Devastation

"Devastation" is a noun with two definitions. 1] The act of devastating, destruction, and 2] Devastated state; desolation. Displayed on the same page as devastation is the verb "devastate," which also has two meaning. 1] To lay waste, destroy, 2] To overwhelm, confound, stun.

Both words hold a massive connotation to today's society. The word barely ripples in the pool of my soul and I think of the tragedies that we have suffered. The attacks on the Twin Towers, Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami of 2oo4 that killed over 230,000 people. And those are just a few of the major ones. What about the Boston Red Sox fans that were devastated when their prized team didn't even make it to the World Series of 2oo9? What about the Philly's fans that were so sure they were going to win it? And even smaller than that. What about the man who was just diagnosed with AIDS? What about the father who just buried his mother? What about the girl who just found out her boyfriend is cheating on her? What about the boy who just got rejected from his first choice college? What about the woman who didn't get pregnant again? Devastation it seems, takes many forms.

I am sure that everyone who has the capabilities to read this blog has been devastated at sometime or another in their life. Me? I was devastated when my so-called "friends" betrayed me. I was devastated when my dog, a beautiful golden retriever named Logan, was diagnosed with cancer, and to save him, we had to have a very expensive surgery performed. I had just gotten into college, and my family couldn't afford it. To save the beloved dog from months of pain and suffering, we had him put to sleep. I was devastated, and worse, I believed it to be my fault. I was devastated when my first boyfriend and I broke up. I was devastated when my second boyfriend and I broke up. But these were all small devastation's (more like disappointments in retrospect) and eventually I got over them, but at the time, my heart felt like it would never be whole again.

I have a friend, who was let down by their friends. The individual in question, is devastated. They are all still friends, but that doesn't help the disappointment of expecting certain people do do certain things and then having them fall through. Without warning, devastation can strike. I actually just got off the phone with another friend of mine, who informed me that yesterday, they were involved in a terrible car accident. The friend in question, is fine but the others involved in the car accident are not fine by any means. I was told that as the accident happened, my friend happened to glance into the car of the person who caused the accident (the car in front of my friend swerved into the lane of oncoming traffic), and literally saw the individuals eyes roll into the back of their head. My friend found out later that the person that they observed fainting or whatever it may have been, died in the hospital. I was told that it was a boy. Not a man, but a boy. He will have to be buried by his parents. That is devastation right there. And the saddest part is, things like that happen every day and go unnoticed by people who aren't involved directly. How many times have you been sitting in your car and been passed by a funeral procession? Do you ever stop to think how that person died?

Death, I think, is the ultimate devastator. No one knows what happens after you die. No one can truly say for sure. Yes, we all have our opinions, heaven, hell, purgatory, nothing-- but the truth is, no one knows. There is nothing as dividing as death, and the devastation it leaves in it's wake has an invisible ripple effect that I feel, goes farther than people acknowledge. I don't know the boy who died in that car accident, but I feel for him. I feel sad for him, and his friends and family. True, I'm glad it wasn't my friend, because then it would be me feeling that direct devastation, but that boy is best friends to someone. And that boy has a mother, and father who love him. Maybe he has a sister, brother, girlfriend. I've lost people close to me to death. I know what that sorrow and devastation feels like.

Devastation is a word I think that people do not use lightly. When someone or something has been devastated you automatically know that something horrible has happened. The degree of devastation can be simple, or magnified intensely by the result of what has happened. Maybe people left behind will recover from it. Maybe they wont. The Tsunami of 2oo4? Not only were the people destroyed, but the land was devastated as well. The same thing goes for Hurricane Katrina. I believe, however, that things can come back better than they were before, if only given the chance to grow. (And yes, I recently watched Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, and if anyone else has watched it... you'll know the scene I've referenced.... and if you'd like to see it here is the link to the portion of the video, provided by Youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cOIQapBLGM&feature=related . . . It's about a minute into this video.) People reached out to help in those tragic natural disasters.

And maybe it's not nature that does the devastation. Maybe it's a person. A man walks into a diner and kills 13 people and then himself (not an actual situation. . . that I know of ). His actions have devastated everyone who was there, everyone who is related to or know someone who was there. The ripple effect begins. The man who killed those people, his family is devastated by what he's done. Shocked and devastated. The people who know his family are devastated. The people that work with the man at his office job, are devastated. The people who work with the people he worked with, are devastated. The people he killed? The same goes for all of them. And of course now there's a news crew involved. Local news. Everyone in the town is devastated. A woman in her house realises that one of the people that was murdered worked at the grocery store she shops at and always bagged her groceries how she preferred, paper and plastic, without asking. Local news reaches to state news. The state is devastated. Someone twelve towns away realises that the man who shot those people, why... her sister dated him for a month in high school! State news reaches national news, as tragedies such as these always manage to do. The nation is devastated that one man could cause all this sorrow. Of course, degrees of sorrow will vary from person to person. The people who hear about it on the national news, they'll probably forget about it soon enough. The people in the state? It might remain in their memory for a while longer. But the people who were there-- the people who knew someone who was there, it may not fade from their memory for a long, long time.

