Well...
I'd probably wake up every morning and laugh my ass off until bedtime. For 100 days.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Dear Mr. President...
CaptiveTV in my elevator just asked me what I would do in MY first hundred days as President.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
From the last days of my 25th year (aka - the quarter life crisis)... "Smart People"
The phrase “smart people think alike” starts with one of the greatest misnomers in the history of smart people. Seeing as how, in a thesis statement, exaggeration, hyperbole, or statements taken to be true that, otherwise, are not possible to corroborate, was intensely frowned upon in my elitist boarding school years and then went on to be expressly forbidden within the first week of ‘Expos’ in my ivy league college years, I figure doing exactly this is an excellent way of getting smart people to sit up and listen.
Hell, if the smart people want to sit down and listen, or fall over and listen, or plié and listen, I’m totally ok with that. But the point is it’s about time we debunked the myth that conformity marks intellect. Because, I have to say it, if “fools rarely differ” then why in the hell are there so many words for stupid?
There’s social stupidity (idiotic), fiscal stupidity (fiscal is just another word for financial – so that would be everyone these days - moronic), professional stupidity (unethical), romantic stupidity (a far cry from and a near death of social stupidity: platonic), and autonomy (autocratic stupidity is redundant). Isn’t modifying the word ‘stupidity’ and giving it random definitions FUN?
Being all of 25 years old, I have an excellent grasp of these nuanced failings. I’d like to try to convince you that (being 25) having fewer woes in the world has left me with a significant amount of free time with which to analyze the stupidity around me. But I doubt you’ll need any serious amount of research to be convinced of that so instead of cold, hard facts, I’m providing tepid, fuzzy anecdote(s).* *(I have yet to decide how much I really want to write on this topic. Have I mentioned I'm 25?)
While riding from the upper east side of Manhattan on the infamous 4,5,6 subway line, I observed a rather attractive man gesticulate wildly and proclaim to his party, “35 is totally the new 25!!” Having a short commute and an even shorter attention span, I took this to be the proximal statement of my time and failed to note any further pontificating coming from his direction. The statement alone made me think about how not only was I not newly 25, but I also wasn’t the new 25! I’m the old 25!!! Can we talk about this minor setback in a major way? Ok, I’ll talk, you listen.
Being an OLD 25 before I’m a NEW 25 is mildly disturbing. And not in some communicating electron time warping kind of way. It’s just that if 35 is the new 25, then that only leaves me nine years to rest before I have to do 25 all over again! I was really looking forward to those centuries in purgatory to rest and recuperate before being sent back for a do-over. “Centuries” seems like a decent amount of time to get to chill out before I have to be 25 again, yeah?
Needless to say, this assumed 35 year old freaked me the fuck out. Thinking about all the ways in which he could mean something other than 600 thousand 35 year olds flooding Murray Hill until 4am and hitting the diners “late night”, I finally stumbled upon a way in which I wasn’t the OLD 25, but was also not the 25 to which he referred.
There are two kinds of knowledge sets we steep in throughout life. (This is irrefutable for the sake of my argument.) There are the facts, the rules, the mechanics and the institutions. But then there are the eye brow raises, the stunted emotions, the back stabbing relationships, and the nuances of foreplay that basically exist in the interstitial space left by the structured, static facts and rules and mechanics and institutions. I think we can all agree that the first 10 years of our lives we’re basically absorbing the first set of bylaws and absolutely fucking up the second.
So if I construed for an age approximation what that man meant as a wisdom approximation, then he can have his new 25 and he can reclaim it, too. I concur! 25 years old and 15 years wiser to the second kind of knowledge set! A new gradation system that the 75 years old, 60 years wise gals on the upper east side would absolutely eat up like coffee creamer on their canary diamond studded pinky fingers.
I would absolutely not mind being stripped of a decade. I wasn’t using it anyway. And what I lack in decade accumulation and thereof fractional equivocation, I make up for in verbosity. I can officially say that I won’t be newly 25 for another 9 years because what really defines age is second-set-wisdom. Are you convinced that the conventional age is bifurcated by institutionalism and that we should all be pro-rated a decade?
