Keywords

First level: TEEN PREGNANCY REPUBLICAN
Second level: TEEN SEX PREGNANCY SEX REPUBLICAN ELECTION SEX TEEN GIRLS SEX

In all honesty, this story has been handled relatively delicately, I think. The words "Bristol Palin clearly had to have UNPROTECTED SEX for this to happen" haven't really been said.

But they sure should be. I'm annoyed at the way the Republican camp is treating this: Miss Palin's pregnancy "happened". It "occured". What is this, the Immaculate Failure of Abstinence-Only Education? Yeah, yeah, I get that there is this hands-off policy when it comes to the children of candidates, but this only serves to give more protection to a candidate's daughter than Mary Sue down-the-street would have. If I had gotten pregnant at seventeen, EVERYONE would have talked about it. Instead, we're not allowed to talk about it because Bristol Palin's mother happens to be the vice-presidential candidate? Really?

And what about her age? The young woman--emphasis on the woman--is seventeen. She's old enough to join the armed services. She's an adult, for all intents and purposes. The age of consent in Alaska is 16, and she is certainly over that. And on a related note, the phrase "teen pregnancy" really bothers me. Although I don't recommend the procedure, plenty of girls get married at 18 and get pregnant. Do their pregnancies count as teen pregnancies? No, of course not, because they're MARRIED.

Anyway.

Even with this hands-off policy in place, we--the public, and the reporters--should certainly be allowed to make Miss Palin's unplanned, out-of-wedlock, teen pregnancy an issue. Much like famously anti-gay-rights Republicans who have been discovered in sleazy hotel rooms with their same-sex hookers and sandy piles of meth, the Republican party's very emphasis on "family values" makes this story actual news and not titillating gossip about teen girls and sex. Miss Palin has decided to carry the baby to term, fine, and she is marrying the father. If she was Mary Sue Down-the-street, she might have decided to have an abortion--she doesn't need her mom's consent in Alaska. But of course, since she is the daughter of a strongly pro-life Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate, she can't possibly get one. Her life has been decided for her. A theme with her, since I'm sure she was given zero options about how to prevent herself from getting pregnant, either, except for abstinence, and between a randy boyfriend and abstinence, guess who won?

More information:

Palin Rebuts Rumors

Palin's Daughter's Pregnancy Stirs Strong Emotions

A Private Matter

A Story Palin Should Tell (I was especially surprised at the ignorance and hatred mentioned in this one.)

A Typical Middle-Class Struggle (Except that the Palin's aren't so middle-class, certainly not the middle-class that I think of. Not the two-car, small house in a small-town middle class. They have resources. Mary Sue Down-the-street--who is quickly becoming my best friend--wouldn't have near as many resources to raise this extra mouth to feed. It's sure nice of this blogger to graciously include REAL middle-classers in the "struggles" of the Palins, though.)

The Palin Pregnancy and the Party Platform.

Odds and Ends

On Eating Your Words Off Paper Plates

A week ago, I had my friend Brandy over for dinner, not for any special reason, just so that the two of us could hang out and catch up without spending money at a fancy restaurant. I was making spinach and arugula polenta with a sun-dried tomato puree, and I was trying to use my old and stubborn blender, and I couldn't find the lid.

"Just put a paper plate over it," Brandy suggested.

My eyebrows almost flew off my head in horror. "Excuse me," I said, snottily. "There's no paper plates in THIS house. Do you even KNOW how WASTEFUL they are?"

Brandy, appropriately chastened: "Oh. I just suggested it because there are some paper plates right there on that shelf." She pointed.

I spun around, and sure enough, there were paper plates. Whoops. "My mother must have brought those when I moved in a year and a half ago," I mumbled.

Brandy, because she is a sweetheart and a half, didn't give me the hard time I so deserved, which made my crow-pie all that much harder to choke down.

Lessons at Goodwill

In the same way that everyone should spend some time at Farmers' Markets, everyone should, at some point, spend some time at a Goodwill. Not only for the bargains, but for the visual reminder that everything you are buying new now will be junk in a year, and barely worth the shelf space it takes up. I got three books for 2.26, and this amount makes me ashamed to admit how many books I have purchased full-price in airport bookstores to entertain myself for a mere three hours, only to never read said book again. Ugh.

