I'm Delightful at Parties, As Well!

In August, I said goodbye to my roommate and moved into a one-bedroom apartment by myself. It's a lovely place, albeit probably a bit more money than I ought to be spending right now. I lived with my roommate for my first two years in town, and I'm glad I did, because it saved me some money and she was a good roommate, in general. She paid the bills on time, she mostly cleaned up after herself, and she never threw any wild parties or brought home any drifters (that I know of). Nevertheless, I am thrilled to be rid of her, and so I shall compile a list of her faults now.

1) She talked to the television, nearly constantly.
2) She would get drunk on wine once a week, and the wine always made her talk to the TV even more.
3) She only drank cabernet sauvignon, which she referred to as "cab sav."
4) She was incapable of drinking wine without spilling it at least once, which then had to be followed by a loud and drunken rush to clean it up.
5) She almost never took out the trash or the recycling, even though it was always full-to-bursting with empty cab sav bottles.
6) Anytime she had a group project for school, she insisted on hosting the whole group at our apartment and cooking dinner for them. (Had these people never heard of coffee shops?)
7) Once, she invited 7 people over for dinner and forgot to tell me, so that I woke up from a late afternoon nap (shut up) to the sounds of a congregation in my kitchen.
8) She always left the pantry door open.
9) She once put cheese in the knife drawer by accident, and we didn't find it for a week.
10) She left the milk out on the counter one morning and it was spoiled by the time I got home.
11) She would always roll around on the couch and jack up the slipcover, and never straightened it when she got up.
12) She never pushed her chair back under the table when she got up.
13) She had all of her phone conversations on speakerphone, with her bedroom door open.
14) Whenever her boyfriend was over, they laid on each other on the couch.
15) She once complained that she weighed 130, which was "the most she had ever weighed," and as a result she could "feel her belly shake when she walked."
16) She liked to watch Jersey Shore, Keeping up with the Kardashians, Chelsea Lately, and awards shows.
17) She got up early to watch the Royal Wedding, and enjoyed it so much that she watched the highlights all over again on E! later that day.
18) She kept her bikes (two of them) in the dining room.
19) She offered to care for her friend's cat all summer, and then took a job in another city, leaving me alone to care for the cat 4 days a week. The cat was a prodigious urinater, by the way.
20) Whenever she didn't understand something, she would repeat it loudly and incredulously, and then declare it "weird."

Some of these complaints are reasonable, and some of them are not. I know that, but I can't tell the difference, which is why I have to live by myself. I would probably be hard-pressed to find a better roommate than this girl. She even gave me a gift when I got my Master's in May. Nevertheless, living with her drove me crazy. It seems that my standards for perfection are too high, my fault-finder too sensitive, my desire for privacy and for people to SERIOUSLY-QUIT-TOUCHING-MY-SHIT too extreme. So now I have no choice but to live by myself in a one-bedroom apartment, slowly spending down my savings in an effort to secure that priceless commodity that I like to call "a dining room that doesn't look like a bike messenger's garage."

I'll tell you what, though: the pantry door is always closed, and I can finally watch TV in peace.

I Probably Should Have Just Taken a Nap Instead

Well it looks like I owe you all another apology, since I failed to post again yesterday. I waited until late in the evening to try to write something, and the electricity chose that time to start going in and out. Lee was worried about the computer getting hurt by all the excitement, so we shut it down. Good for the computer, bad for my commitment to non-stop blog domination. Oh well. Here we are today, and we all survived my absence, it seems.

Between not writing a post last night and the fact that I accomplished very little "work" today, I'm feeling kind of like a useless bum. It doesn't help that I haven't run since my doomed attempt Sunday night. Last week, I ran several times on the treadmill in the little fitness center here in Lee's apartment complex. I was working on being speedier, and it seemed to be going well, except for the part where I think I pulled my right hamstring. It was sort of bothering me over the weekend, and then when I tried to run on Sunday it was really more of a shambling jog. Granted, a shambling jog isn't that unusual for me during the end of a long run, but this was happening during the first mile, when I usually feel like a cheetah, soooo... probably not a good sign. Just FYI, here are few other things I had working against me on Sunday night:

1) It's July in Houston.
2) Even at 7pm, it was in the mid-90s
3) ... with almost 80% humidity.
4) The sidewalks around here, even in Lee's relatively nice neighborhood, are poorly maintained and pretty wonky. Sometimes you're running at a weird angle, and sometimes you're jumping over deep puddles that see to come out of nowhere, and pretty much all the time you're hopping and skipping and trying not to trip over the places where the concrete squares don't line up.
5) I had maybe only eaten two pop tarts and some nachos that day.
6) ... ok, I can't think of a number 6, but don't you think that's enough reasons?

