Letter of Intent to Save the E.S.A

Dear Red States:
 We're ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we've decided we're leaving: "Legitimate rape." is almost reason enough!
We in New York intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A).

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.

You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Please be aware that the E.S.A. will be pro choice and anti war and we're going to want all our citizens back from Afghanistan at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We wish you success in Afghanistan, and possibly Iran as well, but we're not willing to spend our resources in these sorts of pursuits.

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the U niversity of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

We're taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Citizens of the Enlightened States of America

"Never complain. Never explain." - Katherine Hepburn

Recently I have been thinking a lot about how one progresses from the lower status in this business to the upper crusty part.  You know, how do people get from community theater in the middle of Nowheres-ville and then they're in an Oscar-worthy film that made millions in the box office?  Thank God that I've gotten so many connections this year on at least the semi-professional level or full-time actors in the area that can give me some advice.  Yes, I will admit it can be discouraging when you have no SAG waivers and no clue how to get Equity points in this small town, but it seems almost useless to go to the big city without at least a few of each so you don't look like you don't know what you're doing on paper in a place where noone's ever heard of you.  I am slowly trudging up the hill to at least get a foothold around this town, and I'm not stopping until I can get into some sort of union.  Union means India Pearl will be on the road to the big city, and with a lot of work experience to boot so I won't be some young dreamer without any training who thinks they're going to be rich if they simply move to Hollywood.  I won't move right now, because I don't think God quite has me on that path yet.  He's given me plenty of opportunity here and I'm not starving so why not stay where I'm happy at least until I start to look older than 16 in front of a camera.

When I tell strangers or even family members that I'm an actress, (and a full-time working actress who doesn't do much else) they seem surprised.  There's this look they give you that's sort of mixed up between pity, scoff, and awe.  It's as though they think they know why they should "feel bad" for you and then they feel obligated to remind you that it's a hard field and all that repeated bullcrap, but they don't want to be rude so they say in a nicer way, "oh, that must be tough! Lot of rejection in that field..." like they're saying anything that's news to you.  Sometimes they'll try to think of some second-cousin's-daughter-in-law that's an actress in New York and name some play they were in that you've never heard of, maybe for comfort that they know someone who sort of made it?  Although I suppose it's very common to do that in a conversation to name someone else who has the same line of work and the person you're conversing with.  But really the only response to that bit of small talk two cents is, "Oooo0o0o0o, ok... yeah that's cool." and hope you both think of something else to add before there's a dead silence.  

The other thing I hate is when I say to them I'm an actor and they interrupt me with an I know more than you do grin and they say, "You mean actress?" NO I don't mean actress, this is 2012 and I will use whichever feminine or masculine noun I prefer you sexist old fashioned numbskull because I'm an artist and I would obviously know more about what I'm calling myself in my own field thank you very much.  Or here's the question I can't stand getting, "Are you a good actress?"  What the heck am I supposed to say to that?!  I mean I'm getting work, and constant steady work at that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm soon to be up for a Tony.  Maybe I should ask people that in the future, because they ask me that abut my music too I always get someone who wonders if I can actually play guitar or sing, as if I'm a hack with a Youtube channel and pretends like most people and they can't wait to oust me to the rest of the world as such.  I'll look at them and say, "Are you a good dentist? I've heard filling are really tough to do, patients are real hard to come by." or "Are you good at putting out fires, 'cause I know a lot of firemen who just don't know how to hose it down.  You sure you're not just rescuing cats out of trees?"

I get it, people don't know they're being rude.  It's also very easy to get defensive over your abilities and work ethic as an artist, because your work is your whole life.  So I decided to look up some quotes from other female actors that I really look up to due to their impact on Hollywood, and their sheer talent.  Everybody needs some sort of inspiration, and when you're feeling like the world is just a tough place and work is hard to come by, it's good to know that these women often felt the same.

