The dreaded words

I'm going to be out of town until next Monday. Therefore, no posts. As you pine away for me, however, consider the following blogs from some Random Shapes comrades. Although there are many fine members, there're only five days of despair, and therefore only five blogs listed, picked at random from a list of blogs that are flippin' sweet.

Sleepwalking my way through life by Joe
Reaching Maturity by Elise
Glench by Glen
Pierre Lourens by that Glenchdude with the cool name which may or may not also be his blog's name ;)
Accidental Procrastination by Elliot Swan

There'll be link love for more than one lady in a later post.

Keep it classy, readers.

Epidemic

As I had hoped, the headbutt is catching on. See this article. If you're too lazy to click, here's the gist of it:

LONDON (AP) -- Jockey Paul O'Neill apologized Tuesday for head-butting his horse at a race last weekend.
...."I would just like to say to the public that I'm very sorry they had to see such a thing," O'Neill said in a statement. "I've never done it before and it will never happen again."

The only logical conclusion to be drawn is that O'Neill reads this blog and took it to heart. The perhaps less logical conclusion is that merely because I put the thought out there, O'Neill picked up on it. I feel a sense of victory. It's the beginning of a headbutting revolution. I can see the world improving already. Rather than shooting the horse, letting the rage simmer or blowing up the racetrack, he headbutted the horse he had been riding. If there's something funnier than watching a French soccer player ram an Italian soccer player in the chest with his head, it's a jockey ramming a horse in the chest with his head.

The jockey comes away looking a little doofy, and the horse comes away thinking humans would be perhaps best underfoot. He apologizes, the horse is cool with, and everyone moves on. I couldn't have asked for a better showing of how the application of headbutts as the maximum of aggression will make the world better.

And this post is the last time I will talk about headbutting for a while. I may have become a little obsessed. Even though there's nothing wrong with being keen on world piece, I'll just let the ideas stew some more, permeate the universe. Perhaps some more good will come of this. Here's hoping!

Dog Farts

My dog's farts are what they meant when they created the phrase "silent but deadly." There is never any warning to them. One moment you're fine, and the next your eyes are tearing up and you're burying your face in your sleeve. The smell is enough to peel paint off walls. I got a taste of it for the first time last night; that's right, taste. It's a moist, disgusting fart that permeates both taste and smell. I wanted to throw myself out the window.
(photo hosted by Zooomr because of an exciting new offer)
At first I didn't understand. My father and I are of the school of feeding the dog only dog food and absolutely nothing from the table. My mother is from the pampering school of dog care. She feeds my dog shamelessly, has me cook an extra slice of bacon for her when I make breakfast, blows on bits of chicken before sharing it with her at dinner. Therefore, she was always the one who bore the brunt of the farting. My dog makes sure to position herself as close to my mother as possible when we are eating, in case something drops. We're talking head in the lap, here.

Her proximity not only makes food more accessible, but also made it so that only my mother was on the receiving end of the death farts. My father and I, oblivious, would continue eating dinner as my mother recoiled and waved her hand in front of her face futilely.

Last night, however, as my parents suffered through the previous night's "The Colbert Report," my dog lay down beneath me. I thought nothing of it until the poison gas set in. I let out a cry of disgust and horror, staring at the offending dog bum, positioned as close to my nose as possible. My mother, unsympathetic and actually rather gleeful, chuckled and thanked God that finally she was no longer alone in her suffering. My father shrugged, smelling nothing. My dog stared off into space, feigning innocence.

I have thus come to the conclusion that if my brilliant plan to make headbutts, not war fails, the next weapon of choice will be the unadulterated power of dog flatulence, the new tear gas. It literally stuns you for a moment. I imagine that if it were strong enough and there were enough of it, you could lay a city to waste. People would collapse in the streets, crying, wishing there had least been a warning. But that's the key: it's silent but deadly.

AWKWARD

There was a popular gesture at my school that I'm not sure is a national phenomenon or not. Whenever hearing an awkward anecdote or telling a story about someone being really awkward, people would often make an "A" with their arms a la the gesture associated with the song "YMCA" and say, "AWKWARD." It wasn't yelled, as the capital letter would suggest, but the emphasis indicated that it was an emphatic usage that can only be properly expressed with all caps. And now that the slang gesture has been ingrained into my psyche, I find more and more times when it is appropriate. Because really, people are awkward.

