Resolutions of the teeth (and self) improving variety

Well, that’s it. Another year has come and gone.

Happy belated birthday, world (or I should say, Happy Birthday de facto international standard Gregorian calendar).

I’m not about to post my new year's resolutions here and jinx myself, like I’ve done before.

I will tell you that one of these undeclared resolutions concerns quitting a certain disgusting habit in the hopes that my teeth will stop resembling those of some poor chap that was born on the lower end of the feudal scale during the Elizabethan era and that my lungs will be in slightly better condition than those of an unlucky coal miner.

Ahem.

Those Elizabethan serfs had an excuse for the unseemly state their teeth were in; they were busy worrying about more pressing matters such as rotting garbage in the streets and no structured sewage system and oh, you know, stressful things like the bubonic plague. I have no excuse other than wanting to inhale poison for some reason because I guess my life is just too damn easy. My teeth have been unsuspecting casualties.

In light of my rediscovered love of my own teeth (and lungs), I’ve scheduled a visit to the dentist.

The Spanish dentist.

Don’t freak people, this is a first world country. I promise Bluestreak will not end up with gold caps. Although that would kind of rule.

Sometimes I think we Americans might obsess a little too much about our teeth compared to other people. Our teeth do generally kick ass. Well, mine are starting to look as if I’ve been munching ass as opposed to kicking it, but I’m generalizing here.

As an American I know what a dental visit should consist of.

When I go to the dentist I don’t want it to only last ten minutes and to basically just have my mouth rinsed out with a little white hose and then get pat on the back and be told to keep up the good work with the dental hygiene.

No.

I want my teeth to have the living shit scraped off of them and for my bleeding gums to be mercilessly poked at. I want to have to grip the handles on the chair in fear and I want to experience some mild pain. I want the procedure to seemingly go on for eternity. Then I want to be scolded and slightly humiliated for not flossing as much as I should. That would be a normal visit to the dentist.

But this isn’t a normal place, this place I’m in.

This is a place where fucked up things occur, like when a few days after my last dental appointment I went back to the medical center for my gynecologist appointment and the woman that assisted the doctor with my pap smear (i.e. "the nurse") was also the woman that had assisted my dentist with my cleaning days earlier (i.e. previously known as "the dental hygienist").

Um, am I dreaming, is this hell, or am I perpetually living in a Dali painting?



Ok, ok, one of my other resolutions (fuck it, I’m now declaring them) is that I’m gonna try to quit being such an ungrateful bitch and as you can see, that leaves me without a whole helluvalot to blog about. So in that vein, I think I should mention in my most grateful tone that my healthcare is free here and for mere convenience, I’ve felt the need to sign up for private health care at about eighty bucks a month which covers anything that could possibly go wrong with my body or mind, including my beloved grinders and biters. But apparently the nurses under my plan are jack-of-all-trades or jack-of-all-orifices.

Wish me luck on my next visit to the dentist. Oh and on my inadvertently mentioned new years resolutions.

-Bluestreak

"Mouth 4" by ysin from Flickr.

"Bailarina" by Salvador Dali

I might regret this...prolly not

Since my voice is muted with weirdness these days and my dirty fingernails cannot type a single word I´m happy with, I´ve decided to let Rassles loose on my blog this week with but a few misguidelines. She did, afterall, draw a picture of me.

Check out what she did over at Ginny´s house while she was away on vacation.

Girl cannot be trusted with a password.

So stay tuned.

-Bluestreak

Dude, do you not realize you're all up in ma face??? Get back in line.

I've been thinking lately.

Neil's recent post plus all of the constant touching, bumping, and close-talking of the Spanish populace as a whole have me thinking about personal space issues in foreign contexts. And here are my thoughts:

Get. The. Fuck. Off. Of. Me.

There are some people that can get away with unreasonable proximity due to their obvious standards of beauty as defined by me and standards of hygiene as defined by 21st century Western culture (the vast majority anyway). In all honesty, there are certain people I don't mind rubbing against me on the bus, ok?

But, as a general rule, most humans fall into the category of People I'd Rather Not Have Skin-On-Skin Contact With At The Fucking Panaderia.

