Sometimes I find myself using the word "hate" rather liberally, much like we use the word "love" too much. I love sushi. I love the way the regional grass fires supercharge the sunsets. I love you. It's all a matter of context.
Hate is a pretty strong word. Hate causes heads to be sawn off, people to be blown to pieces, and for infantile graffiti to be sprayed on walls. As strange as it might sound, I don't think that hate has played much of a part in some of the most evil times in history. Take genocides for example. At some point, hate might've spurred things along, but these things seem to progress with a cool, calculating rationality. We are human and they are not. We deserve to live here and they do not deserve to live at all. I'm reminded of a women's aid worker in Africa who related a chilling exchange with a militia member. She asked him if there would ever be peace. He answered "Yes, after we have killed all the others."
So when I say I hate something, it usually doesn't mean I have an all-consuming fire in my gut. I leave the gut fires to habanero hamburgers from the Prince of Wales Pub in San Mateo. Most often, it involves an annoyance that has wormed its way through my shield of placid tranquility.
The first annoyance today is the current fashion of using wicker baskets as storage and as home décor. The frickin' Pottery Barn catalog is packed to the gills with cabinets, desks, and hutches dotted with saccharine-cute little baskets sitting in voluminous cubbies. Sticking the frickin' basket in the space is a damned sight cheaper than installing a drawer or a door. I hate the contrived rusticity of the damned things. Not to mention that they are the furniture equivalent of an SUV. By half-filling the storage space with a bulky little basket, you're declaring that you are so rich that you can afford to sacrifice 60% of the storage volume of your furniture to frou-frou crap. The folks who are cramming their living space with wicker baskets are probably the same people you read about in the shelter magazines explaining that they had settled on a 3,800-square-foot house that was a bit small, but just the right size for starting a family. As a compromise, they decided to build a mother-in-law's quarters and a workshop on their 4-acre plot of land. God damned wicker baskets.
Our second annoyance stems from the sense of entitlement I've developed from being born in California. I heard recently that California is adding about 600,000 people every year. Most of these people are spilling into the Central Valley, the land of agriculture, A&W, Dairy Queen, and country music. In order to maintain the middle-class lifestyle that a lot of these new Californians feel they deserve, they need to run their air conditioners 24-hours a day at some times of the year. There's a reason that folks have been piling into the coastal areas all these years. The insanity of real estate prices is causing armpits such as Tracy, Lodi, Stockton, and Modesto to transform into box-store-studded bedroom communities. For only $379,900, you can get a 5 bed, 3 bath vanity box of 2318 sq. ft. in Modesto with a 3-car garage and more faux roofline peaks than you have fingers. In the Santa Clara Valley, that won't get you even a 2 bed, 1 bath condo with neighbors on five sides and one covered parking space.
Anyhoo, most of these 600,000 people eat, defecate, urinate, take showers, wash dishes, drive cars, and generally do the things that Californians tend to do. The questions I keep asking are: How are all these people going to get to work and to the store? Where is all the electricity for the A/C units, lights, water pumps, street lights, and Starbucks cappuccino machines going to come from? Where is all the water for the lawns, showers, and toilets going to come from? Where is all the poo going to go? I'd like to say "Get the fuck out all you people. I was here first.", but of course, I'm a native Southern Californian. You could say that I'm an invader myself. After moving to the Bay Area, I learned that everyone north of San Luis Obispo hates everyone in the south for screwing with the state's water and politics. Of course, most folks in SoCal are oblivious to NorCal's impotent rage and continue to water their golf courses and vote Republican. But I reject such muddying of my moral waters. I declare "Welcome to California. Now get the fuck out!"
Of course, if certain Californians who are currently languishing in Cicada-Land manage to return, I'll welcome them with open arms.
Pakeha