Environmental Impact
Category

• Sea Glass Insomnia and Obliterating Borders

  

  There is nothing quite like crawling into bed, closing your tired eyes, allowing your breath to deepen, and then just as you’re about to drift off into a sweet slumber snuggled inside the encompassing embrace of Morpheus… you instead start thinking about everything you’ve ever regretted about your life coupled with enervating anxiety about your future. I love when that happens!!! As a life-long insomniac this is often my process in going to sleep, and it’s EXACTLY as fun as it sounds. Something about trying to lose consciousness makes me instead consciously obsess about all that’s wrong with me which then transmutes to all that’s wrong with the world. So relaxing!

  I just got back from vacation, and during that time I was sharing a room with The Munch. Her method for settling down into slumber was to toss and turn in bed as if she were training for a breakdancing marathon. Go figure, but it’s really hard to sleep when someone next to you is engaged in a head-spin. The sounds of sheets rustling against her flailing body eroded my psyche and disturbed any chance I had in settling my soul. With every grand gesture she made, I fell further into the abyss of my own self-loathing. I began stressing about my career and overall lack of financial success. I then started feeling inadequate for all my political impotency. This lead to my being consumed by a deep sensation of dread for everything that was to come in not only my life, but in the future of humanity as well. Stories of the horrific news swirled through my synapses. It was a Kafkaesque nightmare of my own making, and my daughter’s thrashing punctuated my every concern as if she were mocking my anguish with rustling fabric.

  Toni: Munch, I’m having a really hard time trying to fall asleep and it doesn’t help with all that wiggling you’re doing! It’s actually really loud. Can you stop moving around so much?
  Munch: I just can’t stop thinking about sea glass?
  Toni: What?
  Munch: I just keep imagining giant pieces of sea glass. In my imagination, I go to pick up a piece of sea glass and just the small corner is poking out, but when I pull it, I realize it’s actually a GIANT piece of sea glass. I just can’t stop imagining that. That’s why I’m wiggling.

  AHHHH TO BE A CHILD!!!!

  The beauty of her thoughts compared to mine.

  Sigh.

  As an adult it’s impossible for me not to envy the purity of a child’s imagination. A brain that hasn’t been burdened by social programming and conditioning… YET. This still malleable mind of the innocent that thinks beyond the confines of civilization. I was inspired by The Munch’s mental meandering about sea glass and equally lost in self-pity. To live in my mind feels like being trapped in Dostoevsky novel while also inside a Russian prison. Yet to live in The Munch’s mind is like experiencing a perpetual episode of Pee Wee’s Playhouse on acid. Her perception of existence feels unattainable for me to achieve because the corruption of culture has infiltrated my sense of reality. I can’t fathom the relief of a mind that focuses so deeply on the joy of finding GIANT pieces of sea glass that it kept me up at night.

  Yet this lack of imagination, of creativity, of seeing how the world could be different, is exactly why we are watching the demise of this country. As annoying as it is to have my kid keep me up at night, at least my kid is fucking with me and not being ripped from my arms by the US government!

  If you have my mental sensibility, chances are the world depresses the fuck out of you. The news overwhelms you. You fear for the future of not only your own life, but what is going to happen to mankind and the animals we are forcing into extinction. Sure, the planet will continue, yet I can’t help but want life to as well. Call me a romantic, but I like life. I think it’s nifty. It would be a real bummer if human beings annihilated it with their selfish greed. I don’t think this is the way things have to be. I think we are stuck in our programming and need a major reboot of how we configure everything. We need a lot more imagination when it comes to solving our political troubles. For example, the solution to this so-called immigration “problem” is not baby prisons. Let’s actually re-imagine how we structure society and get rid of borders.

  I don’t understand why this is such an outlandish proposition. We already live in a global society. Our media is global. Our communication is global. Our trade is global. Why are we holding onto borders? What do they accomplish? Having borders means we have war. Having borders means we have EVIL anti-immigration tactics. Having borders means we have nationalism that promotes racist ideologies. What do borders accomplish that are good for humanity as a whole? Borders don’t even reflect the truth of how we interact. Borders are a colonialist structure that benefits those in power. Borders are a way to perpetuate capitalist corruption. Borders serve zero purpose to the suffering, and clearly only have value for those in power. Why can’t we instead develop a system that supports and admits our interconnectedness? What are we holding onto by maintaining this antiquated arrangement?

  I want to see a political platform that is thinking on these levels. That wants to truly eradicate the infrastructure that’s designed for the rich to oppress the poor. Only then will I have a night where I can maybe think about sea glass instead of traumatized children.

  To be fair munch is right, sea glass is pretty epic.

  

  July 12, 2018 • 8 years old, Children, Current Events, Emotions, Environmental Impact, Extinction, Family Drama, Musings, Political Banter, Talking and Not Talking • Views: 2296

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• Nursing the Teat of the Earth Dry

  

  We all have shamanic rituals we enact to get through life on this earth – these sacred routines that help connect you to your higher self and escape the harshness of reality. Maybe for you it’s taking a bath, gardening, staring at the stars, breathing in the wind, digging a ditch to then writhe naked with the worms while humming show tunes, or watching Internet porn? To each his own. For me, I like to walk around the lake by my house – it’s pretty.

  The other day as I was walking, it started to rain. I looked above me and could see the rain cloud, but also a patch of blue sky in front of me. I figured, “Oh Toni, you’re right underneath the rain cloud, so you just have to run in front of it to where the sky is blue, and then you won’t get rained on anymore!” Yes, you heard me right. I thought I could outrun a rain cloud, and genuinely tried to accomplish that goal for the remaining 3 miles around the lake – and wouldn’t you know it – I never was able to RUN FASTER THAN THE EARTH’S ROTATION? Weird right?

  Or maybe it was weird that I authentically thought this was possible? Oh whoops, I forgot to tell you I was pretty stoned during this experience, so that might explain some things.

