On My Mind: Israel, Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer, and Angry Pandas

The whole Gaza strip thing has got me in a funk. I don't have any real stake in it except for the fact that, oh, I don't know, I'm a human and it's atrocious what's going on over there. It's very complicated. And while my fellow UC Berkeley alumni may scorn me for not immediately jumping on the anti-Israel bandwagon, I'll take the risk and say, "I'll be damned if I know how to unravel the mess over there."

The thing is, it's pretty much like seeing your parents get divorced. It's messy. It gets real ugly real fast. People get possessive and territorial. They'll hurt the other person just for the sake of punishing them. It's enough to make me want to crawl back into bed until the mess is over with.

I guess it should be noted that my parents are not divorced, bitterly or otherwise.

But, yeah... I guess I just wanted to say that I see it from both sides and it looks bad. Just awful. And the only way it will stop is if everyone could embrace their similarities instead of their differences. Similarities: they're all human and, if shot at, will die; they have friends and family who are equally mortal; they only want comfort, food, support, warmth, and love for themselves and their friends and family. Focus on that, guys, and you might begin to understand why AIR-STRIKING AND ROCKET-BOMBING OTHER PEOPLE IS TOTALLY UNCOOL.

Using the term "uncool" was my way of transitioning to Jennifer Aniston. I feel so bad for her. Not only are her characters typecasted, she, as a person, has been typecasted as the quintessential I-can't-hang-on-to-a-man-so-Courney-Cox-lets-me-be-the-third-wheel. And as much as I feel bad for her, I'm hoping that she and John Mayer will just break up already so I can have my quarter-life-existential-crisis-having songwriter/guitarist/singer back. Seriously. Whatever happened to the guy who sung the lyrics, "I loved you. Gray sweat pants. No makeup. So perfect." (I still can't forget that he dated Jessica Simpson. Eww.)

Finally, to get this off my mind already, I have to say that Prince is hilarious and he brings up a really great point about panda motherf'ing BEARS.