Maybe this isn't a cultural thing. Maybe it has to do with different types of urban cities. Maybe if I had spent my youth hopping in and out of subway cars in New York City, or avoiding accidents in the 'bicycle kingdom' in a bustling Chinese metropolis, maybe I'd feel differently. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up in a place where there is always a parking space available and if the Quiznos you just walked into is too crowded, there's another one just down the road to get your lunch from.

Whatever it is, I find myself screaming internally, "MOVE IT DUDE" on way too many occasions.

This feeling is intensified when waiting in line for anything when you realize that if lines were formed with seats all in a column, most people joining the line would just come sit on your lap.

Just for the record, I am a fervent supporter of the social norm of queue-forming with every ounce my being and believe it to be an essential component of harmonious social interaction and/or me not losin' my shit while I'm buying bread.

Unfortunately though, queue-forming is a fuzzy phenomenon in Spain, and, well, let's just say they cross the line in this regard. Constantly.

Disrespecting the queue-forming social norm + some idiot breathing down my neck and bumping shoulders with me when it is clearly not necessary = me wanting to give Spain the most gigantic kick in the cojones I've ever given it.

And this makes me realize that there are certain things I'll never get used to here. I'm not one of those foreigners that likes to point out to Spanish people how everything in my country is better, or wave my flag around, for obvious reasons.

But I feel like the older I get, the more stubborn I'm becoming with the line-cutting, close-talking violators of personal space and sometimes I just want to say:

We do it better over there. Now GET OFF ME and mind the queue.

-Bluestreak

I'm 100 and I'll do what the F@&! I want*

Seeing as though traveling home confuses the hell out of me and makes it nearly impossible for me to write a coherent flowing post with paragraphs about my trip, I'll make a list of things that happened while at the celebration of my Grandfathers 100th birthday bash:

1). Received unsolicited sex advice, AGAIN, this time of the anal variety from my brother who is six years my junior. Ewwwwww. This is so wrong. In my mind, you are like six years old. Quit it or I'm telling on you. I know you are married with two kids and so that must mean that you are sexually active, but spare me the information overload re anything involving an anus, especially yours. I also found out that he knows something extremely embarrassing about me and I refused to let him tell me what it was, something he may have seen or found in my apartment. My curiosity is kind of killing me but I just can't deal with having that conversation and being able to control my vomit reflex at the same time. I screamed at him to stop when he started to say it (in front of a lot of other relatives...IDIOT), so I have no idea what it's all about. And I'm racking my brain trying to think of what it could be, because, fuck, I don't need a lot of props and have never taken sex pictures of myself, so that's out. I hope to god my younger brother didn't spy on me having sex. SICK.

2). Glared at my brother in law with the look of death for mentioning my blog on multiple occasions in front of family members that should not know about it. Knock it off, Carl, or next time, I'm taking you out to the parking lot, and getting you high until you turn into a mute. I don't even smoke weed, but it will be worth it to shut you the hell up.

3). Had someone convince my atheist husband, the biggest religion critic I know, to play guitar at a Catholic mass in honor of my Grandfather's 100th birthday, and TO TAKE COMMUNION IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE DAMN CONGREGATION. Now that's love. He then proceeded to play La Bamba in front of 400+ drunk Irish Michiganders who were previously singing "I wish I was back home in Derry". Boy's got baaaaaaaaalllls. Oh, then he spilled his drink on a $1700 guitar. Oops.

4). Realized that my liver can't swing it with the younger generation in my family. The Kamikazes, Washington Apples, Jolly Ranchers, and Oatmeal Cookies have been superfluous elements in my life as of at least 10 years ago. So why did I do that to myself and then try to eat that bean burrito from Taco Bell? Also realized that even with all of the above shots, I still cannot handle watching my youngest brother hitting on girls at a bar. Nor can I handle drunk husband trying to talk to youngest brother about kinky shit. NO. CAN'T HANDLE IT.

5). Raised my glass to "kid-lessness" with the very, very few people remaining in my family who have decided not to supply the planet with more inhabitants for now and bless it with their reproductive ability. Biological alarm clock ringing, yes, the stupid whore, but snooze has been enabled for now.

