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The past 24 hours Cultural Revolutionary has been “dark” (at least in theatre terms). I had some server switching stuff to do (thanks again to that profane word D-I-V-O-R-C-E) and it didn’t go off as easily as I thought it would. But, everything should be here now. If you see something that’s missing, let me know so that I can find out where in cyberspace it disappeared to (or at least try to find out).
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For weeks now, a certain little Zwink (my pet name for an adorable kid that isn’t even mine… and I find it hard to believe that kids that aren’t mine can be adorable) has been pestering me to update my About Marlaina page. Soooooo…. I finally did.
I went at it from a different perspective this time though. Those of you who know me should know most of the stuff. The rest of you will find most of it completely meaningless and boring. And I am FULLY ok with that!
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Below my commentary is another article that came through on one of my Yahoo groups. Since I always appreciate a good story that I can identify with, especially if it’s well written, I thought I would repost this one.
I am MUCH less of a pack rat than I used to be. I do still have a storage unit though (interestingly enough at a chain named Pack Rat Storage). Granted, it’s mostly full of stuff from previous business ventures. But, still, if my parents forced me to move all the crap they have stored that technically belongs to me and I had to empty out my paid storage, I would be screwed. Of course, I also have two small storage buildings here at the house and an attic that could hold a lot more than it currently is. But why? Seriously. Why?
I struggle with my attachment to “things”. In fact, stay tuned for a post that includes yet another article I am writing on mindful consumerism. My purchases these days, or lack of purchases as the case may be, are always very well thought out. However, I still have remnants of my previous life. LOTS of remnants. And the problem is that most of them are still “good”. We aren’t talking about garbage here… Unlike the guy in the article below that was buried by his magazine collection, I am not saving stuff that should have been tossed or recycled years before. Nope. I am saving stuff that either has some meaning to me or is simply too good or has too much value to discard. I have given away TONS of clothes of other “stuff”. I use Freecycleâ„¢ to get loving homes for things I no longer want or need. I have so many Goodwill and charity receipts for my taxes this year that I’ll be lucky to find them all come tax time. Yet, I still have stuff…
So, I continue to declutter. I make a conscious effort not to buy clutter since now it sort of makes me nauseous. But, I will never be a neat freak. There will probably always be clothes on my bedroom floor. And I’ll probably always have little “nick-nacks” and dust catchers here and there since many of them are reminders of the past that I simply can’t part with for some reason. Then there are some things that will probably always clutter my life that were gifts. I don’t want to hurt the givers’ feelings by discarding them, so I hold on to them long past any real attachment to them. Stupid? Possibly.
Anyway, here is the article from Mother Jones magazine…. For the record, before you read the article, I don’t currently have any pet semen stored. I did, at one time, have a vile leftover and stored at the vet’s from a free breeding for one of my horses. It was never used. Nor do I have a year’s worth of food stored (even though I am secretly jealous of those who do because I am a fatalist that way). And, I don’t have as many shoes as Mariah Carey. So there.
No Sex Please, We’re Organizing
News: A nation of pack rats tries to get it together.
By Elizabeth Gettelman
July 5, 2007
Since the 1970s, the average U.S. home has grown by 80%. Yet
Americans face a “storage crisis,” according to ucla researchers.
The self-storage industry is only 35 years old. It took 25 years for
the first billion square feet of storage space to be built. The
second billion square feet was built in just 8 years.
7 square feet of commercial storage space now exists for every
American.
1 in 11 households rents storage space—1 million more households than
two years ago.
The New York Times reports a surge in multiyear, multiunit renters,
or what one self-storage company calls “a segment of the population
that has truly embedded storage into its lifestyle.”
Last year, Americans spent $7 billion on organizational products for
their homes, closets, and garages.
80% of Americans believe they would be more satisfied if they were
neater.
2 in 3 Americans who make $35,000 a year or less call
themselves “neat freaks.” Only 1 in 10 of those earning $75,000 or
more claim the same.
