I've Got Two Hands (sometimes three!)

Below please find a cursory listing of vastly divergent opinions I've honestly held, often within minutes--even seconds!--of each other.

Someone decides they must live in another country.

1) Good for you! Everyone should live abroad and experience immersion into another culture. Whatever your motivations are, this will be an important experience. You don't want to be one of those myopic Americans who thinks We are the World. Even if you're leaving because you hate America, then good! The righty kooks said "love it or leave it!" So you left. And since you should have the right to live unencumbered anywhere you choose, I don't see as how anyone but you should have anything to say about it. Keep in touch and tell me how it goes. I'd love to hear about your experiences and insights. But I sincerely hope you come back, because you'll make the country a better place.

2) On the other hand, who the hell do you think you are, you stuck-up leftist nose-in-the-air bastard? Are you really so ignorant that you think human nature is different depending on how freaking socialistic the government is? Go ahead and move to Canada, you ass. We'll see you back in a few years, when someone in your family needs real medical care. You'll come running here like the Canadians whose polaroids I used to see taped on coffee cans in the grocery store: "In the States, they can cure me" they said. Maybe they just didn't feel like waiting 6 months for an MRI, or pretending that Canadian football is a real sport. Oh, Europe is it? Good riddance to you. Italy thanks you for raising their snob quotient. We took their dregs by the millions for almost a century. The least they can to is take the whining intellectual elitists off our hands. Bye!

Someone fails to compliment (or notice) my new glasses.

1a) Who cares.  In fact, thank you for NOT noticing.  I don't take compliments well anyway, and I appreciate the fact that you are focused on more important aspects of life. 

 

1b) (On the other hand) It might be a nice little boost to my twisted, faltering self-esteem if you paid a little attention to my attempt to find decent glasses.

1c) (On the other other hand) What the hell is the matter with you?  It should be as clear as the nose on my face that there is a fashionable pair of designer frames in the picture that weren't there yesterday! AHHHH!

Someone issues a generalized insult to the owners of SUV's.

First) You are absolutely right.  I might not agree with the venom, but dammit, unless someone is hauling around 50 kids on a daily basis, or braving the Rubicon trail, they have no business wasting gas and space with that TANK.  And why does anyone who lives in the city need 4 wheel drive?  Have they ever even taken that thing near a dirt road?  Maybe imitating Hillary Clinton and her fellow senators is their way of activating "The Secret," but they're not impressing anyone but Oprah with the shiny black Escalade they're driving to the corner mart alone.  

Second) Oh yeah?  You don't like SUV's?  Then don't buy one, jerk.  PS: I'll phone the God you don't believe in and inform him that he doesn't have to waste his time judging the SUV crowd.  You seem to have it all wrapped up.  Until just a second ago, I wasn't going to say anything about your hygiene and style choices, which I think are offending Mother Nature, for whom I have been given the authority to speak (yeah, that's right, you're not the only one!).  And just so you don't forget, I'll scratch a little note to you into the paint of your pseudo hippie car with my keys.  

Someone brings up our society's unfair body image expectations.

Initially . . . I couldn't agree more.  I can't stand how surface oriented we are in modern civilization.  There is a deeper beauty that should be recognized.  As a matter of fact, if it doesn't come from within, who gives a crap how beautiful the exterior seems?  It's simply ugliness with a sexy mask, and we shouldn't fall for it, let alone promote and glorify it.  Down with superficiality!

Then . . .On the other hand, to hell with you, fatty.  The only reason that people hate on beauty in any form is jealousy.  And I've had enough with your slantwise confessions of how ugly you think you are, or how lazy you really are.  Hotness is hot--that's it.  Screw your down-to-earth common man/woman approach.  Beauty is to be worshipped in any form.  I don't care if the model in the ad was photoshopped, she's gorgeous, she's real, and she probably works like a dog (a super hot sexy dog!) to stay in that kind of shape.  I don't care who has fake parts.  I don't care if Hollywood starlets are dimwits.  I don't care if Demi Moore has a personal trainer and you don't.  The products, the clothing, the exercise programs, and the healthy diets are out there.  We can't all be hot.  The universe is stratified.  But what we can do is accept that, and use the tools in front of us to maximize whatever cosmetic beauty we've been given.  And if you don't want to be part of the cosmetic world we live in (which one might equate to people who refuse to get a cell phone or utilize the Internet) then the least you can do is stop complaining.

And later . . . besides, you're pretty hot in your own right.  What did you say your name was? Hey, what do you think of these glasses, I don't know if they're really me.

ANYWAY . . .

So you see, I'm a house divided.  At any given moment, I actually adhere to a view that is immediately, almost simultaneously, undercut by an opposite opinion about which I am equally passionate.  I'm earnestly down for double.  Strangely, I have a feeling that it does NOT make me open minded, but in fact the exact opposite.