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Category archives for 'soc'
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On Being Lost, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Quantum Mechanics
Not all who wander are lost, or so it’s been said. I think I’ve even got a fridge magnet somewhere endorsing that view, but—all due respect to Mr. Tolkien—I’ve decided it’s a bunch of BS.I mean, it’s an appealing thought … reassuring. I’m not lost. I know where I’m going. I’m not lost. I’m in control. And being in control, or thinking we are, seems to be a modern-day obsession.
When I was about six or seven, I went through a phase of believing in—and being very afraid of—ghosts. To help soothe my fears at night, I would look into the darkest corner of my room and whisper “I don’t believe in you. You can’t hurt me.” It was my mantra. And, as self-help mantras often do, it betrayed what in my heart of hearts I feared to be true. In that way, it was more of an incantation or a prayer, and Tolkien’s verse seems to have the same wishful-thinking quality to it.
It’s not that I’m judging the poor, wandering souls of the world. I say that all who wander are lost because, more and more, I think everyone is lost. Which is not to say I think everyone’s in a nihilistic tailspin, but, like it or not, we don’t know everything—can’t possibly know everything. Or, in other words, we’re limited. Mostly, we don’t like it … not one bit, and neither do the inhabitants of Lost. (Someday when I have more time, I’ll re-watch all the episodes and count just how many times someone utters a variation on “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!!!!”)
Every last one of the characters is searching for something. Some are looking in all the wrong places, maybe, following a path to disappointment and despair. Some don’t show much enthusiasm or persistence. They don’t necessarily even know why they’re feeling around in the dark, but they’re all at least dimly aware they are lost. Jack would deny it and Charlie would feign confusion, but deep down they’re afraid of ghosts and they know it. Even Kate can’t resist seeking the thing she won’t allow herself to want … to be known or, you might say, to be found.
Each character’s a rich combination of idiosyncracy and archetype—universal enough to be engaging and unique enough to be believable. When I watch the show, I find my own unwelcome sense of lost-ness projected onto them. Why else would I have such strong opinions on why Juliet deserved her fate and how John ruined everything? Why should I forgive Jack’s hubris but condemn Sawyer for his pragmatism? It speaks of things in me, which I see reflected in them.
Is it sad to be so invested in a TV show? Perhaps. But every week I’m offered a peek behind the curtain of human nature in all its confounding glory. That’s what we demand of Art and Literature and, ahem, Film. Once in a great while, you find it on television, too … M*A*S*H, Six Feet Under, Homicide: Life on the Street, BSG, to name a few.
So, maybe all who wander are lost, maybe not. To my mind, the real tragedy is that not all who are lost find their way to wandering. Being alive to being alive takes a foolish courage, something the characters on Lost have in spades. It’s why I love them, one and all.
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Good Morning, Sunshine
That’s how my mom usually woke me up when I was little … Good morning, sunshine! … or sometimes with singing.
You’d think having a morning not unlike a woodland scene from a Disney movie would be a kid’s dream, but I am not a morning person and never was. (Apparently, I had to be roused even on Christmas.)
And yet, here I am … at 5:15 in the ayem, making a stab at writing a post. Commitment. That’s what it’s all about. Also, there’s no I in TEAM. No … something about sweat or perspiration or pain … I forget now.
After a day of working with words for work, the coming home and writing is quite a challenge. My new thing is to get up early and write a little before my life force has been sapped by a thankless world. The results may be terse, surly, difficult to follow, or all of the above.
Forewarned is forearmed.
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That Thing You Love
This is how you use stereotypical gender roles to sell shit.
(via Salon)
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Small Women
I’ve been told the process of blogging can be obscure and shrouded in mystery. Well, here’s your inside pass:
That is exactly what blogging looks like. Exactly.
Oh, my. I’m afraid I may have wasted your time with this one. However, I did spare you the series in which I fashioned a burka from my hair. Don’t say I think only of myself.
In other news, I finally got around to seeing Julie & Julia, which I’d been wanting to see for a while. I thought the movie might be galvanizing or inspirational or something, as a blogger. Instead, it only made me acutely aware that, in spite of my burgeoning Buddhist sympathies, I am still more than capable of envy. Also, pettiness. I could go on, but you get the idea … I’m an ugly soul with a heart of pitch and never, ever prone to hyperbole.