I’m thinking no. If you’re a close reader, there were two things that may have seemed improbable in the aforementioned warm, fuzzy anecdote that led to this prophetic conclusion. Perhaps these two things indicate it was a fabrication? I will let you utilize (a fancy word for ‘use’) your own best judgment here. But remember: smart people and fools all think.
The first close reader might wonder why the 4,5,6 subway line is infamous. I can only say that if you’ve never been to Manhattan, you won’t understand even if I tried to explain it. And if you have been to Manhattan, then you know: what isn’t infamous on the island.
The second close reader might have noted the use of the ‘attractive’ modifier of the ‘man’ in the anecdote. What can I say? I heart attractive people. They make me work harder, criticize louder and wax more poets than I ever thought possible. They make the world a better place as they’re a constant reminder that no matter how high up you get, you’ll never make it to the top. And if you never make it, you’ll never be disappointed with the view from where you are. Thus, attractive people are indispensible to the hording of small dreams in our back pockets. (A tight squeeze after a winter of food-festing and gym-fasting.) But I’d take two dreams in the wrong pocket over having nothing left to squeeze into there- and I can think of a few trillion other people who would agree. Mmmm. Thanks attractive people!
That said, back to my wildly absurd posit that the greatest misnomer in all smart-person history was that “smart people think alike”: clearly the greatest misnomer has to do with chickens and eggs and a post-coital cigarette in bed. I think the real problem here is that we’re modifying the un-modifiable. “People.” Smart people…Pretty people, Polish people, pleasant people, poor people, pesky people, psychotic people (the greatest would-be alliterative spree- thwarted!!), tall people, chubby people, clumsy people, insightful people… There really is no such thing as a modifier of ‘people’ nor is there a degree to which the modifier can be applied – as a scale completely undermines the unity of the modifier and the Venn diagram would be as useless as a frat boy at an S&M convention. So akin to the diversity among the stupids, unless you’re listing every attribute of a single person scaled by a billion, you’re grouping an un-group-able. Put in yet another way, this gross oversimplification is inaccurate, it lacks precision, and it’s generally about as useful as this last bit: it’s vague. Trying to define a group of people in less than twenty seven million pixels (I hope that’s a lot of pixels) is like trying to divide ocean front property between ISTJ’s. QED: ‘Smart people’ don’t exist (and neither do the stupids).
This phenomenon I’m ranting about, now, after pretending to talk about something entirely absurd to being with, namely, age, might be the single most frustrating field of study within the study of phenomena and I think they call it ‘labeling’ or ‘marginalizing’ or ‘generalizing’ or ‘profiling’ or 'substandardizing'. But I’m not quite sure; I wasn’t ever all that bright. Good thing I have a few years left until I'm 25. (again)
Hell, if the smart people want to sit down and listen, or fall over and listen, or plié and listen, I’m totally ok with that. But the point is it’s about time we debunked the myth that conformity marks intellect. Because, I have to say it, if “fools rarely differ” then why in the hell are there so many words for stupid?
There’s social stupidity (idiotic), fiscal stupidity (fiscal is just another word for financial – so that would be everyone these days - moronic), professional stupidity (unethical), romantic stupidity (a far cry from and a near death of social stupidity: platonic), and autonomy (autocratic stupidity is redundant). Isn’t modifying the word ‘stupidity’ and giving it random definitions FUN?
Being all of 25 years old, I have an excellent grasp of these nuanced failings. I’d like to try to convince you that (being 25) having fewer woes in the world has left me with a significant amount of free time with which to analyze the stupidity around me. But I doubt you’ll need any serious amount of research to be convinced of that so instead of cold, hard facts, I’m providing tepid, fuzzy anecdote(s).* *(I have yet to decide how much I really want to write on this topic. Have I mentioned I'm 25?)
