Classic Rock

NOTE: I'm going on a pre-orientation hiking trip for college starting today, and the move-in day is on Friday. Therefore, posts will be spotty at best this week.

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

I came home for spring break this year to discover that the station of my childhood, the oldies station, had become an abomination. My father would listen to the 50s and 60s-oriented oldies station while he drove me to school, and I grew up singing along with Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Supremes. The first cassette tape I bought was an Aretha Franklin collection. All of that was gone in one fell swoop, replaced by the most detestable musical genre: classic rock. My dad thought it was very sad, but wrote it off as a generational shift.

There's some very good classic rock, I'm not writing it off completely, but there's certainly not enough to support a radio station. Disgusted, I went to my water polo team's pre-season in Hawaii. A group of us ended up staying with the coach at his friend from college's house (the coach of the team we practiced with). The one blight upon an otherwise excellent trip was the daily ride to the pool. The coaches blared the classic rock station as we suffered in the back. Indignity of all indignities, to lose my oldies station and be subjected to the painful reminder for a week!

Has anyone else noticed that classic rock stations always have similar names, no matter where you are? They're mostly named after masculine animals. Just one member of the species, though. The Shark. The Hawk. The Barracuda. What the hell do barracudas have to do with music? The oldies station was Oldies 100 (station 100.3). It made sense to call it that because it was an oldies station. The Top 40 station is Hot 99.5, because the musical is supposedly hot and new. These names, while incredibly obvious, at least make sense. But in a way the nonsensical naming of the stations matches with my impression of classic rock: there's no reason behind it.

And by 'no reason' I mean drugs. Unlike the oldies station, the classic rock station has some things that are hard to explain away. The drug references are more poorly disguised, if at all. How do you listen to Eric Clapton's "Cocaine," a song purely about his love of cocaine, and not enter into some awkward conversation with your child? I think about these very important questions as I justify my rage. There aren't enough good stations in D.C. to fill up my preset stations in my car, so the formerly-oldies station is still there. I press the button occasionally, hoping against hope for some Motown, greeted only with The Eagles, and the world seems a little darker.

Technorati Tags: classic rock, radio, drugs

Suburbia...WGASA?

I've been living in the suburbs now for five years, and it still feels like I'm living with aliens. My father still regularly gets lost in the same shopping mall parking lot we've been going to for years. And I still can't figure out why nothing is on a damn grid; I don't understand the meandering, long roads with some random buildings and neighborhoods plopped down with streets going in random directions and not alphabetized. Seemingly simple aspects of suburban life are still baffling to me. For instance, I don't think that three crimes within a two month period does not constitute a crime wave. It is especially not a crime wave if your car was stolen from the supermarket while the car was running. Fools! The less there is to worry about, the more concerned people seem. In D.C., you used street smarts and just got on with life; here, there's crippling fear of pretty much everything.

There are a few of us who are exiles from the city and have some sort of perspective. Many of our neighbors do not. The city is a pestilential,crime-ridden hole to be avoided whenever possible. And people from the city can get out to my neighborhood using the subway. You know what that means, don't you? Those people can use the subway to get to our peaceful haven. Some peaceful basketball players were driven from our neighborhood park because the neighbors thought they were bringing a bad element in. I was actually angry about that, rather than amused. It's good to have people around at night because people are less likely to attack you and take advantage of you when there are other people around. You're actually probably safer with the basketball players playing in the park than if you were wandering the neighborhood alone at night, with no one around. And no one's going to come of the subway and steal your damn television; the fear is irrational. People ride the subway, and they notice things; a suburban man driving away with your television in his back seat is a much more likely scenario.

Nor do I understand mailboxes. In D.C., we use mailslots. You know why? Because people would steal your damn mail just for the hell of it, because they liked you magazines, or because they were trying to steal your identity. So I've never quite wrapped my mind a round the mailbox, or the idea of leaving mail in your mailbox to have the mailman pick it up. For people who seem to fear everything but air, and sometimes even that (pollen allergies, you know), they sure do leave their mail trustingly in what seems to me to be a rather public area. It's just an invitation to have something go awry.

Then there's this thing with the lawn mowers. My parents were sort of horrified at the prospect of having to mow a lawn, having not encountered such trifles at our old house. Our neighborhood isn't one with lush, expansive lawns. They are barely enough to justify power mowers. But for some reason we're the only people on the block with a push mower. I cringe every Sunday morning as they all fire up the power mowers in unison and jerk it around the postage stamp lawns. Why Sunday morning? Why?!

