Ol' Cottonmouth

I have had two dreams involving venomous snakes. Two dreams involving me having to kill venomous snakes (snakes a la the horror of Snakes On a Plane if you've seen it). Both times I awoke thinking "this is what Zambia is going to be like." Of course it isn't. You can avoid snakes. And moreover- I am really not that scared of snakes. I mean beyond a healthy startle and hesitancy that is only natural. I think perhaps these snakes should be read - in a more general context - as unnamed fears of Zambia. So I will list out my snakes one by one, draining them of the venom that makes them impossible to live with.
In no particular order:

1) Living in Misery
2) Living in Boredom
3) Living in Fear
4) Living with Loneliness
5) Confirmation of all my greatest shortcomings
6) Wasting two years of my life with nothing better off
7) Unwittingly contributing to a system of evil
8) Life continuing elsewhere without me
9) Dying or worse.

There we go - nothing but little garden snakes in the grass.
And of course if I DO get bit by a real snake – not a dream snake – at least I HAVE seen Snakes on a Plane and thus know how to suck the venom out of a bite. Olive oil is the secret –coats the mouth. And if no knife is available to open the wound – use your trendy dangly earrings that happen to have a razor sharp point.

I also have two questions for the general public:
1) How do you encourage economic development without encouraging rampant and careless consumerism? Can everyone be employed doing useful things or are the people who design, market, make, deliver, and sell Bling Bling Barbie Head inevitable in a successful, booming economy such as ours?

I have over 100 troll dolls - from my mall shopping days in middle school. Yes - over.100.troll.dolls. The astronaut was my favorite. It had the most elaborate costume. No- wait: the alien. Elaborate silver costume AND it had green skin.

So second question:
2) How do you change your ways? For instance - How do you penetrate my psyche deeply enough to change my daily decisions? Cause knowledge is not the same as application. And I still love useless cheap crap – though I buy it less often.
Another example from a NYTIMES magazine article - How do you convince people to use condoms when they know all the facts and still don't? One answer is apparently marketing it as a fad rather than a health concern. A lifestyle choice. Eat it up kids - condoms are coool. Not dying of AIDS is cool.

My kids are getting mud and sticks to play with. Maybe a wood block if they prove to be especially creative with the mud and sticks. And condoms. Of course condoms. I wouldn't want them to be uncool.

Oh I am glib - in the lots to say with nothing to say kind of way.