Christmas is probably the time of year that I listen to music the most. There's something about Christmas music that's really comforting. Maybe because it's always the same? They make a brand new Christmas song, what? every 30 years max? It's not easy to crank out a Christmas classic. Christmas is also the only time of year that I can not only tolerate, but actually love Michael Buble with all of my heart. But, as much as I love Christmas music, there are a couple of Christmas songs I hear each year that totally bug me. And what would this blog be if I didn't have a weekly bone to pick? The first song I want to talk about is "Carol of the Bells:"
There is no denying this is an epic song. But it also scares the crap out of me. It starts really soft and high-pitched and eerie, and then they add more music, and more voices, and then they add more music, and all the voices get even louder and then it's this really intense symphony and I feel like I'm stuck in some sort of severe thunderstorm and I just want to cover my ears and rock back and forth in the fetal position. (Ok, look. Now that I'm listening to it as a *mostly* rational 24 year old...this song isn't really that scary. But as I explained here it's hard to get over childhood fears!) Next up is "Little Saint Nick" that I'm pretty sure has never been sung by anyone other than the Beach Boys. And for good reason.
The song itself is catchy. I like the tune. But, I'm a words-girl and I cannot, in good conscience, listen to a song that includes the line: "Christmas comes this time each year." That's just...so painfully obvious. I don't even know. I'm surprised more people haven't used that line as a Facebook status. Lastly, but not least...ly. Darn. Last but not least, is "Santa Baby." To prove my point, I found the most irritating version of this song available:
It is my strong, prudish belief that sex should not be involved in Christmas in any way. So "Santa Baby" really freaks me out. I'm not even sure that I know the majority of the lyrics because I'm always too caught up in the voice every singer uses in that song. It's a sound that can only be made by puckering your lips and maybe removing some clothing. "Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow." -"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," (Which I just decided is my favorite Christmas song) Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane
I've written before about why certain types of TV shows and movies stress me out. (See here.) But sometimes there is no basis for the stress I feel while watching a movie or TV show, but I can't help but feel it anyways. Below are 3 conditions that should remove all suspense/stress from my viewing experience, but do not:
1.) When you hear on the news that an actor/actress has quit a TV show.
Katherine Heigl leaving Grey's Anatomy is one example. Her quitting Grey's was one of the more publicized stories in Entertainment news at the time. Yet, I still sat there on that Thursday night, biting my nails wondering if Izzie would stick around. Of course she wouldn't! The real world trumps TV world. And I know that, but I still couldn't believe she was really gone.
2.) When a movie is based on historical fact.
I finally saw Argo a few weeks ago. Not only do I know how the Iranian hostage crisis turned out in real-life, I also had listened to about 8 different people recap the entire plot of the movie before I actually saw it. So I know they rescue the people from the Canadian Embassy. I know Ben Affleck saves the day. (Would Ben Affleck ever make a movie where Ben Affleck doesn't save the day?) But I still was gripping the sides of my chair as they were walking through the airport, on the verge of being discovered.
3.) When a movie begins at the end.
Catch Me if You Can is one of my all-time favorite movies. It basically starts with Leonardo DiCaprio's character saying that when he was younger, he was captured by police, tried for his crimes, and did prison time. And then it goes back in time, and launches into his story. So you know the entire time that he gets caught at the end. But you still wonder if maybe there's a chance he's going to get away, or Carl (the FBI agent played by Tom Hanks) will let him go.
I would venture to say that it is probably a sign of a good movie or TV show if they can create suspense out of a situation where all real suspense has been removed--either purposefully, or because the real world intervened. But, I would also venture to say that I'm just a really high-strung viewer.
"You know why the Yankees always win? Because the other teams can't stop staring at those damn pinstripes."
-Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken), Catch Me if You Can
I could write a novel about Facebook statuses. The funny statuses, the sad statuses, the ones that I honestly and truly have found really interesting to read, the ones that make me cringe, and so on. But today I'll focus on one kind of status in particular--the obvious/obligatory status. This may sound somewhat specific...but I assure you it covers quite a wide range. In fact, I will break it down into 3 sub-categories and probably still won't cover the whole category. Here goes: The 3 Main Types of Obvious/Obligatory Facebook Statuses: 1.) Holiday/Birthday This type of status can best be summed up with the following: a.) "Thanks for the birthday wishes!" b.) "Merry Christmas everyone!" First off, I want you to say out loud, "Thank you for the birthday wishes!" ...how dumb do you sound? No one says that out loud. Second of all, on national and/or international holidays, it is Christmas/4th of July/Thanksgiving, etc. for everyone. It is the most obvious thing in the world to just write, "Merry Christmas!" and post it. You might as well just post daily, "It is August 14th." "Now it is August 15th." It's not that it's not nice to wish all 947 of your friends a Merry Christmas, it's just that when I read it I can't help but think, "Well, duh." 2.) Weather Includes: a.) "*****Snow*****" b.) "Hurricane time!" c.) "It's so hot out!" Ok, go with me on this one: Everyone complains about how they hate small talk, right? That was probably your excuse to not go to your most recent high school reunion, right? Talking about weather is the perhaps ultimate form of small talk, right? Then WHY, oh WHY would you attempt to discuss it with slightly under 1,000 people at once by posting it as your Facebook status? 