A Pessimist's Take on a Fun Day

If this many people can get together for something as frivolous as winning the world record for the most people wearing fake nose and moustaches, why can't we get people together to protest the wrongs of our society, to stand up for unfortunate people, to support truly meaningful, life changing causes?

Is it just because we feel like we aren't strong enough to make big changes? Or is it just that it's not fun to protest the war in Iraq whereas it is fun to don a disguise and have your picture taken with a thousand other people?

*Also, was it worth $1,632.96 --the total cost of glasses-with-fake-noses purchased for this stunt? Where else could that money have gone?

Sunday, Interrupted

I looked forward to Sunday all week. I had DVDs to watch from Netflix and five books from the library to browse through. I had plenty of things to eat. I planned to lounge all day.

It was beautiful out on Sunday, 88 and sunny. I spent time outside on Saturday so I didn't feel like I was wasting the good weather by staying inside. But, by 4 o'clock, I decided I should go outside for a bit. I walked to get ice cream just down the street, less than half a mile away.

On the way there, I was whistled at by a guy driving by in a car.

On the way home, four guys in a truck with booming bass music called out at me. I was startled by the first guy, but I was able to react more quickly to the second group. Reflexively, I gave them the finger. I got a "What's your problem, bitch?!" in return.

I know it's not that big a deal, but with all the fear mongering about girls getting raped and abducted, it's a real shame that I can't walk down the street for an ice cream cone without feeling afraid. It's not like I was wearing a bikini -- I had on knee-length jean shorts and a tank top that was neither low-cut nor cropped (which I mention to debunk the infuriating "she was asking for it" debate). Groups of guys, even those cruising by in a car, are very intimidating. So it is a big deal.

And no, it's not at all flattering.

The Graduate

I'd never seen this iconic movie until this weekend.

Dustin Hoffman's character reminded me of Holden Caufield. The college-age confused guy who doesn't know what he wants (or maybe it's because I just finished a 20 page paper on J.D. Salinger), but The Graduate made me sad in the same way the main character of Igby Goes Down made me sad. Igby also reminded me of Holden.

Is this confused, belligerent, desperate young man a stock character now?

Before 30

I'm also reading Swim Naked, Defy Gravity and 99 Other Essential Things to Accomplish Before Turning 30 - ridiculous maybe, especially because I won't be 30 for several more years. Also ridiculous because, unknown to me, the author is a frequent contributor to women's magazines like Glamour. Had I know that, I probably wouldn't have bothered requesting it from the library. But they held it for me and I went to get it, so I decided to read it.

I was pleased to find that I have already accomplished many of the tasks the author sets for her panicking readers. In addition to being pleased by this, I was also disappointed to see how trivial some of the ideas were. Things like "find the perfect shade of red lipstick." I guess maybe simple things like that are included to make the lazy or stunted approaching-30 woman feel that she has done something worthwhile, something worth including in a book.

Not everything is frivolous. "Learn to accept compliments," "own your mistakes," "find your religion," "get to know your parents." These are noble quests, but how can you do it with only a one-page accompanying write-up for each action item?

After a second browse through, I realized I wasn't that proud to have already "accomplished" some of the things included: get a massage, read your old diaries, write thank-you notes, sleep in a hammock, write a complaint letter, Google yourself, build a campfire, swim naked, break all of your parents arbitrary rules, own a frivolous pair of undies, have your fortune told, get waxed...down there, eat soy, walk in heels, and give yourself flowers. Done and done. But what does that do for me?

Most of all, this made me want to write my own list of things I'd like to accomplish before turning 30. One of the only things that would make it onto my list that was also in the book is "travel solo." I would like to take a vacation by myself - one that involves a plane. I've driven plenty of places alone, and I've flown alone but there has always been someone waiting to get me when I land. I want to go somewhere unknown and be on my own the whole time. It's an uncomfortable thought, much like going to the movies alone once was. I heard somewhere that you should always do things that make you feel uncomfortable or that scare you.

