WEDGIES

It has long been clear to me that I am not endowed with susceptibility to the usual societal impetii.  Cues and requirements are entirely lost on me.  I just don't know when to be embarrassed.  I have a sense of decorum, I just can't get it to override my wedgie-pulling urges and make me embarrassed by my acknowledgement that my underwear and I are not in a state of bliss, that my underwear exists at all.

It is clear to me when I see other people picking wedgies how unattractive is makes the wedgie-puller to others, but this knowledge is useless.  My wedgie picking is informationally encapsulated; understanding of how it looks to others does not stop it.  It's okay when I do it because I don't have to look at it.  But I at least try to point my back at a wall to make myself less obtrusive.  And I'm secretly delighted when I catch other people in the act, even if they're not aware of our solidarity.

My need to destroy wedgies is perhaps integral to my hate of thongs.  Why would you intentionally wear underwear that gives you a permanent wedgie? But I digress.  I'm willing to take the momentary uncomfortableness of some random strangers realizing my underwear is not perfectly aligned for time spent in comfort.

Imagine my excitement when I looked up the word "wedgie" and thought I had found kindred spirits who were unabashed in their wedgie-picking.  But alas, it was just a bunch of pictures of girls giving each other wedgies.  I'd forgotten that there were two definitions: when your underwear slides between buttcheeks and when you have poorly-chosen friends who like to pull your underwear out of your pants.  These are the same friends who will push over a port-a-potty while you're in it.  There was a forum and photo gallery devoted to the cruel wedgie-giving. 

Next I found the site ratemywedgies.com.  Why I have not linked to it will be clear in a moment.  I thought it would be akin to ratemymullet.com, a delightful site where one can gaze unabashedly at the horrendous mullets you can't politely stare at in public.  Instead, ratemywedgies.com was just another page for looking at vaginas.  I was distraught, to say the least.

So pick unabashedly my friends.  There are many travesties in this world (including, for the record, all sites involving GIVING a wedgie).  Let unresolved underwear issues because of public standards not be one of them.

technorati tags:wedgies, mullets, manners

Halloween and Miniskirts: not meant to be

I read a very interesting article a few days ago.  It was about slutty Halloween costumes.  More specifically, it addressed their proliferation.  85% of costumes sold for women are basically the same costume with a different colored mini-skirt.  This was not true at my high school, which had a strict dress code, including skirts short enough to casually flash passers-by.

I went Liq-uor Treating (exactly what you think) in my res. college on Saturday night.  On my way around, I suddenly understood what they were talking about in Mean Girls: Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress as sluttily as they want, and no one else can say anything.  I looked around me and there was girl wearing a referee costume.  The entire outfit was maybe two and a quarter feet from bust line to skirt.  Every time she took a step, she gave the world a look at her underwear.  I cringed, unfamiliar with what was going on all around me.  Everywhere I looked, girls were making true what I'd read.

I took the road less traveled.  As my suitemate put it, "There's a line between being slutty and making yourself actively ugly with your costume."  I tried to tread that line.  And thus my initial idea of being a lumberjack was nixed.  Next, I had wanted to be a laundry basket for the Saturday night activities, but I copped out and was too lazy.  My costume was one step up from the incredible cop out costume of "I'm a student."  I was a kindergärtner on my first day dressing myself.  I had several layers on and my layers covered me, so I wasn't freezing away in a miniskirt.  It was an exciting time.

My question is this: given all the interesting things you could dress up as, why would you dress up as a slutty referee? Or slutty elf? Or a slutty laundry basket? It's just too cold to have wind blowing up your nether bits.  I learned to dress warmly after the no-Daddy-I-want-to-be-a-genie! debacle of  1996.  Halloween's supposed to be about imagination, an opportunity to be Darth Vader, if you want to.  I guarantee you you're not enjoying Halloween properly if your costume has a miniskirt for no reason related to the costume.  I severely doubt that the coolest thing you could think of to be was an inadequately dressed nurse.  Why does Halloween have to be sexualized? The slutty *insert persona* isn't even about sex.  It's so sexualized that it's not even about the act.

So put on some damn clothing.  Just looking at you makes me cold.

technorati tags:Halloween, slut, miniskirt

Latest Confession!