3.) Political Opinions/Non-Opinions Specifically: a.) "Putting myself in a binder! See ya in 4 years!" b.) "Legitimate rape?! Are you kidding me??" c.) "Don't care about the President, when is hockey coming back?" Now, this one has a fine line. And I feel like people are going to misunderstand me on this one so I will try to be as clear as possible. Having a political opinion is great. Everyone deserves to have one. And if people want to write about it on Facebook, I don't really have a problem with it. I can read it and agree, read it and disagree, or ignore it altogether. That's fine. But what I do have a problem with is people posting about either their lack of opinion, or an "opinion" that every single person they are friends with will agree with. What is the point? If you grew up in New England, and 98% of your Facebook friends are from there as well, then it is a pretty unanimous conclusion that Todd Akin's legitimate rape comments from earlier this year were completely absurd. Therefore, you posting about how absurd you think it is does not drive further discussion, it just drives the same discussion over and over again where everyone just agrees with each other. And I'm not even sure that's considered a discussion. Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment was hilarious. But it was really ephemeral. You had about a 5 minute window in which to tweet about it before you became wholly unoriginal, and maybe 12 hours on Facebook. And that's being generous. And if you do not have an opinion, then I don't need to know about it. No one does. That's like posting, "There's a new restaurant in town." You wouldn't post that, because it doesn't do anything to help or advise or educate or even entertain anyone. You aren't even asking for other opinions. It's just a statement about something that you are completely entitled to have an opinion about but choose not to. Thus concludes my break-down of what I see to be the 3 main types of obvious/obligatory Facebook statuses. Honestly, I've probably been guilty of posting a few of these in my Facebook lifetime, thus the word "obligatory." Because, really, how do you get around that "Thanks for the birthday wishes!" post without seeming like a thankless jerk? "A day without sunshine is like, you know, night." -Steve Martin
Sometimes I think so much that I become immobile. All of the things that I should be doing, I'm thinking about doing instead. And then when all is said and done thought, I haven't moved an inch. Nothing has actually been accomplished. But it's been thoroughly picked over in my brain. I do this with conversations. If I'm supposed to have a tough conversation with someone, I have it in my head instead. Which, of course, doesn't work. Mainly because I am not them. Not only is what I'm saying as I pretend to be them most likely inaccurate, but it also is accomplishing nothing as what's going to help the whole situation is actually talking to THEM. I did it with papers in college. I was a solid 2 months into my semester of thesis senior year, and had met countless times with my advisor to further develop my topic. Finally one day he sat me down and very calmly said, "You know this is ultimately a written thesis, correct?" I hadn't written anything! I had a bunch of sources, a fair amount of notes, and countless thoughts...but no actual pages of writing. I explained to him that every time I sat down to write I would think up my best argument, but then I would come up with a counter-argument, and resign myself to the fact that my original argument wasn't good enough. Again, calmly, he said, "Yes. And that's exactly how a philosophy thesis goes...except, on paper." Palm--meet forehead. I do this with political opinions. And really, any kind of opinions. Of course, I have an original opinion. But then I think of it from the other side. And I think to myself, "Well, this side must be valid too, if it's almost 2013 and we're still arguing about it. If one side was 100% right, we wouldn't be talking about it!" And then next thing you know I've changed my mind. But maybe my first opinion was better because it was my gut instinct? So then, when the topic gets brought up in conversation I have no idea what to do. Because the thing about opinions is that they work best in a 1:1 ratio...1 opinion to 1 topic. So I end up looking weird either way--I'm either fighting for both sides, which just doesn't make any sense, or I'm keeping my mouth shut, and I look like the girl with no opinions. And it makes me want to yell, "No! I have an opinion! I even have 2 opinions!" (In all fairness, I rarely keep my mouth shut in these situations. But it's happened once or twice. Take my word.) On that note, I really hope I now never want to become a politician because this post is most certainly going to come back to haunt me. This one, or the Eminem one will certainly do me in. Anyways, I know there have to be others out there who think so much that sometimes they forget to act--who have thought so vividly of saying something out-loud that they have had to ask the people who they're with, "did I just say something?"... You know you've done that before!
"Did you ever stop to think, and then forget to start again?" -Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
Dreams are weird. Dreams are also really personal. They're personal in the sense that no one else really gives a crap what your dream was about last night. And weird in the sense that, despite knowing your audience could care less, you can't help but share what your dream was about.
I should revise that--no one cares what your dream was about unless you start the story by saying, "Hey! You were in my dream last night." Then you have an attentive listener.
What's really awkward is when someone proceeds to tell you a dream that is so ridiculously easy to interpret, but they haven't seemed to figure it out yet: "Oh my gosh, I had a dream last night that I strangled you and then smothered you with my pillow! Ha ha ha isn't that SO weird?"
Get the heck out of there right now. Leave the restaurant without paying the bill, run screaming from their house...do whatever you have to do.
A.) No one that is your friend should dream about killing you. B.) Anyone that is any sort of decent human being would never admit to dreaming that. And shouldn't. If you have any impulse control whatsoever, you keep murder fantasies to yourself. ...I'd have to say though, in an ideal world, you probably shouldn't have any murder fantasies at all.
Now here's the part where I tell you about my dreams even though I know you have no interest in hearing about them. Because, well, I'm human, and I want to talk about myself. I'll keep it really brief, I promise. Plus, if it will make you feel better, you can tell me about your dreams in the comments section.
Most of my dreams, or at least the ones I remember are entirely pointless. I used to have dreams in high school that I just went to school. Nothing happened. I would just go to school like it was a completely normal day, nothing out of the ordinary would happen, and then I would wake up. Unfortunately, I would wake up and it'd be 6:00am and time for me to actually go to school, even though I had just been in my dream.
Last week I had a dream that I went to the grocery store to buy grape jelly.
I wish I was joking.