I’m not sure why I even looked to a movie for inspiration to write in the first place. I should have been reading Little Women … or watching the movie, at the very least.
Fictionalized blogging superstars aside, it’s taking a little getting used to … writing again. For the most part, it’s like riding a bike, except—as illustrated above—much more sedentary. The sea legs they are on order, though. I’ll let you know when they arrive.
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Shorts: You Read My (Fucking) Mind
As is my custom, I completely denied the existence of the Super Bowl this year. I care nothing whatsoever about or for professional sports, and I can’t really see the sense in watching a program simply to see the commercials I otherwise go to great lengths to avoid.
Still, in spite of my strict adherence to non-TV TV-watching, Hulu managed to slip the Dodge “Man’s Last Stand” ad by me. My reaction was somewhat football related, in that it resembled the cry Charlie Brown lets out after Lucy’s punt prank: AAUGH! In other words, I bitterly regretted my decision not to invest in a TV Brick.
While I toyed with the idea of writing a post about my objections—on both pro-woman and pro-man … er, humanist grounds, this parody of the commercial proves that 16 fps × 1:14 is worth ≈ 1000 words.
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Love’s Not
It’s popular nowadays to reject Valentine’s Day as a bane of commercialism or as a vehicle for demanding conformity to societal norms around love. I don’t necessarily disagree with either sentiment, but to imagine that commercialism or pressure to conform are limited to February 14 seems exceedingly naive … dangerous even. (Um, Christmas?!?)
To me, Valentine’s Day is what we make of it. It can be a curse, no doubt. (We’ve all been there, yes?) It can also be a pleasant reminder of what we might do each and every day: love one another.
So, while today may or may not resemble a Judd Apatow movie, we all have someone who loves us and, more importantly, someone who cherishes the love we give.
In that spirit, I offer what is maybe one of the most famous sonnets … nay, one of the most famous love poems of all time, by my boy Willie Shakes.
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
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Magic Eye
It’s been a long time since I wrote about Alvin and his Sno-Balls, so I’m not sure exactly what reminded me of him … or the mixed-up files of Julie Myerson, which … as the Brits are apparently fond of saying … caused a “furour” last year. (Oh, the Brits and their extra vowels.)
Maybe it’s because I’ve been grappling with the question of what to write about now that I’ve forgone anonymity. Don’t get me wrong … for once, I’m brimming with happenings and topics I want to write about. With my commitment to post regularly and authentically, though, I’m left with few defenses when the truth becomes too truthy. At such times, the ethics around writing become more than conceptual dinner party blather.
Though, to my mind, the former is less egregious than the latter, my exploitation of Alvin and Myerson’s of her kids are two points on a continuum, one that cuts across every form of writing. Case in point, I read a biography of Ernest Hemingway that claimed nearly all his major characters were based on friends, family, colleagues or lovers, some of whom felt deeply betrayed and misrepresented. I mean, if Papa himself couldn’t write without implicating his intimates, is it even possible?
In six or so years of blogging, only one person has complained to me about a breach of trust, related to a series of posts on my old blog called “63 Things I’ve Learned Since …” um … they were about things I’d learned since I got divorced. The non-truncated name for the series was my characterization of the end of my marriage, stated in factual, if somewhat inflammatory terms, and … well, my ex-husband took umbrage.
At the time, I sincerely believed my motives were, if not pure, certainly not sinister. Now, it all seems more nebulous. My stated aim in writing about the muckiness—in that way—was to process and exorcise the bountiful feelings aroused by said muckiness. I guess, more than anything, I hoped that by setting out to write about the things I’d learned, I might actually learn something.
But the cold truth is, a lot of what we describe as things we’ve learned are just stories we tell ourselves to make sense of experience, which doesn’t ever make sense … not entirely. You see, the meaning of it all is only as strong as the stories themselves.
Stuff we’ve learned can be articulated. It may only capture part of the truth, but we can explain it to our friends … write blog posts about it. Stuff we’ve learned is well suited to whiteboards and crib sheets. It’s orderly, this stuff. Factoids. Rules. Theorems. But stuff we learn can be tenuous, vulnerable … to memory loss, flaws in logic, misinformation, insufficient data, to name a few.
