PostSecret

For those of you not already addicted, PostSecret is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." There's a link to the site at the right.

I check it every Sunday religiously, and periodically through the week to see what people have emailed in. (Someone once emailed about the Riemann hypothesis, which I thought was pretty awesome.) Sometimes, I check the cards just to make sure I didn't send them--there have been a few that are exact little slices from my life.

Like this one:

I Hold Embarassing Opinions About Music

I saw in someone's away message today an observation about the similarity of the songs "Under Pressure" and "Ice, Ice Baby." This motivated me to pull out my Queen and listen to it and dance around like a maniac.

I know I am terminally unhip when it comes to music. I recognize a lot of band names from hanging out with a lot of indie music kids freshman year. But when it comes to street cred--I got nothing. If I see a group live and one of the members is cute and either their lyrics or music hooks me, I'm probably in and I'll stay loyal to the death. (and here I am thinking specifically of my rock star boyfriend Matt Nathanson)

It's kind of how I feel about art. If I can't feel a personal connection almost immediately, I'll write it off as "not for me." But when it is for me, it's for me for a while. That's what happened with ZOX, and with the Good Luck Joes.

I unironically like bands that it was impossible to like without irony when they were new: Boston. Chicago. The exceptionally emo albums of Weezer. 50's and 60's bubblegum pop. The Beach Boys.

And I like music that will never lose its appeal: The Temptations. Frank Sinatra. Simon and Garfunkel. The Beatles, the early stuff.

And then there's just the random stuff. Queen. Cake. (for which I have a passion with depths previously unplumbed) Placebo, which is exactly the same as tons of other whiny emo music that I hate. Spoon, of whose songs I have listened to exactly two, but I have listened to those two a total of eighteen times in the past two weeks. One hit wonders from the 80s.

It goes on and on and on. I listened to a lot of oldies during my formative years, and Boston was the first group I ever saw live. (They are one of my dad's favorite bands. My father is also devoid of irony when it comes to music tastes.)

The point, I suppose, if I even have one, is that I have long since given up on being embarassed about my taste in music. I know it's weird, and not cool, and never going to impress anyone. That's okay. As long as there's music to dance around in my underwear to, I'm okay.

Lola, Lolita

Gina's post made me think about high school this morning as I dashed about frantically braiding hair and brushing teeth. I don't remember, in high school, ever having the feeling that there was something I wasn't getting.

I remember being on the outside and thinking that was the way it was supposed to be.

My high school, tiny and rural as it was, had the same breakdown as all high schools do. The beautiful (always beautiful, even if they aren't) fake blonds. The football jocks. The music nerds. The smart kids. The burnouts. The artists. etc. But the thing about graduating in a class of 92 is not only did you watch most of these kids get crayon tips broken off up their noses in second grade, but the star quarterback is just as likely to be hauling the set around during Joseph as bullying people behind the Ag shed.

I go back home to watch my little brother play basketball and I wonder why I sweated (literally) so much in high school. The girls I wanted to be--not be like, but BE, with their permissive, extravagant parents, perfect skin, cars, and older boyfriends--are no longer so lovely. What's more, when I look at pictures, they never were. And the look of discomfort and unhappiness wears itself into their faces year after year.

I straightened my hair every damn day of high school, but it was still brown. I tried to dress the part, but I was always wrong. I valued the wrong things--good teaching skills instead of permissiveness, and I wanted the student council to actually do things. Luckily I was talented enough to overcome the spite of the band director and managed to carve out a nook for myself called "every single god damn music group we had to offer." As I discovered when I got to college and found people a little more like me, it wasn't the music I was passionate about. I enjoyed it, yeah. But it was a place for me to hide. A place where competancy and not some phastasm of popularity ruled.

And looking back on it, I wonder--does anyone ever feel like high school is the golden years of their life? Was KC, whose breasts I would have killed for my junior year, any happier with her dumb klutz of a boyfriend and her tremendous fear of pregnancy than I was with my insane crush on some redheaded kid who was out of my league? (I later discovered that her horror of getting knocked up was so immense that she would only ever let her boyfriend have anal sex with her. This suddenly made her bad posture make a lot of sense.) Were they scared of losing their place on the top? Were they lonely?

To say "where am I now, and where are they" sounds like asserting my superiority. That's not what I mean. What I want to say is: I am happy, truly happy, with the person I'm becoming. I'm where I want to be. And that makes high school worth it, in a way, because I discovered who I didn't want to be.

Look! it is a poem!

Ladies: How to get a date in Cleveland

First, make it spring. Preferably with lots of flowers around.

Put on a traffic cone orange skirt.
Make sure it covers you to your ankles and flows when you walk.
You are less likely to be hit by traffic this way.

Let your steps be bouncy.
But watch the sidewalks, they are often uneven.

Smile at the construction workers.
Smile at the delivery guys.
Smile at their bosses.
Smile at the girl wearing a shorter skirt than you--
wonder why she hides behind her legs

Remember that life is an infinite wonder.

Lord, Lord

I'm reading John Henry Days right now--speed reading it in fact, since it needs to be read by tomorrow and there's a paper due 10 May on it. But I have a truly fantastic idea for the topic.

The line from the song/legend of John Henry that has always stuck with me is "he died with his hammer in his hand." I remember reading an alternate version where he just up and walks over the mountain and into the sky, but that's not the point.

What I want to write about it--how do our legends die? How do their deaths give them greater life? What about this theme of self-sacrifice that runs throughout every hero's story from Jesus to Spiderman? How do our pop culture heros die? Buddy Holly? Jean-Michel? Kurt Cobain? What is it about death--or Harper Lee type obscurity--that makes someone more heroic? What if John Henry hadn't died? What if he'd gone back to Peggy Ann and she'd made him some bacon and they made love and he got up and went back to work the next day, knowing that the machine was going to win someday? Knowing that he might as well have died, because he was obsolete from the moment the steam engine came? What about death while living?

How do our heros die? Why do we love them for their deaths? Superman's died. Spiderman's died. Who else? Martin Luther King.

Insanity and Delusions

when did happiness become insane
because if this is delusion
I'll stay deluded
I got no evidence
life is easier on those without stars in their eyes.

Happiness needs more ambassadors, I've decided. Especially in this part of town. It seems that every time I pipe up with a "this is wonderful/I've got it figured out/I did really well!/I like this" someone comes back with a "no it's not, it's shitty/you've got it all wrong, here's why/well, I failed/I hate it."

And this disturbs me. It's fine if other people want to be unhappy--that's your decision to make. But don't rain on my parade. It's not some graduate student's job to tell me why my dating/marriage schedule is all off because of some neurological study and then not listen when I tell him why I'm skeptical of such studies and then tell me that all science that isn't physics is bullshit anyway.

Happy is better than sad, right? Or did I miss this memo? When did our culture become so obsessed with "realism"?

On a similar note, I notice that girls who claim to be "anti-drama" (and here I am thinking specifically of some girls I went to high school with and not one college classmate who makes the same claim and actually backs it up, so no offense Lisy) are generally the most dramatic, and the people who say "life's too short to be anything but happy" don't live it out.

I have this personal philosophy based almost exclusively on something my flute teacher told me. We were playing a duet and I was slightly out of tune, but flustered so that I couldn't tell whether I was flat or sharp. "Just change it," she said. "If it sounds worse, do the opposite."

And that's pretty much how I live. If I'm not happy, and I can't figure out why, I'll keep changing things until I am happy. When others complain to me about their low spirits, I will happily listen and suggest changes. But the minute someone is unwilling to make any changes, demonstrating to me a desire to whine rather than be happy, I lose all patience.