"A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep."
I read a lot of health articles in magazines and on the internet. 9 times out of 10 I completely ignore what they say. It all sounds great at first: "10 Ways to be a Better Person Today!" And then you get to number 2 and you realize that all 10 of their steps are going to actually require some effort. And there's no way that's happening. One of their tips that I always ignore is to not sleep with your smartphone. Like the rest of the connected world, I use my phone as my alarm clock. My phone is the last thing I see before I go to bed, and the first thing I see when I wake up. And lately, it's even been something I see during sleep. And that's kind of freaking me out. I'm a very restless sleeper...I often will exaggerate and say that I don't sleep at all. Like that Chuck Norris joke, "Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, he waits." But anyways, as of late, when I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night, I have found myself immediately turning over and opening up my phone. Oftentimes this will be before I'm even fully awake, so that when I come to I'm already halfway through a game of Angry Birds. Ok so I have never actually played Angry Birds in my sleep, but here's a short list of other things I have caught myself doing: -Checking my horoscope -Reading an article from Women's Health Magazine on Twitter (and ignoring all their tips, of course) -IMDB'ing Daniel Day Lewis -Google searching lyrics for "Ho Hey" by the Lumineers Daniel Day Lewis? Seriously? I woke up at 3am and I immediately thought to myself: I MUST KNOW WHAT MOVIES DANIEL DAY LEWIS IS IN! (Turns out I knew him from watching The Crucible my junior year of high school.) Another strange thing to point out here is that when I use my phone in this half-sleeping state, there are never any mistakes. I'm looking up the correct horoscope, I don't accidentally tweet things, there are no typos in my searches...I feel like that barely happens when I'm actually fully awake. Maybe someday I'll take the magazines advice and power down my phone when I go to sleep...but for now I figure, I'm mostly using it for educational purposes anyways...learning while sleeping actually seems like a pretty good deal! "I have known her sir!!" -John Proctor (Daniel Day Lewis), The Crucible
For awhile now, I've been working on this theory--it's nothing really revolutionary--but it's more something I've observed over time. And I wouldn't have written about this theory in itself because I try to avoid generalizing about a particular group of people...but I recently just expanded the theory to include everyone. So I figure, now it's fair game. My original theory was that guys can't let go of their childhood. I'll even narrow it down. Twenty-something year-old guys can't let go of their childhood. Even narrower? Twenty-something year-old guys can't let go of their childhood athletic experience. They remember every game their little league team won, how many runs they scored, who the most formidable opponent was, who the best pitcher was on the first day their coaches (read: dads) allowed them to start pitching. (Hint: The best pitcher was always the person who is telling you the story. It's a very similar phenomenon to how you never actually meet the guy who lost the fight...even if you've talked to both of the only 2 guys involved in the fight.) The level of detail, and the frequency with which these things get brought up amused me. At times it maybe even concerned me. However, after my last post about technology that we should have invented already, I had a few people divulge some information to me. They told me about inventions they had come up with in their childhood. But they didn't just explain their idea to me and then laugh. They explained their idea to me with utmost seriousness, and proposed that we form a business around this idea. They also swore me to secrecy that I would never reveal the invention they devised when they were 9, because someone would surely steal their idea. And this got me thinking...do all of us hang onto our childhood in some capacity? Do we all sometimes think that our best days, our best teams, our best ideas were in our childhood? Really, I'm probably just as guilty of hanging onto my past as the guys I griped about sitting around talking about their Pop Warner days as if they were offensive starting line for the Patriots in Superbowl XXXVI. For example, I'm still afraid of stuff that I was afraid of when I was 7. And for no other reason than that I was afraid of it when I was 7. Beetle Juice is not a scary movie. I know this. But I still refuse to watch it. I still say, "that movie scares me" when it's referenced. When I think back about the best projects I did in school, I still think of my wind-powered car in 6th grade. My senior year of college I wrote a 50 page thesis on the rights of parenthood. But, no, my wind-powered car made out of a paper towel roll and Barbie bicycle wheels is definitely my pride and joy. So, after further review, maybe it isn't just something in the water in Mens' Locker Rooms. Maybe this sort of nostalgia is something we all experience when we think back to a certain idea we had, or a certain activity we did--the feeling that whatever we did then was better than anything we're doing now. I really hope that that's not true. But I can't shake this sneaking suspicion that my college adviser may have displayed my 6th grade wind-powered car on a shelf in his office...and my thesis is most likely sitting in the basement of the philosophy building. “Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."
2012 is a pretty technologically advanced era. We may not be where the Back to the Future movies predicted we’d be…but we’re still doing pretty well for ourselves. The fact that I can pay for actual tangible stuff in a store using my phone blows my mind. And just think of how far websites have come in less than a decade. (This 1 page blog that doesn’t stray from the most standard template offered is a really bad example, of course, but you know what I mean.)
Despite how far we’ve come in recent years, there are still some things that I can’t help but think should be way better given all the other technology we have around us.
Cars can do so much unnecessary crap these days. I really don’t need a cooler in my center console. I also don’t need to seat 17 passengers. But, I would like to not have to stand at the gas pump for 5 full minutes, staring off into space like an idiot, trying not to make eye contact with the person on the other side of the pump. You’re not supposed to use your cell phone (is that a myth?), the pump is germ-infested, and I only ever seem to need gas in extremely inclement weather. And as a rule of thumb, for 2012, I don’t think I should ever be doing something that Norman Rockwell painted people doing.