On the other hand, there’s the stuff we know. Stuff we know can be talked around and hinted at, but rarely pinned down. It’s what stuff we learn wants to be when it grows up. Stuff we know lives in our art and music and bad high school poetry. While it’s easy to refute and often mocked, stuff we know is unshakable. It’s not beholden to a story. It just is … sometimes in spite of all we’ve learned.
So, where’s the line between being considerate of others and being self-abnegating? How do you know if you’re protecting others in remaining silent or hiding from yourself? What’s the difference between being inconsiderate and passive-aggressive, honest and brutally honest? Or, to make it less hypothetical, if I had it to do over, would I write about what happened with my ex in quite the same way?
It’s an impossible question, of course. They all are. But I wonder all the same.
A novella I wrote begins:
This is the story of my father and my father’s father and all the fathers before that, and so the story of me.
That sentiment still rings true to me, ten years after writing it. To a large extent, I think we are our stories and the stories of those around us … well, the ones we ascribe to them, anyway.
Everyone has their own story, and I’ve yet to find someone who was not the hero of his.
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575 Words Not about Cheese
I have all these little blogging … agenda items, I guess you could say. Hmm … that sounds unnecessarily bureaucratic. No, no. What’s the word? Gah! Okay, from time to time, I think of blog-worthy … topics of discussion … while I’m driving or in the shower or what have you.
Sometimes I can’t get the thought back when I sit down to write, and I have to wonder how many War and Peaces never were because of just such lapses in memory. Then again, sometimes I remember the idea and wish I hadn’t.
Once in a great while, though, the stars align and a genuinely blog-worthy thought comes ’round again. So I’ve got a few of these … ideas strikes me as too lofty, thoughts too serious, notions too too. I’ve got a few of these things turning the transom of my mind into a flophouse.
Well, cripes. Now that I’ve built this all up, the first “thing” doesn’t even seem to fit the thorough yet concise definition of thing I laid out for myself. In any case, I will press onward.
The first you know is the name of the blog … cheese for dinner. When I relaunched and—I apologize in advance for using this word—rebranded the blog, it had been rechristened as well. I spoze I don’t owe anyone an explanation, and god knows nobody’s asked, but I feel like it’s as interesting a thing as any, so … yeah.
When I settled on cheese for dinner, I was mildly concerned that lots of folks would stumble onto the site looking for a blog about, well, about cheese. It’s not a completely outrageous scenario. As my brother was kind enough to point out, this is the top Google search result if you search for cheesefordinner.com. Go ahead. Try for yourself.
Anyway, while I can’t promise cheese will never be mentioned or that you won’t find my occasional pun … cheesy (oh!), I can attest that this is not a blog about cheese.
Yes? You in the back row.
Then what *is* the blog about?
Well, reader in the back row, that is a very good question. cheese for dinner is a searing vision of the wounds our century has inflicted on traditional masculinity. It’s positively Vonnegutesque.
If you’re wondering whether that’s a quote from Bridget Jones’s Diary, yes … yes it is. If you were not wondering that, then I won’t even dignify that with a response.
Seriously, though, the blog’s not about anything in particular, particularly cheese. All the same, I’d like to see it, in time, be about all things, or all the big things anyway. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Paper or plastic. Fries or apple pie, boxers or briefs, lions and tigers and bears! (Oh, my!)
This is just a place for me to write about what’s going on in my life, what’s going on in the great “out there” and whatever else comes to mind … a large universe of topics indeed. May it please you, I invite you back.
So, to reiterate, the blog … not about cheese.
And yet …
The inspiration for the name cheese for dinner comes from my tendency to have cheese—and cheese alone—for dinner, on nights not so unlike tonight, in fact.
What can I say? A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou. Only with cheese … and no bread. Or wine. Or, strictly speaking, thou.
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Long Night’s Journey Into Day
A few weeks ago, Time ran this cover … proclaiming the aughts “The Decade from Hell.” It’s provocative, to be sure. Unfortunately for Time Warner, it didn’t provoke me to read the article (or buy the magazine). It did get me to thinking, though, about my last ten years and just how much they, well, sucked.It rolls off the tongue easily. This sucks. That sucks. And I way overuse the word (cf. awesome). However … when I say the last decade sucked, I am—if anything—downplaying matters.