It's a somewhat less serious kind of awkwardness, the kind that earns the "A" gesture. It's only the kind that you would tell a friend about. When you try to figure out the proper usage, think of that person you know whom you can always count on to say the one thing that would end a good conversation.

The first example of an awkward moment is when you need to use the restroom on a plane. I used to like the window seat when I was a kid. Now I prefer the aisle seat. The reason is this: when I sit in the window seat, I am always confronted with the inconvenience of having to ask someone to move so I can go pee. And I have to make the decision whether or not to give them a nice, awkward look at my crotch or my butt as I shuffle past. It is doubly awkward when I have to pass two people on my way to the aisle.

Another common one is the catching of eyes with a stranger doing something, even when neither of you is doing something wrong. Another airplane example is when two people choose to look out the window, and you feel, in the periphery of your vision, that the other person is looking at you. In this case, I stare very intently out the window at nothing to show them that I absolutely did not do the same thing. These foot-shifting moments also occur in the gym. There's often that one older guy grunting away on the bike machine, hunched over it and huffing like he's on the mountain leg of the Tour de France. You occasionally look over at him, hoping you won't have to call an ambulance before you finish the workout. He catches you looking, and it's AWKWARD.

My favorite of these, however, is the "you go this way, I'll go that way" scenario that never, ever works out. Both people step in the same direction, then the other. It's so played out in movies, it makes me nauseous. But I can't stop living it. And when it occurs with someone of the opposite gender, one of those "are you doing this so you can spend more time admiring my excellent physique" looks sometimes comes my way. No, I'm not attracted to you, I'm just awkward. And that look you gave me was awkward, too, so you're not coming away from this Scott free.

The most AWKWARD thing, however, is the moment when you're catching someone in a compromising situation, and haven't made your getaway yet. Examples of this include:
a. walking in on people you see regularly, but are not friends with, having sex
b. walking in on someone doing her business on the toilet
c. walking in on someone's naked father changing
This kind is supremely awkward because the person who's implicated can't easily stop what he's doing and you can't get away quickly enough. And you know in that moment, both of you are thinking, "UM, UM, UHHHH, what the hell do I do?" and contemplating the residual embarrassment.

Answers

I was looking at the things people have searched for that led them to this blog. I imagine that many of these people went away disappointed, considering that they were looking for such things as a reason why her treadmill was making an abnormal screeching noise and the habits of vulchers (which I have since discovered is actually spelled "vulture," but at least I'm not alone). So today I'm going to answer some of the questions and provide the things people have been looking for when they stumble upon Banana Theory but could not find previously.

1. You're supposed to eat the banana before exercising (to avoid cramping). You eat a tangerine afterwards. Fruit can be a confusing thing; I understand.
2. Here is a picture of a platypus:

















3. A fun figure skating trick is to wear a puffy jacket and spin around in a circle until you fall down.
4. Better luck here with the hand-holding paper chain.
5. Here is a short rap about bananas, composed in less than two minutes:
Sit on back and have a banana
Shake your booty like you know you can-a.
The phallic fruit ain't got no game
But with genetic engineering, we'll ignite its flame.
Bananas, don't die out, it'd be a bummer.
When we're together, we're the perfect number:
Two. Banana banana banana plumber.
6. Vultures are scavenger birds that feed on the (often rotting) carcasses of dead animals. Vulture experts speculate that they are bald-headed because the spurting blood from a feeding frenzy would make feathers on the head difficult to clean. They are ugly, mean sons-of-bitches, so it would be best to not be mortally wounded in the desert, lest they pick you apart while you are bleeding out the rest of your life. Despite popular belief, it is not spelled "vulcher." And that's all you need to know about vultures.
7. Booty booty booty booty, rock it all around. It's by BubbaSparxxx ft. Collipark and Ying Yang Twins.
8. The banana phone is an idea from Raffi, a singer-songwriter for children. You make a phone from your imagination and a banana. The effect is that parents delight when they see their child picking up a banana, thinking that Cookie Monster's new motto that cookies are "a sometimes food" have been taken to heart. This is immediately crushed when the child begins talking to the banana, and the parents turn their thoughts to how they will afford child therapy and a college education.
9. If your blood won't clot, it's called hemophilia. It's a problem.
10. I don't know why a treadmill would be making an abnormal screeching noise, as opposed to the normal screeching noise that they all emit. Perhaps it is a mating call to the stairmaster.