  We think we are in control of the earth. Humanity maintains this illusion that we have power over the planet and that we Sapiens are the priority above all other the species, and even the planet itself. We believe that all the earth’s bounty and resources are primarily for us to sustain our lives, even at the cost of everything else. Yet why? For thousands of years mankind was much more in tune with the harmony of the natural world and our place inside it, rather than above it. Why have we become corrupted into assuming that humans deserve to consume everything in our wake?

  A hostile ideology towards nature has permeated modern thinking and Francis Bacon, who is considered the father of empiricism and “Western” scientific method, ejaculated this attitude. Bacon would use analogies of raping and controlling the earth when discussing the need for science as a means to dominate nature. His metaphors were filled with violence towards the feminine, and it was his teachings that birthed our Western relationship to science.

  No wonder we as a species are acting so viciously towards the planet. There is a collective sentiment of domination over nature like she is a woman that needs to be put in her place. The arrogance that nature can be restricted is echoed in the way the world treats women and all that the feminine has come to represent. Consider our relationship oil – it’s as if we are sucking at the teat of the world, yet giving her no time to replenish. Is it really a good idea to keep nursing until there is no more milk left to nourish? Doesn’t mother earth, like an actual nursing mother, need time to rejuvenate? Even a baby knows to take a break and stare into space for a little while or play with its fingers. How are we so smart about so many things, yet so unaware that you can’t treat the earth, or women, like they are purely vessels for taking whatever you want from them?

  We use the term “mother nature” acknowledging the symbiotic relationship that the planet sustains all life, yet we simultaneously treat her like a disposable whore. There is a psychological conflict that’s taking place and it’s reiterated in the way women are treated across the globe. The violence towards the earth is reverberated in the violence towards women. We take advantage of the mother earth much like we take advantage of mothers. If the mother instinct prevailed, then preservation of the future would be the top priority over money and the restrictions of a privatized global economy. Every decision would be made under the lens of “what is best for my children” rather than “what is best for me.” Yet sadly, and irrationally, that’s not our approach.

  The human species is the greatest ecological serial killer the earth has ever known. Over the past 50,000 years a staggering amount of animals have gone extinct because of our influence. We are in the midst of a 3rd mass extinction of animals right now. Our 3rd! We have done this before. North America used to be the home of giant 8-ton sloths that were 20 ft high. There were rodents the size of bears. Wooly mammals. Giant Tigers. Right here where you’re sitting! All the animals that exist today, are a mere fraction of what used to be – we killed them all. And all that death made way for what? The most useless generation of humans ever to exist? Yeah maybe we can text really fast while driving, but we don’t know shit about survival. Human beings at least used to be one with their environment – I don’t even know how to keep myself alive without a refrigerator. I just go to the grocery store and am like, “Uhhhh this box of food looks look good.” Most of us are useless. We’re not inventing solutions to the world’s problems; we’re just creating more trash.

  Yet even if all the citizens in the US lived in intentional communities of off the grid geodesic domes, ate only organic vegan food grown locally in our shoes, dressed exclusively in clothes that were hemp colored hemp, and traveled purely by unicycle – the military industrial complex would still be polluting the planet at an alarming rate. We can’t just change our personal behavior; we also have to address the entire system that operates without consideration of the future, which I know, feels exhausting.

  So yes, we as individuals have to do everything we can to be more ecologically aware and lesson our footprint, but we also can’t forget about the GIANT BOOT on our chests that is the US military, and most of corporate culture that operates by the rules of Wall Street rather than the laws of nature.

  Hope y’all had a good earth day over the weekend and weren’t thinking about the apocalyptic shit that I was!

  

  April 25, 2018 • Current Events, Environmental Impact, Political Banter • Views: 2473

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• No Seriously My Child, You have NO CHOICE but to be Strong

  

  When I was a kid snow days were a gift from the heavens – an unexpected present from the Goddess herself, gloriously saving me from yet another mundane day of pretending to understand fractions. I’d wake up and see the world draped with that distinct frosty substance, and my heart would fill with relief as I wriggled back into the womb of my bed ready to spend my day playing “Super Mario Brothers.” Yet now that I’m a parent, a snow day instead fills me with that feeling of, “Awww fuck.”

  When you’re an obsessive workaholic that finds your sense of personal value exclusively through what you produce each day and your self-esteem is predicated on what you’re able to accomplish to the point where you fall into a deep state of anxiety if you’re not able to achieve all you expected from your waking hours – a day off can actually be kind of stressful.

  As such, I had to make a plan with The Munch about our day so we could both get what we wanted – my needing to fulfill my self-imposed compulsive demands of productivity, and her wanting to quite reasonably play with me outside. Now of course The Munch’s request for me to join her frolicking in the open tundra was appealing, yet only after I was able to feel some output out of my day. Our compromise was that she would entertain herself for 2 ½ hours, and then we’d play.

  Part of me wanted to just let The Munch do what she wanted to do (in order to extend my work time) and let her watch some bullshit show on her screen. But fuck that! No memories are made when watching some slutty monsters go to high school (this is a REAL show called “Monster High” – and I’m not slut shaming them, because I believe monsters should be as sexually adventurous as they please, just commenting on the unnecessary attire and body types they are drawn with). I didn’t want to let my kid’s imagination rot by letting her passively fill the hours with media, as tempting as that can be because are imaginations really that important?

  Since The Munch is an only child, expecting her to play by herself for a few hours is reasonable. The Munch set a timer for exactly 3 hours (the extra half hour was her gift to me) and off we went to our perspective rooms – her to play make-believe, and me to write make-believe, but in a very serious way.

  When my time was up, it was time for us to go outside. The Munch and I decided that sledding was a good plan, yet there aren’t really any good hills near my house. The closest one is about a 2 mile walk away. Of course I could have drove through the blizzard to get us there, but like most moms, I needed my car to get covered in snow so I could dig it out on film the next day pretending to be a sexy snow bunny for a video idea I had about New England girls being just as hot as California girls. Every kid has to deal with that right??

