Or so I thought until I got this message from someone I don’t even know:

im like a friend of (I’ll leave out my friend’s name lest people start also hating him for my insensitivity) my son possibly has it and i live in san jose so like u shouldnt say that thats not nice how would you like it if ur child had it i bet the mother of that little gurl who died is devestated

So I wrote him back this:

You obviously didn’t get my joke. I’m sure the mother of that child is devastated. But I’m also sure that the mothers of the millions of children that die of malaria and tuberculous every year are just as devastated. I hope that your child gets well and I hope that swine flu doesn’t infect anyone else. But that doesn’t mean that the media attention this thing is getting isn’t blown way the fuck out of proportion. For me it’s either joke about it or get pissed off. I choose laughter.

I honestly didn’t mean to offend you. I sincerely hope your child has a swift recovery.

Am I a complete bitch? I’m seriously starting to think that the crazy is me, and not the rest of the world. I mean, thank my one true god and savior, the sweet baby Jesus, that that guy can’t see that my current Facebook status is “Aaaah! Aaaah! Swine flu! We’re all gonna die! I’m sorry, Jesus! I believe! I believe!.”

And then nothing happened. Isolated cases became more and more rare. There was no Avian Flu news to report. Like SARS before it, Avian Flu failed to satisfy.

Now we have something new. In the last week Swine Flu has single-handedly renewed our hope for global catastrophe. It’s killing at a faster rate than Avian Flu or SARS ever could have dreamed of. It exists in the United States. It’s even a real disease communicable between humans. No more hoping that it’ll mutate just right. This one’s already done the heavy lifting. Hallelujah! This time our fear might be justifiable!

But why does the possibility of a pandemic excite us so? Why are thousands of people today blogging and tweeting and talking about Swine Flu? Certainly not because it is something that the average American or European should be worried about. What are the chances that any one of us will contract it? And then what are the chances that we or a loved one will die from it? Slim.

The way we respond to small outbreaks of diseases like this bothers me a great deal. What exactly are we worried about? That people will die? What about Africans dying of AIDS? What about children all over the world dying of treatable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis? What about people starving to death or dying because of a lack of fresh water? Why are we spending money on diseases that don’t exist while we largely ignore preventable situations and diseases that kill millions of people each year?

Is it because the world’s epidemics are largely confined to poor countries populated by non-whites? Is it because we’re bored of the diseases humans have already been fighting so long? Or maybe it’s our media. Maybe we only care about what the evening news tells us we should care about and the evening news only cares about getting more viewers. Making people scared is a good way to get them to listen.

I don’t know what it is about Swine Flu, Avian Flu, and SARS that has gotten everyone so worked up. All I know is that flu pandemics are exciting. We can’t wait to read how many people are going to be dead by tomorrow.

Guava Bean

She was oh so sweet and cute as a button. We couldn’t wait to get her home.

On the way out of Waco we stopped to get a quick bite to eat. Mar stayed in the car with Guava Bean while the rest of us went in to get the fed. When we came out we were shocked to see Mar sitting on the grass, hunched over a convulsing Guava Bean. After the convulsions subsided Guava Bean lay lifeless on the grass, barely breathing.

We decided to get home as quickly as possible. Maybe she needed milk. Maybe she needed rest. But on the way home she went through several more convulsing episodes before she finally stopped breathing. Her little Mara heart stopped beating. She was dead.

Needless to say, the ride home was not very much fun. We are all very upset by today’s events and we are missing that little animal terribly. One of her litter mates died under similar circumstances a few days ago. Perhaps we should have anticipated her death, but who wants to anticipate something like that?

Goodbye, sweet sweet Guava Bean.

Me: “She said last night she found some kind of cheese tasting to go to while we were doing the wine thing.”

Carl: “She did? Where is it? I didn’t hear anything about that.”

Me: “You were there when she said it last night. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you ever listen? Maybe if you stopped smoking weed for five seconds you would know what other people are saying.”

Carl: “Maybe your FACE.”

…

Carl: “Our wine tasting has cheese tasting too.”

Me: “Yeah, I thought Christina might have been confused about that. It’s because she’s retarded, Carl.”

Carl: “The word is stupid, Kizzy. She prefers STUPID!”

The only social networking that I use regularly is Facebook. Naturally, after Caplin bit me last night I logged onto his Facebook page and changed his status to “Got to bite Coral again. Aah, the taste of human flesh. The blood running down my furry chin, the screams of pain and fear. So tasty. So very tasty…” It was supposed to be a joke with a strong message. I thought people would laugh, but finally see him for what he really is: a cute monster with giant teeth. Instead, however, people said things like “Oh, Caplin, poor capybara,” and “What did Kizzy do now?” What jerks.

Just because he’s furry and does dog tricks does not mean he’s a nice animal. I really think he was trying to eat my soul. I said, “Hey, Caplin. I’m an atheist. I don’t have a soul. Stop trying to eat me.” He just doesn’t get it. My mom says he speaks English but I’m beginning to doubt.