I often start off these confessions with a feeling of shame. But then I realize what I'm ashamed of is not the secrets themselves, but the fact that I didn't confess for so long. And here is the latest one: I don't get indie music. Seriously, has anyone heard Deerhoof? What the fuck is that? I ask you. Not all indie music is terrible, admittedly, but there's an undual amount of excitement among the surly, condescending hipsters for things that I know in my heart are terrible.

The second part of the confession is that, given the choice between The Backstreet Boys album Millenium and The Arcade Fire's Funeral, 9 times out of 10, I would choose The Backstreet Boys. Just as children fool their parents by pretending that muffins and cupcakes are different, and eat chocolate chip muffins for breakfast, so do indie kids fool everyone else. The characteristic snideness fills me with the righteous indignation that I feel about many things. Most of the music isn't even good. You tell me that the music is good, cool and not mainstream. I'm on to you, though. A lot of the stuff you listen to is shit. You're just trying to make me feel stupid and music illiterate by pretending that I don't appreciate it because I'm not yet mentally advanced enough to understand its brilliance.

I contest that you are not yet mentally advanced enough to chill the hell out and enjoy The Backstreet Boys. Liking a band that's the musical equivalent of dragging fingernails on a chalkboard doesn't make you cooler. I'm tired of being pressured to like things just because they're part of a counter-culture. Most people haven't heard of your terrible favorite new band precisely because they are terrible. Liking a band that plays for music rather than the sake of being inaccessible to the majority, however, does make you cool. I refuse to be cowed.

I like what I like. You like what you like. Leave me alone, and stop silently sniffing when I'm not intimately familiar with that band whose name I can't pronounce. I'll stop griping about you in return.

I know all indie music isn't terrible and that all indie kids aren't snide, holier-than-thou annoyances. But being snotty doesn't make you unique. I know you still have that "embarrassing" CD from middle school somewhere in your basement. Don't be afraid of it. We can all be friends. I'll even tolerate that stupid song that sounds like a fight between cell phone ringers without complaint.

Hummus

Important news of the day: hummus is delicious.

All people who do not believe that hummus is delicious will not voice their opinions in this matter. Your opinion is worthless and incorrect. Nothing anyone says will convince me that my opinion is false.

So why do we still have these discussions? I feel like I have an argument everyday with someone that goes like this:
"Hummus is really delicious."
"No it's not."
"I really like it."
"That's because you have an undiscriminating palate."
"Shut the hell up. Hummus is great."
"I hate it, it sucks."

Okay. We're never going to agree, so can we just not talk about it? Instead of just agreeing to disagree, we believe that our entirely subjective opinions and backups for our opinions should be convincing enough to make others see the light. It's not happening, give it up. We simply get caught in these endless conversations in which people argue that hummus is delicious because it has chick peas, and the other person says that it's terrible because chick peas are disgusting. No matter how many ways we argue it our what level of detail we go to, there is a fundamental difference in perception that we're not going to surmount.

The best discussion is one so convoluted that at the end you realize you're arguing the same thing in different words. It's even more frustrating than the endless subjective arguments. With the subjective arguments, at least you've been righteously indignant that somebody else does not realize how right you are. With the we're-saying-the-same-thing argument, you've accomplished nothing and taken away from my time spent playing Zuma.

Let us speak of this no more.

Stop, fool!

I'm beginning to doubt that people have any of the good sense their mothers gave them. Willing things to be a certain way does not make them that way. And there are certain things we were taught in kindergarten that still apply.

One of these important lessons is that you look both ways when you cross the street, even on a one way street. I know it seems strange, but people sometimes back out of parking spaces or think that driving into oncoming traffic is a good idea. Another integral lesson is that when the light is red, you don't walk across the street. Now, not applying these rules separately can be okay. Sometimes I just kind of traipse across the street without looking, and if jaywalking were an Olympic sport, I would have a gold medal. But in conjunction, ignoring common sense can be deadly. If you're crossing a street when the light is red, chances are there's a car coming, and that car will hit you. Everyday I see people wandering across intersections against traffic and then wondering why they almost got mowed down by a bus. Buses won't stop for you. I want to yell, "Hey dumbass, it's because if you're going to break the law, at least do it properly." If you fail to steal something, you walk away emptyhanded. If you fail to jaywalk properly, you walk away without a head.