  Since we couldn’t drive, we decided that we’d hike through the snowy terrain to the sledding hill. The Munch and I packed some snacks and water, tied the sled to a string so she could pull it behind her, and off we went out into the nor’easter.

  We first had to hike up a hill about a ¼ mile long that’s as steep as a mountain. We were still optimistic at this point, despite the snow propelling with alarming speed into our faces causing an inability to see. Once we almost traversed to the top of the crest, The Munch accidently let go of the string pulling the sled, and had to run full speed and dive to catch it, otherwise the sled would have slid the entire way back down the hill. I have to say I was pretty impressed by The Munch’s instincts, because she plunged headfirst and slid about 8 feet to grab the string just in time.

  Watching my daughter throw her body down a hill and glide on her stomach like a seal version of Neo from the Matrix to retrieve this sled got me thinking. I know it’s common rhetoric to talk about the need of raising your daughter to be a strong woman. You hear that a lot right? Yet I started to think about the harsh reality that I may have to raise my daughter to be strong in a different way than what I’ve been assuming. Not just strong in the sense that she’s strong enough to say “no” to a man whose advances she doesn’t consent to, or strong enough to become a leader in whatever occupation she chooses. There is the emotional strength I’m familiar with of being a woman within the patriarchy and trying to find my place of significance despite the insidious sexism that still permeates most of modern culture. Yet with my quest of challenging social paradigms I’m still physically comfortable and live in a western world that provides me with the illusion of personal safety. Despite my being sexually harassed and Weinsteined every so often, I do take for granted my access to the basic luxuries of life – like having electricity and easy access to food.

  Yet suddenly it dawned on me that I may have to empower my daughter in an entirely other way as well. The Munch may have to be strong in ways I never had to be considering the future I’m handing her. There is a pretty good chance that my daughter has to be strong enough to survive THE MOTHER FUCKING APOCALYPSE!!!!!!!!

  Was I being alarmist? Maybe? Was I perhaps a little stoned/paranoid, thus envisioning the potential future we are racing towards that’s laden with biblical style horrors led by the insanity of our current administration? Possibly? Yet it’s also naïve to assume that The Munch is going to experience the same lifestyle I am currently enjoying considering there is major probability of MASSIVE GLOBAL CATASTROHPE.

  I started to get so despondent realizing the very REAL potential that shit could seriously hit the fan, and how my daughter’s main concerns in life won’t be comparable to mine – like how many “likes” her videos get – but rather her troubles will be whether or not she’ll endure the pending ice age caused by all the cataclysmic erratic weather patterns. Or if she’ll be able to live through the violence that will ensue as resources diminish and water is the most valuable commodity.

  As we continued to hike through this mammoth tempest towards our sledding hill, my mind was filled with prophecies of this tragic future and how my child might one day be desperately searching for animal carcasses to feast on the raw carrion, as fire would be a luxury only the 1% could enjoy. I started to realize that maybe I haven’t been doing my daughter any justice by keeping her warm, and cozy, and fed, and instead I needed to teach her to survive in the wild!

  The Munch: Mama, I’m hungry. Let’s take a break.
  Toni: We have to keep going! You have to be strong!
  The Munch: But I’m tired! It’s harder for me to walk than you! The snow is deeper for me! It’s only up to your knees, but it’s up higher on me! It’s past my thighs!
  Toni: Munch, what if there’s a war? Like world war 3? And we have to hike out of here to survive? How would we hide from the enemy if you had to rest because your legs were tired?
  The Munch: Easy. I’d just do this.

  The Munch proceeds to curl up in a ball to “hide.”

  Toni: Dude, I can still see you even though you can’t see me!
  The Munch: I’d just bury deeper in the snow and camouflage.

  The Munch snuggles in, and brushes some snow on her back to “camouflage.”

  Toni: I can still see you! We have to keep going!
  The Munch: My legs hurt, and my feet are cold. I should have worn wool socks.
  Toni: Dude, you have to push through the pain! Your body is capable of so much if you’re determined. You have to persevere, and train yourself to face suffering – not run from it. And who knows, you may not even have access to wool socks in the future? You have to get used to freezing toes. We have to keep going… Now what are you doing?
  The Munch: I’m drawing a picture of summer in the snow. See, here’s the sun – and the sun’s smiling because it’s warm out – and here are some flowers, and that’s me swimming.
  Toni: Munch, there is no time for drawing pictures in the snow! If we were running from the enemy we’d have to be efficient. Do you know if you can eat this kind of bark? What about this moss? Have you ever tried moss? Wait… now what are you drawing?
  Munch: It’s us sledding. See, that’s you, that’s me, that’s the sled, and that’s the sun smiling.
  Toni: No more drawing smiling suns! You have to get up and walk!
  The Munch: But I’m hungry.
  Toni: Fine, if you make it up this next hill, then you can stop and eat.
  The Munch: That hill is like a mile long!
  Toni: It’s the only way! You have to be strong!!!! We can play “I spy” while we hike.
  The Munch: We can’t play “I spy,” because everything is white and brown?
  Toni: MUNCH, YOU HAVE TO JUST KEEP GOING! YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG!

  We finally made it up the next hill, having negotiated through the snow for over a mile. I then let The Munch stop to eat, but there was no shelter for us, so we just had to sit in the snow as the wind blew more snow in our faces while even more snow fell from the sky. I took off my backpack that was… you guessed it… covered in snow, and then took off my gloves to fish out her snacks that were also… covered in snow because the snow had snowed inside my bag somehow? Those two minutes with my gloves off were excruciatingly cold, and I wasn’t sure how The Munch was going to eat her cut up apples and cheese with her gloves on? Yet The Munch took off her mittens and proceeded to enjoy her snack for the next ten minutes – not a care in the world, not complaining about her blue fingers, not saying much really. She just hummed to herself as snow collected on her eyelashes while she ate her food.

  We then slid down the hill we had just climbed and eventually hiked home. Once we were finally inside after 3 hours of outdoor training, as we peeled off our sopping wet gear The Munch turned to me, ice crusted in her hair, and said:

  Munch: That was really fun Mama! I like playing I the snow with you!