I was trying to run 7 miles, and I'm pretty sure it would have been the first time I've run that far since I ran the half last year. The reason I was trying to run 7 miles was because I'm training to run the same race again this year. Did I tell you that? No? Well it's true. Anyway, because of all the forces (OF EVIL) working against me, I made it about 2.5 miles before I gave up and walked back home. Lame.

Since I compiled a list of ways in which Houston has sabotaged my running, I feel obligated to make a list of good things about running in Houston. (Because I am a force for justice and fairness in the world.) Here is my list:

1) There is usually a breeze, which is nice.
2) There are very few hills.
3) ... that's pretty much it. Check with me again in December and I'll see if I have more nice things to say.

I guess I'll try for 7 miles again next weekend, since I have to keep training or else I'll never win first place at the big race. Who knows? If I'm really lucky, maybe I'll drop dead of heat stroke!

Attention Universe

I COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THE WEDDING OF PRINCE WILLIAM AND KATE MIDDLETON.

I do not know anything about these people, except that they are attractive and one is royalty. Why should I care about their wedding?

I just had to listen to a young woman (who was not hosting a fashion show on E) say, without a hint of irony, "She's so beautiful! She's like, a mixture of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O, you know? Like, a mixture of being fashion forward but also really classic."

I think it's time to STOP THE MADNESS.

Before I injure myself or someone else.

Grumbling

Even though I'm not supposed to work on Fridays, I had to go to work today because the people who foolishly hired me to be an integral part of their research team are currently scrambling to get a grant proposal finished.

Then I came home and immediately had to go out and run 6 miles. I wisely chose to run a new route so that I wouldn't be bored by the tedium inherent in running the same old trail for an hour. I didn't really assess the route before I started it, but I guess you could say it was quite pleasant, as long as you don't count the part at the end of the route where it suddenly turned into TWO STRAIGHT MILES OF NONSTOP MISERY HILLS. In other words, I didn't break any records today. Unless there are records for "Most Sweat-Soaked Shirt" or "Slowest Limp Up a Mountain" or "Running Face That Looks Most Like a Stroke In Progress." Or how about "Most Labored Breathing While Walking"?

I could come up with these for days, people.

AND THEN I got home and the whole apartment smelled like the hot wet litter box of Satan's own cat-beast, who is probably named "Buttsplosion," after his digestive problems. The reason the apartment smelled like that because Charlie, who I've recently renamed "Feces Factory" because I want everyone to be put off their meals just as I am every day, actually does have a litter box that sits in our dining room, the smell of which somehow expands to fill every inch of space in our unfortunately quite open floor plan. Since something had to be done to make the smell stop I pulled out the litter box liner and its contents, but then somehow the smell impossibly got EVEN WORSE, for reasons that are too disgusting to explain. And then I valiantly struggled my way out the door and across the parking lot with the Bag of Olfactory Nightmares, because it was WAY too heavy because someone - who is not me - put too much litter in it when they cleaned the box last time. So I, breathing through my mouth the entire time (and still tired from running 6 miles up and down the hills of woe and sadness), had to take a few steps, set the bag down, take a few steps, and set the bag down, all the way to the dumpster which obviously already has it in for me. And then I had to heave the bag in through that terrible small shoulder-level hole and pray with all my heart that it would go IN and not somehow tumble OUT and on to me, forcing me to burn myself alive just to be free of the smell.

Which thankfully did not happen. But the threat was very real.

In conclusion, it's been an exhausting day, so I could not possibly write you a blog post. Please forgive me.

First Draft of a Letter

To the reviewers responsible for rejecting my article:

Thank you for taking the time to carefully review the very first article for which I have been the lead author. I appreciate the care and consideration that you each put into criticizing every element of the paper, down to my choice of words in the third paragraph on page 20. I have to admit that I was apprehensive about the experience of having my article "peer-reviewed." I see now however that I was woefully unprepared. Rest assured that you all have the distinction of being without peer. That is, I can say with certainty that you have no peer in the department where I work. I haven't checked the pre-kindergarten down the road, however; perhaps your peers can be found there.

