Facebook Post #1

Ive decided I need to start archiving favorite Facebook posts both from other people and my own.

Poem:

A capella, young fella, I'll tell ya is the best sound evah, on the mic like the bank tella, tell me I'm clevah, and stellah, like stars in the sky and I'm yours forevah.

Pet Names (warning: this is a total rant)

What's up with the pet names, guys? I'm not your baby. I'm not your darling. Believe me, you would know it if I were.

But oh wait, your ego has grown like a tumor over your retinas so you're not really seeing the disdain all over my face.

If you wish to infuriate me, by all means begin a conversation like this "Stick to romance, darling." Um, why don't you just give me a good slap on the hind quarters while you're at it. Is my hair in a bob? Is this the year 1923? Is your name Mugsy St. Germaine? Because my name is not "darling." It's not even remotely close to such an invitingly stupid sobriquet.

If I look like an idiot and you feel the need to speak to me with condescension, why don't you just try being the bigger person and walk away? Risking sounding like the ultimate hater, it must be said that I don't particularly associate with people I think are stupid because they irritate me, and because even if I think they have little to offer intellectually, I don't want to be MEAN to them. Better to walk away and leave them with the dignity they have as a human being.

This is not to say that I cannot be won over, nor that I refuse to be. I don't resist on purpose because I don't have to. Most men dig their own graves much more quickly than I ever could. Be aware that even if you do manage to spark my undivided attention, the flame can be doused as surely as it was lit by giving off the impression you doubt my mental capacity.

The next time you think it's ok to speak to a woman like she's a piece of chocolate cake, be aware the frosting may be laced with arsenic. We only serve the real thing when presented with a proper guest.

I sing for my chicken.

I think maybe in a previous life I was a freestyle rapper or a Disney Princess. Probably Sleeping Beauty. Yes, because I really feel like the world would be amazing and better if we periodically burst into song and poetry. Canes Chicken establishments have already taken steps to make this dream a reality. Instead of the mundane, "Can I take your order?" or "May I help you?" or "Would you like to try one of our new Angus Beef burgers?" Cane's employees break it DOWN: "Finger lickin' chicken, what combo you pickin?" So fun. I love them so much. What an easy, clever way to inspire real appreciation. I want to buy Canes' Chicken because they offer it so creatively. Next time I go, I'm responding accordingly:
"Hey, hey, hey, my mind's been a wishin,' the three finger combo's the one that I'm pickin!'" And what to drink? My combo'd go grand with a diet coke-and wash my fries down and keep me from chokin'."

I'm really certain so many people would be happier if they could always order things in verse or song form. It just makes it less like an order and more like a request to a dear friend. And everyone could get really excited about simple things and hopefully start dancing in the middle of the work day in unison, and then everyone would get free chicken at the end of the song.


Ok, so that's my nerd fantasy of the day. Realistically speaking, I think the Canes' employee phenomenon is a testament to how Americans can and should take steps to making the workplace happier in general. We should not spend our average of 60 hours a week hating life. Everyone has to work, so let's enjoy it a little more. Make up a limerick about your coworker, or a Haiku. He or she will love you.

How to lose weight surely and rapidly

1. Have your boyfriend break up with you suddenly and preferably over a text message.
2. Get the flu

I hate dieting and I dread even thinking about the day when my metabolism will slow down so much that I won't be able to eat fast food whenever I want--not that I really ever eat fast food--or go out to watch the Saints game and down an entire order of loaded potato cheese fries and hamburger AND three beers. Actually, if I didn't dance three or four days a week or let depression effect my eating habits I would probably have to worry about that kind of food intake now. But back to the point: the great thing about the depression/illness method is that you often don't realize you're not eating and also can tend to exercise more often if only to keep from thinking about the thing that is making you depressed. Perfect, huh? I mean, the worst part of dieting is actually knowing that you're dieting because you are thinking about all the food you wish you could be eating but now can't eat. If you're not hungry, then you don't feel like you're missing out out on anything. In fact, you're forcing yourself to consume that tuna sandwich because you have to sustain yourself somehow.


I didn't say these were nice ways, I said they were "sure" and "rapid" ways to shed pounds. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it's a perk to keep in mind if ever you find yourself ill or depressed within an inch of your life.

you know what?!

I got told by two people yesterday that I think too much, and all of my conversations are too deep. Well, people, it's posted on my blog. Did you see the cartoon?! I'm fully aware of this problem. I can't help it if I'm bored talking about nothing in particular unless you're just really funny.

I frequently refer back to the the two topics more suited to small talk the weather and everyone's help. Man, did the Hurricane make that SO much more interesting. (P.S. If you're reading this and you're not from Louisiana, the hurricane is always Hurricane Katrina.) It's kind of like "the drawer" because it's the only one that matters. Of course, please understand I don't want to sound like horrific natural disasters are somehow positive because they keep our small talk nice and interesting. I'm not that morbid, ok? GOSH.

Everyone's health is really only good for either changing the subject or for giving someone an jumping point for their story. No one really cares about how anyone is actually doing. You're either stressed (aren't we all?) , tired, good, fine, hangin' in there...I mostly try to get the other person to do the small talking because I'm sure that I will bore him or her do death, or worse, present myself as incredibly awkward and ridiculous as my close friends know me to be.

Y'all are right. I think too much.But I'm so bored and stuck chained behind the desk. What else can I do but sit around and over analyze? Really now!

T.o.E the sequel

Terms of endearment: the sequel, that is.
I have a friend who used to be my personal trainer who comes to visit me at the desk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. He has at least two nicknames for me: Snuggie, because, so he says, I look like someone who would own a snuggie and love it and take it everywhere! Nay! I would attempt to say, and inadvertently confirm his suspicions be saying the words "nay" and later writing the word "inadvertently." He's also sure that I will one day own a litter of cats named horrible things like muffin, or cookies, or nippy.

What a future.

His other favorite nickname for me is "home school" because I'm just so sheltered. *shudder* However, I'm sort of glad it's home school and not something like "home fry" because ew, I don't want to be compared to a fried potato. Then again, people kind of like home fries. Most people think home school is weird. Kind of like reliving Little House on the Prairie except we don't live on the prairie anymore. But you know what, NO! I won't have this bashing of Home school because some of the nicest people I know were home schooled--with the exception of this one family that was scary, but WHATEVER! Um...yeah!!!... I think I may have dug the grave a little deeper. Let me just lie in it.

Terms of Endearment

I was just thinking how comfortable it makes me when people refer to their loved ones as "the boy" or "the man", or "girl." Let's call this phenomenon a practice of minimalist terms of endearment. It's like that person is so important in your life that you don't even need a name for everyone to know who you're talking about. We had this in my household growing up, except it also filtered down to objects and areas. We had, "the drawer," which always meant the top drawer second from the right on the right of the island, because it was THE drawer, the catch-all, containing everything from paper clips, to my dad's passport, car keys, an pieces of Dove chocolate. (Later, it must be noted, we created a drawer exclusively for chocolate. We also called that "the drawer.") We also had "the house" or "next door" which referred of course to the house across the stream on the other half of our acre and a half of property. Ok, makes sense, but it was highly entertaining when you're at someone else's house far away and still referring to your own house as "next door."
Terms of endearment, you know? They're awesome.

I don't want to be diluted Grape KoolAid.

Last Wednesday I joined a band without realizing I had joined a band. I realized it yesterday at practice for...a gig that is no longer happening... when the band leader started including me in a discussion about another member he's thinking about kicking out because she's not committed enough. WHOA THERE! I'm pretty sure I'm the one with the least amount of commitment in this outfit. I thought I was just being brought in for one or two things but nothing long term. Granted, I will admit that all of this confusion is not at least partly my own fault, just not paying attention, being tired, etc...Whatever, I'm an ARTISTE. I can't be blamed for my irresponsibility for my own...er...flightyness?
Bahhhh! But either way, in the middle of the practice I ended up leaving "early" after 2 hours (geez!), I started planning my escape. The leader is definitely pushy and excited about this band. I completely understand. He should be. But unfortunately, my candle has been burned on both ends and quite a few places in the middle. I'm becoming like a piece of dough that has been stretched to the point of breakage, or KoolAid that has been dissolved in too much water. Yeah that's me with a band commitment, diluted grape KoolAid.
Everyone loves Grap KoolAid until it becomes just sugar, hint of dimatap and Children's tylenol, gross water.
I don't think so, Tim. I don't think so.


oh P.S. I just had a horrible relation that I may be a transition-girl/ therapist for a number of people who have been in my life. I'm going to have to start charging for this services. Just saying.