  It was then I realized that maybe The Munch will make it after all – especially because I then made her stand outside barefoot for a bit to toughen up her feet.

  March 14, 2018 • 7 years old, Adventures, Behavior, Children, Current Events, Emotions, Environmental Impact, Family Drama, Kids, Mommyhood, Parenting, Playing, Political Banter, Talking and Not Talking, Working Mommy • Views: 3424

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• It’s Too Stressful To Care

  

  For those of you that don’t live in the North East, New England has been having a glorious global warming fall. It’s been so unseasonably warm that I swam across the lake last week. That’s an hour-long swim that I took in late September – sponsored by Big Oil!

  Because I live in the soon to be Tundra of New Hampshire, I’ve been trying to appreciate all these uncharacteristic warm fall days. I push it out of my mind that this is all a consequence of greenhouse emissions being trapped in the atmosphere, because greenhouse gases sound kind of environmental no? How can they be bad if the word GREEN is used to describe them?

  On Sunday The Munch went to a birthday party, and I figured she would be so pumped full of sugar/GMO candy/cake that spending the afternoon at the playground wouldn’t be a bad idea. Munch climbed into the car with her bag full of candy, and I was emotionally prepared for her to eat the majority of it.

  Munch: Mom, we got all this chemical candy from the Piñata at the birthday party!
  Toni: I see that love.
  Munch: I tried one piece and I didn’t like it. It was too chemically. I’m not going to eat this chemical candy. It’s gross.

  Okay, first of all, I can’t believe my indoctrination has worked this well. My kid is so conditioned to believe that chemicals in your food are bad, that she wouldn’t even eat her Gummy Bears. I felt a deep pride that The Munch respects me enough to not only listen to my opinions, but also adopt my values as her own. Yet another part of me wanted her to eat all that chemical candy because fuck authority Munch!!!

  Once at the park, I saw some friends collected together at picnic blanket. I went and joined them, happy to experiencing this lovely day in this quaint community. The whole scene was really sweet. Children playing in the sun, mom’s watching their kids frolic while talking about G-spot orgasms. You know, the usual.

  We were having a good time is the point. Then somehow we started talking about the news and what was going on in Puerto Rico.

  Friend 1: I think that I need to be more informed about stuff.
  Friend 2: Ugh. I can’t. It’s too stressful. I only have so much empathy. It’s hard to have empathy. Things are always happening somewhere. It’s too much. That’s why I live here – in this bubble. I live in this bubble so I don’t have to care.

  Okay so here is where shit starts to get allllllll fucked up.

  Now I had a LOT of opinions about the above statement. A LOT! But I also didn’t know this person very well. It felt super awkward to disagree with someone so violently that I wasn’t even sure I’d met before – especially because we weren’t alone. It’s one thing to have a debate one on one, it’s another thing to school someone in public. And because I am such a people pleaser, it’s hard for me to knowingly make others uncomfortable. Yet at the same time, isn’t my being a people pleaser also about me pleasing myself because I don’t want to make myself uncomfortable because someone else is uncomfortable?

  The second more humiliating problem was just like this person felt it was too stressful to know about the world, I felt it was too stressful to provoke an argument about the 2,000,000,000 ways I disagreed with her. Just like she wanted to live in the bubble of not caring about the rest of the world’s suffering, I wanted to live in the bubble of not having to care about a middle class white woman that thinks it’s okay to not care about the world because you live in a fucking bubble.

  DO YOU SEE THE IRONY!!!!!

  As much as she didn’t want to have to care about the world, was as much as I didn’t want to have to care about her not caring about the world. Just like she wanted to enjoy her day not giving a shit about Puerto Rico, I wanted to enjoy my day not giving a shit about her not giving a shit!

  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

  There was also this feeling I had of total impotence. I had no idea how to tell her that she should care about people. I felt the same impotence for that situation that I feel about the trauma that is going on in the world. The same impotence she probably feels about the trauma of the world. There is so much violence, destruction, and gratuitous misery. It’s not like I don’t understand that feeling of not wanting to feel. Yet even though I don’t want to feel, I still feel I have to put myself in the face of feeling.

  Another one of my friends who shares my political beliefs was sitting next to me during this fateful moment. We both just got really quiet and looked down at the grass. My high functioning autism kicked in, and I refused to make eye contact. My social anxiety and fear of confrontation took over my physical form. As much as I wanted to scream, I also wanted to cry. The silence permeated the group. It was obvious that we didn’t agree, and my friend made the suggestion that you really don’t have to do that much to be a quasi-active person or be helpful to others. There were some vague agreements on that, and then the conversation shifted to food politics. If there is anything that white middle class people that live in a bubble can get behind, it’s organic farming.

  I left the park feeling both traumatized caught off guard by this chick’s ignorance. I didn’t have the energy to say anything. I didn’t know how to change her mind, or express my thoughts in a way that wasn’t aggressive. So I helplessly said nothing.

  This is the problem with humanity. We are sheep. Sheep that passively mill around, waiting to be devoured by the corporate and political systems we willingly allow to control us. Flocking about, unconcerned that the wolves lurking in the shadows are ones we’ve actively surrendered to. Yet expecting us to not be sheep may be unrealistic. Adaptation and sheepness have been a major part of our evolution. The fact that we are easily led around by the sheep dog we elect is why we were able to become the successful parasites on the earth that we see today. If humans weren’t sheep, there would be such constant dissent, bickering, questioning, and pontificating that we wouldn’t get much done. Because most of us are sheep, we can be easily organized and controlled. Being sheep is how we’ve been able have the so-called progress of the industrial revolution. There were plenty of sheep to work mindless jobs in factories. Our sheep ways have made it possible to for the few to control the many for thousands of years. We sheep have built pyramids, gone to war, and paved the way for John D. Rockefeller and Mark Zucerberg to have taken over our bodies and minds. It is our sheep ways that have been crucial for the invention of all modern technology and artificial intelligence so the robots will soon rule the planet.

