Thursday, June 29, 2006

Crappy Old Movies

I have a special place in my heart for terrible old movies. Especially the horror movies. Tonight I am going out to see Mothra, a terrible Godzilla movie from the early '60s, on the big screen. My dad and I used to rent some of the classics, like The Blob, one of my personal favorites. There is something infinitely appealing about their incredible cheese.

Where else but in 50s B, or even C-movies could I get the joy of watching a glob of grape jelly eating a small American town? I think what makes them best is how you can't quite tell if people were really serious about these films. They don't really strike fear into the heart, but the actors seem to try, kind of, and they classified the films as horror movies. They don't seem to find what they're doing funny, but they must be aware of what it looks like.

There's also something fascinating about seeing how films like Godzilla reflect the times. The Japanese movies from that time period are all about Tokyo being destroyed and people running through the streets. I think it's a definite reflection of the fears of the time: beind annihilated by large, unstoppable forces that only give you enough time to be afraid before killing you. It was a constant concern, and the movies definitely tap into things like that.

Like how recently we've been getting more into alien horror movies. People are afraid of the unknown, like those illegal immigrants "who won't speak damn English and take all of our jobs." As Stephen Lynch points out, all the of the good jobs, like fruit picking... ANYWAY, we're always hearing about some unknown, vague new threat that will wipe us all out. And it'll be from people we don't understand, don't know much about and consider sort of irrelevant.

And the joy of these old movies is that even though they're supposed to be horror movies, they're sort of comical. When we fear, we take on the abstract ideas, and it's harder to dispel them. There is something comical about having a giant moth come and destroy your city. And there's something similarly amusing, but in a more grim way, about being afraid of big ideas without wanting to know more about what's actually behind them, what the reality behind them can actually do.

And if you've never actually seen Godzilla, the old one, you really should rent it.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Free Condoms

I wish people would stop handing me condoms. I could rephrase that to make it sound slightly less scandalous, but I won't. It seems that everywhere I go now, people are handing me free condoms. My parents and I had a discussion about free contraceptives. My high school's health center had the "sex room" (with no beds) with pamphlets and information about pregnancy, STDs, etc. But the subject of debate between me and my parents was, in fact, the condom basket featured prominently on a table. Students could walk by and take handfuls of condoms for joyous nights of safe sex. Was this equivalent to the school condoning sex, or just acknowledging that people are going to have sex anyway, and please be safe? Yadayadayada.

Perhaps I look sexually promiscuous, easy to victimize, reckless or none of the above, but people seem to think I need condoms. Now, we're obviously not talking random people on the street eyeing me up and down and informing me, "You look like you need some 'Her Pleasure' Trojans. Please take these," and shoving a pack in my hands. It's mostly AIDs groups and teen health groups and such. According to a survey, only 58% of high schoolers who had sex used a condom the last time they had intercourse. Sort of terrible, considering how diseased some people seem to be anyway (oh snap!).

I would accept the condoms and sheets with AIDs information without complaint much in the same way you take mini-Bibles and pamphlets from people on the street on the off chance that he/she will maul you or impale you on one of the city park's waist-level iron fences if you don't take what he's offering you. It didn't present a problem until my mother discovered fifteen condoms in my purse. She looked to the bag, then back to me. I had collected a grand total of seven packets of condoms/information during my outings. I have a bad habit of just leaving things in my handbags, letting random things pile up in them. We had to have a discussion about how even though I sometimes come home late, it's not because I'm having sex in alleys with men who all prefer different brands of contraceptives.

In short: I'm glad that people are actively trying to get teens aware of how what they do effects them, but why didn't you warn me that I was putting a grape-flavored condom in my purse?

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Men Being Sick

My father's been feeling under the weather, lately. It involves a lot of shuffling of feet and moaning. He insists that he's fine, and don't mind him, but then he makes the equivalent of a human creaking noise going down the stairs.