2000 through 2009 saw: separation from husband, revelation of husband’s affair, uncle’s death, aunt’s death, grandmother’s death, betrayal by business partner, other grandmother’s death, bankruptcy, divorce, annulment, grandfather’s death, ex-husband’s engagement, ex-husband’s marriage, loss of business, return to live with parents, uncle’s death, layoff, Molly’s death, year of unemployment concomitant with nervous breakdown, uncle’s death, end of serious committed relationship.
These events span the time between December 2002 and December 2009, so, to be precise, the last seven years have sucked in earnest. The previous three were more of a low-grade kind of suck.
It goes without saying that I’m far from alone in facing adversity and suffering. Clearly, too, I’m leaving out the many unambiguously good things that happened. I don’t tell you any of this to court sympathy but simply to share more about myself than I have heretofore been willing, with the idea that it might just be liberating somehow.
See, I’ve come to think of the last several years as my dark night of the soul. And while a new decade provides as convenient a bookend as any, I don’t know that my dark night is necessarily coming to a close any time soon. (In my experience, these things are unmoved by the Gregorian calendar’s invitation to orderliness.)
I do know I’ve spent the last seven years struggling to push through it—to will it to be over—hoping the latest loss would be the last, frantically trying to keep from losing my shit altogether … to no avail.
…
Five years ago today, my grandmother passed away. She was 94, and at the end her memory was quite bad. On one of my last visits she said, “Is everything okay? I feel like I should be worried about something, but I can’t remember what it is.”
It broke my fucking heart, and not because she was old or because I knew she’d be gone soon. It broke my heart because I realized something disquieting: She’d lived so much of her life in fear that even when the content of her worries escaped her, the fear remained. And so it broke my heart, for her and for me. That is my legacy. Now, I think it may be my salvation, too.
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Once in a Blue Moon: A Meditation on Auspices
Because … well … because I’m me, I’ve adopted an attitude towards this “inaugural” post that could be best described as impotent. Unable to get it up, as it were.
Verbal impotence is nothing new for me. Nothing new for anyone who writes, I guess. This time, though … this time I goaded the hobgoblins in my head. To wit, I told myself:
There’s a full moon coming up. It’s a blue moon. It’s on New Year’s Eve … the eve of a new decade. It’s the perfect conceit around which to hang this critical post.
Wait for it. I told myself:
It’s auspicious.
Okay, the title gave it away a bit. The fact remains: thoughts of auspices are to writing, as thoughts of one’s mother are to sex.
It’s not enough to hit the ball; you have to hit it out of the park. It’s not enough to get an ovation; they’ve gotta be on their feet. It’s not enough to have a blog that a few folks enjoy; you have to be the second coming of Edward R. Murrow, only funny and pretty and smarter than your cousin who got into Princeton. But I digress.
See I think an astronomical event that happens once every 19 years is genuinely momentous. Order in chaos. Beauty and science married. Then there’s New Year’s. New Year’s, New Year’s, New Year’s. All our twitchy, sweet-tart yearnings distilled into one night … one second, really.
In the past, on January 1 or thereabouts, I’ve made patently insincere New Year’s resolutions to mock this inescapable milestone. A coping mechanism, mind you. But you knew that.
Day, night, fall, spring, first tooth, first kiss, and on and on until the day we die. Self imposed or celestially so, milestones are important. We imbue them with meaning … we wave them before the gods to show we’re in charge of our own mortality, even if only its units of measure.
A Buddhist monk once shared a bit of wisdom with me. (Full disclosure: He shared it with me and several hundred people subscribed to a publicly available podcast. Nevertheless, it is germane.)
Lay down your burdens of fear and hope.
Hearing these words, I finally understand the sway of resolutions. Fear and hope are a package deal. Not bad or good, black or white … just two sides of the same coin. In order to embrace one, you have to accept the other.
So, after all this ponderous navel-gazing, when I lay down those burdens what’s my resolution?
Simple. It’s this. Me … and you, perhaps. Here.