Words to throw down in everyday conversation:

Forget name dropping! Throw out a nice Yiddish word every now and again to really impress your friends:

"I swear, that boy's got some chutzpah jumping in during the adult swim."

"When she won the Young Miss Surpreme title, I was so happy I could've just plotzed! Seriously, my cheek implants almost came through my skin! The naches was overwhelming.

"He just schleps downstairs, grabs a beer and sits in his man-cave every day. I think I'll try surprising him one wrapped in cellophane."

Oh, the joys of the JCC. If you're going to whine, whine in Yiddish sayings so I can at least pretend like I'm a guest actor on "The Nanny."

Stumbling Across Virtue Ethics

While browsing my blogs and recapping the story NPR ran this morning on the Congressional ethics--does it exist?! I came across a site called PEA soup which had an interesting piece on Virtue Ethics---

"Richard Sylvan's Last Man thought experiment: You know that you are the last sentient being who will ever exist on earth. Beside you is a giant old redwood (or the Mona Lisa or whatnot). You could destroy it for no reason. Would it be wrong to? Some people try to argue that it would be wrong, but another take (defended by Tom Hill, Jr.) is that it would be show bad character, but not strictly speaking be wrong."

I think this calls into question the inherent value in any given object--Does the mona lisa hold an inherent value that has not been granted by human beings? Does any object for that matter, somehow "shelter" or house a goodness or value that could be violated even by the last person on earth? If so, then what does this mean about the "virtue" of objects, art, people extant in the present world? If it would be wrong to destroy the mona lisa after everyone who would view it were somehow extinguished, then is it more wrong to destroy presently? Is it more wrong? Maybe it's not a question of it being more or less wrong, but maybe a question of impact. Is it less wrong to kill a man with no family than a man with a wife and kids. No, because to say so would violate the inherent value in the person, though the action of killing the man with a family has a greater immediate impact on his environment.
Anyway, food for thought.

No one should be forced to smile before Coffee

No one should be forced to smile before coffee because it's an action that is contrary to physical readiness at certain points in time. Do you know how many muscles you use to smile? Check out mr. man to the left. That's insanity. Think about how hard it is to move your legs in the morning after you've been lying down for5-8 hours. By the way, only 8 muscles are used in walking as opposed to 17 in your smile. Ok. So my science may be flimsy, but the point is no one expects anyone to get up and just start running to the best of their ability--not at least without a little adrenaline, a little fight or flight response, or something. Most of us, I suppose, choose something a little less heart-attacky/snake-dropped-at-my-feet fearfulness like coffee. If you haven't noticed after reading various past posts, I need coffee to survive my days on this earth. You know, sometimes I wish that I could just get rid of the habit, but I just can't; and more importantly, I don't want to. I would like to advocate the abolition of a workplace requirement to smile unless coffee be supplied upon arrival. Geez, look at that guy in the picture. Yeah, he looks like he needs a little Red Bull, li'l Pj's iced mocha to pull himself together.


awwww.

Two weeks passed so quickly

Last night when I was dropping off my friend at her house after picking her up from the airport, I had this strange sensation that it was morning. Then I realized, I'd been up before the sun almost every day for 14 days straight and my body must be confused, like a diver that swims deeper instead of going to the surface because he's lost track of where "up" is.
Of course, I haven't quite reached the level of insanity evident one day a little over a year ago when I woke up, got dressed and left my house at 12:30am thinking it was time to go to work. I didn't think to look at the clock in my car until I saw a cab dropping off a very, very drunk person. Wow, he's out late, I thought. No, Dorian, you have hallucinated 5:30am.

ANYWAY
Yeah, I went to Boston two weekends ago and Virginia this past weekend so the days in between have been insanely busy so I haven't gotten a chance to share all kinds of fun revelations...Of course now I can't think of most of them but I will say that Boston was amazing. I gave myself a walking tour, which was fantastic and quite physically rewarding. I hope to move there next fall and thus be forced to buy real winter clothing for the first time ever. And boots-- because it really doesn't make sense to have anything but rain boots in New Orleans because it's cold enough to wear boots about a week out of the year in total.

Fun memories of Boston:
NUMBER 1: Drawing excessive attention to myself at BC by falling down the stairs on campus in between the library and the Philosophy department building. Nice.

2. Begin recognized while riding on the T rail by someone who attended the same Friday night lecture as I did.

3. Paying 7 dollars for a pint of Blue Moon. Whoops.

4. Being asked for directions at least twice as often as being offered directions. Point for blending in!

5. Falling in love with Harvard Square and the book store and the number of men in oxford cloth shirts looking all serious and studious. Aww, y'all are so hard core.

6. Being conscious of the number of times I say "y'all." Whatever, it's the smoothest way to refer to a group of people in the second person. And I'm sure my future Bostonian friends will love me for it. ;)

Some Favorite things I've learned (includes use of the word "ragamuffin")

1. Beetles and june bugs and other round fliers hit themselves against walls and panes of glass over and over again because they are compelled to fly in a complete circle around any given light. If the light just so happens to be attached to a wall, well...hello, exoskeleton injury.

2. Fantasy Football is actually a stats game to which entire magazines and websites are dedicated. I definitely imagined a virtual reality game where your helmet was the controller with awesome video feed inside.

3. Shaving cream may leave a stain on your door in the shape of a smiley face over the course of 15 years give or take if you use it to draw a smiley face on your cousins' bedroom door. Margarine also leaves a stain on your walls for at least 17 years.

4. Doing a handstand in your living room sometimes does involve crashing into a glass table. ARG. Your parents were right again.

5. Without a doubt, you will always run into the most people you know when you are dressed like a ragamuffin.

6. No on ever uses the word ragamuffin anymore. I'm resurrecting it.

7. Is it wrong that I always imagined a short squatty child with rags tossed haphazardly in and around her overalls.... and a blueberry muffin when using the word ragamuffin?

8. The Little Match Girl is the world's most depressing movie. Why did I see it at the age of 7? I suppose it's never to early for parents to start teaching social awareness...or maybe it was a sneaky way of getting my sister and me to stop whining. "See? You could be dying in the cold like the little match girl." I don't have a complex or anything about that.

9. Complexes come in boxes of at least a bakers dozen.

10. A loooot of people don't know what a baker's dozen is. It's 13, ok people?!

Avuncular

of or relating to an uncle; suggestive of an uncle in kindliness or geniality.

I have just encountered someone who embodies the exact OPPOSITE of this word. He complains about my demeanor, but every day he comes and plops his enormous bag right in my face at the desk while he finds his card---because it's not possible to pull your card out before you get inside right?---doesn't respond when I say "good morning", in fact, averts his eyes. You know what, dude, maybe everyone is just afraid you might murder us in our sleep and therefore would rather be safe by having as little interaction as possible. And he says I'm scowling??? Maybe someone held up a mirror and it scared him and made him have a bad day.

Alas.

haircut

So, I got my hair cut and I'm afraid it may look a little like Murphy Brown this morning. That, or I look like the 12 year old Nancy Drew... My straightener died and my attempt to look like an edged-out Emo has been thwarted by my unruly, quasi wavy hair. ARG!

Friday night

Do I earn the title of "heinous bitch" if I confess that I met some of the most frustratingly disappointing, pathetic members of the opposite sex and treated them with such disdain that I didn't even bother smiling to hide the fact that my comments to them were meant to extinguish any shred of hope they might of had in impressing and therefore connecting with me?

The male sex maybe experiencing a dark age, though to be fair, so might the female sex. I think I'll just be asexual...like a snail, you know? Or maybe a starfish. Yes, most people like starfish, but what are they?They're a mystery to the world at large. Everyone thinks starfish are cool, but nobody messes with a starfish, unless you're a Shark or a manta ray or something. (Hey, the metaphor continues!) They're kind of repulsive in their beauty, I guess. That way, if I ever feel the need to "extend myself" into this world, I could just cut off my arm and part of my torso. No games.

O00 I just thought of a t-shirt idea: "No games, Just Gametes" HA. Wait. That's wrong. very, very wrong. Ok, that might suggest something other than what I meant, so let me clarify my stream of consciousness:
The games are getting REALLY old, guys. We might be ok with playing if you're actually good at them, meaning, you know how to finish them. Games are fun sometimes but it's really annoying when one person really doesn't know the rules of engagement.