  Yet if we accept our sheep ways, that doesn’t mean we have to be ignorant sheep. We can be knowing sheep- sheep that are interested in evolving. The ability to adapt to our environment was a crucial part of our evolution at one point. The ability to adapt our environment to us was the next crucial aspect of our evolution. Now we have the need to re-imagine our environment because at this is exact moment the earth is trying to shake us off the planet like a wet dog with fleas.

  All animals evolve. We are evolved animals. Now we have to become evolved humans.

  If you are an American, you are one of the privileged people on the planet. If you are white and middle class, you are even more privileged. You can’t have the rational that you were born into a bubble and therefor entitled to stay in that bubble. That bubble was built off the blood of others. That bubble is not clean. No one deserve’s to live in a bubble.

  I benefit off the imperialist and colonialist actions of the United States. Whether I want the government to be secretly destroying Yemen in a covert war or not, I still benefit off of those actions. Even if I don’t want poor black Americans to be incarcerated for absurd drug laws designed to imprison them and force generations into slave labor for the prison industrial complex, I still benefit from those actions. Even if I don’t want Puerto Rico to be drowning, I still benefit from our President refusing adequate financial aid.

  No matter what I want to be happening, all the despicable acts of our government still benefit me, and therefor it’s my goddamn responsibility to give a shit. Poverty, starvation, lack of access to clean water – this is not how life has to be. These atrocities are in direct correlation to political corruption and greed, not because it’s inevitable. The world has the resources for every human to live a descent life with access to the basic amenities. The fact that billions are denied this right is a choice. It is because of misdistribution and a deliberate withholding.

  In America, a large percentage of us can afford to learn and care about the well being of others. Most of us are not in survival mode, wondering if we will ever eat again. For those people, the 20% of American’s that live below the poverty line – I get it, you’re busy. You have yourself to worry about. That’s cool. You have the right to not tear your hair out because of global injustice. But for the rest of us, if you have time to be on Facebook, you have time to care and do shit for others.

  Here’s the lake and sunset that day I swam across… it’s a pretty bubble

  

  October 4, 2017 • Change, Current Events, Environmental Impact, Political Banter, Responsibilities • Views: 3617

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• Generation Blame Game

  

  Over the summer I performed at a dance festival and let me tell you – there is nothing quite like sharing a dressing room with a bunch of teenage girls. Not only because their boobs are barely below their shoulders they’re so perky, but more because the amount of texting, Snapping, Facebooking, Instagramming, and tweeting was so extreme that I wondered if they had wifi signals coming out of their nipples. I barely had service??

  I can’t criticize the children of today because they are victims of our society. Millenials didn’t create iPhones – Baby boomers did. It’s the generations before you that produce the technology that you’re born into. It’s the humans that came before you that decide the moral compass you’re supposed to adhere to. People create ideologies, think of scientific advancements, pontificate on ethics, ponder human health, opine about systems, and then test their inevitably flawed conclusions on their kids.

  We’re all just the experiments of our parents and the generation that raised us.

  Humans are still evolving and it’s happening more rapidly than ever since the industrial revolution. My kid was born knowing how to swipe through pictures and navigate Netflix. This only exaggerates these feelings of disconnect between generations. I am not THAT much older than a millennial, you could even say I am on the cusp, but I feel like an anthropologist around them – like a modern day Jane Goodall in the forest of a tattoo parlor. I observe them with a slight confusion as I scribble into my notepad; “The subject will post on Snap Chat while getting tattooed. Fascinating.”

  Each generation raises a generation that ends up feeling foreign to them, and I think that’s because we tend to forget that we are all products of our conditioning. In order for me to understand millenials, I have to fully grasp the world Baby Boomers have created for them to adapt to. Baby Boomers are the ones in power. They run our politics, industry, and Wall Street. At the top of most pyramids is a Baby Boomer, perched with their golden rattle like good ol’ Donny Trump – our king.

  I’m the child of baby boomers, and in my view, it’s my parent’s fault they handed me a trashcan of a world. We supposedly have 3 years left to save humanity from Climate Change. The world may be too hot for my kid to survive!!!!! Except for the hippies who fought for our rights in the 60’s, most of Boomers turned out to be the most consumerist, money hungry, self-centered people in history. They didn’t stop global warming – they accelerated it with their greed. When they came to power they gave up their acid and disco balls and paved the path for the economic and ecological tragedy of today.

  Yet that’s not fair of me! It’s not like the baby boomers are beings formed from Immaculate Conception. They are the products of their parenting. The common belief is that the boomers were too coddled by their parents. Supposedly The World War 2 generation, or the so-called “greatest generation” spoiled their kids so significantly that they had no perspective. Huh? I’m not so sure about that. I don’t know about you guys, but my Word War 2/ Great Depression grandparents weren’t exactly cuddly loving people. They’re a little rough around the edges. Sure, maybe they spoiled their kids with material goods – but the Baby Boomers were some traumatized infants.

  Because so many women were popping out babies like pop tarts, the medical industrial complex came up with a new way to birth babies. So a lot of the births during the 50’s and 60’s were twilight births. Now that may sound kinda dreamy… but basically it was out of the Twilight Zone. They would drug the mother to the point where she had zero memory of the birth. None. She was just knocked the fuck out. Then when she came to, they just handed her the baby. Now… this may come as a surprise, but a lot of mothers had trouble bonding with their baby after being dosed with disturbing amounts of morphine.

  These women were then encouraged to exclusively bottle feed their babies with formula. Not even try breastfeeding. Now formula is great when you need it. But half the babies in the 1950’s were raised completely on it. So we have these boomer babies with their disturbing births, their formula diets, and then here is the kicker – the conventional wisdom of that time according to behavioral psychologists was to… wait for it… hold your baby as little as possible!!!!! Yeah. Don’t cuddle your baby. Don’t hold it when it doesn’t need to be held. Nope. That will make them a pussy! Not being held builds character.

