overpopulation

natural selection
i kind of wish i could say i disagreed with her, because it feels like such a heartless thing to say, but really there are just way too many people on this planet. if people want to make unhealthy decisions and give themselves lung cancer or pick up an STD because of a habit of unprotected sex, then maybe they won't reproduce and the world will begin to recover from the absurd amounts of people inhabiting it.
being able to extend your lifespan and hold off death is also a stupid idea. the world is fucked up, and i for one do not intend to stay in it after my body tells me to go. instead of finding ways to defy biology so that post-menopausal women can have children and we don't die of old age, we should concentrate on improving the quality of life in other parts of the globe. you know, the ones that aren't overprivileged. the ones where people worry about where their next meal is coming from, or whether they'll still be alive in the morning. our resources would be better spent narrowing the gaps in the global spectrum of quality of life.

being jaded

yesterday on my way home from work i detoured through killian court & sat and watched the rain. it felt oddly peaceful to be there, the way it never is during term. and i've been discovering over the past few days that no matter how jaded about the world you think you are, there are moments of beauty that give an unexpected amount of hope.
being on a bus shouldn't logically bring any of these, but driving through connecticut with the sunset on my right pouring gold in through my window conclusively proves otherwise. i wish there was a way i could have taken a photo and captured the warmth and the glow, but alas, camera phones can only do so much.
next time you're feeling jaded, go lie in the grass and just exist.

my ex. again.

i think everyone has an ex that they wish would leave them alone. mine decided to IM me again today. i broke up with him last september after dating for three months, and for some reason he still tries to talk to me.
i defriended him a few months after the breakup, because the temptation to facebook-stalk him was almost as annoying as he was. even after months of my ignoring his messages, he'd still IM me and ask me if we could talk, or if i had a problem with him, or various little things like that, so i did the most logical thing possible: sent him an email. a cold, PR-toned email signed with my professional signature. you'd think that would be some sort of signal, but it appears not. he's IMed me twice more since then, and while i know he just wants to be friends i would prefer not to be. we weren't friends before we dated: why should we be now, when i know that we have little in common intellectually or in any other regard? if it wasn't worth it to me to maintain a long-distance relationship, when i presumably felt something for him, why should it be worth my while now to begin a friendship that can't possibly function?
i understand that it's difficult to have someone drop out of your life entirely, particularly if you dated at some point, but by the same token it's difficult to have someone show up in your life periodically when you don't want to deal with them. and i do realize that this post sounds bitchy, but anything that causes me any stress or irritation gets removed from my life. it's the healthiest way for me to be.

is this how dan savage feels?

sometimes i wish people would stop asking me for relationship advice. i'm on my third boyfriend and finally in a stable relationship. that doesn't mean i have any idea about how anything works. i got lucky. that's about it.
and just because i'm a girl doesn't mean i can understand your ex. i don't know why she stalks you, i don't know why she defriended you on facebook, I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. stop asking me. and stop asking me about cold heartless exes, because i am one and i frankly can't see your perspective.
i don't give advice voluntarily. this might be because it doesn't normally work.

walk on

The sun rises again.
No matter the storms we face.

If raindrops should fall on your shoulders,
let us all tide you over

If the clouds seem to darken where you stand,
please let your loved ones take your hand

And if there is one thing I’d like you to know,
keep this in mind wherever you may go:

If thunder strikes to make the sunny days
seem much less benign
Then the moments passed will make future rays
a much brighter, stronger shine.

(reblogged from a dear friend of mine, Black Polos And Sweaters)

there is no more to say. wherever you go it will rain on you at times; maybe sunshowers, maybe a mudslide or two. but inevitably, the sun comes back sometime. all you have to do is keep walking, with whoever will hold you up if need be, and you'll make it.

i don't want to grow up.

the phone never rings
because you never call
and everyone's asking why i've been such a mess

it kind of hit me this week that people grow up and go places. a bunch of really awesome people made it up to boston for my birthday this past weekend and set the bar pretty high for my next few birthdays. but now they're all gone, and i don't get to see most of them until term starts again, and it's making me more depressed than end of term did. there's too much permanence to this moving away business. a year from now my best friend will have been gone for absolute ages and he may not feel like my best friend anymore. a year from now i may take an internship in a place where i know nobody, or i may have found another lab to have a love-hate relationship with. i don't know. all i really want is to be with my friends and enjoy life, but the older i get the less carefree i can be and the more our paths diverge: and the more distant we may get. if i could have frozen last semester, to go back and visit it at my leisure, i would spend all my time in those last few weeks of insanity before my best friends had to go behave like real people.

holding out

it's so much easier to give in to depression in college than either high school or the real world. nobody checks on you to make sure you go to classes and you don't need to call in sick when you don't want to get out of bed. and it's not infrequent for people to spend days holed up in their bedrooms if they're working or, as is more likely, working their way through all the past seasons of heroes before the next one premieres. all you need is a laptop and a hot pot and/or microwave, and it isn't imperative that you surface for three days. people don't really worry about you if you disappear for a while, they'll just assume that you're busy.
i really hope i don't start doing that.

birthday weekend

you know how you who your friends are? the people who fly up from florida and/or drive 500 miles one way to spend less than two days in boston for your birthday. and who think that a copy of the american bartenders' handbook is a good birthday present.
this weekend has been seriously epically amazing. dinner with 30 friends being seriously rambunctious at vinny t's; wandering out to a bar in the pouring rain; blowing things up in the microwave because wikipedia said it was a good idea; a zillion other things that i can't remember...
birthdays are awesome. i have the best friends ever.

disclosures

i think i'm beginning to understand why you should never tell people who know you that you have a blog.
i know too many people who judge, too many people who can't keep their mouths shut, too many people who are the sort to talk to me about what i write while in the company of others. and now i haven't posted properly in a while, because what's on my mind involves certain people that a good chunk of people know: and while i'd love to just vent it all out like i need to, i don't really feel like subjecting them and their lives to inordinate scrutiny. so i'm once again reduced to dumping my woes on friends while this blog languishes and, in all probability, has an emotional crisis due to an inability to fulfill its intended purpose.
once my life starts behaving normally again and i go back to having regular arguments with people, all will be well and good. until then, here's something happy and fun to amuse yourselves with.

carcinogens

i have this bad habit of working with toxic chemicals.
any kind of glue you can use on a model airplane is bad for you, and of course i never remembered to open the windows when i was building mine.
rubber cement is a lot of fun to play with, never mind that you shouldn't inhale it at all.
two summers ago i volunteered in the pathology department of a local hospital and spent three days a week in the close company of an insane amount of formaldehyde.
now i'm spending my summer in a lab where i deal with toluene and acetone on a regular basis. and it turns out acetone soaks through nitrile gloves. and both make me nauseous.
i worry about myself sometimes, just a little bit.

what's in a name?

i was never the sort of person who liked my name. too many people could neither spell it nor pronounce it, so i did what any rational person would do: changed it. this has been going on since i was about five, with each nickname falling into disuse after i got tired of it or fell out of the circle where it was used.
a girl i knew in middle school just wrote on my wall and used my old nickname. and it took me a second to figure out who the hell she was talking about until i remembered.
i don't even remember who i was in middle school, but somehow that name takes me back.