OH MY GOD

What is going on with infomercials these days? When I was younger, they were all rainbows and butterflies...advertising things like the Flow-Bee (OR if you're familiar with Wayne's World, you'll know the Suck-Cut - "it really sucks!") or Ginsu knives - THE MOST POWERFUL KNIVES IN THE WORLD!!! That's right, they cut through shoes and tires and drain pipes and whatever else you would never think to cut with a knife.
But, there's been a recent uptick in the depression factor of infomercials, preying on the innocent heartstrings of sucker TV audiences everywhere. These are the ones where you have to change the channel IMMEDIATELY, or you get sucked in by the beautiful celebrity endorsing the cause and the sad, sad pictures of ailing children and puppies, accompanied by uber depressing music.
Case in point:
The SPCA - Whenever this 'mercial comes on, I wanna be like F you SPCA...and Sarah McLachlan...and whatshername from Just Shoot Me. Those mange-covered kitties and shaking puppies are too much for me to handle. I was just trying to watch The Office and laugh at silly, impossible human interactions, and then you slap me in the face with a shot of a puppy that is crying...I SWEAR THAT PUPPY IS CRYING! I would normally just chalk this up to my being a huge sucker and animal lover. However, I was in a bike shop the other day with a bunch of tough, edgy, hipster bike messengers watching highlights from the Tour de France. Then - BAM - there's Sarah McLachlan asking you to make the puppies stop crying. The bike dudes turned off the TV, after they decided 'they couldn't take how sad Sarah was making them.'
Now, I'm not a big believer in the power of advertising but as soon as I see the images of these sad, neglected animals, I'm ready to run to the nearest shelter and steal as many puppies and kitties that will fit in my pack. Which reminds me of a much funnier scene about freeing puppies and kitties and bunnies and snakes from Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure.
So, ladies and gentleman, consider yourself warned against today's infomercial scare tactics. If you happen to flip the channels and come across crying puppies, Sarah McLachlan/Sally Struthers/whatshername from Just Shoot Me, children with cleft pallets or some other depressing shit, change the channel immediately. Oh and don't forget to spay and neuter your pets.

Welp, it's official...

That's right...I've begun my adventures in blogging. There's no real purpose here, other than it seems like the appropriate thing to do for a twenty-something...ok fine...mid-to-later-twenty-something...with not enough time on her hands but too many thoughts in her brain. My initial post was going to be about smells and how smell is the sense that is most closely tied to memory. That's why you can walk into an old basement or closet that hasn't been cleaned in years and remember your grandmother who reeked of mothballs.
A few weeks ago, I was running with a BoMF team and having a great run, learning lots about a new member and taking in some scenes from the neighborhood. Then I got slapped in the face by an odor so horrific, so gruesome, so thick with foulness I couldn't even breathe: the DC Summer Garbage Funk. You know, that wet-hot trail of musk left behind after a garbage truck drives past you during the 100+ degree summers in DC. It leaves behind a film so thick you want to strip off all your clothes and go running into the Potomac...
Anyway, this very specific smell hits my olfactory bulb and I'm immediately reminded of a time in my life when I biked across the city each morning before the sun came up, catching the tail wind of many garbage trucks. In addition to the the DC Summer Garbage Funk, my commute was littered with squished rats on the ground and crashes at the White House - less of the Salahi nature, and more like hitting stationary objects and/or people. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of this commute, not to mention the fact that once I got to work, the smells kept flowing and the dead rodents kept appearing.
ANYWAY, smells are boring, but they pepper our lives with memories of times past and remind us of things we may have forgotten (dear old mothbally grandma to say the least). But, the real point of this inaugural blog post is...drum roll please...perspective. As a mid-to-later-twenty-something with a job at a non-profit it DC, there are times when I have perspective and there are times when I lose it. Most often when I lose it, I'm immediately reminded of how good I my life is...when I get stressed by my workload or dwindling bank account or increasing hip width, the worlds collide and bitchslap me back into reality with a few real-life scenarios:

• A close friend's family member was in a car accident, leaving everyone worried about her health and well-being.
• Someone I know, despite trying as hard as he can each and every day to move up and onward with his life, faces a serious past that does not allow him to do things we so often take for granted.
  
• While I may work long hours sometimes, I do not have to wake up before 4am to take public transportation to a different state for work, come back to the city for appointments and meetings, then head back out to a different job until the wee hours of the night...like someone else I know.

Experiencing these situations give me perspective...and help me realize that if the worse thing that happens to me today is too many e-mails or a smelly garbage truck, I really have it quite good.