There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans. - Greta Garbo 

A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
Marilyn Monroe  

Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.
Katharine Hepburn  

I don't think the money people in Hollywood have ever thought I was normal, but I am dedicated to my work and that's what counts.
Angelina Jolie

If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is. - Greta Garbo

 When I started out, I didn't have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.
Katharine Hepburn

Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.
Marilyn Monroe 

 

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.
Katharine Hepburn

 

If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart.
Angelina Jolie

 

Yeah sure they're not all a hundred percent understandable if you don't do what I do, or if you don't watch their movies and feel like you have some sort of secret connection to them when you read anything they say that's just plain real and not written down in a script.  But I like them. And the little sense that they give me still motivates me to keep at it.  Any time I think about what my life could be like if I gave up, my happiness would count more in the end.  And that's what truly matters.

the summer of the fireflies

When I was 16 years old, my friends and I had what I hope all of us would call the best summer of our lives. Some of my memories may actually consist of two summers, the one after 9th grade, and the one after 10th grade, but the latter of which (aside from a few exceptional stories from the year before) was really the best summer.

Do you remember when summer really meant no responsibilities?  As soon as that last bell rang through the school halls, it felt like we were freed forever from the wooden rulers of tyranny and number 2 pencils.  The best part was, you weren't alone on that day.  Everyone was celebrating with you and we'd pile onto the bus or in someone's car if one of our friends was a junior and was old enough to drive, and we'd be off into the unknown.  Maybe we'd go to 711 and celebrate with taquitos and the latest flavor slurpee.  Or, perhaps we would take a walk down to the ice cream barn and rent a movie from Linda's Video, to later stock up on junkfood and prepare for a pig pile of a sleepover at someone's house.

In any case, sometime over the course of the next couple of days there would be a campfire in my backyard on Brierly Pond.  We would all bring our notebooks and class papers, tests and homework projects, just so we could throw them into the fire pit and say goodbye to another year at Millbury Memorial.  I remember throwing in the summer reading list and watching that burn simply for good measure.  "That's what SparkNotes are for," one of us would pipe in.  Then we'd proceed to stay up until we heard birds chirping or someone's Mom called to make sure if there was a campout or they were coming home before the sun came up.

Beach days were savored and plotted, like a fantastic getaway of sand, sun and ocean water.  We were lucky that you could drive about an hour in any form of Eastern direction and hit the shore.  It practically made your whole week to get one day on a kingdom of relaxation, toe wiggling, and sun bathing.  The ocean water was a sweet relief and a challenge of sorts, it was much tougher to do handstands with waves hitting your legs than in a still backyard pool.  Fried food, ice cream or even pizza was always around some corner, right next door to a shop of tourist junk and funny trinkets.  You wanted to stay in this funland forever... or at least until your skin started to bake.

My best friend Travis and I would sneak out on what seemed to be a regular basis.  We owned the streets of Millbury, meeting fellow sneakouters at the park or wandering around downtown hoping someone's dad (also a cop) didn't pull over and threaten to tell our parents if we didn't turn around and go home.  That actually happened often when we would sit in the "nest" (playhouse) of Elmwood st Park, but we would disperse and return later only to hop on the swings and smoke peach flavored cigars that Shaun bought for us.  The first time I saw a group of kids doing drugs (and said no) was at Woolie World, or Washington st Park as it was also known.

Travis and I  met our carnival working friend when we snuck into the Millbury 4th of July Carnival before it opened.  We spent three sleepless nights talking and getting to know him at our homes, giving him a bed instead of that tent he was inhabiting on his summer travels.  (if you're wondering, we did in fact get in trouble for that, our moms still tell us every summer to this day that we're not allowed to adopt any more Carnies...)

When I had campfires and friends over, everyone came.  There were smores, chips, sodas, sometimes a flavored cigar getting passed around as though we were trying to be adults and had no idea what that really entailed.  There would be the occasional nighttime canoe ride with a flashlight and giggling screams before the frantic paddle back to the group and the safety of the campfire.  There was the time of Crazy Naked Man terrorizing the neighborhood, and Millbury Police disrupting our fun but enhancing it at the same time, while they hunted down the serial naked runner. (That's a longer story saved for a later post, or a book perhaps).


Then there were fireflies.  They were everywhere that summer, all over the yard and down the street when we took walks.  They seemed to follow us on canoe rides and light up our paddle strokes, and then greet us upon our return.  Almost every laughter and tear drop of nighttime memories happened next to one of those glowing magical lightning bugs.  I still get a little sad whenever I see one today.  I dip into a nostalgic stupor, wondering if there's an old friend or my first love somewhere who still thinks of the same memories that I do when they catch a glimpse of those dancing blinking insects.