Since Hurricane Sandy is fresh in my mind, I’ll move on to power outages. It is 2012. Why does a gust of wind still bring us back to 1879? (I just had to Google when electricity was invented.) It’s such a far leap! Normal, non-professional people can set up 10-minute long, elaborate light shows at Christmastime synced to music from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with flashing, colored LED lights, but we can’t get experts to figure out how to maintain electricity when it’s windy outside?
Ok, I’ll lay off electricians and move onto…cablicians...cable companies. Look, I know I’m not the first person to ever complain about a cable company, so I’ll spare you the spiel that I really want to dive into, and I’ll keep it simple. Comcast, why the hell do you come to my apartment to install internet and act as if there is any chance in the world that all I want is an Ethernet connection? You know that’s not what I want. I repeat what I said above…it is 2012. It is literally an insult to my entire being that you even pretend that I’m going to sit in my room with my way-too-expensive, don’t-know-80%-of-what-it-does, beautiful, light-weight MacBook Pro, rooted down by some giant blue Ethernet cord. And then when I say, “Oh I actually want wireless internet…” you A.) Act surprised. And B.) Need to go all the way back to your truck to get a WHOLE new set of equipment. “Woah woah woah, m’am…that’s going to take another 3 hours and it will be an $80 service fee…I’ll be back in 20 minutes, I need to go get my magic kit.” Please stop pretending that your company just invented wireless internet 20 minutes ago in a magic laboratory and you need unicorns and leprechauns to deliver it directly to my apartment. Panera doesn’t even know how to put 2 pieces of bread on top of one-another and even they have wireless internet.
I’m typically not one that demands that everything be instant. I don’t need my phone to talk to me. I don’t need my car to parallel park for me (although I actually probably do). But if I’m going to be offered all of those ridiculous features, and still have to stand at a gas pump, or sit around in a pitch-black house, or wait for the Comcast Wizards to grant me wireless internet in exchange for my first-born child, don’t expect me to not complain about it!
“I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by!” -Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), Back to the Future
I'm of the belief that every good childhood should have at least one great friendship--one that sets the tone for all of your subsequent friendships, one that you can look back on and envy its simplicity when other things in life start to feel a lot more complicated. And if you're lucky enough, like I am, you can still call that person your best friend today. They are still the baseline from which you evaluate other relationships, and still the one you reach out to for simplicity. Jessica and I have been best friends since 5th grade mainly under the pretense that we love to laugh. It was as simple as that. We had our differences--enough differences where an outsider looking in may wonder why were friends at all. And we also had our similarities--enough similarities where we could have become caught up in competition and ended up hating each other. But somehow, our differences kept our similarities in check. And most importantly, we found each other hilarious. An integral and obvious part of friendship that is strangely overlooked sometimes, is how much you like the other person. I look around and I see so many friendships born from convenience, or even advantage. And I see that it results in two friends who, when it comes down to it, honestly don't even like each other. Growing up with Jessica taught me to never settle for such a relationship. I learned through her that the best friendships are the ones that come from a sincere desire to spend time with another person for no other reason than that you want to. To this day, that is all I look for in a friend, and it has resulted in the best collection of friends I could ever ask for. Jessica and I will laugh about anything. We'll laugh at each other. We never miss an opportunity to capitalize on someone's mistake or misstep. (Currently remembering the time she silently watched me walk face first into a fire door on our way to lunch in high school. Her response: "I thought you saw it!!") We'll laugh with each other.(Like the time we both careened to the ground after fighting over a piece of paper in a conference room in middle school.) We'll laugh at other people. (Especially Jon when he went through his elementary school phase of following us everywhere...and accidentally followed us into the girl's bathroom at McDonald's.) (Apologies to Jon for being collaterally damaged in this post. Love you!) We laugh at TV shows and movies, and then laugh at each other as we re-quote those TV shows and movies, ("I have a new appreciation for the thong song"). We laugh at our parents, ("But I wanted to have a girls skating party!!"). The list could go on, because even on days where we weren't feeling particularly funny, we would force ourselves into some strange game or activity (sky dancer challenges, playing airplane, making ice cream, making whirlpools, etc.) that would ultimately result in one or both of us making a fool of ourselves. Even now that, geographically, we are far apart, I never worry that anything will change. I have to believe that such a simple, sincere friendship cannot be rattled by anything. Sure, since the 5th grade lots of things have changed. We have changed. But I can't imagine a day where Jessica is no longer one of my favorite people. And that's a good enough qualification for a best friend as far as I'm concerned. Maybe the term "playing favorites" has gotten a bad rap. Why shouldn't you be best friends with your favorite people? It's such a simple concept, but maybe one that I wouldn't have learned if it weren't for a great childhood friendship.
[In hindsight, I decided this post needed a picture. And this one was too perfect.]
Happy (early) birthday Jessica! As fun as it is to laugh at each other across the ocean, I can't wait until you're back here to laugh WITH me instead. (P.S. Mancala was really not a fun game at all. Why did we play that so much?)
“You know what the secret is? It's so simple. We love one another. We're nice to one another. Do you know how rare that is?"