I noticed a similar phenomenon at school. When boys were sick, there was a strange mix of the need to be manly and the need to be pitied. "I'm oh so macho and look at my fine biceps, but don't you just want to make me chicken soup and do my laundry?" No, I don't, go get some Tylenol. Although I sometimes feel that girls can just take a hike, I like them much more as sick people than boys. Girls are usually upfront about it. It's like, "Yes, I feel terrible and look a mess." And either you're supposed to ignore it or empathize, or perhaps both.

It's amazing. I would watch guys stumble around with kicked puppy faces, demanding attention by renouncing it. "No, no, just ignore my hacking cough *hack, hack*. I'm fine, really." Some of them just play it up like you wouldn't believe. Stop pretending. We know what you're doing.

And a bit of advice to the guys: never, under ANY circumstances should you tell a girl, when she says she's ill, "Yeah, you do look kind of sick." We want you to pity us for being in what we make out to be our death throes, but we certainly don't want to hear like we look half-dead.

Monday, June 26, 2006

Disillusions of a High School Graduate

Ten Things I've Been Disillusioned About Thus Far:
1. Graduating from high school doesn't suddenly make you better at DDR. I don't know what I was thinking, but I really thought it would happen. Somehow I imagined that having a diploma in my hand would magically make manifest skills I never possessed before. "I've completed the federal standard for education, hit me with some of that badass magic!" Nothing. Although I've become about 10 times hotter.
2. Adults can be just as petty, unreliable and cruel as teenagers can. I suppose that, much like having a diploma in hand would make me better at DDR, I had hoped that becoming an adult would mean that people would stop being ridiculous. Maybe this is why teenagers don't trust adults, this disappointment.
3. You will never be as cool as you envisioned yourself when you were a freshman. I thought that I was going to be awesome when I was a senior, we're talking epic proportions. I turned out okay, but nothing like the Top 40-single, class president, down-to-earth Ms. Congeniality I had envisioned.
4. No matter how much you wish it weren't so, it may be time to admit that the Hogwarts letter just isn't coming. I waited so fervently for my letter, hoping beyond hope that I was a chosen one, full of magic and adventure and witty one-liners that are perfect for publication. Perhaps my desire had dulled by the time I reached senior year, but I've never stopped trying to make things happen with my mind.
5. Driving's only cool until the first time your mother asks you to go pick up groceries. Driving was awesome and exciting until I started having to drive up and down the same strip of road at my mother's behest. There's still some exhiliration when driving, but it's just not the same as when I envisioned myself on awesome, Kerouac-quality road trips.
6. The college application process is not fun and exciting. It is grueling, stressful and sort of boring. Imagine sitting through a two-hour long speech about migratory patterns of swallows during which you can't get up to use the restroom and you're going 7 mph on a treadmill. And that is what it is like.
7. Calculator's can't figure out math problems for you. Math and I were not close friends in high school. I saw myself as enjoying school, and math saw me in a position of, shall we say, despair? I thought that if I got good enough at using my calculator that somehow everything would figure itself out and my calculator would do my tests for me.
8. You will never get a good photo of yourself by holding a camera out at armslength and estimating where your face is. My friends and I indulged in many of these photos over the years, and they never came out. We now have a nice collection of tilty shots in which we look like pale, fat zombies. But for some reason we had to keep trying.
9. You may never grow out of the things you're supposed to. I secretly still think it's funny when someone lets a loud fart or burp rip during class. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it. It's just so undeniable and forward.
10. Younger kids will not necessarily be respectful just because you're older. If there's one important thing I've learned, it's that some little kids are snots. Many of them are cool and handy with a glue stick, but some of them are not, and don't respect you even though you could sit on them.

Friday, June 23, 2006

How meredith stopped worrying and learned to love the davinci code

I confess that I didn't get it. I read The DaVinci Code at last, and I was baffled. Dan Brown came to my school when I was a freshman. The DaVinci Code had just been published, but hadn't hit it big yet. We sat there, listening to him talk about antimatter and the Catholic Church. And we were all shifting in our seats, hoping he would finish up so we could get to the snacks in the back of the room. A couple kids had read his other stuff. They thought it was pretty good and that it was cool to have an author come, but none of us saw The DaVinci Code's success coming.