48% of office managers admit to a messy desk but claim to know where
everything is. 12% have a neat desk but no idea where to find
anything.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “bucket” is the new “in”
business metaphor because it’s “more macho” than “basket.”
Container Store staff are trained to develop an “emotional
connection” with customers. Says a salesperson, “When someone comes
in to organize belts or shoes, there is usually a bigger problem.”
Miles of Piles: Self-storage units cover 72 square miles, the area of
Manhattan and San Francisco combined.
For her 1,000 pairs of shoes, Mariah Carey installed a revolving,
climate-controlled, glass display case. “Closets are a big part of my
life,” she told Hello! magazine.
Ashlee Simpson told People a 1,300-square-foot closet was the selling
point of her house. LeBron James has a two-story closet. And Bob
Costas paid $100,000 for a closet in the Time Warner Center.
To Have and to Hoard
most commonly hoarded items:
mail
newspapers/magazines
containers
clothing
food
books
notes/lists
collectibles
broken/nonworking items
garbage
American women would rather organize their closets than lose weight,
according to a 2005 Rubbermaid survey.
1 in 3 ikea customers say they get more satisfaction from cleaning
out their closets than from having sex.
Men who don’t organize their sock drawer have sex 3 times more a
month than men who do.
Men who own Palm Pilots are 4 times more likely to forget their
wives’ birthdays than men who don’t.
The National Association of Professional Organizers claims that
Americans spend 55 minutes a day looking for things they know they
own but can’t find.
4 in 5 new homes have multicar garages. Most two-car garages have one
or no car in them.
75% of L.A. garages are used in ways that preclude any parking.
For $200,000 the GarageTown chain sells “condominium” storage units
complete with fridge, cable TV, and members-only clubhouse.
Many upscale homes now feature a “transition room” or, as one woman
told the New York Times, “the room where we will channel all our
crap.'’
After a Massachusetts family moved into a smaller home in 2005, the
mother was “very depressed,” until they converted their den into
a “Costco annex.”
According to Mental Health America, more than 2 million Americans are
hoarders.
In 2003, a Bronx man spent two days trapped under his magazines—
ranging from Vibe to the Harvard Business Review—before firefighters
rescued him.
Many people have a bit of “pack rat” in them, says Harvard
psychiatrist Michael Miller. “The impulse to gather and store has had
evolutionary advantages.”
Last June 1,000 caged rats were found in a one-bedroom house in
Petaluma, California. An animal control officer said their owner
was “an intelligent man to talk to, but he smells like rat urine.”
60% of cited animal hoarders are repeat offenders.
In 2005, a 12-year-old Long Island girl was accused of strangling her
mother after being told to clean her room. Her attorney claimed self-
defense.
90% of parents say that their kids’ rooms are causing “mess distress.”
Last year, more than 6,000 people went to the E.R. with backpack-
related injuries.
A recent study found that college conservatives’ rooms are more neat
and organized than liberals’.
The U.S. produces 40% of the world’s new stored information.
Each American produces 800 megabytes of digital data a year, the
equivalent of 30 feet of books.
The CIA burns up to 10 tons of documents per day.
The director of the National Association for Information Destruction
says paper shredders are becoming “a household requirement as much as
a washer and dryer.”
The initial version of this year’s U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’
Health, and Iraq Accountability Act bill set aside $74 million for
peanut storage.
A Kansas salt mine is home to the world’s largest film collection,
and, until recently, 400 versions of the Good Book owned by the
American Bible Society.
The Mormon Church advises its members to keep a year’s worth of
rations because “It may someday be as important to store food as it
was for Noah and his family to board the ark.”
The average American fridge is twice as big as its European
counterpart.
More than 70% of Americans are routinely unable to find matching lids
for their 15-plus food-storage containers.
Sealed for Freshness, an off-Broadway play that opened in February,
is about a Tupperware party “gone awry” and “lost youth, missed
opportunities, and deviled egg containers.”
Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, state troopers rescued 1,400
frozen embryos from a flooded New Orleans fertility clinic. The first
set of twins was delivered in December.