Nevertheless, your comments have been very useful to me and my co-authors. As I continue my career in academia, it will be useful to keep in mind how a well-written article may be received by readers with only the barest grasp of reading comprehension. For instance, although we state very clearly in our methods section that our sample size is roughly 200 participants, your comments repeatedly refer to a sample of 500. My co-authors and I obviously made a grave error when we assumed that our peers would understand the difference between these two numbers. Perhaps if we had compared the number 200 to something more concrete, like "nearly four times the number of crayons in a big box of Crayolas"? We will consider this approach as we begin work on our next draft.

Other things that we will keep in mind in for the next draft, per your suggestions: the importance of incorporating variables that have nothing to do with our research questions, the necessity of using entirely different statistical methods, and the need for repeatedly repeating again the many things that we already said once but which somehow escaped your attention. We will submit this revised draft to you as quickly as time allows. If the same group of reviewers is unavailable to provide feedback on the new draft, feel free to send it to a group of untrained monkeys. I feel certain that their response will be consistent with yours.

Regards,
A colleague.

I'm thinking that perhaps I should write a second draft, now that I've got that off my chest. I want to assure you all that there's no need to feel bad for me, though. Most articles don't get published the first time they're submitted. We'll just take their suggestions, revise it, and submit it again, no big deal. Obviously I just need to grow a thicker skin and get more accustomed to the process. But even when this article is finally published, don't think I'll forget the infinite ineptitude of this group of reviewers. Oh no. I'll NEVER FORGET.

Crankyblogger is Cranky, RAAAARRR

While a shift in hormone levels certainly doesn't affect my judgment or my ability to function in society, I will acknowledge that it can sometimes cause me to have a little bit of a... bad attitude, we'll say. When such a bad attitude arises, I find that it's best to sublimate my feelings of rage into more productive pursuits, like entertaining people on the internet. With that in mind, allow me to present to you...

Ranty Passive-Aggressive Notes I've Written In My Head This Week

1) Do you like clean silverware? I sure do. It's a proven fact that silverware gets much cleaner when it's evenly distributed throughout all of the silverware squares in the dishwasher, rather than all crammed into just the two squares at the front. Why don't you want clean silverware? Have you no interest in fine living?

2) No no, after YOU. I just wanted to shop for groceries, but I see that this urgent phone conversation requires your attention immediately, even if that means you must stop in the middle of the aisle and lean on your shopping cart like a big ol' human boulder set in my path. Perhaps the gods have sent you here to test my fortitude. Thank you, thank you so much.

3) We all get tired after working out, I know. That's why I totally understand why you couldn't take your dirty socks back to your room and were thus forced to leave them on the living room floor. After all, it's difficult enough moving just your body around when you're that tired. If you had tried to lift and carry that extra half-ounce of cotton material, you might have collapsed. There there, rest now. We'll pick up those socks sometime next week.

4) An abbreviated guide to positioning yourself on public transportation, for men: If your tightly-swaddled crotch is thrust directly into the face of a seated patron, consider turning 90 degrees to the right or left and preserving the dignity of all involved.

5) The tiny people in the television can't hear you. I know you think they need your help, but I've got great news! They're not real! Feel free to adjust your behavior (and volume level) accordingly.

6) ATTENTION: If you spill wine often enough to have perfected your drunken upholstery-cleaning technique, it's time to either a) stop drinking or b) start drinking from a sippy cup. Make your choice, before I make it for you.

Don't worry, deep down I'm still the bright ray of sunshine I've always been. I'll get back to spewing rainbows and cupcake sprinkles as soon as possible.

Circuit City Transit Authority

Because I'm lucky enough to live in a town with free local bus service, and because there is a bus line that stops right across the street from my apartment and gets me to the School of Social Work in less than 15 minutes, I ride the bus to and from school everyday. And since I'm working for the school this summer, my bus riding adventures continue.

Recently I was riding the bus home and I happened to look around and notice that every one of the 7 or 8 other passengers on the bus at the time were engaged with some electronic device or another - either listening to music, texting, or talking on the phone. I'm sure my bus in my town is no different from any other bus - or any other public place, for that matter - in any other town.

I'm not one of those people that believes that the spread of technology is destroying society and degrading the moral fiber of humanity. I do believe, however, that it's probably best if you just wait 10 minutes and schedule your next dental appointment in the comfort and privacy of your own home, rather than when you're on a bus with 35 other people and you have to yell to make yourself heard. The other day I actually heard a girl return someone's phone call and THEN refuse to answer any of the person's questions because "she was on a crowded bus." She gets points for discretion, but she should still probably have some kind of legally appointed guardian to make her decisions, just to be on the safe side.