And after overcoming my initial, snobby horror that a man who wrote like this used to teach English, I paused. While The DaVinci Code will certainly never go down in my top ten books to read, it certainly isn't bad. I suppose most of my distaste had to do with my notion that bestselling books ought to be well written. But then I thought about all the books that we're supposed to read, like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I slogged through and despised. I love reading, I grew up doing it, and I've read some pretty heavy things. This is probably the root of my book snobbery. But just because I didn't think The DaVinci Code was inspiring or particularly good as a book, rather than entertainment, that doesn't mean other people can't. It's okay to enjoy the books you read.

What I'm really trying to say is, sometimes we're too snobby for our own good. Shakespeare wasn't considered high art in his time. And now (often sad) high school students must read his iambic pentameter and thinly veiled sexual references. And while maybe Dan Brown isn't as clever with his words as Shakespeare was, I can't dismiss him outright. Maybe future generations will look back on Dan Brown as Shakespeare, or they'll look back on it like they look upon the author of Love Story. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's well written, but sometimes that's okay. So I chilled out and accepted The DaVinci Code, and encourage everyone else to be okay with it, too.

But please stop buying it. Check it out from the library. Dan Brown doesn't need any more money, and it'll take you all of two days to read the book.

Top 10 Books to Read This Summer:
1. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
2. Middlesex
3.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
4. Crime and Punishment
5. The History of Love
6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
7. The Passion
8. The Tipping Point
9. All The King's Men
10. Naked Lunch

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Cell Phones

Okay, so I'm not tech savvy, but what happened to cell phones? I hung onto my old one for five years before being forced to a new phone plan and cell phone last summer. I like it well enough, it had color and the internet and lower case letters. That phone crapped out one week before the warranty ended, however. I have the common complaint of those who witness any leaps on technology: whatever happened to my dependable, longlasting, slightly more clunky technology? I don't want to purchase a new one every year.

I purchased an LG Fusic, which is really neat. It too has color, the internet and lower case letters. It even has videos. But the internet technology isn't compatible with what my old phone used. You have to pay money for the highspeed internet on a monthly basis or 2 cents per kilobyte. Formerly the fastest you could move was modem speed, but now I can move at T1 speed. Was there some magical leap in technology in my one year absense from the latest and greatest technology? Or an I just too slow?

And since we're moving at this rapid pace, can we get cool stuff? I know they invented flying cars, so when is the government going to get on top of that and create regulations so I can tool around in my sweet, flying car? We invest all this energy into improving and creating things that the average person doesn't need, such as internet on the tiny phone screen. And most people really don't need 3 Gigs of computer memory. I know people who can still barely work a word processor. But everyone could use a hovercar. And what about a weather control bubble, stain-resistant cotton that doesn't feel weird, feces-powered cities? These are all things that would be useful to me. What the hell do I need a cable-speed connection on my phone for? A cure for the common cold...

I'm still waiting for my jet pack, damn you.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

My Dog is Going to Take Over the Universe

...and other contemplations of the day.

I was dropping a friend of at the airport. Or rather, my dad was dropping my friend of at the airport, my dog was in the front seat for some reason, and I was in the back seat. After we left her, I would catch my dog staring at me. She put her head on the armrest and stared at me with an uninterpretable look. I looked back, and thus we began a staring contest. When I felt my resolve giving out, I winked at her. And SHE WINKED BACK. It may have been the most disorienting moment of my life. I winked with my right eye, and then she winked with her right eye. I turned away, and so did the dog.

There was only one logical conclusion to be drawn: my dog is possessed with something much smarter than a dog or she's a smarter dog than I gave her credit for. And today, when I told her to look left (without pointing) she looked left. I'm more concerned every day. I had associated mimicry with monkeys, not dogs. Nor did I think that my dog understood words and associated actions so complex as "Look left." Keep your eye on your dog: they're hiding something.

