Impulse Had Me Type "Tony Danza" The First Time

Currently Listening To: Tiny Dancer by Elton John
While viewing the flood of half-assed and cheesy sorrow unfold on Facebook, I was reminded of my September Eleventh experience. Two days or so afterwards, we were asked to do an entry about our thoughts in our English journals. Mine was about how I was tired of seeing 24/7 news reports on the subject. I was ten years old and I wanted to watch the Simpsons, dammit.

People got pissed. But could you really blame me for being so apathetic? Sure, 3000 people dying is no small thing, especially when it was due to a terrorist attack, but to a ten-year-old in the week immediately following that, I sure as hell had no idea what it really meant. I didn't know anyone who had died (Georgia=not close to New York), and didn't know I knew anyone who knew someone who died until about a year later. Thus, it was 100% abstract to me (until I saw the video of a guy splattering on the ground, which is a tad more tangible). Call me cynical, but whenever I see people (people at my school, not people in, like, New York) getting all teary eyed over it, I can't help but suspect it isn't genuine. Feeling sad about something that had a minimal impact on your life aside from hearing about it a lot just seems bizarre. Again, just being cynical. People die all the time. Large numbers of people. Often for seemingly avoidable things. Yes, terrorism is awful, but so is drunk driving. 1000x people killed a year in drunk driving/drunk-related deaths, no one sheds a tear unless it was someone in their family. Religious zealots not entirely different than some folks we've got who were born and raised in our country kill 3000 people and everyone writes a song about it.

Just a thought.

Iron Man (I had to change my pants after viewing this masterpiece)

Southern accents, not surprisingly, annoy me. I've never identified with the whole Southern 'thing', so that extra reminder of this shit, well, why would I like it? Anyways, both of my sisters have seemingly spontaneously picked accents up. Another reason to go to college.

And then this thought I had last night: People don't like it when I'm all open about my SAT scores (I did better than average), so I try to be modest, but it seems like people don't like that either because then it's condescending. Paradox? Quite.

Okay, so better than average is a gross understatement. Basically, any mention of those scores leads to a discussion of how I'm squandering my intelligence with my mediocre grades.