As stupid as that girl was, she's still far more intelligent than 95% of people talking on cell phones in public. Everyone seems to think that when they initiate a conversation on a cell phone, a magical cone of privacy descends around them. This is simply not true. Girl who sits in the back of the bus baby-talking to her long-distance boyfriend every day at 8:30 in the morning? I CAN HEAR YOU. Guy in the airport loudly having a conversation about your dying mother(!)? I CAN HEAR YOU. Girl who calls her grandmother on the bus every couple days, and then repeatedly says, "I can't hear you very well grandma, I'm on a bus"?? Your grandmother may not be able to hear you, BUT I SURE AS HELL CAN.

Anyway, now that I've got all that off my chest, I can tell you about the hilarious thing that happened on the bus this morning. There was some guy in the back of the bus with his ipod turned up so loudly that you could hear the faint sounds of hip hop all the way up in the front where I was sitting. About the same time I noticed this, another guy in the back of the bus (sans headphones) said, "Man, somebody's got his headphones turned up waaaay too loud." Some nearby girls giggled. Emboldened, he added, "You're gonna lose your hearing that way, man... Is that the last song you wanna hear??" The girls laughed some more, and I smiled quietly to myself.

Suddenly the other guy, who is apparently not losing his hearing at all, responded, "Man, I can hear everything you're saying. You asked me if this is the last song I ever want to hear."

At that, the girls sitting nearby laughed even louder, but I'll never know what happened to that guy, because that's when we got to my stop.

A Post-Christmas Reflection

For the record, this is my favorite Christmas treat:



For the uninitiated, this is a form of Chex Mix made by coating Chex cereal in a melted chocolate and peanut butter concoction and then tossing them in powdered sugar. Street names include 'puppy chow' and 'muddy buddies.' It may not look like much, but it is a nearly ideal chocolate-and-peanut-butter delivery system. The primary ingredient in this recipe is 9 kinds of sugar, and the only part that isn't sugar is essentially air, with a little bit of crunch. This shit is fantastic. I have probably gained 10 lbs since I have been home for the holidays and I don't even care, as long as I have my life-affirming sugar.

This brings me to the broader topic of desserts in general. Let me explain to you, briefly, the purpose of dessert. The purpose of dessert is to provide a way to eat sugar that is slightly more civil than just dumping spoonfuls of it right into your mouth. This is why there is absolutely NO REASON to add fruits (or God forbid, vegetables) to a dessert dish. Technically, yes, fruit is mostly sugar. But it's an inefficient form of sugar. What you really need in a dessert is the purest form of sugar you can get your hands on. That's why its called refined sugar. You can't use oil to run your car until it's been refined, and you're not getting the most out of your sugar until you do the same to it. Adding fruit to your dessert just dilutes its potency. When you want to get drunk, you drink the strongest liquor you can find; when eat dessert, you should eat something that's 99.9% sugar. Save the fruit for breakfast.

I hope you had a Merry, fruit-free Christmas [and/or holiday of your choice].

Idea Men (Other Than Me) Can Suck It

Sometimes I like to jokingly suggest something really off the wall, like "Ooh! Instead of a car, let's ride a panda to Wendy's!" And then when someone who has no sense of joy or wonder says something like, "Where are we supposed to get a panda at this hour?" I say, "Hey, I'm just an idea (wo)man. You figure out the details."

But just now I realized that the phrase 'idea man' didn't originally mean people like me who think outside the box and just want to bring some more dazzle to the world. No. It comes from other people, people in power (like Donald Trump), who come up with really off-the-wall demands like, 'design a more eye-catching Pepsi bottle,'* and then force people with much less power (like myself) to figure out how to actually, you know, carry out their stupid - I mean, brilliant and creative and totally necessary! - idea.

