unfathomable

I'm hearing all kinds of horrible things about the recent tsunami disaster. The rumours are running wild. I heard someone say the initial earthquake actually shifted the Earth's axis by a small degree, and another person said that entire islands were moved hundreds of feet by the force of the tsunami. Everyone is talking about how much money it will cost to help.

Even if those things aren't true, the death toll is spiralling into numbers I can't comprehend. 117,000 from a recent count. It's hot there, and there aren't enough people to bury the bodies. In a few more days, disease will get a foot hold; once again, the death toll will climb.

Most of me is madly grateful that I'm safely here. Another part of me feels guilty, and wishes I could somehow go there and help. Of course, I know I'd be more of a liability than aid... which perhaps leaves me free to safely wish. It also leaves me free to be angry at my health for altruistic reasons, instead of the selfish ones I endeavour to ignore.

At any rate, it's a big ugly mess, and even if it vanishes from the global eye in a month or two, that kind of damage is going to take generations to heal. What about all the adults who lost everything? What about the children who have no one to care for them? How long is it going to take for the economy to heal, much less the people?

In my war history classes, we talked about things like that. Except then we talked about the result of war, not of a perfectly natural geological event. Further, those were catastrophic wars from before my time. I guess some of the blind idealism of my generation has crept into my unconscious thinking; "horrible things have happened, but they don't happen like that anymore." Except that this is horrible, and it's happening right now.

Isn't it frightening? We were all fussing about the war in Iraq, democracy, and human rights.... then the earth itself just shrugged and did about as much damage as a war could.

Finding news that isn't just a parrot-recitation of the death toll along with some grim footage is a little tricky. I guess the networks figure that replaying scenes of piles of rotting corpses is the same thing as reporting. I watched a woman tell a reporter that he had lost her home, husband and children in the chaos. She said she tried to save her baby, but it was torn from her arms by the water. She wasn't even crying. Her tone of voice was the same as someone complaining about rising gas prices. I wonder what happened to her when the shock wore off. Her eyes were black and unfathomably cold.

Stuff like that makes me feel very, very, small.

For less sensationalism, and more activism, the blogging community is the best place to look. I'm shamelessly borrowing links I found on Arjun Singh's blog. The weblog of Kiruba Shankar is a very human look at what's going on and how people are reacting to it. I can't recommend it enough. World Changing is another blog with news and information about the relief effort that most television reports aren't covering.

More links: The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog posts about news resources, aid, donations, and volunteer efforts. Tsunami Victims is a central point for collecting details about relief activities in specific areas.

Here are also a few blogs of ordinary people who are in the affected areas. Ellie is in Phuket, Thailand. Meilathena is in Medan, Indonesia. CCMBrown is in Bankok and Coolprasad is in Madras, India.

The list goes on and on. These are just Livejournal accounts. The disturbing part is, these kids have the same kind of blogs we all do-- right up until the disaster. To me, that brings home the fact that this is our community that's hurting. I wonder how many blogs are never going to be updated again because the writer didn't survive. It seems silly to relate to something so tragic that way, but sometimes the sharpest moments are the trivial ones.

purrr...

Happy here.

*poof*

I'm hopping a Greyhound tonight and heading back to the rainy embrace of the coast. Some friends are being wonderful enough to put me up in a cozy guest-room while I'm there, so I get to enjoy the tranquility of Oak Bay.

I chickened out of my mother's offer to get me a plane ticket. Yes, I am a slave to my phobias. So ten hours of buses. I am armed with a discman, GBA, laptop computer (okay, so I'd have to be mad to use it on a bus, but still... I installed Pirates. ARRR!) and enough medication to keep me docile till Vancouver. I'm a spoiled little neurotic. But in my defence, the discman is falling apart, and everything but the drugs and Pirates software is borrowed. :)

Honestly, the worst part is that long, dragging, muscle cramping trip to Vancouver. I think I've managed to sleep it away once in seven years of seasonal migration. Mostly I sit there, twitching, and wish ebola on whichever dredge of humanity is encroaching on my space. When you're young and female, everyone and their grandma wants to sit next to you. If you're lucky, they'll offer to share the ubiquitous oh-so-subtle vodka concoction they made out of cheap booze and orange soda. (Just say no, kids.)

When you look harmlessly vague like I tend to, getting a solo seat involves shameless lying. Not the obvious kind... just try holding some crumpled kleenex, sniffling randomly, and affecting a slight cough. The smell of Halls helps. No one wants to spend five hours up close and personal with another person's phlegm problem. However, it's not always enough, and when the bus is full the game becomes encouraging the least offensive boarder to chose your seat. Otherwise you can end up with someone who isn't faking sick, or wants to show you pictures of their cats.

