Analysis Paralysis

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

I Dream of Jelly...I mean, Jeannie

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."

-Cinderella

Sleep Searching

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

The Little League Theory

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."

-Peter De Vries

SeEthernet Connection

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

10:27

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?"

-Ann Brashares, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

In Defense of Marshall Mathers

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