The San Diego Zoo’s “Frozen Zoo” has semen, embryos, and dna samples
from 675 species, half of them endangered.
For $110 a year, Clone usa will store your pet’s semen—provided you
collect it yourself.
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“Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you. I’d been broken beyond repair.” — Bella in “New Moon”
So here’s something interesting… While doing a little research about the author (Stephanie Meyer) of the vampire series I talk about below, I realized that these books are classified as “young adult” reading material. I think the themes are probably WAY to complex for a young adult. Hell, I am still struggling with some of them myself.
In a Romeo and Juliet sort of way, it is a young adult book. I’m pretty sure Shakespeare himself couldn’t have predicted Romeo and Juliet would be read in my 8th grade English class. But it was and I did learn a lot from that book and the memorized passages still stick with me. In fact, the vampire book’s even bring to light that it’s Romeo and Juliet forbidden love sort of situation. How many teens really “get” that though? I thought I did at 16. I was SO damn wrong though. In fact, in the process of thinking how right I was, I just about damned myself.
At what age do people really understand love? Do they ever? I think I understand attraction and possibly even lust. After all, like most people, I know what I am attracted to both physically and emotionally in another human being. But do I understand love? Nope. I certainly don’t. In fact, I can’t even come close to explaining it much less understanding it. Maybe by the time I am 60, or possibly 80, I might have some answers about why we fall madly in love with another person. And why that love seems to last no matter what. I have figured out that time doesn’t heal all wounds nor does it squelch true feelings. That’s a start to understanding I suppose.
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So, in an attempt to escape some of the realities of my so called life, I have spent a lot of my day today reading a book about a bloodsucker. Seriously. Thanks to a discussion on one of my Yahoo groups and the roaring review given by an online friend, I have gotten somewhat engrossed in a new series of vampire books. I am currently reading the 3rd book of the three that exist thus far in the series. And it’s worked for the most part. It’s been a nice diversion. After all, a little mindless reading is probably healthy every now and then… Unfortunately, I even tend to overanalyze the mindless stuff.
Of course, I have always been somewhat partial to vampire books. Or, possibly the term I use to joke about the subject is more appropriate…..vampire porn. In all actuality, the series I am currently reading is more like vampire smut. Nothing at all to constitute porn. In fact, it’s sort of the opposite of porn. Porn typically gives the connotation of something occurring between strangers or virtual strangers with little to no commitment. The characters in this series, Bella and Edward, are hopelessly and helplessly drawn to each other in spite of the danger it presents to both of them. Even though they know they horrible consequences, they just can’t keep their damn hands off of each other. They simply can’t keep themselves from loving the each other.
To say the very least, it all makes for a good story line. And I am enjoying the heck out of reading about it. Maybe I identify with Bella. I, too, have a history of being a klutz. Who else could permanently screw-up their knee as badly as I did simply by carrying case of beer into the back of beer wagon during the middle of a huge motorcycle rally but me? And, who else has the nutty life stories I do? Bella is also a magnet for craziness to happen not only to her but also around her. I feel her pain. It’s familiar to me.
While to my knowledge I have never dated a vampire or werewolf (even though some of them seemingly wanted to suck the life out of me), I won’t say that I don’t understand Bella’s seemingly incurable desire to believe in true love. Most people wouldn’t exactly see me as a beacon leading the way towards long and meaningful relationships. Hell, I would likely have to agree with them if forced to acknowledge reason. Rational folks wouldn’t expect someone with two failed marriages (yep, I actually LIKE putting it that way) to understand the desire for one true love. But, those people wouldn’t truly know me. Or perhaps it’s better to say they wouldn’t know me at all. You see, in spite of everything and my insistence at being a realist instead of the eternal optimist I would like to be, I do believe in love. Really, I do. And I believe that at some point, if strong enough, it prevails over all… whether the parties involved want to allow it to or not. Sappy? Yes. But, what other way can I use to describe the seeming irrelevance of so many things and happenings if there isn’t that bigger meaning to life that we all spend lots of time looking for? Love would certainly account for a lot.