Either change things, or stop complaining. If you're not willing to work to be happy, at least don't drag others down with you. I am happy. Nothing you say can change that fact. You will not wake me up. You will not enlighten me. I have woken and enlightened myself.

One more thing I don't understand. If I'm attractive and enjoy being attractive instead of walking around with a massive guilt complex about all the other people who aren't attractive, I'm shallow.

But if I seem to downplay my intelligence, I'm a stupid bitch with no future who's holding back the women's movement. Why the double standard?

No one wants the intelligence playing field leveled. That's just as much a product of random genetics as looks are.

Yes, financial status can buy you education. But you can also purchase nice clothing, hair cuts/products, and and makeup--you'd be surprised what money can do for your appearance.

My point is--they're just facets of the same thing. So why such a fuss over one and not the other? I am happy with who I am. All of me. That includes being found attractive by members of the opposite sex. And the same sex, come to that.

Hey Paula

Thanks for your input. Instead of in the comments section, I decided to pull out your comment and respond to you here.

You sound so very defensive and righteous in this entry. A few points, if I may.

Defensive and righteous wasn't my intention, though it could come across that way. This entry was the product of a night of sudden joy and profound irritation--but more on that later.

1. To my knowledge, you haven't ever spent enough time in another city to even have a fair comparison. How can you claim Cleveland to be the epitome of urban existance? You're living in an ivory tower. You might think you have an accurate view of the city from your nightime wanderings, but you're so deluded. You do not realize the poverty and depression of especially the east side, how hopeless the lives of people who have actually lived in Cleveland their whole lives and can claim their city are.

It's true. I grew up in a rural town (more on that in the next point) but I have never claimed that Cleveland is the epitome of urban existence. In fact, I tried to state the opposite in this entry--that Cleveland is for people who love Cleveland. If you don't love it, you probably shouldn't be here.

I'm not ignorant of the poverty here. There's a lot of it. But every city has some. And focusing entirely on the negatives will never allow this city to grow beyond its bad reputation and become the city it can be. Instead of saying "there's poverty, Cleveland sucks," I see the situation more as "there's poverty, but it can be overcome."

I don't think I'm deluded. I think I'm optimistic and positive. Which can seem deluded at times.

2. Cleveland WAS a steel town. It has not been for several decades. The factories of which you speak are simply the shells of what used to be. The city is in a state of decay. You can drive down any street and see abandoned, boarded-up buildings. Cleveland is no Velveteen Rabbit. Falling apart isn't giving it more value. It's only making it worse for the people still living here.

As previously stated, I grew up in a very rural town. My school district was the largest area-wise in the state--we have a lot of family farms in our area, and my grandfather still owns his. Because of my background, I value any place tied to the land, and any place that doesn't try to gild that over.

Industry and agriculture are a lot alike. Yeah, there are decrepit buildings in my hometown too--or what's more relevant, out in the fields. There's equipment in various stages of disrepair. But it doesn't change the fact that no one's trying to hide that we came from the land, and it's that that I value.

3. Name me the "best restaurants" that line the burning river. Which ones have you eaten at?

Windows on the River and the Cleveland Chop House and Brewery.

4. Now how many of the more glitzy and glamourous ones on West Sixth have you tried?

Brasa and Sushi Rock. I'd like to point out now that I am a college student and my budget does not really allow for a ton of restaurant hopping.

5. What cities in America are "fake"? What is a fake city?

"Fake" cities to me are the cities that people glamorize without reason--much as you argue I am doing to Cleveland. People who think their lives will be better in "new york" or "seattle" or "chicago"; quotation marks because they are all lovely cites and I don't want to talk trash. It's just that people who talk about a city like it will solve all their problems by not-being-Cleveland don't understand that the problem (my sample set is all academics, by the way, so the poverty thing doesn't play into my experience) is them, not Cleveland. It's irritation after yet another one of these conversations (where someone told me that every stop on the new york subway led to a place of delight and wonder) that led me to write this post.

6. I sense some contradiction between this post and one of your earlier, where you placed a great amount of importance on external beauty. I realize you were talking about yourself, but you have surely personified "your" city, have you not? In an earlier post you talked about how you wanted a former lover to remember you only by how attractive you were. You didn't want to be remembered for your wit, sense of humor, ambitions or kindness. Just that you were a hot piece of tail. If Cleveland isn't a place for the shallow people, then how is it a place for you?

Ouch. I would hope that my former significant others remember those things about me as well. But I'd also hope they had the sense not to glamorize me in front of their children as "the one who got away" because they were happy with their current spouse. The people who still know me will know that I am more than the sum of my parts.

I would never categorize myself as a shallow person. You are free to draw your own conclusions, of course. But I don't think Cleveland is utterly devoid of beauty either.

7. I feel like these are all your own jaded opinions on a city you don't even know. You haven't done your research. What evidence do you have that can back up what you say?

I've lived here. I've loved here. I've had the happiest years of my life here and it's because of this city, partly.

8. How exactly does Cleveland say fuck you and good riddance to anyone?

By making them so miserable they have to get out.

9. Graffiti is an act of vandalism, NOT poetry. Is this how you plan to revive your city? By vandalizing it?

I would refer you to the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He started out as a graffiti artist and they are still finding his building works today. Graffiti is all in how you look at it--as an act of malice? Of course it's vandalism. As a work of public art? Public art that no one had to pay for? I'd say it's all in the artist's intent.

10. So you fucking love Cleveland. It doesn't sound like you love the Cleveland I know. It sounds like you love a Cleveland that would be better found in novels or poetry than in the streets I have walked and the ghettos I have seen.

And that's fine. I don't have to love your Cleveland, and you don't have to love mine. In fact, I can't love your Cleveland, because I haven't lived your life. But I do love mine. It belongs in novels and poetry.

Living Up to Expectations, Part Three: Cleveland

This is what I've decided: Cleveland, is for tough love. Cleveland isn't for shallow people. It's for people who look and love and never fucking quit. It's for people who say "hey, this can be great, and I know how to make it so" and for people who say "it's real."

There's glitz and there's glamour here, but it knows its place, and our graffiti is poetry too.

Cleveland is for those who aren't afraid to get lost. Who don't need a city to come to them. Who don't need a legend told by others, but will happily get out and scrawl their own.

We're real, here in Cleveland. We're a steel town. It's because of us that this nation is unified. Some cities like to pretend that this country reached greatness on nightclubs, museums, and restaurants. Cleveland tells it like it is. Our best restaurants are right down on the river, where you can look at the factories out the windows. We are not ashamed of our roots.

Cleveland is for those who don't give a shit what brand name their city wears, what royalty danced in what hotel with whom, or how expensive the champagne, sheets, or shoes are.

Cleveland is for never-give-uppers, the fans who always live for next year, the bearers of eternal hope.

Cleveland is for those who will love it. And for the rest, it says "fuck you." And good riddance.

Get out of our city.

Jazz Type Music

I just got off the phone with my parents. After 45 minutes. Of really excellent conversation.

We talked about my schedule for the fall semester, and why I should take the ochem lab instead of the journalism class. As my dad says "It's not like you can't write." Which is always nice to hear. And it means I'll be able to have a chemistry minor.

We talked about my options for graduate school degree programs to pursue, such as cardiology, neuroscience with a strong emphasis on learning theory, and perhaps ecology. I'm registered for an ecology class in the fall, and we'll see how that goes.

The thing is, I've loved my physics undergraduate training. But I'm tired of it. I'm tired of theory. I'm tired of chasing fucking ivory towers and proving things that only other physicists will care about. I'm ready to get my hands dirty. I'm ready to work in a wet lab. I'm ready to use a microscope again. I'm ready to put my rigorous training to good use and do something that will make the papers, not the textbooks.

