The Zoo: where the only animals that should be locked up are the humans

 Wow. I received a good amount of hatred for my last post on whales. Despite the fact I am still waiting, with bated breath, for someone to logically counter my claims, I’m okay being disliked by a good contingent of my friends. I’ve even accepted the fact I’m spitting on the face of my Connecticut upbringing. The state of Connecticut would not be as wealthy or full of people saying ‘wicked cool’ as it is now had it not been for the intense economic boon of whaling. That, combined with nutmeg trading and yacht racing.

To show I’m not an animal hater and because I didn’t want to clean out my car, I went to the zoo on Sunday. Actually, more of the impetus was that Clyde suggested it and he’s an unstoppable good idea machine. He decided this would be the venue for our Sunday adventure because he wanted to take some photographs of animals in their natural habitats. I went because I wanted to see my bear brethren at their finest. And I really, really, really, did not want to vacuum the French fries that are currently residing under my seat cushions in the Taurus. What I wasn’t prepared for was the aggravation of humanity, my least favorite species.

I’m not sure what it is about zoos that bring out the worst in people. Maybe it’s the free admission. Maybe it’s the overabundance of children and the natural correlation to speak and think in baby-talk. All I know is that people try to be one with nature at the zoo and it’s not in the smart Thoreau way. He went to the woods to live deliberately. Zoo people go to the zoo to live like morons.

I’d probably be more pissed if I were Clyde because he actually went with the vested interest to make good art. Instead, he and I were accosted with not just poorly behaved children but equally poorly behaved adults. One shining example was at one of the duck ponds. I was rudely interrupted from my duck musings when I heard a father of two proceed to quack like a duck. Or attempt to. If my mouth was full of gravel and bees, and I tried to sing the national anthem, that’s what this man’s duck noises sounded like. The best part is that he legitimately thought he would actually make the ducks turn around and do some sort of dog and pony show for his kids. Naturally, it didn’t because ducks are sadly used to this pathetic show of human behavior.

Let me continue. A great majority of the exhibits were closed. I was exhilarated earlier to see the seals, monkeys and pandas. Yet, when we got to the their habitats (after bad signs with shoddy arrows), they were not there. I don’t even know where a seal goes in the off-season of renovations but it certainly is a disappointment. It would have been nice to have been told this before we left for the zoo. It’s like going to Pizza Hut and hearing they don’t have the stuffed crust. Sure you can get the majority of the menu, but if you don’t have the big ticket item, what’s the point.

We decided to eat a late lunch. I ordered a veggie burger and had to wait 20 minutes for them to grill a freezer-burned Boca Burger from the Reagan era. It tasted like Reagan, when I actually got it. Actually, that’s a lie because there was no lettuce or tomato on this burger (would have cost an extra $1.50 apparently) and Reagan was more of a vegetable than this veggie burger would ever be. Ouch, too soon?

I won’t continue with more whines. I’m just dismayed at how abrasive children are these days. What happened to a quiet respect of the animals? Instead, they’re rubbing their gross fanny scratchers (fingers) all over the glass and tapping in the reptile cages.  The parents don’t care. They’re excited they can just let their kids run around for hours, for free. I love the zero-admission of the zoo but I’d be willing to pay ten dollars if I didn’t have to deal with these mouth breathers, some of them the same size as me, charging through putting their grubby hands on my legs. Ugh.

People my age aren’t any different. I saw 20 something year olds making fishy faces and giggling at the humping monkeys. Yeah, it was funny for the first two minutes. I don’t need to hear your Ron Jeremy imitation though. Plus, you were wearing those feet shoes. Needless to say, the zoo brings out everyone I hate, poorly behaved hipsters and children,  in the environment that I should love. People say zoos are cruel for animals, but the only cruelty these animals incur is having to watch us humans every day.

It's no coincidence 'fail' rhymes with 'whale'

This is, without a doubt, my most controversial post yet. Forget my seemingly Draconian or enlightened views on Feminism, depending on the range of your comments. Forget my liberal ideas of having a bi-party for bipartisanship. Even more important, forget my eccentric view on vests. I am going to hate on something that everyone loves—whales.