One of My Favorite Things:

People who can make fun of themselves, and do it well, without giving you the impression that they're fishing for compliments.

Case in Point: My girls and I went out in honor of one of our friends, who has recently announced her pregnancy. (Yes, instead of throwing her a baby shower, we went out in her honor...without her. Hey, she's in Melbourne!)

We went out in Capitol Hill, because more of us live there or are familiar with there than anywhere else, and because said Girl Of Honor lived there, and I invited two of my friends from West Seattle who hardly ever go out in Capitol Hill. They were both a little surprised by the rag-tag punk element, which I don't notice anymore. (As Molly said: "Oh yeah, I saw tons of punks where I grew up...in the suburbs.") I shared a few of my tips: "Don't show fear, don't make prolonged eye contact with the homeless. Remember, the punks are going out to have a good time, just like you, even if they all have dyed black hair and piercings."

Molly, especially, took this advice to heart. As long as I live, I will never forget the sight of her throwing up horns at the Comet Tavern, screaming, "This pink cardigan I'm wearing is SO HARDCORE!"

How Not to Make Zucchini Patties

Decide it will be easier to smash your own breadcrumbs instead of dragging out the food processor, since it can be difficult to clean. Also decide it will be easier to grate your own zucchini--on a grater--than it would be to throw it in the food processor. End up using about fifteen different bowls in the process. Fail miserably at smashing dry bread, and toss out bread. Find crackers from Japan--three months ago--and smash those instead. Take about five hours to smash up crackers, sweat pouring down your face. Grate zucchini, spraying bits of zucchini and water all over the kitchen--seriously, it ended up on my walls--and stop and wipe out the grater about every five minutes. Let zucchini sit to allow water to drain.

Make jalapeno poppers in the meantime, for breakfast.

Having now taken ten hours to grate zucchini and smash breadcrumbs, grate your parmesan cheese, chop your onions and garlic, mix everything together. Go ahead and add two eggs without waiting to mix after the first egg so that your zucchini cake mix ends up too gooey. Fry zucchini cake mixture poorly--make sure you achieve just the right balance of cooking time so that your cakes turn out burnt and still don't hold together. Look up after three hours of kitchen torture and realize it's raining. Realize you have spent the hottest part of the day cooking instead of riding your motorcycle. Realize it will now rain for the rest of the day--when you COULD have been cooking--so that you CAN'T ride your motorcycle. Burst into tears. Eat your zucchini cakes.

How was everyone else's Sunday?

Also: More Difficult Than I Thought

Trying to get into a dance club with a big purse...that has empty baggies inside. Fortunately, I managed to convince the huge bouncers of the truth: they're doggie bags, dawg.

Excavation, or, A Month In The Life

My wallet--which I finally replaced with a new one from The Rack, one of my favorite stores in the world--has reached maximum size, and so it is time to excavate all the receipts and cards and matchbooks and what-have-you that I receive from the ether and stuff in there. I love doing this, I get such an interesting picture of my life. There is no other reason to keep receipts--I don't record them, although that's always what I think I'm going to do--but it's such a kick to read them back.

Four Weeks Ago: St. Louis! "Bobby" showed me the time of my life, I barely slept. My receipt from El Maguey in the Loop marks the consumption of some excellent Mexican food for the grand total of 8.60 with tip. I loved St. Louis, it reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh. And so cheap.

Two Weeks Ago: South Lake Union Block Party! Unlike Capitol Hill, which is now so far from its hippie roots that they charge to even LOOK at a bar, it's free and you can bring your dog, and it's not full of snarling teenagers with trust funds. Shout-outs to Calsee and Sarah, who loaned me various pieces of clothing as I had only brought Titan to keep me warm, and to Dan and Nina, who demonstrated their ability to leave the Eastside and fulfill their roles as downtown hipsters. That night I also learned that Whole Foods sells wine and beer ON TAP, for relatively cheap--four-dollar wine pours--and that walking up Denny Hill all the way from SLU to Capitol Hill gains you 203 vertical feet in a mile. And then we collected Randy and went to Peso's. The next day I had a 14-hour bachelorette party that started at 11 am. It was a long damn weekend--about 5 pm I had to wuss out and take a disco nap. Later on I got to see the cabaret show at the Can-Can--everyone go, immediately, and say hi to my friend Benihana--and the bachelorette group attracted so much attention that we ended up on at least three tourist cameras.

