Elephant Fan?

After I waxed poetic about Mike Huckabee for a while in class today, I could see the absolute confusion on their faces....is she a Republican?! She doesn't look like a Republican!

Hermeneutics

Sooo...we talk about interpretation in our apartment a lot (hermeneutics = the study of interpretation - I have just butchered its precise definition, but since Biker Boy doesn't read this, I feel it's good enough). Once I was discussing how one of our grad school friends, who is currently the TA for a class outside of his actual field of study, but is a subject I have had lots of classes on, regardless of my interest level, was misinterpreting the literature. Biker Boy said, without irony, "maybe your subfield needs a smart outside observer to create a new understanding and interpretation." Yeah. That's right, everyone. I can't win any arguments because it all comes down to the fact that interpretations are multiple.

But that's a rare example of how we talk about school. Here's a more typical example. Let me set the stage for you. We are going to the grocery store. Biker Boy violently turned off "Help Me Rhonda" by the Beach Boys in Monster. For a moment, I thought that he was going to break off the knob. I was puzzled because we actually listen to the Beach Boys pretty regularly. The following conversation take place:

"Ummmmmmm...."
"This song makes me feel sorry for Rhonda."
"What?"
"She's the rebound girl."
"Yes. That's the point of the song. I think we're supposed to feel bad for the singer who has had his heart broken and now needs affection from whatever source he can get so that he can feel something."
"But Rhonda likes him a lot. She's been waiting for this relationship to fail so she could move in. And she doesn't know she's a rebound girl. She's going to be really hurt later on."
"Errrr.................."
"He's just using her. He's a jerk and I feel bad for Rhonda. I don't like how this portrays guys."
"But we never hear Rhonda's side of the story. I always thought she was a whore. Or his best friend's older sister who is in college and is going to leave after the weekend and never think of it again."
"So that makes it better?! Sexual promiscuity is okay if she's a whore and getting paid or is a slutty college coed?"
"No, I mean, I guess we could devolve this conversation into a discussion about prostitution and how society views women and income disparity and violence against women, but it's a Beach Boys song. You know, sun, surfing, and cars?"
"Fine. You have your interpretation of the song. I have mine. Yours is wrong and we're not listening to that song."

Midwest represents?

The headline on CNN is "Storms rake the Midwest." I panic!! Oh, no!! People in the midwest are in danger. Let's go save them. The teaser underneath the headline reads, "Violent thunderstorms rolling through the Midwest spawned tornadoes and flash floods in Missouri and razed beer tents in Oklahoma. The storm system is moving today into the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley." I am slightly confused. Perhaps it should read, "Storms will soon rake the Midwest." Since when is Oklahoma in the midwest?

P.S. I am sorry for any Oklahomans who are hurt, of course. But they are not midwesterners. Hi, Garth!!

Product Review #1

Okay, I spend a lot of time reading reviews on cosmetics and even more money. I blame it on my mom. She never wore make-up and so I never got to do any of the fun make-up stuff when I was a kid. Okay. Or I am just a make-up whore who wants to blame my crazy cosmetics spending on someone else. I don't know.

Anyway, so awhile back I went on a total product boycott. No new product until I used the rest of it (except for things like mascara which totally need to be replaced regularly). This means I am stuck with two products I dislike immensely...and that I am now much more familiar with the return policy of some of your more popular cosmetics stores.

Okay, as much as I love (LOVE) The Body Shop, the two products I dislike and am stuck with forEVAH are Body Shop products. So, for all the Body Shop products I love (the lip gloss wands, the mascara, the kinetin eye cream, the body oils), here are two completely mean Body Shop reviews. Which is to say, here are two things I bitch about every day of my life.

1) Vitamin E Nourishing Night Cream - This stuff smells like roses. Ummm...if roses are what old ladies smell like. It's ridiculously stinky. I can also only put this on if I am going to shower the next day. If I am merely washing my face and going about my business the next morning, this cream does not wash off very well and I can feel the oil on my face all day. And since a dab of this stuff goes a long, long, long way, I still have well over half the 50 mL tub still!!

