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I know it's late, I know you're weary
On Thursday evening I started reading Fast Food Nation. Yesterday afternoon I finished it. Red would have wanted it that way.
What interests me most about the phenomenon surrounding this book is how SO much press and talk was about the food -- "I'll never eat at McDonald's again or step inside without feeling nauseous!", is a common reaction -- but the book is only 5% about the food. The majority of the book is about people: workers getting mistreated and underpaid, ranchers being run out of business, communities being changed by fast food culture, slaughterhouse conditions (for people working there not the animals themselves), union busting, false advertising, lack of health inspections, globalization. Even within the book, there's a reference to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and how Upton wanted to hit people in the heart by talking about how miserable it is for slaughterhouse workers but instead he hit people in the stomach and the only thing that changed was food inspection, but not workplace inspection. Same thing happened with this book instead -- people were so preoccupied with learning that fries used to be made in beef fat and the chicken mcnuggets were flavored in beef fat (until very recently) that they ignore the pages and pages about actual people's lives.
On a completely different matter, I've been feeling more like I'm not acting my age and I'm not really being much of an adult in my behavior. I think I'm ready to be an adult. I don't mean that I'm somehow not measuring up to what other people expect me to behave and think and act and be; it's more that I'm not matching the image I have in my head of what sort of maturing, self-actualizing person I hoped to become. I'm still stuck in the "one day" mentality, as if it's a goal not yet attainable. Granted, these fantasies also usually include my dream job and financial responsibility (and a comfortable financial bracket), but somehow I think that my mentality should probably come first before I hope to attain any of these things.
The next book I'm reading? Zen 24/7.
What interests me most about the phenomenon surrounding this book is how SO much press and talk was about the food -- "I'll never eat at McDonald's again or step inside without feeling nauseous!", is a common reaction -- but the book is only 5% about the food. The majority of the book is about people: workers getting mistreated and underpaid, ranchers being run out of business, communities being changed by fast food culture, slaughterhouse conditions (for people working there not the animals themselves), union busting, false advertising, lack of health inspections, globalization. Even within the book, there's a reference to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and how Upton wanted to hit people in the heart by talking about how miserable it is for slaughterhouse workers but instead he hit people in the stomach and the only thing that changed was food inspection, but not workplace inspection. Same thing happened with this book instead -- people were so preoccupied with learning that fries used to be made in beef fat and the chicken mcnuggets were flavored in beef fat (until very recently) that they ignore the pages and pages about actual people's lives.
On a completely different matter, I've been feeling more like I'm not acting my age and I'm not really being much of an adult in my behavior. I think I'm ready to be an adult. I don't mean that I'm somehow not measuring up to what other people expect me to behave and think and act and be; it's more that I'm not matching the image I have in my head of what sort of maturing, self-actualizing person I hoped to become. I'm still stuck in the "one day" mentality, as if it's a goal not yet attainable. Granted, these fantasies also usually include my dream job and financial responsibility (and a comfortable financial bracket), but somehow I think that my mentality should probably come first before I hope to attain any of these things.
The next book I'm reading? Zen 24/7.
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Now I'm curious.. what were the sentences..?
Raymond! Take the dog out! Get a haircut and get a real job! or... Damn you.. you are too attractive and I cannot resist you! There are so many possibilities.
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part of socialization?
Until recently I didn't realise the conditions of the farmers who gathered the ingredients for taco bell. And still, I shop there, with relative guilt.
It's a quandry really, the level of depravity we will tolerate.
Oh, and Mcde's still uses a small amount of beef fat to flavor their fries.
Re: part of socialization?
I remember learning awhile back that the ingredient "natural flavors" is sometimes bizarre byproducts like beef blood.
Oh, and I thought of you tonight when I watched Surreal Life and saw Corey Feldman make an ass of himself by saying he's moralistically a vegetarian but had leather shoes (and later a leather jacket!). I like when he said 'oh, it's a gift' and Gabrielle said 'okay, I'll give you a steak.'
Re: part of socialization?
That bit made me foam at the mouth.
McDees did change their fry recipe for india (vastly vegetarian) and britian(much better about labeling things vegetarian friendly) which seems weird because you'd think it cheaper to have one uniform recipe.
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mostly because i'm about to be 21 in a couple weeks
and it feels like this crazy jump into the world of
being a young adult, and i don't know what that's about
but you know one thing i've learned from continually
being around older people is that everyone comes upon that
threshold we call adult at incredibly different times and
for incredibly different reasons.
it's kinda strange that our financial status is supposed
to dictate our age-based status. like we're not adults until
we have attained some certain thing or whatever
anyway...i think i meant to say that its more fun when we
get to define this for ourselves.
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i think what's strange about my sudden dissatisfaction with my own attitude and behavior (beyond just being an adult or whatever) is that i'm not feeling down on myself for not matching up with other people my age or whatever. it's truly about not matching what I want for myself, or what I wantED for myself. maybe i do or don't still want it, but i guess i need to figure that out.
the easier part about not matching your own idea is that it's generally easier to change -- at least for me. it's less shame-based and more pride-based.
(and you get a cookie for being the only person to comment on this subject of the post.)
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what sorts of things did you want for yourself?
i have a sort of weird mix of still being day to day, and also making larger scale 2 year plans. but i don't at all have any "by this age i'd like to be at this place" goals, which seems a little strange to me at the moment.
the only thing i do have that about is kids. i know that i'd like to be in a place to support and raise kids before i'm 30.
p.s. i like you!
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what's strange about this, is i have very few hang ups about age. i'm not worried in anticipation about turning 30 or 40 or 50 or whatever. i think in some ways those, this is more about my physical body, and worried that the longer it spends as "female", the harder the physical transition would be to complete.
but that's not really what i was thinking about when i wrote this (and what i'm still thinking about). this is almost more about my own general behavior on a microcosm level. not that i'm thinking i should be more humorless and boring and adultish, it's just....sometimes i feel i respond to things in a very removed, joking or 'childish' way. i don't mean childish as some sort of perjorative for immature. i mean childish as in "selfish and non-owning". if that makes sense.
i guess i'm still trying to articulate everything.
p.s. i like you too!!