And then I'm ready to quit and write about it. Tell everyone all about science. How it works. What makes good science and a trustworthy source. The proper use of skepticism.

I told my parents tonight that I feel like I'm finally at the point where my life makes sense. (at this point, my dad yells "yippee!!" into the phone. I kid not.) I know sort of where I want to be in five years. I know exactly where I want to be for the next year and a half. I've got a plan. I've got a relationship that makes sense. I am not screwing this up now.

Fucking a, I am so in love with everyone and everything and this damn fucking city that I want to stand on a roof and scream. I will conquer the world.

old warmups come back

do re mi fa sol la ti do ti la sol fa mi re do
do mi sol mi do re do ti do
la
fa
sol fa mi

You know, for the longest time I thought this scale system was called soul fish.

If I Weren't a Lady...

I cried in front of one of my professors today. This breaks several of my rules:

1) Never ever show negative emotion. (negative emotion: sadness, anger, irritation, frustration)
2) Never show negative emotion in front of people.
3) Never, under any circumstances, show negative emotion in front of superiors.

However, I think my inadvertent and infuriating display may have gotten me a higher grade in the class than my work would suggest. If I were less earnest and more Becky Sharp (and how grateful am I that I read Gone With the Wind and not Vanity Fair at the formative point in my life) I would be very pleased with my display.

Instead, I'm just pissed, and not even able to appreciate the fact that my appalling ratio of homework assigned to homework completed will probably be forgiven. I'm not even sure why. As it turns out, my professor has been through similar therapy for the same problem I have, and she was incredibly understanding. She probably hasn't lost any respect for me. Just me. I hate not being in control of my emotions.

On a completely different note, here is the post that I wanted to write yesterday but was too busy not-doing my physics homework to write up.

This entire discussion is sparked by the fact that I bought a new sports bra last week. It's orange, and provides the degree of support I was looking for--I wanted those things strapped down good, since sometimes they get in the way when I climb, and I am paranoid about saggage as I age.

But that thing is damn hard to get into, and out of--I almost got stuck the first time I tried to take it off. And I look pretty much like a boy once it's on. Which--it's nice to have that option, but they still look like boobs that have been strapped down as opposed to smaller boobs.

It's funny, because in high school I would have killed for the figure I have today. And today I'd give nearly anything for a guarantee that when I'm 55 or 60 my tits won't be halfway to my knees. Give and take, I suppose.

A final note: I read Gone With the Wind in my grandmother's house in probably about....sixth grade, maybe? plus/minus a year or so, I'd guess. It was quite a revealing read; it was the first book I'd read where the heroine was a complete and total bitch and yet I loved her. Unconsciously, I think I picked up a lot from that book: the proper way to flatter a man, the way to combine flirtation with competency to get through life, and the importance of having a teeny tiny waist. One of the lines has always stuck with me...as the heroine, a woman who only follows the rules of "lady-like behavior" as long as there's something in it for her, says, "oooh, what wouldn't I tell him, if I just weren't a lady!" Or something.

I wish it were acceptable to shout "bitch, get off my boyfriend" at people.

I didn't read Vanity Fair until sophomore year of college, but I immediately recognized that if I'd read it at a more impressionable age, I would have turned out very, very differently. I'd have learned to flirt to manipulate the people I wanted, to be truly completely heartless, and to bank everything on my charm and looks.

This makes me curious--what are other people's formative books? Who do you emulate, consciously or unconsciously?

Two Vast and Trunkless Legs of Stone

This weekend is rich in history for me. Last night the girls and I binged on cookie dough and orange juice. Today? It's earth day.

I've thought about this before, and I still arrive at the same conclusion--the english language needs a new word. Maybe two. One for the otherwise meaningless detrius of relationships past. And one for things which once hurt but no longer do. Santa would be able to give me the precise grammatical tense of a verb which would do that, but no matter.

Earth day at the Shaker Heights Nature Preserve was my first date with L. It was the morning after we'd first hooked up, and we spent it grinning ickily at eachother, watching streams, unable to believe our incredible luck that we'd so suddenly fallen in love. His stepdad's band was playing--J.D. was playing drums, and his mom skipped over to meet me, then back away to hear him as we rambled through the woods. Two years ago.

Cookie dough and orange juice were our traditional after-sex foods, to keep up hydration and blood sugar levels. Two years ago.

And none of it hurts anymore. Not the fact that I fell harder and faster than I ever had before for someone who, really, was almost entirely wrong for me. Not the fact that he left for work in Virginia and met his sixthgrade sweetheart and, while writing me letters about his devotion, was hooking up with her. Not that he moved in with her while she kept leaving on trips to see her exgirlfriends. One word girlfriends. Not that he came back to Cleveland, me still loving him, and him still loving her, staying with her. And not that two years later there might have been a reversal of fortunes and he might have wanted to try again, but none of it hurt anymore and so he couldn't fix it.

Yeah. New words.

That's the Way We Get By

I've just come from my very first poker game. Beer, poker chips, cards...it is very not my scene.

I do not suggest, ladies, that you have your gentleman friend buy you in your first time playing poke. He will remind you that those are his nickels you are betting with your stupid girl judgement, and this is not really conducive to the kind of confidence I gather is needed to play the game.

I won one hand, though, that was cool.

The MCAT is tomorrow. Tonight A and I went shopping for random-ass shit to perk up the girls taking the MCAT tomorrow--we ended up with bubbles, a my little pony, a few flowerpots with seeds, a water game with rings to be caught on spikes, and one of the clappy things that lights up.

Shopping with A is possibly the most hilarious thing ever--I nearly peed myself in the aisle at Target at her fanatic enchantment with the Peeps bean bag. From shopping to eating chocolate and reading Cosmo out loud in the sorority house--there's nothing more female.

However, I ate an entire Chipotle burrito tonight for the first time ever.

Whole, and Nothing But

I hear at times from one of my friends that I am or was at one point "intimidating." This is a statement that has always confused me, more so now than ever.

I used to have this projection. I used to be the crazy sexual one with a bench full of men waiting, so if one dropped me, no big deal. I used to dress scandalously and not care, because it's my body and I'm hot, so what? There were always friends to have fun with and I had my soulmate and confidant J so I didn't need anyone else close so it didn't bother me that I didn't have anyone else close. I knew my talents, wasn't ashamed of them, knew my opinions and wasn't ashamed of them, and more than anything, I had a plan for the future and no one, bar no one, was getting in my fucking way. I was going to be the girl power icon, have my own lab, do kickass research, probably not get married but have lots of deviant sex, etc.

So yeah, I can see a little how that's intimidating. I once inadvertently flashed half the academic quad freshman year. Most of my class has seen my underwear, because I went through a short skirt phase. Thankfully, I mostly grew out of the short skirt/no underwear spell I went through in high school. And I always talked as if everyone should agree with me, and if they didn't share my confidence, they were just dumb.

Now? That statement makes less sense than ever, because there are so few things in my life that do not frighten me. I grew out of my cheating phase; I have one man now. That's all I want, and that's all I need, and it scares me shitless, because if he leaves me I will have no choice but to hurt. Contrary to what yesterday's post may state, I tend to dress a little more conservatively these days, mostly because I'm tired of being a hobag, and I like looking classically and classily sexy instead of like a porn star. I also like it when my mother doesn't roll her eyes at me when I come home and say "don't you have something to put...under....that?" This in particular is scary because when I go to bars, there is always some girl wearing less than me, and she is always pulling the hotshot banker-looking dude in the expensive suit with the Corona, and I wonder if it's because I'm a nerdy science girl or just because I don't know how to flirt in the real world. I've learned the value of real friendship and will never again spend so much of my time with people who simply don't care about me as a person. Of course, now, if my friends get mad or irritated, it matters, and I am on constant lookout for this. I still know my talents. I'm still not ashamed. I've learned that other people have opinions worth respecting. I still talk like everyone should agree with me, but I love listening and understanding where others are coming from.