The most pervasive thing is the need to appear like there is no 'bad element' living here. I admit that I appreciate some of conveniences, but I'm not sure it's worth it. While I appreciate that the mailmen don't steal cash and checks out of envelopes and then deliver the empty envelopes or keep Christmas packages that seem interesting, it's not enough. It's nice to have my trash picked up every week, sure, but we have to pay extra for it, plus the charge of recycling. The homeowner's association bans the following things:
1. washing your car in front of the house
2. painting your house something other than 5 pre-approved, bland colors
3. growing watermelon in your front yard (our Taiwanese transplant neighbors are the reason for the creation of this rule)
4. LETTING YOUR LAWN GROW TALLER THAN FOUR INCHES. After that, your NEIGHBORS have the right to complain, and you can be fined if you don't mow within 7 days. Our neighbor across the alley complained once about our back yard (a fenced in yard, I would like to note), having had the audacity to let himself in and measure our grass with a ruler. After the first year, we never made the mistake of not mowing again.
5. leave your garbage out before 10 o'clock at night the day before trash day.

To all of these rules I respond: WGASA. Who gives a shit, anyhow?

Technorati Tags: suburbs, mail, fear

GAH!

In other news, Blogger, charming service that it is, spontaneously deleted all of my settings, including my template. So I'm in recovery right now. I'll be getting the links and design back up sometime later today, I hope. Blogger is pure evil. I declare it so.

Vegetarianism: A Danger to the Youth

Vegetarianism seems to be spreading like a highly contagious disease. It is a plague perhaps so serious that it eclipses the early 20th century influenza pandemic. You may know someone who has succumbed to this disease. One of the first symptoms is smugness. While there were originally some very nice vegetarians who had no signs of the smug, the latest, increasingly prevalant strain of it evolved to include smugness with a touch of condescension.

Four years ago, I knew three vegetarians. Now I know more than you can shake a stick (or twelve) at. My favorite vegetarians are the ones whom, if you didn't really look closely at what they were eating, you wouldn't realize they were a vegetarian. They have made a decision, often for ethical reasons, not to eat meat, but they respect my right to eat things that bleed. Being a vegetarian can be sort of hard, but they weather it in relative silence. Many of them are well versed on the nutritional content of most foods, and are exceedingly helpful. But they are a dying breed.

But the new, malevolent kind of vegetarians are popping up like dandelions. And they are not satisfied until they have thoroughly ruined everyone else's eating experience. One girl whom I ate meat in front of recently insisted that she had to leave the room after protracted theatrics and horrified moans with each bite I took. I relished in watching her squirm; I delighted in spiting her and having driven her away so that I could enjoy my meal in peace. I've also suffered through several meals during which a vegetarian would analyze my meal and tell me why it meant I was a Neanderthal for persisting in consuming it. Let's be clear here: I love food, and nothing makes me more irritable than someone impinging on my dining experience. I'm not disgusted by the fact that the thing I'm eating used to have a face. It's tasty and I have the teeth for it, so I'm not going to kick my carnivorous habit. Also, I've tried some of those vegetarian products (Tofurkey, I'm looking at your in particular), and I'd pretty much rather starve than be reduced to eating most of them. I enjoyed a vegetarian hotdog once, but only because it tasted like meat.

Each smug vegetarian seems to think that she is the first one to impart information about the slaughter of animals to me. I've heard it all before. I've even read The Jungle, so I have some notion of how disgusting the meat packing industry is. The first eight thousand people couldn't convert me, so what makes you think you're special? And it distresses me that it has taken over the lives of some people so completely. Their primary trait is that they are a vegetarian; it is their vanity to discuss it and nothing else. It makes them feel better to think that I'm morally inferior, that I am too thick to appreciate their condescension, their attempts to enlighten me. So let me make it clear: usually meat eaters KNOW everything you're telling them, but they just don't care. I am a belligerent non-carer, and all you're doing is antagonizing me.