As compensation for my suffering, I love the ferry ride. Being in the open, when the wind is trying to strangle me with my own hair and the ocean is a vision of solitude-- that makes me happy. Plus those little cakes they serve in the buffet are killer.

I'll be gone for a week. Any last requests for Rogers chocolates, Murchies tea/coffee, or touchable bubble blowing necklaces can be made through my ferric_feline@lycos.com account.

dude!

Deconstructing and deciphering the word... Dude!

"Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity — an effortless kinship that’s not too intimate.

Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay."

Words are so damn cool.

dull roar

My computer went splat again. Luckily, my brother is a clever bugger when it comes to this sort of thing, and by hooking up a spare slave HD, he gave me the opportunity to pillage the wreck for my mp3 collection and word documents. Mike's theory is that my computer's memory is presenting a problem, so he underclocked it. Right now, things are working, but error messages keep popping up.

Oh well. At least this happened while I only had exams to worry about, and not writing.

Next week I'm heading back to Victoria. Really looking forward to it; Marv sent me some pictures of the city -- mostly near where I used to live -- and I got all sentimental and squishy about it. Kamloops is okay, but I don't feel that sense of home that I had every time I climbed the steps of the Montrose. Plus I miss... well, everyone. There are great people here, but the level of angst and melodrama never gets below a dull roar.

spice world

I was going to rant about Christmas, but since that entire diatribe can be summarized with the words “bah humbug,” I’m going to skip it for now. Instead, something a little closer to home.

I dyed my hair bright blue. Not all it, just half of it. From the ears down, and only the under layer. The rest is still a mostly natural brown. Doing this wasn’t exactly a whim. I wanted to do it for awhile, so I finally jumped off that fence.

I’m actually pretty predictable that way, or would be, if I stayed anywhere long enough for people to notice. I very carefully avoid doing anything noteworthy most of the time. Keeping to the innocuous paths is convenient.

But I get restless. That’s usually when I realize that I’m not who I want to be, or that I’m following the unspoken laws of “supposed to.” Since I’m not presently looking for work, I assumed there wouldn’t be repercussions. I thought blue hair would be really pretty. I didn’t do it to make a statement. I did it because it feels right. This is what I am right now.

That and I’d rather be dead than ordinary. I love contrast. Chaos is even better. To be one thing, then contradict it entirely… that’s what makes people interesting. Besides, last year Bill dyed half of his hair green and half of it red, and then put it in corn row braids. He thrives on the derision of “normals.” There will always be a piece of Bill inside me, telling me to go ahead and totally fuck with someone’s head for the hell of it.

I’m not going to pretend that I know what people are thinking. There are assumptions, however, that go with certain things. I complain about all the stupid boxes we put each other in, but then I catch myself doing it to others. Blue hair means “punk,” right? Old ladies visibly frown with disapproval as their eyes settle on me, and my father curled his lip and snarled.

I really doubt it’s the aesthetic of blue hair which makes them sneer. It’s the prepackaged associations. Blue hair means I’m a rebellious party-girl slut, right? Except that all of those associations are directly counter to my obvious nature. I think that’s why it bothers me. They aren’t silently berating me for a displeasing fashion choice; they’re pissed off at the person they think they I am.

We tell ourselves we’re living in a free, liberal society. You can be anything you want now, no more rigid gender roles. Women come in more flavours than just “house-wife” now. But how much choice do we really have? Maybe we’re just living in a Spice Girls version of the world. You can be whatever you want… as long as you’re one of the established archetypes. You can be Posh, Baby, Sporty… that’s allowed.

Girl power about as varied as a package of Lifesavers. If you match the criteria (which is laid out so clearly in kids shows) you are healthy and acceptable. If you’re outside of those archetypes, clearly you’re angry, hurting, or broken.

I bet that in ten years this sort of thing becomes totally passé. But right now, it’s against the standards. When I was a teenager, the standard for girls was red-dyed hair, Kurt Cobain worship and grunge. Now it’s all about tight jeans and fitted tops, contact lenses and slightly lewd exuberance. There are a lot of extremely pretty girls in Journalism. Most of them pull off that look with an easy grace I can’t imagine feeling in a shirt that small. It’s actually a very flattering look.

But it isn’t me. Not that I don’t enjoy their company, it’s just that no one is ever going to mistake me for one of the group. Maybe dyeing my hair is a subconscious way of making it perfectly clear that I’m not trying to be a part of "cool" anymore.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m getting more compliments than anything else. Blue hair hasn’t utterly altered my place in the world. The change is almost imperceptible. And I very much like it. The shade is perfect, and some part of me just loves that it pisses a few people off.

quote

"You know we have more prescription drugs now. Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad. I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases. Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?" Oh my god I have this, write this down. Whatever it is, I have it. Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is; there’s people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean. I'm like that is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that? That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy."

- Lazyboy (Underwear Goes Inside the Pants)