Everyone loves whales. Free Willy for goodness sake! The whale from Finding Nemo! Anytime Ellen DeGeneres speaks to anything in an accent, it’s humorous. But I’m here to argue, what has a whale done for us. Think about it. There’s nothing a whale does that another animal can’t do, if not better. Like sharks. My roommate Clyde countered this debate saying that whales gave us heat for oil lamps back in the day. You know what else gave us heat? Literally anything else you can burn. Sticks, bales of hay, lumber—anything is flammable if you try hard enough. Dinosaurs have been dead for like millions of years, and they’re still giving back to us. I don’t agree with the usage of fossil fuels, but the fact that there are no pterodactyls and my car can still reach 80 mph is just another solid contribution from the dinosaur contingent. Whale oil is just a sad excuse for fuel—like switch grass.

Also, whales just take up a ton of space. I know I’m biased since I qualify as carry-on luggage size (another reason why I’m the perfect travel companion) but whales are gigantic. There could be so much ocean diversity if whales didn’t just suck up all the water and eat all the krill. They’re the biggest animal and they suck up all the life in the ocean. How selfish! They’re stupid show stealers for stupid families at Sea World. Whales are over-commercialized, like Hallmark.

We’ve all seen that tragic picture of a whale’s dong, called a ‘dork’. That thing just haunts me with its massiveness. Plus, there’s no way all that splooge can go inside a female whale’s hoohah (which, by the way, is 5 feet in size…gross). At the risk of sounding trite, maybe that’s why the ocean is so salty. Did you know that whale semen is in cigarettes? No joke! If you want to quit smoking, just associate smoking a cigarette as blowing a whale. That’s just vile.

I’m not the only person who feels this way. In my quest to do research for this post, I Googled ‘hate on whales’ and found a bunch of sites. Sadly, many of them advocate the killing of whales, which I don’t. But, I was enraptured with one group’s mission statement:

“We hope to enlighten you to the true issues behind whales. These evil, overgrown mammals have taken over the seas of humankind, and have made suckers out of many of you as a shield for money hungry, overly political eco terrorists! Voyage of the Mimi left many young people damaged for years. Some turned to drugs, others to alcohol, and a percentage turned to whalerage. Join our forces, spread the word, and end the Order of the Cetaceans!”

Okay, I’m more just in love with the phrase ‘whalerage’ than the rest of the stuff. Although, I did see pictures of Vladamir Putin, my favorite badass world leader, harpooning a whale. That’s pretty gangster. Captain Ahab, even when played by the magnificent Gregory Peck, couldn’t kill Moby Dick. That damn sperm whale killed him. Any animal that kills Atticus Finch deserves my anger.

I can’t say enough that I don’t believe in killing whales but I don’t get sucked into their bullshit that they’ve been passing off for years as valid. People pay loads of money to go on whale watches for these prima donnas, and half the time it rains and these massive mammals don’t even show up. You see a splotch in the sea, probably a tire, and everyone thinks it’s beautiful.  Whales kills seals, which are my favorite animal. I know it’s the circle of life, but whales are just those greedy fat people at parties who eat all your food without contributing anything. And then they complain why you don’t like them. Bake me a quiche, whale, and I’ll like you more.

True story: whales hate the hippies who love them.

My friends say I should act my age, but all I want to do is act theirs.

I spent my weekend visiting my good friend Aaron in New York City. As is custom when hanging out with Aaron, besides name-calling and ranting, we spent Saturday night in the Village at a karaoke bar. Still high on the big success of Over Socialized's stellar performance last week, I was ready to rock out. (Thank you to all who said that my performance 'didn't suck as much as they thought it would’). Since we are nothing but creatures of habit, my friend John sang Blink 182's timeless anthem, 'What's My Age Again?'. The premise of the song is the idea of immaturity, specifically when one is 23 years old. The chorus wails 'Nobody likes you when you're 23'. For the first time, the song finally means something. I'm going to be 23 on Wednesday. Tomorrow. With only that forced realism that three bottles of Stella Artois brings, I thought I was faced with the prospect of being unliked. A headache and bout of light sensitivity the next day, though, cured that negative thought.