Anyway, so the reason why I'm saying any of this is because Friday night, I met three levels of "gamers." The first group (of two) really had it going on. The conversation was quick and funny, complex, flirtatious...a good game. It only turned sour when their age (i guess) got the better of them and we realized they had no idea how to "seal the deal." How..annoying and utterly unattractive.
Here's a tip: It's never funny or attractive to start laughing about some "inside joke" that you have no intention of sharing. I think this is true of both guys and girls.

The second level guy of the night for me proved to be a notch lower on my interest level scale---we're hovering about 2 and 3 on a scale of 1-10. He was drunker and older than I realized at first and incapable of carrying on a conversation I came to find out, even though it all centered on him. When you can't even talk about yourself, let alone be perceptive enough to engage the person in front of you, we have a problem.

The third and final level of low turned up at the last bar of the evening. If you refer back to my opening paragraph, you'll find out how I felt about them.

Ahh going out may turn into a case-study ritual before the end of it all!

I am not a music snob.

Contrary to popular belief.

I was floored that one of my favorite, virtually unknown bands appeared on--wait for it--97.1, the New Orleans "premier" pop station. ARG, does this mean now that I'm not allowed to listen to Owl City for fear of ridiciule from my music snob friends who already think less of me for enjoying admittedly mundane and overdone pop music sometimes? NOT SO. I once heard an interview with Jack White of the White Stripes on NPR who reacted rather negatively and disbelievingly that so many of his fans dropped him once he became popular. Like, how dare you MAKE IT? How dare you break out of my cool inde music circle and somehow become appealing to more than 20 people? You sold out.
I'm hear to say that I will not be abandoning music that I like because other people think its cool to do so--abandon it, that is. Isn't that just as ridiculous as liking music because other people think its cool instead of making up your own mind?!

Advocating for Letter Writing

I like to write letters. Isn't receiving REAL MAIL the best thing in the world? I write letters to my grandmother because I never call. Or when I do call I miss her. But even she says receiving letters is one of the best things in the world, better than calls. It shows you've taken time to really think about the person you're writing too. Postcards can have this effect as well. I received my first postcard in years over the summer, and it absolutely made my day, my week even. Besides the effect on the receiving end, it's a pleasure on the sending end as well. It's such an easy form of writing to me. Maybe this is why blogging is so relaxing. It's like writing a letter. No formalities, but because it is a mode of communication, there is enough at stake to make you pay attention to things like mood, tone, and creativity with your words and thoughts.

Letters are my favorite.

Pietro Davenport

I just thought of this name. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be funny to come up with some random alias through whom I could post anything and everything. It would be like second Life in the Blog world. It's strange, even to me, that I thought the name should belong to a man. Is this because deep down I feel like it's more acceptable for a man to be a public jerk than it is for a woman? As in, it's somehow "unsightly" to be as ridiculous as this guy for instance----> http://roissy.wordpress.com/---- not that I want to be some female version of him. Right now, the only woman public icon of ridiculousness I can think of is Anne Coulter. um. I really don't want to be like her either. Is this because women are too driven by emotion? We just can't escape from our innate compassion for the feelings of others? No, I think there are too many female contradictions of that fact to be anything more than an exception to a sad, sad rule. but MAYBE, that's because so many women today are trying to be like men who, in consequence, have been emasculated and even more frustrating to the woman who we'll call the archetypal, "woman's woman," both strong and independent, but wise enough to understand the world doesn't need any more "men" (and by this I mean women acting like men) running things, least of all our relationships, and acts accordingly.

Luna Bar Morning

My response to eating a Luna bar for breakfast is two-fold: On one hand, I'm very proud of myself to be starting the day in such a responsible, health-nut way. On the other hand, I try to figure out ways I could possibly convince my boss it would be worth budgeting for coffee and breakfast for the people who work the opening shift. Does a muffin basket really seem over the top for two people you rely on so heavily to greet the world and be the face of your business at this ungodly hour? At least the poor coffee shop workers, with whom I commiserate deeply, are able to make themselves a cup first thing. I think something that has been lost in the American workplace is the employer's sense of responsibility over the well-being of his employees. We spend over half of hour lives at work. Why shouldn't it be as comfortable as possible. Granted, I know work is work, but I don't think I'm the first voice to say that happy workers are productive workers. One of my good professor friends absolutely maintains one cannot accomplish anything of greater worth if basic needs are not met. I think more than a few people know my limited capacity to be friendly under conditions of low blood sugar and no caffeine. I'm really sorry, I'm just not functioning without those two things. How many people actually do function to their full potential without food first?
The American "deal with it" mentality doesn't really make sense. We are painfully behind the times in things like reasonable vacation time, maternity leave, and even lunch breaks. You know, why do preschoolers get a nap? Seriously, they don't want one. That's just a parents way of giving themselves free time. OK, well maybe the kiddies need it, but we don't STOP needing it after the age of 4. I NEED A NAPTIME! How many people do you know who would turn down the option for a naptime during the day as long as they didn't have to give up something like food? By the way, a 30minute lunch break is a joke. That was an invention of someone who never was forced to eat in 30 minutes. How much can a person really accomplish in the other half of that hour that is spent chocking down the lunch that took the first half of the hour to acquire?

Mafia Matriarch

Sometimes I think my temper might actually be frightening. At various times in my life I've had people tell me that they'd be very, very afraid if I were ever really angry at them. My piano teacher once told me the difference between my sister and me was that Ciara would flip out and murder someone in public, ranting all the way to jail. But if I ever decided to murder someone, they'd just discover the body months later, unrecognizable by that point of course.
Then today, my co-worker compared being in a relationship with me to being a part of the mafia---Awesome while you're in the family, but if you're ever put out, you'd better disappear from the face of the earth. Frankly, I'm at a point in my life when I kind of have to agree with him..except for the actual, you know, Russian Roulette, murdering part. I mean, I wouldn't actually kill someone who broke my heart, but I might have fun making them think that I might. Heh.

You know, I thought it was funny at the time, but it kind of freaks me out now!!
Am I destined to be a mafia matriarch?! I mean, I've got the Irish Catholic and the Italian Catholic heritage going for me...There may be no escape. I'm like a time bomb. Help!!

Inflection

I realize when I chat in gmail or Facebook I make a great deal of effort to show inflection so as to improve communication. But I think, after a moment of introspection, it's more than that for me. I am something of a musical speaker, and I just wouldn't get the Dorian-ness across by saying, "I don't understand," or even "I don't understand!." It has to be, "I don't underSTAND!!" because in person, I would place heavy emphasis on the last syllable of that word in order to emit the exaggerated sentiment of frustration. But, the exaggerated sentiment is sort of a joke, and most likely a joke that very, very few people get. To explain: I'm not really that frustrated over something like my gmail not functioning properly for a few hours in the day. Seriously, life is too short to get that upset about it.
Anyway, in this texting-messaging world, I think learning how to convey inflection is an important skill. Part of the reason--the main reason--I hate texting conversations is that there is too much room for interpretation. We have to power to affect perception! Let's not give this up because of laziness. Let's be clear.

Glee, bite me.

I really like the show Glee, but sometimes it makes me want to break a pane of glass. It annoys me to no end that the evil head cheerleader brandishes a cross on her chest. Of course it's the "Christian" girl who just so happens to be the ring leader in a group of superficial, hypocritical, sexually frustrated teasing lemming be-yoches: The Cheerios. My eye is immediately drawn toward the little gold cross around her neck as she releases her most ruthless phrases into the high school's already drama-filled halls. Honestly--and maybe this is the point--I don't want to be a associated with it, the cross I mean. And that's sad. Obviously, there's no understanding of symbolism of the cross or any desire for that understanding, but this is beside the point. Who cares what it's supposed to mean. The point is irony. The so-called Christian is really corrupt. Come on, people. This has been done!

On the other hand, maybe we should take care to evaluate this commentary, however offensive at first. Just how badly are Christians acting? Do we even believe what we say we believe? More importantly, do we know what we believe? The cheerleader doesn't. She probably doesn't even know how to pronounce the word "introspection," and clearly has no idea what it means to treat someone how she wants to be treated. Maybe she has no idea what it's like to be treated well--for real. out of love, not fear of ridicule. I've noticed in my own experience that people are so used to being treated badly by each other that it has become normal to have all-out fights with "friends," including name calling, the week long gossip after its over, and a hefty grudge so it can be brought up again at a moments notice. So why try to treat people well when you get treated the same or possibly worse than when you treat them how they would treat you?
But this just isn't true. While the writers of Glee may be telling us so give up because even the "Christian" who doesn't even know she's not acting like one is behaving without regard for the dignity of those around her, people do respond to genuine acts of care and goodness. If not at first, then sometime afterward. There are people out there who are at least trying to live according to their model because, after all, they have at least established one.

poem

"What a web we weave!" said the spider to his friend. "It glistens in the rain and captures flies in the wind" But while they had their fill of flies still they wondered wished and whined for another who might slake their voracious appetites. One day she happened by, that monarch butterfly, and blown into the web she did catch their eyes. They oohed and ahhed at her beauty, made her welcome made her safe, but at the end of it all they still laid her on their plate.