Last Week: My receipts say that after I saw Sydney get married, I ran into half a dozen people that I know at Linda's, went dancing at the War Room, went to Boom Noodle, met friends of friends who were on their way to Beijing to see their cousin compete in the synchronized swimming even, went to the beach with Calsee, had a great time at the Chinatown Night Market, and tried Congee for the first time.

Other Things of Note: Gift receipt from a baby shower gift, about five million Century Ballroom receipts.

Yes. So.

In Which I Start to Talk About Japan

I have already talked a little about Japan; for previous summary posts, try First Japan Post, Second Japan Post, Third Japan Post, Fourth Japan Post, Fifth Japan Post, or Japan Summary Post.

Anyway. Once more, with details!

At the start of my trip, I flew into Tokyo on my own--the Js wouldn't arrive until Saturday--and I was deathly ill, an experience I never want to repeat. I had read several guide books telling me how polite the Japanese were and how I needed to cover my mouth when I coughed and you CANNOT blow your nose in public, but not one guide book addressed the problem of what to do when you break out into a coughing fit in a crowded subway and it's either blow your nose or drip onto your seat, and your mucus is bright green because it's so infected. Shockingly.

I survived the whole way from the airport to the neighborhood I was staying in, Ikebukuro, and I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I was really, really sick. I don't remember which line I took from the airport--I think it was private, i.e., not one of the main lines that services the Tokyo area. If this sounds confusing, it is. Tokyo's subway system is not centralized; it's a mishmash of about three or four different companies, but they do at least attempt to work together. After several mistrials, the Js and I found that the best thing to do was to buy a low-fare ticket--making sure it's for the correct company--and then go through with our whole trip, possibly changing Metro companies without knowing it, and then, attempting to exit the subway station. If our ticket was accepted, we got to go; if the machine spit it back at you, you could take it to a machine and add a little more on, the surcharge for switching companies or the extra distance or whatever. It was easier to do it this way than try to predict how much we'd need or if we'd cross subway lines.

However, at this juncture, I was all by myself and got to struggle, which was fine--this was part of the reason I'd flown in early in the first place. I wanted to get a few days by myself. I arrived in Ikebukuro and, after wandering around for a few minutes in the dark with all my luggage, broke down and took a taxi. Ikebukuro isn't popular the way Ginza is, but it's still very crowded and I was surrounded by crowds of young Japanese laughing, talking, smoking, and I was very aware of how nerdy and out of place I looked and I just wanted to get to the hotel. My ryokan, the Kimi Ryokan, was very close to the station and I got right in and encountered my first problem: for reasons known only to the universe, I had had serious debit card issues right before I left for Japan. I had lost one and the other expired, or something, so I get to Japan and I have no way to get any more cash, all my money is in the account that I can't access because I have no PIN number, and I have $300 from traveler's checks to last me until Blog Knows When, and all the guide books I read told me in no uncertain terms that Japan is a cash-based country and NOWHERE takes credit cards. I was so worried I would do the wrong thing that I accepted my guide books as gospel, and it didn't even occur to me that places like Starbucks would definitely take my credit cards until the Js arrived and laughed at me, carrying my wad of cash around.

Anyway.

In spite of my misplaced fear about cash, my ryokan was one of the few that would NOT take credit cards, and I didn't have enough cash on me for more than a few nights--and I was staying five, and I had to eat some time--and so I had to tell the front-desk guy that I would pay just as soon as I could, really. He was nice about it --for the moment. I was shown to my room--no key cards, everything is done with real keys and locks--and I almost cried with relief, it was perfect. I highly recommend the Kimi Ryokan. It is very small and basic, but very clean and very lovely, with gorgeous dark wood everywhere. I got a real Japanese bath, struck out for some food, and crashed into bed.

The next morning I woke up at 3:30 with a coughing fit and figured, while I was up, I might as well get up and sight-see, which I did.