But here is my one source of confusion: is the strain of preaching vegetarians saying that the cows should be killed more humanely, or that we shouldn't be killing them at all? Because if it's the latter, it's my obligation to tell you that cows don't roam in the wild. Find a cure for the vegetarianism disease, strain smugdescending. The treatment is to look into your heart and say: am I an annoying douchebag who doesn't want to accept that not everyone can live on broccoli? And step off, because if it comes to a fight, omnivores have bigger muscles to support their collective fist of fury (you can only eat so many beans for protein before you gag).

Technorati Tags: vegetarians, rant

Sunglasses

Sunglasses have always weirded me out. I just purchased my first pair in June because of my aversion to them. I never wore them as a kid, braving the UV exposure to my eyes and the scorn of my peers. And by scorn I mean mild curiosity. Sunglasses always just seemed to be more trouble than they're worth.

Part of me had always thought I was too awesome for sunglasses, I guess. You know that part of you that's convinced that your Hogwarts letter just got lost in the owl post? That same part of me secretly thought I was a superhero, a superhero who could see just as well on sunny days with sunglasses. Everyone who used them were wimpy weaklings, the ones I would have to catch as they fell from falling buildings.

When I was cursed with nearsightedness in the fifth grade, my mother purchased me prescription sunglasses with green tinted lenses. I wore them once to appease her before packing them away somewhere where they would be difficult to find. I may have been unable to distinguish between a tree and a person without my glasses, but I would not suffer the indignity of sunglasses on top of that.

I received aviators in the fall in my high school's psych pack for the big game of the year. I wore them, and it was a revolution. I felt like a complete badass in the aviators, even if they made me legally blind. The thing about aviators is that you're supposed to wear them when you're in the pilot seat of a plane, staring at the glaring sun. Only then can enough light penetrate to allow you to see anything. So everyone could me admiring you appreciatively as you wear them on the ground, but there's no way of being able to tell that they're doing so.

On the flip side, I don't like talking to people wearing sunglasses. I can never tell where they're looking. She could be looking at me or staring blankly as passing cars. There's really no way of teling. I find it disorienting. Also, girls insist on buying designer sunglasses that cover half of their faces. Often the lens are round and bulbous. And all I can think is that there's an impending attack from some gigantic flies posing as people. I am constantly nervous about looking like a large bug or a robot-like, futuristic being with bizarre, square/rectangle-cut glasses.

But it was like magic when I purchased a pair of sunglasses I could see in. My mother splurged on a really nice pair so that I could drive my car during the day. There was a seeing revolution. After wearing sunglasses during the day, I could see at night! And I didn't have to flip that sun visor in my car in whatever direction the sun was. It's another one of those things that seems really useful until you realize your car goes in other directions than a straight line.

I don't know if I've quite overcome my distaste for sunglasses, but they no longer baffle me.

Technorati Tags: sunglasses

Christianity

As I sat in church today, something important occurred to me: Christianity is R-rated. We have concerned , often Christian parents running around talking about how violent video games are turning our nation's youth into angry, killing machines (who will nevertheless avoid the draft). How can children be raised properly when they're exposed to shoot-'em-up movies and inappropriate video games? My answer is this: the same way they've always been raised.

I find the rants from angry parents about children being exposed to adult material sort of hard to take seriously because of the hypocrisy involved. While not wanting your child to grow up thinking it's okay to shoot someone and steal his car, to think that you can hit reset and bring someone back to life, kids are already in trouble. You bitch and moan about the games your child plays (with the aid of the devil-spawn parents of his friends), but your son has spent at least an hour of his life, every Sunday, staring at a man NAILED TO A PIECE OF WOOD.

I've been staring, since I was a baby, at a sculpture of an undernourished, bleeding man with metal spikes driven through his palms/wrists (depending on the church) and feet and open wounds in his scalp from a crown of thorns. That's normally the sort of thing you'd relegate toR-rated movies ( The Passion of the Christ was, in fact, R-rated), but it's okay because it's associated with your religion. My church sponsored trips to go see The Passion of the Christ, thus fully endorsing the presence of Christians of all ages to come enjoy the R-rated movie.

And personally, no aspect of my childhood, beyond my Catholic upbringing, involved discussions of sex. None of the children's shows hinted at it. And I wasn't curious about sex until health class in school, so my parents never had to come clean with me or make up awkward lies about magical, baby-delivering birds. Yet before I understood it, one of the main facets of my faith was belief in Mary's immaculate conception. The phrase was meaningless to me for a long time, but there it was. The topic comes up, in one form or another, in every sermon. It's not as blatant as the social interactions in Grand Theft Auto, but for the children more curious about what was going on in church than I was, it could get sticky.
"We're excited because she had a baby without, um, having the stork deliver it."