And I no longer have a plan for the future. Three years of constant classes (yes, summers too) have left me burnt out beyond belief on physics. I'm pumped in a subconscious way for my summer job, which involves research and cardiac tissue and ACTUAL DISCOVERIES TO BE MADE OMG instead of just a bunch of soldering like last summer. Yeah, I want to go to graduate school, but mostly because I'm scared I'll lose momentum if I work after graduation.

And my plan for the future? It doesn't just depend on me anymore, and that's the truth. I have a hardcore plan for my future. It involves a masters' degree, a wedding on a beach, a career that's briefly stopped until the kids are in school, and a house with a big yard. A lot more scary when I've been dating R for five months and don't know (nor do I really want to know) what the future holds for he and I. What if I'm wasting my time? I have this plan! What about graduate school? Fuck!

And I'm getting a B in econ. What the fuck. I should not be getting a B in econ. It is the stupidest waste of time ever, and that's why I'm getting a B in econ. Fuck. I must learn not to blow off classes I feel superior to, which is really ironic seeing as I should be in bio right now.

Anyway.

There's a lot of deep breathing lately, and reassuring myself that things are all going to work out. Probably not exactly the way I've planned them. But I'm dating a man my family and I love, my grades are okay, I'll end up with a great degree from a great school, and this summer will tell me where my research interests lie, and if I should start thinking about not only looking to stay close to my brother's college when I look at grad schools, but if I should think about staying close to someone else as well...

Vampires and Melanoma

[The following is reconstructed almost entirely verbatim from my walk to and from the rock wall this evening]

Me: So science? Has vindicated my mother...well, actually my mother and I. Apparently, tanning beds give you skin cancer.

Companion, sarcastically: No way. Really. Who knew??

Me: So all this time when I've been saying "it's fine, I like being pale, I'll rock the vampire look, I'll be thirty-five and unwrinkled and you'll have cancer!" I was right. How'bout that. You know who else I like? Scarlett Johannsen. She's nicely pale, and she's got really fantastic breasts. (See here for pictures.)

Companion: [standard sleepy mumble about being sleepy]

Me: She's really hot, and seems really down to earth, and really hot.

[later]

Me, upon discovering that I have sunburnt the top half of my breasts: Why do I not get that it is not okay to peer down my own shirt in public? I mean, I have to consciously remind myself that when I get warm in class it is not okay to remove clothing until I am comfortable. How did my parents manage to raise someone with no concept of social norms at all? [I pull down my tank top to further inspect the damage, and my boobs] Gah! There I go again! What is wrong with me?

Companion: Why aren't there more girls like you?

Me: I should learn to stop being accidentally blatently provocative.

Companion, mocking me by peering down his pants: Yes, I'm sunburnt too.

Me: One, you were wearing a shirt all day today. Two, these [hand to breasts] are not genitalia. Oh my god, I've just walked twenty feet holding my breasts in my hand.

Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa Pops

Leaving a comment on Santa's blog made me remember something.

I am a really horrific speller.

What makes this more embarassing is that I actually won the sixth grade spelling bee, after an ignominous defeat my fifth grade year by a redheaded kid who could spell "congregation" when I couldn't spell "utensil"--I think.

That picture was in the paper--me as runner-up, him as champion, his name terribly misprinted.

Six years later, we started dating.

I hope someday he shows his kids that picture and says "Six years later, she was my girlfriend, and what a hottie, too." He'll be married to someone else by then, so it'll be okay for the kids to know he pulled some hot chicks in college.

Improving my spelling skills is not high on the list. I figure anything truly important is done with spell check these days and if I'm handwriting something, it's probably urgent enough to excuse any misspellings.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Today's Human Learning and the Brain class should be interesting. I have decided that the author of our new book is a complete jerkface with a huge ego who spends most of his time talking out of his ass. Apparently I am interesting in classes where I hate the people we have to read. I shall try not to get too angry.

An example of an irritating incident in said book: He states that when you remember a song you remember only the intervals and cannot tell if it is replayed for you in a different key. However, I remember reading an article years ago that says that not only do people's speech patterns vary around a certain set pitch, but when asked to sing a song they have heard, they usually start very close to the pitch that the song starts on, indicating that people DO remember pitches as well as intervals. Since the author cites no sources other than his own induction, I call bullshit and get pissed. I did not pay $16 for this book to be fed a bunch of incorrect speculation.

On a completely unrelated subject, I got new glasses. They are terrifyingly trendy, and as such, have weird rounded edges that mess with my perspective and depth perception, leading me to feel slightly high while wearing them. I am not sure how I feel about this.

It seems as though my ground state has expanded to include a great deal of senseless anger. My apologies to everyone I offend these days--something about spring pisses me off lately, I guess.

On Being a Fat White Guy

On my way back into Cleveland from Easter dinner, my parents' minivan stopped at a red light on Carnegie. Behind us we could hear a motorcycle being revved, and giggling, but could not see the rider. At one point, he yelled: "Look Ma, no hands!"

He eventually pulled ahead of us, oozing his utter delight at being On A Motorcycle, the symbol of male independence and badassery the world over. He was fat, blond, balding and wearing a beret to cover it, and his jeans and jacket labeled him as suburban.

I made a few assumptions about his personality, relationships, earning level, and job satisfaction, and felt simultaneously saddened and irritated--the motorcycle was not going to break any spiral of suburbanism he might have been trying to break out of, was not going to change his personality from that of an investment banker, was not going to attract some kinky chick with fake tits. He was the kind of person, I decided, who would say my bike with special emphasis, begging people to ask him about it so that he could inflate his experiences and plans. In a few months, I surmised, the bike would be placed in the corner of his garage, his SUV would come out for everyday use, and he would probably tell himself he was "too busy" to ride it when in fact he just didn't actually like it that much. I know people for whom Harley-Davidson is something approaching a religion, and though I disagree with them, I felt insulted on their behalf--how dare some, some poser besmirch their passion?

But how else do you learn? What other way do you find your true passion, than trying on a bunch for size and rejecting them?

It occurs to me that people who often give others the benefit of the doubt do not make good writers. Being strongly opinionated is far more interesting. So he's just a fat white guy, laughable, searching for his next purchase to make him feel less like the man he was destined to be but never wanted to be, and he's sad and won't admit it and that's the end.

With Gritted Teeth

I need a break from all that is female.

That, however, is not today's topic. Today's topic centers around two things nominally female; namely, quotes from a) a romantic comedy and b) Sex and the City.

The romantic comedy is A Philadelphia Story, recently seen produced with great effect by the Eldred Theater.

"She's a girl who is generous to a fault...except to other people's faults."

And from Sex and the City:

"The first sign of any little weakness or flaw and you just--write people off! My God, you are so judgemental!"

A fight with a friend has led me to consider exactly how much these two statements apply to me. I am judgemental, especially of people who are not as strong as me. But I take these relative assessments of strength from vastly differing points, always to make myself appear in the best light.

Have I not stomped around campus pissed off about a man?
I'd be lying if I said I'd never absorbed myself in a relationship to the tune of losing my own identity.
Dramatic and needy are words that still describe me at times.