The topic of people search for weird things on the internet and somehow got to my blog is also excellently covered by Elliot (who stole my brainwaves yesterday).

A Shocking Turn of Events

I learned this weekend that there actually is something I'm too old for: most of the Disney channel original movies. All of the underclassmen in my dorm had been raving about High School Musical all year, but I never got a chance to see it. It's not really on television ever since it became popular and Disney realized that they could actually sell it to people. But it was on this weekend, and I watched it, all two hours. And basically all I have to say is: pre-teen America, what the shit? I will never have those two hours back, and I don't understand what you like so much. And since when do theater kids dress like they shop at Wet Seal and American Eagle?

So, admittedly, the crappiness of High School Musical-esque Disney movies is nothing new. Back in my day (late 90s/early 00s), it was Zenon: Girl of the Twenty-First Century (an exciting thought at the time of its release, 1999) and Johnny Tsunami. To all those who have seen these movies: don't judge me, middle school was a difficult time, and my taste cannot be accounted for. But there were no repulsive dance numbers. Just that one song from the end of Zenon that I secretly still enjoy with a sense of guilt. Zoom, zoom, zoom, you make my heart go boom boom!...

When I finished watching High School Musical, I realized that the reason I hated it was because I was too old for it. I guilty enjoyed my Disney original movies because I didn't yet appreciate one of humanity's finest achievements: subtlety. In this case, subtlety in acting. Kids shows and made-for-TV movies are severely overacted. The actors need to be over the top and lacking any finesse because most kids are that way. They appreciate it. I appreciated it. But now it just gets on my nerves. I think of my father, the poor soul, whom I made sit through some of these television shows; I was happily ignorant of his belief that anything short of being skinned alive would be a preferable use of his time. It reminds me of those rare days in elementary school when I got sick and had to stay home: daytime television was a sad affair, mostly because everything that was available assumed that I spoke Spanish, was interested by The View, or was still learning what a triangle was.

And those boys I thought were so old and cool and hot when I was eleven? I shudder when I think of it. I looked at the kids in High School Musical, and thought to myself: they're updated versions of the people I watched in these terrible movies. Therefore, they're at about the same level of attractiveness. I had low standards, apparently, and it wasn't just me. I think it's a collective, simultaneous fit that overcomes all middle school girls and makes them think that those guys like those from 'NSync are attractive. And then you wake up one day with a copy of High School Musical that your parents were forced to actually pay for and that Jojo album that you will never listen to again, and will deny ever having owned.

In conclusion, you're not allowed to judge people for things they find attractive or interesting in middle school. It's like chicken pox, it passes with time. Some things will create a feeling of nostalgia (Salute Your Shorts), Disney channel original movies will not, but it's okay to watch them before you develop the discriminating part of your brain. I don't blame myself for liking Johnny Tsunami when I was twelve, but I'm glad that the thought of it doesn't make me want to watch it.

Ebert and Roeper

I miss the days of Siskel and Ebert. Back in the day, I knew exactly which movies I wanted to see. If Siskel and Ebert gave a movie two thumbs up, I went to see it. If it didn't, I didn't go see it. But then Siskel dropped out of the game. Suddenly almost every movie was receiving two thumbs up. Even movies that I wanted to leave halfway, but didn't want to sacrifice my $9 without seeing it to the end. It threw off the entire order of my universe.

Stupid Roeper likes freaking everything. I saw their television show by accident, and I discovered that my suspicions were correct: he really has the indiscriminating taste of the lowest common denominator. He is the embodiment of it, except he can afford to go see all of the atrocious stuff that the rest of the indiscriminating public normally can't. And Ebert's just too freaking old to care anymore. He knows that the good old days are gone, and seems to be giving a thumbs up on the basis of everything after a certain golden era being terrible, and so only mildly discerns movies as really terrible and pretty terrible. The latter receive thumbs up.