One of the reasons I've postponed getting my pictures up for so long is because I had the devil of a time trying to figure out how I was going to juggle so many formats. Finally I figured that I would write posts, like this, and divide my pictures on Google Picasa accordingly into photo albums with notes, and I would embed the photo album for each post, like below:

Flying Into Tokyo!

Does this work? Comments, questions?

Melting

It is hot as the dickens here. It's supposed to be 89 today and 90 tomorrow, and I realize this doesn't seem hot to some folks--some poor, misguided folks who live in, say, LA--but now imagine 89 degrees and NO AIR CONDITIONING.

Yes, that's right, folks. We here in the PNW do not normally need air conditioning, and so we do not have it. A lot of STORES don't even have it. I mean, Target certainly does, but my gas station on the corner does not. Just as a for-instance.

Titan is lollygagging on the floor, tongue hanging out, although he is not too hot to occasionally stir his stumps, walk out to the computer, and look at me pathetically. Also, he is trying to get me to take his cooling vest off, which he hates but I actually think works. I haven't eaten anything that can't be cooked in a microwave or served cold in days, except for coffee. I have my one pathetic fan on and the sweat is dripping down my face. And my friends Sydney and Matt are getting married, OUTSIDE, at FIVE PM, on one of the hottest days of the year. I had a nightmare last night that I missed the wedding, that I was taking swimming lessons while the wedding was happening, and I was secretly happy because I knew I was cooler than the people at the wedding were.

Help! Send me AC.

Family Talk

Hello, I am buying a motorcycle--in fact, I have already bought it--and up until Tuesday I had only told people under 40, and more importantly, people that were not related to me, that I was doing such a thing. And I have received uncensored acclaim.

I told my mother on Tuesday, and she was very upset about it, as I had predicted she would be, but she tried as hard as she could to remain polite and civil about it. She didn't say anything nasty, like, "Your desire for attention sickens me".

But when my uncle called me today it was a little more of a shock. My uncle is a funny, sarcastic, intelligent man; I dig every second I spend with him, and I especially dig his partner, a lovely and extremely talented graphic designer. Both she and my uncle laugh at my jokes and get me good books for Christmas presents, which is about all I need to like people. However, they are relatively private people, and my uncle especially is not given to large displays of affection. I was especially not expecting him to make a rare phone call to say to me, "I hear you have bought a motorcycle, and I disapprove."

Being my uncle, he said it much more creatively than that--he said, "I called so that you and I could put on a skit in which I play the old fuddy-duddy, and you play the rebellious teenager, and I can tell you what I really think about you buying this motorcycle, and you can respond by rolling your eyes and not taking my good advice." But the fact remained that he disapproved, that he was worried about me, and wished I wouldn't. The irony here, of course, is that my uncle is no fuddy-duddy--he's a modern man who feels no need to control the youth. He has never called me to say such a thing before, ever, not in 27 years of my life, and I knew he called me out of true concern for my well-being and that it took effort for him to make such a call, and he took that effort because it was so important to him. I can't just brush this off. Because of that I am now much more conflicted about this purchase than I was just a few days ago, although of course I'm still going to buy it--it's a great bike, it's a great deal, and I'm already committed.

My father hasn't yet called to do this same thing, although I expect it any day. It's particularly frustrating because both he and my uncle, although related only through my mother, owned motorcycles, and my grandfather--my mother's father--owned a motorcycle, and put me on it when I was very young. And I have ridden around on the back of the LT's motorcycle for almost a year. Never have motorcycles or the safety of motorcycles seemed to be a conversation topic of high importance in my family. I never heard a WORD about motorcycles until this week, in fact. And now that I am buying one, oh my Blog, the world, it is ending. I do not understand.

Much, Much, Lighter, and There Is Pepperjack!

I was in near hysterics reading this post from WideLawns. I can hear myself saying all week, in my head,

"You have heard about this? The bread with banana?"

Revisionist History

I was just reading my post about Wall-E and how I cried throughout the entire movie, and I can tell you all now that it is, indeed, a very good movie, but perhaps not as touching as I found it right then. I was incredibly sad on a daily basis, already; I was watching my relationship shudder and jerk its way to a halt, and Wall-E is about robot love, about a robot who falls in love with the human race--and then another robot--and has so much love to share that he gets humans to become human again.