  Let me just remind you, that not being touched enough as an infant was later proven to do major and irreversible psychological damage. Touch is just as important to our health as food and water!!! So yeah, maybe the Baby Boomers had more material goods than their parents, but they were neglected as fuck as babies. And look what happened! We are on the verge of extinction now!

  Because boomers where emotionally abandoned that explains a lot of their psychology. Where boomers would let their kids crawl around in the back seat of cars, we modern parents will strap up our kids in car seats as if they were Hannibal Lector. Is that because modern parents are inherently anal? Or because we know more? Or because the “big seatbelt” industry has taken over? Or perhaps we are reacting to the trauma of our own childhoods by over compensating?

  I may question some (a lot) of my parent’s parenting decisions, but I can’t blame them without educating myself on their context. They didn’t have the information we have today, nor did they have the bandwidth to go the library and research the apocalyptic times they were creating. My mom didn’t have the Internet to inspire her to wonder what kind of chemicals were in my shampoo, if my Halloween candy was organic, or if there were razor blades in my apples. She would just be like, “I don’t know, take a bite and find out?”

  The more I understand my parent’s parents, the more I can understand my parents. But for my parents to understand me, they have to understand themselves.

  So what kind of kids are the current generation of parents going to create? Ones that will be so afraid of their own shadow that they willingly submit themselves to a virtual reality Matrix where they never see the light of day? Maybe? I don’t know! I for sure see that modern parents are uptight, but they also started a movement of Attachment parenting – which admittedly may not be very Buddhist of them – but they hold the fuck out of their babies. So we can judge them for being overbearing, but at the same time let’s leave the breastfeeding Time magazine mom alone. Who cares if her 6-year old kid barely had to get on his tippy toes for a sip? That kid may have had to experience some questionable boners, but I’m pretty fucking sure he’s going grow into a sensitive man who believes in universal healthcare.

  Snapping while getting tattooed!!

  

  September 13, 2017 • Behavior, Change, Children, Current Events, Disciplining, Emotions, Environmental Impact, Kids, Musings, Parenting, Playing, Political Banter, Problems, Responsibilities • Views: 4357

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• Maybe The Mayan Prophecy is Happening Right Mother Fucking Now?

  

  Question: Do white supremacists worship albinos? And if not, what the dick?

  If you’re going to be a white supremacist, then you better be building shrines and temples to albinos. You can’t revere white skin and not honor the ultimate whiteness manifesting in a total lack of pigment! Let’s have some consistency people.

  If you’re like me, you’re currently in a politically induced depression. Not only is the earth trying to drown us, but also Donny Trump’s racist policies have been the highlight of the week with the repeal of DACA. Forget the fact that we’ve yet to recover from the KKK sponsored “alt right” rallies of the summer. Btw… Do you think that Neo Nazis have a summer jam that everyone get’s down to? What are their summer parties and BBQ’s like without “Despicito??” I personally can’t imagine a life worth living that doesn’t include Drake. Whose music do these people party to when they’re celebrating all their successful hate rallies?

  Does it not feel absurd that in the face of massive hurricanes and environmental destruction there is still so much energy spent towards hating people’s skin? Who has the mental space for that? How are there people on Facebook right now thinking, “Oh wow… the largest hurricane in recorded history is just getting bigger, but also, aren’t Hispanic and black people the worst?” Are we even the same species?

  Remember back in those innocent times when we talked about the Mayan Apocalypse and the end of days as some off the wall obscure potential? How 2012 came and went, but the world kept turning so we figured, “Hey, what did those Mayans know anyway? They sacrificed virgins so whatever. Silly prophecy.” Of course I know shits been fucked up since the dawn of human history, but I have to say, since the election of Donny everything seems magnified to a terrifying degree. Yes, Donny does not exist in a vacuum of his own making – he’s the product of a long existing patriarchal hierarchy that has been in power for thousands of years. But at the same time, doesn’t it feel like the dark side is descending upon us?

  Are we living the 2012 Mayan prophecy right the fuck now? Is this what this is? All those hippies kept talking about a paradigm shift like it was going to be a good thing, but what’s really been revealed is the dark underbelly of a society that cares more about deporting people than importing basic decency? This coupled by cities going underwater while others burn in a hellacious inferno seems like a Hollywood sponsored punctuation mark to alert us of the harsh reality that we have no idea how to prepare for the future where millions of people have displacement to look forward to.

  I cry uncle! I will give up all my earthly possessions for just one earth to keep living on!

  For years I’ve been thinking about the corruption of the financial system and how the ruling lizard elite have built our global economy off debt and corruption. I used to believe that the only way to break free from this state run oligarchy was some type of citizen driven revolution. That we would come together and take back our power by dismantling the system that has psychologically poisoned us while brutally raping the planet of all its resources for profit for the few. But right now, I don’t know! On the one hand there is a group of people galvanizing and protesting against Donny’s efforts, yet how much are we really willing to sacrifice? We still are really into our creature comforts, spare time, and Game of Thrones. I’m no better. I really like having the Internet and organic tomatoes. Isn’t there a way we can keep living our self-obsessed narcissistic lives, but without all the horror?

  So whoever the alien species from the Palladian system that rule us are – the heads of business and industry that are holding on to their power so tightly that they are willing to sacrifice the future of humanity for their private jets. If you want to keep all your money and world domineering power, fine. Do it. But rather than oil and war for your investments, can you just make all your money with wind energy or some eco shit that isn’t creating DARPA induced mega storms? I don’t care if you have more money than god. Won’t make a difference in my life. You can be as greedy as you like, but can’t you just make all your money in a non-evil way so, I don’t know, the rest of us can keep living?

  Here is a picture of a stuffed bear holding stuffed bears because FEELINGS!

  

  September 7, 2017 • Current Events, Environmental Impact, Musings, Political Banter • Views: 3182

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• Ruining Childhood With The Truth

  

  Childhood is a blissful time of naïve innocence. That is unless you are living in abject poverty, or a war torn country, or a town where racism is the social norm, or a place where they sell girls off as child brides – so basically for everyone except those billion kids.