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Welcome to My Humble Abode
Welcome to my new home here at cheese for dinner. Some of you may remember me from my previous blog, wherein I wrote under the pseudonym Kiki … Ms. Monkey-Gurl if you’re nasty.
In any case, I have decided to reboot in a way and, after much consideration, write as myself.
Hi, I’m Kirsten. (Please don’t stalk me.)
I am bringing forward some of my favorite and most popular posts from the old blog, as I work on new material for this one. In doing so, I’m cleaning them up a bit, checking links and so on. You may see notes of the form:
[Ed. Blah blah blah …]
This is me editorializing on myself, a practice that may or may not be annoying. I will do my utmost to keep it to a minimum.
Finally, I’m still fine-tuning the site itself, so bear with me.
- If you notice dead links and the like, make a comment.
- If you notice awesomeness in action, make a comment.
- If you think you are a thinly veiled character in one of my posts, get over yourself (srsly) but make a comment.
- If you think you spotted a typo, I am correct and you are not but make a comment.
- If you are seeing a trend here, make a comment.
I have made a lovely, albeit “Jesusy,” holiday mix to get this party started. So come in, sit down by the fire, and have some cheese for dinner.
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[You can download the playlist with track titles, etc. here.]
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Dead Guys I Like, Part 7
RIP, George. You were a philosopher for our times.
- Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things.
- If God had intended us not to masturbate, he would’ve made our arms shorter.
- Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
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The Frog and the Geek
I think I may have figured out the root cause of the central issue of the dating portion of my life. What is the central issue, you ask? Well, the central issue is that dating blows. It blows hard core.
You might be wondering how something as potentially fun as dating could blow hard core. Well, I’ll tell ya how: I’ve been dumped twice so far in 2008.
Yes, twice. Um, yeah, I know it’s only April.
Two times in less than four months makes it almost seem like I’m trying or something, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not. It’s my life’s overarching theme: the less I try at something (like getting dumped) the better I am at it, while the more I try at something (like *not* getting dumped) the more I suck.
Anyway, focus, Kiki. Focus. Central issue … root cause. Right.
So, my big dating revelation came by way of a joke I found on none other than the Internet. I’m pretty sure jokes are supposed to make you laugh, but this one made me weep a little … salty, bitter tears of recognition.
A man was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful princess.” He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week.”
The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, “If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I’ll stay with you and do anything you want.” Again, the man took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, “What’s the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful princess, that I’ll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won’t you kiss me?”
The man said, “Look, I’m a software engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool.”
You could easily swap out “software engineer” with “sys admin” or “info designer” or dozens of other geeky professions, and the joke would be just as … er, funny. The point is: WTH is wrong with geeks? Why do they not recognize a perfectly good female unit when they see one? Why do they have so little time when they mostly do nothing? Why do they say so little when you know perfectly well there’s a lot going on upstairs? And, last but not least, given ALL this, why do they have to smell so damned good?
BAH.
I’m going to rewrite the joke from the point of view of the frog. I think it might involve a big Mack truck or something … I’m still working out the details.
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What the Frig Is Going On?
Okay, okay … I admit it. I was (mostly) joking about my iPod trying to send me messages. Sometimes I milk a fleeting thought for twisted comic purposes I myself only dimly understand. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that some weird shit has been happening to me lately.
In the latest installment from the mixed-up files of Ms. Monkey-Gurl, my high school boyfriend, Seth, joined Facebook recently. I wouldn’t call it reconnecting, exactly. We hang out every once in a while, send each other birthday texts and so on, but it had been long enough since we spoke that the friend request seemed kind of random.
Anyway, we’ve been messaging back and forth the last couple of days. He asked if I was still single. I asked if he was still into dudes. (Yeah, we didn’t really have a prayer.) He teased me about being too old for Facebook. I posted a picture of him I knew he hated. We made plans to get together for drinks. It was all very usual, very ordinary.
Then this morning, I got a text from him:
Is it possible I saw you walking down Summer Street yesterday?
Fuck it if he didn’t see me out on my run last night. Of all the gin joints … seriously.
