Girl, You So Well Spoken!

We are all looking for a whole lot of love. 

Yesterday, we moved one step closer to letting people define what that means for themselves. 

Washington D.C., congratulations.

 

 

So apparently, a federal advisory panel voted yesterday to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin because of their effects on the liver and reduce the amount of acetaminophen found in over-the-counter Tylenol...

How the hell are we supposed to self-medicate now?! According to a New York Times article:

The two drugs combine a narcotic with acetaminophen, the ingredient found in popular over-the-counter products like Tylenol and Excedrin. High doses of acetaminophen are a leading cause of liver damage, and the panel noted that patients who take Percocet and Vicodin for long periods often need higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect.

Acetaminophen is combined with different narcotics in at least seven other prescription drugs, and all of these combination pills will be banned if the Food and Drug Administration heeds the advice of its experts. Vicodin and its generic equivalents alone are prescribed more than 100 million times a year in the United States...

While the medicine is effective in treating headaches and reducing fevers, even recommended doses can cause liver damage in some people. And more than 400 people die and 42,000 are hospitalized every year in the United States from overdoses.

In hopes of reducing some of these accidents, the committee voted 24 to 13 to recommend that the F.D.A. reduce the highest allowed dose of acetaminophen in over-the-counter pills like Tylenol to 325 milligrams, from 500. And members voted 21 to 16 to reduce the maximum daily dosage to less than 4,000 milligrams.

What is the FDA thinking?! Don't they know that there are people out there in genuine pain?? They are about to put half of middle America's housewives in rehab. This is America for chrissake! I reserve my right to beat the sh!t outta my liver just so I can forget the woes of a dead-end marriage and bad@ss kids!! This sh!t is gonna be worse than prohibition. Brace yourselves, y'all! There's about to be a ton of slurry-worded protesting. Heads will roll.

While this is the coolest street art I've seen in some time, it's still a little macabre, don't you think? I wouldn't want to be one of the people who wakes up every day to look at what appears to be a smoldering Hell outside of my door!

"This giant fissure was created in the German town of Geldern to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a street art competition. It took a team of artists working 12 hours a day, five days to complete"

via Broccoli City via Jet Point

And I spotted the following announcement on Broccoli City:

New iPhone Launch Date: July 17th

Specs:

• 32GB and 16GB storage (up from the current 16GB and 8GB models)
  
• $199 and $299 price points to be maintained
  
• 3.2-megapixel camera (up from the current 2-megapixel camera)
  
• Video-recording and editing capabilities
  
• Ability to send a picture & video via MMS
  
• Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
  
• OLED screen
  
• 1.5 times the battery life of the current models
  
• Double the RAM and processing power
  
• Built-in FM transmitter
  
• Apple logo on back will glow
  
• Rubber-tread backing
  
• Sleeker design
  
• Built-in compass
  
• The camera, GPS, compass and Google map combined will identify photo and inform
• Turn-by-turn directions

I. Can't. Wait.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

We all have dreams. When you're a kid, the possibilities are endless. They tell you that you can be anything that you put your mind to. Then you get a little older, and you are informed that "anything" has limitations. Reality is a lot more confining than that world in which our dreams and hopes live. Most of us put our more elusive dreams on a shelf in a little glass jar, somewhere where it is safe and out of reach, but still, in a see-through container that we may glance upwards and still see it when we are feeling hopeful or optimistic. Eventually, the glass dusts over. We grow up. We live in little boxes. We do the "smart" thing...

And we are left with our "what ifs".

Life is a series of crossroads. With every decision we can go down one path or another. We choose our paths and life shifts and transforms accordingly. We become different people than we may have been had we chosen an alternative. And one day, when we are older and wiser and our years are coming to an end, we have to live with the collective consequences of the choices that we once made. We will always ask ourselves, "what if?". What if we had gone down a different path as opposed to the one we chose? What if we had loved differently? What if we had lived differently? What if we had been differently?

About a month and a half ago, I met someone who offered me the opportunity of a lifetime. You can still, he said, walk down another path. I decided, in that moment, that I don't want to be asking myself "what if?" years from now.

While I have no idea where this new path may lead, while I'm afraid of the consequences of the life I'm choosing to begin to pursue, I can live with knowing that I didn't let my dreams die. That I flew with two healthy wings and landed wherever it is that I shall land.

So I smashed that little glass jar on my shelf. I resigned from my job. And I'm trekking across the country to the left coast, dream in hand, with all the hope of a child.