  But for my Aryan looking privileged child, things could be pretty idealistic for her – that is of course if she didn’t have me as a mom.

  See how there’s balance in this cold dark universe after all?

  I try to keep it real with The Munch because I think she’s emotionally capable of understanding complex ideas, and also because I have no interest in raising an entitled asshole. Yet I can see how my parenting can infringe on The Munch’s potential to believe the world is a benign, benevolent place. “Yes Munch, bumble bees are fuzzy, and they’re being systematically destroyed by Monsanto’s pesticides, threatening a global pandemic of potential mass extinction.” Trust me. She get’s it. “That is a police siren sweetie, and yes they are here to protect us.. but we also can’t forget that the legal system is inherently corrupt, the prison industrial complex exploits millions of Americans as slave labor for private companies, and inherent bias has resulted in the murders of thousands of innocent black men.

  Although I want The Munch to maintain her youthful idealism, I also think it’s important she knows that Santa Clause is a physical manifestation of excessive materialism. It’s a delicate balance right?

  The Munch is a sensitive creature, and some of the information I tell her does impact her ability to enjoy things. For example, when in our small town they explode the fake missiles that mock the horror of the other countries we routinely bomb… wait, I’m sorry. That was my auto correct. I mean fireworks. When they light the fireworks, they set up a raft on the lake to light them from. Yet as a result, all the trash from the fireworks ends up falling into the lake, polluting it. I just happened to mention that to Munch, and then the whole time she was watching the fireworks, on her birthday mind you, every time she saw the debris dwindling into the lake, she would cover her eyes in dismay. “I can’t watch Mama. It’s so terrible for the environment. Those poor fishies. All that trash and chemicals poisoning them.”

  You may be asking yourself, “Are you a monster Toni? Ruining fireworks for your 7-year old… on her birthday?” Well… it’s not my fault. My mom raised me! This is a woman who gave me an NWA tape when I was 7-years old so I could “learn about politics.” The same woman that insisted we listen to the assassination of the Romanian dictator Ceausescu on Christmas… AS A FAMILY… WHEN I WAS 9 YEARS OLD!

  I’m not the only one doing this to her! When my mom plays dolls with The Munch they have a character who’s a Syrian refugee named Toni who lost her eye in the war, and now wears an eye patch. Another doll, Violet, is confined to a wheel chair because she stepped on a landmine… and she’s also an orphan that must be taken care of by the other children who’s parent’s died as casualties of war. I can hear my mom “playing” with The Munch and going through the narrative about their ships being turned around by the evil right wing, leaving these dolls to drown in the ocean.

  So yeah… maybe the Munch isn’t exactly having a “normal” childhood, but at least she’s being informed of geo-politics!

  The refugee baby dolls Toni and Violet (PS that top picture is perhaps my favorite picture of all time of The Munch when she was 2… learning about police brutality)

  

  

  July 6, 2017 • 7 years old, Children, Current Events, Education, Emotions, Environmental Impact, Family Drama, Kids, Mommyhood, Parenting, Political Banter • Views: 2672

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• A Plea For Economic Social Terrorism

  

  Now that it’s no longer “International Women’s Day,” I notice that no one is thanking me for having a vagina. Where are all my Facebook shout outs for housing a womb to house a child? What kind of shit is this?

  The problem with the current state of activism is that social issues have become trendy. You’ll go on your Facebook newsfeed, and a gaggle of friends who think the same as you will post the same array of information. Once that trend get’s boring, it’s then no longer “cool” to post about. But social issues don’t go away just because they do on Facebook. There is still conflict in Palestine even when Banksy isn’t tagging walls.

  When causes become commodities for social capital, they may get a momentary bump in ratings, but they lose their audience once the next cause premiers on the red carpet. I went to an event the other day where these monks were talking about persecution in Tibet and their need for support and I was like, “Ummm no you’re wrong… Tibet is free, remember? I went to that concert in 1996.”

  We lose our stamina for social causes because we get protest fatigue, and then need Viagra for our activism. In the midst of our busy lives, it’s hard to schedule in “fight against tyranny.” Do I do that before or after I watch the OA? There is a sense of irony at play because the reason we agree to the concept of a goverenment in the first place is because most of us don’t WANT to think about the nuances of how a collective society functions. We prefer to defer to the Mommy and Daddy of our political system to take care of us, (or in our case in the U.S.A., mostly Daddy). Yet because we have given our power over to those that we assume “know better,” we then have to be even more diligent politically to make sure they don’t abuse their power. So in wanting freedom from the responsibility associated with having no government, we consequently lose our freedoms because of the corruption of government.

  As Trump tweets about which gender can fart in which bathroom, he’s simultaneously de-regulating business and allowing for a future of MAJOR environmental assault. Trump’s crusade against “fake news” has strangely inspired news outlets to report on their own fakeness rather than the fact that Trump’s making deals and longterm contracts for his businesses. The way this presidency is going to effect the future is terrifying when you think of how Trump prioritizes profit over the planet at every turn. Beyond Trump’s gross nature of giving chicks the “shocka,” this current regime has ZERO respect for the very real impact of business our ecosystem – which incidentally is the ONLY PLANET we have to live on. We are NOT Elon Musk and can’t afford Mars!

  Half the country is freaking out right now. We see the problematic nature of this Post-Apocalyptic Trump world, and want to do something. I like the spirit behind the call for strikes, but I think we can do more. One problem with the strategy of strikes is that if you are not of a certain social class, and believe you can’t make that kind of financial risk, you feel alienated. Also, there seems to be relatively wishy-washy outcomes. Why wasn’t there a specific demand for the strike on International Lady Day? How about women strike until the Supreme Court is ruled by a majority of women – much like it has been ruled by a majority of men since the birth of this cuntree? But the suggestion to “not go to work so guys realize how important we are” doesn’t exactly change the world. Simply wanting to be honored is too vague. We need be making clear demands, with clear outcomes, and clear deliverables. It’s not like the terrorists in Bruce Willis movies just want to be seen. No! They want x amount of cash, a private plane to get away, and to die just after hearing some pithy comeback like “yippee ka yay mother fucker.”