Next thought!
How is it that slow walkers are always in the way? I mean, I understand that by virtue of slowing down the traffic flow, they're in the way, but they're pathblockers in a very real way. Have you ever noticed how they take up the entire sidewalk with their glacial speed pace? You're walking along at a fast clip and then BOOM, you're trapped behind a slow walker until they turn. And if you want to get around, you have to dash through the row of clothing (in a department store, a particularly slow walk-inducing place) and dart in front of them when you make it back to the path. Or on the street, you have to walk off the curb to get in front. You can't walk at your normal pace when passing, however, because no matter how slowly they move, if you walk the detour they somehow end up ahead of you.
And you can't get around them on stairwells, either. Somehow even the tiniest slow walkers take up the entire stairwell. Infuriated, your feet itch to get where you're going. But you're trapped, forced to move so slowly that you fear falling or cardiac arrest from the stress she's causing you.

The message of the day is be aware of your surroundings. Watch out for your pod dog and make sure you're not the metaphorical cholesterol from a hamburger clogging up the artery of the sidewalk.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Reality TV, Part II

I know I've meditated on reality TV before, but I just can't help myself. This entry could also be called "Confessions of a Teenage Television Junkie." Anyway, this entry is inspired by an occurrence on Sunday. I was telling my father about a show I enjoy watching, "Nip/Tuck." I said it was a plastic surgery drama, and my friend added that it was fictional. In the world I formerly lived in, there didn't need to be clarification that something on television that wasn't the news (although sometimes also fictional).

My familiarity with reality television is perhaps due to the fact that I actually do things at night, when primetime is on, and am left only with midday television. The television selection at three in the afternoon on a weekday is criminal, and reduces me to watching three straight episodes of My Super Sweet 16, which is potentially the most vomit-inducing, interesting-like-a-train-wreck-is-interesting show on television. After contemplating both this and conversation with my father, I realized that "reality television" has an entire spectrum of reality. I have categorized them below:

Real Reality Television: You follow people around. People let you into their homes and attempt to lead life as usual with fluffy microphones floating above their heads and cameras in their faces. There are two categories, Celebrity Reality Television and Special Interest Reality Television. The average person, like me, is generally not on reality television, but celebrities are. We take a sick pleasure in watching as celebrities prove that they're crazy and not quite like us, just as we suspected. Examples of Celebrity Reality Television are Hogan Knows Best (a surprisingly normal seeming family) and The Osbournes. Special interest shows are those which follow the average joe around. Except that these average joes only get one episode, and each one has something in common, like rich, indulgent birthdays and an upcoming 16th birthday. Examples of Special Interest Reality Television are almost any show involving plastic surgery and Tiara Girls. We accept that large parts of the filmed lives of these people are edited out to make them fit character-types, and move on.

Scenario Reality Television: What if you put people in this situation? What would they do? Let's make a show about it. MTV is a particular culprit in this category. There was been a recent movement away from things like The Real World to what is now a deluge of scenario shows. For example, Next and Room Raiders. Let's see what a 20-year-old man would do if he had five girls at his disposal and had to decide if he wanted to complete a date with one of them or trade her for what may be something better (Next). It's not specifically reality, because most of the time girls have more pride and less free time than that, but it's kind of like it. The shows are heavily scripted human behavioral experiments packaged as half hours of mindless, inane television. I can rarely sit through an entire episode of a scenario reality television show.

Competition Reality Television: Like the previous category, these shows are not strictly reality. The classic show in this category is Survivor. People are put into unusual situations and have to fight for their lives/careers/pride/food, etc. Americans like game shows. Americans also like reality television. Mix it together and you have a recipe for success. We love watching highly competitive people stab each other in the back for faux rewards. How many of those bitches on America's Next Top Model end up as top models? Even if the answer was even one of them, that's beside the point; what we care about is seeing these girls trip each other, steal each other's important pairs of shoes and get into hair-pulling catfights. Think The Amazing Race, American Idol and The Apprentice. The shows in this category are game shows for the next generation.