Oh, and I'm not fooled by your attempts to cut in line. Nobody is. This isn't elementary school where we're going to let slide the fact that you're a jerk. When you try to go for the scrambled eggs I've been eyeing from the back of the line, I will take actions you will not like. It feels like by the time I get to the front of the line, the earth will have reversed it's polarity. And so when you slow the process down by pretending to not understand that the hungry looking string of people are in fact waiting for the food, I want to crack my tray over your head. There's no way to miss the line. An old lady tried to pull the "What, there's a line?" move in Barnes and Noble the other day, figuring that her old lady power would convince the cashier to let it slide. When he pointed her to the line, I cheered on the inside. No one feels bad for you because you have to go to the back of the line.

If, in the computer lab, something doesn't work, pressing the same button over and over again will not fix it. You can't exit the program, you say? Call for help. The student computing assistant may hate you for the rest of your natural life, but your professor will demand your firstborn if you don't get the paper in on time. The wrath of one angry computer nerd is far less important than a hit to one's GPA. Pressing the escape button when the computer freezes does not help. Seriously. No really, stop. And I have no sympathy if you didn't save your paper. That was pretty much the first thing we were taught about computers: they're little bitches who like to delete important things at critical moments. Take preventative measures. I admit I've fallen pray to this: see the time when blogger spontaneously deleted my template and I had no backup. But now that I've put the reminder out there, everyone who is crying over lost 12-page papers that are gone to the Windows blue screen of death will suck it up, learn, and never come to a computer lab while I'm there ever again.

You may think you're getting away with whatever lapse in common sense you're committing, but you're not. I saw it.

Narcolepsy and the Sleep Obsessed Masses

I have begun to think that college students are narcoleptic. Either that or obsessed with sleep. I sat down in my Introduction to Cognitive Science course yesterday, in the back. Normally I sit in the middle, hoping that the man of my dreams will sit down, sweep me off my feet, and be my study buddy. There are fewer places for him to sit near me if I sit in the back. Anyway, I went to the back because it didn't require my climbing over anyone to get to a seat.

Two latecomers came in and chose seats on either side of me. Twenty minutes into class, I noted that the girl on the left kept jerking her elbow around on the armrest. I glanced surreptitiously at her, and saw that she was resting her head on her arm. When she fell asleep, her arm jerked, and her elbow slipped off the armrest. Thus explaining the bizarre behavior. Ten minutes later, I saw that the motionless guy on my right was motionless because he had been passed out for almost the entire lecture. His notes were slowly sliding off his lap and making their way to the floor. His head was thrown back and his mouth wide open, the crown of his skull pressing against the wall. When I looked up and down the row, I discovered that I was the only one who was alert. Everyone else was in various stages of sleep. I felt like I'd entered some sort of alternate universe where I was the only one able to stay awake.

Then today, the sleeping obsessed bug caught me. I spent the entire hour and fifteen minutes of my English class envisioning the nap I had planned out for directly after it. My professor was talking, and all I heard was, "You cannot take your nap yet!" I was awake but zoned during the entire class; I even participated for most of it. I have absolutely no idea what I said, but I remember that he nodded, so it must have come at as English, at least. It was the most satisfying nap of all time, I would like to note.

The problem with naps, though, is that when I wake from them, I feel lethargic for at least half an hour after I awake. And since that nap was so satisfying, all I can think about now is how the need to write a paper and study for a test I'm taking tomorrow is interfering with my passing out as early as I want tonight. I will read the Japanese grammar points and all I will read is, "You cannot go to sleep yet!"

Cop Out!

Japanese Learning English

Rather than share my opinion on anything today, I thought I would instead impart to everyone an important life skill: handling being mugged.
Jazzercising makes getting robbed so much less painful. It is ESSENTIAL that you watch this video to the end. This is exhibit A for why I love Japanese culture. If I get mugged, I plan to pull these moves.
If each day has a moment of zen, watching this video was the one for today. How can you be sad when things like this exist?

Mandates!

Dear everyone:

For the sake of my sanity, you must yield to my supreme will. If I become an evil dictator, these mandates shall be among the first I pass down:

1. Your favorite band is no longer allowed to be The Beatles. Do better. It's like saying your favorite book is the Bible.
2. Trick bikes aren't cool, and you can't ride them. You look like you're riding the bicycle equivalent of a clown car. You know why people rode those small, undersized bikes? Because they stole them from 8-year-old kids. The fact that you're paying for a bike you can't ride properly is dumb.
3. If you friended me on facebook over the summer before we met each other, you're not allowed to just come up and talk to me. You must introduce yourself. Especially if you've got a facebook coverpage (a profile picture that lies about your true appearance). Facebook friends is not the same as real friends.
4. When you stand outside my window and make noise late on a weeknight and I'm try to study or sleep, I reserve the right to eat you and leave your carcass as a warning to others.
5. Skinny girls who talk about being fat will shut the hell up.
6. Thou shalt not smack gum. Thou shalt not chew gum in class, thou shalt not chew gum during Mass. I can't focus when I can hear you chewing.
7. You may not borrow a pencil. Ever.
8. Thou shalt learn that there is a difference between Febrezing a shirt is not the same thing as washing it. I know, everyone else knows, and we demand that you utilize laundry detergent
9. Pet dogs on the way to class. What will you remember? That you fell asleep in that lecture that one time or that you petted a sweet dog? If the answer is not petting the dog, then there are some serious issues to consider.
10. You will stop thinking ninjas are better than pirates.

Don't get too comfortable. I may be coming to power sooner than you think.

Beware, Tours!

I try to be on my best behavior when tours are coming by, I swear. But for some reason I always seem to do something embarrassing right when they pass by. I am the ideal student to keep in a closet when prospective students are walking around.

My first mishap occurred during the second week of school. While walking with one of those people whom I met in the first few weeks and have never seen again, I was telling a story. The end of the story was a string of expletives. I unleashed them with flourish; there is nothing I love more than telling stories. I looked up to see a crowd of people huddled around a statue. There is only one reason a bunch of people would be standing around a statue on a college campus: ritual hazing or tour groups. Since there were middle-aged people there, I assumed it was the latter. One mother was staring at me, mouth literally agape. The tour guide shot me a dirty look. Knowing that I was being scrutinized, I was unable to change my pace. I avoided eye contact and moved slowly by the group learning about why they should apply to the college of the foul-mouthed miscreants.

The latest incident with a tour group involved a rope swing. Sometime during the orientation week of school, someone incompetent at swinging broke the swing hanging from a tree in the freshman quad. But only one side of it. The rope was frayed significantly, so re-tying it meant making the swing higher. It now sits about four and a half feet above the ground. After passing the swing several times a day for weeks, I was determined that I would enjoy the swinging pleasures. Spontaneously, I put my bag down against the swing's tree and contemplated the swing. I pulled on the wood plank that acts as a seat; it shifts around, so I couldn't use it to propel myself up. I grabbed one side of the swing and threw my legs around the plank. I think tried to shimmy my way upwards and get myself into a sitting position. Instead, I tangled my foot in the rope, let go in surprise, and hung upside-down from the tree. My head was on the ground, actually, because of the height of the swing. As I tried to fish my ankle out of the rope without falling and fracturing my spine (my dignity was already beyond repair), a heard the sound I dreaded most: a projector.

You can tell a tour guide from the way he sounds. You can hear him from two blocks away discussing the historical merits of this chunk of sidewalk or statue or building. I affectionately call these tour guides "the projectors." I knew the group would come around the tree and spot me at any moment; I was in the middle of campus. As he came to me, he paused briefly before deciding to ignore me. He put his back to me and began rambling; this meant that the group, rather than looking at him, watched me struggle to free myself. I have represented my college, supposedly full of the best and the brightest, very well: we can't even figure out how to get onto a swing.

So, here's what I have to say to everyone going through college tours: just because one person looks like a dumbass doesn't mean they all are. I swear.

6-Month Events

When did sports start having six month seasons? I talked to my mother last night, and she mentioned that there was a severe sporting overlap over the weekend. On the same day there was a baseball game, a football game, a hockey game and a basketball game all at home in D.C. This reminded me of something that has long baffled me: why do we need to have six-month seasons for professional sports? It sort of kills the joy when baseball goes on until November and football starts in August.

I recognize that people are interested in making money. I'm interested in making more money, too. But I don't like watching any one professional sport to endure the coverage for half of the year. Stretching the season is terrible idea. There are enough sports-oriented things going on in America. I have to endure the endless commercials for Madden Football X-treme X7 or whatever ridiculous new name it has. Fifteen different variations of basketball gameplay...play in an alley, on the streets, in the NBA, with freeze frame dialogue. It would make it better if people were not jazzed up for the sports and spurring on the advertisements for half the year. There is no time when I get to rest from sports

I know it's a longer-going phenomenon, but I can't handle that stores started selling Halloween stuff mid-September. It was September, fools! Not time for cardboard cutouts of Jack-o-lanterns yet. And quite honestly, I'm not interested in Halloween candy that someone purchased two months ago. I nearly choked when I walked into a grocery store last year and they were selling Christmas-oriented kitsch before Thanksgiving.