The days were long and lazy, sometimes rainy, but there was never any pressure of work, bills, obligations, schedules... Sometimes I compare that summer to what can only be described as a giant sigh of relief.  When there were quite literally no worries in my life, and my only intent was to have as much fun as I possibly could.  I ponder over those days whenever another summer comes along, wondering if I'll ever feel that way again.  Waking up was easy and going to bed was a surrender after fighting sleep due to too much fun and ease of life.  I wonder if it's my own head that I can't get out of, or there was something truly different about that year.

Maybe I just need a vacation.  I think all of the rush and change of the past few months has made me feel like I had no breathing room.  Still, will I ever feel that sigh of relief ever again?  Maybe I should just become a writer and forget about the status quo.  If only it were that easy anymore.  Maybe our parents were right, that those lazy days really do become somewhat wasted, and we will truly never get them back.  Did I already leave behind the best days of my life?  No, I can't say.  I'm still finding the answer to that.  But how to get rid of the panic of wasting time?  Most of it's in your head when it comes to reality.

One Year Anniversary... of a rather unfortunate yet fortunate event

One year ago and one day, 4th of July 2011, I was working at a shitty sports bar in Somerville when I got fired.  I worked a double that day with no air conditioning because the manager didn't like to close the front windows, and had a strange feeling that some of the girls I worked with had been sniggering behind my back, with the exception of one who seemed sad whenever she looked at me.  When I asked her what was wrong she only smiled and said nothing while shaking her head.  I later found out that the other girls didn't like me for various reasons, and our manager thought it was easier to get rid of me without giving a reason, than to solve the issue of cattiness.  When it happened I felt betrayed, tricked, and gunned down.  I immediately went down the the Charles River to see a friend, buy a 6 dollar ice cream cone and drown my sorrows on the riverbank underneath the fireworks.

What I didn't realize until this year, is that being fired from that restaurant was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me after graduating from college.

If I had stayed at the restaurant, I would hardly have had any weeknights free, and I would not have gotten the nannying job I obtained about a month later.  Having a day job was a new thing to me, and because of that schedule I was able to turn my whole schedule around in order to fit the night life of Boston comedy and theater.
The following list of events occurred because I got fired from a job last year:
1. I started going to open mics between 1 and 3 nights per week, thereby putting in the time and making friends that I am still friends with some girls who make me laugh and always have my back
2. My job allowed for me to take off if I needed to go to an audition at Boston Casting, leading to my very first role in an Indie film
3. I met Will, which I guess could have happened if I had kept doing comedy but our schedules do mesh well together considering that I work days and we both like to do the same things at night
4. I took an acting class at Company One on Tuesdays because I always had evenings free
5. To go along with that, I started auditioning between 1 and 4 nights per week, and on nights I wasn't auditioning, I was doing comedy
6. Every part I got this year can only be attributed to the free evenings and work flexibility Tania granted me, and the experience I got from doing comedy so much elevated my auditioning skills
7. That leads into how I got my job at the museum
8. I got the part on the murder mystery dinner cruise because of someone I work with at the museum
9. I met more friends at my newest job that I feel will make up for every shitty friend I had in the past
10. My life is ultimately working out in a course of events that I'm sure will only lead to even better opportunities, and I am the happiest I have ever been because of where I am right now.

So as of this 4th of July, I think that my patriotism is not only motivated by my working at a historical museum, but because it is the anniversary of a day where I truly gained Independence and somehow got to where I am at today.  God Bless America, eh?

find someone who makes it worth the fight

Last year while living in a 4-bedroom home in Belchertown during my last semester at UMass, I remember speaking with my roommate Ryan about his girlfriend.  He said, "We've been having a few fights lately, but it's getting to that point in the relationship where it's worth the fight." And I remember thinking, God I don't think I have ever felt that way. 

Too many times I have been in a relationship where a fight made me want to give up on the person.  I thought that it couldn't possibly be worth it if everything wasn't going perfect.  Lately, I have learned from experience that I fully understand that statement. 

The past few weeks have been tough on my stress level, because my job is revolving around building a show from the ground up.  My family is going through some personal things, I've gotten into silly tiffs with friends, my roommate's cat continues to sneeze on me while I'm writing blog posts and crawl on my back and annoy the crud outta me (despite his ridiculous cute factor) and I've been going going going trying to babysit and audition for other shows and rehearse for music gigs and do my best to keep working even outside of work.