I now have to decide for myself whether or not a movie is worth seeing, and often from something so misleading as a preview. What about that movie Along Came Polly, where the only funny moments were in the previews, and I went to unsuspectingly, still wary of romantic comedies, but willing to give it a try? I've had to become an adept scanner of previews, assessing the movie's merits. But what about the movies that were actually good, like Superman Returns, for which the previews were the quality of what my dog leaves in our back yard every day? How is a movie-going layman to know?!

I have also had to learn more about my friends. There are only some of them whom I can trust to like and recommend good movies. There is one friend (not you, Bassett) who has dragged me to more romantic comedies than you can shake a stick at. Where I formerly could have told her I wouldn't go see it because Siskel and Ebert thought it was bad (as a cover for my lack of desire to see it), now I have no excuse. I have learned that rarely can I trust her recommend a movie that I too will enjoy. But it's okay, our friendship is stronger than that. It's why that travesty of a song, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," is so terrible. The song sounds like margarine tastes, and sort of liking a movie is not a sound indicator of a potentially stable/recoverable relationship.

In short, Ebert has betrayed me in the despair of losing Siskel, and I still feel the repercussions, even all these years later. Ebert, like my some of my friends, can no longer be trusted with movie selections. Et tu, Ebert?

Confession

One of my secrets wishes is that I could punch people in the face with my mind. Today there were seven people who cut in front of me while I was driving, and none of these people signaled. If being punched in the face by an invisible fist of fury wouldn't cause some sort of panic or mishap that would involve me, being directly behind the punchee, I would will this on these people. Similarly do I wish this upon the girl who kept honking her horn because I wouldn't turn left into oncoming traffic, and she was impatient. I would have her socked right in her designer sunglasses.

Then there is that one kid in class who won't shut up. I sometimes don't speak up for fearing of being this jackass. You know the one. Sensing when someone's coming to her last word, he begins as if continuing the sentence. And then he won't stop. It's a bunch of nothing, and he has a bunch of nothing response to absolutely every comment anyone makes. No one cares and no one wants to get in trouble for punching him in the face (preferably the mouth), either to incapacitate him or send the message that no one else wants to know what he thinks. The other appropriate option is a spray bottle, much like the one used in some dog training to tell the dog to stop whatever the hell he's doing. Pooping on the carpet, jumping on people, talking when I don't give a shit, all of these things are fine examples of a time for the spray bottle treatment. I wouldn't punch a dog in the face.


The invisible punch is perhaps less noble than the mighty headbutt, but somehow I'll manage. I don't want people to be injured, per se, just momentarily surprised and a little bit achey. After all, some people are assholes and just don't realize it. And most people think they're good drivers, even when they strike fear into the hearts of other drivers. The punch would be a good way of alerting them, shoving them forcefully from their ignorance. Perhaps there would be a sign or note that would accompany the punch: here is why you deserved to be punched in the face, now renounce your dirty ways. And for the people who know they're doing something wrong and dangerous and do it anyway, they will simply receive an invisible punch with no note. They already know.

Oh, and please don't email me anymore about how violence isn't the answer. I don't condone beating children, actually punching people in the face or bullying people you don't like. I just fantasize about the invisible punching, and I would probably be horrified if it actually happened. So accept that I have invisible punched you in the face via the internet for nagging me, invisible punch me in the face for not being appropriately sensitive, and let's sit down and drink some tea.

BIRTHDAY!

I turned eighteen today. WOOOOOOOO! I'm very excited for registering to vote. My father's encouraged me to register as a Democrat so that I can vote in the primaries, but I think I'm going to register Independent. My parents occasionally, when they bring up politics, will joke about my being a closet Republican and then pause. One will turn and ask, in a nervous, we-have-to-say-we-love-you-despite-the-despair look, "But you aren't really a Republican, are you?" I was born and raised in one of the most steadfastly Democratic places in the nation, and they have to make sure that I didn't turn out wrong despite being exposed to the right element. My mother occasionally has the same, jokey-nervous topic introduction of her latent suspicions that I'm a lesbian. I appreciate her trying to reassure me that I'll always deserve to be loved, but I know she's secretly hoping I'm not gay. It's not that my parents have anything against homosexuals, it's just that as a black, Catholic girl, life can kind of be a hassle already.