I've mentioned this in passing before, but I've finally decided it's worth revisiting. I love Eminem. Is that weird? ...It's probably a little weird. But I promise I have reasons to back it up. [Disclaimer before we start: There are a lot of inappropriate words in this post. If you hate Eminem for the stuff he says right now, you probably won't like him anymore at the end of this. So you may want to sit this one out altogether. If you are an Eminem fan...extra points if you know which songs all the quotes I'm about to use come from.] First off, he's completely ridiculous and 100% offensive and disgusting and rude. And I love it. I think the only reason it works is because he is so 100% about it. He doesn't dance around the point he's trying to make, he makes the point in the most blunt and over-the-top way. My friend Rachel and I always end up completely accidentally playing this game where one of us will say something we're thinking. "I love cats." And the other person will expand on it, but make it a little more absurd. "You love cats...for dinner." Then the original person will expand more, making it more over-the-top. "Yes, I love cooking cats for dinner...that's what we had last time you came over." Finally, at the end what we come up with is so exaggerated and ridiculous we would have sounded insane had that been the original thing we said in the midst of conversation. "No no, I honestly only eat cats for dinner like, once a week maybe. They can get really pricey." Eminem just cuts straight to the punch line of the whole thing: "I just want her back, I know I'm a liar. If she ever tries to fucking leave again I'm'a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire." Yikes. "You don't know how sick you make me. You make me fucking sick to my stomach. Every time I think of you I puke." Soo...you're saying you don't like her?.. "So you can suck my dick if you don't like my shit. 'Cause I was high when I wrote this so suck my dick." Subtlety is not his strong point. It's actually not his point at all. But to explain why I like it so much, I'll go ahead and quote him again, "I'm like a head-trip to listen to 'cause I'm only giving you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room. The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all and I ain't gotta be false or sugar-coated at all." He's got a point there. He's essentially playing the game Rachel and I play, only he's way better at it. The next reason I think Eminem is great is that he acknowledges and embraces the fact that he is hated...and that he's hated for a lot of reasons. And he raps about it...but not always to say that he doesn't care. Of course, most of the time he'll say he doesn't care: "I'm the bad guy who makes fun of people that die in plane crashes, and laughs as long as it ain't happenin' to him." "I don't give a fuck, God sent me to piss the world off!" But after his Relapse album was terrible, and he came back with Recovery and openly admitted the fact that his last album was terrible: "That last Relapse CD was ehh, perhaps I drove them accents into the ground..." I feel like a lot more people would like Justin Bieber if he'd just sing about how he's well aware that everyone over the age of 18 hates his music but he's not trying to appeal to anyone older than that anyways, so screw everyone! (Yeah, I just put Eminem and Justin Bieber in the same paragraph. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?) Lastly, I love Eminem for rhetorical reasons. The guy uses literary devices like a champ. You have assonance: "And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me..." Consonance: "'Cause I'm back na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na fix your damn antenna, tune it in 'n' then I'm gonna enter it in under your skin like a splinter..." Alliteration: "With his own private plane, his own pilot." Internal rhyme: "Picket signs for my wicked rhymes, look at the times. Sick as the mind of the motherfuckin' kid that's behind." So there's my defense of Eminem. Like I said before, I doubt it will change minds. But it definitely should get some songs stuck in your head.
"Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records. Well I do, so fuck him, and fuck you too." -Eminem, The Real Slim Shady
Typically, I am not too bothered by abbreviations. Of course there are the abbreviations that are widely accepted, like "info" and _____ <--insert your own example because I can't think of a second one. But I've even come to tolerate the new "abbreves" ...if you will. I've found myself saying "totes" or "obvi" here and there--always with some sarcasm behind it, but still, I've said it. I sometimes even absentmindedly say "BRB" when I leave a room. And I'm ok with it. But for some reason that I can't quite articulate, I absolutely hate when people combine regular words with "man" or "mom," or any other gendered words. Man-purse or murse Man-boobs or moobs Manorexia Manscape Bromance Octo-mom Bridezilla Mompreneur (I swear I've seen that one...not making it up.) Mommy-blogger Really, I just want to end the post here. The most important part of this whole thing is me complaining that I don't like these words. But I feel sort of obligated to try to explain why. So, I reluctantly give you the part where I attempt an explanation: First of all, these are all cutesy, punny terms that have actually turned into terms that educated people use. That bothers me. "Bromance" and "bridezilla" should not be in someone's professional vocabulary. If you want to talk to your friends about how, "Oh em gee my boyfriend and your boyfriend are totes bromancing hard core" ...then fine. If I overhear your conversation I'm going to laugh at you, but there's no foul play, per se. But if I hear "manscaping" on the 6 o'clock news, I may just change the channel. Apparently "mankini" is now a word in the dictionary. What's a mankini you may ask? Have you ever seen Borat? ...Me either. But I still have the image of him in that god awful lime green thong suit thing occasionally rolling through my nightmares...that's a mankini. Secondly, because these words are all cutesy and punny, they take away from the actual weight of the word they're paired with. "Manorexic" sounds really clever and cute, but not to a guy (or girl even) that actually has anorexia...which is a medical condition. I know I'm being a huge Debbie-downer about this, but seriously, you don't hear anyone calling cancer "mancer" so let's leave the medical terms alone. Also, if I ever refer to myself as a "mommy"-anything...slap me. (If and when I'm actually a mom, that is. And if I ever refer to myself as "mommy"-anything when I'm not a mom...bring me to the appropriate institution.) Are you convinced? I doubt it. But you know what, I'll let you keep your irrational fear of things like ketchup and cotton balls if I can keep my irrational hatred of these words. Deal? "It's not a man-purse, it's a satchel!" -Alan, The Hangover
