To Fuck With The Purple People

Fuck labels.

Liberal, conservative, democrat, NDP, Republican, LGBTQ, vegan, vegetarian, white, black, purple, Christian, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Shinto, Jew.  Fuck anything that identifies you with a group. It's overboard. We all have just one label - human. 

It's completely out of hand now. We as a people use labels to identify ourselves with a group for many reasons, whether it be a sense of belonging, community, faith, political stance, whatever, there are so many labels, and that is now a problem. 

Drop the labels and we'll drop the hatred.

As soon as you identify yourself anymore you invariably invite the ire of someone who hates that group. If you're a liberal, you're now a labelled a libtard by conservatives. If you're gay, you're a faggot. If you're black some racist shit is going to call you a nigger. Labels beget hatred. For every group out there that advertises it's beliefs, customs or associations there is another group actively fighting to slam them into oblivion. Each year a new label emerges, immediately followed by some asshole who hates them and begins a campaign of terror against them.

This year the fight is with what bathroom a transgender person can use in North Carolina. That sounds awfully similar to the old southern segregation rules about which bathroom blacks could use, or what store Jews could go to in Germany in 1933. Stop this shit. Everyone pees. Everyone. Just so you're aware, the bathrooms in your home are not labelled, why should any other be?

I'm very ambiguous about my affiliations to one group or another online for good reason. I don't want to be a target. I don't need to be addressed by someone who disagrees with my views. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life. While I admire the tenacity of those who fight for the rights of their personal affiliates, I see the shitstorm it causes and I don't care to be part of it. I see friends online who actively tout their labels as the 'correct' choice, and damn those who don't agree. Do you not see that you're part of the problem? 

People are getting killed all over the world because of their labels. Everyday in the news there is a story of one person somewhere who died horribly because of their beliefs, and that's not new, it's been going on since the dawn of humanity. But why are we fanning the flames here? Why after evolving to a higher life form haven't we figured out how to be simply human and do the right thing? Why are we devolving into communal groups fighting (literally) to convince everyone else they are wrong? 

That's exactly what it is now, nobody is fighting to get their view across, they're fighting to disavow the opposing view. Shut down what they don't agree with. Dispose of the other labels. It's stupid. 

I see it everyday. Trump supporters wear their red hats, and refuse to do business with those who wear blue bumper stickers. Christians wear the cross, muslims wear the hijab, PETA fanatics usually wear nothing but draw carve lines onto themselves and stand in busy intersections. Whether you intend to pass a message on or not, it doesn't matter. Most labels are innocuous, people invariably do something to themselves before going out to classify themselves. In the case of race, simply existing paints your label. Sadly, there are those who hate that label just because, well, because they're fucktards. Another label, willfully granted.

Here's my new label - I'm a separated, skinny middle aged basement dweller. Go ahead, raz me on that. I'm sure someone will find a reason to hate me for it. Simply because that's what we do now as a people, we categorize ourselves and file ourselves into the appropriate folder, never touching or associating with another label unless it's out of hatred or making the attempt to convince someone they're wrong. 

Fuck the labels. We're human beings and we should all act like it. Lately, we're acting like selfish children on the school ground and I can't see it getting any better. With that, all you purple people can fuck right off, you have no place in my existence.

Basement Observations

Several months ago there was a major shake up in my house which saw me moving into the apartment in my basement. As I was alone I no longer needed the two floors and three bedrooms upstairs, and as I'm so bloody skinny I really don't take up much space anyway. Add to that my rather minimized lifestyle, I don't need all that room for 'stuff'. I have what I need, bedroom and living room furniture, computers, TV, kitchen stuff, yadda yadda. Oh, and a drum set.

Given that change in the past months I've taken to noticing things I never noticed before. Things I took for granted or never even bothered thinking about. And as I tend to spend most of my time in this space I've taken to noticing them often. Very often, like all the time often. When something happens once or even twice you may ignore it, put it out of your mind and never give it a second thought, when mundane things happen constantly you start to perk up to them. So here I give you the short list of weird things I notice living in a basement.

1. Cats will go out of there way to sit in a basement window. They will viciously fight for the spot and to the victor go the spoils, regardless of how small the window is, or how utterly impossible it is for them to achieve this perch. I swear they moved my furniture to get up there. Massive bay window in the living room? Nah, 12x24 inch window opening up onto my neighbour's foundation will do just fine.

2. Water metres sound like freight trains at 6:30am. It's in my bedroom and except for this little tidbit I've never paid the dumb thing a second thought. We all have them, and we all ignore them. Now, I know when anyone else has a shower, does the dishes, brushes their teeth, waters the garden, and I know exactly how long it takes them. 

3. I don't know anything about the outside anymore. I no longer know when there is an emergency vehicle on the street, or a weird car roaming, I no longer know when it's raining, snowing, or in some cases, daylight. I can't hear anyone knock on the door, I am completely impervious to the outside world unless I go there.

4. Pipes hurt my head. I haven't quite learned to duck yet, and at least once per day I crack my noggin.

5. I know everyone's every move. This is an old house and as such the floors are not exactly thick. I can hear when someone goes into the kitchen, living room, and even up the stairs. I've started tuning it out, but it gets tough. I even know what TV shows are on in the upstairs living room.

6. It's dark, I don't have the luxury of a huge window anymore, so I have to rely on artificial light, which annoys the hell out of me, but I'm adjusting. When a bulb burns out down here, you may as well be in a deep cave at midnight.

7. Basement floors are cold as a witch's heart. I have to wear slippers, Always. Everywhere. Even my carpeted living room is frosty. However on the flipside to that, I know from this being my former family room that this is the place to be in August. Nice and chilled on a hot summer day.

8. Laundry is much easier. The washer and dryer are right outside my door, so no more hauling baskets down the stairs. Flipside is that like the water metre, I know when anyone is running a load. 

9. It never rains in a basement. I've left all these windows open during the worst storms we've had this year, and not once has there been any indication of rain getting in. For some reason, it just doesn't happen. 

10. I am very attuned to the shortcomings of house trim and finish. I never realized this upstairs, but down here it's obvious that a basement, being the place visitors usually don't go, tends to be missing bits of trimwork from windows and doors, has exposed rafters, concrete floors, and the like. My basement is finished, but here and there, there are places where the people who finished it just seemed to stop caring. 'Don't worry about that, nobody will ever look there'. Yeah, except me. Now I'm looking at these places thinking I have to finish the job.

As I sit here with my open window full of cat(s), I can hear birds outside. I wonder what kind? I wonder if it's raining. I wonder if my clock is correct. I guess I should wander out and see the world for a while, 

Then I'll crack my head on the pipes again on the way to the coffee pot.

Cheers.