How to Win an Argument

Of course I'm not going to show you how to do this. In my world, arguments would be solved in two ways: Dance Off (see Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'), or Rap Off (8 mile...he chose not to fight).

But if you are an insecure assnard and want to win a regular argument because you don't have the moral ground to speak from the heart, I will say a few things to help you remain a cowardly person. When you get into the mood where, winning an argument means knowing these strategies, you don't give a damn about that person's feelings. You just want to show how intellectually superior you are to that person. The person you are arguing with may be arguing because of something serious. Please take this into consideration.

1.)Start your argument by saying, "I'm sorry you are so upset..." Someone kept sending me e-mails starting with this sentence. At first it baffled me, because I was not upset. Then I looked up, "How to win an argument" and found that it's a formula. Saying this sentence once, or more, is a chess move because:

a.)First, it assumes that the person speaking (or typing) has a moral high ground by apologizing for your behavior.

b.)This places the "apologetic" person in a attack position. Because it assumes that you are upset, therefor out of control. Anyone who is out of control with emotion has no credibility. That one sentence puts you in a defensive stance because it shifts the topic to your state of mind, rather then the facts of the argument, so you instead must defend your emotional state, not your reason for the argument.

When you're assumed to be the loose cannon here, deflect this dirty tactic by ignoring the comment. In Judo you win by moving out of the way of an attack so the person's momentum becomes their downfall.

Also, if you want to be a jerk, never answer the person's questions to you about the argument in question. Instead, attack their credibility. If you ignore all that was said of you (no matter how true it is) then the other person is really in control because they have the floor to go for your perception of reality, as opposed to facts. So, assholes, ignore the person's complaint and attack their credibility.

Another argument winner is to say that every problem you have with the person was seen with your own eyes, not hearsay. I knew a man vaguely who, in nearly a decade, talked to me about three times. But his friends don't like me. Rather then ignoring me or saying, "Hey Rose, I barely know you", he brought up this one instance where he did talk to me in my early 20's while I was so drunk, to point out that could not remember what was said. One drunk event that I can't even defend does not make me anything but a drunk woman needing a good night's sleep.
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Enough of this talk. I believe adults need to solve all their squabbles with a dance off, or a rap off. Or something creative and bad ass. I almost put a CD on skip with "Now You're Messin With a Son of a Bitch" to these men after lots and lots of my money.

Can't dance? Or rap? Hire a lawyer. Bring up Michael Jackson from the grave, not Johnnie Cochran. Or maybe search the ally ways for a break dancing god. In grave trouble? Import someone with moves like the Chinese imported Chuck Norris to fight Bruce Lee in "Game of Death" (was it Game of Death?)

And if you really don't like the person, ask for Fame type dancing moves. You'll exhaust them to death! Or just keep your pockets full of Oxycotin, 80 milligrams, for Eminem to follow you around.

'Beat It' was an awesome music video. I learned half a air spit because of that man's moves. No Harvard for Michael. Just worry about what outfit to wear. You can hire Don King to promote you.

I suppose we can have trainers in your corner too. Bottle of water, towel, advice. "He did a kip twice, so you counter his move with a slow robot! Got it?"

A Rap Off is important, but you can't use those sentences I mentioned above before the break. You will lose! Just carry a diary around of rhyming words. Either way, you'll have so much rhythmn, no one would want to mess with you.

The world according to Rose. Still no spell check. But when words are sacred to me, they deserve to be capitalized.

Ron Paul

I hope to cut and paste my entire conversation. The response is from a very passionate University Professor.

However, my computer is not letting me. He had two good e-mails on Ron Paul. I disagree with one point here, but will not say what that is because it will ruin the purity of the text.

First, I asked who "Anonymous" is, because a friend of mine said, "Anonymous for President". Then I asked about why people tear him down so much when in reality I believe people would love him. The first e-mail is lost (on my g-mail). Here is his second, very thoughtful reply. Please read with an open mind, and heart.


"Anonymous is the hacker group that works anonymously to bring accountability to both government and corporations. They have hacked into government files and released tons of info from corporations. They would seem to have a lot in common with Ron Paul and his distrust of unlimited government power. The trick with Paul, is to value his values that you agree with and agree that he is not perfect ( his views on rape and abortion etc). The question is does Paul have more in common with your core values and can you accept that he is not you. People seem to think that Paul is supposed to conform to their agenda or he is not right, but he is not trying to conform to the perfect agenda of the left ( he is pro-life), he is trying to be consistent to his own particular values. People seem to have difficulty understanding that a person can be moral and not agree with them on every issue. Paul is a conservative REPUBLICAN, he is not a leftist and therefore when the left attacks him they miss the whole point...he is a REPUBLICAN with a consistent set of moral values. Republicans tend to be white and they tend to not care about issues of race and class. This should not surprise intelligent people. Paul represents a white district in a rural part of Texas and Texas is a racist state...so of course Paul is going to evolve his views over time when it comes to poverty and race. Lyndon Johnson was a Texas racist who got the civil rights act passed and the voting rights act passed. It is not where someone comes from, it is where they are now and where they are going that is important. I think the fact that Paul was a racist in the past is fairly meaningless if he has evoloved his view over time. Change, thoughtful change is good. On abortion Paul is wrong. But he is morally consistent."