I'm not sure what else would be on my list of things to accomplish in life. Do you?

A TV Example

I'm reading The Culture of Fear. Among the many good points the author makes, one has stuck out so far. It seems like the most obvious thing but I've never heard anyone say it and it never occurred to me:

So many people blame violence on TV for violence in our society, claiming the violence shown in our favorite shows encourages aggression in us. The author asks, What about all of the good things in TV shows? He says that TV characters are always doing good things for their families, friends and even strangers. So, if TV encourages violence, wouldn't it encourage in us at least an equal amount of kindness?

The Weeping Bankrobber

Ethan: You always done loved you some nostalgia.

Ben: You're right, if I were a superhero my name would be Nostalgia Man. I would weaken my enemies by making them feel sentimental about their past.

Cowabunga!

Now that Superman Returns is out, I need another movie to look forward to. I guess I need look no further.

To this day, I can't have a pencil in my hand without doodling a Turtle.

Take It Off

I'm wearing a dress today that is like an extra-long button-down shirt. It's knee length but it has a collar and buttons all the way down the front. If you unbuttoned all of them, you could take it off like a robe, or, well, like a button-down shirt.

This guy at work (who is less then ten years older than me) just said to me, "I have a question for you and I hope you won't think it's inappropriate. I saw you walk by with that dress, and that dress has buttons all the way to the bottom and so, I wondered like, how do you take that dress off? Do you unbutton it all the way, or do you undo a few and pull it over your head?"

"I unbutton it to like, here," I said, pointing at about bellybutton height, "and then I step out of it." It immediately occurred to me that if I said that line in a sexy voice, slowly and making eye contact the whole time, it would have been like a sex scene in a movie. Instead, I said it matter-of-factly, not making eye contact at all, and poking my soda-bloated belly like I was the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

"You do?" he asked. "So, you don't take it off like it was a robe or anything?"

"Nope. Too lazy to undo all the buttons." Then I started to feel awkward about the conversation so I wanted to change it from the dress to something else so I said, "I do the same with shirts - I just unbutton them far enough to be able to pull them over my head. Then I wash them that way so there are fewer buttons to do up later."

"Really?! Because I unbutton shirts all the way."

I didn't say anything and continued to make my lunch. He then said, "I hope that didn't cross a line, but it just got me to thinking."

"Not at all," I said, thinking, Wow, if he wasn't young and sort of attractive that would so have been crossing a line.

Bathroom Discourse: Just A Drop

Ben: My mother gave me this potion called "Just A Drop." It comes in a little bottle and looks and smells like mouthwash, only more pungent. The idea is that you squirt "just a drop" into the toilet bowl and it freshens your public pooping experience. Apparently there's a whole market of people like us.

Maggie: Does it work? (Oh, and: blog post!)

Ben: Obviously I haven't tried it. Odor is only one of my plethora of issues with public bathrooms. I need more than Just A Drop -- I need a whole survival kit. Aside from deodorizer, the kit would contain sheets of soundproofing I'd use to pad the walls of the stall, as well as one of those Mission Impossible-style masks so I could be completely anonymous entering and exiting. But Just A Drop is a step in the right direction.

The Stifled, Workplace-Controlled Laugh

Hello Heather,

Hehe. Your happy birthday e-mail made me laugh a stifled workplace-controlled laugh. Actually I guess it was more of a smile, but with laughter behind it. Well, I did the best I could. I wouldn't want anyone to use it as an *in* to ask questions, specifically the new copyeditor who sits in the cube opposite me. She hasn't gotten the hang yet of our department's devotion to silence.

For example, this morning when I walked in she asked me how my weekend was. That was okay, as cordiality (unlike genuine interest) is not outside the bounds of our policies. But then she asked a follow-up to my simple and deflective "Good." She asked, "What did you do?"

I could feel the tension springing off my other coworkers at this breach of etiquette. It was like making a holocaust joke at a bar mitzvah. The room would've been filled with stunned silence if silence weren't already the norm. I knew I had to put this down, and quickly. I gave a simple answer, "Family visit--Superman--Dinner," and then went to the bathroom to wipe my back with paper towels.

