Alternate Working Title: Let Me Tell You What I Really Think Now That I Have Had Two Glasses of Wine

It’s almost 9PM on a Tuesday and yeah, I had two glasses of red wine with dinner. At dinner we watched the opening scene of the movie “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. It’s a cult classic I was introduced to about 6   years ago and haven’t really revisited much since then.

I’m pretty sure some guy offered me the book to read from his collection of books and seeing the size of it, I think I said “no thanks” and opted to watch the movie instead. I might have dated that same guy for like five years, but who can keep track of all those details anyway? Whatever.

After a brief intro about dolphins and their superiority the story opens on a guy whose house is about to be destroyed because there are plans to build a road right through his property. Ironic because if you zoom out, the Earth is about to be destroyed for much the same reason. Dude and his friend who happens to be from another planet escape the scene just in the nick of time and begin their grand “hitchhiking” adventure.

This irony parallels my own sentiment about life right now. One can be bent about all the small stuff, which in the moment seems like really big stuff, but in the end it doesn’t really matter because there are much bigger things in the universe that are of more importance. Then again, the bigger they are, the less it matters. That’s the true juxtaposition of the situation. I get myself in a bunch about something and then I zoom out and realize it doesn’t really matter and then I think about what DOES matter which are all things much larger and, of course, also way outside the scope of my control. Then I think about what I can control and then it all comes crashing  right back down to the details. It’s truly a vicious cycle — all the zooming out and zooming in leaves me dizzy (or perhaps that is the red wine).

Why am I a hypocrite? Because I want to work for a company that has really good Kool-aid but I don’t drink Kool-aid. It’s like that one Cake song “You Part the Waters” where he sings about the girl who has the grand piano but doesn’t even play piano. He sings “I’m the one who plays piano”. You get what I am saying? I go round and round about how things should be and then I don’t even contribute to the collective. I don’t want to. Maybe I do want to but I just don’t know how. Or I’m afraid of what might happen or lack confidence or I don’t know what else. Perhaps I’ve been burned by Kool-aid before and now paranoid that anything that comes out of the corporate mouth is a lie – even the smallest corporations. Perhaps I just know the Cake is always a lie.

People say shit about corporations paying women less than men and maybe that is true. I mean, I guess it is true because that’s what the stats say, but from my perspective it’s a symptom of corporate culture that is unavoidable. That is to say, they always do what is best for them in any circumstance and will take every opportunity to take advantage of people. They get away with what they get away with because that’s how capitalism works. “Let’s pay everyone in a fair way.” Said no company ever in the history of the world. Too Jaded? I suppose.

I feel like a hypocrite because I sometimes go on and on about my petty problems as I sit here in my castle with no grasp on the real problems of the world. I spend a lot of time trying to do the right thing recycling just about all the waste materials that my household produces and yet I know this does virtually NOTHING to improve the state of our world today. I watch this show — a documentary about the oceans and seas and life in and around the bodies of water on our planet. Every episode goes into great detail about some amazing thing you never knew existed beyond your small living room and it’s pretty amazing. Then, near the end of the episode there’s this turn, this volta – the “punch”. It’s some fact about what affect humans and their behavior has had on the world. The temps are going up and the entire ecosystem is on tilt. It’s a crash course headed for disaster. So what is one to do? I don’t fucking know man.

I don’t care about the Turnip running our country. I don’t care if he’s found innocent or guilty or kicked out of office or stays for 2 more years or 6. I just simply don’t and does that make me a bad person? What the fuck difference does it make to me? Will it affect me? Probably not. How upset should I get about walls at the border, or no walls? If I get upset what good will that do? Unless there’s some leader out there who can truly do something to change things then I’ve got nobody to follow. Even if there was – it takes crazy to deal with crazy and then we are talking radical movement type stuff you only see in the movies. It’s all just noise.

I wrote a poem about all this sometime last year after that Journalist was murdered in Turkey. That whole thing was truly sickening and it pushed me to the edge – testing my faith in humanity. The poem is called “These are Strange Times” and today I decided to post that poem to my poetry blog (shyspark.wordpress.com). It’s pretty different than most of my stuff and in truth, everything that I have been working on since I started grad school is vastly different than the stuff I wrote before. I’ve learned a lot about Poetry and Poetic Discourse in the past year and though I know it’s a good thing, I haven’t quite got a grip on the change.

Part of my trepidation comes from my own insecurity about how these poems are turning out and to make matters worse, that they will not be well received by anyone. Case in point, this post today has zero likes after about 12 hours and it could be that it’s not in the shuffle for peoples wordpress readers and it could be that people  truly don’t care for it. Either way, it doesn’t help me at all to stew over it. I said what I wanted to say and that’s what matters. Right? Am I a hypocrite to hate social media and the whole damn internet of things connecting so many people and yet maintain a craving for some acknowledgement from anyone that they have at least read what I wrote? Yeah – I am. But whatever.

What’s a girl to do?

I can keep on hating the nature of the corporate beast, and the fact humans are ruining the planet, and American Politics, and Social Media, and my “new” Poetry, and lay down in front of it all to try and stop the destruction.. OR.. I can grab another drink and some peanuts and a towel and stick my thumb out and see what happens. Because really, aren’t we all just along for the ride?

All this contemplation about hypocrisy and the universe at large is making me super sleepy. I mean, I suppose it could also be the wine and the fact that it is now past 10:30 PM. In any case – I guess that is what I really think about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness right now. Take it or leave it. I don’t care. Or I do care. Or I’m not sure if I care or not. Or whatever.

G’night.. Thanks for All the Fish,

~Miss SugarCookie