Now… I have a book to read. I know everyone will be happy when I get back to some less emotional vampire porn… Sex, lust, and immortality are easy enough. Emotions are hard.
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I was reminded of the following quote earlier today and it seems quite appropriate timing to post it. No, I haven’t finished the newest Harry Potter. Does it count that my 12 year old finished it in less than 24 hours? In all actuality, she is the big Harry fan. I like the series but my vampire books have to come before wizards. Of course, I obviously adore some of the quotes…
For instance, Sirius told Harry in The Prisoner of Azkaban, “The ones who love us never really leave us.â€
That’s a good one, huh?
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I have been asked recently, several times, what I want out of life. I know that at least one of the people that asked me was looking for a “consumer” type of answer. I think it would have made them happy if I could have said, or written, something to the effect of “I would like to buy 7 houses in all parts of the world, 13 high dollar automobiles, a stable full of Grand Prix jumpers, and a wardrobe full of Chanel dresses and Hermes bags.” Maybe I’m just fickle because of everything going on in my life right now. Or, maybe I set my sights too low… But, needless to say, I don’t really want “stuff”.
My life, in spite of everything I can do, always seems to end up like a bad soap opera. Seriously. The kind where you know the ending but you hang on and watch anyway… because it’s fun to watch a train wreck. Right? Years of living the train wreck have hardened me in some ways and made me a lot softer in others. Mainly though, it’s turned me into the eternal realist. Had I been asked at 18, or even 21, what I wanted out of life, I am positive that stable full of jumpers would have been in there somewhere. But these days that seems like asking for too much. And, the reality is that, once again, it’s just “stuff”.
So, here for the whole world to see is a list of what I actually want, desire, wish for, etc.
1. I want my children to be happy. While my happiness matters to me, it is much more important to me to have happy kids. They are young and naive. That’s a good thing. They have their whole lives to get it right and not make the same mistakes I did. Yeah, this is a standard parent “want” but I do think it’s my #1 want.
2. I want Tony to be as typical as possible. He’s autistic but getting close to being typical. We worked our asses off to get him to this point and for his sake I hope that his progress continues. Until you have had a child who isn’t “normal” by the world’s standards, you simply don’t understand the desperation that you feel every day. Yeah, Tony will always be autistic. He’ll be weird and quirky compared to the other kids. But, with a little luck and some more hard work, he’ll have a chance at a “real” life.
3. I want to finally be happy. Longterm. Along with this comes giving up on failure. Seriously… I want to forget that failure is an option. After two failed marriages and a bunch of other failures along the way, I’m just sort of sick of things not working out.
4. I want to be successful in business. No, I don’t need to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to be happy. Success, to me, isn’t measured in a dollar amount. Success, to me, is more about finding a career I really love and becoming the very best at it. Honestly, I have had LOTS of careers. And several of them have been quite successful by the world’s standards. It’s likely that in order to be truly successful that I am going to have to, at some point, abandon my Peter Pan Complex and decide what I really want to be when I grow-up. Or, maybe I won’t have to do that… I seem to remember reading somewhere that the average American changes careers (not just jobs… CAREERS) 5 times over their lifetime (and a quick Google search tells me that my memory is correct). The jobs I can see myself being satisfied with longterm don’t pay a lot. But, my happiness and making a difference in the world is more important to me than money.
5. I want to live in a really cool house. Yeah… This is a material “thing” but when I say really cool I don’t mean McMansion type cool. I mean 1700’s farmhouse with lots of acreage cool. Or, possibly 1800’s Victorian in town cool. Earthship cool. Underground sustainable off-grid house cool. Pod house cool. Get it? Don’t get me wrong… I love, love, love, my current house. It’s odd and has little issues and quirks just like me. And there are days that I can imagine myself living here the rest of my life. Once again though, the wanderlust kicks in and I have a strange desire to see myself in one of the houses I have always longed for.