It's supposed to be a whopping 102 degrees today. My mom said that it hasn't been this hot since the heatwave that struck D.C. during the week of my birth. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the nation's capital is celebrating my birth in the typical fashion, meaning a celebration appealing only to a certain minority. In this case, the minority is the type of people whose ancestors thought it would be a good idea to set up camp in a hellishly hot, water-limited desert and form a city in what is now Arizona.

One of the most disappointing times in my life was discovering that not only have I met only one other person with my birthday, nothing cool happened on my birthday. My friends were looking up their birthdays via Wikipedia (the bane of my existence, normally, but kind of cool in this instance). "Look, Kierkegaard died of syphilis on my birthday!" "Some guy patented zippers on my birthday!" As for me...NOTHING.
Here's a sample of the not-quite-interesting things that happened in the world in todays past, as told by wikipedia:
Today in 1374, Petrarch died.
Today in 1976 Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal was created.
Today in 1870, France declared war on Prussia, starting the Franco-Prussian War.
Today in 1912, a meteorite of 190 kg exploded over a town in Arizona, raining down about 16,000 pieces of debris.
That's it.

So I've decided that my new goal is to become someone cool and famous so that people with this birthday no longer have to suffer the indignation of having a boring birthdate. No one really cares that that one pope died in early A.D. My possible careers as of right now are first black/female president of the U.S., movie star, best-selling author and pop star. This may interfere with my secret dream to become an international woman of mystery, but I sacrifice as I must.

Calories

I was recently discussing calories with some friends, and I think there is some important information about them that I should share with everyone. A lot of people around me calorie count, and I want this to stop. I think this may be because people don't understand what does and does not have calories. Despite popular belief, not everything has calories, and some things don't have calories all the time. I am here to clear up this confusion.

Food does not have calories if:
1. It's free. Those cookies they have in the back for the end of the book reading that look oh so good, but you tell yourself not to be tempted? Go for it, their being free makes them free of calories.
2. No one knows you ate it. We've all done it, secretly delighted in grazing for an entire afternoon, cookies, cheese, fruit, ice cream, whatever. If no one catches you or notices the food missing, this food has no calories.
3. You eat it directly before or after exercising. If you eat it right before you work out and don't get strange cramping, then it doesn't have calories. When you work hard, you should reward yourself with delicious food. Just make sure you don't eat both before and after. Then the food has calories.
4. You drink it with diet soda. Okay, at first I thought it was really stupid and ironic to drink a diet soda while eating a Big Mac and fries, but now I finally understand. Diet sodas may taste like swill, but when you drink them in conjunction with a high calorie meal, you cancel out all of the calories.
5. Someone makes it to surprise you. It doesn't happen often enough that someone surprises me with desserts. Surprise food made with love loses all its calories, because it's love powered.
6. It's eaten after 11 o'clock at night. There's no explanation for this one, it just makes sense.
7. It's fudge. Shut up at eat the fudge. You didn't buy it for the simple pleasure of looking at it; you could have done that in the store.
8. It's eaten on a first date. Salad is awkward to eat, and do you really want to look funny or weight-obsessed in front of your date? Eat something with substance or something that normally has a lot of calories (a steak, or something), negated by the circumstances. Indulge. Vegetarians can go for a tofu burger.
9. It's eaten while you're preparing it. Anytime you get a case of the munchies while preparing that stir fry, or feel the need to eat the cookie dough, even if it leaves you one cookie short for the church bakesale, do it. Food eaten while it's in its incomplete stages hasn't yet developed calories.

Now stop bitching, start eating, and get rid of the damn nutritional information on my chicken nuggets (I don't need it, I've got diet soda).

Cats

It's okay to hate cats. I, in fact, am an unrepentant hater of cats. It's not that, given a choice between a cat and a dog, I would choose a dog. It's that, given the choice between a cat and an anaconda, I would take the anaconda. My mom owned a cat when I was a kid. He was a flipping awesome cat who hated me, but he is in the minority of cats which I appreciated the value of. Here are the main reasons it's okay to hate cats:

