on not caring

I am in such a fragile state lately! I can't watch the election coverage anymore and I can't watch the Padres lose or I am going to Break Down. I just want to only pay attention to good things sometimes. Not usually, but there are those periods when there is just so much wrong with the world that you have to spend a week eating pizza and walking in the park and watching birds and only seeing Preston Sturges screwball comedies. I can't deal with the Olympics, the halt in troop reductions, the kid-fuckers in Texas, or Hillary Clinton this week. I just want to pretend everything is pink champagne. Next week I'll go back to feeling oh so disgruntled and yelling at the New York Times website. But for now I just want to eat sushi and dance on tables!

Some people can be like that all the time. Some people walk out of their houses and never see a homeless person on their street. They can laugh through disturbing movies, sit in air-conditioning, eat hamburgers, and be content to Tivo "American Idol." Who are these people? What is their secret? I mean, I feel like it takes some serious work not to give a shit about anything. How do they do it? The other day in one of my classes we watched a pretty brutal documentary called "The Panama Deception" that showed people getting beaten up, shot in the head, showed dead children burned to death in torched cars, and garbage bags full of human meat. One girl next to me was trying to talk to me through the whole film. Later I mentioned it to another girl and she said (in all seriousness), "Yeah American intervention--who cares? Boring!"

I'd like to open those people's heads up and take a look inside. I don't get it. I'll probably end up watching Olbermann while I'm eating my sushi and dancing on the tabletop. I just can't not care. Oh fie, fie!