You can have too much of a good thing. Stop killing my love of baseball and Christmas. I refuse to have my joy destroyed.

Fire Hazard!

Our suite recently received a packet detailing all of the things which will cause to die in a fiery blaze. Among banned things were halogen lamps and a microwave. There are periodic checks to make sure we don' t have halogen lamps pointed over large stack of paper and matches, etc. Also, don't smoke and then drop the still-lit butt in a garbage can full of paper (and if you die, it's your own fault for not recycling). What it behooves the student to know, however, is that they cannot move anything during their search. The way to keep a microwave, therefore, is to cover it with a sheet before an inspection. The security will be forced to say, "My, that sheet is remarkably microwave-shaped," and move on.

There are other things, too, such as blocking the fire door. We are not in that situation, thankfully, but I've seen several rooms with futons pushed up against the door. Another request was that we leave a path among the clothing, food, textbooks, beer cans, etc to the door. What is more interesting than the various ways we were setting ourselves up for a fiery demise, however, was the instructions on how to escape. It read rather like those Goosebumps novels where you choose your own path. To open the door, go to page 81. To walk on, go to page 145. Etc., except with fire. It looks something like this.

1. Fire alarm goes off, activating sprinklers to soak all of your possessions.
2. a. Move your futon from the fire door and run downstairs.
b. If there is a fire in the stairs, put a towel down at the base of the door to keep smoke from coming in
c. If you only discover the fire while you're already on the stairs, run back upstairs.
i. if the guys downstairs were toking up before disaster struck, bask in the glory of their second-hand smoke before running back to your room
3. Cry like a little bitch.
b. sit on your bed to cry, if you must
4. Recover.
a. Hang a shirt from your window to signal that you were too weak to run through some roaring flames and need to be rescued.
b. hang your roommate out of the window if you can't find a shirt
5. Wait for someone to save you.
6. Cry some more. Ignore your roommate's pleas to be let back inside.
7. Feel your doorknob to see if it's warm. Don't try to leave; you had your chance on the stairs.
8. If by some chance you catch on fire, stop, drop from the window, and roll. Roll around in the grass until someone hoses you down.
9. Wait for the ambulance.
10. Have a nice day with your microwave-shaped sheet.

Remember, kids: only you can prevent dorm fires.

NOT Sexyback

Every day I am bludgeoned with the cudgel that is "Sexyback." It invades the radio and is inevitably blasting from someone's car stereo at least once a day. In my fantasies, I throw myself from the sidewalk, lean in the window and rip with stereo from the car with a scream of animalistic rage. I resent this song's existense with all the feeling I possess. I know that pop music has its place, and dance music, too. I can't have too high expectations for it. But every once in a while, there is a song on the radio that inspires rage in me. Right now, that song is "Sexyback."

I was baffled by its awfulness when I first heard it on the radio. The DJ, in a typical fashion, didn't bother to introduce the artist or the song before playing it. Just as I was confused by Cher's "Believe," so was I unable to determine the gender of the singer of "Sexyback." I thought it was a woman. It turned out to be Justin Timberlake, and I cringed. I loved 'NSync so much when I was young and impressionable, and it hurts me when post-boyband solo careers take such a drastic turn.

It's built on a template for a song with nothing embellishing it and making it worthwhile. There's a repeating series of pounding notes that don't vary in the song. The templatey feel is especially alive when he outlines exactly where the song is going. "Bring it to the bridge!" "Bring it to the chorus!" I may not be expecting some Bob Dylan-esque lyrics, but is that seriously the best you could do?

And I would like to firmly establish that no, Justin Timberlake, you are not bringing sexy back. I don't know where he thinks it went, but if it's gone missing, it's still hanging out with Jimmy Hoffa somewhere. More offensive than the idea that you can singlehandedly restore sexy or sexiness with a poorly-conceived dance cross-over song is that your song doesn't make me want to dance, which is a difficult trick.

I'm breaking off my fleeting dabbles into your music, Justin Timberlake. I didn't love "Cry Me a River," but I could stand it. Now we've just grown too far apart; I don't think sexy went anywhere and just want to dance, but you're saying that I'm wrong, and trying to keep me from dancing. I think we're going in different directions. And I don't know if I'm ready to be friends just yet.