Play.

I've started reading a truly awful, yet interesting blog: http://roissy.wordpress.com/
It's by a man about men, and his opinions on relationships, the nature of male and female reactions, dating market values of both sexes....very interesting stuff. Some things may make your blood boil, others make you laugh out loud. Either way, I've enjoyed reading it recently especially in light of my quasi-recent break-up with my very own alpha male-coward variety. What i have decided to do is something of an addendum to my Maneaters club that only exists in my imagination and just come up with a few life rules to follow and to pass along to unsuspecting women like me.
**Let me just add, I've never referred to myself as a woman until last month at some point. Maybe this awakening from the fairytale dream has somehow changed the way I view myself in some ways. I'm a girl most of the time, but when it comes to relationships, I'm a woman. and don't you forget it boys. Oh wait, I don't talk to you guys anymore....No matter.

Rule NUMBER ONE: Never expect. Perceive.

#2 Make every effort to learn how to speak the language of a man before they learn how to speak yours.

#3 Realize you are susceptible to "GAME" and men who have it will attract you--be careful who you play with.

It's not that I think these rules will really protect any of us completely from the web of our wily counterparts. (Especially considering that deep down we still WANT to be captured!!!!! ARRRG!) I do believe however, we might avoid some of the heartache we don't fully understand by learning about the nature of the men (or boys) we're dealing with.

Let's learn how to play. Shall we?

Can someone please tell me why everyone thinks it makes sense to live together before you're married because you're not sure? Aren't you, by choosing to live together, simply getting married without the ceremony? I've known more than a fair few people who have chosen this "half-marriage" option and ALLLL have ended up one of two ways: staying in a relationship way past its expiration date, or spending lots of money together, depending on each other financially then breaking up leaving one or both parties in financial disarray. The girls have the audacity to get mad at the guys for "not committing" when they haven't done so either. Oh, let's commit without really committing. We'll live together to make sure we gel as a couple. Haven't you already assessed your boyfriend/girlfriend's character by this point well enough to know if you want to spend the majority of your time with him or her? Honestly, I understand the financial stability and convenience that comes with sharing expenses with a significant other. I do. It makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense to me, though, is why this is supposedly superior to retaining your independence before making the "official commitment." Excuse me, I'm not a girl you get to try out like that because you're not sure. Girl's, that's like saying, "Hey man, I'm not really worth sealing the deal over. Feel free to steal my youth and then leave me after 7 years we've spent deciding whether or not we love each other enough to actually be married."

I'm not saying by any stretch that I think people are bad or evil or stupid because they have decided to live together before getting married. I am saying that I think that it's ignorant to say that experiencing someone in this way is somehow the fail-safe for a path otherwise way to risky to take. I wonder if most people are starting their relationship off not with trust, but fear and selfish expectations that the other person will meet their needs.

Precious Helplessness

There is nothing like a wonderful wave of helplessness to bring you back to center, and there are few things in life quite like being locked out of your house and your car at the same time that give you that sensation we all hate. However, there is nothing like returning to the spastic arm motions toward the dreaded door button and the smile that hurts my cheeks that make me realize how a precious, helpless hour and half of nothing to do can be so...nice. I think I spend so much time in fast motion that I start forgetting that life can and does exist at regular speed, and that the world doesn't end when you can't make it somewhere. No one hates you and you haven't downgraded from overachiever to slacker status because you enjoy a little breather. (This is a great fear of mine.) You may even be better for missing whatever you're missing, or whatever it is you think you're missing.

Freedom in being unmemorable

As much as I'd like to think of myself as an-outside-the-box thinker, I must admittedly come to the conclusion that I have not had a single original thought in my entire life. The fact is, everything that I think about--even the most odd--has been thought already by many, many people. Though I cannot help but hope one day to be a great thinker who might actually contribute among the truly genius ideas of other people, let's face it: Out of the millions and millions of people, smart people, out there in the world and in history, there is a minuscule number of people who contributed something different and/or innovative enough for us to remember. Somehow, this fact actually encourages me...There is a freedom in being unmemorable. It is likely no one will ever remember anything that I say or write or do. HA! So it doesn't matter if 5 years from today I look at this blog and feel morbidly embarrassed. 5 years from that day, I'll probably have forgotten about it.

My favorite mode of expression is hyperbole.

Yesterday I saw a brief news story on a poetry recitation contest in which high school students chose from about 600 English poems to recite for a cash prize. Besides feeling immediately inadequate for my very poor knowledge of poetry in general, I remembered happily yet another thing my high school English teacher did so very well--poetry. We had poetry recitation contests for my first three years in high school. Junior year I recited Oliver Cromwell by Monty Python, the beginning of which I still remember: "The most interesting thing about King Charles the first is that he was five-foot-6 inches tall at the start of his reign, and only 4 foot 8 inches at the end of it...because of.....!! Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England!!" Of course, the best part about this poem is that it is actually a song set to Chopin's Heroic Polonaise, which is by far one of his best pieces as far as I'm concerned. I should find a link to it...
ahhhh!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1yPz14LrU
Watch this!!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite things about poetry and writing in general is that one can say or explain with such artistry and grace the most mundane things. The most fun of these, of course, are delicate little insults that may even go unnoticed: "Darling, your fashion sense astonishes me, always so dernier cri! Even your morals match your attire, always so fresh and new!!"

Did she just call me shallow?

The writer/poet may leave his human subjects positively adust from just a push of the pause button in a world that has been spinning continuously for quite some time now. It's not fun writing to be mean as an end in itself. It is fun, however, when the aim is farce, to make fun of ourselves and each other and the things we believe and take for granted, thing we have stopped thinking about. But is this really being mean? or just tough love?

I am sorry.

I came across a paper that I wrote about my own character yesterday while searching my archives for a decent writing sample to send with my graduate school applications. After reading through the 5 pages of honest criticism, I realized to my disappointment that effects of that life-shattering moment in self-realization have not resulted in the formation of a deeper more stable character. I am just as scared and unstable, arrogant and willful. How depressing. I do realize my character flaws, but I don't know how to fix them. Or maybe I'm too lazy and emotional to think to seriously about it. The worst part about it is that I find myself guilty of the same behavior I despise most in other people--that is the callousness towards the feelings and well-being of others. I do want the best for people, but I am so easily angered by other people's bad behavior that I allow it to alter mine and I become just like them. How do I get out of this pattern? I wonder if it will take forming a habit of altering my perception of most people, which honestly is very negative at this point.

But how, then, do you teach yourself not to be afraid? It is said that with God at our side we should not have to be afraid, but I've always felt afraid. Fear is at the very base of every single action I regret. Fear of hurting someone's feelings just causes you to hurt them more deeply. Fear of a conversation just makes the inevitable more difficult. Fear of failing just makes you less relaxed and more apt, in fact, to fail at what you're doing.

So the answer is Do Not Be Afraid. Say what needs to be said. Do what needs to be done. Above all, operate this way among the rest of the population who likely haven't really thought about this. Wonderful.

I have to apologize to nearly every guy I have come into contact with in the past 2 months. I am sorry that I cannot live up to what you might have thought of me; but I am moving river underneath an iced surface. If you dig too deeply, you'll likely drown. I have unfairly and selfishly invited people close to me knowing that my ice is thin, but I'm telling you now to keep off. Better to visit me in the spring.

Oh Master

In the past two days, I have been approached by not one but TWO young men who have insisted upon making me their Sith Padawan, their protege of the dark side of the Force. Are my friends bigger nerds than I am? Well, it's looking grim. I do not wish to be a member of the dark force, thank you very much! If I am going to submit to a master, it's going to be a master of some goal I actually wish to achieve. Because what does a master do? He tells you you're an idiot, that you know nothing, that you a large pile of masticated beef. You get mad, wish you were dead, tear your hair out, scream and cry.... and then you get BETTER at whatever you're trying to accomplish. Thank you, master.