1a. They think they're smarter than you.
1b. You have to take care of them anyway. I've seen Animal Cops: Detroit, so I know.
(my mother noted that reason one could be said of children, too, but let's ignore that for now)
2. They shed on things, and not in a cute way, like dogs. My mom's cat used to look me straight in the eye as he rubbed his far all over the side of the couch. Just a little bit evil.
3. They lick their bodies and then hock up balls of matted, wet hair at odd times of night.
4. You have to pretend you don't detest the thought/sight of your friends' cats. Admittedly, some of them I don't mind, and the cats mostly avoid me. And occasionally I'll go in for a pat if the cat leaps into my lap.
5. If you own a cat, you have to talk to cat people. Cat people, the ones who read Cat Fancy religiously and buy their cats little boots, think I care about cats. I don't. And they thought my cat cared about their irrelevant mumblings, which he didn't; it was the one thing we agreed on. There are dog people two, but they tend to not be so crazy, except for the ones who think dogs need pink toenails.
6. People think you're perverse if you're not horrified that people eat cats in other parts of the world. It's not that I'd eat a cat, it's just that I don't feel as bad as I should.
7. You can't take them on walks. People try, but the cat always looks mortified and about three seconds away from sticking a claw in your gut and twisting it until your large intestine is above the small intestine. On a sidenote, I used to have a neighbor who walked her gigantic pot-bellied pig every evening. It was really badass, and about ten times better than a cat.
8. Sometimes they're owned by people who thinking cutting the claws is inhumane. I once had a cat sneak into my room when I was at a friend's house changing, and the creature climbed up my bare back. Think on that.
9. Cat breath.
10. Occasionally they're cute and hard to hate. I have very few strong convictions, and I had really hoped that my dislike of cats could be one of these things. Alas.

In short, my hate of cats is really sort of irrational. I mean, they're not bad animals, as animals go. I just think they're stupid pets to have. They're not friendly, you can't put a leash on them, and I may or may not be scarred by the fact that as I child, I could never make cats purr when I petted them. But I want to assure you that if you feel displeasure at the thought of owning a cat, you are not alone.

Zidane's Headbutt and World Peace

In the words of my friend Isaac, Zidane is my new hero.

For those of you who think soccer involves endzones or live in a cave (or an isolationist part of America), the World Cup ended as expected: Italy won. But no one who wasn't supporting France or Italy cared. All anyone could talk about was how Frenchman Zinedine Zidane, in his last game, chose to headbutt an Italian player (Marco Materazzi) and earn a red card. There's a pretty good summary of the speculations and press reaction on kottke.org, and a youtube video of it here.

According to The Daily Mail, Materazzi uttered racial slurs to Zidane. Zidane took the only reasonable course of action: he headbutted him in the chest. And even if Materazzi didn't say anything to him, I still admire Zidane's audacity, that he would headbutt somebody in the chest while being watched by millions of people. Materazzi crumpled pathetically to the field before my eyes, and without knowing why, I cheered. I mean, no reason besides his name not being Maserati, like the sweet car. There's just something so triumphant, so unrepentant about the headbutt. HERE IS MY HEAD, I AM SLAMMING IT INTO YOUR CHEST (in protest of your being a douchebag). There's no ignoring that.

As I think about it more, I've decided that the world might be a better place if we all just headbutted each other when we had beef. So Israel, instead of bombing the Beirut airport today, would have just sent some Israelis to go headbutt some Lebanese in the chest. Maybe there's something satisfying about bombing people, but I wouldn't be concerned about dying in a nuclear apocalypse if the highest level violence escalated to was a headbutt. We would know very clearly what provocation would mean. You call somebody something bad or twist his nipple, you can expect to be knocked over by the force of a skull being rammed into your rib cage (at worst). It would be a fact of life.

Headbutting seems like a deeply personal act. Punching somebody in the face, kicking someone, it's a way of assuming power. It mostly sends the message, "I am alpha male, and I will beat you." Zidane's headbutt said, to me, "I will take no shit." It is perhaps the best offense as defense that I've seen. And it seems like a deeply satisfying act, the one, swift, unexpected motion that floors somebody without permanently injuring him. You still get your point across, and no one dies.

It's like the time in middle school when the girl said to one of the girls who was a little behind in puberty...
"If you didn't have feet, would you wear shoes?"
"No."
"Then why are you wearing a bra?"
Don't cry honey, just headbutt her in her frickin' 7th grade A-cup. That'll teach her. Getting hit in the breasts hurts.