But eventually people recover. Memories fade. Hatred and anger seems meaningless after such a long time. The wound has healed, and you never even noticed that the scar vanished. You just realise one day, that you're not angry anymore. That shit happens. And you can either learn from it, or dwell on it. Personally, I'd rather learn from the past and move on. What use is having an experience if it just halts your progress as a human being? Devastation, I'm sad to say, is something that I've come to discover as a part of life.

A cardinal flew into my window yesterday. Beautiful, crimson cardinal fell dead in the snow. His mate was in the dogwood tree in the front yard. She was there this morning when I woke up. She will be there all day. I will continue to see this widowed bird for weeks to come. I know I will. Cardinals mate for life. I can only imagine the devastation she must feel, having watched her scarlet soul mate die at the hands of transparency.

Devastation, small or large, is something I wish upon none of you. But having said it is a part of life, it will happen. It has happened. And I wish that for the future, when it happens again, you all know that there is a chance. A chance that what's left behind can grow better than the generation before. It just might take some time.

Vampire

Anyone who knows me knows that I love vampires, vampire stories and anything to do with them. Save the lovely "Twilight Saga". Today's word has been picked by me as sort of. . . a retaliation to the image of "vampire" that Stephanie Meyer's Twilight has put into people's heads.

Dictionary.com has many entries for "vampire". However, the only ones that I feel are really and truly appropriate for this entry are the first two. 1] A preternatural being, commonly believed to be a reanimated corpse, that is said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night. 2] (In Eastern European Folklore) A corpse, animated by an undeparted soul or demon, that periodically leaves the grave and disturbs the living, until it is exhumed and impaled or burned.

Now. I consider myself quite an expert of vampires and all things related. As an aspiring sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer, I sort of made it my business to be so. I have researched (which means I bought a lot of vampire books and giggled maliciously as I poured over their pages) endlessly and have found most vampire books satisfactory to the legends of old. Save four. And that would be Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

Nothing has disappointed me more in my field than these books. And yes, I read all of them. At first, I thought, "Wow, that glittering in the sunlight thing? That's a pretty nifty twist. Nice way to get them to be able to be out during the day-- you know what? She may be on to something here!" Unfortunately I was quickly disturbed by Edward Cullen's character. Not only does he, and excuse me for my language, NOT FUCKING DRINK HUMAN BLOOD, but he's a virgin too! Not to say that virginity is a bad thing, because it's not, but a virgin vampire? They're supposed to be the seducers of the night. They're supposed to lure their prey in with unwittingly good looks and then kill them once they've had their fun.

Vampires are creatures that have fascinated me for a long time. (No, I don't believe they are real... though I wish. Oh do I wish.) They are supposed to be beautiful, blood sucking demons who shudder at crosses and can't cross thresh holds unless invited. They can fly without wings, and change their form to suit their purpose. They have inhuman strength, and are impervious to most normal methods of killing. They heal extraordinarily fast, and have speed beyond that of human capabilities.

And then there's the Cullen's. They glitter in the sunlight. They behave and don't drink the blood of Humans. Won't lie. This disturbs me. I know it's a running joke between the haters of Twilight, but little boys with body glitter sparkle too. Normal people don't drink the blood of humans either (unless they're cannibals... and let's face it, that's just disturbing). Body builders are incredibly strong, and some Olympic runners run faster than I can even imagine myself doing. Does that mean that those individuals are related to the Cullen's? No. it just means that the Cullen's are very sad impersonations of vampires. In the above definition of "vampire" I bolded a selection of words, "suck the blood" and "persons". I did so to emphasize that Edward Cullen defies even the dictionary in terms of being a vampire.

Dracula was a vampire. Simon from The Silver Kiss was a vampire. Jean Claude from Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series is a vampire. Bill Compton from the hit TV show True Blood (based on the books by Charlaine Harris) is a vampire. Louis and Lestat from Anne Rice's novels The Vampire Chronicles are both vampires!

