Maybe I can train her to be a vegitarian....?

I have a problem. It’s called a guilt complex. Now, I know we all need to feel guilty sometimes, it shows some level of empathic morality. But I’m with Aristotle on this one, the path to good is one of balance—and let’s just say I’m sitting out on the fringe of the gradient for this one. Now in theory, I could blame my father. He’s catholic and is quite equally infected with this complex. It is perhaps by virtue of his hand in my inception and upbringing that the malicious habit was able to seep itself into my daily routine. This is a reasonable story; however if I were to blame him I would, you know, feel guilty about it. Because after all, it’s not really his fault now is it? This is just the way he was raised. And of course I can’t blame his mother, because she was really just looking out for her kids. She was making damn sure that the burning fear of god would get them a direct ticket into heaven. In the end, it’s my fault really. You see, I allow myself to feel guilty. My father never dragged me to church, nor did he guilt me relentlessly—at least not with the intent of passing on the magic. And what’s worse, I’m not even catholic; so I don’t even get the eventual redemption. No, I just get that vicious, spiraling thought process: “Why would you DO that Catherine?” “She CLEARLY needs that more than you do Catherine.” “It’s ALL your fault Catherine.”

I am reminded of a particular day in high school; I was standing in line at the coffee machine. By line, I actually just mean that there was one girl ahead of me; but hey, when all you’re doing is counting the minutes between now and your next fix, that one girl is a line a mile long. And in my defense, this girl was taking her sweet time. IE: wasting time I could be spending choking down some public school quality liquid god. But in her defense [guilt complex], I think she was just taken aback when she realized our semi-functional coffee machine, which had more dust in it than coffee grounds, didn’t offer the entire Starbucks menu. That, or karma was teaching me to have patience—it’s a tossup. I tapped my foot relentlessly on the cafeteria floor. As per usual, some viscous something had been spilled and my duct tape covered converse made a thoroughly irritating sound as they dragged themselves on and off the sticky mess. In the end, by some miracle, a decision was made. A near orgasmic shiver of anticipation tickled across me and an inadvertent smile pulled at my lips as she pressed the mocha button.

And yet, my elation was rapidly flattened. You see, there was no small paper cup falling from the right, much less a puddle of glorious sludge dripping into it. The coffee machine was broken. I’m not sure if what followed was a moment of silence for the death of my beloved friend, or simply a gapping pause of horror and dismay; but in either event, I quickly snapped to (after all, I’d already had at least seven cups of coffee by then). And what did I do? Did I begrudgingly move on to the student store, where I could by equally shitty and slightly more overpriced coffee? Hardly. Upon hearing the girl lamenting that she had lost her 75 cents, a wave of guilt flowed over me and I promptly handed her the dollar I was planning to use on my own cup. It was my only dollar. And she took it.

Why did I feel guilty? After all, was this my fault? Perhaps not at first glance. But give me a minute and I’m sure my twisted little debate mind will come up with something. Perhaps my obnoxious tapping caused her to input her change at an angle, thus breaking the machine. Or perhaps if I had not been running late from the parking lot I would have been first in line and would have saved her the loss. Clearly it should have been my dollar lost, not hers. After all, as a frequenter of this machine I am jaded to such losses. She, on the other hand, is perhaps new to this world of broken machines and shattered caffeine dreams. In this way, such an experience could drive her away from the machine forever, causing her to resort to extortive Starbucks expenses. And of course we all know that Starbucks coffee beans are this year’s flavor of third world blood crops. So really, my actions are perpetuating the poverty and ill health of small child laborers in Ethiopia in addition to depriving this kind girl ahead of me her well deserved beverage. As you can see, I have a problem.

Everyone is out. They are painting the town as it were. I, however, chose to stay in. For some reason I believed that being alone in a room staked with beds would somehow be conducive to blog writing. It was a bit on the hot side. No problem. Let’s turn on the fan shall we? Oh. Hm. Looks like the fan doesn’t work. Bummer. No worries though. That’s why we have windows. I propped open the window with the questionably stained curtains. And sat down before my keyboard. I looked briefly at the curtains once again. I wondered what stories those stains might tell, and whether or not they were stories I would want to hear. After all, this is a dorm room. I was suddenly compelled to wash my hands. Once again I sat down before my keyboard. The bitter sweet of Turkish tea still clung to the edges of my lips and the smell of the Bazaar begged of entries to be written. I mulled over my day in my mind. I need to find that image. I had accidentally stepped on a live fish on the bridge while walking home; that seemed like a promising scene. Playing it back in my mind, it seemed a bit more of a gag real than an image, complete with overly dramatic facial expressions, slow motion slippage, and sound effects that may or may not have actually existed. My mind’s eye wandered towards the fish itself. A wave of guilt poured over me while I watched the personified memory fish scream with pain as its miniature organs ruptured and homogenized beneath my girth. My gruesome recollection was cut short, however, by another specimen of Turkish wildlife: the mosquito.

And so here I am, watching as the little bitch needles her way into my arm and begins sipping on my life juice. Her stomach is actually getting bloated and red. That’s my blood. I see my blood in her fucking stomach. First instinct. KILL the bug. It’s a bitch squish bitch world after all, right? Besides, mosquitoes can kill. Granted, the odds of this specific mosquito having malaria IS slim. But hey, you never know. And I didn’t buy the international health insurance. So if I get some Turkish bug flu I could be a gonner. But just as quickly as my vindictive and murderous thoughts rise up, they are quickly squelched as my guilt complex raised its nagging voice. After all what right do I have to hurt this innocent creature? Let’s be honest here, I’ve got some blood to spare. And it’s not her fault that evolution has caused her to inject a dose of itching poison with each bite. Killing this bug would just be…Wrong. Yes she is eating me, but as a creature of higher consciousness is it not my responsibility to take the ethical highroad? Besides, these bites are probably just karma for stepping on that fish. The poor fish. I feel guilty enough over that whole sea side fiasco, the last thing I need is a bug induced guilt panic. Such a state would surely be counterproductive to blogging. Not that these fresh wounds, of which I now count 8, are particularly good for focusing. But hey, who knows, maybe it’ll be something I can blog about. For now I’ll just watch her, waving her away whenever she comes in for…ninths. But then am I starving her? I couldn’t do that…after all…