Awk-wardd

As someone who goes through most of my life feeling awkward, there are many situations that make my skin crawl and my face turn bright red (which my public speaking professor once told me was "unfortunate.") But sometimes when I analyze why I feel awkward or embarrassed at certain times I realize I should have NEVER been the one who felt awkward right then.


Like when you experience collateral embarrassment (sometimes referred to as second-hand embarrassment.) This is when someone you are associated with in some way is doing something really embarrassing and you feel embarrased for them. And really...why? It's pretty clear to everyone involved that you aren't the one committing the embarrassing act. 


I don't have a personal example that can rival the collateral embarrassment felt by Mike Myers in this video with Kanye West: 

If you really want to cut to the chase, tune in around 1:30, but the whole thing is worth watching just for Mike Myers' face. The poor guy is blindsided and feels SO incredibly awkward. And it's not his fault! He's a victim!


Moving on, here's another kind of unnecessary embarrassment I always feel. One week I went to Target 3 times in probably a 5 day span. All 3 times I was there I saw someone I knew. The same person all 3 times. And they weren't an employee. And I left feeling so embarrassed that they saw me at Target 3 times in one week. Until I realized...they were also in Target 3 times in one week. So they should be sharing some of this embarrassment! And who knows, maybe they did.


Now I'll switch back over to someone else's life experience because this story so perfectly exemplifies an unnecessary feeling of awkardness. I was told this story by a friend of a friend who had gone out on a date with a guy, but ended up not being that into him. She avoided his next couple of advances for a second date, and hadn't gotten in touch with him for a couple weeks. She was returning home to her garden level apartment one day when, from afar, she saw the guy she had gone on the date with looking into the window of her apartment! Creepy right? So I asked her what she did when she saw this, and she said "Oh my god I freaked out and booked it to hide behind another building until he went away." This guy was peeping in her windows but SHE felt awkward for interrupting him! She would have had every right to sneak up behind him and say, "WHATCHA DOIN?!" and he would have been the awkward one wishing he had a building to hide behind.


I should really start working on pushing off some of the awkwardness I feel on a daily basis. So much of it is not mine to own...I really need to start delegating (silently and internally of course) some of the awkward.




"No one can make you feel inferior [awkward/embarrassed] without your consent"*
-Eleanor Roosevelt
*quote has been slightly altered to work better with this post. deal with it :)

No offense but...

Ever find yourself in a situation where you feel offended or insulted, but the person who has offended or insulted you has absolutely no idea what they've done or said? And meant no personal harm by it? Sometimes it's maddening, sometimes it's embarrassing, sometimes it's hilarious. Usually I find it hilarious though...finding out what people really think when they aren't afraid of offending someone can be entertaining.


Over time I've been compiling a list in my head of accidentally insulting things. Some of the ones on the list I'm guilty of myself, other ones are slights I've been on the receiving end of.


-When people tell you all gym teachers are lesbians
...and your mom was a gym teacher


-When someone tells a lunch table full of people that sweatpants are inappropriate attire for class
...and you're wearing sweatpants, but your legs are under the table


-When an ugly/smelly/overweight person hits on you at a bar
...he looked across the room and said to himself, "Yup. That girl is totally on my level!"


-When a co-worker says you look tired
...and you got 8 hours of sleep


-When someone says they ran a terrible race
...and you ran slower than them



-When someone tells you how psychotic "that guy over there" is
...and you're hooking up with him



-When someone talks about the jerk that cut them off in the parking lot this morning
...and it was you


-When you're talking about how annoying poli-sci majors were at your school
...and you're actually talking to a poli-sci major...from your school


-When someone tells you you look like a celebrity
...and it's Barbara Streisand


-When someone tells you a story about the dumbest question they ever heard someone ask in a class
...and you were the one who asked it


I can't wait to get accidentally insulted again so I can add to this list!




"What kind of idiot kept this guy on the air for twenty-five years?"
"Me...Jonathan Lundy."
"Jonathan Lundy, general manager, owner? I'm Daniel Hillard - former employee."
-Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams), Mrs. Doubtfire

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

To write what I want to write about today I have to first admit that I religiously watch The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and yes, even Bachelor Pad. Now that that's out in the open...

Sometimes when I watch these shows I try to envision myself being on them. How would the editors portray me? Which girl from which season am I most like? How far would I make it on the show? And after watching about 7 or so consecutive seasons I wonder why I even bother asking myself those questions anymore, when the answer so clearly is that I'd never be picked for the show to begin with! 