And who the fuck am I to write people off for not having gone through my particular history? I should be thanking the heavens that my friends have not all been raped. That they have known good, loving, healthy friendships and relationships in their lives. That they perhaps did not fight with their parents for twenty straight years. That they have not lost one love after another to circumstances and better judgement.

It's so easy to say "well, I wouldn't handle it that way." But what horrible things have I done to people who didn't deserve it? How dare I look through my complacent lens and say that if R and I break up, I won't dissolve into a puddle of tears for six months, as I recovered from so recently?

The thing is, right now I am really angry with myself. I don't know how to turn this anger into lasting change. Right now I do feel as though I am more mature than some of my friends, and it bothers me a lot, because I usually find that during times I think things like that I am more of a raging egomaniac than usual.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the solution that seems most appealing--running away and avoiding everyone until I can be less irritable--will probably not work out so hot.

On a semi-unrelated topic, this weekend was Easter, which meant getting together with an entirely new side of the family as my uncle has only recently married. Fun fact: my newly-minted aunt cannot hold her wine, and is prone to voicing unfortunate opinions at table when inebriated. Example: when told of R's summer plans, she slaps the table, laughs loudly, and says "oh god, what a bogus job!"

My lengthy explanation of why it is not, in fact, a bogus job has been withheld. The fact of the matter is, if anyone else in the entire world told me they wanted to do for a living what R does, I'd think they were copping out. For a while I thought he was too.

I suppose this more than anything ties in with Santa's being an English major. Leadership--well, it's full of buzzwords, and a lot of times it seems like people aren't actually saying anything. Talk of "visions" and "mission statements" and whatnot puts me to sleep right away, and if we offered a Leadership major, I'd probably laugh at them.

But then I realize: R? He really does love it. Yes, it's kind of a bullshit management position, but just like the fraternity stuff...he buys it. Believes it. And brings it home with such a force that you can't help but believe him. Just like Santa and English. Just like me and physics. And I can't ridicule him for believing in it just as I can't ridicule myself for wanting someone to figure out this damn crazy universe of ours.

Sunshine Superman

R is really, really into Superman. While I grew up with a general cultural sensitivity about the myth, it wasn't until he and I started dating that I really began to do research and be interested.

Comic books are a strange medium.

Introspection

All my life, I have been a secret-keeper. Big, small, hideous or innocuous, I always feel better when there's something hidden from everyone in my life--parents, friends, boyfriend, etc. This attribute of mine and the actions I take to maintain it (lying, for example) drives my mother absolutely up the wall.

Now, this isn't absolute by any means. I think there is maybe one thing that I've done in my life that I haven't told anyone about, at one point or another, (and no, I'm not thinking of any specific thing) but I do tend to keep my areas of knowledge segregated pretty heavily.

Friends get a lot of the nitty-gritty day to day stuff, and most of the sex talk. They get everyday drama (did she really have Botox?) and plans.

Superclose friends (this usually includes people I'm dating) get the past in small, carefully controlled doses, the present, and the worries about the future. And the sex talk.

Parents get the big events, the worries about the future, and a lot of the worries about the present--I'll dump on them about Friend X's behavior, and my dad will say "but you know, it's--" and then we'll say in unison "not your/my problem." It's nice to have outgrown the dramatic stage where everyone's problems but my own are mine.

This leaves giant stretches of the past and tiny petty things as my exclusive domain. I keep these things very carefully to myself. Why? My mom's been asking that question for years, and only now have I been able to come up with something approximating an answer.

It's because I fear that someone will attack my motivations, actions, or life, and I will have nothing to counter with. If I have a secret, then that's my weapon. I can say "well, you don't understand this about me" and suddenly everything is okay.

Now, I'm not sure how my affinity for well-written chick lit is ever going to help me in an argument, but that's the best impetus I can come up with for my pleasure in keeping secrets.

Settings

I have discovered that my ability to piss people off has not diminished. This, I think, is not necessarily a bad thing. Anger is a very valid emotion and can be useful at times.

However, the people I am pissing off are choosing not to express their anger in a useful form. Henceforth, anonymous comments will not be available. Get an identity to call me a "superficial bitch."

My apologies to the one anonymous commenter who left a civil disagreeing opinion. Your comments I left because I did enjoy the dialogue we had going.

When I'm Sixty-Four

I have always held the belief that on days like today, it should be illegal to be inside. Stores should be open for three or four hours, and I suppose we still need the hospitals, but everything else should shut down so that everyone can be outside.

If I am ever a professor, my syllabus will say, up front: "Class is subject to weather. If the professor does not feel like being indoors, she will assume that the class shares her feeling and will cancel it."

There are few things that bring me more pleasure than walking along, dancing a little bit to my music, bare skin in the sun, happy toes freed at last from their winter confinement. The only thing that makes it better is not walking home to write a paper and study econ. Which is what I should be doing now.

I think I will blitz through the paper as quickly as possible, make myself some lunch, and head back to campus to study in the sun on the quad.

There's one day each year when our undergrad population tips--one day, not necessarily brighter or warmer than the rest, when all the girls realize hey, it's spring, and ditch their long coats and scarves; when all the boys realize hey, it's spring, and bring out the frisbees and skateboards, and the quad is full of life and happiness.

Before then, I walk down the sidewalk and wonder what the hell is going through that girl's head in her wool coat and scarf in the fifty degree sunshine. People are still bundled up and in their "look out for ice on the sidewalk" mode, which I must agree is valid as in Little Italy 3 inches is pretty standard in the winter.

But then....we tip, and people start smiling. Bright colors come out. Some kid walked back from an early class this morning with a floral shirt unbuttoned to his bare chest, and I rolled my eyes as I passed.

I Miss You; I Guess That I Should

Today on my walk home I thought about all the things one forgets during a Cleveland winter.

The way the sun feels on bare arms. That people occasionally wear bright colors. How green the grass is, so green, and all the connotations that come with that, like looking down the history of all hope.

That girls can wear skirts for aesthetic and not religious reasons. Good god. I don't think there's any feeling quite as sexy in the entire world as feeling the wind press a flowy skirt against my shins and thighs, knowing that that vague outline is more revealing than tramping around with no pants on.

I've been making an effort lately to start dressing in an older manner. I'm not sure if this comes from lack of income (it takes a lot of money to be trendy, you know) or if I'm just tired of my ho-bag nymphomaniac image and looking to start over. I feel older, if that makes any sense--I feel as though I'm finally growing up, that I might not be internally stuck at seventeen forever.

It strikes me once more, as it always does when I have a middling good idea for a book, that I have no idea how this "writing" thing is actually done. Do I make a laundry list of things I like in other works and see if any of those fit? Do I just start writing and chuck things in as I go? Do I start with the end in mind? How do I keep my mind on task long enough to actually get anything done? Is there any way to save a good idea implemented poorly?

The Sound of Silence

Forbidden in Santa's truck, making anything, everything worthy enough, removing the stigma of being uncomfortable with it

Thick and tense in the test room, the air full of numbers, equations, and principles

Neutral, withholding, as blood seeps through a mattress and a girl writhes above, trying to get free

Simon and Garfunkel on my headphones as I grin at the curly brown-haired girl tripping along the sidewalk, hand firmly in her daddy's, the other one holding a book in front of her face

And that's my life, right there, in four lines. Talking, friends, academics, struggling with the past, smiling at my future.

A PostSecret card really resonated with me a few weeks ago. I rewrote it for myself, but the sentiment remains the same:

Despite everything--the rape, the losing of friends, the breakups, the bitterness, the bad things I've done to people, the weight problems, the insecurity, the being away from J--I am so happy with the person I'm becoming.