I have a couple of quick bones to pick with Special K cereal. First of all, the box it comes in is way too small. Or the flakes of cereal themselves are way too big. Or there is some proportion that is thrown off because I can never get more than about 2.5 bowls out of the box before it's empty. (And no, it's not possible that my cereal bowl size is just too large.) Second of all, the little chocolate pieces in their chocolate cereal cling to the bottom of my bowl, and I have to scrape them up the sides and balance them on the very very edge of my spoon to eat them. Third, what in God's name is a "red berry?" Why are you not calling them strawberries? Do fruit stands have the word "strawberry" copyrighted? Is it inaccurate to call the red crap floating in your cereal "strawberries?" That's really creepy. They look like sliced strawberries. If they aren't strawberries... then what are they?! I wouldn't let someone hand me a cricket while telling me it's "meat" and then just eat it without asking for any more specifics. For me, "meat" does not mean "perfectly ok to eat no matter what"...therefore, "red berry" does not either. Some red berries out there are poisonous, you know! Lastly, the Special K diet is the dumbest thing in the world. You're not losing weight because Special K is healthy for you. You're losing weight because you're starving yourself by only eating cereal. You could probably go on a Cinnamon Toast Crunch diet and lose weight too. It's really not that clever or revolutionary that eating cardboard flakes leads to weight loss. (Quick side note about all the cereal commercials that show people who got skinny because they ate whole grains...the statement they use is "studies have shown that those who eat whole grains tend to weigh less." Which is because the same people who give a crap about their bodies enough to read a label to check that something is whole grain, are the same people who give a crap about their bodies enough to go to the gym, or not pig out on ice cream while watching Honey Boo Boo.) Oh, and my last point was supposed to be my...well...last point (duh) but I actually have one more point to make. Which is that I really hate the word "special." Always have. It's like how people hate the word "moist." Every time I hear it I just imagine it being said with a lisp and it makes me cringe. Maybe I should stop buying this stuff, huh? "The snozberries taste like snozberries!" -Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Sometimes, because I'm sarcastic and kind of critical, my mind will automatically jump to that side of things when I'm thinking about a certain concept. So a lot of what I write ends up being things that I don't like, or that I'm making fun of. And while that's fun some of the time, there are actually a lot more things in life that I like rather than don't like. So maybe I should start focusing on those. (Note to self: begin less sentences with the word "so.") A couple months ago I wrote about scenarios in movies that I can't handle. There are a lot of different tactics they use in movies that make me cringe. But at the same time, there are lots of things that, no matter how overused they are, still get me every time. If I ever made a movie I'd be sure to include the following things: 1.) The picture/short video clip montage. This is a ridiculously effective technique to save time in a movie. A minute long montage can establish two characters' close relationship, build an entire house, fast forward 30 years...you can really use it for anything. Because I want to make you cry today, here is a montage from the movie Up!
If you aren't at least sniffling you have no heart. But really, why is it sad? You knew Ellie for about 4 minutes. It's those damn montages that make you feel like you've known her and Carl for their entire lives! 2.) The shooting fake-out. This one gets me every time. The main character is in a position where it is almost certain he or she will be killed by a crazy gunman/gunwoman. Then, as the trigger is pulled, and the shot rings out, they zoom to the face of the main character, who then gives a look of surprise. The camera then pans over to the crazy gunperson and they are falling to their knees, having been shot by an unexpected third party. Clearly, Family Guy caught on to this awesome movie trend and used it here:
3.) The immediate contradiction. This is always funny to me, without fail. It's when the main character is saying "No, there is no way I am going to this party." Or "I am NOT NOT NOT doing that!" then the camera immediately cuts to a shot of them at the party, or doing the thing they had just said they would never do. Now, when you watch this next clip I want you to appreciate the fact that this took me way too long to find. And I didn't even find it. I had my brother, 2 co-workers, and various friends via Facebook helping me search for an example for this:
Now you know if I were to ever make a movie it would be a hybrid of Up!, Family Guy and Get Him to the Greek. ...Gosh, that sounds pretty terrible, doesn't it? I'll keep my day job.
"You need to fix the place up. Reinvent the Clam's image. And we'll help ya!" "That'll take forever!" "Not if we do a 1980's fixing stuff up montage!" (Montage of the gang fixing and painting set to a new wave soundtrack) "Wow, I think we made it worse." "Boy, I do not envy whoever has to clean that mess up."
I am never one to think of myself as an adult. Every year when I become another year older, it takes me almost the entire year to remember that I am that new age. I consider myself a kid. I still look at reality TV stars and see people that are some age that I will surely never be. Remember watching the Real World and wondering if you would ever be 22 years old? I still feel that way. And I'm 23.
That being said, I've noticed myself saying a few shocking things lately. Things that adults say. Things that boring adults say.
Here's just a few examples of phrases I've caught myself saying in the past few months:
"Oh! I have a coupon for that tinfoil!"
"I just bought the CUTEST dishtowels!"
"I just wired the release over North American High Tech Hot Spots and for SEO the keywords are 'packet optical networking, bandwidth and mobile backhaul.'"
"I went to the Loft the other day and was really disappointed by the selection. It was so picked over!"
"Ugh, I should really keep some business cards in my wristlet."
"Why is Jeopardy not on?!"
I could go on but I think I've made my point.
When I list out all of those adult-like phrases, it sounds almost like I've grown up...into a person who finds joy in dishtowels (they're Halloween themed!!). And while this may be partially true, I do also find myself saying things that make me wonder if I'll ever actually grow up at all:
"Hi mum...quick question. How do you make a baked potato?"
"So he texted me and I was like, why didn't you just text me yesterday? And he was like, I forgot. And I was like, ok cool whatever."
"Oh. My. God. There's a Groupon deal for all of the Harry Potter DVDs!!"
"KILL THAT SPIDER!! I CAN'T DO IT!!!!"
"No matter how many times I watch this episode of Jersey Shore, it's still funny."