Then of course my boyfriend, (who probably knows my moods better than I do somehow) has noticed that I have been extra grumpy lately.  Apparently I have been snapping, tired, and on edge for about two weeks now.  I literally had no idea that this was noticeable to anyone aside from myself, as I haven't been sleeping very well at all.  I stay up nights trying to rehearse lines with myself and I dream about work friends or have nightmares about my costume ripping or getting ruined, or losing lines in front of tourists.  This can't be good for my moods with coworkers, and it can't be good for my jaw that takes all the stress of my nightly teeth grinding routines.

So my wonderful boyfriend decided that this week he was going to surprise me with a fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant in a fancy hotel.  No, we didn't stay the night at the hotel, but we certainly had what I would consider to be the nicest dinner anyone's ever taken me out to.  I shit you not, the Omni Parker House made the best baked schrod I will probably have in my lifetime.  It tasted like it was dipped in butter churned by the virgin Mary herself, and baked in an oven by Jesus Christ. It was that good.

And what did we do after this wonderful dinner?  Well, we took a romantic walk in the Public Gardens of Boston, that's what.  And we kissed next to a fountain.  And a statue.  And a Hundred Acre Wood Tree.  Basically it was a perfect evening.  An evening that I will never forget.  So what did we do after that wonderful walk together?

We fought.  We had a ridiculous, bickering, nothing fight.  Something completely out of character for us!  And I was so upset by the fact that I thought I had ruined our evening, that I cried. Because I am an absolute stressball, and anything at all could have set me off. 

And what did my wonderful boyfriend do to make it up to me that we had fought over absolutely nothing?  Well, he happened to stumble upon some Red Sox tickets and asked me to go to that the very next day.  Again, did I mention that he's the most wonderful man that a Boston Irish girl could ever hope to date?!?! 

(Did he buy me a hot dog at the ballpark? ... DUH.)

And today, after a wonderful couple of days with my wonderful boyfriend, we had yet another nothing fight. 

But no worries my lovely readers, because for those of you who are unawares, we are truly a good couple and we are very much in love, and I have discovered something about relationships with every fight/bicker/back-and-forth that we have.  I have been told by many people in relationships that every couple fights, and I have been told by those people that you get through it, but I still remember what my old friend told me that really stuck with me about him and his girlfriend (they are still together) that when you two are really in love, it is worth the fight.

Here's how you know it's worth it: when I have fought with past boyfriends, I could feel the tension that would never break.  I knew that if I made my feelings too well known or couldn't keep my mouth shut when they weren't treating me well, it would end us, and that either one or neither of us truly thought that fighting would help us understand each other better.  We didn't have the real love or connection between us that would build a relationship up after an argument, but our differences would only separate and crumble us.

However when I am having any sort of tiff with my boyfriend, whether it be that I was too curt with him in the morning because my mind is elsewhere, or a full blown argument, I think we are fully aware the entire time, that no matter how right we both think that we are, neither one of us want to be fighting.  Not to say that other relationships have included people that always want to fight, but what I mean by that is, we are doing everything in our power during the talk, to get our points across, get past the anger, and continue forward together.

Never before in a relationship have I been in the middle of an argument with someone and thought to myself, they love me and I love them and we're just gonna say our piece and be better off at the end of this.  Granted, it's never fun or a great experience to have it out with the person you love.  But I will say that I do find a sense of knowing how much you love someone when you make it through to the other side and realize you're still just as secure in your relationship as you were before you started.  It's that discovery of knowing you're both on the same page with how committed you are to one another even through disagreements, that builds up your relationship.  The commitment to hearing and understanding your significant other can only help you both in the end and keep up a healthy relationship, even if you're both hating the fact that there is a raised voice or a heated temper.

I'm aware that this is a very long explanation, and I know there are books on this topic and I'm silly for trying to explain what I mean in a very long blog post but very short explanation on an extensive topic.  But I guess I'm saying that even though fighting sucks, right now I think I've got someone who's worth it.  And that's saying something right there.  I'm pretty lucky to know what that means.

you can lead a horse to water but you have to make sure they're not going to drown themselves

I have this friend.  Well, actually I have many friends.  One of the reasons I have many friends could be due to my big smile, my sparkling and cheery demeanor, and my knack for always saying things like, "You go, girl!"  Ok none of what I just said is how I describe myself, or why i think I might have more friends than my boyfriend or family members who by default, have to be my friends.