Yes, I have no intention of putting myself through this kind of torture, however effective, if the outcome is to be the demise of my soul. I do quite well all by myself in that department. The evil man only serves himself. So in the case of the Sith master, the padawan should be aware that his master will most likely betray him anyway. Likewise, the master should be aware that his padawan will most likely kill him, enjoying each moment in retribution for the torture he experienced on the road to becoming a full fledged Sith. What is the POINT, people??!?
Of course, is the sith master completely evil if he desires to impart his knowledge, that being an unselfish act....Or no, because it is possible to educate for selfish reasons...hm. But why if you know it's going to backfire on you? ARG. I don't understand.

I recall reading something by Nietzsche that at once described the void of love and love itself. I wonder what this means when applied to actions...I wish I could remember what I was reading....

Dearie me Dairy

If only this weren't so hilarious to me, I would be embarrassed that I've allowed a bacterial process to take up residence in the most sacred domain that is my car...where, in fact, I live most days.

I am gradually getting dumber.

I think this statement deserves its own post. No explanation necessary.

Edgyness in Perception

I finally slept well after more than two weeks of getting between 3 1/2 and 5 hours of sleep per night. Of course, I overslept through 3 alarms, and woke only after incorporating text messages from work into my dream, which I realized almost immediately were part of my real world. ARG. I have been extremely edgy this summer in general, but this month has been...special. My personal narrative is at once rudely shaken and painfully redundant. My thoughts are so vivid that I have to force myself to pay attention to anything actually in front of me. This is particularly unnerving while driving. WAY too often I end up a mile down the road and don't remember how I got to that point.
I've been spending a great deal of time thinking about perception, especially my own, and how it is affecting the vision of reality. The truth is, I have a wide variety of perceptions. At this point, I think the variety is just leading to fear a self-diagnosis of schizophrenia. I may be painfully unaware of what is actually happening around me. Maybe this is because what I'm thinking so hard about is in fact the perception of other people who, I imagine, are first of all struggling to understand what their own perception is, which is changing as often as mine is, making it virtually impossible to analyze from the outside. It's a futile effort that I wish I could just put down and forget.Is this how philosophers come to the conclusion that there is no reality? Because they can't find it for themselves beyond there own perception?

I'm losing sleep over this ridiculousness and its beginning to vex me.

Slip of the hand...Save your soul!

Last night in mass, my friend was struggling to pull small bills out of her purse for the collection basket. I remember noticing as she hurriedly searched her wallet and threw what looked like a couple of 1's into the pleasant-faced usher's long-handled basket. I, yet again, had not taken my wallet into church with me, and bashfully avoided his eyes. As it turned out, my friend had donated for the both of us. She had accidentally put her $100 bill in the basket, which she noticed only after it fell in. !! And being the good and generous that she is, she just let it go, though not without a little anxiety and not without stifling the reaction stop the pleasant-faced usher, "I didn't mean to give that much!" and dig through the basket to get it back. But no, no, no. That would have been bad form indeed. In the basket it stayed, waiting to *wow* the parish accountant. Next stop Sainthood, my friend!

The Sunglass Couple

Had to share really quickly, a cartoon COUPLE comes in to workout almost every day. They're so cool. The girl's sunglasses are squarish blues-brother style--very hipster chic--and the guy's, of course, are mirror aviators. They always come in together, silently, purposefully, seriously...They look very much alike, kind of like how in 101 Dalmatians the dogs and owners look alike, except they're both human: pale skin, dark hair, and allllllways wearing sunglasses when they walk in--so I've never actually seen their eyes. Today, the guy forgot his card, so they had to speak. To my surprise, they were so jovial! I knew then they were more than deserving of a post and spectacular cartoon classification! Good job guys.

Does it scare you how well I know you?

I think it definitely freaks people out that I can predict almost perfectly the names and needs of the members who come into work in the morning. This is not because I'm special or necessarily very smart. I just work amongst the most predictable creatures of habit on the planet. I recognize voices on the phone so they wonder why I don't ask for their child's name every time they call for babysitting, just like they do every day. Or sometimes, not even every day...The same people need locks every day, so they don't even ask anymore. The same people train with the same trainers every day, so we may have a one-two word exchange---" Hey" or "training today"--- as I check them off for their 47th personal training session. I know who you are. I know who your trainer is." Sometimes I feel like I'm playing the game of Clue for about the 1000th time. For example, the solution could be :Therepist Q with Mr. T in the Co-Ed room, at 12:00pm, for 60 minutes. OR Miss M. with Mrs. P, in the pilates room, with...the REFORMER! Mr. S with his daughter H, in the babysitting room, 1 hour. It's way more fun to think of scheduling like it's a game. Otherwise, I might have offed myself out of sheer boredom by now. No, I'd start memorizing the digits of Pi before taking such drastic measures.

I just realized I probably shouldn't use "amongst" anymore. It took be forever as a kid to figure out why it was "amongst women" and not "among women" in the Hail Mary, and now I use it in regular speech. Sheesh.

My Emotional Kaleidoscope

Though many a broken-hearted girl may self-diagnose herself as bi-polar and be done with it, we would all do ourselves an injustice by not properly assessing the wide spectrum of our emotions....

Does that sound psycho-babbly at all?

To be honest, I just had a very brief thought in which I compared human emotions to a Kaleidoscope: Captivating, vibrant, easily moved, somewhat out of control unless the barrel is moved ever so carefully...does this make sense? Is this ringing a bell? Wondering about emotions leads me back to my questions about perception vs. truth I mentioned in the earlier blog on Kant...we can be so fragile, yet so strong. Our emotions can drive us over the edge, so the answer seems to be that we should become less emotional beings... for self preservation reasons, right? And now for the original KALEIDOSCOPE COMPARISON!!...

I REALLY don't appreciate the frequent SHAKING of my kaleidoscope of late! So I'll soak the end in Coke and wait for the colored pieces to start gumming together, or maybe add some nice olive oil so everything slows down. OR perhaps I should learn to see the beauty in the colors mixing together and enjoy the ride. I still maintain my position that it is better to be able to experience pain than to become emotionally stunted and close off. You don't get anywhere that way, and I imagine a lot more people get hurt that way. Ironic isn't it? At least if you allow yourself to feel, the more you experience the more opportunity you have to learn about how emotions affect your perception, how they can help you, how they can harm you, how they can keep you from seeing what really is.

This is going to require another post, but I'm feeling too disjointed to finish my thoughts now.

Noches Latinas: The Saga Continues

Ok, maybe it's not a Saga. However, it has been a most excellent weekend of friends and the BEST FOOD EVER. Yesterday we cooked for a total 4 hours a lovely Cuban meal including Ropa Vieja, which requires the cooking and shredding of an entire roast, Maduros y Christianos--Black beans and Rice, but SO much more!---, and Tostones, which are twice-fried plantains, which you peel only under water and only after covering your hands with oil so they don't turn black--your hands, that is. Dearie me!!!

Honestly, this is only exacerbating my growing obsession with the Caribbean culture. Why are you so awesome?! I mean, what do I have to compare really? What is American culture anyway? I have this conversation occasionally, and no one can ever come up with anything that's worth repeating. I've come to the conclusion that because we have a sometimes diluted collective culture, we have developed little micro cultures in our cities, and sometimes in our states. We all know that New Yorkers are veeeery different that New Orleanians. But WHY? I can't seem to put my finger on it. Is it mentality, manners, work ethic, party-capacity...? And where we are different, should it be traced back to our heritage? Both were port cities filled with the Irish, Spanish, French...How did we and how do we develop our cultural norms and narrative?

Noches Latinas, babyyyyy!

Don't park next to the sketchy people!!!!! Especially at a club in Metairie, dear friends, unless you are ok with the guy-banter when we girls drive up next to them. At least it sounds prettier in Spanish: Que Bonita, que liiiiinda, babyyyyy. Where are you goooooing tonight? My friends and I went in search of Salsa dancing on Saturday evening after our very private and exclusive wine and Manchego cheese party, and our third...er...hit-and-miss venue of the evening was this club in Fat City called Club Slim. It looked highly promising, at least for our purposes, especially as we appeared to be the only non-Latins in the vicinity. Woop! Dance partners! Unfortunately when we got in, NO ONE was dancing to the very awesome Reggaton. Rather, they were staring at US...all 20 or so guys and the token way better dressed girl. We were giggling like 15-year-olds. One of my friends and I were totally prepared to stick it out, but the third of us, used to the clean and vibrant clubs in Houston was completely scared out of her mind. I could see her eyes scanning the crowd and mapping out every escape route in case we were cornered by the fan club in the parking lot. After a quick not-so-covert discussion about what we should do, we walked back out, our frightened friend practically skip-running to her car. We tried to maintain at least one or two cool points getting back into our cars and driving away beneath the stares of the entire parking lot...but all I can say is that it was a valiant effort.