So...I guess I, thankfully, still have a ways to go before I fully blossom (wilt??) into the boring adult I will surely be.
“If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!”
This entire week I've been trying to think about topics to blog about. I have a few ideas stored in the Notes app on my phone but I kept looking through them and feeling like I just wasn't in the mood to elaborate on any of them. And then, as my roommate and I were watching TV the other night, I randomly came out and said, "You know what's weird? How people can get bloody noses and it's no big deal. But if any other part of your body started bleeding for no good reason whatsoever we'd freak out." (Females...roll with me on this one. Males...be thankful I'm not mentioning what you were thinking I was going to mention.) But if you were just sitting on your couch and all the sudden your knee started gushing blood...you would not be ok with that. But why when it's our noses do we just grab a tissue and move on with life?
So then, I started to try to build that idea into a full post. And I was totally stuck. But I wasn't just stuck...I was stuck AND being continually hit over and over again by the same, and only, idea I had. Every internal conversation would go, "Ok, what else happens to us that concerns us sometimes, but in a slightly different context, it isn't concerning at all? Oh! I know...bloody noses! Anything else? Ooh ooh! Bloody noses. Ok well I'm probably going to need at least a second example. You're right, good point...how aboutttt...bloody noses."
It's like when you're playing charades and someone just keeps shouting out the same exact guess over and over again.
It's also the same feeling you get when you're doing a crossword puzzle and you have the perfect answer to a clue but it doesn't fit. But it SHOULD fit. Because it's so perfect. So you keep going back to it. Maybe the puzzle realized its mistake, and has since adjusted itself accordingly.
OR when your professor explains a concept to the class then some jerk raises their hand and restates exactly what the professor just said.
So anyways, basically what happened is that I finally gave up trying to think of more examples, and decided to write a post about not being able to think of examples. And it feels like cheating. I'm not proud of it.
That's like when you're supposed to sing a song but you're under pressure so all you can come up with is:
Singing a song about singing a song, and then elaborating on your current situation, arguably isn't very clever. BUT judging from the success of the above movie, it can also be argued that it is extremely clever. So...what's good enough for Buddy is good enough for me!
"Shorty's like a memory in my head that I can't keep out, got me singing like na na na na everyday, it's like my iPod's stuck on replay...replay."
-Iyaz, "Replay"
...bet you were thinking I'd go with an Elf quote, weren't ya?
Our emotions can get pretty complex right? We're not just all happy or all sad all the time. Sometimes we're happy and excited, sometimes we're sad and angry..we're almost always at least 2 emotions at once. Girls are sometimes 235445 at once. Sometimes I cry at Taylor Swift songs on the same day that I refuse to give a homeless man my change. How can I be ridiculously emotional and kind of heartless in one day? It's because people aren't all one way, or the other way. You agree with that...right? You can consider yourself a compassionate person, but still recall the time you flipped out at your cable company over the phone. You were having a bad day, they were charging you for ESPN in 30 languages. It was just a combination of things that went wrong. So you can look past the small meltdown. Still with me? Still agree? Ok...then when was the last time you walked away from an employee at a store, or a customer where you work, or the person who stole your boyfriend or girlfriend and said to yourself and all of your friends, "Wow, what an asshole."? Just like that. They do one wrong thing to you and BAM...they're all asshole, all the time. No redeeming them. And at this point all of your friends are scared of you so no one's going to speak up and go, "maybe they were just having a bad day..." Nope. It wasn't a bad day. It was just that they are 100% asshole. Why are we so unforgiving like that? Why are we so quick to assume that just because we had an unpleasant interaction with someone, that every interaction they have ever had and will ever have moving forward is also unpleasant? Social media makes it especially easy to brand people. Because everyone will agree with you. Post a status about how selfish people are and immediately all of your friends will like it or comment on it...just to make sure that it's definitely not them that is the selfish one. After all, they spent the time to read your comment. And press the like button. No possible way they can be selfish when they are that concerned about you. I guess my point is, the next time you're thinking about branding someone's entire existence as "mean" or "stupid" think about the times that maybe you faltered a bit, and weren't at your best. Should someone judge your entire life based off of that moment? Every time I'm on the phone with a customer service rep or anyone like that, and in my head I'm thinking they're the biggest idiot ever, I think about the time I was interning for a company, and someone called me and asked me who the president of the company was. I knew who the president of the company was. But I was eating lunch when the phone rang, I was unprepared to answer, and the president had actually changed in the last month. I stuttered out my answer, then told the person on the phone to "hang on a sec" while I asked the person next to me just to double check. I cannot even imagine how stupid the woman on the phone thought I was. Oh yeah, then there was the time I called Norway Norwegia. I quickly corrected myself but the damage was done. Luckily I was with very good friends who didn't directly post it to Facebook...ohh wait :) But I'm still a smart person...I swear. You unforgiving folks out there are thinking, Nope. All idiot. All the time. "It requires less character to discover the faults of others than it does to tolerate them." -J. Petit Senn
I watch way too much TV. I'll put that out there right now. Blah blah blah, my brain is mush, how can I watch that trash, go read a book...I know. And I appreciate the concern. Really.
Ok sorry for beginning the post with a little hostility. I'll be nice now I promise.
Anyways, after you watch enough TV you pick up on some things that are actually really strange, but don't seem strange at all until you notice it. And then once you notice it, you can't unnotice it, and TV is ruined forever!! No, not really. But it really is hard to unnotice.
Ok I'll cut to the chase now.
(What does that expression even mean??)