The real reason why I feel as though I have a variety of friends is because I like to listen to people.  I'm a problem solver, maybe a bit of a control freak, and somehow I can conjure up some bit of advice for pretty much anything.  I'm mostly an expert at telling people the blatant and not always gentle truth if they have a complaint about their dating life.  A conversation could go on for hours about whether this girl's ex-boyfriend was really a douchebag, or maybe she really did nag him too much.  Sometimes people mention they have bigger problems, such as money troubles or their car has been acting up.  Even if I don't have experience to provide "good" advice I usually chime in with at least a, "maybe get a better mechanic?" so I can contribute.  Could be conceived as annoying, now that I'm writing it down to explain myself, but usually I find that my input is appreciated, even if it's not useful.

I find that the concern for others and the willingness to listen is what gets me on someone's good side.  (Let's just clear it up here, folks.  I'm not trying to toot my own horn, there is a whiny and not-so-self-promoting side to this blog post).
There are acquaintances I have from comedy or acting that I have never hung out with outside of that setting, but I probably know more about their personal issues or family troubles than a far more average acquaintance.  I attribute this to my openness and how much I (sometimes annoyingly) dish out to people about how my life is going.  When someone asks me, "How are you?" it's very hard to me to simply say, "good, you?" and leave it at that.  So when I provide an anecdote, so do they, and a small bond forms between us.

One more lead-up to where this is going before I explain my personal dilemma of the week; I have had times where I'm on a bus, or a subway car, or in line at a taco stand and somehow a stranger starts telling me about their life problems.  No idea what it is about me, maybe it's just that my face looks non-judgmental, maybe I'm too nice and too good of a listener, maybe God is telling them that I can listen to their problems without running away screaming, but I've had more women tell me about their drug-addict ex husbands abuse or their alcoholic family members' financial troubles than a family counselor at a rehab institute... and I can't really figure out why except that I always finish the conversation with, "I'm sorry, I'll pray for you" and they really seem to love me for that in some way.

ANYWAY this week seems to be troubling for me because I'm at a loss.  Two instances where I'm at a personal loss for how to react to a friend and what my role is in their life when they come to me with an unsolvable-by-me issue.

 So I have this friend, and her family member is very sick.  I don't know how to comfort her, and I'm not sure what to say except that I'm sorry for her being worried.  Maybe we all go through that one, where a friend is suffering through a family dilemma and we're just supposed to pat them on the back and have a drink with them while they get through it.  See, I'm not that kind of person!
I feel like if nothing I can do or say will make them feel better, then I'm simply useless and I should just cut out my tongue and sacrifice it to the wellness gods and maybe THAT will somehow make everything better in the balance of sickness versus health in my friend's life... how do other people simply "be there" for their friends? Really, I feel like an awkward useless dumby, like there was a part of the friendship handbook that I missed when I played hookie to sleep in one day.

So then I have this other friend that has been going through a rough patch... well maybe they've always been in a rough patch, but they have had their ups and downs and right now they are most certainly down.  I have offered so much advice, so many phone calls, so many nights agonizing over what could possibly be the root of the problems, what causes their anxiety, whether it's job related or body related or just plain life related, and now I'm at a loss.

I can tell a starving person sixteen different ways to eat their dinner and pick up a knife and fork and put it in their hands, but they're going to stay starving if they don't put a fork with food on it, into their mouth, chew, then swallow.  I could write them a book, "How to Eat" and make them read it, but if they don't apply anything I'm giving them to their problem, then it won't be solved.  So now I feel even more frustrated because half of what I'm giving them seems like it's going in one ear and out the other!  They throw their hands up and say they're giving up on "eating", they may as well "starve".  How many times can you repeat yourself before you're just as ready to give up?

Of course, that part is somewhat made up and problems are never that simple.  But the point is, there is a certain point where as a friend you just can't do anything anymore because you talked until you were blue in the face, gave all the solutions you could think of, but whoever needs help can really only help themselves or seek out the help for themselves.

