A Healthy Surplus of Funk

Days Walking - 23

I gotta tell you, I had to ask Church what day it was. "How many days is it now?" Every day seems very much the same. I think TV used to tell me what day it was. "Oh, it's Sunday, time for Carnivale." That kind of thing. No TV = No sense of time.

There is a serious odor issue, my friends.
At the risk of turning off every reader in a big way, I reek.

I cannot remember the last time I bathed. Some serious funk is going on here. It's not my fault, you understand. I sponge off twice daily with wet-nap-like towels, but that does not take the place of a good immersion, and soapy scrubbing. Just wanted to let you know that the odor has become quite palpable. When you can smell yourself this strongly, and be this disgusted, you really feel for the guy walking beside you, and the girl sheltering with you. Oh don't get me wrong, they reek too.

Sexy, I know.

Like, if someone who smelled as bad as I do entered a Starbucks, every person inside would cry out in pain, politeness be damned, and either throw me out on my ass (with tongs or a pole) or evacuate the place within three seconds. Evacuation would allow me to help myself to all the Chantico and Carrot Cake Bars I could gorge upon. Mmmn, Gorge.

Regardless of my dreams of gorging, I've pretty much adapted to the whole rationing thing. It's nice that the pack is getting lighter as I go - as the food is munched away. I think we did a decent job of calculating how much we'd need, and adding in a healthy surplus in case of emergencies / delays. Rationing is a difficult thing to accomplish while dwelling in civilization, and I do believe that I've lost at least five pounds. More like eight. Hmn. I'd like to weigh myself and see. It might be a while before I can do that.

Dammit, I went into yesterday's blog last night for a sec, just to check it out, and Marina had made all kinds of mistakes, and even left some stuff out. I guess that's the price I pay for being lazy. I made some edits. I'm actually so very fortunate to have Marina helping Dad keep an eye out for me, and that there's not an excess of work at his office right now. I'm lucky! I appreciate you, Marina! I could not do all this without your help. Without a base of logistics, a voyage like this one would be 'unpossible'.

Trivia Answered! Virtual High Five for Kato! Whack!

Robin! Weeks ago it seems, I told you I'd detail our next Serious Discussion.

So we had a Serious Discussion yesterday, as sometimes happens when we run out of science fiction shows that I don't watch to ramble about.

Though I guess this counts as sci-fi too: What will be taboo in 100 years?

Now, I'm not saying this is all that highbrow. But it's as Serious as we get.

But first: I can't imagine that anyone who is easily offended reads my blog regularly - but if you are and this is your first visit to Litany Land, I hope that my next mumblings do not raise your ire, result in holy wars, etc.

Presently, many things are acceptable in our culture that were not in 1905. Inter-racial marriage, integrated schools, women voting, women in high public office, openly homosexual behavior (when there are sitcoms about it, I'm counting it as acceptable), abortion rights, wearing jeans to church, public displays of affection, casual clothing in elementary schools, pears and plums side by side in the market, the list is very long.

But when you look ahead, there are far fewer things left as taboo or prohibited. Now, obviously there are many many injustices and atrocities in the world, and there will always be. We were just discussing social taboo's and rights.

Same-sex marriage will likely be widely accepted by 2105. A female president will likely have held office (and done a wonderful job). Public nudity could be mainstream. Cloning. The use of stem cells in treating illness. Porn will be more allowable (pretty allowable now...)

So what won't be acceptable?
What is likely to never be acceptable?

Sex with a minor, obviously will never be legal.
But Adrian brought up a weird, freaky point - What happens when rejuvenation techniques progress to the point where doctors can put an old person's brain into a new, cloned body? And what if that new, cloned body is a child's body? If accelerated aging of the clone would shorten its lifespan, so you spend 10-15 years out of every 100 in a cloned child body? Or if you chose to spend your long long life in a special body that was forever 5 or 10 years old. So is a 187 year old man in a 5 year old cloned body allowed to have sex? And have the act caught on a digital camcorder and distributed? Um. NO! Weird thought though.

Incest will never be legal.
But then Church brought up a weird point of her own, isn't incest wrong more because of unfortunate, malformed offspring than for the act itself? We're talking Bro & Sis here, not Parent and Child. And with modern (and futuristic) fertility abeyance and gene screening and etc, is the act less evil? Two consenting adults, no chance of mutant children? Evil? I don't know if that's evil, but it's definitely very icky. I have an older brother, but I would never consider sex with him. No no eeew no.

Murder will never be legal.
But then I said, what if medical technology would progress to the point where any damage, brain, spine, blood, etc could be repaired, and a person resuscitated? So someone shoots you in the back five times, and the EMT shows up, plugs you into the regeneration unit, and after a few minutes you sit up. You blink and look around, and there's your husband, ashamed of what he did. The police are standing by. "Do you want to press charges?" They ask. "No, it was my fault. I slept with every last one of his coworkers. Twice." So murder might never be legal, but it would not mean the death penalty or life in prison. More like a really harsh assault charge. Obviously if you throw someone into a pit of lava, they're gonna die and stay dead. But by this time, shouldn't there be forcefields over all the lavapits? I mean damn.

Suicide will never be legal.
Yeah. But really, 'Attempted Suicide' is illegal. If you succeed, you get away with it. Until the afterlife. If your religion teaches you so. But if people in the future cannot be murdered, it would also be very very hard to kill yourself. You'd wake up in a hospital, and they would treat your depression, obsession, etc.

Obviously we could have gone on and on, almost any weird taboo or crime can be solved with enough 'magical' technology.

We were also rambling about movies, and Anneli was going on about how great Mystic River was. I've never seen Mystic River, but the commercials killed any desire I had to see it. That one phrase "...My owoon daawtah, an' I can't even cry feh huur." repeated ad nauseum (hee hee advertising nausea) just turned me off. Besides, Sean Penn gets on my nerves. And Tim Robbins too. I used to love Tim Robbins, but his choices lately, hmmm.

I think my posts are getting longer, now that my fatigued, lazy ass is not typing them myself... Bless you, Marina!

Litany Webb, signing off

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