A Brilliant Contraption

Wow, every toilet should just be this. Why is this something that has been created specifically for vehicular use? I mean, a toilet that turns shit into disposable "sweet smelling, inoffensive liquid," and that can fold up into a suitcase -- how fucking rad is that?! I want one of those to carry around with me everywhere. Fuck gas stations and porto-potties; I wants me some Indipod! I don't have the size of vehicle required to accommodate the privacy tent, but I can just pull over on the 24 and set up shop along Fish Ranch Road.

Even if I had a larger vehicle, I'm not sure how I would feel about shitting in the car. I know that was kind of the purpose, and I suppose that it will help a lot of people to travel who otherwise are prevented from freely doing so due to incontinence and whatnot. But can you imagine busting out this contraption and plugging it into the cigarette lighter and then having this huge bubble that you enter and shit in, and then re-packing it? I guess it could only work for a one-time use, 'cause you don't want to open it up and see the liquid floating around, no matter how sweet-smelling and inoffensive. And it might swish around and stain the toilet seat too. But then, the liquid is disposable, so I suppose you could just pull over somewhere along your trip and dump it out? Maybe you can carry little Lysol pads with you to clean off the seat too. Where would you dump the liquid? I guess you could go into an actual bathroom at a gas station and dump it into a toilet there.

I think I would also like to take this handy contraption to law school, seeing as my fellow students are mysteriously unable to maintain sanitary restroom conditions. People might wonder, "What is that, your laptop?" And then, they'd see me plug this thing into... hm, I'm not sure what... and then I would disappear into the bubble and it would look all futuristic and shit! Heh.

Why I Can't Work Retail

I have absolutely no visual observation skills. This impotency greatly impaired my efficacy as a retail employee at Mervyn's, where I graced the Home Department one summer. People would ask me, "Do you have any of such-and-such bedsheet in queen size?" I would mumble, "Uh, let me check," and disappear into the stockroom, only to forget, immediately, the pattern and fundamental nature of whatever it was I was supposed to be scavenging.

"Fuck," I would think, yawning at a shelf stocked with various bath towels. "OK, I'll just have to say we don't have any more this time, but next time I must etch the pattern and all the details into my brain before coming up here."

I would then trudge back downstairs, only to forget the appearance of whomever it was to whom I owed a report of my failure.

"Women are like apples..."

I have seen this passage quoted far too often from well-meaning persons to refrain from comment:

Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy . . . So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Now where do I begin with this abomination?

Let's start with the obvious premises: 1) that women are the literally dehumanized objects of men's "reaching" and "getting" and "climbing"; and 2) that everyone is hetero. Women don't have to passively sit here and wait for some brave jack-ass man to come pick us off the highest branch of the tree. We can have some subjectivity in the process, and it doesn't have to be with a man. And, for that matter, it doesn't have to be with anyone. Fuck that noise.

Moving on with the analysis of this ridiculous compilation of crap, I assume that its intention is to affirm women who feel rejected by men. I am all for affirming women, but why must this be conducted through misogyny? Maybe you have not been appreciated by a man for the amazing person that you are, but why must you conjecture that another women who has gotten noticed is "rotten," "not as good," and "easy"? Why must your self-worth be premised in how much "higher" you are than other women, in the eyes and reach of a man?

Even if some cowardly man is reaching for what he perceives to be "not as good" or "easier," why must you agree that the woman actually is of said lower value? Maybe the guy is only jocking her because she meets superficial aesthetic sensibilities and is sexually open, but that's not really all there is to her. The problem is not her; the problem is what he is using to evaluate women. Why must you participate in her degradation by perceiving her in the same one-dimensional manner and labeling her as trashy?

And for the "easy" bit. I may be "easy" as a third grade spelling test, but that's because I'm a damn horny woman with needs, not because I give a flying fuck about a man's. How do you like THEM apples?

I'm saving this link so I can blast it back to anyone who sends me this goddamned passage ever again.

But I do somewhat agree with the last part of the passage:

Men are like a fine wine. They start out as grapes, and it's up to [their partners] to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

...

...So are the days of our lives.

It's weird. When I was younger, a year used to seem like such a long time. And for good reason, I suppose; when I was five, one year was 20% of my life. But now, one year is just about 4% of my life. One day is barely over one hundredth of one percent. Holy shit!

Now why should I feel any sense of responsibility toward a period of my life that constitutes a trifling hundredth of a percent?

And yet, when I look back on these 295 months I have lived, I can say that a cumulative 1% of my life has bore the most significant impact. That one percent did not come in one lump sum, but in bits and pieces: a conversation, a small gesture here and there, a chapter from a book -- fractions coming in tenths, hundreds, thousandths, billionths, added together -- microscopic golden epiphanies, embroidered into a quilt of giddy sloth.

I want golden embroidery to equate to more than one percent of my quilt. And yet with each passing day, the quilt helplessly expands, and the same quantity of golden thread that was once one percent is now becoming a smaller and smaller proportion.

One hundredth of a percent does matter. And I'm going to start living like it does. Dammit.

Self-Help

I am a strong believer in the power of the subconscious. I truly believe that a mind can trick itself into believing anything whatsoever. So why not delude yourself into a state of triumph and bliss? I have done so on many occasions using tricks such as the ones highlighted below.

Trick #1: Grass Is Greener
We have all at various times felt like we were plummeting down a desperate abyss of hypotheticals: what if I took that internship in New York; what if my parents were less protective; what if I were born on Uranus instead of Earth? We tend to wish for what we don't have, and if we do obtain it, we tend to reminisce upon the good times of its absence. So, close your eyes and imagine that you were on the "other side," where you had thought the grass would be greener. Imagine that after a while, the bad things start to stick out over the good, and you fondly remember the original side, thinking, "What if I were still there?" Now, open your eyes, and voila- your wish has come true!

