How to talk to complete idiots / Three basic options. Choose wisely, lest you go totally insane

How to talk to complete idiots / Three basic options. Choose wisely, lest you go totally insane:

"it's also true that calling people stupid is no way to advance the debate, and is itself rather childish and stupid. And you'd be absolutely right.

But you'd also be missing the point. When you ignore the idiots completely, you are not calling them anything at all. You are not trying to advance any sort of argument, because there is no debate taking place. You are simply bypassing the giant pothole of ignorance entirely.

You are not kowtowing to the least educated of your voting bloc, like the GOP is so desparetely fond of doing. You are not trying to give the idiotosphere equal weight in the discussion. As Schaeffer says, 'You cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot.' By employing option three, you are doing the only humane thing left to do: you are letting the idiotosphere eat itself alive.

Do it for the children, won't you?"

This is brilliant. And excellent advice that I think I'm going to implement in my own life.

... as much as I can, anyway. How sweet it would be to be able to skip the people in line who have no concept of reality, though. To focus on the nice people who understand that there are limits to what we can do, who tip well and give us poor hungry underlings their leftovers (this actually happened yesterday) and enjoy their icecream and thank us for helping them and don't demand ridiculous things...

Design My World:Furniturerange /Bedside Cabinet

Design My World:Furniturerange /Bedside Cabinet

For me?

Babelgum: Radar Eleven - Color Me Katie

Babelgum: Radar Eleven - Color Me Katie

When I grow up, I want to be Color Me Katie.

Yulia Brodskaya : Illustration

Yulia Brodskaya : Illustration

This stuff is just beautiful. It looks like it's CGI or something, but it's entirely real. I especially love the flowers.

bleh

I've been feeling gross for the last few days. I take this to mean that summer's really here-- as if the other seasonal indicators weren't proof enough. I blame my blechitude on the pervasiveness of the heat. See, we're trying our damnedest to not have to use the AC before it's absolutely necessary, but it's getting there more and more each day, and I keep waking up covered in sweat and gross. Which is not a good way to start the day. My skin is awful, my hair is... we'll call it textured... and my stomach just feels terrible. All the time. Whether I eat or not, and regardless of what I eat. If it's solid, my stomach wants nothing to do with it.

Only I've drunk up all my juice and smoothies, and I can't drink soda (and don't want to, anyway). And I'm out of cash, since I haven't worked at the Inn in a week, and that's my usual food money.

So yay! Summer! But boo to all the grossness that comes with it. Next up will be dozens of skin complaints-- which is the result of being bred for colder, drier climes. How did the Brits not die of fin rot when they were here in the 1700s and 1800s? Summers are brutal when you're naked, let alone wearing wool...

inspiration for the new life i want, 4

All of these are from *Lovely Clusters, which is totally one of my new favorite blogs. Some of them are by her, and the rest are ones she found and I borrowed.

Is there such a place as a cross between Hawaii and Indiscriminate Miazaki Europe? Because that's where I really want to live.

inspiration for the new life i want, 3

This taken from Previously Inaudible, which is one of my favorite blogs.

inspiration for the new life i want, 2

(As before, all the pictures are borrowed from around the web, with much gratitude. They should link to where they're from.)

inspiration for the new life i want

I know what my ideal life would look like, and I want to share bits of it with you. Maybe you can point me in the direction of where and how to get it?

So, in no particular order:

(you know I had to go through eight pages of google before I found this one, slightly blurry image of what I wanted?)

Here's what I see here: Two people utterly in love, kissing like they mean it, in a growing vinyard in a beautiful country. They're happy, they're passionate, and they have what they want. I want that.

Other images (all borrowed from around the webs), because I think in images:

More will follow, I assure you!

wanderlust...

Every year, as summer starts to emerge out of it's spring-skin, I get that itch-- it's in my hands and my feet and my eyeballs, and it means I want to go somewhere I've never been, return somewhere I haven't been in a while, see new things, smell new air, taste new foods. There's a reason they call it wanderlust-- it's a lot the same as wanting a person, only bigger, wider. It's a life thing.

(Borrowed from Justin Gaynor, without permission, but gratefully)

See, when we were growing up, summer was when we Went Places. I'm sure it was a huge pain in the ass getting three young children to do what they were supposed to do and behave so far away from home, but the result was a constant nagging idea that I should be going somewhere. Thats summer is for travelling. That there's still things I haven't seen, and I need to see them now, before they're gone or changed. And since we moved back to the States, I haven't been hardly anywhere-- a quick Study Abroad to London years ago, an even quicker trip to Canada by way of Ohio, a few jaunts back to Orlando, a trip to DC and New Jersey-- and none of them where really right. I want long-term trips.

(Borrowed from BeloBlog, without permission, but gratefully)

See, I have amazing friends. The lovely Rah-Chelle takes many of her summers and goes away on adventures. She's thinking of going to a Kibbutz in Israel soon, and she's gone to a commune in the woods and spent a year at sea. And I'm so equally enthralled and jealous that I could burst.

Also, I know these two wonderful brothers that have a boat apeice (well, one has a boat, one is shopping for a new boat since the old one sank), and they live there. They grew up on boats. They sail like sea gypsies in the summers, as often as they can, for as long as the money holds out.

And H is going to China for a whole year to learn the language and hopefully find a job. A whole year in a foreign country! The luxury stuns me.

And I want to do it too.

(Borrowed from Flickr, with gratitude)

Here's my plan. Not only will I entirely give up day-working within the next five years (really, closer to four now), but I'll find a way to save enough money that I can take summers off and travel, even if I have to do it on the cheap. I won't do any work but the work I want to do, which will likely be writing, and I'll talk my friends into letting me crash on their distant floors, travel in their many vehicles as they go somewhere else than here. I'll go to other countries. I'll get new stamps in my passport. I'll participate in semesters abroad and at sea, or I'll join experience groups for a month at a time or a week at a time. I'll be going to school at the same time, but I'll slot the trips in around the semesters-- and I'll just go. I'll find new places to be. I'll come home with a new appreciation of my own space.

I'm most at home in airports. I feel most like myself when I'm on the road. It's time I got back to who I am.