"Why is that exciting?"

"Because you can't normally have a baby if the stork didn't deliver him."

"Why?"

We forget, as we get older, that children aren't, in fact, stupid. They can figure things out, and when they discover that the stork delivering the baby is in fact some sort of euphemism for insemination, the stork being sperm. There's also a good chance that they'll be able to figure out that life isn't like Halo and not think that it can be applied to life. So try actually talking to children once in a while, don't always think lying is the best, most simple course, and the kids might be alright.

And I realizing that sheltering a child from the world's evils isn't just a Christian parent's concern and that not every parent has unreasonable expectations for the level of protection a child can be provided with. It just seems strange that no one thinks anything of having children talk about and stare at a man being brutally tortured and killed every week while raising a fuss about the occasionally sexual nature of the Sims. But there are some benefits to being inculcated into a religious dogma, to seeing Jesus being martyred: I saw that death was ugly and undignified; sometimes we need exposure to appreciate the shelter. I think it's a parent's responsibility to explain that there are people in the Middle East who lead lives independent of active hate and bombs, that you shouldn't beat someone and steal his car, and to have some trust that they did a good enough job.

Technorati Tags: Christianity, video, games, violence

Dog Poop

Have you ever seen those signs in parks where they tell you to pick up your dog poop? They often have pictures of sign people (the distant cousins of stick people) and the sign dog squatting. There is sometimes a fine associated with leaving dog poop around. The ones that don't usually have a threatening, ambiguous message at the bottom that indicates your dog's poop staying on the grass could result in anything from scarring stepping-in-poo incidents to a pandemic resurgence of the Black Death to the beginning of a nuclear holocaust. Or all three. The implied question is, "Do you really want to be the irresponsible dog owner who nuked humanity?"



(please note that the second sign is from Canada)

Maybe I don't want to be that person, but you also can't underestimate my laziness. The pooper scooper didn't help because it was awkward, bulky, and it always gets ripe shit smeared on it. And then it bumps against my leg and the day is automatically a bad day. I just don't understand why I have to clean up poop in the dog park. Anywhere else, sure, but not in the dog park. I don't leave dog poop on people's front lawns (I'm looking at you, lady with the annoying terrier-thing). No one's actually frolicking in the dog park grass. Well, occasionally dogs are, but dogs don't really care about poop in the grass. I've seen them eat the feces, for crying out loud. So I'll come right out and say it: when no one's looking, I leave my dog's poop on the grass. Pearl does a tricky thing where she walks around as she's doing her business, so you really can't tell where anything is. The only conclusion to be drawn is that I wasn't meant to scoop it up in a plastic bag and awkwardly carry it home.

I'm that asshole who ignores the signs, but until yesterday I lived with the secret knowledge of it weighing down on me. I was vilified when I caught someone else in the act yesterday. The man stared blankly into the distance, directly under the "NO POOP HERE, YOU CRIMINAL" sign, obviously well used to the routine. You can tell when people have young dogs because they always stare intently at the dog while it helps the grass grow. When the dog finished, the owner started to move off. He turned and saw me. We looked simultaneously from the poop to the sign, then to each other. He muttered, "I didn't have a bag, and it's just this one time."

"I won't say anything."
"The stupid dog really likes the spot under the sign, he's marked it."
"Yeah."
"And normally I'd pick it up, but I'm rushed and I don't have a bag."
"You said you didn't have a bag before." Awkward. RED ALERT, RED ALERT, ESCAPE!
"Yes, well. I don't even like the dog. It was supposed to be my wife's. Who the hell's walking on the grass anyway? is all I'm saying. You know?"
"I don't always pick up my dog's poop."
To which he declared, "Thank God!" and made a getaway.

Although I knew I wasn't alone in my sins, it was comforting to see someone else sinning. And there's something great about seeing someone leave his dog's business directly under the mildly threatening sign. But I always tell my mother that I've collected the poop, and I even run to the garage and pretend to put it in the trash. It was apparent that the man didn't feel guilty, but he felt the need to appear to feel guilty. And perhaps that is a fundamental problem for many of us, that we are afraid to tell or show people how incredibly not guilty we feel. Perhaps the world would be a better place if we all were just honest and didn't pretend to feel a certain way because society says you're a heartless clod or evolutionally challenged if you don't.