Trick #2: More Serious Obligations
Have you ever had to do something that you REALLY didn't want to do, such as study for an exam, or clean your room? Well, now you can do something else you would much rather do and feel terrific about it! Suppose you have an exam on Tuesday and today is Saturday, and there's a really cool art festival going on in the city during the whole weekend. All you have to do is delude yourself into imagining you have another exam that comes on Monday that is even harder than the one on Tuesday. Naturally, your weekend time would then be occupied with something other than studying for the Tuesday exam, right?

You can read these tricks and many more in a forthcoming self-help manual written by Yours Truly that is bound to put all other self-help books out of business for their lack of need: Leading a Life of Mediocrity and Lovin' It!

Cinematic Debut

In the summer of 2001, something possessed me to audition for a role in a zero-budget Hindi-language venture. The casting call had been put out by an aspiring Bollywood director, newly arrived from India and eager to put together this pilot project for Zee TV. I was going to be around Berkeley the whole summer with nothing to do after the 9-5 office space crap, so I figured, might as well see what's up.

My acting ability, like my drawing ability, is something that only exists when I have some detailed example to bite blatantly. Before going into the audition, I popped in some Madhuri Dixit flick, which at the moment of necessity enabled me to ape the melodramatic lines and accompanying gestures with the greatest of ease. Because of this and the probable reluctance of many an aspiring actor to take up this shady unpaid gig, I landed a role as the "feminist friend" of the female lead.

The story was something along these lines: The male is is this dorky, persistent, but well-meaning guy who comes to an American college from India, and, while walking by McDonald's, instantly falls in love with the female lead who happens to be passing by; she is American-born with "Indian values" (read: sexually modest, naive, and ultra-forgiving). Ooh, such deep irony in the East-West swap already -- can you feel it?!

Now check this: the "feminist friend" is newly moved from Bombay (more irony!!), and, for some reason that the audience is not supposed to sympathize with, dislikes the persistent, bumbling Indian-born guy with pretty much no game. She instead sets the heroine up on a date with a jerk of an American-born Indian cocaine addict, who ends up tricking her into getting drunk (poor girl would never drink alcohol of her own volition, mind you; she thought it was just Coca Cola!) and... sexually assaults her. The heroine is traumatized because she feels responsible for having her "honor" toyed with, so she overdoses on the date rapist's cocaine and ends up in the hospital. This is when dork man comes to hold her hand and tell her he loves her, and rapist dick also comes to apologize and beg for her not to take legal action. This gets dork incensed and ready to beat him up. However, sweet desi chick forgives rapist dick and tells dork man to leave him alone. Then dork man and forgiving dipshit chick fall in love and live happily ever after.

We shot a couple of scenes in my apartment, and during one such occasion, I thought I'd have a nice two-hour "discussion" with the director over a chai break.

I began by expressing my concern over my imperfect Hindi and subconscious American mannerisms. He assured me that they were OK, because my role was that of a "feminist." I then told him I was having a bit of difficulty understanding the character and what made her a feminist.

"She hates Indian men," he explained.

I found this characterization of feminism intriguing, an oddly refreshing break from the common patriarchal American perception of feminism as the decisive hatred of ALL men, regardless of national origin.

I offered my dear director the knowledge that I was a feminist, and I did not consider his assessment to be accurate.

The knowledge of my female-emancipatory leanings put a twinkle in his eye, and he began a quest to develop the character around the real me. He asked to check out my room and noted various posters that I had, endorsing musical talents such as the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys, movies such as Bride of Chucky and Leprechaun in the Hood, and finally, Lord Krishna.

"Let's film a scene in here!" he exclaimed. "But not with the Krishna poster -- that doesn't fit. We'll use the Spice Girls in the background."

He then went on to underscore how because the feminist friend was so misguided in her distaste toward Indian men, she led the heroine astray into the trap of the wanton westerner and effectively caused the whole conflict, which she comes to realize and regret later on. Somehow, the Spice Girls poster would represent the negative phase of the role just perfectly.

I informed homeboy that feminism was about social justice and women's human rights, and neither the admiration of the Spice Girls, nor the arbitrary shunning of men from a particular country, nor the desire for your friend to get with some leering asshole, reflected a desire for this. I mean shit, say what you want to say about me, but don't use my -ism's name in vain!

I then explained the problems I had with the script, starting from: 1) none of the characters being remotely likable; to 2) throwing in something as serious and life-altering as attempted rape just to demonstrate the lead male's heroism in wanting to beat up the guy that did it, even though this was probably more because he saw it as an assault on HIS "property" more than anything else; to 3) demanding no legal accountability from the rapist or clarifying that he, and he alone, is at fault; to 4) not giving any indication that homechick is informed of her rights or planning to seek social services at least for her emotional well-being; to 5) reinforcing the virtue of the pious, self-sacrificing dumb-ass hoe. And there was no fuckin' way in hell he was going to vilify the "feminist" as the root cause of evil on top of all this.

He looked at me as if I were some sort of deformed unicorn: something which cannot, and SHOULD not, exist.

Upon some back-and-forth bargaining (Desis R' Us!), he agreed to add a scene to the end showing the rapist dick in handcuffs, suggesting that homechick had at least reported him, making that action her only redeemable one.

After shooting was complete, home boy said he was going to India temporarily for some "networking" and would return and do some post-production work, letting the cast sit on the editing process with him. He was not to be seen for a full year, when I ran into him at some culture show. I asked him what was the deal with the movie, and he mumbled something back. I didn't really care to clarify.