The main reason for me saying that is that I'm not insane. Sanity does not lead to fun TV. The second reason is that I don't have any cool twist or weird hobby. The ones that aren't insane on the show usually have a really exciting job, or some tragic past, or a crazy breakup story. Ben owned a vineyard, Ali worked for Facebook, Emily has a kid (not that you can tell from watching this season...she NEVER talks about it.) Brad was emotionally damaged and talked about therapy, Ashley was insecure and talked about how she wasn't Emily...

What would my hook be? I cringe to think of the minor details of my life that editors would have to turn into major details. 

Like...I enjoy running. I ran track in college. So would every group date be 7 bachelors racing a 400 for the rose? Painful! (Both to run and to watch.)

I like to read. Would my season be called, "The Bachelorette: A Brand New Chapter?"

I love my dog. Would I bring Haley with me in the limo to meet the Bachelor??

Whether I picture myself as the Bachelorette, or one of the contestants in a Bachelor season, the picture doesn't get any prettier.

And if by some miracle, or lack of any better options, I was picked to be on the show, I wouldn't last a week. As the Bachelorette, there would be nothing worse for me than 25 cheesy guys pining to talk to me. If you know me, you are most likely laughing at the thought of this, because you know I would literally have a mental breakdown.

And if I was one of the contestants fighting for the Bachelor I would probably just hide in the bathroom. Or maybe behind the bar...Not only am I not competitive enough to survive in that sort of situation, but I'm also terrified of girls, especially large groups of mean ones. It also pains me to see things that are wrong and not get involved. Any viewer of the Bachelor/Bachelorette knows that getting involved in house drama can be the kiss of death, unless, ironically enough, you are the source of all the drama. In that case you get the final rose. 

I sympathized with Ali complaining about Vienna, and Emily from Ben's season ratting out Courtney. As much as I yelled at my TV "JUST STOP TALKING ABOUT IT YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!"  I can't say that I wouldn't have done the exact same thing they did. And that's an issue.

How would you fare on The Bachelor/Bachelorette? What hobbies of yours could the show exploit? Would you be the weirdo who shows up dressed as a Storm Trooper, or with your pet goat?

"If that's what he wants, I am not what he wants. How can he look at her and think she could be his wife?"
 -Ali Fedotowsky, "The Bachelor"

Amen Ali, amen.

You and me baby...

As members of the animal kingdom, we are extremely lucky to be who we are. We can go years without so much as a reminder that, at the end of the day, all we are are animals. (Unless you listen to that creepy Discovery Channel song..."You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..." That one is always a great reminder.)

But anyways, sometimes it's funny to think about how our lives would be if we all were a bit more animal-like.

When you walk your dog, or bring it to a park, it's always a little bit nerve racking to see how they do with the other dogs. As part-owner of a dog who other small dogs happen to hate, I watch, and worry that Haley is mere seconds away from being attacked. The owners of the dogs that attack (cough cough Trixie the goddamn terrier who attacked Haley at puppy kindergarten) are probably just as worried that their dog may, on a whim, decide to inflict some serious damage.

As human beings, that's never something we have to worry about (unless you raise a serial killer.) When we have kids, we are going to bring them to day care, or preschool, and we are going to watch them to see if they cry, or see how cute they look toddling around with the other kids....we aren't watching them to make sure they don't go straight for little Tommy's jugular even though they haven't so much as sniffed each other yet. Sure, you can be concerned that your kid may be the victim of a bully. But the bully isn't going to try to physically rip your kid's head off.

Another thing to consider is how much easier life is at the top of the food chain.

Life can be really stressful. There are stresses from work, family life, relationships, financial issues etc. Now try to factor in the stress of wondering if you are going to get eaten on any given day.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I could handle that sort of stress. Imagine having to scurry from your office out to your car every day. Or you run out of milk at home and you have to run to the store...HUGE production.

(I imagine this is how mafia members, gang members, people who do bad things for a living, etc. feel on a daily basis--and going out on a limb and guessing that this blog isn't frequented by many criminals--I'm going to say that they kind of asked for that lifestyle. So I withhold my sympathy from them.)

I also sometimes like to use the "we're just animals!" ploy when I think about eating gross food. People judge me because I love Taco Bell. And Taco Bell is kind of a dirty place. But consider what other animals do. They eat animal carcasses. Off of the ground. We're supposedly descendants of apes, right? (all of you scientists are thinking, "welllll...technically...") Tell me that the food they serve apes in the zoo is cleaner than the food they serve me at Taco Bell. I refuse to believe it. I know the meat at fast food places is gross and blah blah blah it's practically dog meat...but honestly...it's just going into my stomach. As far as I'm concerned, my stomach is a gross place anyways. Did you see the Magic School Bus episode where they go inside Arnold's body?? Disgusting. So in my opinion, we don't have to be quite as sanitary as some people think we should be. I'll take a soft taco supreme over a deer carcass covered in wet leaves any day.