And I can't fucking wait to see what comes next.

American Letters Unsent

Nate, old buddy:

Why so gloomy? You might want to get out of that
custom-house more often. You do imagine such
moments of strange and weird beauty there.
What wouldn't I give to live in your world, with signifiers
painted across the skies, where even a letter is never explained.

Your Mischievious Sprite

Dear Charlie,

Why for the love of God yellow?
Did you ever get out?

Conspiritorally,
Violet

Edgar darling,

Was it rabies? Or drink? Or syphillis?
Inquiring minds want to know. Still.
Hope you enjoy the cognac.

Incorruptably yours,
Julietta Ermengarde Nicolette of
Nice and Ypres.

Dear Ayn,

You are fucking batshit crazy.
Go take an economics class.

from the ICU after a severe beating by a single idea--
batteredly yours,
Me (I learned that much.)

Dear Mark (or is it Sam these days?), Chuck, Dave E, and Mark Z. Danny,

How's that working out for you, being clever?

Superficially yours,
The World

Dear Mr. Impaler--

Gee, can you always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style?
Do you look at what the critics say and just laugh and laugh
and say "you know, in the end, it's just a book?"
You like watching us struggle, don't you.

Yours at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight,
Dolly Lo

Oh My Dear Walt:

If there is a phrase in all of writing more apt than your
"it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven"
I never want to read it.

I want to die with that as my peak of meaning.

Clear skies,
your daughter.

Dear Sylvia, Anne, Ernie, and others,

I hope it helped.

Can't Take My Eyes Off of You

Last night I had a chat with the boyfriend about this Other Woman character. There's been a bit of cell-phone juggling lately, and somehow I ended up with a text message from her to him, saying just that she'd gone out to dinner, followed by "lol" which, like all internet abbreviations, I detest, and like some internet abbreviations, I never use. It was a pretty harmless message, and since I know they're friends, I passed it along to him.

Apparently it was a bigger deal to her than to either he or I; she made a big deal out of it over IM, at which point I came over and he got away from the computer, so she called him, and he hung up on her. This, in and of itself is a little weird, because the boyfriend (this is getting awkward, let's call him R) is one of the least angry/dramatic people I know.

His comment upon seeing my puzzled face was "I just didn't want to deal with it right now." This is as close to an uncharitable remark I have ever heard him make. R is the kind of person who will say things like "Dude is really getting on my nerves, we both need to get more sleep/our leadership styles clash/etc." There's a hierarchy of respect with him, obviously, but I have never known him to judge someone prematurely or let negativity affect him without a solid reason.

In the two and a half years I've known him and the nearly six months we've dated, I have never known him to take out a bad mood on anyone else. He has never snapped at me, or at anyone in my presence. He is always, even when angry, calm. The maddest I've ever seen him was on my couch over Christmas break, and he spoke in a completely reasonable tone of voice saying completely reasonable things.

Taking this trend of unbelievability one step further, I have a friend, male, two years younger than I, called J. I've known this kid since he was in eighth grade, and not only have I never heard a single unkind word out of his mouth, in the seven or eight years we've been friends, I have never heard him say he's down. He's never had a bad mood. Never been depressed, never been anything other than positive and enthusiastic.

Now, granted, J's family's has money (the J is from a very prestigious educational environment) and he and his twin sister have had pretty happy, sheltered lives, made easier by their personalities, which make everyone love them instantly. So it's not like he's had to overcome a lot.

Still. That kind of positivity. That kind of attitude. That kind of buying into things, what Nick Hornby would call singing with your eyes closed. The knowing devotion R gives to his fraternity--he buys all this love-truth-honor, believes it, lives his life by it--the way J has a completely unironic love for musical theater, the time he talked me into his backseat so that he could put something on and sing for me as we looked out the moonroof at the stars...people like this, and I keep finding more of them, make me realize that my cynicism is as unappealing as apathy.

I envy what they have. But in a way, I'm getting it.

The Other Woman, I know, at some point, told R she was in love with him. (I think he responded by shrugging. That's the way it plays out in my head) This is not a phrase that he and I have exchanged.

You have to understand, R and I do not have a mushy sort of relationship. We have good sex, we have interesting conversations, we like most of the same people, and our terms of endearment run more to the "buttface" rather than "sugarbean" end of the spectrum. R is not a mushy person. I have been in the past, but I much prefer bickering. There are only so many times you can hear proclamations of undying love before it gets old.

Point is, this statement of the Other Woman's came up in conversation last night, and I had something to say about it--primarily, that I was concerned that maybe he, in a moment of stupidity, would think that because I keep my feelings to myself that I don't care for him. He looked up at me and said "No, I know." Thence followed a conversation about how we both liked that we could just have a relationship instead of talking about it all the time.

This, I think, is my favorite thing about him. I trust him. I trust that he means his actions, and that he is honest enough to leave me if he doesn't want to be with me. It's a trust that's hard to gain in any circumstances, and one that I value when I find it.

The Heat is On

I've noticed this trend where I title these posts whatever random phrase is in my head, most of the time, and then continue to write completely independently of the title. I don't really think this bothers me, and if it bothers any of you, tough.

It's 11:20 on a Saturday night, and I'm in. In at my computer, actually, having a converation with an ex teaching assistant about the declining aesthetic value of Britney Spears's Breasts, and who best to replace them. I'm a big fan of Autumn Reeser, personally, but that might be just because I watch bad television.

While here might be a good place for a rant about what I do and do not find attractive in a woman (pretty face, hard abs; jiggliness in general) I'd like instead to talk about a particular type of woman: the Other Woman.

I've been her. A couple of times, actually, and while it was fun and dangerous and forbidden and all those other cliches, I feel like I've grown out of that phase now.

What got me into it was the overwhelming need to feel so needed that nothing else mattered, including current relationships. As soon as that need progressed, however, into an actual, real live relationship, I got bored and found something else exciting and forbidden to do.

What got me out of it was...I don't know, really. Growing up. Realizing that if I keep throwing away good men who care for me because some other guy wants to put his penis in me that I'm going to end up alone, diseased, and with one hell of a complex. And have hurt a lot of people, both the girlfriends and the boys, in the process.

And now I'm in the opposite position. No, my boyfriend isn't cheating on me. But there's another girl after him, and has been for the duration of our relationship. It's an odd feeling, really.

Karma's a strange thing. I got cheated on before I ever cheated. I didn't get caught, then I did, helping someone else cheat, then I didn't...and now here we are, thinking about catching someone else.

On a completely unrelated side note: I don't drink Everclear. Here's why: Everclear is 95% pure alcohol. 95% pure ethanol is also used as an industrial cleaner, especially for vacuum tubing. I spilled some on my foot once. It took the nail polish off my toes.

Sweet Home Adelbert

The really nice thing about insomnia is that the tired-but-not-sleepy feeling persists throughout the day, so I have had no more trouble than usual staying awake and feeling motivated. It also gave the day a pleasant dream-like cast, which went very well with the artsy weather today. It's exactly like some director would imagine April in Cleveland to be--wet, wormy, and mild.

I am waiting anxiously by the phone for J to call. This woman is my best friend in the entire world--she's the kind of person I like to introduce to strangers as either my sister or my girlfriend, and I'm not sure which is more appropriate. She's in town for a French thingy-do, and she and her co-competitor and I are going out for dinner. As soon as she calls.

