After that, I think, it was Pokemon cards. Remember those? When the holographic Charizard card was worth a billion jillion dollars, and people were beating each other up and even threatening to kill one another for it?

Now it’s Silly Bandz. These rubber band bracelets that are shaped like dinosaurs, stars, farm animals, or sea creatures, and when you wear them on your wrist, it looks like you just grabbed a colorful pack of rubber bands from the Dollar General and bent them really badly. I was at work today, the second day we carried these strange bands, and I saw the strangest conglomeration of people coming in to frantically buy all the packs we had. First, it was a grandmother who looked positively close to tears because she was so grateful that we were the first store within reasonable distance to carry these for her grandchildren. Then, it was a short matronly looking woman (with two hyperactive twin boys that were 4 or 5 or some other similarly horribly hyperactive age) who bought 15 packs without blinking. Around dinnertime, a girl came by to pick up her prom dress with her friends and stopped to squeal and buy at least five packs of glow-in-the-dark “farm animal silly bandz.”

Quite frankly, I think Silly Bandz are taking over America by storm. It’s like the new Harry Potter, and everyone of all ages is hopelessly and irrevocably intertwined in this bizarre search for colorful rubber bands that are rather unimpressive and have no obvious use besides serving as very effective slingshots.

I wonder what I’ll do though – I’ll be fine, probably, whatever I’m doing, I know I’ll be fine. But I’d still like to know for sure.

I’ll miss my friends a lot though.

Here’s the issue I have with Haiti relief promotions; it’s a bandwagon. No one actually knows anything about Haiti, about Aristide (the former President) and his lasting influence on the country. What about Cité Soleil, one of the worst slums in the world? Haiti was in bad shape before the earthquake, something people seem perfectly content not to notice.

Let me backpedal. I have no problem with sending money, food, and supplies to Haiti for the relief effort. I have no problem with charity, however selfish, of any kind. But it’s absolutely hypocritical for people to be putting these widgets and posts about HELP HAITI AND ITS PEOPLE BECAUSE OH NO THE EARTHQUAKE RUINED EVERYTHING.

When will people get it? The country had problems before this; the earthquake merely exacerbated the whole situation. If you want to give money to Haiti because you can actually be an honest individual and admit you knew nothing about Haiti until this earthquake got news coverage and you just felt bad (because really, we can agree this is a terrible situation), then good for you. But for everyone that insists on banding together as if Haiti has been their concern for all their lives, screw you. They need food and supplies and maybe some goddamn effort to actually know what the hell you’re talking about. The country hardly needs your amateur ideals of heroism and insincere efforts to further make you feel good about yourself.

The people deserve much more than that.

I don’t write historical fiction. It’s quite strange. The seminar before that, the most favorite of all my pieces were a few poems I wrote.

I also don’t write poetry. I mean, I really try not to. I feel like my poetry is more rabid postulation with bizarre spacing and occasional italics. Not to say thought doesn’t go into it, but you know. Bizarre spacing and italics, very postmodern almost.

I really don’t like postmodernism.

I wonder if I’ll ever get better at the writing I really like to do. Or if it’s like colors on skin tone; some just don’t work.

Started a plain burgundy scarf–it’s a gift, see, otherwise it’d be more creative, trust me. I think I’ll just stick with a simple ribbed pattern (which I’ve never done before, I’m a fan of fancy scarf patterns); plus, it ought to help me get back into the mood of knitting. There’s something really relaxing about it, I think. Something about how the memory of how to hold and use the needles seem almost embedded in my fingers (if you asked me to teach you, I really couldn’t), just put on a movie and watch them go. Really quite fascinating.

I’m sure there’s a proper psychological term for it, but I’d rather just think of it as something nifty and shiny.

Spoke to lovely Anna the other day as we compared our productiveness this past month. She made an apron, and read through 3 books she’s been dying to get through. I took a class and took up knitting again. Thoroughly unimpressed with my work ethic, I do thus (lately) resolve to try to do much more in the future.

Pictures of future projects will hopefully follow once I find the new camera. It’s either in my room under the perilously mountainous pile of clothing, or lost. Both require an extreme amount of effort to deal with.

Here’s an example.

8/2/2005

The neighboring church bells ringing the time as it zooms
by like a new Cadillac and it seems
That “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” never
comes beyond the locust-driven
Horizon–so so full of reds and oranges and yellows that
I look into the bright abyss and I see
Me

Though it’s not who I thought I’d see or where I thought I’d be.

Birds singing silence surrounding us with surreptitiously acquired talent
And I say to me
Listen–and I say to the birds that sing and sing
My pain that bleeds on my sleeve for you to be
Shunning and taunting as girls are wont to be.
I say to the locust-ridden horizon

This isn’t who I thought I’d be.

I look at all the birds still singing, now with audible sound saying, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” and I sigh

I hereby amend anything I’ve ever done with this final goodbye.

I was an interesting kid, I think.

See what I’m saying?

Or take the newest craze, Jersey Shore. After hearing people quote “The Situation” and “J-Wow” all around the Blogosphere, I figured I’d tune into an episode on MTV. I wish I could get that hour back, I really do.

“These girls, man, they’re not like other girls, you know? They’re not like whores. These girls are like people, like you gotta treat ‘em like actual girls.”

Quality television right there.

Whatever I wanted to say, which would have been undoubtedly profound, was interrupted by a commercial for VH1′s new reality show, A Basement Affair, a show featuring Frank the Entertainer, of I Love New York 2 fame (also known as Frank Who Sucked The Toes of New York). Viewers may remember that Frank the Entertainer was also subsequently eliminated for living in his parents’s basement and even made two appearances on I Love Money 1 & 2 in order to get enough money to move out. That said: W.T.F.

Sometimes the personalities that go on these shows astound me. What kind of person does it take to want to display their life, heavily exaggerated though it may be, on national television without any thought to consequence? Take Tamra and Simon Barney of Real Housewives of Orange County cast. Their marriage, career, and financial situation is drowning and making its way down the toilet because of the microscopic view America has on their life. Or Dr. Drew’s (in)famous Celebrity Rehab, where the patients/cast only agreed to show up as long as it was televised.

I want to blame it on the inherently voyeuristic tendencies that our culture seems to be willing to perpetrate.  Or maybe we’re just breeding a generation of idiots.

(I understand this is probably just inviting trouble, and willingly submit that I may have to edit the previous statement.)