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There Once Was a Man from Nantucket
I know this will come as a huge shock to you … me being such a social, joiner, crowd type and all, but I’m not really a fan of the many beloved St. Patrick’s Day rituals. Waiting outside in the bitter cold to get into a crowded dive bar, wearing “Kiss me, I’m Irish” flair and barfing green beer are strictly amateur night. If St. Paddy’s Day had a slogan, it would be “I’m not an alcoholic, but that won’t stop me from drinking like one.”
When I was out earlier, though, I saw something that made me kinda wish I wasn’t such a scrooge.
Karaoke and limericks? Word. That’s How I McRoll™
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A Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self
Hey, kiddo. Yeah, you. Kiki. It’s me, er, I’m you … in 2008.
What’s that? Uh, no. Not 36. We’re still 35 … for another six months exactly. Yes, we’re still sensitive about our age.
Huh? Oh, right … the Kiki thing. That’s our nom de plume. Yeah, we grow up to be a writer. Well, sort of. Um, it’s a long story.
Wait, hold up. I know you have a million questions. Believe me, I know, but I’ve got some stuff to tell you. Try to pay attention, okay?
You’re 13. Third quarter of eighth grade. Just had your first real kiss … a couple of weeks ago, as a matter of fact. (Yeah, we still remember shit like that.) We remember it all, and 1986 was a decent year. Junior high kinda sucks ass, but eighth grade wasn’t too bad.
You’re a good kid, by and large, so I’m not going to tell you to do things differently. (Okay, a few things maybe.) I’m writing you this letter to prepare you … you’re in for a wild ride over the next couple decades. What I mean is there’s some pain, my dear, the kind that can still take our breath away all these years later. The kind that a few times makes you contemplate taking an early leave. Don’t be scared, though. You’re out of the woods by 20, I’d say.
Fuck, dude. What am I saying? I allude to the fact that once or twice you think about doing yourself in, and that’s not supposed to scare the shit out of you? Riiiight. My point in mentioning all this is, we’re surprisingly strong.
What? Yeah, we still say “dude†in the future.
Listen, will ya?
Your biggest fear is that you’ll go through life alone, right? Well, you spend your 20s figuring out that you can be desperately alone even when you’re with someone else. It’s the worst kind of lonely, really. In your 30s, things start to look up. (A few days after you turn 30, you’re going to remember this and think I’m either lying or don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m not, and I do.)
This all sounds super grim as I read over it, and that wasn’t my intention. Life so far isn’t exclusively bad. Not at all. When we enjoy things, we do it with a zest that, frankly, can be a little scary to those who witness it. And we find a lot to enjoy.
You fall in love … three times so far. Each time is better than the last. You travel to a bunch of cool places. (Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.)
For fuck’s sake! Yes, we still say “awesome†in the future. (“Gag me with a spoon†… not so much, however.)
Anyway, we have a successful career doing stuff that, on most days, we enjoy more than we admit. We’ve also got some really terrific friends … ones who hold our hair back when we puke and don’t ever mention that we got some on the door of her brand new car.
I could go on, but let’s face it, at 13 you have very little faith that we’ll amount to much. Nothing could be further from the truth, Kik. We turn out to be quite a hot shit, in fact. There are a good four or five people who think we’re kinda amazing. Cut us some slack once in a while, okay?
Fine, fine. You want some specifics.
First, NO, we haven’t met/fucked/married Simon LeBon. I don’t know what to tell you here, except a) he doesn’t age well and b) Duran Duran’s music is never as good as it was in 1981–84. (I’m sorry. I know that one hurt.)
Second, YES, sex is all it’s cracked up to be … or, it can be. It can also be boring, robotic and just plain bad. (No, Mom didn’t pay me to write this.) While we’re on the subject, though, I have a few bits of advice that shouldn’t change the course of history too much:
- If you ever get it in your head that sex on a large, concrete drain pipe would be “hot,†dispel that notion immediately. It’s not. It leaves marks.
- Don’t save it for Seth. I know he’s your first love and all, but you end up having sex with him later … it’s, uh, tepid. Give it up to Jon. Sure, he’s a dumb jock, but he puts in the time. Also, you end up having sex with him later too and he’s really rather good … for a teenage boy, that is. (It gets better, don’t worry.)
- Always, always, always use a condom. Well, maybe this is one that’s best learned the hard way. Nevermind.