My friends are muppets and cartoons.

I must continue the saga of muppets and cartoons in my life. I have one of each in my two best friends. B is the muppet with a sweet heart-shaped face and curly hair that has been tamed via her incredible "bouncy cream." L is the kind-hearted cartoon, with smiley eyes and a hearty chuckle that appears both easily and often...she also has one of the scariest tempers I've ever seen. HA! I did not realize just how pronounced they are in their respective...materials until after having taken several pictures next to them.

By the way, I still remain undecided on my own status, which takes me back to my original conclusion that I am, quite simply, the narrator, neither muppet nor cartoon.

Maybe I'm a crazy person, but we're just going to have to be ok with thatI

...and I definitely say "ok" waaaay too often.

The only thing you can change is yourself.

This may be the one life lesson that I actually nailed--- at least once-- in my life. It's the one I remember in most situations, even if sometimes I've remembered all too late. I tend to think most of the time that one one is paying attention to me, that I exist in some kind of vaccum void. Or perhaps, just like everyone does,--in a little "skull-sized kingdom" (I can't remember where I heard that phrase!) I have my own little skull-sized kingdom, and it's got a boisterous court of fools I like to call my thoughts. Maybe it's been a self-preservation thing to retreat into my little skull kingdom, but I know if I'm not careful I'll start relying too much on my perception of things and not paying attention to what's really going on. Though missing out on reality doesn't always seem like a bad thing, I think most of us would agree that staying out of the loop too long will only prolong our suffering. Reality is a place where we have to be with and rely on other people, and that is what makes it at once so abhorrent and so wonderful. We reject and hurt each other for no good reason but instead of changing ourselves, we build walls to protect ourselves from the sting of rejection, loss, and malcontent. We retreat into our skull-kingdoms where--HA--we can never be happy. I hope to learn better and break out of my own habit of retreat so that I don't just give my self more walls to tear down at some point. I don't really want to live behind them anyway.

Public and Unsatisfactory Display of Competition

Last night, I went to balcony bar as part of my friends' "Wine Wednesdays" tradition and, perhaps because of recently increased stress levels, I started to get antsy almost immediately. My answer to this problem is very nearly always the same: Play a game...Last night I chose a new-to-me game called "I'd like you to meet my friend, Emily," which is QUITE fun, at least for me. Of course, last night, my friend wasn't having anything to do with the random guys I chose, the ones who just happened to be sitting next to us, so I end up striking up a random conversation. I found my out when one of them answered a text while I was talking--yay--but then he came back to apologize for his rudeness. I hadn't cared--really. The sad fact of the matter is (and I know how evil this is), he was just a part of my own entertainment and competitive nature. I was just trying to see if I could get random strangers to talk and be interesting. Well...I did get them to talk, so I'll consider that my little victory for the evening. It would have been a bonus, maybe even nice, if they had actually turned out to be cool or even engaging, which they didn't. I tried exceedingly hard to pay attention to our conversation, to make them feel good and amusing. Sadly, I got bored again. Maybe it's because the competition was too easily won...or probably because there was no competition at all. ARG. How unsatisfying.

I've been accused by one of my co-workers of only blogging on the negative. Am I too negative and critical in my posting? Ok, to be honest I haven't felt very positive about life lately, which is why perhaps I've become rather bitter in my commentary. Please accept my most sincere apologies.

Though I may have lost most of my faith in the our species, a cynicism that is reinforced daily, it is only fair to God and man that I not ignore the great and wonderful gift I have in my close friends who, daily, restore the faith in what we humans are capable of being.

So that's it for sappy nonsense, ok? Yes, I still tear up with joy when toddlers smile at me, I still identify with Elizabeth Bennett, I am still awestruck under the night sky, I still love glitter, and I still believe, somehow, in love.

But let's be honest. I'm just not that interesting a person without a little angst.

Bad VS. Badly

Ok, so this post is entirely too long...

I went looking for a word that meant "to affect badly," or something like that, and found in my google search there are SERIOUS debates over the use of "Bad vs. Badly." One's an adjective and one's an adverb, people! Simple, right? Ahhhh, think again:

This is the title from an actual New York Times article that most interested me:

BAD VS. BADLY.; A MORAL, SOCIAL, AND LINGUISTIC DISCUSSION REPLIES TO SOME LADY CORRESPONDENTS, AND RESPECTFUL COMPLIMENTS TO A WESTERN PROFESSOR.

The journalist proceeds to write that his MOST POPULAR letters of inquiry are concerning the proper use of bad vs. badly. (Are you kidding me? This reminds me of philosophy class second semester freshman year when no one wanted to talk all year until we reached a nice safe topic : the moral implications of vegetarianism vs. eating meat. So, it really shouldn't have surprised me that the most common worry among New York Times readers is a grammatical confusion and not say...homelessness.)

But that is just beginning. The journalist is actually writing the article to respond to the "condemnation" by a Literature professor from Vanderbilt, who writes that the NY times, not to mention this particular journalist, are the very last place one should look for grammatical guidance. Well, I think we all know how liberal arts professors feel about the "communication arts," that is, not in very high regard. However, the journalist makes a valiant effort to defend himself:
"...it may possibly be accepted as a plea in misericordiam on on my behalf that I have never volunteered my guidance, either to individuals or the public...I have never made that guidance the occasion of volunteering a derogatory opinion of any other critic or teacher..."
So, he's doing the best he can, Mr. Vandy Professor. It's not his fault that he get's so many letters from people about grammar.

But, the best is when he reports that the author cited in the Professor's letter, Dr. F. Hall, was in fact "Pilloried for literary indecency and impudence in the leading critical publications of Great Britain, one of his executioners being , as I have learned, one of the most eminence authors of the day..."
OUCH! .

I was almost ready to side with journalist in this little hissy fit until I read the second half of the article during which he starts going on about moral goodness or badness, which I felt to be a passive aggressive slight towards the Vandy Professor who unwittingly chose an ignorant, pompous, and especially "bad" guy to support his argument. So, he's taking the moral high road and discrediting his knowledge of the English language because he's really a "bad" guy.... That makes sense.
The fundamental turn-off, however, is his assumption about why women are the ones constantly writing in about their struggle with bad vs. badly. (dangerous territory, man!!!) His assumption is that because "badness" in women refers mostly to their sexual conduct, women especially want to make sure that they are not suggesting this when they say "I feel bad."

Hm.

Obviously, R.G.W's pride more than a little wounded, or else he would not have gone such great lengths to defend his obligation to answer his many constituents, even though, admittedly, he just doesn't have the resources at his disposal. Back off, Vandy!
My guess is that our Professor was expressing his own exasperation with our tenuous and altogether misunderstood vernacular--and maybe blowing off a little steam in his frustration that, despite all of his own research, everyone still writes to the Times.

And now, I have added even more to the ridiculous amount of writing on the subject of bad vs. badly.

Here's a link to the full article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9801E6DD163EE63BBC4850DFB7678382669FDE

Creeper McCreeps

My mother reminded me of something I can't believe I forgot to post about yesterday. Coming home from work, I took Hickory down to Adams and crossed through the, er, transitional part of my street, which lies in between the two halves of Carrollton Cemetery. As usual, I passed a few people peering out from their porches, but this time I also saw a man and a woman who were standing on the corner of Adams and Cohn across from my house. I watched them both watch me pass them and then pull into my quasi-driveway, get out and walk towards the front. As I turned to go through my front gate to get my mail, the man yells a "Hey there!" or something...Because I'm friendly--or stupid--I responded. The next question he asked was so weird, though.
"Are you from Louisiana?? The question was laced with doubt.
"I am," I said.
He raised his eyebrows and smiled saying, "Babe, you Daaaaam Fine!"
"Um, thanks." I laughed nervously then proceeded to struggle with my mail that took FOREVER to get out of my impossible mail box. I dropped a few things, which meant I had to bend over and get it. GREAT! So I tried to do it as modestly as possible before almost running back into the house.

It was not that intense of an experience, but it did provoke a "watch out for all those creepy men" talk from my mother, including a horrible story about a girl who by kissing some random guy, developed a mouth sore which aided in the effort to expose him as the murderer of 4 girls, the bodies of which he had stashed in his house. Nice.
No worries, Mom. They're all guilty until proven innocent.

Pupusas and Purpose

Actually, this post has nothing to do with either Pupusas or Purpose. I just liked the alliteration, although I did consume two delicious pupusas with great purpose--and gusto for that matter!!-- this evening at dinner with my family. Wouldn't that make a great short story title? Moving on....