Technorati Tags dog,poop,scoop,lying

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane changed my life when I saw it this afternoon. It restored my faith in truly terrible movies that can still earn one's love. I was slightly concerned that it would be bad bad, rather than so bad it's good. It turned out to be the best movie I've seen this summer, or at least the most enjoyable. Though when I first heard that there was a movie called Snakes on a Plane coming out, I thought it would be the worst movie ever filmed, it surpassed my expectations pleasantly. It was ridiculous in a way that perhaps justified the movie ticket; I don't think you'd properly appreciate it on a television screen.

What I liked about Snakes on a Plane is that no one even pretended that it was serious or had cinematic integrity. There was a doofy music video at the end, and the scenes that explained why there were snakes on a plane plus the boarding of the plane took all of twenty minutes. The rest was pure, unadulterated snake bites. No attempt was made to make it at all plausible or even flesh it out. It was full of snakes dropping from ceilings, inducing shrieks from the audience, followed by ridiculous death scenes during which everyone laughed. It's been a while since I've been to a movie to which the audience reacted so strongly. We screamed together, laughed together, and clapped when a flight attendant killed a snake with an axe. I laughed harder during that movie than at any of the comedies I've seen this summer.

I think it's the first potential cult classic that I've actually seen in its first run in theaters. I've been to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, thrown my toast and all, but this was different. No one threw rubber snakes, much to my disappointment, but I hand pinched my friend during a tense scene in the movie to get the adrenaline pumping. She was not as appreciative of the timing of the move as I was, however.

Two of my friends said they ran into a former classmate's mother. They told her what movie they were headed to, and imitated her expression. It looked to me like, "I'm glad you're not my children." And my mother's face told me that she, too, didn't understand. But the point is this: if someone can convince people to give them money to make and release a movie like Snakes on a Plane, anything is possible. That's what brought me so much joy, aside from the movie itself. It restored my sense of wonder, and made hope possible again.

So the message is: go see Snakes on a Plane this weekend, even if you think you have something better to do. But have no expectations for it.

Technorati Tags: snakes, plane

Basement Activites

The blog has been full of ranting and disgust this week, so I thought I'd devote this entry to something I love: the OK Go video posted above. This new version's been on television, replacing a slightly different bootleggy version that they filmed themselves on a lower budget, still with excellent results. I saw them in concert, and they were supremely doofy and amazing.

I think what makes this video so compelling is that it's exactly what my friends and me would do if one of us had a video camera and a bunch of treadmills in the basement. We'd choreograph a treadmill dance and wear dorky clothing and post it on the internet. Boredom and ordinary props of life make for really good web entertainment. We all do random, crazy stuff in our basements, especially late at night. Usually it's just not this coordinated.

And that's all I have to say on that.

Technorati Tags: ok, go, treadmills, youtube

Crack Kills

Dear Women Who Flash Butt Crack,

It is apparent to me that you don't remember one of school's most important lessons: crack kills. Did you learn nothing from your health teacher? She wasn't just talking about the stuff you snorted off a urinal at that party last week. I don't quite understand why exactly you insist on wearing low-slung pants that display crack not only when you're bending, but also when you're just walking down the street. You know what I want to do when I see the crack? I want to stick a credit card right between your cheeks. Because it makes you look cheap, sort of desperate, and unable to find adequately fitting clothes.

This brings me to my second annoyance: the improper use or abuse of thongs. I know that in the mass hysteria that ensued after the release of Sisqo's "The Thong Song," you are desperate to stick pieces of fabric between ass cheeks, but we've lost sight of the original purpose of the thong. Before the cultural phenomenon of filling most of your wardrobe with thongs, people actually had a non-stupid reason for wearing thongs. Thongs were created for those outfits that looked awkward with panty-lines. As in, you were trying to make your underwear less apparent. It is therefore baffling, and sort of ironic, that you now hike up thong straps above pants so that they rest where waistlines on pants used to be. There is no choice but to stare at the hot pink thong that you have so thoughtfully brought to my attention. I am not fooled when someone points out that your pants are riding low and you giggle as though you're oh-so-demure and embarrassed. You wouldn't wear a hot pink thong with low-riders if you didn't want people to notice.