Straight Up Bullsh*t Reality Television: Those shows that are kind of like reality, except that you have somebody writing it for you. It's the awkward combination of average people trying to deliver lines and dialogue that even professional actors would struggle with. See, for example, Date My Mom and Parental Control. All of the parents and unhappy prospective dumpees in Parental Control have the same, droll dialogue every single episode. They have a plasticky disdain for each other, and the jilted boyfriend always presents the same macho bravado lines. And I refuse to believe that the average person says things like, "Tell him I'm a dime piece" to her mother.

That's my rough categorization, to be submitted to Meredith's Grand Master Assessment of the Universe in Single Paragraph Descriptions.

Monday, June 19, 2006

DDR

I thought I could dance. Dance Dance Revolution tells me otherwise. According to this device, on a scale of E to AA, I come in at a solid D. I purchased the DDR mats for my PS2 (I saved up money all summer from babysitting to purchase it, and then left it unused because I went to boarding school) this week, and I've enjoyed them enormously. It is, however, something best played alone or with friends who won't judge you, at least initially. I had always imagined that I was endowed with some sense of rhythm, an idea of where to put my feet according to said rhythm, but this was all a lie. I have discovered that I am an uncoordinated girl whose mere attempts at shuffling elicit resounding cries of "BOO!" and "Are you listening to the music?" I am listening, DDR, but it seems that I just can't feel it.

I had sampled DDR at arcades and other people's houses. I always liked to pretend that I was good that just out of practice. This was misleading. I'm not as terrible as you can be, and I am out of practice, but my being in practice was about level with my being out of practice. I do this for a lot of things, actually, bullshitting, I mean. There is a desire to appear at least somewhat skilled at most things that I do in every-dayish life. But I have realized, increasingly, that not only will I not pick up skills by willing myself to learn them fifteen seconds before I must perform, but that I am also slightly clumsy. Perhaps I thought that if I pretended I was one of those kids who is good at everything magically, I would become one. LIES.

But after the crippling blow that DDR dealt to my ego, I am coming to grips with myself. I am not coordinated enough to move one leg forward and the other back at the same time and have them hit the ground simultaneously. I can't figure out when I should tap the pad when the arrows surprise me by requiring three left foot taps in rapid succession. But I can live happily with myself despite this.

In short, Dance Dance Revolution has taught me to love myself. And I am eternally grateful for that.

P.S. I'm sorry about not posting at all last week, except that I was graduating and having fun, so I'm only kind of sorry.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Random!

Thought of the day:

"You tripped me!"
"I didn't trip you."
"You stuck out your foot and I fell over it. That's called tripping."

Word.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Omniscience

Sometimes I like to pretend that I am allpowerful. When I was a little kid, I used to sit in the car and will the red lights to change to green. When they changed earlier than I determined they would have normally, I called it a victory and admired my incredible power in the universe. I was important, a secular hand of great power, and no one, including my mother in the driver's seat, knew it. The only thing is that sometimes I still honestly believe that if I will the light to change, it will change faster.

Perhaps this a symptom of believing that I am the center of the universe. I know I'm supposed to love mankind and realize my insignificance. But I think believing that you are the center of the universe can sometimes be healthy. If you're the center of the universe, at least your small one, and you are the allpowerful ruler, you try to take care of it.

And of course there is that part of me that tells me that I am not omniscient, just another person. But there's the other side that just can't stop believing. This is the same side that secretly thought I was going to get my Hogwarts letter. This same side tells me that I really am a superhero, and I just have to wait a little bit longer. And truth be told, I think this is the side that keeps us sane. The only way you could truly be a pessimist would be if you killed this side of you that believes that you can control the impossible. And if growing up and going out into the "real world" means admitting that I will never get my Hogwarts letter, then I don't want it.