Brain Eating Parasites

It's bad enough that I know enough people who are brain eating parasites (a euphemism of the word "opportunist") but now I have to worry about another type. Recently I bought a netti pot. I thought it would solve so many problems. I'm sick often. My brother found this article yesterday:

http://news.yahoo.com/brain-eating-amoeba-fatalities-linked-common-cold-remedy-160603508.html

Short blog. Netti pots are gross in other ways. I do yoga, and any upside down move after using the netti causes my nose to run like Carl Lewis. I wish I could run like him, with or without the opiate injections underneath the fingernails. That would just put me to sleep.

Austin, Texas from Arcata, California

On June 20th, 2011 I moved via Uhaul to Austin. A quick prelude to why I moved. A few reasons. One, I have extremely bad insomnia. I check movies out in parts on Youtube. At the time, "Death Proof" was playing. Half of the movie takes place in Austin (I've been to those spots too). The movie described Austin as, "a small town". It looked like a rock and roll know it all spot to live.
Second, I was dating a man who was pushing me to act out my dreams. Without his nudging I would be in Arcata still. He wanted a pre-planned epic love affair were we both moved for the summer to start new lives. Only his move involved his return to a stable life back in Arcata.
Women don't do this often. Or men. Move alone to unknown territory with no known friends. I did. I'm awesome.
My brother helped me to move. We got to Austin on the 20th and he had about four hours to stay and orient me to my new environment before he took transportation back to Montana. He was late in leaving because he tried to hard to accommodate my stay. I signed a year long lease. My first lease ever.
The weather stayed 110 all summer long. I live right next to Austin's biggest express way, yet I live in the middle of nowhere. Austin is huge! Jetson's type huge. The highways are out of control with fast motion.

Side note: I did not know this about Austin. So on the second day I came a fraction of a second away from getting hit by a car that did not see me going around sixty miles an hour. It was so jarring that I laid in bed and listen to my favorite music all day in gratitude.

Another fact about Austin is that their roads are crazy. Example: Where I initially bought my scooter (which I took back because I was too weak to handle a center stand), the shop has five different names for that street. Five. There is no grid. In fact the road planner committed suicide, which some native told me he believed was from all the accidents he caused with his poor planning. I do not know if that is true.
Going outside requires a water bottle put into the freezer for a half an hour. Or ice inside. I had to walk on a sorry excuse for a side walk on the express way in search of a grocery store. My first day looking took three hours. In 110 heat.

I finally found a health food store. Also, I applied for a job there. I was driven to work in Austin. Yet I live in the middle of nowhere. I also applied at some semi-fast food place nearby.

Next on my list was transportation. I bought a scooter and returned it, as previously stated. Then I went to a better shop and bought a nice, baby blue, badass scooter. I named him General Rommel (I hate Nazis, believe me) and he sits next to my front door. Another thing about Austin is people name cars, guns, inanimate objects.

The boyfriend came in between my search for scooters. People are egar to help in Austin. He co-owns a car/motorcycle/scooter store with his father. We began going out to eat. This drained my savings account. There goes Barcelona for three weeks (for now).

A fight that happens often between my man and me is going to 6th street. I moved here for the music and dancing. Austin is the World's biggest Live Music Capital. I've rarely been downtown. Only once with my boyfriend. Once....it was our first date.

Frustrated that I was losing my savings, not getting calls from potential employees and my cat being too black to handle five minutes outside, I lost my drive. I signed up for a local model company and get paid some money for work. My drive is gone but so is the heat and foreign attidude. The heat turned into buckets of rain. I love rain.

Texas is different. While first meeting my boyfriend's friends someone brought up guns. I made a comment, "Oh you own a gun?" A laugh followed. The entire room owned at least a gun. A person in that room shot his own knee in a accident chalked up to stupidity. He named that gun, "dumbass".

There are gems in Austin that make it unique. We have a memorial for Charles Whitman's victims next to a memorial for a random cop shooting. We have a rainbow colored ice cream shop with art on every inch of wall and a photo booth you can bring beer into. Apparently the rest of Texas considers Austin a homosexual heaven, which makes me feel I made the right decision whenever I hear this talk.

Lance Armstrong is a "Austin Asshole" Robert Rodriguez is not. We have some celebrities that call this city home. The masseuse at The Hilton was a friend to Jessica Alba. My boyfriend takes me to the Hilton to pretend we went farther.

BBQ is big here. Guns, big. I saw a bumper sticker that said, "If you come for mine you better bring yours" and I understood it! Half my lease is gone as I write this. I never explained how, at first, it was such a big deal to buy the best food at this health food store. I'd go through the day excited about apple sauce. The walk to the store was excruciating. I went eight days without sleep once here. But those times are behind me.

