day one hundred and eleven

my first magazines finally showed up!

me and my... bitches. sorry...
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since this last week's been a little slow list-wise i figured i should tackle another writing prompt. as i get further and further into this project i'm realizing that i'm much more concerned about getting all these prompts done, watching all those movies, reading all those books, and learning to play all those songs, than i am about all the travel-related goals. so i'm going to strive to dedicate any downtime i have (should i find it) to these more labor-intensive activities. in the meantime, it is in my nearish future to check out roller derby, take a trip with my mom, take a spa day, and ride a segway. sweeeeeet.

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writing prompt two hundred and sixty-three: give eight good reasons it is ok for men to lie:

after some deliberation i've decided that i'm not a fan of this prompt. if i'm being asked when it's ok for men to lie - instead of when it's ok for individuals to lie - then isn't what we're really getting at here, when do women want to be lied to? if i wanted to make a list of instances when it's ok for men to lie in the workplace, for example, it shouldn't be a different list than one of when women can lie in the workplace. so in order for this question to make sense, i have to talk about men lying in relation to women... right? the whole notion of this prompt irks me, plain and simple, so i picked another one at random.

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writing prompt two hundred and twenty-eight: think about a thing you feel should not have been invented:

the very first thing that comes to my mind is portable dvd players - more specifically, the kind that some parents have installed in the roofs of their vans and suv's. so many defining moments in parent-child relationships seem to happen in cars. at least they did for me. if i'm doing the math right, before i hit junior high i must've been spending close to an hour every day in the car with one of my parents. during a lot of that time we were singing along to the radio or listening to morning talk shows while we ran errands, which certainly has its own inherent value, but some of that time was also filled with important conversations. sometimes i got in trouble at school and would be terrified to face the long, lecture-filled ride home; other times we shared stories about my crazy friends, and the commute flew by. and i still remember (which is rare for me) actually having a birds-and-bees conversation that continued on in my mom's idling mazda long after we'd pulled into the garage. the point is, i knew my parents cared. they asked questions, they probed, and they got involved, whether i liked it or not.

quality car time seems important to building other kinds of relationships too - with siblings, friends, and the school, camp, or neighborhood kids you didn't really know well enough yet to be in a car with but with whom you still had to make awkward conversation. as a child i'm sure i would've chosen to put on my favorite movie every time we hit the road, but as an adult i'm glad i never had that option.

i think it gives parents an all-too-easy out - whether it's a quick fix for their kid who just won't behave unless he's glued to the television, or if it's to avoid taking sincere interest in what happened at school that day because they're too stressed out for conversation. i understand the pressures put on parents these days - particularly on those who work full time jobs as well - and i know i personally enjoy nothing more than collapsing into my car after a long day and spacing out on the drive home. but i imagine that commute is like primetime for some solid kid-raising. where else can you ensure that you have their undivided attention? seriously, they can't escape. child locks come standard now.

i didn't realize i had such strong feelings about this, and maybe that will change when i'm a parent and have the perspective of someone other than a single girl in her mid-twenties with no real responsibility that could compare to that of raising a child. but for now, i'm worried about what our dependence on the ever-present tv screen is doing to our relationships. and to our eyeballs.