"I'd Just Like to Meet Him"

Sometimes I wonder if CNN cares at all about its reputation. Today, under the heading "Law," there is a completely frivolous story about a woman who called 911 just to get a good-looking police officer to come back to her house so she could flirt and give him her number. (He had checked in with her earlier, after responding to a legitimate noise complaint she phoned in.)

The alleged point of the story is to make people aware that 911 is not a dating service. What annoys me is that everyone knows what 911 is for (with the exception of a few crazy people who might count this woman among their ranks). The county sheriff is even quoted as saying this is the first time in his experience that 911 has been used for a personal reason like this.

I feel like the story enforces the stereotype of "desperate-unmarried woman." I feel like this story could even be completely fake, or at least, exaggerated considerably. The woman apparently told the dispatcher: "I just thought he was cute. I'm 45 years old and I'd just like to meet him again, but I don't know how to go about doing that without calling 911."

Even if this is 100 percent true and she's among the ranks of desperate single girls in addition to crazys, why is this CNN homepage-worthy news?

Of Breeders, Homos, and the Marriage Debate

So straight people are being harassed in Provincetown. Apparently they're being taunted and called "breeders."

My first instinct is to laugh. Hahaha! The shoe's on the other foot now, eh? There are enough places in the country that a gay person can't go -- it's about time there's one where straights get harrassed just for being straight.

But then I realize that the straight people who would choose to surround themselves with homos for their vacation are probably not the ones who deserve this kind of treatment.

There's one particularly absurd case, though, where a Provincetown woman who signed the same-sex marriage ban petition was called a bigot by some guy... who she then turned around and filed verbal assault charges against. The kicker is that she drives around in a trolley with a sign plastered on it that reads "That 'love thy neighbor' thing? I meant it . . . [signed] God."

So I guess it's loving thy neighbor to publicly declare him a second-class citizen, but calling someone a bigot is crossing a line. Hypocrites.

---------

Joshua had a good idea for solving this whole marriage debate. There should be no marriage at all, he says, except within one's own church. The state should recognize civil unions only, and those civil unions should be available to any two people regardless of gender or relationship. You would be legally bound to any one person of your choice. Obviously in most cases it would be husbands and wives. In other cases, gay or lesbian partners. But if, say, two widowed sisters wanted to combine their finances and ensure that they could make medical decisions for each other as they age, they should be able to get a civil union.

I definitely agree. Why should the government require that we be sleeping with the person we want to take care of us?

I'm so sick of seeing people protesting up at the State House (they were there two days ago for the umpteenth Constitutional Convention). I think civil unions for all is a perfect compromise.

M. Night is 80% Water

Maggie:
I'm really excited to see M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water with Paul Giamatti. It comes out next weekend.

Ben:
I'm curious about Lady in the Water, but I don't have any high hopes for it. I thought Signs and The Village were both ridiculous. I feel like M.N.S. was a one-hit wonder with Sixth Sense.

Maggie:
I didn't really like The Village, but I like Signs, although I feel like it was a little absurd that water ended up being the way to fend off the aliens. And also, I didn't like actually seeing the alien towards the end. I think it was much scarier to see a foot here, a claw-hand there, never the whole creature. Much like it's better to want something than to get it, it's better to let your imagination create the most creepy thing possible than to have the movie show you a stereotypical-looking alien.

Also, I felt like, if the aliens were such good problem-solvers as the characters say they are, wouldn't they have realized that the planet is 80% water -- the thing that kills them?

With The Village, I was more interested in what happened after their ruse was uncovered. If the whole movie was condensed into twenty minutes or so, and then went on from there, I'd have been happier.