I don't believe in prophecies, especially those in Emo songs. Just like I don't believe in rapture or germs, I fully expect to be not just liked, but loved, by all my friends and family come June 15. Take that Machiavelli. While my confidence is unwavering, the rest of me is unsure. I'm confronted with the idea of what it means to act my age. I was recently assaulted by an abysmal blog by another such birthday girl. While her post was a rambling of personal ups and downs, a checklist of success and failures and even worse grammar than some Asian take-out menus, I don't intend to commit so much prattling. I've strived to make this blog more than just about me, but it's difficult when you're the one writing it. Yet, when I look back, I've realized that I seemingly made my year of 22 entirely about me.

I'm not arguing this is wholly a bad thing. After all, it’s taken me a while to realize this, but if you don't do something yourself, it won't get done. I admire ambitious individuals and go-getters like Ryan Seacrest, despite the fact everyone makes fun of me for my love of him. I still can't stomach American Idol but I love AT40.  In the final day of 22, I can't get over the fact of how much I've seemingly accomplished this year.  A job. A nice place to live.  A notary certification. A gig in a band. Dangerously close to 100 new beers. But in the course of a lifetime, what do my accomplishments matter? I know now they aren’t mine alone. I’ve piggybacked all of these things based on what I see my older friends do because it impresses me. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all.

Older isn’t pejorative (one of my favorite words) but I deem it something admirable. My first friends in college were all a year older than me. It is rare for me to find a friend actually the same age and in the same place in life as me. Even now, I purposefully live with wonderful roommates who are older than me. I never thought to consider what it was that drew me to people older than me until now—I liked to believe you old folks have your shit together.

Truthfully, it makes sense. I view you as trailblazers.  You have a handful of years of career experience on under your belt. Your parents don’t have you on your health insurance plan anymore. You drive cars you bought and don’t get carded at bars anymore. You know how to file your own taxes and find things inside supermarkets without looking up at the aisle markers. You live in a foreign country. You have boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, some of you children. You’ve lost loved ones. You are preparing to go to war. You’re in debt. You’re unemployed. You’re all of these and none of these, simultaneously. But what I respect most about you all is that you get out of bed and still just do it. Everyday.  Your persistence is contagious, especially to someone just yearning to catch a hint of your colds and flus of life.

So, as I reach 23, I see that Blink 182 was wrong. People still like you when you’re 23 but life doesn’t always like you. Langston Hughes wrote that life ain’t no crystal stair. There are boards torn up, carpet ripped and parts of it are bare. Sorry for the horrible paraphrasing. As shitty as Hughes makes it sound, he leaves the reader with the message to keep climbing that proverbial stair of life.

Before, I had that glamorized impression that people older than me were infallible with their sagacity. At this moment, I know you don’t all have your shit together. Nobody does. But you’ve made it work, at least most of the time. My immaturity sees that it’s better that way. And even though none of you are Ryan Seacrest, I actually love you all more for screwing up and still dreaming big. So to everyone in my life who drink until they vomit, got married this year, graduated, had to find a job, got a puppy, fell in love, moved away from or back home, and drank new beers with me, thanks. You carry my ass up those stairs  every day. I owe you.

I never claimed to know US history but I also never decided to run for President

I couldn’t decided what outraged me more this week. First, I continuously keep checking my phone, waiting for a scandalous picture of Anthony Weiner’s, well, weiner, to show up. I honestly feel like the only single, somewhat attractive woman in America who hasn’t been graced with that bulging piece of news. Not that I want to see it, but I’d like the option of knowing that I was one of the girls. It reminds me of the time when swine flu was big. My then roommate Rachel Stein (nicknamed Rachel Swine for the week) got the flu and I was jealous. I didn’t want to be sick but I just wanted to follow the trend. Unfortunately, my immune system kicked that out and I was stuck being healthy and boring.

Despite Weinergate consuming our lives (and making me feel bad for not having a Twitter), I’ve had to pick Sarah Palin’s Paul Revere gaffe as the incident that made me just want to smash my head through a thousand brick walls. Let me divulge something--I’m also terrible at American history. Really, really bad. As in, I forgot who won the Battle of Gettysburg recently and decided not to check it out online because I want one of the books I’m reading to end up as a surprise. No spoilers! I never memorized the preamble to the Constitution and don’t think I ever learned about the Cuban Missile Crisis in any form, at all. Most of my history comes from watching Clone High and rapidly Googling things while listening to NPR. I’m a dangerous type of American--the type who loves this country but barely scratches the surface on her illustrious history. Yet, and here’s the big distinguishing factor--I’m not running for President.