The point I'm trying to make here is a creepy, virginal, glittering boy who drinks deer blood and crawls into unsuspecting girls windows at night is not a vampire. He's a sexual predator and in any society, he would be pin pointed and sent to jail where he would spend years of his life before being released and having his every move tracked so because of his prior actions. Edward Cullen is not the fantasy of every girls dream, he is someone to be feared, and I feel that girls, especially young girls should know that having a boy watch you sleep without your knowledge is wrong, and creepy. It's not okay, and if it has happened to you, please tell an adult or someone you trust. I would also like to take this moment and elaborate upon the safety of young women today. Edward explicitly says "I'm a killer, Bella." Girls. If someone says this to you, and you think he's adorable and glittery-- he is dangerous and not because he's pretending to be a "vampire." Run away from him and tell someone. Young women should not be allowed to believe that these are all desirable traits in a man. These are not the traits of a vampire. These are the traits of a sexual predator, and he's the main character in a children's novel!

I don't mean to offend anyone who may be a fan of Twilight, and I am certainly not trying to offend Stephanie Meyer in anyway. I quite like her writing, The Host was a fantastic novel and I read it in one day (during the summer, while outside tanning. I do not recommend this to anyone. I was a lobster for a week and then some). I just disagree with the way she chose to portray her vampire characters.

She turned fearful, hell-damned creatures of the night into glittery, stalker-like people who have to restrain themselves. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the restraining part-- what good would a vampire book be if the vampire just kills people endlessly? The vampire in question must have some sort of restraint on themselves, or else we'd run out of characters! But I feel that taking the "bite" out of vampires makes the "vampire" no less than a strange, extraordinarily gifted person. And the glitter? Let's just say my fascination with that idea ended when I saw images of Edward Cullen with the captions "I wish my boyfriend sparkled!" It really killed the creative genius behind it.

Really though. I did enjoy the first Twilight book. I had read it before the vampire craze started and girls started freaking out and such. After that, the insane fan girls sort of. . . scared me off. I mean, I went to go see the movie (on opening night- some of my friends were lo and behold, fan girls) and I couldn't even hear the movie because every time Edward or Jacob walked on the screen, the theatre erupted into shrieks and giggles.

So this is an ode to the original, fierce, human-blood sucking vampires. I salute you and your creators.

As for Edward Cullen? You are not a vampire. You are a sexual predator and you scare me. And not because you glitter.

Worth

Today's word is an eager suggestion from a close friend of mine.

"Worth" is defined by Dictionary.com as a preposition and a noun. The preposition "worth" has three meanings, while the noun "worth" has eight. I've picked two of the three preposition meanings of "worth", and three of the eight definitions of the noun "worth." The definitions of preposition "worth" are 1] good or important enough to justify (what is specified), and 2] Having property to the value or amount of. The definitions for the noun "worth" are 1] excellence of character or quality commanding esteem, 2] Usefulness or importance, to the world, to a person, or for a purpose, and 3] a quantity of something as to a specified value.

Of course this time I've taken it a little bit further and cracked open my favored thick, red thesaurus [ Webster's New World Thesaurus, printed in 1985 from Prentice Hall Press] and turned to page eight hundred an thirty-six. Here, along side of "worth" is "worthless", "worthlessness", "worthwhile", and "worthy."

Who determines the worth of anything? An American dollar is worth four quarters. Twenty of those quarters equals the worth of a five dollar bill. Two five dollar bills are worth a ten dollar bill. But as i find myself going through my wallet, I snub the five ones and reach for the five. But they're worth the same, right? What about what I purchased? Is that large coffee and a bagel really worth five dollars? Is that pack of cigarettes worth it to the woman behind me in line? Is that pack of cigarettes worth the lung cancer she may or may not have to suffer through in the later years of her life?

What about your friends? My friends are people I value above all else. I do hope yours are the same. But would I pay my friend ten dollars to be my friend? Maybe once, yes, because I believe in quality over quantity, and having the experiences I've had with them, I know that they really are my friends. True-blue, right to the end friends. I'd loan them ten dollars if they asked, which I suppose says that they're worthy of receiving a loan from me. But would I pay them ten dollars every week to be my friend? What about every day? Ten dollars every day for the month of September [Thirty days] is equal to three hundred dollars! And since I'm doing math, ten dollars every day for a full six months, (and to be precise I've picked the months January, February [not in leap year], March, April, May and June. That's thirty-one days, twenty-eight days, thirty-one days, thirty days, thirty one days, and another thirty days.) is one thousand eight hundred dollars ($1800) to be my friend. And now think, what about a friend who has been your friend for many, many years? Quickly doing the math, a girl I've known for the majority of my life, I'll say eighteen years, for her to be my friend (again, I'm not including leap years), I would have paid her sixty-five thousand, eight hundred and eighty dollars ($65880). Now, I love my friend very, very much. But I'm not entirely sure I'd pay her nearly sixty-six thousand dollars to be my friend. That's nearly a year and a half's worth of tuition at my college!