Ok, for real this time. One thing that I am hopelessly tuned into is how ridiculous laugh tracks are on sitcoms. I started realizing that in The Big Bang Theory, the fake laughing people never shut the hell up. (Random Facebook friends reading this are going, "oh she TOTALLY would watch The Big Bang Theory.")
I just YouTube'd "The Big Bang Theory" and took the first random clip I could find:
I do not need random people guiding me to laugh every time something is supposed to be funny. Or...so I thought...until I just came across this YouTube video...
Crap. Is this show really not funny without the laugh track?
Before I ruin one of my favorite shows for myself, I'm going to move on...
Another thing I've noticed in dramatic shows, and especially suspenseful shows, is that you never really know what's what until the end of the scene where the main character in the scene makes their final facial expression.
I just tried searching YouTube for an example but had no idea how to go about the search so I'm going to just have to explain it.
Say 2 characters are in a conversation, and one is giving the other important information about where to find say...a million dollars. You're wondering to yourself, "Is this really what's happening? Is she really telling that guy where to get the money??" Then at the end of the scene, the guy turns and runs off to get the money, and the camera pans to the woman whose solemn, serious face then cracks into an evil smile. Ohhhh sh$#!! She totally lied about where the money is!!
I'm convinced that if you didn't watch the last 2 seconds of every scene of Revenge, you'd have absolutely NO idea what was going on. The sneaky facial expression is key to understanding who's up to what. Desperate Housewives too, for that matter. 24 did it a lot too.
Ughh, you know what 24 also always did?! Made things that were impossible 5 seconds prior totally possible.
How many times were Chloe's lines:
"I don't think I can hack into the computer Jack...it's encrypted!"
....
"Ok I'm in the database."
Wow, that was some tough encryption there Chloe. Jack Bauer has more important stuff to do than listen to your completely baseless assessment that some computer, building, or bomb is completely un-crackable when you are going to go on to crack it in literally that same scene.
Sometimes when I'm in a place like Forever 21, or the grocery store, or even a business meeting, the same thought will run through my mind: When our planet was created, is this what was intended?? If you believe in God, then did God ever think a place like Walmart would exist? Or if you believe in the big bang theory or any other scientific theory, then were millions of earth's particles created so that we could build Macy's? I think places like Forever 21, Macy's etc. give me this feeling because they're just so full of stuff. It's literally exploding with products. And people. And music. You gotta wonder who the first person was to be like, "You know what would make this open-air market better? Blaring music, and offensive perfume smells. And half-dressed teenagers." All you have to do to feel like crap in a supermarket is think of all the people in the world that are starving right now. And we are buying cases of flavored seltzer water. How did that happen? (Spare us any comments about slavery or capitalism or how horrible we all are. I'm asking a rhetorical question.) Business meetings and even sports practices/games always make me stop and think because they get so analytical. Every marketing strategy is laid out, or every game strategy is discussed, and it almost seems kind of funny because we literally made all of this crap up out of thin air. Whenever we use lingo, or have all of this "insider information," it really can't be that complicated or deep because all of it started with a human being saying, "Hey, let's hit this ball with this stick," or "I bet more people will buy ____ if we ___." I refuse to believe anyone when they tell me something is too complicated for me to understand. And I suspect that anyone who tells me that is only saying it because they don't fully understand it themselves. Anyways, take a look around, think about what you do from day-to-day and try to picture a caveman--sorry, caveperson**--complaining about how much longer his walk to Trader Joe's is as opposed to Shaw's. "Siiigh...grunt....the quality is SO much better but I have to walk right by the sabertooth tiger's lair. Honey...do you really need organic pomegranates this week??" "Everything is amazing right now, and no one is happy!" -Louis C.K. in an awesome interview you should watch
If you're someone who believes in free will, then on any given day there are an infinite amount of possible things that could happen in the world. That's why it's so exciting when something happens to work out perfectly. Even if it's just the smallest things. Tell me you don't get excited when you go to fill your gas tank and it stops on either a price ending in .00 or an even amount of gallons. Or when you make every single green light on the way to work. Or when you're stopped at a red light on a hill that is the perfect upwards slope that you can take your foot off the break and not move anywhere. Can I come up with an example that doesn't involve driving, you ask? Ok fine. ...Ok nevermind, I just stared at my screen for about 3 minutes and couldn't think of an adequate example that didn't involve the commute to work. So, you win. Slightly shifting the topic here, you know what always impresses me? That trick with the 9 times table where you can count your fingers and it gives you the answer. How the heck does that work out?? If that is not divine intervention I don't know what is. (Yes, I realize that I began this post talking about free will and now I'm talking about divine intervention. But it's my blog and I hold the right to be inconsistent. Embrace it.) Do you have any clue what I'm talking about? Here's a Youtube video that explains it in painful detail:
The other cool one that is completely miraculous to me is how you can tell how many days a month has by your knuckles. How absolutely perfect is it that July and August are the only 2 back-to-back months with 31 days, AND your left and right hand's pointer finger knuckles are the only 2 knuckles on your hands combined that don't have that little dip-down in between?? I freaking love when things work out like that!
Don't know this trick either? Here's a Youtube video that's slightly less horrible than the last one I gave you:
Kind of makes you wonder how many other tricks like that people have tried to come up with but then it didn't work out. They were probably pretty bummed out...but we'll never know, because you rarely hear about things that almost work. "I almost got drunk at school at 14 Where I almost made out with the homecoming queen Who almost went on to be Miss Texas But lost to a slut with much bigger breastes I almost dropped out to move to LA Where I was almost famous for almost a day And I almost had you But I guess that doesn't cut it"