Ben:
I only saw Signs and The Village once each so I don't remember a lot of specific things that ruined them for me. I agree that we never should've seen the aliens in Signs. The quick glimpse on that home video was admittedly one of the creepiest/scariest movie-things I've ever seen... but as soon as they came fully into view, it was rather ridiculous, especially when that one was being all swooshy dancey around the Culkin boy. And you're definitely right in pointing out the absurdity of them coming all that way to a planet made up of water... but I didn't even think of that. I was too hung up on the fact that an alien who traveled across the galaxy in a space-ship could then get stuck in a pantry.

Ben Answers your Questions about Superman Returns

Our premiere question comes from Tom, my coauthor on the short-lived Crisis on Infinite Blogs, and it's more of a comment than a question.

[Bryan Singer] did a very good job of showing [Superman] use all his powers -- my favorite was when he took the shuttle off the plane using breath from his nostrils!!

A mistake, Tom, but one that is both endearing and understandable. It seems our imaginations have not caught up to the realism 21st-century special effects are capable of generating, because I'll admit that even I (yes, even I) was momentarily unsure of what was going on. Not a nostril blow, in fact, but heat vision, which we are accustomed to seeing represented by simple red beams. Here the rippling air shooting from his face, which you interpreted as a super-sneeze, was in fact the result of the heat vision super-heating the air, creating an effect much like the distortions you see above hot sidewalks in the summer.

But, indeed, an awesome scene regardless of where Kal-El was shooting from.

Got a question about Superman Returns that doesn't involve why there's so little action and why the movie is falling short of box office expectations? Send it along!

A Lexus Offense

All the designers in my office are up in arms over a daily parking lot offense. It seems there is a Lexus SUV that habitually and intentionally takes up two parking spots in the main lot, right near the door. It pulls into the spots diagonally each morning.

Each day they say to each other, "Did you see the Lexus today?" No one knows who is it, but it really rubs them the wrong way. "Not only does the car use all the gas, it needs to use all the parking spots?" they ask each other.

This morning they spent 15 minutes talking about it. They assume it is not someone who works with our company but with one of the other companies in our office building.

Plans for revenge include egging the car, blocking it in or leaving notes on the windshield. Taking a more illegal approach, the Intern is encouraging them to key the side of the car.

On a day when the back windshield of the Lexus was dusty, someone wrote "Oh, you're SO important" in the filth with their finger.

The saga goes on...

I wonder what kind of person can justify to themselves taking up two spots. Do they really think they are that important? Has their car been dinged one too many times, so they want to protect it as much as possible? (If that was the case, I'd think they would park far in the back away from all other cars.) Does the person sneak in and out of the building to avoid being seen and associated with this egotistical behavior? How did they feel when they saw the dust-written message on their car? Do they even know they are exhibiting inappropriate parking lot etiquette?

Relating Styles

According to Dr. Jan, there are three basic styles for romantic relationships: Traditional, Merged and Roommate.

The Traditional style of relating is often seen in our parents and grandparents - where one person is more dominant than the other in certain areas. For example, he may bring home the bacon while she may run the home.

More rare is the Merged style, where two people’s identities actually form one whole identity rather than two separate individuals. You often see this relationship when people get together when they’re really young, especially in adolescence, when you don’t have your identity fully formed. Or with older couples who’ve been together for 50 to 60 years; they probably started out as Traditional, then merged together.

Many people find they have the Roommate style of relating. In this style, you have two relatively equal individuals. They may live together, be married, they may have sex, they may have children, own a home, but they make decisions unilaterally. They’re not making decisions together in a partnering way. The Roommate style can work when everything is status quo. For many couples, it’s kind of like leading parallel lives; they only come together around certain things. However, when there is a major life change or when one person wants things to be different, it can often be a struggle. So if you have children, there’s a big move, a job change, or a financial change, this style of relating can lead to dissatisfaction or havoc.

Of course, none of these is "better" than any of the others, but Doc Jan has presented an interesting summary here. I think it's pretty accurate, but I feel like most relationships are all of these things in rotation. You may be Roommates when it comes to social lives, Traditional when it comes to apartments or finances, and Merged when it comes to dealing with each of your families. In my experience, I think your style depends on your setting or on what issue you as a couple are dealing with this month.