Would you put ten dollars worth of value to your best friend? What about your significant other? Are they worth ten dollars? Ten dollars a week? Ten dollars a day? What if that was doubled? Quadrupled? How much are your friends worth? And remember, this is just one friend. This could easily be multiplied by five, ten, or even twenty. If friends were marketable products, costing ten dollars initially, and then ten dollars every week after that; How many friends would you buy?

What about a significant other? Supposedly people share with their significant others a special part of them that they don't exactly share with their other friends. Significant others would at least be twenty dollars "off the shelf." And once again, I love my boyfriend very much, but, sorry sweetie! I wouldn't pay for you. (That's because you're invaluable to me! Now all together everyone, "awwwwww!") But I suppose that's the beauty of friendship. Unless you're an incredibly horrible person, you don't really have to "buy your friends".

What about worth to yourself? How much is, say your computer, worth to you? I know people who would sell their souls to the devil himself (and I'm not exaggerating) to keep their computers. What about your cell phone? I'm a victim of it too. I hate not having my phone on me at all time. What about you? How much are YOU worth to yourself? Are you worth sitting with that horrible boyfriend/girlfriend who makes you feel like you're no more than dog poop on the bottom of their shoe? Are you worth that two-carat, potentially ten to fifteen thousand dollar ring sitting on an eighteen carat gold setting on your ring finger? Are you worth the cheap imitation handbag meant to mimic a Chanel, or Gucci? Do you think you're worth the real thing? Is that Chanel purse really worth the eight-hundred dollars that you or someone you love paid for it? Is a painful divorce worth the twenty years of marriage, kids and home?

The friend who suggested this word to me later used it in a conversation we were having. They said they felt "worthy". Out of context it could mean anything, and I'm not the type to divulge personal conversations to the world, but the way "worthy" was used. . . all I could really think of was that the "worth" that was felt was "worthless". And only they will know why.

What worth do you put on the things around you? Maybe you wouldn't pay for a friend. In this society, we don't have to (thank goodness, or else I'd be in a world of debt!), but perhaps, what about life worth? Would you jump in front of a bus and push your best friend out of the way, thus ending your own life and saving theirs? What if it was your spouse? Mother? Father? Brother? Sister? Are their lives, their existences worth ending your own life? And would you do it for the sheer thought that you love them and care about them? Or would it be done so you could be proclaimed a hero? Or would you not do it at all? Would that mean that they are "worthless" to you? What if it was your child, and if you did so, you'd be leaving them an orphan?

"Worth" is a very funny word indeed. Not only does it look and sound funny (maybe that's because I've been saying it a lot and looking at it frequently), but it has a funny meaning. Who determines worth? Worth of money. Worth of friendship. Worth of loyalty. Worth of love. Love worth a fifteen thousand dollar ring, and a twenty-seven thousand dollar wedding plus a twelve thousand dollar honeymoon in the Florida Keys (and that's going small, mind you). Is that burger and fries you're eating really worth the advertised price of $2.99? Is it worth the ten miles or one hundred and fifty minutes you'd have to walk/jog to burn it off? Or is it worth the heart attack in five years while you're walking to the car to go and get your kids from soccer practice?

Do you determine "worth?" Do I? Does the government decide when it puts the equal weight of gold behind the paper that we use as currency everyday? What if there isn't enough gold? What if there is too much "paper?" (Yes, I'm aware this would equal a depression.) We take things for granted everyday. Job. Home. Friends. Love. Hate. But what if everything had a value to it? Would some people be "worth" more than others? What if you had to pay a small fee (not your time!) to keep your job and continue making money so you could spend it on wife, husband, children, home, etc?

To me? My friends and loved ones are worth everything. Without them, I feel like life would be quite "worthless". Maybe because I'm not a person built to be a solitary individual. I like people. I like the odd quirks and personalities. I like the variety of individuals, the dark and light within each person. My cat, Poe, is worth a lot to me. He's a darling little boy and a misbehaving little mischief maker, but I love him. School is worth a lot to me, as is my aspiration to become a novelist. Drama is "worthless" to me. Fighting over stupid issues is not "worth" my time, which I could be spending doing other things other than creating bad memories. Spiders are "worthless" to me. But that's only because the creepy critters scare the crud out of me! I consider star-gazing "worthwhile", much like I consider the time sitting on the couch and watching re-runs of Fantasy Factory with my boyfriend "worthwhile." I consider reading and writing "worthy" of my time and dedication.

Curiosity killed the cat, but the cat had nine lives, and I'm getting "curiouser and curiouser". What is "worth" a lot to you? What is "worthless?" What is "worthwhile"? Is it that hike up the mountain in the dark to see the sunrise? Is it that pack of cigarettes you've been trying to knock the habit of buying every day? Is it your best friend? Your mother? Your child? I'm curious. Please, tell me what's "worthy" to you.