Here are some examples of insane assignments that are probably being given to low-level employees, as we speak:
- design a car that dogs can drive
- take a 500-page manuscript and exchange every instance of the word 'because' for 'due to the fact that,' because due to the fact that I think it sounds better
- without knowing the names of the author or the publication, please find a very specific article that I vaguely recall reading 10 years ago
- take the east wall of this house you've already poured the foundation for, and move it 26 inches in, so that the front yard has a better view of the rising sun
- draw a small 3-inch-square full-color illustration that depicts the essence of the theory of evolution in a way that will offend neither biological anthropologists nor born-again fundamental Christians

An Idea Man has the freedom to be an Idea Man because he goes to bed at night secure in the knowledge that when he wakes up, some haggard and underpaid minion will present to him a prototype that he pulled out of his ass over the course of a long, sleepless night. This is either really great for human innovation (because these people can just let their imaginations run wild, dragging us into the future!), or yet another shitty way that The Man is holding us down. Either way, screw the Idea Men.**


*Unless I hallucinated it, I'm pretty sure this was an actual challenge on one of the 3 episodes of The Apprentice that I have watched.
**Until I become one of them, and then: Hey, are these great ideas or what! Aren't you glad I'm giving you an opportunity to challenge yourself, Unpaid Research Assistant?

Miscellaneous Griping

You know what gets on my nerves? When people refer to their significant others as if they are inanimate objects. Here are two examples of what I'm talking about:

"The boy is coming over tonight."
"Today I'm going running with the man friend."

I don't know why this annoys me so badly. I think just because it's so affected. For one thing, why can't you just call him your boyfriend? Or your friend, or fiance, or whatever he actually is? Is that too boring? Too commital, maybe? Better yet, why not call him by HIS NAME (if you can even remember it)?

Maybe it's the use of the article 'the.' He's not just my boy(friend), he's THE boy(friend). I don't know if this is meant to imply that your boy(friend) is the most specialest, most importantest boy(friend) in the whole world, or if it's an unconscious way of communicating the fact that he's just a placeholder. You know, he's just 'the boy' that you happen to be dating right now. Swap him out with someone else when you're not looking, you might not even notice, so long as you have someone to take you out and show you a good time. It would be so embarassing not to be dating someone, right?

Wait, what was I bitching about again? My point is, if you can't bring yourself to refer to someone as your boyfriend, or, God forbid, by their actual name, then do what I do. Call him 'what's-his-face.' That gets right to the point, I think.

Slash Pockets: Bane of My Existence

As a woman with a relatively small waist-to-hip ratio (my waist is much smaller than my hips), shopping for pants is one of my least favorite activities, ever. As a matter of fact, whenever I go shopping for pants, I tend to end up with a skirt, or shoes, or underwear... and no pants. Within the generally dismal category of pants-shopping is the especially miserable subsection of shopping for 'nice' pants: dress pants, khakis, etc. This is why I wear the same 3 pairs of pants to work over and over again.

Shopping for dress pants is particularly terrible for 3 reasons: 1) they are always made of thin fabric, which accentuates curves that I'd really rather hide, 2) they always have a really boxy cut which utterly fails to accentuate the curves that I want to call attention to, and 3) most of them have slash pockets. AAAAUUUUUUGGGHHH SLASH POCKETS. Many of you, who may not harbor the same irrational hatred for slash pockets that I do, might not know what they are. Here is an example:

Now I'm even more pissed because I had to make this picture.

I think that the reasoning behind slash pockets is that they are meant to be less visible than the kinds of pockets you find on blue jeans, and thus present a more "clean" look. That may be true, if the person wearing the pants is a model, a tree, or a curtain rod. Unfortunately (for me), when you put slash pockets on pants and then put those pants on someone with round hips and round thighs, the fabric gets confused and pulled in too many directions, until it just gives up entirely and puckers outward.

Artist's rendering. This is by no means a 'clean' look.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to visit my future graduate school, to meet some faculty and students and that kind of thing. I don't feel right wearing jeans for this occasion, but I also can't wear any of my 3 pairs of 'work pants,' because ever since I started losing weight, they look a little more like 'clown pants.' So as much as I hate it, I had no choice but to go shopping for new pants on Sunday night. Naturally, I went to Target, since it's the source of 90% of my current wardrobe. I went at 8pm, which gave me an hour to get in, find The Perfect Pair of Grown-Up Pants, and get out. I breezed through, right past the socks and purses and jewelry and bathing suits, picked up every pair of semi-casual nice pants I could find, and went back to try them all on. Every mother-loving pair of pants either made me look short and round, or they had slash pockets, or both. Certainly none of them imparted the level of sexy professionalism I was looking for. So, rather than blame my voluptuous hips for all this, I blamed the pants, and set them on fire.