"Chew your food you're an animal!!"
-Harry Wormwood, Matilda

Magnifying Glasses

It is incredibly easy to be incredibly hard on yourself. Maybe I just happen to know a lot of great people, but most of the people I interact with on a daily basis hold themselves to a high standard in all areas of their lives.

I am one of those people who is guilty of being my own toughest critic. "I shouldn't have...done that/said that/eaten that/worn that, etc." are constant statements I hear in my head.


But lately I've been noticing that there are some things I should really just let slide. I realize this mostly when I see someone react to something that I thought was such a big deal, as if it were no big deal at all. Or vice versa.


For examples today I've decided to recruit a couple of friends' stories that involve me somewhat indirectly. Like I said, I'm lucky enough to know some great people, and these people are unlucky enough to be burdened by an incredibly high, self-imposed standard. As their friend I appreciate this...who wouldn't appreciate a friend who goes above and beyond to tend to your friendship??

My brother threw a Super Bowl party this year, (I don't want to talk about the actual game-leave it alone) and at the end of the night 4 of us were heading back to the same area where we all lived. 1 of the 4 of us had a car. That 1 with the car happened to be the only one of the group who had not met me, and, thus, didn't know that I lived so close to the rest of them. He invited the other 2 in the group to ride home with him, and I, knowing that he wasn't aware of where I lived, took a cab home and didn't think of it again.

Fast forward 3 months, and I am at a Boston Marathon party at my brother's apartment again. One of the 2 people who took the ride that night came to me and said, Jenny...I've been wanting to apologize to you for months. I feel so terrible that I didn't just tell the kid who was driving that night that you lived so close to us!

It took me a few seconds to even recall what he was talking about. It had been such a small, short lived thought in my mind, but for him it had been something he had revisited in his head, wondering why he didn't act differently.

As someone who has felt this sort of guilt before, I was quickly able to reassure him that I had thought nothing less of him since that night, and was, in fact, so distracted by the awful outcome of the game that I had barely noticed.

Now, it can be stressful to hold friendships in high regards for sure...especially when you perceive that maybe you have made a mistake. However, a whole new level of super-stress is added when you also hold relationships with perfect strangers to this high standard as well.

For this example I'll use my ever-conscientious friend Rachel.

Last week, Rachel and I were waiting outside a restaurant in Boston when an older woman approached us and gestured towards her car saying "The sign here says no parking 8am-8pm, but it's almost 8pm now. Do you know if it's OK that I park here?" Rachel answered her "Yes, it should be free from 8pm on, but I don't think you should park overnight or anything." The woman thanked her and walked away. Moments later, we see a meter maid coming around issuing tickets in the general vicinity of where the woman had gestured to her car.

In a split second I can see Rachel contemplating diving in front of the meter maid yelling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in slow motion. She looks at me in a small panic and says, "Is that that woman's car? Is she getting a ticket? I told her she could park there!!" And then, in the same breath, starts to defend herself, "She should have asked someone else if she wasn't sure. And also, if it's not 8pm yet that's her fault and she can't..." "...what? sue you?" I finish her sentence hoping that she'll realize that she is not indebted to this complete stranger in any way. Rachel did not park her car there. Some random lady did. This lady is an adult who can make her own decisions and read her own signs. She asked us for some guidance, we gave her our best answer.


Lately, I have been trying to give myself a break. Most times, if a mistake or oversight isn't egregious, other people are willing to give us a break, and they may not even know us! Who do we know better than ourselves? No one. So if random people who don't know us cut us some slack, why can't we ease up on ourselves?


Think about what you hold yourself accountable for. Is it more than what you would hold others accountable for? We put so much stock in "the golden rule" - "Treat others the way you want to be treated." But we sometimes forget it's also important to treat yourself the way you treat others.

“The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person."

-Alexander Pope

In a criminal justice system...

My trusty college roommate Taylor read my most recent blog post about the conveniences some writers afford themselves in TV and movies and wanted to know if I see any of these reality missteps in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She asks this because Taylor, myself, and my two other senior year roommates have probably seen every episode of the show ever made. By the end of last year, SVU marathons on USA became us watching the first 30 seconds of every episode before one of us proclaimed: "Seen it."