And just to be clear, wearing a thong with low-cut jeans does not make you someone who's not a crack offender. It means you're a double offender. Just because you're wearing a thong and I can't technically see your crack doesn't make it okay. Underwear is supposed to stay under your pants, and your pants are supposed to cover your damn butt. Butt cleavage is not an acceptable addition to upstairs cleavage, nor can it act in lieu of it. People have been bearing parts of breasts for centuries, accentuating them, pushing them up, drawing attention to the cleavage. But they kept their butt cleavage covered. You know why? Because there's nothing alluring about it. Breasts suggest fertility, the buttocks suggests fertilizer. I'm not interested in your excuses or arguments.

The girls in my dorm, when we were considering our dorm gear, wanted to make fun of it. Although the idea was shot down by the dorm heads immediately after its inception, the joke was that we would get dorm thongs with our extensions printed on the back. Yes, it's trashy, and the fact that we were scarred enough by our experiences to conceive of it says enough: when you flash intentional butt crack or thong crack, babies cry.

I went to a gym the other day and made the mistake of climbing onto a stairmaster that looked over a woman who hadn't mastered wearing pants yet. It was a whole new level of terrible. Things were visible from the top and the bottom. I didn't know you could find training shorts that exposed butt crack and the bottom of the buttocks. It flopped around, sweat began dripping down her back, and I was forced to switch machines. Since there are so many varieties of horror that you are inflicting on the world, I think it is only write that you chastise each other and retire in shame until they stop making low rise jeans. Some of you butt crack flashers will argue that you're fine, sexy and a little risque, but the thong-flashers are desperate. They say the same of you, and the reason is because you both are making poor decisions. Think on it, and repent.

Sincerely,
The-Girl-Who-Was-Blinded

Technorati Tags: thongs, low, rise, jeans, butt, crack

Apple Douchebag

I just purchased an white Apple MacBook and video ipod (to replace my first generation ipod that only allows me to admire my music collection, rather than play it). Or rather, my father just purchased them, looking pained as he did so, struggling not to ask me just one more time if I didn't want a cheaper PC laptop. I received my first computer when I was eight, and it was a Mac. I didn't appreciate how ahead of the curve I was at the time. I was sort of unimpressed with the beige box that took up space on my desk and couldn't play any of my MS-DOS games we'd purchased for our Paleozoic PC. The Mac languished under my care, and after several years of word processing and playing games, my mother sold my computer.

But something happened in the past ten years: there's an Apple CULTURE. Suddenly an eight-year-old would be delighted to receive an Apple computer, rather than slightly befuddled and mildly appreciative of its superior interface. But my greatest fear is that, immediately after opening the laptop for the first time, I will become an Apple Douchebag. The Apple Douchebag believes that not only is Microsoft the worst thing to happen to mankind, people who do not convert to Steve Jobs' vision/cult will be eliminated by natural selection if he just bides his time. This person is exemplified in the commercial in which one, middle-aged man plays a PC, and the scruffy pseudo-hipster plays the Apple. The implication is that PCs, just like the polyester of the PC man's youth has long been out of fashion, so is non-Apple whatever on way out. The pseudo-hipster? He's the disdainful, slightly mocking guy whose culture I'm supposed to buy into. I feel like I'm already slipping into oblivion, what with my Urban Outfitters t-shirts, dirty hoodie and Converses, only to be compounded by a MacBook.

all entries written by the apple douchebag look something like this paragraph. there is a marked contempt for capitalization and any color scheme that is not gray, blue and white. the text is decidedly smaller. and it is all very minimalist. i may wear a dirty hoodie, but at least my computer does not shut down at random. my world is beautiful and i don't even know who britany speers or however you spell it, whatever, is.

Plenty of nice people use Apples, and speak very intelligently about the advantages. For instance, you don't press the start button when you want to shut the computer down. You start to finish? STOP THE MADNESS. But here is my official warning to everyone who owns an Apple computer and wants to share the knowledge with the world:
1. PC users are afraid of the Apple interface
2. it is doubtful that you will conquer their fear
3. bludgeoning them with your opinion and scoffing at their PCs will only make them resent you, and stick more firmly to their ways
4. many people automatically assume that you're a tool or an Apple Douchebag
5. people like money, and may not want to part with as much as an Apple computer requires

Apple users and PC users can live in peace, just like pseudo-hipsters and men who wear tweed suits can get along.

note: I experimented with Apple Asshole for alliteration's sake, but decided against it.

