Garbage Studio Diary #27 October 4-10th 2004.

Flew back from LA yesterday and upon arriving at the airport in Madison there was an entire family standing at Arrivals with big signs to welcome a marine coming off active service in Iraq.After the marine had been greeted and kissed and cuddled and kissed and cuddled again and again the family group began to move towards the luggage carousel.The young marine (he must have been all of nineteen years old) with his father lagged behind the rest and when they were alone the father grabbed his son to his chest and without saying a word just held him there like that without saying a word.They were just standing in the middle of Dane County Airport clinging to one another as if their life depended on it and I can't begin to describe how moving a scene it was to observe.
In that one embrace was all the relief and pride,all the nights of anguish and anxiety,all the fear and dread that must overwhelm a family when one of their loved ones is stuck in a war zone and manages to make it home alive.I just couldn't help thinking about the 1100 boys and girls who didn't make it.
And then I started to think about the other thousands of soldiers who have come home with limbs blown off or their minds in tatters.And then I thought about the Bush administration trying to cut combat pay and veterans benefits and I felt like weeping.Sometimes I get so completely overwhelmed by the fact that regardless of the injustices I witness I am so utterly impotent.It makes me furious.
For example it was confirmed today......not that any of us were needing this official confirmation anyway but it was officially confirmed that there were absolutely NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ.So could someone please tell me why the US and my own country of the UK can possibly continue to morally justify their actions by invading Iraq and causing untold destruction and chaos to say nothing of causing the thousands of deaths of Iraqi men,women and children.
It just shames me.The whole debacle makes me feel so utterly ashamed.
How about all the rumours that are whizzing around about the possibility that Bush was wearing a wire during the first presidential debate?!?!?!?! Have you see the photograph? He's got some weird box shaped thing nestled between his shoulder blades.Eeeeccccchhh......this is all getting too much like The Manchurian Candidate for my tastes.And you know what........the very fact that we are all getting so suspicious.......that we are even considering the idea that the current president of the united states might have been wearing a wire is just so fucking SAD.Is this where our so called civilization is at?!?!
Talking of which......... the scottish parliment building opens this week at a total cost to the taxpayer of 420 million pounds sterling.It was supposedly to have cost 40 million.It is totally beyond my comprehension how the estimates could have possibly been so far off the mark.
Rumour has it that it is absolutely beautiful on the inside.Well let's hope so because it looks like a dogs dinner on the outside.It really breaks my heart whenever I look at it.Edinburgh is one of the most architecturally stunning cities you can ever hope to see.The city is a treasure so why oh why have we sunk so much money erecting a building that fails to acknowledge the history and the beauty,the mood and the grace of it's surroundings.
That all said.........at least this monstrous squandering of public funds has now been put behind us and there is nothing else for it but for the elected politicians inside our parliment to begin to truly justify the expense.My country deserves nothing less.
On a decidely more up-note..........one of our dear friends......our man Mike Z is marrying his sweetheart Connie this weekend and we are all so excited for him.If there was an award for sweetest man in the entire world he might very well take the prize.He asked me to sing at the wedding ceremony way back earlier this year and because I love him so much I couldn't possibly turn him down but I am once again shitting myself.Mercifully I am not going to have to sing acapella this time as Stevo has agreed to accompany me.
WheeeeeHOoooooo.........I just heard Gwenykins single on the radio and it's fucking GREAT.Pretty weird in a way and I love her for that and of course as usual it's super hooky. "Take a chance you stupid ho" has been running through my brain ever since I heard it.
Okay so.........I'm getting ready for my MZ and Connies's wedding and I decide to wear my hair down for the first time in about a century but it looks a little wild and untamed so I figure I'll rake the old curling iron through parts of it to juice it up a little.So I turn the irons on ,grab a chunk of hair and shove it between the two tongs,twist and curl it up to the top of my head and all of a sudden at exactly the moment my nostrils detect a hideous burning smell I see smoke come out of the tongs.
I yank them out and smoke is now billowing from a clump of hair that lies between the tongs so I shove them under a running tap,swing open the patio doors and run the extractor fan above the oven.The entire appartment is swamped with the stink of burning hair and I feel like I want to yak up.
Then I creep over to the mirror to survey the damage and I swear to god there is a two inch wide section of hair that has been completely carbonized.Black and baked to a crisp.Oh my fucking god I gasped in complete despair and touched it with a shakey hand at which point the entire piece of hair broke off and fell about my feet in a smattering of dust.
SsssWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.

I read a really depressing article today on how many women are succumbing to plastic surgery.It sunk me into total despair.I just feel like it's a really dangerous route for women to go down.It's so fucking Stepford Wives.All these women being controlled by somebody elses' idea of beauty.What the FUCK!?!?!?!?
I mean.....sure it's difficult to age.It's no fun watching as the lines on your face begin to appear and your body is no longer as lithe and wonderful as it once was but why should you conform to somebody elses idea of what you should look like? And why should you want to look like everybody else? Why should all your individuality be stripped from your face? Why should you be made to feel ashamed of your experience and your wisdom and your growth? And the thing is......sure you can certainly delay the signs of aging but you can never cheat it completely.What makes young people look so divine is more than just having a tight face.It's their vitality and their energy and the plump deliciousness of their skin and just their all around LIFE FORCE.
And that belongs to THEM.That is youth's only tool of power.
We had it and enjoyed it and used it and abused it and we can never.....and I do mean NEVER get it back.
It just makes me so sad that women are being pressurized to look young all the time.It's as if their only worth is tied up in their appearance.The awful horror of it all is that the more and more women succumb to this pressure, the more and more we devalue ourselves and lay stock in the notion that a woman is only worthy if she looks a certain way.We bolster the idea that it ceases to matter whether we are kind or smart or talented or accomplished or great fun or a dear friend.Are all our attributes meaningless? Do we really become non-persons if we aren't considered pretty?!?!?!?
I mean ABSOLUTELY let's all be the best that we can be.Let's definitely make the most of ourselves.But instead of starting from the outside in......how about we consider doing it from the inside out.Wouldn't that benefit society more and make the world a much more pleasant place to live?