I heard a song on the radio this evening and I was taken with a song that said, "L-o-v-e is just another word I never learned how to pronounce. " HOW TRUE! Normally listening to 97.1 is like a fast food binge/trip to Walmart--which, by the way, I have NOT done in a very, very long time thank you very much---, but eeevery once in a while I find something worth analyzing. This song kind of reminded me of the dating shows I bashed in an earlier post: On the surface, the song I heard is just the same kind of sickly gratifying tune with a catchy beat, club-tastic synths and lyrics like "See-through, leather, tube top, makes me wanna....." you get the picture. The singer is warning his pretty quarry that he'll never say the word "love" because he doesn't even know what it means. I don't remember what he says after that, but I found it to be a remarkably honest thing to say. The song also reminds me scarily of the moral code of someone I met this summer... He's right, though! No one knows what love means but we all suspect love does not mean anything that takes place in the club scene. So we know what love is NOT. Sort of.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say that I intend on posing a very uncomfortable question to unsuspecting individuals. What do you think LOVE is? I've never been a person with an agenda, but I'm afraid I just might have found one. It's all just intellectual fun, mind you.

If Broccoli tasted better than doughnuts...

...Life as we know it just might be a little different, and maybe a little less frustrating. But NO! The right way is almost always the harder way. Food provides a lovely microcosm for exploration of this concept. I venture to suggest that at least 90% of people would rather eat a doughnut over broccoli (unless you're me or my sister 5 years ago) because, despite the overwhelming nutritional advantages of eating broccoli, doughnuts taste way better. My sister and I used to joke about getting hypnotized one day into enjoying the taste of broccoli and other vegetables in the way we would enjoy ice cream or cake. THEN, it wouldn't have taken so much self discipline and force feeding ourselves depressing plates of green food--basically a vegetable patch-- as we tried to consume the proper things, conditioning our brains to forget things that taste good, things like real butter and sugar, and whole milk. *sigh*

The unfortunate extension of this phenomenon into real life, however, is the real depression. We have to end relationships, sever connections, and burn bridges all in honor of "the right thing." Why does the action have to be so severely painful? Why is the easy thing to do almost always wrong? What would the world be like if only we could all be hypnotized to really believe that it is so much easier and safer to speak plainly, and rather be much more afraid of lying; and on the other side, everyone be hypnotized to be comfortable knowing the truth when they hear it.
We do we have to fight to be good?and true? and honorable? Why can't the slippery slope go up instead of down? It is so easy to fall, and so difficult to get up. Is this the only way we appreciate anything?

On "Minor Freak Outs" and Why They are necessary

Well, at least necessary to my sanity. I venture to say that every girl knows the M.F.O. all too well. (Do guys ever freak out over anything important? Ok, yes you do. That was mean and passive aggressive.) Unfortunately for me, Minor Freak Outs are usually brought on my the simplest of statements that cause a flood of memories, emotions , however deeply buried, surface in the form of rouging cheeks, hot flashes, and the occasional--let's be honest: ever-present--teary eyes. GEES!!! M.F.O.s can cause both a high level of disruption in one's life, as well as an outlet for pent up raw feelings, albeit a terribly unpleasant one. M.F.Os are like grown up temper tantrums because you feel like something intrinsic to your life has been dislodged from its rightful place: in the I-don't-have-to-think-about-this-anymore-because-I've-decided-it's-true part of your brain. This leads me to the thinking that these M.F.O.s could be a necessary part of mature human ethical development----not that anyone really cares about that anymore.

HOWEVER....there is a less noble M.F.O. that occurs when people do something stupid, obnoxious, or transparently SELFISH. For example, I have a Minor Freak Out whenever someone gives me GRIEF about letting me make them a new card--I.E. insisting that the 5 seconds it takes to make the card will make them late-- so I don't have to stop and type in their information every time the come in. OR, I have a Minor Freak Out when someone asks me a question to which they already know the answer and then gets mad at me for it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! But see, I'm already over it.

Society for Magnificent Maneaters

We like to Meet our Meat before we Eat.
This is not your typical Maneater's Society. The point and intent of our society is first and foremost education of our pitifully formed male counterparts. Let's face it. They just don't know what to do with themselves, let alone with a woman. Therefore, men--because we already know boys couldn't handle it-- are invited to join our circle, one at a time, for a lovely 3-on-1 session over a moderate amount of alcoholic treats. The discussion will be centered on 5 central questions. Here are a few examples designed to tap the male mind, and to expose him to real women's reactions.

1. What are you thinking about right now, and why? (*side note, if this turns out to be either food, shelter, or procreation, one member of the society is allowed a single, unannounced smack without explanation.)
2. Why would you approach a woman, or why not? Give at least 3 reasons with examples.
3. What are the top 3 things women think about.
4. What is your favorite pick-up line and explain why you think it works?
5. Who do you think, at this table, would be the scariest when angry and why?

All Questions are subject to change at any given moment, of course. I think these would be more than fairly entertaining...but more importantly INSTRUCTIVE for both parties.

Of course, The most exquisite part about the formation of this society is the central doubt in my mind that the society will ever entertain a Man under these conditions. The fear and intimidation, I imagine, will be too intense for them. Am I wrong?

Real-life Dearie ME!!!

When your top flies off at the beach in front of a rather jolly contingent of the U.S. Navy there is only time for one thing: Critical Thinking!!!!! And now, the necessary back story to this scenario:

I took an impromptu trip to Pensacola beach this weekend with two friends. Everything worked out beautifully as we scraped our way through the day: showers in the covered beach showers at the Hilton, bathroom breaks at Hampton Inn...We met a group of Navy guys while baking our bodies on Saturday afternoon. I had my eyes closed, but my friends spotted them as the past up the spot where we were, but make a U-turn about 30 seconds later and plop down next to us. All I remember was hearing "Dorian...Dorian!! Wake up, get up, get up, get up!" and suddenly there they were: I named them by their respective home states/cities: Alabama, Denver, Minnesota, Florida, and California. Jesse a.k.a Minnesota was the most charming out of the bunch...and he spent the majority of his time burying himself with sand, using the bud lights they had with them to wet the sand...
The water was very rough, but we would from time to time get the nerve to go and battle the waves for a while. We went out with the navy guys for a bit. I was getting blown around like a leaf in the waves, which was fine at first because Minnesota was holding my hand to steady me. THEN, we got hit by about 3 waves in a row during which time my bathing suit top flew over my head. DEEEEARIE ME!!!!!!!!!! When I resurfaced from the waves, I thought my top was completely gone...as in, it was lost in the ocean forever....right smack in the middle of about 6 guys. ONLY ME!!! I looked over at my friend and tried to think about what the best course of action was going to be. Somehow, I was going to have to make it back to the beach, topless, without exposing myself...Then I noticed that something around my neck. THANK GOD, what I thought was my hair was actually the strings to my top dangling around my neck. Minnesota saw my holding myself (ARRRRRRG) and grabbed me around the waist to steady me, as he told me to try to put the top back on...IT WAS BROKEN. (GREEEEAT!!!) I called my friend over to come and tie it, all the while Minnesota--a stranger--is holding me from behind making sure I don't roll away into the surf. The whole thing was so ridiculous, there was almost no point in being embarrassed, not to mention there was really no time. We did manage to get my suit tied together and made it out of the Yellow-flagged waves unscathed.

What IS diet, caffeine-free Coca Cola?

Man, I need to practice capitalizing my proper nouns... BAHH! What can you do when you're up at 11:00pm knowing that you have to get up in exactly 6.5 hours, and you're insides are shaking? Well, my dear friends, the answer is to blog. If I had a tripod, my current situation would be an excellent setting for a video. Shame. ARG!!!!! I can't sleep, I can't sleep! Too much on the brain, not enough exercise, and the strangest dinner... I'm just re-living it: Black beans and rice with a cheese omelet on top. What did I eat??? Top that off with a diet, caffeine free Coke, and we've got the quintessential in "I-eat-alone-on-a-regular-basis" dinners. Eww. I'm almost ashamed to describe how pitiful the meal was. I mean, eating in front of your laptop just bites anyway. At least if it's a tuna sandwich you can pass it off as a snack. But dinner?!?! Gees, that's SAD.

And just for the record, When I hit spell check--because I'm paranoid--I found that I had spelled quintessential correctly, and messed up sandwich. How does this make sense?