Perhaps saying that my relationship was shuddering and jerking to a halt is too harsh. I certainly felt very neglected, but perhaps I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. Then again, I wasn't sure the LT would have dropped a pail of water on me if I had caught fire, so I figured that asking for more attention would be a waste of time. And besides--even if I had been sure of a welcome reception--it is so humiliating to ask for more attention, like Esther at the tip of King Xerxes sceptre. What are you supposed to say? "I want you to look happy when you see me"? "It has been a month since you've told me I was good looking, a compliment I get daily from strangers, and it would mean so much more coming from you, it would be like a glass of water on a hot day, PLEASE tell me you think I'm pretty. Please, otherwise, I might die."

And you DO die, lying in bed looking at someone's back, little bit by little bit, starved for attention, crying yourself to sleep softly because he might hear and you don't want to say how needy you've become, jumping at his every word, trying to make him happy, so that he might smile at you again and give you some hope that he still likes you. You don't want to admit that his opinion means more to you than anything, and that not hearing it kills you.

And after awhile, being unwilling to say how much you've been starved and are still starving, you just...give up. You decide, if he doesn't think I'm really that great, I can at least take up a hobby, something where I might be around men who will have some reason to touch me, and so you take up dancing, and you enjoy yourself and it's a lot better than going to bed early to lie silently next to someone who ignores you, and so it begins to take up more of your life until your boyfriend starts to get mad that you're spending so much time not with him, and so maybe he becomes even more critical and then the whole relationship spirals downward in a matter of months.

So. That's what happened.

YouTube Is My New Boyfriend

I just discovered a seriously wonderful use for YouTube: Monty Python sketches!!!

I don't know why it didn't occur to me before that YouTube would host so many. I've found hundreds of scenes from movies, after all. Monty Python sketches would fit neatly into that category. And yet I just discovered it, thanks to this post in Slog.

So as to add to the fun, here are two of my favorite written comic sketches in the world. Not that there aren't sketches that are just as funny, but I fell in love with both of these seeing them performed by my friends, so they have a special value for me. As a special bonus, they require no props whatsoever--it's just two people talking. Undeniably brilliant.

Lighter

I just spent a whole ten minutes of my life--okay, maybe five--looking for this commercial, which struck such a chord in me when I saw it that I still remember it, even though I only saw it once.

And I thought you all should share in my joy.

Bad Advice

Did everyone know that I had a brief job writing for an online magazine called "Pretty Witty"? I did. It was very, very brief, both the job and the site. But it gave me a chance to write a real column--which Editor Extraordinaire Anna tells me is supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end, unlike my posts--and throw around a lot of snotty comments about "my editor". The column I came up with--the idea that got me the job--was called Susie Homewrecker, meant to be a parody of an advice column in which the advice columnist only gives really terrible advice. My editors at the time loved it and gave me the job, and I wrote four whole columns before the entire thing folded.

Anyway.

It's times like this, when I'm on my own again and can be just as bad as I want to be without hurting anyone, that my mind goes back to that column. I am doing everything you are not supposed to do. I am staying out late, I am dancing, I am barely eating--and when I am eating, I am eating cheese and that is it--and probably I scarcely need say that I've stepped up my alcohol consumption. Not the kind of drinking in which you tell the bartender just to leave the bottle at the table, but the kind of drinking in which you purposely slow your consumption rate so you can go for the burn. (Don't worry, Mother--soon I'll get fat and have to slow down.) You COULD, of course, describe this behavior as "staying away from ice cream and getting regular exercise", which is absolutely true. Or you could describe it as, "hanging out in bars and sometimes eating", also absolutely true. It just depends on your perspective. (Hey, a lot of salsa dancing takes place at bars, okay?)

Anyway.

Because of this, I have lost a little weight--all the alcohol hasn't caught up quite yet--and when I mentioned this to a friend, she demanded of me, "WHAT have you been DOING? Whatever is, tell me your secret."

And I said, "Um...I broke up with my boyfriend and have been subsisting on brie and sparks, and I've gone dancing seven hours a week." You see? Terrible advice.