We've been trying diplomacy and war for thousands of years, and we still can't figure out why people continue to hate each other, how to take things from other people without them figuring it out and attacking you, how to keep people honest, and how to make people forget 1000 year old grudges that are only mildly relevant to modern life. I think grudges are often retained because there's no initial outlet for the frustration and resentment. I think a solid head ram into the offender's chest should just about do it. In short, I have no better idea than anyone else as to how we should solve the world's problems, but I think that making headbutts, not war, is a good place to start.

Chat Rooms

There was a simpler time in my life. My only concerns were school (kind of), eating as much chocolate as possible without my mother detecting it, trying to figure out when the hell I was going to finally need my first bra, and finding the best chat rooms. This was approximately age 10, 5th grade. Looking back on it now, I wonder at the wisdom of a 10 year old being in chat rooms. It's an especially dubious proposition giving the number of mole-backed 40-something men living in their parents' basements and seeking young girls as I was. It was the modern-day equivalent of offering children candy from a car. Now, I suppose, they've mostly moved to myspace.

I was liberated in chat rooms. I could say whatever I wanted, be as mean as I wanted, and then sign off and sign on again with a new screenname, try something new. No one knew I was ten, so I pretended I was an oh-so-mature thirteen. Well, in a way, thirteen was a mature age, because it's when I stopped wanting to be older than I was. Aging isn't like your dream to go to Paris, you get to sixteen, twenty-one, thirty eventually. It comes to you. NO MORE WAXING PHILOSOPHICAL.

I never really got the hang of chat rooms, but man did I love them. I would have these incredibly boring conversations about absolutely nothing. And then there would be PMing with what I pretended/thought was a near-aged boy about something mundane like how we both liked soccer. How much do you like soccer? A lot. Do you play on a team? Yes. It's fun. Gag me with a spork. I don't know what was so fascinating then, because I find chat rooms mindnumbing now.

Chat rooms have definitely fallen out of vogue, however. There's something less appealing about talking to random strangers with emoticons and sadly mangled English. We've moved on to talking to random strangers who have pictures, even if it's not really of the person you think you're talking to. But I think one thing remains true about both internet social networks and chat rooms: the point isn't the actual person. It's what I discovered when I was ten, the liberation of the changing persona, of being different people or even just different facets of yourself. One facet of myself is a fifteen-year-old girl who delivers zingers who people who refuse to use 'your mom' jokes correctly, and another is a 23-year-old maneater who's unintimidated and unimpressed by the internet attempts at picking her up.

Everyone's pretending a little bit, so don't try to mix the reality and the game. Here's my message to pre-teen and teenage girls: please stop posting your cell phone number, street address, etc. on public sites that anyone who can work email has access to. I hope yo mama didn't raise no fool.

Gym Lady

Dear Cranky Gym Lady:

I know that you were unhappy to see me this afternoon when I came into the workout room. I assure that although I had no such feelings about you initially, when you left, I reciprocated your emotions. I'm sorry to have polluted your precious air. And you must understand that when I say this, I really mean that if one can breathe out of belligerence, I was doing it.

I have some practical advice that I've gleaned, but seems to have escaped you, despite being twice my age. If someone says hello to you, she's not as willing to pretend you don't exist as you are willing to do for her. Not responding when the greeting is clearly addressed to you does not imply your superiority, it makes you kind of a toolbag. Perhaps you would be less cranky if you had more than 4% body fat. Statistics show that girls with body fat are happier than those without.

There was something amusing about the fact that you used the treadmill for 45 minutes while staring at the sign that told you to get off after 30. That is, until I'd been on the stairmaster for exactly 30 minutes, cursing it, and wondering why you'd begun a swift jog rather than a warm-down. It's not a competition, but if it came to a duel, I could take you.

And if you pretend someone doesn't exist because you deem her to be, comparatively speaking, a killer whale, you don't earn appreciative looks as you bench press the weight of my Labrodor. Someone doesn't blip into existence purely for your ego, especially not after being forced to endure an hour's worth of "E! True Hollywood Story." That's an hour's worth of brain cells wasted, and I blame you entirely. I will not forget this slight.