As they smoldered quietly in the dressing room, I perused the shoe aisle to comfort myself. And the shoe aisle did not disappoint. For on the first rack I came to, I found The Perfect Pair of Not-at-All-Grown-Up Shoes. There was only one pair left, and they were my size, and they were ONLY FIVE DOLLARS.


And that, Internet, is how slash pockets ruined my life, and then really cheap shoes turned everything around. I still don't know what I'm going to wear tomorrow, but surely these shoes and a nice pair of jeans will say, "Consummate Professional" just as well as khakis and brown flats would have. Right?

How to Please Your Man While Saving Yourself For Marriage

While I was in undergrad, I heard a tragic story about one of my classmates. Although I did not hear it directly from her, I'm 90% sure it's true, so I'm going to share it with you now. The classmate in question, who we'll call Leslie, was a very good, devout, Christian girl. She was also, as is sometimes the case in these situations, very naive and easily impressed. Like many of her friends, she was prone to responding to things with exclamations like "Really?? Wow!"

During our senior year, Leslie apparently began dating a slightly older grad student at our institution. As far as I'm aware, Leslie had never had a boyfriend before then, and before long they were engaged. Naturally, as a devoutly religious young girl, Leslie was saving herself for marriage. Unfortunately her fiance became, shall we say, frustrated by all the waiting for their honeymoon. I personally don't know who suggested the solution to this conundrum, but I'm betting that, of the two of them, it wasn't the naive virgin who woke up one day and said, "I know! Anal sex!"

That's right everyone. It was decided that they would have anal sex. It was the perfect compromise, don't you see? He could be satisfied now, and she could save herself for marriage. (Well, mostly, anyway.)

Perhaps you can tell I was a little horrified by this story. And it's not the anal sex itself that I have a problem with. I have no doubt that women can enjoy anal sex. In fact, I'm sure that even as I type this there are literally TENS of women having a great time doing the anal sex. No, the thing I have a problem with is the completely insane logic underlying this decision. I just cannot even comprehend the idea of anal sex as some kind of 'sex lite' or alternative to vaginal sex. It is not accurate to say that anal:vaginal::splenda:real sugar. That's what 1st and 2nd base are for, are they not? (I'm really asking, I don't totally understand the 'base' system.) I always thought that for most people, if sex acts are ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "enthusiastic hugging" and 10 being "things you only ever seen in internet porn," anal sex was about an 8 or 9. Not that people don't do it, but you know, you work your way up the scale, and "normal," vaginal, as-God-intended-it sex comes first. As a Christian, how can you believe that anal sex is what sends the gays to hell but it represents a valid loophole for your own eternal soul?? I'm baffled.

Not to mention that this poor girl basically got taken advantage of. She was probably fed this bastardized argument by her hard-up fiance, and gave in to it because he's her first relationship and her future husband. The biggest tragedy of it is that she was probably thinking that it would just be a temporary thing, something they'd do until they got married and switched over to the traditional sexing, leaving anal sex a distant memory. Well, I have two thoughts in response to that: 1)Of the men in the world that would request anal sex, how many do you think are going to cheerfully give it up and forget about it later? and 2)Even if they did stop, GOD REMEMBERS, LESLIE. Also, anyone that manipulative will probably make a poor life partner, and so the situation is just all-around tragic.

Thus, I've decided to devote myself (or rather, this particular blog post) to spreading awareness of this phenomenon and ultimately saving good Christian girls who may not know any better* from this fate.

*I know there are lots of Christian women who do know better, and to you I say: Go forth! Educate your sisters!

Luckily, Dan Savage is here to help me. If you're unfamiliar with Dan Savage, he writes a sex advice column called 'Savage Love' (although if you're not comfortable hearing about a wide variety of fetishes, I wouldn't recommend reading it), and coined the term 'santorum' and its definition. (Follow the link for further explanation.) Mr. Savage, as a gay man, was a little pissed about Rick Warren (who is opposed to homosexuality and gay marriage) being chosen to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration ceremony. In 'honor' of Mr. Warren, who is pastor at Saddleback Church in CA, Mr. Savage invited readers of his column to suggest and vote for a new definition of the word 'saddleback.' In this week's column, he finally unveiled the word's new definition, which can be found at this special website:

CLICK HERE ----> http://www.saddlebacking.com <---- CLICK HERE

I have to say, given that it's an issue close to my heart, I'm really satisfied with the final definition.

Number of times the phrase "anal sex" appears in this post: 10 (11 if you count the link.)

