bath-matic 3000

September 19, 2004

(this entry isn’t going to get posted til late, because our internet is down. again.)

so i’m not doing all that fabulously with my ambitious lists of tasks posted yesterday, but it’s ok. i did manage to clean the bathroom, which is the worst job ever. i was almost going to say that someday, when i am earning some money, i will hire someone else to do it for me, but then i realized that it sounds so mean. it strikes me as sad that i could possibly make someone else clean my bathroom just based on economic disparity. so maybe i will continue to do it myself.

really, by the time i’m actually earning any sort of real money [probably around year 3623], there will probably be self-cleaning bathrooms, where you just put everything away in a watertight cabinet, press a button (remote control available!), and wait for a special shower of magical eco-friendly bleach/cleaning solution to fill the entire chamber, soak for a few minutes, and drain out through a solar-powered pump. then the water would be recycled, so no waste there, either. very jetson-esque.

on an unrelated note, we went out to dinner at sage in chapel hill, and it was really nice. we had wine, assorted vegetarian fare, and some tiramisu, which was very custardy and flavorful. it rated fairly high on our tiramisu-meter, i would say. both of us like ordering tiramisu at restaurants because it can be so different depending on who’s making it, and it’s fun to try (and evaluate) all the variations.

overall, i think we both appreciated our ‘date’ even more because we have been strictly (sort of) budgeting so that we only eat out once a week. we didn’t even really go anywhere last week, either, due to the campout craziness, so this was the first time in at least 2 weeks. for us, that is a major feat. perhaps i won’t have to resort to participation in risky drug studies in order to maintain an acceptable lifestyle after all.

after dinner, we saw maria full of grace. both of us really liked it (a rarity these days, it seems). maria is a 17-year old colombian girl who takes a job as a mula (drug transporter), so the movie raised a lot of ethical questions, such as: was it ‘wrong’ for maria to have done what she did? my take on things: if i were in maria’s place, i don’t think i would have had the balls to do what she did, but i don’t think questions of ‘right and wrong’ or lawfulness would have been what stopped me.

i often wonder about drug laws, anyway. part of me thinks, “if cigarettes and alcohol are legal, why not heroin? if people want to fuck themselves up, so be it.”

but then i also realize that heroin (or many of the other illegal drugs) not only wastes people but also propels users into an inevitable plunge towards poverty (because that shit is expensive, and it’s hard to work when you’re always high). this poverty combined with the desperation that goes with addiction and the behavioral inhibition that goes along with taking these substances is very dangerous, and not just to those who are taking the drugs. so drug laws protect others, too. but they also allow people who manage to break the laws (dealers, importers, etc) to get way richer than they would be if they weren’t illegal. i think.

i suppose the whole ‘protection of others’ argument could apply to alcohol, too. drunk child-abusers, people who steal so that they can buy little mini-sized bottles of whiskey – we all hear about these things. i guess the difference with alcohol is that it is possible to enjoy alcohol without entering a downward spiral. some might argue that the same could be said for cocaine (how many functional people ‘recreationally’ use that stuff? i don’t know), or even heroin.

anyway, i don’t want to give anything away (and i don’t think i have), but i recommend the film, as it was (obviously) thought-provoking as well as well-acted and enjoyable. four thumbs up (the sarah + josh seal of approval).

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