Now, I understand that you think because you're a size 2, the world revolves around your needs. What you don't understand is that you don't have enough mass to create the pull needed for this to occur. You need to be at least a size 6 to do that. I will shoulder the burden of having the world revolve around me until you're ready to eat some Cheetos and bulk up a bit.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Sincerely,
Girl-Who-Is-Not-a-Size-Two-and-Still-Finds-the-Strength-To-Live

Poopy Baby

Why would you poop in a pool? Why did you do that, small, unhappy child? And why didn't your parents stop you?

Story of the day:

I was sitting in the pool, relaxing and generally enjoying the sun. I was dunking my head under the water, floating on my back, swimming half-heartedly when I felt indolent. It was overall a pleasant experience. Suddenly, the lifeguard began frantically blowing the whistle. It wasn't the sound of, "No diving, you damn kids!" or "Adult swim." This left me at a loss. What could the lifeguard possibly be trying to say. I looked around me. Everyone else had stopped, too, and was looking around, equally baffled. I noticed some activity at one end of the pool, a parent ushering a child out. I followed her lead, and we all gradually left the pool.

It was then that I noticed the lifeguards crowding around one part of the shallow end, expressions of displeasure and mild disgust on their faces. I, too, made my way over and took a look, trying to figure out what they deemed concerning enough to evacuate us from the pool. I spotted it, slowing sinking to the bottom of the pool: a couple Lincoln logs of poop. I shared a look with one of the lifeguards. We both understood that secretly most people pee in the pool, get away with it, and feel minimal remorse. It's a fact of life. But feces?

As it turns out, one of the kids, the one I'd seen being ushered out of the pool by his mother, had decided that he needed fun more than he needed the bathroom. Leaving the pool would have cut in on precious play time, so he just pulled his bathing suit aside and let nature follow its course. In some ways it makes sense. OH WAIT, that's wrong.

The pool is going to be closed tomorrow for cleaning.

Go Karts

Last week, I rode a go kart for the first time since I got my driver's license. Somehow I thought the exhiliration of being able to drive on freeways, pump my music and take myself places would diminish the thrill of go karts. I was horribly mistaken. Go karts have retained all of their appeal and fun. There is something infinitely exciting about racing around a small track in a rickety, sputtering death trap while ignoring all the rules that you've learned in driver's ed.

I enter a zen-like state when I am driving a go kart. I race around the track, fishtailing madly and feeling the steering wheel shake in my hands as the car struggles to turn me around the corners. I prepare quickly for the pass, ride on the offender's tail, and whiz around them when they give me a window of opportunity. I make my six laps in an englightened state; I am one with the go kart and we are the best One of all.

I also enjoy watching people riding go karts. There's always that one little dick who makes it his goal to pass absolutely everybody just for the sake of passing, not because he enjoys it or the speed. There's always that fat, older man who definitely isn't riding it with his kids and clings to the go karts as he once clung to his dreams of Nascar. And then there's that one kid who's either grimacing or smiling, but you can't tell which. She whizzes around the track with a petrified/elated expression plastered on her face, and she is the best driver of the bunch. I am the one who weaves from side to side, preventing people from passing me just to spite that passing-obsessed monster-child.

I have created an In/Out List, accordingly...

OUT: automobiles
IN: GO KARTS

OUT: braking (on turns or really ever)
IN: going full speed around turns and fishtailing

OUT: crashing and exchanging insurance information
IN: crashing and giggling

OUT: keys
IN: hot boys pulling wires to start the motor

OUT: driving to a specific location
IN: racing around a small, winding track

OUT: passing on the left
IN: yelling intimidating things and passing on turns

OUT: windshields
IN: catching bugs with your face

OUT: car payments
IN: ticket stubs

OUT: traffic lights
IN: men blowing whistles

If anything, I think I appreciate go karts more now than I did as a kid. I fully understand now how unsafe and amazing go karts are. You feel the wind whipping around your face, there are no rules to follow, and no one will give you a ticket for spinning somebody into a wall as you pass them. I realize now that go karts and cars have almost nothing in common, and the skills you may possess at one do not, in fact, convey to the other. Those little boys who drive the go karts like pros actually often turn out to be those drivers who inspire fear in the hearts of civilian drivers. For me...good driver, go kart disaster. But I drive my go kart with flair, and that's enough for me.

This week...

Sorry about Friday.

I'm going to be out of town this week, so there won't be any more posts until next Monday. Happy 4th of July weekend/week. Don't get blown up by fireworks.