  So this is my plea: let’s engage in acts of economic social terrorism. I don’t think black people should pay taxes until reparations have been given, and the prison industrial complex has been abolished. I don’t think students should pay student loans until that exploitive system has been re-established and the cost of education brought down. I don’t think any of us should pay health insurance companies or our medical bills until we have universal health care. And if you are anti war, and believe that our military is one the LARGEST contributors to global warming, and terrorism, and is the greatest threat to the future of humanity, then do not pay the 21% of your taxes that go to supporting that system.

  If we all organize and refuse to participate in the economic structure that tyrannizes us, we will be heard. And guess what? There isn’t the infrastructure to come after us individually. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare. We could shut down the White House and Wall Street, and we don’t need guns to do it. We just need to be aligned.

  If we want change it’s not going to be through sporadic involvement. Change comes by kicking the system in the balls… where it hurts… with MONEY!

  

  March 15, 2017 • Change, Current Events, Environmental Impact, Political Banter, Responsibilities • Views: 2783

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• Americans Anonymous Meeting

  

  “Hi. I’m Toni. And I’m an American.”

  “Hi Toni.”

  Doesn’t it feel like our country is in need of one giant AA meeting right now?? Americans Anonymous!!!

  Are we collectively sucking dick for our addictions? Are we metaphorically living under a bridge selling our souls to dealers? What’s happening!? We are better than this!!!!

  This current presidential election isn’t just about the two candidates we have to “choose from,” but also the mirror it has come to represent of our culture. It’s like we are in an Alice and Wonderland acid trip – staring into our reflection seeing an image of ourselves staring into our reflection seeing an image of ourselves staring into our reflection… forever… into eternity.

  The themes that have dominated the conversation of our political landscape – racism, sexism, xenophobia, corruption, corporate greed, political lies, voter disenfranchisement, questioning of democracy, rape – are all microcosms of the underbelly of this country. Even though it’s painful to admit this, at least we now get the opportunity to roll over of on our backs and expose ourselves… belly in the air, genitals blowing in the wind.

  Currently we have 4 psychological wars going on within our borders; gender wars, race wars, class wars, and religious wars.

  What’s with all the civil wars! I don’t want this! If shit goes down lefty liberals like me are pretty much screwed. We don’t have guns! I can’t fight anyone with my witty feminist banter or new age rhetoric about how we are all connected through the quantum field. The astral plane of existence where I eat gogi berries with Ram Das won’t save me from an AK47!

  We are creating false enemies with each other, and this keeps us distracted. The more we focus on attacking each other, the less we focus on how corporations are screwing us… with NO LUBE!

  When we are divided, we are not fighting for our collective rights or seizing corporate America. We are instead allowing earth’s precious resources to be capitalized by big business as we stand around yelling at each other.

  Part of our complexity is that because we are so diverse in America, there are going to be more opinions, ways of life, and perspectives. Yet I think we are going about things all wrong. Instead of focusing on the issues we supposedly care about, we instead direct our attention to hating everyone. If we were purely thinking about the issues, we would realize that there are ways we could be more tactical.

  Lets take for example pro-life people, who often see themselves as one issues voters. They want to keep unwanted fetuses alive. What would be a good solution to that vision? Get together with gay men who want to adopt babies! Both groups have the same interest, and maybe together they could support pregnant women to go through the trauma of pregnancy, birth, and giving your kid up. United they would be able to give more to these women in a real way! If pro-life people we actually pro all life, and not anti gay, they could really work together!

  There are so many potential strategic alliances that we don’t even think of! Maybe the Black Lives Matter leaders should be a part of the NRA and push more “open carry” laws. Then if all black people could just openly carry their guns, they would get shot less! Everybody wins!

  Think of all these men who hate women, troll them on the Internet, and believe they are unfit to be president. Sounds like those dudes need to get laid! So let’s get them together with feminists who are fighting for legalizing prostitution so it is safer for women to practice sex work. These men will then blow their loads more often, redirect their testosterone, and sex workers could be protected under the law.

  Or what about the people who want to deport all the undocumented people in this country, and build giant walls at our borders. They blame immigrants for “taking our jobs,” and “destroying the country.” Well, the undocumented workers aren’t in a great position either. The conglomerates that hire them exploit them exactly because of their “illegal” status. So what’s the solution? Bring these two groups together to force big companies to bring industry back to America rather than outsourcing it to other countries where their people work in slave like conditions. Then there would be more jobs for Americans, and the undocumented workers could get their damn documents because we would need the extra hands to re-build the infrastructure.

  If we actually collaborated over the issues we cared about, we would be so effective! Right wing men want less government, and left wing women want less government too… in their uteruses! If Germany can make a train that creates zero emissions and farts out water then don’t you think this country can’t get its head of its ass and not destroy the planet?

  We live in a place where people very often vote against their own interests. There are poor whites that think voting for Trump is their best option, ignoring the fact that his polices and tax proposals are not in their favor. His plan for health care is to pay your own damn health bills! Good one Donald! You get it! Then there rich whites who would benefit from Trump’s policies and tax plans that would NEVER vote for him. What interesting psychologies these people have! They need to have tea and talk about why they vote against their own interests and what visions they are trying to preserve!

  Is what we want for this country really that different if we take away the sexism, racism, and extreme wealth inequality? Okay fine maybe there are Christian fundamentalists who are actively waiting for Armageddon and are looking forward to the rest of us burning in hell – but if we were all in hell together, it kinda sounds like an okay party?

  In the off chance you aren’t my Facebook friend and haven’t seen this gem 🙂

  November 3, 2016 • Current Events, Environmental Impact, Political Banter • Views: 3520

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