6. I want another horse… Or a few more horses. Horses get in your blood in a strange way. Once you have truly been a horse person (not just a kid that took riding lessons somewhere along the way) you always see yourself as a horse person. I see my obsession with horses as even a it beyond that though. Horses always played a major role in my life. I used to tell guys “the horse was here before you and he’ll be here after you” but somewhere along the way I misplaced this important part of myself. Of course, I know how it happened… I was in college, had very little time to ride, and knew I was moving to go to The Citadel. So, sadly, I sold the horses. DUMB CHOICE. There have been tons of times over the last few years that I needed a horse. Yep, I said needed. Horse people need horses. They are therapeutic, and even though they are expensive as hell to maintain, they’re still cheaper than shrinks and meds. I do want a different kind of horse this time. Whenever I get around to buying one I will probably be looking for the Ugly Duckling… Or maybe I should say it like my best friend’s mom always did about horses, “pretty is as pretty does”. Plus, this time I don’t need or want the show winner…. or maybe I do… Since the majority of people reading this aren’t “horsey” I won’t bore you with details about breeds and disciplines. But, I will say that what I want is the opposite of a status symbol!
7. I want a chance. Enough said. The people that statement should mean something to will recognize it.
8. I want security. This one likely encompasses a lot of my wants. But, someday I think it will be attainable.
9. I want a great garden. Yes, once again, I am serious about this. I always start out with huge aspirations in the garden and by this time of year, they are squelched. This year the gardening season started out great and then turned sour due to me having so little free time to work outside. It’s hard to garden as a single parent with an autistic three year old boy. But, he’ll hopefully start school soon and theoretically his father should be taking him a couple of afternoons each week for visitation. If I can arrange work and keeping up with everything else that HAS to be done, maybe that will leave me a little time for gardening. I am not holding my breath though.
10. I want to be healthy. And thin. Since being diagnosed with ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as immune thrombocytopenic purpura) I haven’t felt healthy. Actually, I didn’t feel healthy before that hence the diagnosis. Then, I have had LOTS of steroids and crap to keep me alive. Of course, the side effect of staying alive is weight gain. So, not only do you feel like shit but the drugs destroy your self-esteem. Nice, huh? But, I am getting healthy again. Slowly but surely… I am also losing weight through a variety of methods. I hate feeling unhealthy and, even more than that, I hate looking unhealthy. Go ahead and send me e-mails blasting me for promoting dieting. I can take the abuse and I will still be despeartely trying to lose weight.
I am sure there is more I want. Therefore, I reserve the right to add to this list… REGULARLY. But a top 10 list is a good start, right?
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This article was posted on one of the many groups I belong to. Scary, but interesting nonetheless….
U.S. Lags Behind 41 Nations in Life Span
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press WriterSat Aug 11, 2:53 PM ET
Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.
For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
“Something’s wrong here when one of the richest countri! es in the world, the one that spends the most on health ca re, is not able to keep up with other countries,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Maucau, San Marino and Singapore.
The shortest life expectancies were clustered in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that has been hit hard by an epidemic of HIV and AIDS, as well as famine and civil strife. Swaziland has the shortest, at 34.1 years, followed by Zambia, Angola, Liberia and Zimbabwe.
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
But “it’s not as simple as saying we don’t have national health insurance,” said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal. “It’s not that easy.”
Among the other factors:
• Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
“The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,” said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. “We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times.”
• Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans.
Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco.
• A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.
Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
“It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children,” said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. “We haven’t done anything to eliminate those disparities.”
Another reason for the U.S. drop in the ranking is that the Census Bureau now tracks life expectancy for a lot more countries — 222 in 2004 — than it did in the 1980s. However, that does not explain why so many countries entered the rankings with longer life expectancies than the United States.
Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to health insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S. won’t move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance.
Policymakers also should focus on ways to reduce cancer, heart disease and lung disease, said Murray. He advocates stepped-up efforts to reduce tobacco use, control blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and regulate blood sugar.
“Even if we focused only on those four things, we would go along way toward improving health care in the United States,” Murray said. “The starting point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health care system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does.”
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On The Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/
National Center for Health Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press