Shocking

I have been SO long without blogging that I had to re-enter my password! That is NOT okay! What have I been DOING what my time?

Well, giving rides to strangers, for one thing. I was driving around late at night on Thursday, after giving rides home to R and A (hi guys!) and as I was driving down Mercer, I saw a girl on the side of the road, walking home. Nothing particularly unusual about it, except something about her movement caught my eye. I thought she was disabled at first, and then I realized...no. She was really that drunk. I quickly thought about my options. She looked about my age, maybe younger, and she seemed harmless. And I would have felt terrible about just driving by. I made a quick U-turn and pulled up beside her.

I rolled down my window. "Hon, are you going to make it home?"

"Idonkno," she said. I nodded.

"Get in, I'll give you a ride home."

"Imna'far," she said. "Jus' the nex' corner."

I understood. "You don't know me, and you don't HAVE to get in the car. But if you want a ride, you can have one."

She climbed in the car so quickly I thought maybe invisible bad guys were after her. "Than' you SO much," she slurred, and sure enough, she wasn't far--maybe another ten blocks. I dropped her off and she told me I was her best friend.

"Hon," I said, laughing, "you aren't going to remember this in the morning, but thanks. People have done me a good turn or two myself, so pass this on when you get a chance."

So. My good deed for the week.

Also, and there is no casual way to say this, the LT and I are no longer together. It seems like we might be able to salvage a friendship--even a good friendship--so that's good, at least.

Ode to My Stylist

It seems ridiculous that I have been with my hairstylist long enough to be a "special" customer, but it's the truth. I was with her when I was Young, Broke, and Barely Legal--I got my second real haircut in T-Town from her--and as I matured into Old, Rich, and Upstanding Citizen, she got her own salon and took me with her as her customer, and then she got a bunch of other services at her salon and she and the aesthetician took me under their collective wing and made me the relatively well-turned-out girl I am today. She was the one who cut off my hair when I donated it; she was the one who convinced me to color it, she is the one whom, now, yells at me to get my highlights touched up more frequently and get in and see Jamie, the aesthetician. (She and Jamie are big believers in tough love, which I need.)

One fine Saturday morning I arrived at the salon maybe, slightly, hungover. Okay, let's rephrase. I was so hungover that a lit match around me would have burned blue--that much leftover alcohol was wafting from my skin. Tyson--my stylist--spent about five minutes with me before bringing me a juicebox. "Here," she said. "Drink this before you pass out."

A little while later Jamie came in and Tyson called to her. "You would not BELIEVE how hungover Aarwenn is," she chortled. "Come and yell at her."

I rolled my eyes. Jamie appeared, stroking my hair and sniffing. "Have we FED her?" she asked Tyson. Tyson rolled her eyes in return. "I gave her a juicebox," she said, with the air of washing her hands of the whole event. "And I wouldn't let her have coffee." Right after my cut and color, I went to meet with Jamie, who poked and prodded at my skin. "You see all these little bumps?" she said. "This is all the toxins you've been pouring into yourself coming out through your skin. This is PARTY skin."

"I know," I murmured, "and I've worked damn hard for it." She smacked me on the back of the head. "Well, now you get to pay for it," she said, and got out her extraction tools. (Note to the uninitiated: extraction of blackheads HURTS.)

I absolutely love them, all the women at that shop, and I love them more because of our different worlds. The salon is all women, and of course my daily environment is all men. I know nothing about beauty, and they know nothing about technology--of any kind--which means that sometimes my arrival at the salon is hailed by cries of delight. "Thank GOD you're here," Tyson will say, pulling me back into the break room. (A sign of true privilege.) "Our computer won't do so-and-so. Can you fix it?"

"Of COURSE I can fix it," I like to say with haughty grandeur, and I haven't been wrong yet. The littlest things amaze them--how fast I type, keyboard shortcuts, Alt-Tab, the fact that I know what a "cookie" is, and not the chocolate chip kind. We're learning from each other, even. At first I was worried that the flow of knowledge was going all one way, that my skin and hair were looking better and better but I hadn't contributed much beyond my IT services. I love the challenge of trying to break down what I do for the layperson, but I wasn't sure it was having any affect until Tyson said to me, with pride,

"Hey, you know how you were telling me what 'nano' was? We had a hella fancy shampoo company in here last week giving us their sales pitch, and they were going on and on about nano-this and nano-that and finally I raised my hand and said, 'Doesn't "nano" just mean "small"? I mean, seriously?'