Technorati Tags apple,microsoft,computing,macbook

Chick Lit

Here's the latest confession to be added to the list of confessions that people think makes me a man: I don't like chick lit. I feel my brain turning into cottage cheese every time I glance at the cover of a chick lit novel. They're vapid, simplistic and annoyingly predictable. Even the twists I see coming, are the same in every book. I know this because I tried to read them during the spring of my senior year, figuring anything was preferable to working. LIES!

I borrowed my dorm head's copy of Confessions of a Shopaholic, figuring it couldn't be too bad since so many people swore by it. It was on that day that I learned you can't trust people. At first the novel seemed okay, but then things took a turn for the worse. It was the first narrator I encountered whom, if I met her on the street, I would be tempted to maul. I finished on reading the book on principle, but she need a good, sharp poke in the eye with one of her precious credit cards.

Then I did that thing you're not supposed to do where you read a book in the bookstore, over a series of days. I tried the first book in the Gossip Girl Series. There were similar feelings of rage, frustration, and wasted time. After a couple more attempts with other authors, the only conclusion to be drawn was that I wasn't old enough or bored enough to get it.

The biggest tragedy in all this is that these books are expensive. You shell out fourteen dollars to be irritated for a couple of hours. Romance novels are great because the truly trashy, and therefore delightful ones, usually cost between $1.50 and $8. There is some belief that if you enjoy romance novels, you will enjoy chick lit, or that they are somehow one in the same. Not so. Chick lit doesn't involve time-traveling pirate romance or contrived kidnappings by outrageously muscled members of Arab royalty. You're actually supposed to identify with chick lit characters, draw some sense of hope from the everyday heroine who eventually finds the imperfect Mr. Right. Romance novels require a suspension of reality and aren't nearly so patronizing about love. I believe in sword-waving, Anglo-Saxon princes, not only slightly muscled lawyers with sexily tussled hair. So stop printing those damn chick lit novels and filling tables with them, tables that could be devoted to books with Fabio-physiqued men on the front.

Technorati Tags romance,chick,lit,novels

Junk and Pack Rats: the lethal duo

The moral of my week is this: throw out old crap. It will prevent various branches of your family tree from having to sort through it while sweltering a house without air conditioning. My mother and I traveled to my grandmother's house to clean out everything she was unable to part with for up to forty-five years. She's a pack rat, just like me, so this meant a lot of stuff. If all the useless stuff in her closets were assembled together, it would crush a kindergarten class before eating a small town. We spent the day pulling a seemingly infinite number of blouses, pants, polos and assorted fashion dabblings from closets, folding them, and putting them in a bag for Good Will.

There is no despair like spending an hour sorting through clothes and determining if they're salvageable, only to discover that you're only halfway through the first closet of six. I had one victory in this cleaning-house: I proved to my mother that I don't have more clothing than anyone else on the planet. My mother has certain convictions about me, stemming from her judgments as the neat, organized person that she is. One is that I am the sloppiest teenager on earth, despite my insistence that I am not qualified because there's nothing growing in my room. The second is that I sleep longer and later than any other teenager. The third is that I have more t-shirts and clothing than anyone else. The third honor actually goes to my grandmother. She had outfitted my grandfather with enough golf shorts for five people. She herself had more sleeveless polo shirts in one closet than there are hobos in D.C. And every time we came to another closet and gaped at eight identical, blue bathrobes or twenty-seven pairs of plaid golf shorts, I felt a surge of pride. My grandmother, unintentionally, defended my pride as a human being not within into the true realm of sartorial abundance. And for this I am ever thankful.

The highlight of the first day was discovering "The Seventies Closet." My grandmother seemed determined to at least lend her mass assemblage of clothing some sense of order. This attempt began with "The Seventies Closet" and ended with "The Golf Closet." And when I say begin and end, I mean there was nothing in between. I could practically smell the polyester. I fingered my grandfather's leisure suits and polyester shirts and wondered why more people didn't drop dead in the streets from heat stroke during the 70s. Although my mother and I giggled over it and shook our heads in amazement, part of me began to wonder: did grandma think polyester was going to make a comeback? That was the striking thing about all of this: there was no good reason to not have thrown out this stuff. She probably didn't even remember that most of the stuff was there, just packed it away with the vague notion that it might one day be useful, and she would regret not having saved the big-collared, peach-colored polyester blouse.

