Read my Blog!
Unfortunately, the helicopter traffic in Minneapolis was greatly increased last month because of the RNC. There have been police and press helicopters all over the place for the past month. Now that it's over, it is considerably quieter. The airplane noise, well, that's just a part of life in southwest Minneapolis. If you had been in Nordeast, it wouldn't have been bad at all. You were probably staying in a flight path.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Amazing lessons. Lovely, really.
If you ever happen to be in Vegas, which is a horrible city, keep in mind that I may be falling for you. *Insert whatever wink and nod here that would indicate that I am only half joking*
Good for you for not wanting kids. I have been looking into a vasectomy myself. Much cheaper and safer than tied tubes, and also more effective. Turns out that the female body is way better at getting pregnant than the male body is at impregnating female bodies. The world just doesn't need more people, and plenty of people don't really need the world. Not to mention that I would be entirely at a loss to bring up my children in any kind of socially acceptable manner.
I have never lived in any kind of communal setting, but it always seemed like an extremely interesting and informative experience. I don't really know if I could deal with people on that kind of basis, especially if they don't adequately take care of and clean up after their pets. One of my pet peeves has always been people who bring animals, especia;;y a large number of animals, into a situation where they will not be properly taken care of.
Tralalalala, off to some other post...
“Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you” - Delmore Schwartz
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles." - George Jean Nathan
No, actually I don't feel right cheering you on in that direction...obviously this is a very personal choice, something nobody else should make for you...but I was reading all about sterilization for men and women, and only 6% of men who'd gotten a vasectomy under the age of thirty later regretted it, regardless of whether they already had kids or not. Women, on the other hand, had about a 26% chance of regretting their decision to become sterilized.
I've been meeting quiet a few very young men lately who've gotten vasectomies and I am both in awe that at 21, 22 or 23 they know enough about themselves to make that choice and also very happy that we have responsible young men in the world...young men who think enough about the future to make these types of choices. Unfortunately, I think the smartest folks are the ones who aren't having kids....rent the movie Idiocracy if you need more clarification about where I am going with that thought.
Sterilization for ladies is a much more complicated/painful/expensive process...so obviously, I'll need to think long and hard before really making that decision.
Love ya,
Carrot
Idiocracy is a brilliant movie. :-)
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Read my Blog!
I love it and I recommend it to everyone.
Love ya,
Carrot
There was an article in Glamour Magaizine (It was actually pretty brief because it was part of a larger feature) about why men are getting vasectomies. They were all younger than 30, around 35. And several more men wrote in in a later issue saying they were proud to have gotten vesectomies and what their reasons was. The only thing that didn't make sense to me was the writers to the editor were annoyed because they thought that Glamour was mocking the decision and I thought it made the decision look like a positive thing and took the issue seriously. Although it may have had to do with the fact that it was next to "Why are more men wearing skinny jeans?"
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711