Call me ridiculous, but I think beyond the usual requirements for being President of the United States (being a natural citizen, over 35 years, lived here for over 14 years, and having the ability for Martin Sheen to play you on TV), you should probably know at least basic US history. I’m just saying, if I wanted to be a baker, I’d make sure I knew how to bake chocolate chip cookies before I attempted to make a wedding cake. If I wanted to be an electrical engineer, I’d make sure I knew how to test batteries besides licking them before I wired a house.  I wouldn’t just jump in claiming I was the best candidate when I could barely pass 4th grade history.

With all due respect Sarah Palin, that’s the reason why rhymes and poems exist. To teach us. If you couldn’t remember Longfellow’s poem about Paul Revere’s ride, maybe you don’t know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. I could see how that might be confusing. One if by land, two if by sea? No, apparently Paul Revere was a crazy Republican too who liked throwing shots, bells, and whistles in the air just for the hell of it. Seriously, check it out online. Being rambunctious and disorderly is the pastime of the Republican party.

“He who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells, and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”

Nice try Sarah. I know you don’t know the names of literally any newspapers and you think that every problem can be solved with a well-timed ‘You betcha’, but you better not cute your way out of this one. I’m appalled that you have your followers attempting to actually edit history on Wikipedia to change the details of Paul Revere’s ride. This isn’t ‘1984’, Sarah. Eastasia isn’t at war with Eurasia when you want it to be. You screwed up, deal with it. Now please go back to Alaska and finish raising your children. They obviously need your help than the rest of America does.

Oh, one more thing. Pizza is not eaten with a fork. Jeez.



I bet she thinks this is a picture of Benjamin Franklin.

That awkward moment when I was going to update my blog but I assumed I was going to be raptured…

I know, the Doomsday prophecy didn’t pan out. We’re still here and nothing’s really changed. It’s hot as balls outside (maybe a sign of the return of Icarus?) but I’m finding the lack of earthquakes, both spiritually and environmentally, to be frustrating. I’m a little late on this topic and I forgot all about this stupid Family Radio until I read an article today about them (http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/01/pf/doomsday_inheritance_donations/index.htm?iid=HP_Highlight&hpt=hp_c1)

For those who don’t want to read the article or boycott CNN because of Wolf Blitzer’s abysmal performance on Celebrity Jeopardy a while ago, let me summarize it for you. A woman is contesting Family Radio because her aunt left them a lot of money in her will. She’s unhappy that she was only left with $25,000 and these rabble/rapture-rousers were left with something to the sum of $300,000. Granted, I still think $25,000 is a decent sum to be left by an aunt, but I’m appalled that these failed prophets are going to make away with all this money, just to spread more bullshit. The IRS reported that they made over 18 million dollars in 2009. Ridiculous.

I wish I could make bank for failing at predictions. Sometimes I say I’m going to do my laundry but it doesn’t happen until two days later. Does that mean my laundry is going through a spiritual redemption because it wasn’t raptured by the wash on Wednesday? I’ve still been putting off getting a car wash….Could it mean that the Messiah himself still doesn’t know whether I’ll go for the tire clean or the Rain-X? It’s all up in the air but no matter what, Harold Camping is covered.

The worst part is that until the real rapture in October, we’re going to be assailed with this absolute insanity for a while. Whether it be more billboards, bus advertisements, Facebook groups with funny names or punch lines as jokes, I realize that Harold Camping isn’t going anywhere. Why is that those you want to get raptured never do? I don’t think he’s an evil man but he’s a dangerous man.  It actually breaks my previously callous heart to think of this group making money from blindsided people to spout their views further .

I’m a gullible person myself (it’s not written on the ceiling, I did just check) but I can’t imagine still believing in something after a failed prophecy. The only prophecy I believe in was Harry Potter’s and that actually panned out with epic warfare and fighting gingers. That’s more believable to me than rapture. That being said, I’m terrified of a raptor. eek!