Insomnia is a great excuse for being random and composing a message filled with non sequiturs. (The spell check doesn't recognize the word "non sequitur." HA ! I love when I'm smarter than the computer. I was beginning to worry.

Dating Shows are the ultimate "DO NOT"

Dating shows cause me to vomit a little bit in my mouth. And yet, HOW TELLING they are about our culture and what a void of meaning there is in our relationships. We aren't even sad when people break up. We expect it. We might even want it. For instance, no one will be surprised when the winner of "More to Love" and the lucky man break up on some other follow-up show. For purposes of the moment, we'll call that show, "Mike just wants a Mini Skirt." Maybe he will get a backstage pass to "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and they'll hit it off and make a new show together, "Meg and Mike have a Tike." Then they'll have successfully brought a new generation into the world of hollywood relationships, and we can all watch how the kid grows up, somehow survives the impending divorce of his painfully superficial parents after some "alleged infidelity." Then we'll all be surprised-except-not when the kid gets arrested for something like petty theft (even though he's a millionaire) and lands his very own hit show "The Life of an American Teenager: The JUVIE HALL Days"
These shows are like eating junk food every day for a month times 100. All they serve to do is to present an increasingly apathetic populous with trite exaggerations of real-life relational misery so that we feel better by comparison and get a little entertainment out of the deal. TO WHAT ARE WE COMPARING OURSELVES, PEOPLE?

"Orphan" Movie (contains spoilers)

Last night I went to see "Orphan" with my friend. I give the movie about a 7 for Scary-factor, and maybe even a 9 for plot and here's why: I went to this movie "knowing" that I was going to see one of those demon-child movies, which are pretty disturbing in general. However, I was plesantly surprised by the truth of the matter revealed toward the end of the movie. Instead of a demon-child on our hands who never got love, we have a 33-year old psychotic who just happens to have a rare hormone disorder than makes her look very young. She poses as a little girl, and being the master maniupulator she is, attempts to seduce the father of each family she infiltrates. Come to find out she is one of the most violent and dangerous inmates of a mental hospital from which she escaped. I wonder where they got such a story. The truth that I don't want to admit is that they probably got it from some real-life case from the 1930s or something...or maybe several different cases rolled into one. I should look it up.

Are we all really this self-centered??

I really can't handle it when I hear someone talking about being engaged to someone they are not in love with. How many people in the world actually marry people they want to be with ALL THE TIME? I freaks me out that it probably isn't that many. And I guess it works out? But then, it really doesn't because over HALF of all marriages end in divorce. Are we all that self-centered? Are we so misinformed on what love is that we all THINK we know what it is and then settle for somthing that isn't? AHHHHHH!!!!! I'm going to be single forever. My standards are altogether too high, apparently.

Owl City

Muppets and Cartoons

In case you didn't know, the world is divided into Muppets and Cartoons. Everybody is either one of the other, and neither is better than the other. There are a few criteria that I use to characterize one as either a muppet or a cartoon:

Muppets:
-May have curly hair, but not always.
-Generally have muppet-like default expressions on their faces, and rounder faces
-Can be pictured to be made of felt

Cartoons
-Usually have sharper features
-More often than not, have straight hair
-Can be pictured in a comic strip, or animated series.

Let's categorize some famous people:

Drew Barrymore-- muppet
President Obama & his wife--muppets

Adam Sandler--(surprisingly) cartoon

Bruce Willis--muppet
Meg Ryan--muppet who is trying to look like a cartoon, but I know the truth!
Princess Diana--R.I.P., muppet
Miley Cyrus--cartoon

More categorization stories to follow...

Pathetic

I'd write a story about my life if it weren't so horribly pathetic. At the age of 24, I've already adapted my life to that of a widow---without the cats. Today, I took a 2-hour nap, swept my kitchen floor, indulged in a few dark chocolate wafers, and then went outside to water my garden. But for the Kings of Leon song "I'm Soft" blaring from my laptop on repeat, my home and routine just might belong to my grandmother...except my grandmother is way cooler, with season tickets to the LSU games for 50+ years, constant travel for various reasons, and a time share in Disney. No, my grandmother is Rockin'. I wonder, as a widow of roughly 22 years, if she still gets the ache in her chest that my grandfather used to fill...
I must say, however, spending time thinking about plants is relaxing. My roses are growing, but I'm afraid are rather unkempt. I'm just glad they're surviving the heat, but I fantasize about having the perfect rose bushes, covered in perfect buds in cycle with perfect flowers. One day when I have the energy or will power to do more than water, I will buy a pair of gloves and a straw hat. GEES, more widowhood apparel.
Yes, my life is so pathetic at this point, I am manifesting what I want in life in my dreams. It is so real, I believe them when I wake up. I dream text messages I want to receive, conversations I want to have, pictures I want to see, people I wish were here..altogether, my dream universe is the one that I want to live in. Wow, now I'm a psychotic widow. the unfortunate part about this entire phenomenon is that instead of empowering me, the dreams only serve to make me even more depressed when I wake up. All of my choices have led me to this point...in pointland...in the one dimensional POINTLAND and I can't move because...a point doesn't even have being. It's just an intersection of two lines.
So the thing to do, in order to stop this ever emcompassing state of ineptitude, I have to change something...I have to move blindly down one line or another, or perhaps more frightening, jump off into--I hope--a third dimension.

Thoughts on Kant

Kant whittled down truth to the question the existence of his own mind. His mind could not be doubted, he decided, because it was his very mind doing the doubting. I wonder what Kant would think of questioning the truth of one's own thoughts. Our emotions sometimes lie to us...We can make a huge deal out of something that is insignificant because we THINK it is. By and by we may find that it really isn't important. Therefore, our own thoughts and emotions have decieved us. If our own thoughts could be lies of perception, than what is the point of the existence of your mind? If the thoughts of your mind are not the truth, if we lose the ability to perceive what actually is, does it even matter that the mind exists? Isn't the purpose of the mind to KNOW the TRUTH?

Why do we do things to hurt ourselves?

Why do we do things to hurt ourselves? I think we all have a little masochist in us somewhere. For instance, why do we look at pictures of people we miss? Because we want to see them, because we love them, etc, etc, etc...all wonderful things; but in the end, sometimes it just makes us feel WORSE. "Why are they so HAPPY in the pictures when I'm so sad?" It's not fair!! Not only that, but there is this ache at the core of our being that we're all addicted to. It hurts, but we want it to hurt because it reminds us that we do feel something. It reminds us that we love...or loved at one time. I would venture to say that more often than not, most people, despite themselves, would opt to feel pain (on some level) over not feeling anything at all. We can laugh and cry, two things other species on the planet don't do. No girl is going to give up the ability to CRY! This girl surely isn't.

I was wondering about snail reproduction

Ok, I am very confused about the nature of the reproduction of snails: Upon the first search, I found out that most terrestrial snails possess both male and female reproductive organs, which would make them hermaphrodites...but apparently they still mate--this according to About.com.

Meanwhile, I happened upon a lab report completed by students at FSU--much more in depth, I think--which made no mention of snails at all. I did find out that Aphids have a life cycle which actually alternates between sexual and aesexual reproduction by way of Parthenogenesis, a modification of sexual reproduction, in which eggs develop without fertilization. Hm....

But back to the snails: In support of what I read on About.com, I found an explanation of what it means to be a hermaphrodite mollusk on Wikipedia: Because they have both male and female reproductive organs, all land snails lay eggs, which then hatch and become little snails. HOWEVER, they still mate after performing a courtship that can last anywhere from 2 to 12 hours (!!) in order to internally fertilize the eggs. Soo....this is not really aesexual reproduction?
I'm still confused.

Be extra cautious if you're driving behind a hearse...

I almost rear-ended a hearse yesterday--which happened to be carrying a casket-- while trying to position my phone perfectly so that my car charger would actually charge my phone. In retrospect I wonder, did I inadvertently enter a funeral procession? AH!!! And I live across the street from and graveyard. great.

Frettings at 6:13am

Is "frettings" a word? Ok, no it's not, but no matter; I simply wish to imply a certain return to infancy which occurs during these early morning hours: I need food. I need sleep. I need...coffee. Yes, from infancy in my house we were conditioned with a lovely beverage called coffee milk. Coffee milk, when made properly, is simmered on a stove top: 10% coffee, 90%milk, and about 3 tablespoons of sugar. Delectable. However, somewhere along the lines, we stop needing the milk and the percentages flip flop. This change has led me to months --years--of shaky-hands, twitching eyes, spastic arm gestures, and mood swings that rival the manic depressive, and an ever-deepening need for the very cause of the ruckus: coffee.