J and I, well, there just aren't enough words to tell the story. I am never quite sure if we are the exact same person, or so far opposite each other that we're actually the same--and I'm actually pretty sure that that phrase is not mine, but I like it. This is the woman who's held my hand through more stupidity than could ever be measured, yelled at me when I needed yelling at, kissed me when I needed loving, woke me up at 7 am crying in a phone booth in France, who taught me to do cartwheels and distractedly dance through life.

We've pulled ourselves through the gauntlet of human emotion over the past few years: indifference, irritation, shy liking, respect, love, infatuation, obsession, and have come out on the other side with a bond that's not quite definable but is stronger than any bond save that of family I've ever known.

We don't talk as often now (she's planning a wedding) as we used to, and we don't see as much of each other either, and that's just fine. She and I will endure.

No, You Can't Die From Insomnia

This is not today's official post. This is a product of my profound frustration with lying in bed for hours and nothing happening because I do not wish to dream of being raped by a younger, chubbier Richard Gere again. (last night. true story. at least the dreaming part)

I'm just trying to write a little bit to get my head out of the way so maybe I can get some sleep, but I find I have nothing to say. Unusual for me.

Technical Difficulties

Sorry guys for the triple post. The site was having some trouble today and I did not really mean to be that emphatic.

See you tomorrow!

Change of Plans

I intended to write about Cleveland Complainers today, and the flaws in their arguments. It is kind of a pissy post, but as I was making lunch for myself I found myself thinking about another blog I read today.

The content of this woman's post went like this: WAAAAAAH so TV, last night, they hooked up this cute girl with this schlub and it's SO SEXIST and GOD all ugly women should just go off in the desert and die, shouldn't they, because women are only judged by their attractiveness, ever ever ever ever GOD so unfair. Men are pigs, even the ugly ones think they deserve supermodels, and never ever would they date someone who has "inner beauty" but is fat or ugly.

A bit of background about this woman: She is not attractive. She is overweight. She is very active in the Harry Potter fandom. She is a pretty decent writer except all her stories kind of read the same way.

So this got me thinking: Human beings are innately wired to prefer pretty things. So her point is already completely invalid--people like hot people. Hot people have an easier time of it. They're more fun to look at. That's the way life is.

Secondly, I find myself pretty attractive. I work out on a regular basis, I dress nicely, and I put time and effort into my appearance. I don't want to date a guy who doesn't give a shit what I look like. I work damn hard to look like this. Appreciate it.

We live in a capitalist society. We reward effort. I have put effort into my looks, and I am reaping the rewards. To ask that those rewards be taken from me and given to someone who can't be bothered to go to the gym because she's got "inner beauty"--that's like levying a tax on the rich to finance welfare...oh wait.

It's not like I rely on looks alone. If pressed, I'd probably say I have "inner beauty." I read a lot and hold interesting opinions on what I read. I support my friends. I love my family. I carry on interesting and deep conversations. On the inside, I am just as worthy as anyone else.

Would I want to date a man who was all into this "inner beauty" stuff? Upon further thought, I don't think so. Yes, it's nice that men can realize there's a brain above these boobs. I expect that. But to date a man who didn't care what I looked like--to gain weight unexpectedly, and not be encouraged to take it off, to stop wearing makeup and have it go unnoticed--to date a man who was a feminist, and therefore a weenie who would be completely comfortable staying at home with the kids while I made all the money: that is unthinkable.

The older I get, the more I realize my mother didn't raise any idiots. She made damn sure I was encouraged in my academic pursuits; I can never remember in my entire life being told "no" in a bookstore. But she also made sure that I had my bases covered: I can cook. I can clean. I can sew, and I can be pretty. She gave me the set of skills I will need to attract the kind of man I want--the kind of man who will say "Yes dear, you can stay home with the kids until kindergarten, that's fine financially...I'm starving, what's for dinner?...I love you...I support your career, and I think your work is great...I love my career too..."--the kind of man, in short, that I would be proud to marry and who would be happy to have a wife who is intelligent, domestic, feminine, and competant.

I don't want to be worshipped because I've overcome the huge-ass obstacle of Having a Uterus. I want recognition for my talents, all of them, and some of my biggest ones are in the kitchen. No one can ever make me ashamed of that.

Do You Wanna Dance, Under the Moonlight?

There's something so innocent and wonderful about the Beach Boys. I don't care that they couldn't surf and that their harmonies are weak in places. I love the era before pop music became synthetic and hinting at sexuality was edgy, and when they didn't rerecord to get rid of the lyrics mistakes.

My post from earlier this morning has had me thinking all day about gender and whatnot. Most of the time, I don't feel like a girl. (woman, chick, dame, insert your gender signifier of choice here) I do most of the time feel like I have tits, which you'd think would tie in to the gender question pretty closely, but actually no.

Now I'm not suggesting that I have Issues, that perhaps I am some sort of profoundly confused person and might wish to consider surgery. I'm just remarking on the diminished role this idea of gender plays in my life.

Except when I realize that it's been sneaking around under my feet and quietly shaping my opinions on a lot of things. Like my bookshelf, which contains the following female authors: Jane Austen, (so maybe I am a girl after all, except I only like P&P and Persuasion, I pretty much hate everything else) Kate Chopin, (see below) Helen Fielding, (oops, but I did like Bridget Jones's Diary in that harmless fluffy sort of way plus I'm a sucker for british slang) Ayn Rand, (who is crazy and this cannot be said enough but has two good ideas: know your worth, and keep your identity in relationships) and J.K. Rowling. Five. Oh, and I suppose Elizabeth Barrett Browning, so six.

Six women authors. And you know what? I never, ever go to the bookstore and say "oh, I'd like to read some more female authors." I don't feel that this is a hole in my literature at all. If there are worthy books to be read, I will read them without much concern for the author. If I find an author I like, I will buy his/her books until s/he bores me, as in the case of Auturo Perez Reverte, who drew me in in a big way with The Club Dumas which was brilliant, but apparently a fluke. Or maybe he sold his soul to the devil for it--it'd be thematically appropriate.

I digress. I do that a lot. Anyway, the point is that I tend to ignore the author of a book unless I am specifically looking for more, and this leads me to the conclusion that I do not much like female authors. This means that the writing styles I absorb are predominately male, and this isn't an isolated phenomenon.

Most of my professors, mentors, and friends are male. I have a core group of maybe five very close girlfriends, but other than them the people I am surrounded with are male. I've been painstakingly taught how to think like a man--to great effect, since that's what one has to do in a physics setting. I like male language, with its precision and effectiveness, I like talking directly to a point, and look! I said "tits" just up a few lines.

Use of possibly offensive words aside, I feel like I write like a girl, all tangents and circles, not that Hugo didn't write like that but that's not really the point. Part of the point of writing every day here is to discover who I am as a writer--what my sentences and lines sound, look, and feel like. Not Whitman's. Not Heaney's. Not Steinbeck's. Just me.

I'll probably always have an inferiority complex when it comes to writing because I am, after all, still a girl, tits and all. But I'll feel better knowing it's my style, not a cheap knockoff of someone else's. Finding something to say in that style is another matter entirely.

Insomnia and High Fidelity

It's very late for me, but my body has decided that rather than sleep it'd like to stay up and read Nick Hornby and turn completely into a man. So now, of course, I will write like Nick Hornby for the next couple of weeks, because my writing personality is still in junior high, hanging on the fringes of the cool crowd, trying so desperately to fit in.

Does this happen to others? I imagine that it does not happen to those I consider better writers (nearly everyone?) but I know on some level of course it does. Maybe the problem is that in one night my reading material may zoom from Milton to, well, Hornby, and so my poor writer inside develops quite a split personality.