Miscellany

Since I've been MIA (3rd world democracy) for the past couple of days, here are some thoughts to bring you up to speed:

1) Apparently December 08 is officially the Month of Fog in North Carolina. If you squint, it's kind of like snow, except it never actually hits the ground. Also, snow fills me with wonder, and this fog fills me with rage.

2) The first thought I had this morning was something to the effect of: "My cell phone is probably run by microscopic birds. Nanochickens. And everytime I call someone they peck out the number onto tiny tiny levers with their tiny tiny beaks." .... Your guess is as good as mine.

3) Last night I decided that if/when I have children, I'm sending them to boarding school between the ages of 6 and 8. Some people hate children in general, but I hate children between 6 and 8. Younger than that, they're still filled with wonder and excitement and admiration for people that are older than them. And by middle school, they're almost like real people. High school doesn't count, because no one likes high schoolers, not even other high schoolers. But around age 6, kids start getting good at all kinds of infuriating things like whining, compulsive lying, being bossy, tattling on other children, and pretending to know everything. Oh man, I'm getting all irritated just thinking about 7-year-olds right now.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me. Carry on.

Microsoft Office is a Paradox, Wrapped in ARGH

Funny story:

On my computer at work, I have yet to figure out how to get Excel to STOP POPPING UP WITH THE DAMN CLIPBOARD EVERY TIME I COPY AND PASTE SOMETHING. I know what I just copied, ok Excel? I would like to now paste the thing that I just copied. I do not need to choose from the clipboard, I do not need to be reminded of everything I have ever copied, I do not need you to take up half my screen showing me this, I need you to GET OUT OF MY FACE I'M TRYING TO WORK.

Here at home, on my laptop, I have just spent 10 minutes trying to get Word to SHOW ME THE DAMN CLIPBOARD because I just realized that about 17 cuts ago, I cut something from my grad school essay that I kind of actually want to keep in there.

Why is one application trying to shove the clipboard down my throat, while the other application is holding the clipboard for ransom? I do not know. If I were smart enough to know the answer that question, I'd already be working for Microsoft.

The Name Game

I know you're anxiously awaiting the expanded explanation of my post on Things I'm Often Afraid to Discuss (or whatever I called it). For one thing, you're probably really curious as to why I've been seeing a Mental Health Professional.* In particular, you may be wondering if that fact means that you should put some extra space between us as soon as possible. And I'll get to that, I really will, but I've got a lot going on right now so I really just need you to get off my back about it.

Anyway, what I'd like to briefly discuss right now is my name, specifically how it's pronounced. I don't mean my 'name,' which is 'Sass Pizzazz,' or 'hello dali,' or 'whateverthehelliwant.' I mean my In Real Life name, which is Jenna. It is a glorious name, a name worthy of angels and muses and queens and goddesses. It is short and poetic, yet it encompasses immeasurable meanings. It sounds good as part of The Name Game (Jenna Jenna bo benna, banana fanna fo fenna, Jenna!!). It is pronounced: Jen. Nuh.

And yet for some reason, throughout my lifetime, I have repeatedly encountered an unauthorized alternate pronunciation. Jeeeeeeeena. Long E. Gina. I would think that, to anyone reading it, my name's true pronunciation should be pretty evident, especially if the reader has any experience with phonics. Or reading in general. But, I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I guess I can see how you'd mispronounce it if you'd never heard it before.

BUT. There remains a tenacious subgroup of people who, immediately after I introduce myself to them as 'Jenna,' begins referring to me as 'Gina.' NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I CORRECT THEM. Why is this? WTF? How many times do I have to say JEN. NUH. before you will stop calling me Gina? HOW MANY???

The most interesting part of all this, I've noticed (whenever I take a break from silently seething about it), is that these people, these people who insist on calling me Gina EVEN THOUGH I've introduced myself as Jenna, repeatedly, these people who have probably never even see my name in print and therefore cannot use that as an excuse for butchering it, generally fall into 2 subgroups: elderly white women, and black men. I do not understand why this is, because I wouldn't think that there are too many things that those two groups have in common, beyond the inability to say my damn name. Maybe they can use this as a jumping-off point for some sort of political alliance in the future... "If neither of us can pronounce the name Jenna, what else might we have in common??"

Anyway, I found myself thinking this evening that I fear for the day when I make friends with an elderly black woman (or an elderly black man? I'm not sure which gender would take precedence). I don't know what would be the result of a double dose of Can't-Say-My-Damn-Name Disease. I'm afraid that they would take it to the next level and just have my name legally changed to Gina.