While riding from the upper east side of Manhattan on the infamous 4,5,6 subway line, I observed a rather attractive man gesticulate wildly and proclaim to his party, “35 is totally the new 25!!” Having a short commute and an even shorter attention span, I took this to be the proximal statement of my time and failed to note any further pontificating coming from his direction. The statement alone made me think about how not only was I not newly 25, but I also wasn’t the new 25! I’m the old 25!!! Can we talk about this minor setback in a major way? Ok, I’ll talk, you listen.
Being an OLD 25 before I’m a NEW 25 is mildly disturbing. And not in some communicating electron time warping kind of way. It’s just that if 35 is the new 25, then that only leaves me nine years to rest before I have to do 25 all over again! I was really looking forward to those centuries in purgatory to rest and recuperate before being sent back for a do-over. “Centuries” seems like a decent amount of time to get to chill out before I have to be 25 again, yeah?
Needless to say, this assumed 35 year old freaked me the fuck out. Thinking about all the ways in which he could mean something other than 600 thousand 35 year olds flooding Murray Hill until 4am and hitting the diners “late night”, I finally stumbled upon a way in which I wasn’t the OLD 25, but was also not the 25 to which he referred.
There are two kinds of knowledge sets we steep in throughout life. (This is irrefutable for the sake of my argument.) There are the facts, the rules, the mechanics and the institutions. But then there are the eye brow raises, the stunted emotions, the back stabbing relationships, and the nuances of foreplay that basically exist in the interstitial space left by the structured, static facts and rules and mechanics and institutions. I think we can all agree that the first 10 years of our lives we’re basically absorbing the first set of bylaws and absolutely fucking up the second.
So if I construed for an age approximation what that man meant as a wisdom approximation, then he can have his new 25 and he can reclaim it, too. I concur! 25 years old and 15 years wiser to the second kind of knowledge set! A new gradation system that the 75 years old, 60 years wise gals on the upper east side would absolutely eat up like coffee creamer on their canary diamond studded pinky fingers.
I would absolutely not mind being stripped of a decade. I wasn’t using it anyway. And what I lack in decade accumulation and thereof fractional equivocation, I make up for in verbosity. I can officially say that I won’t be newly 25 for another 9 years because what really defines age is second-set-wisdom. Are you convinced that the conventional age is bifurcated by institutionalism and that we should all be pro-rated a decade?
I’m thinking no. If you’re a close reader, there were two things that may have seemed improbable in the aforementioned warm, fuzzy anecdote that led to this prophetic conclusion. Perhaps these two things indicate it was a fabrication? I will let you utilize (a fancy word for ‘use’) your own best judgment here. But remember: smart people and fools all think.
The first close reader might wonder why the 4,5,6 subway line is infamous. I can only say that if you’ve never been to Manhattan, you won’t understand even if I tried to explain it. And if you have been to Manhattan, then you know: what isn’t infamous on the island.
The second close reader might have noted the use of the ‘attractive’ modifier of the ‘man’ in the anecdote. What can I say? I heart attractive people. They make me work harder, criticize louder and wax more poets than I ever thought possible. They make the world a better place as they’re a constant reminder that no matter how high up you get, you’ll never make it to the top. And if you never make it, you’ll never be disappointed with the view from where you are. Thus, attractive people are indispensible to the hording of small dreams in our back pockets. (A tight squeeze after a winter of food-festing and gym-fasting.) But I’d take two dreams in the wrong pocket over having nothing left to squeeze into there- and I can think of a few trillion other people who would agree. Mmmm. Thanks attractive people!
