Oh my mother fuckin god!

So today, as many others before me have done, I went to planned parent hood.  For an IUD.  It's one of those T shaped birth control methods that prevent pregnancy.  Though, I didn't get it for that.  No, I am not worried about getting pregnant.  I'm just one of those people who DON'T think an period is beautiful and I prefer not to deal with one at all.
I've been on the pill for almost a year.  Once I got adjusted to it it became the best thing I could have ever done for myself.  But every once in a while I would forget a pill.  Nothing terrible happened because of it but I just didn't want to forget anymore.
But MOST importantly of all, like SO many women have done before me, we have done it because of the current administration.  While standing at the reception desk I was told that many women have and continue to get  these done because soon they might not be able too.
While in there, it all starts the same as a pap.  I introduce my vagina to a complete stranger (whom I know has gotten to know a great many) and we dive right in...literally.  She is funny and sweet but I think she was being like that because she knew what was coming and I haven't a clue. There are 4 or 5 stages to this shit.
Stage 1.  They need to iodine you.  Yep and it feels just like it smells.  Hard to explain but your vagina is pretty confused about right now.
Stage 2.  The spreader insertion.  Not a big deal.  No different than a pap.  We are doing good.  Vagina isn't freaking out.
Stage 3. We are now stretching the cervix a little (understatement) further than a regular pap smear.  I was told 7.5 centimeters.  Vagina isn't happy.  I'm taking deep breaths.  I can handle this...
Stage 4.  They insert a little straw up there to guide the IUD.  Small story, my cervix is teeny.  Tiny little thing.  Totally fine with that except for this moment.  Doctor is having a hard time with this that she needs to call in another doctor for help.  Several tries and I am burning up, on fire, sweating through my clothes and breathing way too much.  I feel like I'm going to pass out.  Way too much oxygen in my blood.
Stage 5.  She finally gets the straw up in there and now we are ready for insertion.  I thought that she was done by how shitty I felt.  Nope.  At this point I've already told myself several times that this was a shitty idea.  In the IUD goes and I lost it.  It hurts so bad, I couldn't stop saying shit and fuck.  I didn't care.
It took me a while to be able to get myself dressed again.  They gave me advil, juice boxes and a heating thingy.  Everyone there was nice and supportive.  I felt dizzy and nauseous the rest of the day.
I immediately call my mom to let her know and how sorry I was of how shitty childbirth must have been for her.  She's a very small woman that gave birth to 2 enormous children naturally.

I am NOT HAVING CHILDREN.  Fuck that shit.  I am never doing this again.  Long live the pill.

Gun violence and Hannah Hart

That was probably the worst title I could think of off the top of my head.

Just a little while ago I watched Hannah Hart's youtube video with her reaction to the UCC shootings.
The way she expressed her sadness was like watching validation for the conversation I've been trying to have at my school.
MHCC (Mt. Hood Community College) is no different than UCC.  Same kind of town, same feel and same wide open campus as are many.  I visited once or twice in my life.  I was sweet on a girl there once.  It could have been her or anyone else I might have known because the world is such a small small place.
That day, hours before the shooting occurred was a happy day for Oregon.  It was the first day that cannabis was legal for everyone.  Some people have said that if it had been legal sooner, they'd bet it would have helped the shooter.  I have to agree.  But even then, there are guns everywhere and people aren't getting the help they need.

Hannah goes on to plead that someone somewhere do something.
So my head went to this...
What if guns were monitored as much as your phone?  Phones are necessary.  Location services often work without you even knowing it.  Being a college student myself, I have to have one.  Emails are pretty useful.  But in being a 2nd year engineering student, why can't I try to assist with answering that plea?  Why can't I among others in my class, in my school, in my area of schools make a bold move and design, scale and bring to life something that will move toward a better place?

Why!...can we not build a device that links ALL licensed and registered guns to a database where when the safety is turned off, the device turns on allowing the system to know when and where the gun was used?  Or even better, spread an even better warning system of armed and ready guns nearby to help police and EVERYONE get to safety and avoid.  Something like this becoming required doesn't take away people's guns.  They can still have them.  They can still use them.  But using them in a hideous way will be even harder.

