Smile: Make It A Great Day

Saw this written on a license plate frame this weekend. The idea that just a smile can make someone's day has always bugged me. Smiling, or a stranger smiling at you, is not going to make your day any better if someone died or you lost your job and have been unemployed for a month and a half with no real prospects...*

Killer Smile: I has it.

I was endlessly annoyed while working as a cashier and middle aged men would ask me to smile as I rang up their purchases. Would smiling on command make my day better? Would it make standing in a booth for four hours scanning vitamins and pens and shampoo as fast as possible any better? Or would my smiling on command simply make these men happier?

A simple smile (though undoubtedly uplifting from that special someone or a hot guy at a coffee shop) is not going to make or break your day. Who has gone home at the end of the day and sobbed, wondering why no one smiled? Does this happen and I'm too caught up in, oh, living my life, to keep tabs on who is or isn't smiling? I was not trained "service with a smile" or "the customer is always right" where I cashiered. I did not offer a service to my customers, and no, ringing you up is not considered a "service." A waiters' smile is going to make your dining out experience better, and you'll tip him better for being friendly, but a cashier's smile is not going to affect your happiness with the product you purchased.

This being said, I'm not knocking people who try to live by those feel-good cutsie sayings if it makes them happier. To each his own and whatever rocks your socks and all that.

*I has a job now.

A Vasectomy for Women

At last!

Do not want to spend my hard earned cash on diapers.

The male birth control pill is still a few years away, but it seems researchers and doctors have found a procedure for women that is comparable to a vasectomy. It's called Adiana, and it's a form of permanent, hormone-less birth control for women.

"...Adiana is a minimally-invasive, non-incisional alternative. This procedure uses hysteroscopy, generally requires only local anesthesia, and can be performed in a physician's office. Patients are typically able to return to work or resume their everyday activities within a day." From Medical News Today. 

The procedure takes about 15 minutes, doesn't require any knife cuts, doesn't mess with hormones, and is currently estimated to be 98.9% effective.

 

It's not foolproof yet, though. Something like 11 pregnancies out of 600 patients in the first year. Since it was only approved in 2007 I'll wait to see how it improves. Maybe that could be a nice 30th birthday present to myself! I'm endlessly annoyed at doctors who refuse to sterilize a woman under the age of 40 because he's convinced she'll want kids as soon as she can't have them and sue. Is it that hard to get a lawyer to write up a fire proof contract for women to sign promising to not sue if they do want kids later? Is it that hard for the women who do change their minds to just adopt?

My Dreams While Sick

I had disturbing dreams today. I'll blame it on being sick.

Dream #1: Just before I woke up this morning.

My family was at some sort of government holding facility. (Think Tijuana border meets work camp meets Biblical consensus.) My immediate family is at this holding pen thing that has a line resembling the wait for X at Magic Mountain. 

Not worth a 30 minute wait... Definitely not worth the 3 hours I waited.

The ground is mud and there are hundreds of people just standing about. For some reason (as is common for my dreams) I have an aerial view of things. I see my littlest sister running for dear life around the perimeter of the compound and some men chasing her. It's obvious they want to hurt her and are trying to chase her out of the compound so they can take action. She gets to the border fence barely ahead of the men, but at the last second makes a sweeping u-turn and heads back into the thick of the crowd, where the men won't be able to touch her. At this point I'm back on the ground and she comes running right into my arms. We're both sobbing at the thought of what very nearly happened.

We return to our family, who knows what happened and are shaken up. We continue to wait in the line, which is apparently a line for sandwiches. We pay the mandatory $5 per person, receive a tuna sandwich (with lettuce), and they watch us eat it. 

I don't know where the tuna sandwich comes from.

My mom takes a bite and says, "Well, I'm making a peanut butter sandwich when we get home."

Dream #2: Nap time.

I go to the grocery store with my boyfriend and someone who resembles a devil in motorcycle gear and a cape. I do not like this devil person, but something has happened that makes me feel sorry for him, and he seems injured. At the store I come upon some shifty guys hiding themselves and toying with something. Being suspicious, I try to get a good view of the group and see they have a butter knife and are practicing voodoo with some garlic.

Not just for vampires anymore.

The devil person screams out in pain and has a visible stab wound on his shoulder. Though I'm not a fan of this devil person, I also don't feel he should die at the hands of some voodoo shoppers, so I grab the knife, which is now bloody. The devil person runs screaming from the store, jumps on his motorcycle, and drives off into the night. The voodoo shoppers shout victoriously, saying, "He's weak and driving a motorcycle at night. It will be easy to finish him off!" They pull another butter knife and I run out the store trying to find the devil person, but he's gone. I felt determined to put a stop to the voodoo shopper shenanigans.

But then I woke up.

To the Religious and the Non Religious: Live and Let Live

Found this after an hour or two of searching for images. I LOL'd.

I've been in a bit of an internal struggle. The more I read articles written by the devout the more I think they're irrational and self righteous. The more I read articles written by atheists the more I think they're rational and logical (if still preachy).

Let me clarify my struggle: I believe in God and feel God's presence in my life; coincidence would be too coincidental. I struggle with the Bible supposedly being the absolute word. This notion is hard for me and rational people everywhere to accept because it was written by several people, edited into books and chapters generations later, then translated dozens and dozens of times over 2000 years (Peter dictated to a writer; he didn't even write his books himself). The work of man is not infallible (that the Pope is infallible is the most hypocritical idea I've ever heard of), and the Bible is a work of man. God may have inspired it, but he did not beam it down on a cloud or chisel it into stone Himself.

I am not sure what to call myself. I believe in God. I don't go to church. I pray sometimes. I read the Bible every now and then (both because it's something interesting to read and to learn). I believe people are born good and learn evil. And if I read the words in red in the Bible (Jesus' quotes) to be the only thing close to absolute truth then I believe Jesus is part of the holy trinity, not simply a prophet. I believe God may have created the universe in seven days, but each day might have been a billion years, not 24 hours.

Better than the Queen's face!

Been reading The Atheist Missionary lately. History has shown us that religion divides people; I don't recall one of the arguments for religion being it creates good in the world. I'm glad to see anyone doing good in the world. Just like religious zealots trying to convert everyone, atheist zealots trying to destroy religion are annoying. For the average non-crazy person, faith can provide a means to deal with hardships. Why take away someone's hope?

Boy Meets Girl, Trouble

I had a fight with my boyfriend this weekend. A friend is having problems with her boyfriend. Another friend can't meet boys. My mom broke up with her boyfriend. Again. My sister is pro-boy but anti-boyfriend. A friend isn't kissing her boyfriend until they're at the altar. Another friend is taking a break from boys altogether.

My understanding is there are two schools of thought on relationships: one is the right relationship is easy to be in, and the other is any relationship worth being in is going to be difficult. This is why I don't like black and white. Life is made of gray.

The happy couple.

Relationships take a lot of work to function properly. Relationships are the basis upon which the vast, vast majority of songs, movies, novels, self-help books, and TV shows are built, making money for the people who can capitalize on them. Unfortunately, it's from these songs, movies, books, and shows that we get the wrong impressions about what a relationship is. In Scrubs, an agitated Turk consults with a patient:

Turk: So you're my gastric bypass. You got any questions?

Patient: Nope. See you in the O.R. tomorrow.

Turk: I'll be the one with the mask on. (To J.D.) That's how easy marriage should be.

Turk was upset that Carla wanted to send Rowdy to a farm.

Some people believe that if you're truly right for each other you won't fight, you won't need to compromise and you won't ever have a problem. These people are more likely to get married while still in the honeymoon stage of the relationship. They're also more likely to get divorced, believing the first partner "wasn't meant to be" and it was a mistake that delayed them from finding their true love. 

Sure there are plenty of other fish in the sea; but you're not anywhere near the sea. You're in the desert. Alone.

I remember the first year with my boyfriend and being so proud that we hadn't fought. When the first fight came, it was a little devastating. "We don't fight," I thought. "We aren't like other couples." It's been five years now, and it hasn't been perfect. We had a pretty nasty year of trying to make long distance work when I moved to San Diego and we gave up twice, but eventually we did get through it (after he finally moved here). We've seen several friends in long term relationships go through nasty break ups and have seen our parents go through bad divorces. 

A British article suggests unmarried adults will soon be more common than married adults. The article discusses how the number of marriages are declining and more adults are either cohabiting or living alone, and never marrying. What I don't understand is the choice of photo for the article:

The only way to happiness is marriage. Duh.

The article details the benefits of a single or cohabiting life, and then springs this line:

"The fall of marriage will go alongside a continuing large increase in numbers of people who do not have a live-in partnership - a forecast that means millions of young people are heading for a life of middle-aged loneliness."

Because, obviously, once you've hit 40 you're basically dead and no one wants you. The people who choose to remain single won't be lonely if there will be so many other single people around. Single people are lonely when they lose their single friends to marriages, but if, like the article says, there will be more single people than married people, who's gonna be lonely? I bet a bunch of 40+ bars will spring up to cater to this new bunch.

On a more or less related note, in Germany there was a story of a man who was sterile and could not start a family with his wife. He paid his neighbor (a married father of two) to have sex with his wife. After six months and no baby the neighbor was found to be sterile, forcing his wife to admit his two children weren't really his. Oops. The story centered around the first man suing for his money back, but I want to know how the neighbor responded to his wife sleeping with someone else! It sounds like the neighbor needs that money, so the first man might just want to let it go. Not like the neighbor agreed knowing he was sterile.