After a bit of screaming Carl came rushing to see what had happened. “Are you ok?” he asked. I said I didn’t know. Turns out that bastard rodent bit out a square inch of flesh. It was still hanging on so we sort of pushed it back in and put some butterfly bandages on it. Awesome. I thought about taking a picture, but those things are never very flattering.

This happened once before, in grad school, when I was earning decent money but stressed enough that I didn’t want to spend it on anything but energy drinks and beer. Ah, those were the days.

In college I was poor and only drank coffee. I have fond memories of walking to school under that stereotypical Los Angeles sun, 20 pounds of books on my back and a cold iced coffee in my hand. I want that back. Not the books so much, they were mostly boring, but I want that coffee addiction back. Coffee is cheaper than Red Bull, it doesn’t have all that gross sugar, and drinking fair trade coffee counts as doing something good for humanity while getting a nice caffeine fix. Good deed for the day, check.

The question, then is how to transfer my Red Bull addiction over to coffee. Drinking coffee hasn’t helped. Even going a couple weeks without a Red Bull hasn’t helped. What else can I do? I can only think of one thing. When I used to smoke cigarettes I loved that morning cup of coffee with the first cigarette of the day. And that afternoon cup of coffee with the 5th cigarette of the day. And so on. Cigarettes and energy drinks are not such a savory combination. I think I’m going to start smoking again. I will break the chains of this Red Bull addiction at last. Freedom awaits!

Since my current employment status is the reason for the creation of this blog, I’ll start with why I don’t have a job. George W. Bush is directly responsible. My unemployment has now lasted an astounding 15 months! At first I blamed myself, then I blamed the economy, then I blamed the government. Finally I settled on Bush and several months later I’m still feeling good about it. Blaming myself was no fun for obvious reasons, the economy is too complex to worry about exactly how to blame it, and hating the government is too cliche. Bush is a great guy to blame because he’s simple and now that he’s not president I don’t have to get upset every time I read the news.

George W. Bush may as well have fired me from my last job, prevented me from working for an entire year, and blacklisted me from any possible future employment but, technically speaking, that’s not entirely “accurate.” The details of how I came to be in this situation are that I quit my job and didn’t start looking for another job until a year later. During that time the United States unemployment rate went from 4.9% when I quit my job in January 08 to 8.5% now, in April 09. This is obviously because Bush doesn’t want me to have a job. Numbers don’t lie and the numbers are saying Bush is a jerk who wants me to be homeless and jobless for as long as possible.

That’s right. I have also been homeless for 15 months. I haven’t exactly been sleeping in the streets, but I certainly have spent nights wondering around unfamiliar towns until dawn, carrying everything I own on my back, waiting for a cafe to open so I can get a warm cup of coffee. Homelessness is no laughing matter. Even my particular homelessness, which is the sort that most people are entirely unsympathetic to, is no laughing matter. No one laughs at 5am when there is not a bed to sleep in or liquor store to shop in.

You may be saying to yourself, “Why would people be unsympathetic to your homelessness? How can they be so cruel?” I ask myself these same questions every day! A simple lack of sympathy can sting as badly as any punch in the ear. I think Nazi Germany taught us this lesson quite well. Although I am not Jewish, I did grow up celebrating Jewish holidays so I am particularly sensitive to this kind of discrimination. If I were Jewish I would have a deeper understanding of what my fellow Jews went through during the Holocaust.

Even if I can’t understand why all my friends and family are acting like Nazis, I can tell you what they say. “Kizzy,” they say, “you quit your job because you wanted to. You spent the last year traveling in Southeast Asia, hiking in the jungle and drinking rice whiskey with Laotians. We’re jealous. We wish we could have done that too.” Can you believe that? Just thinking about it makes me shiver with anger. They may believe what they’re saying, but that doesn’t make it true. It’s just like the Nazis saying the Jews have big nostrils. I may not have big nostrils, but I know when I’m being stigmatized.

Firstly, everyone wants to quit their job. I don’t know a single person that claims to like working 40 hours a week. We all want to quit our jobs but most of us are too scared to actually do it. “Don’t make me feel guilty for you being a pussy,” I say. Secondly, the jungle is full of ants. Thirdly, drinking rice whiskey with Laotians is even more serious than being homeless for 15 months. They do not mess around when it comes to getting fucked up. Lastly, if everyone is so damn jealous of me traveling in Asia for a year why haven’t they done it too? They haven’t done it because they secretly know it’s not all fun and games. Traveling in Asia for a year requires being homeless for a year and being homeless is sucky.

So here I am, homeless, jobless, and not a single person has any sympathy for me. It’s not easy. I’m living with my mother right now and all my friends are Nazis. So I guess I’ll keep a blog. From now until I get bored of it.