I laughed. "Good for you! Did that send her down a peg or two?"

"OH my god, it was like I had kicked her puppy," Tyson said, pinning my hair up. "The entire sales pitch was based on how cool this 'nano' was, and they were going on and on about surface area and all kinds of technical jargon, and I just said, 'But doesn't it just mean "really small"'?"

"It does, and it ALSO has to do with surface area versus volume," I said, and, unable to let an opportunity for education go by, gave her the Reeses Cup Analogy. (Later post.) She listened attentively, but even if she hadn't, it didn't matter. I'm bringing nanotechnology understanding to the masses! Hooray!

And I have pretty hair, also Hooray.

The Need to Ball

No, not the need to bawl. The need to ball. The need to floss. To flash your bling. Okay, people over 35: The need to...oh, heck, I don't even know the older slang words...the need to flash your wad? Ah, I got it! The need to show off by the use of fancy toys.

It's a little long.

Anyway. Sorry I haven't been blogging much. I've had a lot on my mind, and while sometimes it's good to blog about that kind of stuff, sometimes it's not. I've been working on losing weight again--down eight pounds!--and working on saving money. I've been contemplating simplicity versus stuff. I've been drooling over my friend Sarah's apartment, which is a perfect little studio with the CUTEST kitchen and bathroom ever. (It makes my place look too large and overdone.) I've been obsessing over Mint.com, which has a bunch of new and amazing features, including a graph that shows how much money you've spent versus earned in the past six months, and if the numbers are right, all I can say is: No wonder I'm carrying a balance on my credit cards. Wow. My new plan is to visit Mint six times a day, hoping that the very act of doing so will prevent me from spending money, which will in turn hopefully swing the balance of earned vs. spent back to black. (However, in spite of all my other faults, my net worth is not too bad. My 401(k) balance exceeds my car loan and credit card debt, so disregarding my student loans, my net worth is positive! Um. If that even counts.)

It's so interesting, this need to floss. I COULD, of course, take the bus to work, and walk up the stairs, and drink tea, but I sure feel a lot spiffier driving my Jeep right up to the door of my work, getting a VIP parking spot in the shade, walking four steps, riding the elevator up to the fourth floor, taking a sip from my Starbucks mug and drawling to my personal assistant while raising my massive sunglasses, "Anything important, darlin'?"

Perhaps my imagination ran away with me on the last part, but that doesn't negate the ease and spiffiness of driving and elevating rather than walking and stair-climbing. Sadly, it's never cool to arrive somewhere out of breath and rushed. (Busy, self-absorbed, and on the phone, though, is still totally cool. Totes.)

The POINT is, I was recently talking to a grad-school friend, who told me that in waiting tables he had earned more than enough money for the whole summer and couldn't decide if he should keep working or quit and devote more time to his side projects. "Uh huh," I said thoughtfully, doing some fast mental arithmetic. Let's see, call it $150 per shift including hourly wage and tips, he's worked about ten shifts...okay, so $1500. We'll call it $2000 to be generous. Sure, that's a lot of money. And then I looked at Mint again and realized that I spent, on average, $4200 a month. (And no, I don't actually make that much, hence my problem.)

What happened to my days of subsisting on $500 a month? That summer in which I lived at my sorority for $300 for the entire summer, waited tables and participated in a few medical experiments, and had more money than I knew what to do with? Times were certainly tight, or could be, but the cash flow of tips makes up for a lot of budgeting ills. There was always more money. And there was always food, at the restaurant. A human's needs are actually very basic: food, shelter, transportation. (We'll take for granted that said human lives in a city and has access to clean water--this is basic living, not post-apocalypse living.) Once you've paid for the roof over your head and you have a place to get food, the rest of your money--which exists mainly to ensure your food and shelter in the future--should be excess, right? It seemed so, at that time. I imagined what would happen if at some point in the future I got a real job. I might make $50,000 a year, I thought. I would never want for anything ever again.

