Isn't That Convenient

You know how I've been doing the once a week animal rights themed posts (the ones with the Ⓥ, in case you didn't know)? Well, the last several weeks, I've been struggling to come up with anything to talk about there. My original intention was to work on them throughout the week so that by the time Friday rolled around I could have them exactly the way I wanted them, and they would be a bit better quality than my regular posts. Instead, I've been spending the whole week trying to come up with something good to talk about, failing miserably, then frantically trying to write something worthwhile about a half-assed topic right before I leave for class. 

So naturally, I was kind of excited when, this morning, a fairly decent topic for my animal rights post suddenly occurred to me. I thought "Yay! Finally I will be able to put some real time and effort into making this one really good!" Then, throughout the rest of the day, I thought of four other animal rights related topics that I want to discuss. This means that, instead of putting a lot of work into one, I will most likely spend the whole week writing bits and pieces of each of them and still end up with a shitty post on Friday. 

Progress!

This weekend, my dad and I bought (I think) all the materials we need to build my salmon ladder! I'm pretty excited about it. The plan is to actually build it next weekend, hopefully that will happen, you never know. Anyway, the materials were pretty basic and we didn't have to go through too much hassle to acquire them, which was nice. It seems like the process of building it should be pretty straight forward as well, I'm certain it won't be as easy as it should be, but I still I feel fairly confident that it won't be a complete disaster. Of course the real challenge will be learning to use the thing once it's built. It only took me what? two years? to learn to do pull-ups. So I figure I should have the salmon ladder pretty well mastered sometime before I die.

What's Up With That?

I decided a few days ago to apply for an Amazon credit card. I know, for someone my debt to income ratio, getting another credit card is probably a bad idea. I do have a good(ish) reason for it though. 1- I need to buy a decent camera, if I'm ever going to get my video blog up and running, and they had this deal where you get a $70 gift card with credit approval, which would nearly cover the cost of the camera. 2- I've been going through a shit-ton of books lately, and I keep forgetting how many books I've bought, and how many of the charges have come through, and I think that might be part of the reason I've been losing track of how much money I have in my bank account lately. At least if I put them on a credit card, I would only have to worry about it once a month. 3- You get points back from your purchases, which would probably help me out quite a bit, considering how much money I spend there.

Here's the thing though; I filled out the application and got the "Thank you" message. I just assumed that it was the standard "Thank you" message and closed it, expecting to find an email in my inbox saying I had been approved. By the way, I assumed I would be approved because, despite my lack of funds, I do have excellent credit. I kept checking my email obsessively for the approval message, because 1-I really want my camera, and 2- I'm running low on books, which is not okay! But I never got the email. I waited four days and finally decided that something must have gone wrong. So I applied again. This time I actually read the "Thank you" message, and it said that they couldn't confirm my approval right now and they would be contacting me "in writing" within 30 days. 30 days? Seriously? Who the fuck waits 30 days for anything, anymore? Isn't that sort of the whole point of the internet, that you can do things immediately? So what's the fucking deal, Amazon?

Sorry, this ended up being kind of a long post just for me to bitch about a credit card.

Finally!

Last night at class there were several new guys there and I ended up working with one of them instead of one of the other girls. We took turns holding the pads for each other (mostly he held the pads for me, I think because the instructor forgot to tell us to switch until class was almost over) and it worked out really well. When he was holding them for me I didn't feel like I had to hold back, and when I was holding them for him I didn't feel like he was holding back (at least not too much). Plus I got some really nice bruises. It was awesome! It is very seldom that I use the word "awesome" in a non-sarcastic manner; this is one of those times.

Check out my weird, polka dot bruises. 

Ⓥ Imaginary Activism

I find myself going back and forth a lot about whether or not I want to try to be a writer, as in actually write novels. I constantly have all of these ideas that I think have the potential to be good stories, but the process of actually turning an idea into a full book seems rather daunting. I think the thing that has really stopped me from putting in the effort is the fact that I'm not sure how good I would actually feel about it after the fact. I just want what I do to have an impact on the world, to make things better in some way. I'm just not sure whether I really believe that fiction can do that or not.

I sometimes think how great it would be to write books about vegans and animal rights activist; not vegan or animal rights books, but books about other things with vegan and activist characters. I feel like vegans tend to either be 1- completely ignored, 2- mocked, or 3- vilified, in most forms of entertainment, and I find that really troubling. I sometimes think it would really help the cause if there were interesting, likable characters who just happened to also be vegan. But then I wonder how much difference that would actually make. I know I, personally, have been deeply affected by fictional characters, but I wonder whether many other people have or not.

Is it possible to affect change in the real world by creating a fictional world? Would writing characters who care about the fate of nonhuman animals inspire real people to care as well? Would non-vegans even be open to reading about vegan characters? I really don't know. Sometimes I feel like it's worth a shot, and other times I think that I should be focusing my efforts on more concrete forms of activism.

The first example of a vegan character that comes to mind is this guy, and he wasn't much of a role-model for vegans or anyone else. 

Lack of Alternatives

I feel like my entire life has been a struggle to fit myself into a world where I don't really belong. I don't care about any of the things that other people care about. I don't like any of the things that other people like. I'm always feeling bad about myself for not accomplishing anything in my life, but the truth is that none of the things that most people consider to be "accomplishments" look very appealing to me. I commit myself totally to anything that feels important to me, but I just cannot seem to muster the motivation to do any of the things that are necessary to modern life. Why should I go through all the trouble of trying to be "successful" when none of that means anything to me? Well, because that's just life, that's why. So yeah, I should probably work on that.

I Don't Understand the Appeal

I've told you guys before about some of Impala's weird and inconvenient hobbies. Well, for the last three days, his favorite game has been taking my socks. I take them off when I go to bed, he waits until I'm asleep, then sneaks into my room and steals them. The first time, I woke up to find one sock next to the bed. Impala was sitting right beside me at the time, so I looked over at him and said "What the fuck did you do with my sock?" He took off running downstairs, and I thought it was just because he realized I was irritated at him. So then I yell downstairs and ask my dad if he has seen my sock anywhere, he says "Yeah, I think I saw........now he's down here guarding it." So Impala understood that I wanted my sock back and ran back to protect it. 

Then the next two mornings I woke up to find that both socks were gone. Apparently one just wasn't enough. Last night I even caught him trying to take them, when I wasn't quite asleep yet, and chased him out. But I guess he won't be discouraged that easily, because when I woke up, they were gone. I wouldn't even care that much were it not for the fact that he drags them around under the furniture so they get all disgusting, and I end up having to dirty two pairs of socks every day. I'm apparently going to have to strap them down or something.

I told one of my clients about Impala's sock obsessions and she said it reminded her of this Mutts comic. I looked it up, and she was right. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what happens, except that all my socks are black.