2) Camomile Gently Eye Make-Up Remover - This stuff makes my eyes sting. Everytime I use it, my eyes water and it looks like I have pinkeye. I was suckered into it because I got this HUGE 250 mL jar for $5 when it was on sale once. This was before I lived with Biker Boy and because I had just run out of the eye make-up remover I had at his place, I bought it as a replacement for his place. And because there is still approximately 200 mL left, I am going to have this stuff for the rest of my life.

That's all. I am officially done bitching about these two products. I have no excuse for ever talking about them again. Until tonight when I smell like an old lady when I get into bed.

Amendment #28

The right of the people to watch NFL Monday night football on a non-cable channel, shall not be violated, and no ESPN-broadcast of the above shall be made legal.

Turn it off!!

Once upon a time, I could eat breakfast while watching CNN to make sure that the world didn't explode while I was sleeping. Now, thanks to this router thing Biker Boy has rigged up in our apartment, he can play music from his computer through the stereo in the living area, so he comes up with a playlist for breakfast listening. Every morning. (Everyone will quietly mourn my ability to watch CNN now.)

Most mornings I say nothing, because, let's be honest, I gave up my right to listen to my own music when I made the decision to move in with the boy (see here). But this morning I was in the office quietly doing research on gluten-free meal ideas that don't sound like too much work or sound too disgusting (see here and here) while Biker Boy made breakfast (yay!! he made breakfast for me!!) and I heard this NOISE coming from the stereo.

"What is this?"
"What is what?" (nice of you to point out my unmodified pronoun, Mr. Smart Ass)
"This NOISE."
"It's the new Radiohead."
"Did I say we could listen to crap this morning?"
"Nope. You get to listen to good stuff this morning."
"Then turn this off."

Sorry to all the Radiohead fans out there. I like my music to have a melody and be pretty. Not noisy and polyphonic-like. Eventually Radiohead was replaced with Magnetic Fields and the ingenious stylings of Stephin Merritt, which was a change greatly appreciated.

Random Bits of Nothingness

1) There is an opera singer who lives next door. I wish I didn't know this, but the practicing...

2) To cook an acorn squash, you poke holes in it and then put it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes.

3) Tiger Onitsuka by Asics are my favorite shoes. I had to throw out my purple ones, but they have been replaced by brown ones. Very smooth.

4) It is so cold in my apartment, my feet may fall off.

5) I'm watching "Wheel of Fortune" (what am I, 70 years old?) while I cook dinner and there's a contestant who yells "come on, big money" over and over again and I am tempted to reach through the television screen and strangle her, while yelling at her that she is on the wrong freaking game show to say that.

Irrational Anger

So, I'm not exactly what you would call a serene person. Nope. Not at all. In times of crisis, I can shut down my emotions to become more reliable, but on your basic day to day interactions with me, it should be made clear, up front, that I am in constant emotional turmoil. Not even from day to day, although I did have a severely grumpy day last week, but from second to second. Here is a partial list of things that have made me irrationally angry in the last couple of weeks, along with how my anger manifested itself.

1) One of my friends from high school, a wonderful woman I adore so much I agreed to be the maid of honor at her wedding, is organizing the tenth year reunion for our high school class (ten!). So she sends out emails to all of the people who have known email addresses, asking us to snitch and give her any additional contact information for other people in our class who don't keep in touch with her or the other members of the reunion committee. Whatever. I snitch. Then she sends out ANOTHER email with all the additional emails that she has learned, asking them to snitch, as well. But she just puts all the email address in the to line. Why haven't people learned to use BCC yet!?!? Seriously. I just about had an aneurysm.

There is about a 10% prison rate for my high school graduating class. I would really prefer if these people had no idea how to contact me. None. At all.

I fired off an email to her, suggesting that she learn about privacy on the web. I immediately felt better.

She is a web designer.