We also discovered, on every floor, what can only be called doodads. My grandfather was fascinated by technology and tinkering, as it turns out. It was clear that he had, for several decades, engaged in late night dialing. Nothing so sinister as drunk dialing, but far more dangerous to increasing clutter. He would watch infomercials late at night while suffering from insomnia; in this moments of perceived clarity, he would see the genius of whatever gadget they were selling, and call to order one. My grandmother, unsure of what was in the boxes, made mountains of them in the closets. We're talking stacks of retro-equivalent extendable forks and sheet-folders.

So today's mandate is this: if you have six closets full of stuff of which you don't remember the purpose or can't remember the last time you used it, chances are that time will never come again. You know who you are, even if it's just the one closet. It will get worse, not better, if you let things go as they have. Trust me. Save me.

Technorati Tags junk,family,cleaning

B&Bs

So when I said Thursday, I really meant Friday. I'm tricky like that, you have to keep up. Anyway...

I have unresolved feelings on B&Bs. My paternal grandfather died in January, and my grandmother, only three months later, had to leave her house of 45 years after losing her husband of 55 years. It fell to my mother and me to clean out her house so that it can be rented. That's where I've been this week, choking on dust and staring in wonder at polyester suits. My grandmother's closets were full of 30 years' worth of clothes (see special SATURDAY POST for that rant). They planted their house at the top of an uphill, half-a-mile long driveway, the scariest I've ever encountered, especially when it's icy. It's isolated, there's no light, and my mother felt decidedly unsafe having us two defenseless ladies alone in the house for the night. So we went to a bed and breakfast (we had to lie and pretend to my grandmother that we'd stayed in the house because a. she's a New Englander and doesn't believe in spending money and b. what's wrong with the isolated, musty house that's been locked up and has the dust of the ages?).

I don't understand the appeal of B&Bs. While I appreciate being in a house, rather than in a hotel, I despise chitchat. Sure you get to stay in a nice room and aren't forced to stare at ugly, industrial carpeting in the hallways, but is it worth the sacrifice of my quiet morning? My mother delights in chatting up the owners during breakfast. Morning, however, is not my best time. And by not my best time I mean the time when I am homicidal with a touch of cranky. Therefore, I do not delight in the early morning chitchat.

For those not familiar with bed and breakfasts, the idea is this: warm bed and a hot meal with friendly hosts who have renovated a gigantic house for your pleasure. Put like that, it sounds charming. Charm being the trade of rural Connecticut and other areas where city slickers come to gaze at the beautiful foliage and bask in the small town pace of life, B&Bs abound. When you arrive the night of your stay, the B&B owners, almost always a retired couple, greet you, having stayed up for you. When you wake up (preferably before 9), they have a hearty, American meal waiting for you. The expectation is that you mingle with the other guests around a series of tables or one, long table. You discuss where you're from, summarize your purpose in being there, muse on the joys of meeting new people, laugh with the hosts about how simply amazing it all is. Then, having made 30 minute friends, you all go your separate ways to jump in seas of old clothing, go fishing or check out the antique shops.

I don't mind mingling normally, but I find any sort of motion or interaction before noon to be sort of abhorrent while on vacation. It is fascinating and not a little alien that people can string two sentences together in the morning, but also that they're interested in the ones you manage to mutter. Small talk is something that can't be taught, and it's something in which I wasn't born to engage. I am a listener, however, something which has served me well, and which the kind of people who run B&Bs seem to enjoy. You ask a harmless question about the renovation of the house, and it undoubtedly elicits a fifteen-minute long response. Then I zone out, humming and nodding occasionally as I chew my breakfast. I have to admire them, somehow, these B&B lovers and owners. Having been inculcated with impersonal, urban manners and living and raised by a country-raised father who warned me of the charming, quaint facade, the phenomenon is one of wonder to me.

Yet More Devastation

A surprise trip out of town starting this morning, compounding the being away from computers. Post on Thursday. I swear.