That said, back to my wildly absurd posit that the greatest misnomer in all smart-person history was that “smart people think alike”: clearly the greatest misnomer has to do with chickens and eggs and a post-coital cigarette in bed. I think the real problem here is that we’re modifying the un-modifiable. “People.” Smart people…Pretty people, Polish people, pleasant people, poor people, pesky people, psychotic people (the greatest would-be alliterative spree- thwarted!!), tall people, chubby people, clumsy people, insightful people… There really is no such thing as a modifier of ‘people’ nor is there a degree to which the modifier can be applied – as a scale completely undermines the unity of the modifier and the Venn diagram would be as useless as a frat boy at an S&M convention. So akin to the diversity among the stupids, unless you’re listing every attribute of a single person scaled by a billion, you’re grouping an un-group-able. Put in yet another way, this gross oversimplification is inaccurate, it lacks precision, and it’s generally about as useful as this last bit: it’s vague. Trying to define a group of people in less than twenty seven million pixels (I hope that’s a lot of pixels) is like trying to divide ocean front property between ISTJ’s. QED: ‘Smart people’ don’t exist (and neither do the stupids).
This phenomenon I’m ranting about, now, after pretending to talk about something entirely absurd to being with, namely, age, might be the single most frustrating field of study within the study of phenomena and I think they call it ‘labeling’ or ‘marginalizing’ or ‘generalizing’ or ‘profiling’ or 'substandardizing'. But I’m not quite sure; I wasn’t ever all that bright. Good thing I have a few years left until I'm 25. (again)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Dreaming of Sugar Plums
In my junior year at college I decided to take an anatomy/physiology course. This was, obviously, back in the days when I thought I'd grow up to be a doctor. Alas, that white coat has been donated and what I'm left with is a catalogue of memories from which to draw recurring dreams. Specifically, today, I've been reminded of the time I was dissecting a calf's heart and it was still connected to the lungs/trachea. Finding this an interesting, rare situation, I cut off a finger of a rubber glove, inserted the calf trachea into the finger-hole and blew air into the rubber glove from the original opening. In this way I entertained, nay, educated my peers by literally inflating and deflating the calf lungs while people took turns holding them. Keep this in mind.
Below, I've recounted the dream that drudged up this memory, I'll be the first to tell you how boring it is to listen to other people's dreams so I promise I'll keep this somewhat exciting... by utilizing italics.
5 people hot-boxed an Aerostar minivan.
With carbon monoxide.
I open the sliding side door and pull out the three people in the back. After some crude dream-like CPR that inevitably involves a sledge hammer, they survive.
The 4th person is my high school nemeses and I can't reach her on the passenger side (though I'm not really sure I'm trying).
The 5th person, driver's side, has lost the entire top of his head from the jaw up. So CPR involves pounding on the chest, looking quizzically at the non-face, and blowing into a windpipe.
The guy survives and all I can think is that he's blind (and brainless? Who knows why I could only diagnose the absence of eyes - potentially it's a good thing I'm not a doctor) and as he starts rolling towards me like some maniacal steam rolling threat, I reach deep into my bag 'o tricks and come up with the only thing I'm sure will save me: I shall do 'high knees' as I run away from the rolling man with a windpipe for a forehead.
Below, I've recounted the dream that drudged up this memory, I'll be the first to tell you how boring it is to listen to other people's dreams so I promise I'll keep this somewhat exciting... by utilizing italics.
5 people hot-boxed an Aerostar minivan.
With carbon monoxide.
I open the sliding side door and pull out the three people in the back. After some crude dream-like CPR that inevitably involves a sledge hammer, they survive.
The 4th person is my high school nemeses and I can't reach her on the passenger side (though I'm not really sure I'm trying).
The 5th person, driver's side, has lost the entire top of his head from the jaw up. So CPR involves pounding on the chest, looking quizzically at the non-face, and blowing into a windpipe.
The guy survives and all I can think is that he's blind (and brainless? Who knows why I could only diagnose the absence of eyes - potentially it's a good thing I'm not a doctor) and as he starts rolling towards me like some maniacal steam rolling threat, I reach deep into my bag 'o tricks and come up with the only thing I'm sure will save me: I shall do 'high knees' as I run away from the rolling man with a windpipe for a forehead.
See? I bet you're sitting there thinking about all the ways you can make my life more exciting, thus robbing me of the time to cross-reference my sick dreams with atypical anatomy lessons. Mission accomplished.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
And on the seventh day...