*Perhaps the answer to the question, "Why am I seeing a Mental Health Professional?" is made clear in this very blog entry.

Whining

First things first: I take it back. Applying to a PhD program doesn't really sound all that fun, actually. Mostly it sounds like a big pain in the ass, especially when I already had everything all prepared to apply to the Master's program, and now I have to write a totally different "personal statement." I've probably already said this somewhere on the internet, but I loathe personal statements. I understand the reasoning behind them, but I hate them SO MUCH. One thing that comforts me about all this is the fact that, if I get into the PhD program, then I get 2 degrees (Master's and a PhD) for the price of one application process. And, by God, the idea of getting this all over with and never having to do it again makes my skin tingle with joy and anticipation. It makes me want to eat a whole package of oreos with a tall glass of whole-fat milk. It makes me want to make sweet love on the top level of my office's parking deck, in the rain, at midnight. It makes me want to buy a Vespa and ride it around town without a helmet. It makes me want to roll around naked in a pile of transcript copies, yelling my undergraduate GPA over and over again.

And all that? Is just at the thought of being finished with the applications. The things I would do if I actually got accepted somewhere are far too racy for the internet (which is saying a lot). Let me just free associate with you for a moment... powdered sugar, chocolate syrup, yard sprinklers, a West Highland Terrier, balloons, batteries, streamers, fire, Ludacris. But I've already said too much. All of this is just my way of telling you that I'm freaking out (again? YES.) about all this. I want to have this nonsense done and out of my hands by the end of the month, so that NEXT month, when people say, "Where are you going to grad school?" I can say, "Oh, I don't know, I applied to [some schools], and I'm just waiting to hear back." And then I can sigh the contented sigh of one who knows that later, she can go home and sit on her couch and read the internet while she watches House and not have to worry about a MOTHER-HUMPING* THING.

*Sorry about that, got a little carried away.

More on Why I'm a Terrible Liar

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I have next to no skill at hiding my emotions.

I'm referring specifically to negative emotions, and it might be true for positive emotions, too, but how often do people really try to hide their positive emotions? The few times I've tried, really challenged myself and said, "No. Today, we keep our hurt/anger/outrage/sadness to ourselves. Today, we shall have a lengthy conversation with the very object of our negativity, and he/she will be NONE THE WISER," it's never been very successful, in my opinion.

I usually start with what I consider to be an excellent impersonation of someone who is not upset. Unfortunately, I always feel like me impersonating a not-upset person makes me sound very weird and overly small-talky. "Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" I'll say. "How's your mother doing? Have you spoken with Cecil lately? I'd heard his getting married." Seriously, the only way it would sound any more artificial would be if I were sipping a cup of tea and speaking with a British accent. I don't normally talk like this, which is why it shocks me sometimes that people don't pick up on it and ask me what my problem is. I think the reason I ask all these questions is to keep the other person talking. I'm not capable of carrying on my end of the conversation, because all I can hear in my head is "ARGH! ANGRY! HULK SMASH!" and there are tornadoes blowing through my mind and glass shattering and double wides getting stuck in very tall trees. And all the while my mouth is blathering on about the weather, and what did you do today? and oh, isn't that nice.

It doesn't matter when they can't pick up on all the question-asking, though, because I can really only keep up the charade for a few hours, at most. I start getting twice as angry, because, dammit, you know what's wrong. You know very well what the problem is and that I'm angry about it, and I'm trying to be the bigger person here and not mention the thing that YOU KNOW is a problem, and you're just TAKING ADVANTAGE of my big-ness, you're just going to let me pretend that nothing is wrong and THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS APOLOGIZE OH GOD ANGER RISING RAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH. And then, often, rather than letting the person know what's really bothering me, I will engage them in an argument about whatever it is we happen to be talking about instead of talking about the thing that is bothering me. How dare you bring up Grey's Anatomy! You know how much that show pisses me off! You never loved me! And then in the course of the argument about nothing, while everyone is getting good and worked up (or I'm getting worked up and the other person is completely baffled), I'll accidentally let slip whatever it was that was actually on my mind all that time. And then everyone knows! Great! It's a win-win situation for no one!

Anyway, this is just one of the many ways in which I am pretty much terrible at hiding anything. Next time: How come when I get really anxious, my legs kind of go numb and feel all floaty? Is that just me?