- If you ever find yourself contemplating a one-night stand with a short dude in a red sweater, don’t do it! I realize there are so many things wrong with the phrase “a one-night stand with a short dude in a red sweater†that it seems not worth mentioning. It is. You don’t want to see what’s under the red sweater. Trust me. There are not enough Mai Tais in the world to erase that mental image.
- Coin the word “manboobs.â€
Well, while we’re on advice, I’ve got a few more for ya:
- If anyone ever offers to “trim†your hair after you’ve both had a few drinks, say no. Again, seems not worth mentioning. It is.
- Remember that girl you teased at school last year? Yes you do. Go apologize to her. Mean it. It still bothers us in 2008, but she’s a lot harder to find now.
- Don’t doubt yourself so much, Kiki. Sure, we fuck up. It happens. Your instincts are good, though. Trust them.
- Black Cleopatra eyeliner doesn’t suit you. (Your friends are liars.)
- Be really, really good to the people you love. They aren’t going to be around forever.
- Be really, really good to the people you don’t love too. One day you’ll learn to appreciate how fucking important a smile from a random stranger can be.
Okay, I’m going to wrap this puppy up before I start unknowingly quoting Kate Bush or some shit.
I know you’ve had to fight for nearly everything, it seems. It’s made you a dogged little shit, and that’s great. It’s also made you willful, which serves us less well than you might imagine. I’m only going to say this once, so listen and listen good. What you need can’t find you unless you stop obsessing over what you want. Have a little patience … in yourself, in others, in life. It’s longer than it seems at 13. The good stuff finds us eventually.
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Happy (Belated) New Year … Again
Since I’m not so happy with the way my traditional, Western New Year’s went this year, I’ve decided to invest heavily in the Chinese New Year. Okay, not so heavily that I am posting this on the actual day, but no matter. As of February 7, 2008, it is officially the Year of the Rat and a fresh start for me.
Who knows? Maybe this will be my year after all, quite literally … see, I was born in the Year of the Rat. Apparently, it’s a cool sign in the Chinese zodiac (as long as you don’t frown upon avarice, cruel mind games or stubborn narcissism). From Wikipedia:
Being the first sign of the Chinese zodiac, Rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, Rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own agendas, which often include money and power. They are energetic and versatile and can usually find their way around obstacles and adapt to various environments easily. A Rat’s natural charm and sharp demeanor make it an appealing friend for almost anyone, but Rats are usually highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends and so often have only a few very close friends whom they trust.
Behind the smiles and charm, Rats can be terribly obstinate and controlling, insisting on having things their way no matter what the cost. These people tend to have immense control of their emotions, which they may use as a tool to manipulate and exploit others, both emotionally and mentally. Rats are masters of mind games and can be very dangerous, calculative and downright cruel if the need arises. Quick-tempered and aggressive, they will not think twice about exacting revenge on those that hurt them in any way. Rats need to learn to relax sometimes, as they can be quite obsessed with detail, intolerant and strict, demanding order, obedience and perfection.
A valuable lesson for Rats is to learn to consider others before themselves, at least sometimes, and to avoid forcing their ideas onto others. Rats are fair in their dealings and expect the same from others in return, and they can be deeply affronted if they feel they have been deceived or that their trust has been abused. Sometimes they set their targets too high, whether in relation to their friends or in their career. But as the years pass, they will become more idealistic and tolerant. If they can develop their sense of self and realize it leaves room for others in their life as well, Rats can find true happiness.
According to tradition, Rats often carry heavy karma and at some point in life may face an identity crisis or some kind of feeling of guilt. Rats are said to often have to work very long and hard for everything they may earn or have in life. However, a Rat born during the day is said to have things a bit easier than those who are born at night. Traditionally, Rats born during the night may face extreme hardships and suffering throughout life. Rats in general should guard themselves against hedonism, as it may lead to self-destruction. Gambling, alcohol and drugs tend to be great temptations to Rat natives.
Traditionally, Rats should avoid Horses, but they can usually find their best friends and love interests in Rabbits, Monkeys, Dragons, and Oxen.
Professions include espionage, psychiatry, psychology, writing, politics, law, engineering, accounting, detective work, acting, and pathology.
Yeah, in case you were wondering, I was born at night. Guh.