This blog is an effort to blog without a point. Inspired by a dear friend responding to my crisis of 'tween project boredom (though I think she was just tired of having to amuse me on gchat all day...) I've decided to write something about the thing I know best.
Not pharmaceutical strategy.
So last week I experienced an entire birth and collapse of a relationship. In my head. The week started out normally: I asked out a girl I thought was cute not knowing she was overly invested in one of my best friends or that she had previously, as she would again attempt, five days later, ask out said friend in my presence. (Par for the course when you have hot friends. A blessing and a curse.)
Back to the story. So we went out. It was great! It was great in that very topically oriented, amusing but superficial, energetic but a-chemically inclined, first date kind of way. I wasn't astonished to learn that my preconceptions of her were entirely wrong though, despite falling short of insta-love, I didn't mind drinking beer shooters across a tiny table and would have, in fact, done that repeatedly for some indefinite amount of time. Perfect. The wooden shelves that the beer came on were bigger than the plates our burgers came on and this was helpful because, as I mentioned, I clearly didn't get the memo about her sustained preoccupation with my friend and the beer helped a LOT to keep me in the dark. (One could argue that I did get that memo, but dismissed it in a convenient kind of way. And if one would like to argue that, they can start their own blog to do so. <3)
After Monday, still absorbed by my delusion, I was unclear if we had plans to get together again. We have about a billion mutual friends so I figured I'd undoubtedly 'hang out' with her soon... (A billion mutual friends is a sure sign that if things move past 1 week they're going to either blow up or be fantastical-- until they blow up.) Needless to say (I totally spoiled the twist in the third sentence) the whole adventure didn't get anywhere NEAR a week. And I have to wonder how I came off with such a different idea of what we were up to (achem, on a DATE).
I think I thought we were on a date because: I paid, I maintained 'engaged' body language, I told her about the time I thought waxing my legs was the most desperate, selfless thing I could do to win a girl back, I only referenced an ex girlfriend 5 or 6 times (to make it clear that I date women), and I made an awkward attempt to hook her belt loop when we were walking aimlessly around the park. Maybe the un-date-ness of the situation should have been confusing/telling/obvious when I/we never managed to kiss (her) after 4 hours of banter. On the upside this means we're able to maintain a semblance of propriety around our friends sans furtive apologetic email writing to all those that share the room with us.
I see all this in retrospect but what I had started to write about was the insecurity that comes with dating. (You know, back when I thought I would see her again. Alone. On another (used loosely) date.) At what point do you really need to figure out how you feel about someone? Day 2? Date 2? Date 574? At what point do you chalk something up to just wanting to be enrolled in classes again without really paying attention to whether you end up in a history of WWII or a figure drawing class? And how do you know you're ready to deal with homework and tests and 'that guy' again?? I'm leaning towards going back for a masters but I can't even decide if I want an MFA or a masters in finance... I hear both are equally useful these days. Oh how my father is cringing right now...
Eff. I've lost track of my metaphor.
So far this birth-year (clearly starting at the dawn of march) I've chased a wife, a wounded warrior, a divorcee and an auctioneer. None of which were actual candidates for a sustained relationship. And that was just the last 2 months. Aside from all those unhealthy undertakings, my very first girlfriend and her FIANCEE are staying with me (femme meets flamer. I'm unclear if that's ironic or a stab at the Republican Press endorsing same-sex marriage), I talk to my proximal-ex daily, I txt my favorite 'mexican' whenever I 'accidently' land on Fox News, and more than anything, I can't stand when someone tells me what to do. I'm a child with a blog.
Oh! I have a point!!!
I don't know what I want right now but I know what my objective in this whole department is. And getting there is proving difficult because failing at stuff is REALLY REALLY bogus. But I'm getting used to it. Like it's less of a failure and more like highschool. You remember: that time people dated people based on who got new kicks that week? I missed highschool. Missed like skipped. I was a lesbian (lesbian = married) in highschool. Did I mention I kissed a butch lesbian this weekend?