Yesterday I went shopping for engagement rings. A nice man who I paid to fix my computer (explaining why I had
no blogs for a while) also let me borrow his Internet. My cat is the rockstar of the neighborhood. As I write life is calming down.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

While watching Cameron Crowe's dissapointing, "Elizabethtown" I learned from a review of the movie about a phrase used to describe stock female characters. Manic Pixie Dream Girls. These women are simply a foil to deep men. The description even brought literature into the equation with the example of Beatrix (yes, that's the spelling of Kill Bill's main character while probably related to Dante's Inferno anyway.)
Women have long been seen as a muse to great men. There is the great clique, "Behind every great man there is a woman". But it's poor writing.
That's why people like Bridget Jone's diary so much. It grossed tons of money. Why? Because she is so relatable. She's looking for love. She is her own worst enemy. She has a good heart yet she is not perfect.
So today a very long blog was lost in the wind, so make due with this one.
Think about all the women in movies and even books and think about whether they are deeper then a foil to their male lovers.

I am not normal

Oh my, I've had so many blog ideas on my mind, and too much time has gone by to make them articulate, focused blogs. Instead I'm going to change these blogs (for now) to make them a personal diary with points, digressions, and observations. I'll try to write what inspires me.
Yes, I am not normal. While at Humboldt State, a sociology professor singled me out and tried to steer me off my Literature major course. I collect parental figures, and she became my mentor for two semesters. Since, at the time, I was beginning a two year battle with heroin addiction, she was there for the unraveling.
I was unlike the well adjusted twenty year old students. In an auditorium full of students I was the only one to raise my hand to the question, "Have you gone to a gay bar?" Yeap. There are more layers to our initial bond then being a social anomaly to this brilliant professor, but I'd like to believe she knew my experience aside I was innocent to the core of human understanding. At the time I wanted to fit in more. So I was told by her to write an essay, which this blog was initially going to be-the essay- on, "What it means to 'be normal'". That was my assignment. In five minutes I came to the conclusion that no one was normal.
A crass example: My aunt is a paranoid schizophrenic. She is mentally unhealthy. But a lot of her attitudes/beliefs that are taboo in the wealthy, slightly uptight world of Annapolis, Maryland, are popular in California. She does not wear socks. Or shoes in the summer. In the town of Arcata it is popular to become a hippie and discard your shoes in public. That's a crass example because the only thing that is not 'normal' in a person is mental illness.
As a side note I dated that professor's teaching assistant. This being the second teaching assistant I dated. The first being my first fiancee. As another side note I've lived with one teacher in a platonic relationship, got a marriage proposal from my Shakespeare professor and stayed in his guest room often while withdrawing from a spectrum of designer drugs. He also gave me his prescription drugs. I had 'a fling' with my political science professor, who actually taught me the beauty of hugging a tree, picking out the best white mokkas in town, smoking swag weed, and getting lost in the woods. We made out on giant rocks overlooking the ocean, knowing all of this was as good as life gets. Am I leaving any professors out? See, major digressions and diary material. Maladjusted rants.
Side note: I think I dated the sociology teacher's aid just to fight with him on the subject of sociology vs. psychology. I wanted to kick him out of bed every morning and argue that his entire belief system was wrong. He never budged. I did slightly.
"You can only know yourself when your personality bounces off another person." Those were the great sociology professor's first in office words to me. I don't quite believe that. I believe that people have different degrees....different strengths of critical thinking. Also I believe in mental hygiene. Two different topics. Being 'normal' is something I want no part in. Mental heath in tip top shape? Give it to me baby.
I've done ten cross country trips. At thirty three I have a modeling contract. I lived in New York, Maryland, California, Vermont, North Carolina, and now Austin Texas. I lived on a boat, an attic, a tee-pee, a shack, a home where my lover and I grew marijuana and fought and loved passionately. I spent six months as the passenger in a Jaguar and another six months taking public transportation. There are two poems published about me. "The Dark Continent" and "My Rose". The former won the San Francisco poem of the year award. The only common link between these two poets is their belief that I am often unhappy. I kicked a heroin addiction. I loved heroin too. I remember this one homeless man, Justin was his name, shooting me up (because I never wanted to learn to put a needle in myself). His face looked like Jesus Christ when he was pulling the needle out.
Now I live in Austin. Every day I'll make it a routine to (inprove my spelling) come to this lounge where I can bring my laptop, get free wi-fi, and just write what is on my mind. If it's unpolished or no good it still stays. Like L. Cohen says, "You're living for nothing now, I hope you keep some kind of record."

Love is a Mirror

There are bambozzlers. Wolves in rainbowed scaled skin. They will take your clothes and leave you naked, not able to appreciate the wind on your face. You will lose against them.

There are lovers sunrise sunshine high, that make you love each breath you take. Make no mistake, both these characters are a reflection of you.