I am sure SVU writers do plenty to circumvent real-life legalities, but the problem is, I know absolutely nothing about the real-life criminal justice system. At least when I called out medical dramas in my last post, I had stepped foot in a doctor's office, spent some time in a hospital, waited around for hours in an ER...


But when it comes to legal dramas...I, luckily enough, have never stepped foot in a court room, nor had any sort of brief or extended stay at a police station, jail or prison.


That being said, I've noticed some recurrences in Law & Order: SVU that maybe you guys have picked up on too. To keep things somewhat brief, I'll highlight my favorite two. I know good writing always means you give three examples...so I'm sorry if this post leaves you feeling unbalanced. Maybe you should come up with a third on your own!


One thing I have gotten used to on L&O: SVU is pinpointing who did the crime by who the most famous character in the show is. SVU can have a lot of plot twists. There have been times where I never could have imagined the final outcome (i.e. when the husband of a "disabled" woman pushes her and her wheelchair into their pool and she can actually swim...crazyy!!) BUT, you can bet your crime-solving butt that if James Van Der Beek is the cameo this week, he's the bad guy. That episode is almost ruined from the time you see a kind-of-celebrity's name show up in the opening credits. Almost though. It's still always a rare treat to see Robin Williams play an overzealous crazy man who has a talent for changing his voice...oh wait.


Now, my ultimate favorite thing (well, person really) that you can count on running into in not only every SVU episode, but in every regular Law & Order (R.I.P.) episode as well, is the focused worker. It's my favorite because it's so reliable.


The scene usually goes something like this: the detectives, let's say Olivia and Elliot, pull up to the work place of someone they wish to question about a recent murder. Usually they end up at the back door of a meat packing plant, or next to a delivery truck being loaded up on the curb, or in a library. Now, it's not that I don't think a butcher, a delivery man, and a librarian have extremely important jobs. I'm sure they're on a very tight schedule. But let me remind you...we're talking about MURDER right now. So Olivia and Elliot start going back and forth asking questions "Where were you last Wednesday night?" "Did you notice anything unusual about your truck?" "Have you ever seen this bloody t-shirt before?" and the person being questioned will not stop what they are doing for 10 seconds to answer these questions. Olivia and Elliot have to chase the 70 year old librarian through the children's section just to get her to answer "I was crocheting in bed when I heard a loud thump coming from the apartment above me." Is your job really that important? Because these questions are sometimes quite literally a matter of life and death. But no, really, repair men are ALWAYS on time, so hurry hurry, wouldn't want to ruin your perfect record!


Anyone have a third one so other people reading this don't feel like I left them hanging? (I recently have taken to blaming Obama for people always expecting examples, descriptions and action items in 3's. Listen for it next time he makes a speech. And appreciate the fact that I struggled extra hard to come up with the term "action items" so I could give 3 things that audiences expect.)




"In a criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories."
-Random Narrator, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit


...typed that up from memory. No biggie.

How convenient...

I fully understand that TV shows and movies are not necessarily realistic, or bound to follow any sort of real-life rules...that being said, I think writers frequently over-apply their creative licenses. I'm all for giant explosions, impossible plot twists, intense love that if you actually look deeper into it borders on abuse etc. But what annoys me most are the smaller details in TV or film that they inconsistently manipulate or flat out ignore for convenience of the plot.

For example, medical dramas are major offenders of this. Frequently there will be patients who flat line, whether it be on the operating table, or in the ambulance or wherever, and in half a second someone is there with the paddles. "CLEAR!!" and we're all good. The patient is revived --- happy ending.

But other times, the patient flat lines and literally no one does anything. Or they all just yell at each other. Or they immediately say "Time of Death 9:02" and leave the room. DID YOU FORGET YOU HAVE MAGIC PADDLES?! COME BACK HERE!! 

Not big on Grey's Anatomy or House? How about Harry Potter?

How freaking convenient is that magic, carry-everything bag that Hermione has in book 7? Actually, JK Rowling can pretty much get away with anything she wants because she is the one making all of this stuff up out of thin air and brain matter. Medical dramas didn't invent defibrillators, but JK Rowling did invent magic as we know it in Harry Potter. So I cut her some slack. But sometimes it's like she's just rubbing her authority in. 

I'll switch over to the HP movies for this example...Deathly Hallows Part 1, Harry, Ron and Hermione are running for their lives through the woods trying to escape the snatchers. Are the three of them no longer magical? Where are their wands? How many other times have they been sprinting full speed away from something/someone and have been able to casts spells behind them? But not this time apparently.

On that note...back to watching Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family :)

"Pick ME, choose ME, love ME"

-Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy