... to do pretty much everything. I wish I could explain why I stopped writing, except, looking at it all now, that the whole blog is whiny and selfish, and I'd really like not to be those things anymore. As for an update, well, I was trying to find a picture, but I didn't find anything satisfactory, so here's how I am;
It feels as though there's something grinding in the back of my mind. I was gonna use "droning," but grinding is better, I think. Most of the time, I can distract myself in some thing or another, nice song or good conversation or something. There times where it gets "louder," to the point that the grinding becomes a metallic screech. There's an in-between, but that's still under the label of tolerable.
I've had some "arguments" with people that have gone wrong because of a very specific form of misunderstanding. I use quotation marks because we clearly disagreed, but without anyone knowing how or why, or where that disconnect was. One notable instance was over some ill-deserved outrage (in my opinion) over a tax hike on tanning salons. The initial comment was something like "Really? They're gonna tax THIS too?" to which I gave a simple enough answer-- the government taxes plenty of things, and tanning is pretty bad for you anyway, since it causes cancer and all, so, along the lines of other harmful services and products that have been taxed, like tobacco, why not this? It would help cut down on people overcooking themselves on tanning beds, which may help lower melanoma rates, and those who still insisted on turning their hides into a rugged leather would be contributing to tax revenues.
The responses were idiotic. I got one woman who was telling me about her experiences with psoriasis and another who was straw-manning me on the political side, making me out to be a proud red worker bee, and didn't you know conformity is great, comrades? I decided to try and keep my cool. If I could show them what's what, if I work out my points clearly and rationally, and back them up with some good info, then they could at least see what I meant, right?
Not a chance. Psoriasis lady insisted that the tanning tax would hurt people like her, who absolutely NEED their 15 minutes under a bed to keep their condition under control, doctors orders. Well, because I am at least slightly resourceful, I went digging for answers. As it turns out, a tanning bed is the very -last- thing a doctor would recommend, and it would be more of a suggestion, not a medically prescribed treatment. First, they would prescribe "light therapy," but the fact of the matter is that there are not many light therapy clinics. The difference between light therapy beds and tanning beds are fairly significant. Therapy bulbs are white light, tanning beds are blue, and whichever ray (UVA or UVB, I don't remember, it's not important anymore) that psoriasis patients needed were almost completely absent in the blue tanning lights. There was a lot of stuff about vitamin D production, too, which tanning beds mostly sucked for. The only advantages to a tanning bed were that it was cheaper than therapy and quicker (though not safer or by any means better) than sunbathing.
I plastered source after source (.govs and .orgs, and only big names for the latter) in a slow, deliberate answer, where I made the case that what psoriasis patients needed was appropriate health care (via light therapy or anything I could find that was actually medically advisable [tanning beds are not]), and even after admitting that doctors would whisper it as a latch ditch effort to help these kinds of people who may not have access to better things, the response I got was something like "Yeah, well, my doctor TOLD me to, so THERE!" I have graciously added capitalization and punctuation.
The only incident the political woman had worth mentioning is when she tried posting "sources." What a bunch of shit. One was a youtube video of a town hall-style meeting with Barack Obama about health care (I can't find it, this was probably a year or more ago). I didn't understand it at first, but then it clicked-- I was supposed to take a certain phrase Barack Obama said literally, but I didn't, because that's not what he meant at all. Some lady had asked him a question about a specific situation involving her elderly mother. She was in failing health, so what would happen? Obama's response wasn't carefully worded enough, so it came out sounding like the doctor was just gonna put the old bat down. This is as close to the end of the phrase as I can muster: "...the family will have to get together and talk about it, and the doctor will have to decide what the appropriate course of action is." Ehh, I think I slanted that a bit harsher, because it was REALLY innocuous to me at the time, but I can't recall the exact quote. All I remember is that I was supposed to hear synchronous boot stepping and see BIG BROTHER's face, because Barack Obama was obviously gonna kill all of our grandma's.
I ended up telling them to fuck off and die because they're so goddamn stupid, although in a much grander fashion, and with marginally more tact. It just got to the point where reading their retarded attempts at arguing filled my head with the sound of screaming metal-on-metal, as if two buzz saws were mating on some sheet metal. It's like that for a lot of things now.
So I didn't vote on November 2. I have yet to hear a good reason why I should have. This resulted in another "argument" where I laid out my position (maybe not as clearly as it could have been), and was met all around with non-answers. I asked why I should have, and one of the comments was "If you don't know, you better ask somebody." Seriously. Here's why I didn't-- I don't give a damn about any of the gubernatorial candidates. Virg Bernero is a douche, and the Republican (I don't remember his name) was even less impressive. Here's one more-- I would have had to make the normally 35 minute one-way drive twice in rush hour, gotten done voting at the busiest time of the day, and then finish eating in under two hours, between 5 and 7, my last class and kendo in the gym. Not worth it for two interchangeable politicians who probably won't bring Michigan out of it's hole.
I dunno if I should publish a pamphlet or what. "How to Successfully Make Your Point Without Driving Sean to Murder". It just seems like there are too many people who don't know what a sound argument or good information is. For whatever reason, all the conservatives I've tried to talk to, be it a crazy old Catholic lady or some friends who really like AK's, get this weird air about them, where they try spooking me into thinking I'm about to lose all of my human rights, but they do so by spouting hyperbolic gibberish. We don't live in a dystopian sci fi novel, so stop fucking quoting them to make a political point. I've read them, these wild-eyed paranoiacs take way too much to heart, and even more out of context.
I've pretty much lost faith and interest in politics, don't care anymore.