HA. That is not what happened. Instead, my needs expanded to fit my income. Suddenly I had a LOT of needs. I needed a car--and not a used one, a brand new one, and then I needed insurance and gas, and then I needed to drive fast, so I needed speeding tickets and higher insurance rates. I needed a nice apartment. I needed a lot of nice apartments because I chose poorly the first time, so I needed to spend a lot of gas driving back and forth between various apartment locations. Let's not forget that I needed to fill up those apartment with nice furniture. I needed new work clothes, and I needed (NEEDED) new work shoes. I needed high speed internet and cable TV, and then I needed to rent movies, and then I needed a Netflix account. I needed a better cell phone package. I needed to be online everywhere, so I needed a year-long contract with AT&T Wireless at Starbucks PLUS my home high-speed bill. Instead of drinking at dive bars where pitchers were 11 bucks, and that was all we got, I needed to go to fancier places with my new yuppie friends and order martinis.

Good LORD did I need a lot of things.

I thought that once I got a real job I had to change lifestyles--from the Young, Broke, and Barely Legal to the Old, Rich, and Upstanding Citizen. And I thought the Upstanding Citizen NEEDED all that stuff.

I was wrong, obviously. Completely wrong. I didn't need an apartment; I could have lived in a RV if I wanted. I could have even lived in a van, bought a $25/month gym membership at Boeing, and showered in the gym locker rooms. If I decided to get an apartment I could have gotten a studio. If I had chosen to get a one-bedroom I didn't need to fill it with furniture. Even after I got my work computer, I could have gone to a library all day and used their free wireless connection instead of buying one for myself at home. (I won't even mention how little I actually needed the one at Starbucks.) No one actually needs cable TV. And NO ONE needs MARTINIS at ten dollars a drink.

I'm getting on towards four years into my Old, Rich, and Upstanding Citizen lifestyle, and in some ways, I'm cutting back. I'm replacing martinis with beer and drinking fewer beers. I just cut my cable TV. (Need my internet, though.) (Yeah, sure I do.) I finally settled where I was going to live and I've lived there for more than a year, going on two. I carpool to work and take the bus where I can. I haven't gotten a speeding ticket recently and my insurance has gone down. I switched my bank account (FINALLY) so I no longer pay overdraft fees. Little steps.

But it's not really about that, because as soon as I freed up some money I found an amazing lingerie store and went to Japan and redid my apartment, putting me back in the hole. It's about reminding myself that the only thing I HAVE to do every day is shower, put on clean, presentable clothes, and go to work. I don't NEED anything beyond food for myself and Titan. I don't NEED Starbucks or to go out to lunch and I don't NEED to buy a cart full of groceries every time I'm at the store. I don't even need any more work clothes and I certainly don't need any more shoes. I can try to floss all I want to, but at the end of the day, Titan isn't impressed anyway and I'm home by myself bemoaning my credit card debt. Nothing flossy about that.

Movie Reviews

Everyone go see Wall-E immediately, IMMEDIATELY, seriously, drop what you're doing. It is really that good. Warning for sensitive people: BRING KLEENEX. I bawled through at least three quarters of the movie, often while laughing hysterically at the same time.

However, there is absolutely no rush to go see Wanted, and in fact, you could easily go without ever seeing it. You could watch Domino or Gone in 60 Seconds and have the same effect. Better yet, you could make a screensaver with shots of Ferraris, Angelina Jolie, and shiny guns, interspersed with screen-caps from The Matrix, and you would have the entire movie. Oh, and maybe a shot or two from Fight Club. Having said that, I enjoyed it, because I like all those things--Ferraris, The Matrix, etc--and getting them all together in one movie wasn't bad. Still. Not a work of art for the ages.

Overwhelmed by My Obligations

I have barely started on Japan pictures, I went camping last weekend and I have several good pictures from that, I did mostly nothing this weekend because I was down with strep throat, but I did see the fireworks. And so on. Blech.

Wednesday Links

Hey, I may not have anything interesting to say, but the internet probably does.

Some really good things from Slate today:

A Slate author lives for a day on a gas rig.

Can breast motion be harnessed to run, say, an iPod? This would be awesome!