I know it's not fool proof.  It's easy for someone to keep the safety on while the gun is feet away from an intended target.  But isn't a first step at least taking a step at all?  Let something like that become the shoulders for someone else to improve and build upon.  People are only getting more angrier.

...so close by to you.

The feeling of triumph.  Over your own self awakening, over helping another understand something or maybe over a major victory that would forever change the lives of everyone you have ever met....

...everyone you have ever met.  Names and faces.  Hundreds of thousands.  Maybe even millions.  All over and everywhere, but all in one small, distant, quiet little corner of our small, over-looked part of a galaxy.  A galaxy that I have to believe has been seen by some others, somewhen in time.  

Everyone you've ever known is so close by to you.  Everyday you learn the names of people you might need to get information from.  But that's all.  You look at that person, ask your questions, get your info and move onto your goal, leaving a face and a name on the backburner of your mind to forget in a day or two.  But you watch the news and see people, all so nearby, so close by to you, take their own lives, take someone else's life, someone else takes their life, they save a life, someone saved their life, someone saved your soul, or someone broke it...

These people are within your reach daily, constantly, within your sight and within your voice.  We pretend it's not our responsibility, the misfortune that happens to others.  But if not our own, than who's?  If we learned how to look at another persons face as someone we now know, someone who actually exists in our own time and space, why not look at them without a goal?  Learn to look at them as a person with infinie what if's and possibilities?  When you walk into a store, don't just default to a "how are you?" and "I'm fine." Actually listen.  Do it in genuinity.  

But these people, all around us, so close by to you have a story.  They suffer, too. Just as much as you do or did or possibly could be.  And to create some kindness out of your heart and to put aside the fear of awkwardness or what others may think of you, wouldn't you think that it might hold some potential to save a life?  Maybe even your own?

And it comes full circle.  To take a moment to acknowledge a strangers existence.  Smile.  Break the fear that a smile is associated with bad intentions.  And remember the faces you meet.  You'll find that the feeling of a major victory that would forever change the lives of everyone you have ever met, would also change your own.

Everyone you have ever known is so close by to you...

What's beyond everyone you have ever known?  What's beyond this little planet? A place we cannot call home.  This place, these people, every birth and every death has happened here, so close by to you.  How have they touched your life? How have you touched theirs?  And how will this home be better when you leave?

Death

Why is it that almost everyone I've ever met refuses to ever contemplate the concept of death, the nature of death and what it means to be around someone who is dying or themselves dying?  Why are they so adamant about not thinking about it simply because they don't need to right now.  You'll have to someday.  Isn't there such a thing as being prepared for the inevitable?  Your parents will die, you siblings could die before you and yes, you too will eventually pass away.  Wouldn't you want to be prepare for the heartache that lies in wait?  I think this is one of those fearing fear itself things.

I think about death everyday.  Not in a sadistic kind of way.  But in a realistic, open minded way.  Every time I go out on a bike or drive in my car, the possibility of being hit is there.  It's real.  So whenever I speak of this to someone as a realistic fact, they look at me like I'm some morbid being and tell me "No, that's not going to happen."
Why not?  Who are you to say if I do or do not get into an statistically factual accident?  Why can't you accept the truth that, yes I may drive as safely as I can, but not everyone does.  I see idiots watching their crotches as they're flying 70 down the freeway.  Semi-trucks passing me on the right as I'm in the turn lane on my bike, staring at their crotches too.  It's maddening how careless people are.  How invincible they feel.  And then the day comes when you say "No, that's not going to happen" and it does, how do you think you're going to feel about reality then?
Death happens.  It's natural and a lot of the time really really stupid as to WHY it happens.  Sometimes you don't even get an answer, you just have to spend a TON of time accepting that it happened and try to reclaim your life.  But what is the point of ignoring something that happens everyday to so many around you?  What's so wrong with preparing the mind for trauma?  There is nothing wrong with exercising reality.