Excuse me, I have to go will it to not rain on my graduation day so that I can have my graduation outside on the beautiful lawn like I've been dreaming for years.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The Graduation Wait

With only five days left, the tension is beginning to mount. Our prom dresses and shoes are eagerly awaiting us in our closets, our graduation dresses and suits hung, calling to us. My graduation dress is hanging on the door of my closet, beckoning. It asks me the most important question, "Meredith, why are you graduating a week or more after everyone else in America?" It is the question on all of our minds. The facebook.com deluge of graduation and prom pictures has begun, while we stagnate at my school.

We are chomping at the bit, chanting, "We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we eeeeeeever dooooo" and asking each other how many days are left, even though we already know the answer. There is a strange kind of feeling in the air when people near graduation. We are like wild animals with cuter clothing and increasing piles of emo mix CDs about how growing up sucks and we will miss you, emo scream, why is existence like this. n.b. If I receive one of these CDs with emo on them, I will burn them, and not in the illegal way, but in the let's cook some marshmellows way.

I've begun packing my things away, selling the things I don't need. It was especially difficult to part with my stereo, which has wreaked havoc in the dorm for four years, bring pleading underclassmen in asking if I could just maybe turn down "Smack My Bitch Up." But then I sold it and treated myself to an expensive dinner (in utter despair, of course...).

I am increasingly aware that I am not conforming to the Graduation Emotion Standard, which I will, for purposes of quick typing, call the GES. Things that should make me sentimental and nostalgic sometimes do, but then almost immediately, I get over it. People try to express their deepseated emotional moments and sage thoughts to me, but all I can think is, "Hell yes, I'm going to the beach." My only hope is that all this pent up energy doesn't culminate in my being a sobbing wreck at graduation.

DRIVEBY TANGENT! I try to only let myself cry when other people can't see me. For example, at movies when I know there's going to be a sad part (I almost always cry during the sad part in movies, and I don't know why), I establish that I have a sniffle early on. That way when I'm emotionally devastated about Rose letting Jack slip into the frigid Atlantic Ocean and I'm establishing a Nile-proportioned river on the theater, people will just think I'm sniffling. It works. Try it, especially boys, because I know you're not supposed to cry during movies because you're a man.

In conclusion, is it graduation yet?

Monday, June 05, 2006

Rap Music

Here's my confession: I know a lot of rap and hip hop demeans me as a woman, but I still love it. I feel like much of it is so over the top and ridiculous that it's hard to be offended. Perhaps all you can be in a rap song is a dime, ho, shorty, etc. There's even a song now about how you don't have to be just another dime for this other guy, I'll love you, blah blah blah. But sometimes I think it's okay to drop it like it's hot.

I love all songs about booty. I like Sir Mix-a-Lot's "I Like Big Butts." I like that new song, "Ms New Booty." I think it's hilarious. My mother is always aghast when I belt out the lyrics to these songs. But come one, booty booty booty booty booty, rock it all around? These are not some serious lyrics. And the beat gets me pumped up for homework, driving, and more relevant to right now, packing to go home. I need my simple, crude pleasures.

People have argued with me that it's more dangerous because I don't take these lyrics seriously, because I write them off. But I'm going to pick my battles, and I'm not going to battle with booty. Maybe this means that in fifty years I'll be forced to, as a woman, wear a paper bag with eyes cut out when I go out in public and bind my feet so that I need a wheelchair, but at least I'll have had fun getting there.

In other news, I didn't make the 9rules Round 4 List, which was rather unfortunate. Oh well!

Friday, June 02, 2006

Incompetent at Life

I've become incompetent at the things I once excelled in. For example, motor skills. I used to have some of the best cursive in my class (in the third grade, when I stopped using it), and now when I sign documents and checks, my father makes fun of my handwriting. The situation has grown so dire, in fact, that my mother has signed me up for handwriting classes.