6). Remembered how extremely controlling and manipulative my family can be. Something is wrong when my uncle is passed out on the ground, covered in a table cloth, and I am sneaking off to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette so that my parents and none of my aunts and uncles see me. What am I, 15??



7). Sang "Don't stop believing" by Journey at the top of my lungs together with the coolest freaking people on earth (my 50 some crazy cousins).

8). Listened to my Grandpa give me stinging advice as if he had ESP into my life, even though I don't think he knew who he was talking to at the time. But I took it to heart even if it was meant for someone else. I also listened to him with tears in his almost completely blind eyes tell me stories of my deceased Grandmother. That alone was worth my trip home. This man is as hard-headed and controlling as they come in my family, which is saying a lot, but damn if he can't bring tears to my eyes within five minutes of sitting next to him.

Happy 100th, Grandpa.

- Bluestreak

*thanks, Kristy for my title.

Cause I´d rather be pimping than working

Ok, this is my final attempt to help Ghost of Keywork get votes for Hottest Blogger, besides I´m well out of material for the week, and bored as hell at work. If you haven´t voted yet, just hop on over and vote. We could help this well-deserving hottie win a trip to NY (he is, after all, paying his debt to society).

If you are like me, and are more into personality as opposed to looks, consider the following statements he has made in the last few days in the blogosphere, which swept me off my feet with his grace and charisma:

"How does this Mormon-With-Lots -Of-Wives thing work? Do I have to be Mormon?"

"Well, I haven't killed anyone yet, so I would say the detox is going well"

"Tired of doing something 'just because'? So was I. Know what I did? I snagged a couple of ankle monitors and now I do things because I 'have to or I'll go to jail for 90 days'."

"Violence in trees is a big turn on for me too."

"I guess I could have just cut to the chase and said, 'I want to fuck a cartoon, I'm a dork'."

"...I could have Jesus giving me a foot rub and people would still know that I'm no good."

"...I think I´m tearing up. Kidding, I just got maced by a librarian."

"Look, my panties, you've bunched them up."


So come on, friends, get your vote out for Key, one day left. If you hadn´t noticed, I voted for him cause he makes me piss myself laughing. Oh, and cause he´s hot in uniform.

Good luck, Key.

-Bluestreak

The Olympics bores me to tears. Come on, world, let´s do something I care about.

Alright, I get it. These people are crazy machines and they deserve semi-deity status. But why is this so important? How did the entire world get together and decide unanimously that people running and jumping over hurdles and doing crazy shit with sticks would be the main thing that would unite humanity? I thought sex, alcohol, and food united humanity. Oh, and religion, but that´s no fun.

Is the Olympics supposed to give me hope? In what? In the fact that there are super-humans among us and I´m not one of them? In human potential? In dream achievement? Does it remind us of that great idea we had that there are winners and losers and the winners are there cause they deserve it? Aaaaaaaa, fuck this.

Rassles got me thinking about some missing activities from the Olympics, so here are some of my ideas of what we could do every four years as a world with various representatives from different countries (I´ll volunteer if necessary):

1). Play drinking games and then vote on which country handled themselves the best, acted the dumbest, were the funniest, made the biggest asses out of themselves, lost all their money, etc. Losers get to be drunk and stupid.

2). Make a bunch of food and then vote on which meal was the yummiest, which was the sickest, etc. The losers have to eat their sick ass food.

3). Watch representatives from different countries have sex (OK, I´m not volunteering anymore) and then vote on who was the sexiest, kinkiest, sickest, etc. I don´t think there are any real losers in this case.

4). Every country gets to play music and then we vote on who ruled the most (this is NOT EUROVISION) Kill me, Eurovision.



If the Olympics had these activities, I would watch them happily and it would give me way more faith in humanity than watching a superhuman do weird-ass flips on a balance beam, cause then I would begin to identify with the human race again.



-Bluestreak



"Yay for the Olympics" by kk+ courtesy of Flickr.

I knew it: I'm a redneck

It is official. If you could not tell from my word choice, I am including the results of this 100% reliable, mind-boggling quiz I just took which I found on Almost American´s blog.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
The South
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

That´s right people, my accent is "the lowest common denominator of American speech" which must mean redneck. It also indicates that everyone thinks I do not have an accent, I could be from anywhere. I just thought you, as the reader, should be aware of the fact that when I write, I write with a proper redneck (or as we like to say, shit-kicker) -yet-accentless-accent.

Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona you get fooled into thinking you are not a shit-kicker like those freaks outside the city, just because you do not like creamed corn, you do not wear Wranglers or other displays of redneckery, you vacation in San Diego, and you know what a mango is.

But this is an official quiz; SCIENCE, folks. Them's the rules in post-Enlightenment. And science proves otherwise. I am 100% unsophisticated folk, but worse, with apparently NO accent. Now I know what Spanish people mean when they say we Americans have no culture. If you are void of accent, you must be void of culture too.

Accuracy is important to me. So I would like to ask for your collaboration, dear reader (and I do love thee). From now on, please read in shit-kicker non-accent tongue.

Thank you for your cooperation,

-Bluestreak.


P.S. RTL always knew I was a shit-kicker. Here it is, R.T., confirmed in writing. I was in denial before.

A Political Post That Might Annoy You

Most of you may know me as the non-politically engaged person that I am. I certainly do not consider myself to be a fervent member of any political organization or party and generally agree with many postmodern social and political theorists that claim that in the U.S. as in many modern democracies, there exists a false dichotomy between the two opposing parties (or to me it seems more like a Morton´s fork). For the most part, real political dialogue that allows multiple perspectives does not exist as it should in a healthy democracy.

That said, I will say outright that right-wing logic defies logic and being the logical person that I am, I normally lean left. Anyone who disagrees with this, is asked kindly to refer to one of the greatest pirates of our time who once said, "This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong."

Expats are often in the peculiar position once we leave our terra patria of defending our country´s behavior, customs, etc, often heatedly when in fact we would never do so back home. This is especially true, I presume, for Americans due to the fact that everyone outside of America seems to think they know what America is all about, after all, they saw it on T.V. We are more American than ever when we are outside American territory and explanations are often required of what America is REALLY like and who Americans REALLY are. This task has been particularly daunting over the last 8 years. Apparently, American people actually elected our current President, much to my surprise.

In tracking the democratic primaries this time around, I am suddenly filled with pride and feel like shouting out, "See????!!!!! I knew it. America is not as bad as the world sees us". For the first time EVER for me, I am actually excited about a candidate and not just because of the historical implications or the symbolic message it is sending the world over. I am excited about the prospects of, as an expat, defending something worthy of my defense. Call me crazy, and gullible to his actually amazing public speaking skills when you compare him to John Kerry (I won´t even mention Bush), but I truly believe that Barak Obama will make us expats proud.

ANOTHER REASON WHY OBAMA RULES THAT YOU CAN´T POSSIBLY ARGUE WITH

For me, it comes down to one thing: DEMOCRATIC REFORM ("Democratic" as in Democracy, not the Democratic party). Here are the things that he is proposing related to reform (taken from his website) that pushes any other political agenda to the wayside. He proposes to:

- Create a centralized internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance for everyone to see
- Create an independent watchdog agency to investicate ethics violations
- Publically finance campaigns to reduce influence special interest groups who right now basically buy their candidate.
- Create a "contracts and influence database" which will disclose how much money is spent on lobbying and who is getting what contracts and why.
- Require appointees to conduct the significant business of the agency in public (via debates online)
-Nullify Bush´s attempt to make presidential records secret until years and years have passed.
- Disallow the signing of non-emergency bills without the American people being able to view it on the White House website, and comment for 5 days.
- Disclose of the names of legistlatures who request earmarks with an explanation 72 hours before they can be approved by senate.
- Require cabinet officials to hold townhall meetings to discuss issues.
- Disclose of public communications about policymaking.

These propositions are 100% non-political, and unless you disagree with democracy, there is no way you can argue against any of this. To me this is the single most important issue at stake and any other thing the candidate is running on does not matter if he is capable of doing what he proposes here.

This democratic reform, of course, assumes that Americans actually care and are willing to participate more democratically. This, I realize, is a big assumption.

I will close with a quote from Indecision 2008, a featured segment from Stephen Colbert´s Colbert Report, to transmit my strong desire for American democracy to work while at the same time suspecting that it might not:

"Don´t fuck this up, America".