(Tav, I love you, now pick your jaw up off the floor.)
Not pharmaceutical strategy.
So last week I experienced an entire birth and collapse of a relationship. In my head. The week started out normally: I asked out a girl I thought was cute not knowing she was overly invested in one of my best friends or that she had previously, as she would again attempt, five days later, ask out said friend in my presence. (Par for the course when you have hot friends. A blessing and a curse.)
Back to the story. So we went out. It was great! It was great in that very topically oriented, amusing but superficial, energetic but a-chemically inclined, first date kind of way. I wasn't astonished to learn that my preconceptions of her were entirely wrong though, despite falling short of insta-love, I didn't mind drinking beer shooters across a tiny table and would have, in fact, done that repeatedly for some indefinite amount of time. Perfect. The wooden shelves that the beer came on were bigger than the plates our burgers came on and this was helpful because, as I mentioned, I clearly didn't get the memo about her sustained preoccupation with my friend and the beer helped a LOT to keep me in the dark. (One could argue that I did get that memo, but dismissed it in a convenient kind of way. And if one would like to argue that, they can start their own blog to do so. <3)
After Monday, still absorbed by my delusion, I was unclear if we had plans to get together again. We have about a billion mutual friends so I figured I'd undoubtedly 'hang out' with her soon... (A billion mutual friends is a sure sign that if things move past 1 week they're going to either blow up or be fantastical-- until they blow up.) Needless to say (I totally spoiled the twist in the third sentence) the whole adventure didn't get anywhere NEAR a week. And I have to wonder how I came off with such a different idea of what we were up to (achem, on a DATE).
I think I thought we were on a date because: I paid, I maintained 'engaged' body language, I told her about the time I thought waxing my legs was the most desperate, selfless thing I could do to win a girl back, I only referenced an ex girlfriend 5 or 6 times (to make it clear that I date women), and I made an awkward attempt to hook her belt loop when we were walking aimlessly around the park. Maybe the un-date-ness of the situation should have been confusing/telling/obvious when I/we never managed to kiss (her) after 4 hours of banter. On the upside this means we're able to maintain a semblance of propriety around our friends sans furtive apologetic email writing to all those that share the room with us.
I see all this in retrospect but what I had started to write about was the insecurity that comes with dating. (You know, back when I thought I would see her again. Alone. On another (used loosely) date.) At what point do you really need to figure out how you feel about someone? Day 2? Date 2? Date 574? At what point do you chalk something up to just wanting to be enrolled in classes again without really paying attention to whether you end up in a history of WWII or a figure drawing class? And how do you know you're ready to deal with homework and tests and 'that guy' again?? I'm leaning towards going back for a masters but I can't even decide if I want an MFA or a masters in finance... I hear both are equally useful these days. Oh how my father is cringing right now...
Eff. I've lost track of my metaphor.
So far this birth-year (clearly starting at the dawn of march) I've chased a wife, a wounded warrior, a divorcee and an auctioneer. None of which were actual candidates for a sustained relationship. And that was just the last 2 months. Aside from all those unhealthy undertakings, my very first girlfriend and her FIANCEE are staying with me (femme meets flamer. I'm unclear if that's ironic or a stab at the Republican Press endorsing same-sex marriage), I talk to my proximal-ex daily, I txt my favorite 'mexican' whenever I 'accidently' land on Fox News, and more than anything, I can't stand when someone tells me what to do. I'm a child with a blog.
Oh! I have a point!!!
I don't know what I want right now but I know what my objective in this whole department is. And getting there is proving difficult because failing at stuff is REALLY REALLY bogus. But I'm getting used to it. Like it's less of a failure and more like highschool. You remember: that time people dated people based on who got new kicks that week? I missed highschool. Missed like skipped. I was a lesbian (lesbian = married) in highschool. Did I mention I kissed a butch lesbian this weekend?
(Tav, I love you, now pick your jaw up off the floor.)
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