I also used to be very good and cutting and gluing things. I could cut freehand hearts without tracing them first, excellent circles, even animals. Oh, and I could make those cool chains of people holding hands when you unfolded the paper. I would then glue these things in with great proficiency. No longer. I am making a children's book for my English final, and it involved much cutting and gluing. I have discovered, while working on the project, that not only can I not cut shapes, I can't cut in a straight line. I also can't use a glue stick anymore. I carefully ran the glue across the paper and stuck it to the other paper. When I flipped back to the theoretically glued paper, however, large bits on the end were curling up. How can you be bad at using a glue stick? I baffle myself, sometimes.

I suppose it is easy to be good at anything you devote hours and hours of every day to. And that essentially was all I did as a child, between recess and sleep and television was cut and glue things, and occasionally draw people. I am glad to report that at least my depictions of people have improved. I always drew women as triangles with a circle on top and some stick arm and legs, neglecting to provide both a torso and a neck.

I also used to be able to do handstands. And headstands. And some crazy upsidedown move against a wall. All I can manage now is a somersault and a cartwheel. I can walk and ride a bicycle and walk on a balance beam, but balance on my hands is something that now eludes me. Perhaps it is because of my fear of falling. When you're little, you have a shorter distance to go. But as soon as I get on my hands, I start swaying and I fear that I will fall on my back and have the air knocked out of me. And my head simply hurts when I attempt handstands.

And when I was 11, I was an HTML whiz. We're talking impressive stuff here, complex layouts, fireworks, the whole shabang. Now I can barely remember how to make a table or insert a picture. My parents were so proud of their having a math/science oriented daughter, but suddenly things took a turn for the worse, and I discovered creative writing. But I still watch nature and science shows in delight.

The only conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that I have simply grown more incompetent at life, at least in terms of the things that are cool to a second grader. I find it increasingly difficult to interact with them because even though I am the ever-desirably aged teenager, and therefore the epitome of cool, I fail in doing the things that they do simply. The humor me and keep their mockery of me to a minimum, which I appreciate. But here's the question: at the rate I'm going, will I even be able to run by the time I'm forty?

Thursday, June 01, 2006

"Lemon Juice"

This story has been floating around in my head for a couple years now because it's truly brilliant. It is much like this joke that my friend Jess told me about a French fighter pilot. She said it wouldn't be all that funny at first, but after a while it would be the funniest thing in the world and I would have the compulsive need to tell it to anyone who would listen for years to come. Except that this story is funny to begin with.

As my friend Emma tells it, she was on a bus with a group of people over the summer, and one boy told a story that went something like this...

"So, I was with my first girlfriend and I really liked her. Our relationship was getting more serious, and I decided that I wanted to go down on her. So I was kind of nervous, never having done it before. So I do it and then she comes, and I don't close my eyes and it squirts in my eye. So I run to the bathroom screaming because holy shit it hurts and I stick my eye under the faucet. So of course things are really awkward, and we broke up like a week later. But the worst part was I was blind in one eye for like two days. When I came home and my dad asked me what was wrong with my eye, I had to say that I'd squirted lemon juice in it by accident."

One of my other favorite anecdotes is about how a girl was having sex with her boyfriend and suddenly her voiced dropped, letting out a loud, "OH YEAAAH." Her boyfriend leaped away and stood on the other side of the room, eyeing her in suspicion and horror.

I think what I enjoy most about stories involving sex gone awry is that sex is inherently funny. It validates what I have always believed, and it is awkward and puts you in ridiculous situations. We also have some pretty damn funny words for sex organs. Well, actually this is one point of contention I have, that all the words for vagina are terrible sounding and unfriendly, while all the penis ones are mildly amusing.
Basically...

Vagina - pussy, cunt, cooter, snatch
Okay, if you didn't know what these things were, would you let them anywhere near you? I think not.
Penis - woody, boner, one-eyed snake, package
Much funnier words, especially woody.

In short, you're not cool because you're eighteen and having sex. This is simply because sex isn't cool, it's funny. This is perhaps a terrible blow to the ego of the boys who strut around campus telling wild stories about sexual prowess. I don't think you're better for it, I think you're a tool for not realizing how ridiculous you are.