And, for the record, I very much prefer if you never, ever, refer to me as one of the “Rat people.” Thanks.
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My New Year's Resolutions
I hope you’re sitting down. This year I’ve got two:
- stop spending the bulk of each work day looking at my long, lustrous hair in my cubicle rear view mirror
- stalk, meet and fuck Kevin Smith … now THAT is a manboobs story worth having
I know, I know. I set goals that are perhaps a bit too lofty. I’ve always been an ambitious and earnest soul. I mean, you don’t get where I am without a rigorous plan for personal development. (Please forward all inquiries about motivational speaking engagements to my agent.)
Thanks to Hammer Uncut for unearthing the Kevin Smith footage.
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See You Next Year
So, it’s looking like the last few weeks of 2007 (and perhaps the first couple of 2008) are going to be beyond insanely busy. Work is crazy, and … [drum roll] … I’m moving. Yes. Again.
Rather than string you along with posts that we both know are beneath you, I’m taking a little hiatus to get my shit sorted. Oh, yeah. And celebrate the baby Jesus and the new year and yada yada.
In the meantime, I’d like to share one thing that I think might just brighten the holidays for you a little and make my absence a smidge easier to bear … Lars and the Real Girl.
Don’t watch the trailer. Just go and catch it before it leaves theaters. I promise, you’ll be glad you did.
Peace out.
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Women Who: Have No Free Time, Are Too Smart for Their Own Good, and Don't Need You to Fix Their Computers
Dear Reader,
I have not forgotten about my beloved blog or, by extension, you. That being said, it is sometimes the unfortunate fate of those who have
a dearth of worthwhile things to doa deep and abiding commitment to the art of blogging for a flurry of worthwhile things to present themselves within a matter of a few short weeks … and for those weeks to fall right before “the holidays.” I am, of course, speaking hypothetically. I know no one personally who either has a dearth of worthwhile things to do or is possessed of a deep and abiding commitment to … well, anything.Hmm. Where was I going with this? Oh, yes. I was going to try to placate you with some high-quality filler content, so you don’t abandon
meCMG Unite. We’ve finally gotten readership and feed subscriptions up to a level that isn’t altogether embarrassing. I’d hate for us to lose ground when I’m still so enamored with you.Anyway, as you know, I have a tendency to become preoccupied with the ins and outs of dating and male–female relations. This is not only because I am (perpetually) single, though there is that. For whatever reason, I just find this topic to be endlessly fascinating, and I can talk about it long after my friends’ eyes have glazed over and tiny threads of spittle have begun to dangle from the corners of their mouths. I read about it a lot too, and I’ve found a couple of things recently that I’ve been wanting to blog properly. For now, links and some snarky comments will simply have to suffice.
All the love I have in my heart,
Ms. Monkey-GurlSmart Women Are Scary
Um, duh. I read somewhere at some time in the not-too-distant past that for every 10 points above the norm a woman’s IQ is, her odds of finding a mate go down 10 percent. Okay, I’m pretty much making up the numbers, but you get the idea. As an astoundingly smart woman, did I find that the teensiest bit depressing, you ask? Nah. By my calculations, it’s a statistical anomaly that I found one mate, so I’m ahead of the game. Or, as a woman said to me not too long after my divorce, “At least you can say you were married once.” I leave it to you, fair reader, to guestimate that woman’s IQ relative to the norm and to determine just *how* flattering my calculations are to my own intelligence.What a Girl’s OS Says about Her
I know, as a feminist, I’m supposed to balk at men’s efforts to fit us into little 2D boxes … you know, the Spice Girl method of understanding women. However, I find attempts of this nature not without humor … and pathos. Typically, they are also terribly revealing of the male psyche. To wit, no mention is made in this … um, article of women who use more than one OS. I mean, sure, like what are the, like, chances of a chick like that?!? A girl who knows her way around a box of wires and circuits? Hehe. Duuuuude. Good one.
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Name's Kirsten. I'm a splitter of hairs, a hillbilly, a rock horns devotee, an ellipses-lovin' fool, and queen of the conceptual jinx. I'm also a geek and the grateful human of littleblackdog. I do this and that and some of the other … up to and including writing this here blog.
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cheese for dinner by kirsten k. hammann is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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