Maybe I'm throwing my hands up?  I get frustrated when I feel like I'm not being listened to, like maybe I couldn't get through to the person and I start being mean to them instead of just letting them run their course.  Then comes the mother/controlling part of me where I picture myself actually letting them run the course they're on, and I am terrified they're going to crash into a wall.  Should I just let them crash?


At what point, are friends supposed to stop the hand holding and advice giving?  Where are the lines between bad friend and letting them run free, or great friend and being a control freak?  I guess I need some advice on that one.

the old man is most certainly snoring

Going on week two of rain.  Yes it's finally Spring, but wasn't this supposed to be April weather?  I'm confused!  Why isn't May a little bit sunnier and nicer??

I'm an avid believer in climate change, but it saddens me to see things happening to quickly.  A lot of people are incredibly uneducated on how this whole thing works, and I only say that due to the fact that last year when we had twelve foot Nor'Easters (only somewhat exaggerating) everyone had things on facebook that read:- Yeah right "global warming"
- Come on Al Gore, I thought you had something there!
- More like "global cooling"

and so on, and so forth. What people fail to realize it that climate change to any capacity, that which we have been so forewarned means just that: climate change.  It means that seasons that we knew as kids were a little different than those our parents knew, and the ones our kids will understand are probably going to be even more drastically different.

This year we didn't get a lot of snow in Massachusetts, or most of New England for that matter.  Last year there was so much snow that people in Brooklyn and Queens died in their apartment buildings when ambulances couldn't reach them for emergencies.  I was sad about the non-snow in our area, but grateful we weren't drowning in it I suppose.  There is a downfall about the early Spring we had though, and I'll tell you why that's especially dangerous for the environment.

The warm weather we had in March made the trees bloom much earlier than they should have.  Might not seem like a big deal, but then we had a frost or two.  Ok, so the trees can bounce back, right?  Well that could be the case, but then we have to consider that it was so warm that bugs were already out.  I saw mosquitoes in March!! Which also means that there must have been worms.  Worms and other bugs that birds usually eat.  When those insects are in their prime on a regular ideal sort of Spring, the baby birds are also supposed to be hatching.  When bugs come out too early, there's not enough of them to go around for the birds.  Therefore, the bird population suffers that year and the bug population is well, simply put, gross.
(Not to mention, this year they're projecting HUGE BUGS in the New England area because not enough of them died over the winter when it didn't get quite cold enough to kill some of the population off.)

Notice how it's only in places like Vermont, Michigan, and other states that are known for crazy amounts of snow that seemed to get any this winter?  But while ski season usually extends to almost April in Stowe, VT I ended up wearing shorts in the middle of March the entire time I vacationed with Will.  We were hiking through melting snow and sweating.  Nothing up there had proper time to slowly thaw out so we were going through waterfalls on the rock stairways and slush on the side trails.  Not to say that it wasn't a very beautiful experience, but certainly something I didn't expect or plan for ahead of time.

Now they're telling us that within the next 30 years some of the T lines could be underwater.  Lots of downtown Boston and lower Manhattan will be underwater if the glaciers keep melting at the rate that they have been.  We can't really do much to save the polar bears if they simply don't have a place to live.  Or penguins, or seals, or other ice-cap-dwelling creatures for that matter.  It's pretty sad to think about.  Sometimes I think about how evolution gave us all of these amazing animals, and then they will never get the chance to evolve into something else because we killed them all off.  Imagine what sort of animals would develop in the next thousand years if animals had the time to adjust to weather changes?  I mean let's be honest, we might not even be able to adjust in time, let alone them.

I can't really conclude this post, because there is no conclusion.  We are all told in too many ways about how we shouldn't produce so much waste, and pollution is bad, the environment suffers every time we drive a car or throw out a candy wrapper.  The fact of the matter is, most people just don't care.  Or they're duped into thinking they're doing something better by going to Starbucks instead of Dunkin Donuts when actually, the recycle bin at Starbucks just goes into the trash and they only have those to make us feel better.  (nope, not kidding).

Maybe all we can do is care more?  Or maybe it's too late.  Maybe some of the idiots who didn't think global warming would ever come to fruition will watch their cape house slide into the ocean one day.  We have to give the polar bears some sort of vindication, right?