2) About a year ago, someone hit the passenger side mirror on my truck when I was parked in a parking lot. The casing for the mirror remained intact, but the glass shattered. Then, about three weeks ago, someone hit the driver side mirror on my truck when I was parked, legally, on a city street across from my apartment building (hey! I just got a parking space in our lot on Monday! yay!). Damn it. Now I would have to get the mirrors fixed. One bad mirror is okay, but two and you look like ghetto truck. Now, here's the thing. Neither time did anyone write a note and tell me that they were responsible for the broken mirror. Bastards.

Anyway, I didn't get angry about the mirrors. Then I called a couple of body shops. One quoted me $200/mirror and their regular labor rate. Another quoted me $600 straight to cover labor and materials without a breakdown of the costs.

Biker Boy looked it up online and saw that it would only be $20/mirror for parts and that it was really easy to install the mirrors. Let me just say that I saw red. (Not about saving $500 - I was quite excited about that.) It's total bullshit what car repair places charge!!! Seriously. Why are they charging me $200 for a mirror I can get for LITERALLY A TENTH OF THE PRICE. Okay, yes, I was yelling.

I thought I was calm and I just ordered the parts online and when they came, BB put them on for me (and man, I had completely forgotten how completely AWESOME it is to drive a car with all the mirrors!). But then one of the body shops called me back to "followup with your question." I totally yelled at the poor person, telling them how crappy it was for them to charge so much for parts and how the labor would have taken their service people all of ten minutes and of course they'd charge me for a full hour and how no wonder people hate taking their cars in when this is what they can expect, and then I lost steam, thanked her for calling me, but that I had done the repairs myself.

3) Oh, God. Sprint is my cell phone carrier. And they are impossible to get in contact with if you have a question. Their web site hasn't let me log on in months. Last time I called the customer service line, I waited for 22 minutes (22!) before someone answered and GOT CHARGED THE MINUTES I WAITED ON HOLD. This time, I was so frustrated that I couldn't get in contact with anyone and their stupid web site wasn't working, I slammed down my computer in righteous anger and paced up and down our apartment, with Biker Boy looking on in amused horror.

Note: cancel Sprint service as soon as humanly possible. Note: I have had Sprint for going on five years now. It was only when they merged with Nextel that all these bad things started happening.

4) I love Curel. Love, love, love it. See, it works. You have a dry patch on your upper arm? It lasts all damn winter, you say? You try lots and lots of products? You go to lots of stores and dab about a hundred different samples on your dry spot on your upper arm? And then one day you buy a bottle of Curel for $5 and you dry spot goes away?! That's right, folks!! Curel. A completely non-endorsed product placement. Indeed.

But the completely ludicrous pump on the big bottle of Curel doesn't work at all. Causing an already stressed out NGS (did I mention the weird rash I have?) to throw the bottle, across the bathroom.

Then I realized I could just unscrew the pump and pour it on my hands. Uh huh. I'm so smart.

5) One of my friends from high school, a wonderful woman I adore so much I agreed to be an attendant in her wedding, recently got pregnant with her third (3!) child. Okay, I have been out of high school for ten years (see #1), but three kids?! I frequently forget to floss! How do you remember the feeding? And the diaper changing? And the way more responsibilities than I can possibly deal with in a mature way? Anyway, in a discussion about 1) me not being dead on a bridge that randomly collapsed and 2) the baby will be born before my wedding - can it come to my wedding? - no, it can not, I was almost brought to my knees with ire when the following came out of her mouth, "I'm too old for any more babies."

Oh, dear Jesus. She's the same age I am!! I like to think that I am not TOO OLD FOR BABIES. Warning to all who talk to their childless friends about having children. They may wish for children at some point in their future. Do not tell them they are too old to do so. They may come through the telephone line and strangle you. Which is what I did, metaphorically.

6) Last, but certainly not least. Fonts. We fought for hours about fonts. For the save the date cards. And I officially hate the font we've chosen. Hate.

But I gave in. Because I get to pick the font for the invitations.