Or maybe it's that when it comes to writing I have always been more a fan of the trappings of the thing rather than the thing itself. When I was younger I spent hours trying to decide on a pen name only to abandon all my stories (endless iterations of the same ill-conceived fairy tale) after five paragraphs or so. I would invent characters and then have no idea what to do with them. I can't decide if I want to be Stephenson with his nerdly asides and his history and his sometimes irritating overwriting and his truly horrific sex scenes, or Milton, all snobbish and classical, or Bradbury with his elegant visual prose or Whitman with his unabashed sentences.

Fuck it. I am just like every other self-obsessed member of my generation. I am the successor of Dave Eggers, who is clever and really, really wants you the reader to know it, but is also kind of physically attractive. And to top it all off, my own innate sexism is hitting hard, because other than Emily Bronte and J.K Rowling, my shelf doesn't hold a lot of female authors. I think Kate Chopin should have stuck to short stories and written fewer of them, Emily Dickenson is too dense, Sylvia Plath wrote great poetry but had no clue about the line between "biography" and "novel" and Virginia Woolf is just weird.

I don't like female singing voices. Apparently I don't like female writers. I throw like a girl, I punch like a girl, I run like a girl. I am in a male-dominated field pursuing a male-dominated profession, and most of my daydreams are of kitchens with granite countertops and red mixers.

I write like a....person?

For Robs

you and me--
we go like

the teasing screaming night
and the sweet sleepy morning.

no need for words.

Oh, Be Forgiving, Let's Keep Living in the Past

Santa's latest post makes me think of my own most attractive person I'll ever date, and the particular set of neuroses that went with it. There's a long story to it but it would be entirely too self-involved even for me. Suffice it to say that we were young, in love past the limits of our years, and he was far, far kinder to me than I deserved.

It seems as though lately the past has had less of a hold on me than in previous months. Perhaps it's because I've been obessessed with my future, with my career and family, neither of which I have yet but both of which are in the cards.

I had a very interesting conversation with my parents last night. I told them about the neuroscientist who came in from San Francisco to talk to us on Friday. Apparently UCSF has a really great neuroscience program. I happened to drop this into the conversation since they like to hear about things related to me possibly getting a job at some point, and my mom pulls this line: "You need to think about your life when you think about graduate school instead of just prestige." Which I think is code for "please do not forget in your pursuit of a doctorate that you should get married and have kids."

I have mixed feelings about this. While it's nice to know they're not pushing me for more schooling, it's also a little strange feeling like they're not supportive of higher higher education. And yes, a master's is probably overkill--I could, in theory, get a job with just my bachelor's. And if I choose prestige over my life, they're not going to be happy. They don't want me on the other side of the country. They don't really want me on the other other side of the country for that matter.

Partially, I would like to stay in Cleveland because I love Cleveland and I'm coming back here anyway after graduate school. I'd like to stay in Cleveland to be close to my brother as he embarks upon his college basketball career. I'd like to stay in Cleveland because here I have a network, and if I want to do research at the Clinic why would I go away from the Clinic and all the people who will pull strings for me to get in?

Not to mention this whole idea of marriage is sounding more appealing. I'm not ready for it yet. But I'm ready to admit it's in the cards for someday. That's a big enough step for now.

In A Box

There's this girl at the rock wall. She has her own shoes and harnass, probably a $200 outlay. She comes, always, with the same guy, who I think is her boyfriend. (though going to the rock wall together is no indication of a relationship outside the rock wall, otherwise I'm dating four or five men) He has his own harnass, but he rents shoes.

The thing that makes me notice this is--this girl can't climb, really. She's timid on the wall, climbs like she's climbing a ladder, not a wall (feet directly below her as opposed to splayed out with knees bent, tiny baby steps up the wall) and often stops to look down or ask to be lowered. She doesn't climb unless requested to, though she will belay her guy.

Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is a lanky bastard who's an excellent climber, and that's what gets me thinking. How on earth did she end up with all this climbing stuff when she doesn't enjoy it that much?

I imagine it goes somewhat like this: Christmas, or an anniversary, he gives her a square-ish cardboard box. She opens it, delighted, to find a pair of climbing shoes (cute blue ones) and a harnass. While she looks at them confusedly he tells her how much he enjoys climbing, how he's taken vacations to climb every chance he gets, and how he really wants her to join him doing this. He teaches her to belay.

And a little bit, she likes it. A little bit. But mostly, inside, she wonders what he didn't see. What he doesn't know about her. And what it is about him that he gives gifts for himself and not for her.

This is a fairly common phenomenon in relationships--holidays and big days come, our big opportunities to show the person what s/he means to us, and we hand them what we wanted in a box, and a pile of expectations on top. Be just like me, or I won't love you. I don't know you well enough to give you something you'd like, so here's what I'd like you to be. Your interests don't make the grade, have mine instead.

I think about the times I've done the same. Given books instead of movies, the wrong CD, forced viewing/doing of things I wanted to see, things I enjoyed, or things I wanted to do.

The truth of the matter is, when we do this, what we are doing is giving ourselves to the other person. It's selfish and misguided, yes, but we want them to take us out of the box, hold us up, and love us.

Living up to Expectations, Part Two:

Love

For the record, I don't know a damn thing about love except how to do it, and even that usually turns out wrong. The past year has made me really investigate my criteria for what makes a relationship workable, or even healthy. Not that that's the same as love, mind you, but they're related.

I'm working right now under the assumption that I don't know a damn thing about love, and that every time in the past, I've been wrong. And it's true, every relationship save the one we die in is a failure. I'm not down on myself. It's just the way the game works. You win once. That's it.

But the memories of losing are a lot of fun too...

I digress. Under the assumption that I know nothing about love, here is a solo vignette from my current relationship:

Perfume smells different on everyone's skin, because the artificial scent mixes with a person's natural scent and everyone blends a little bit differently. This is a fact.

You on me, or me on you--I can never tell which--has a smell which is not exactly like but evokes memories of the smell of Play-Doh. Sweet, salty, soft. Simple, childish, and safe. Joyful. Brightly colored. Durable.

It's cheap and easy to say you make me feel like I've never felt before, because if I wanted to feel the same feelings I'd date the same people. A less cheap way to say it is that earning and keeping your good opinion and care is something of which I am proud. That the times when we laugh and rip on each other and say terribly politically incorrect things (jokes about domestic violence come to mind here) are the best times, and the times when you fall asleep on my shoulder in front of bad television are also the best. I am so honored by your regard.

You are the first person I've dated in a long time to whom I've been faithful, and that's the highest compliment and most self-explanatory thing I can say about you.

Fairytale

A GRE Fairytale

Once upon a time a physics major registered for the physics GRE. She studied a lot for it--almost every day. The date finally arrived, and she went to the testing center with her ID and her registration ticket and her sharpened pencils and her profound lack of safety blanket/calculator. She registered and took her seat. When they passed out the tests she raised her hand for the Literature and English exam. And she lived happily ever after.

The end.

Actually, it didn't go that badly. I answered a lot of the questions. I knew a lot of things. I remembered a lot of things. And I think I filled in all the bubbles correctly.

On another topic, the other day when sharing a dressing room with a friend--and although that sounds like a perfect setup for lesbian sex, it sadly did not happen--I discovered that I now have biceps that Rosie the Riveter wouldn't be completely ashamed of. Some of you who are more built might snicker at my delight to find that I have actual muscles.

Allow me to enlighten you: I am a small girl. Always have been, always will be. Until I got to college, I didn't really have muscle at all, except in my calves from walking on my tiptoes all the time. (another story for another day) This year, I rekindled my love of rock climbing on a more regular basis, and voila! muscles. I guess that's what happens when you work out four or five days a week.