Those People

There are moments, and I believe “epiphany” would be too strong of a word to describe these moments, when you truly understand an aspect of someone for the first time.  I’m not talking about a really dramatic moment of comprehension, more of a mundane revelation—a comment or action that makes you mentally say to your friend, “Oh.  You’re one of those people.” 

Like, maybe you’re in a library, and you see your friend walk through the door, so you wave sociably at her, and she grins, happy to see you, and walks over to you and your books.

Then begins talking.  Loudly.  (Or at least loudly for a library, where the “no talking” rule is so well-known that every caricature of a librarian seems to take the form of a cross-looking woman wearing thick glasses and shushing someone.)

Your friend is one of those people.

Now, even though we don’t terminate relationships over moments like these, because, really, they’re just puzzle pieces falling into place…

OK, to be real with you, I’ve totally terminated relationships over moments like these.  Jerks talking in a library?  Someone not tipping a waiter or waitress?  People using the wrong “your/you’re?” 

Unfriended.

(I’m exaggerating a little, but, really folks, tip your servers)

However, it’s the holiday season, and the end of an old year, so I’m proposing we be more accepting, because I have to admit, there has been many a time when I have committed certain cardinal sins for which I would condemn others.

Faux-Philosophical Dialogue at Inappropriate Venues

The cliché here would be college students at a bar, throwing around big words and metaphysical arguments, trying to impress each other and all of those within hearing distance.  People find this behavior irritating because 1) a person does not generally go to a bar to listen to an egotistical remix of Ethics 101.  And 2) These people are usually incorrect in ways that would make you look like a douchebag for contesting, so you have to sit there and let these people think they are intellectually superior to all. 

I don’t even know why I continue to despise this behavior so much, because I am a repeat offender of over-sharing Things No One Cares About.  Recently, I was out drinking with my friends, and, for the first hour we were out, right when I was about to finish my drink, I would find it refilled.  I thrilled everyone at the table by announcing, “There was this guy in Greek mythology, Sisyphus, who is supposed to be cursed to roll this stone up a hill for eternity, and every time he gets to the top, the stone rolls back down and he has to start again.  That’s sort of what I feel like, because my drink keeps filling up right before I finish it.  I am the Sisyphus of beer.”  Yes, the story tells just as well in print as it did in person.  Even though I was trying to impress no one (the metaphor just seemed really apt, and sharing it seemed very important), I was immediately struck by what an asshole I sounded like.  I was not even inebriated enough to, as what could be our generation’s anthem suggests we do in times of trouble, blame it on the alcohol. 

People Who Burst into Song, Unprompted

I do feel that Glee and general narcissism are largely to blame for this phenomenon.  I was in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago, waiting in line and trying to have a conversation with my sister, when this girl behind me started singing an off-key rendition of “Silent Night.” 

I glanced at Jess, “Well, it was,” I muttered.

It is a testament to how irritating this girl’s performance was that Jess did not tell me to be quiet. 

I don’t know what about the prospective meal of Salisbury steak and corn dogs prompted this girl to truly bellow out this particular Christmas carol, but, by God, I hope she did some sort of vocal warm-ups before dinner, because she was going for a golden ticket to Hollywood at the end of her performance.  The weirdest aspect of this was possibly that her friends (or the people I assume were her friends—though I would want my friends to physically restrain me if they heard me venture the beginning bars of any song in public) simply ignored her, as though this was a completely normal occurrence. 

But….OK, have you ever heard the song “Lipgloss” by Lil Mama, because, God help me, I have.  When my friend first told me about this song, I accused her of making it up.  When she indignantly showed me the music video, I told her just because she could rally up some people and produce a low-budget music video to a song about a cheap cosmetic product did not make her song legitimate.  Eventually I came around, though, and now whenever someone puts lipgloss on or even says the word lipgloss, I automatically “sing,” “My lipgloss be cool, my lipgloss be poppin’.”  It is as mortifying as you’d think to have this response to lipgloss, especially since I feel the song is, unsurprisingly, not extraordinarily memorable, so people generally think I’m just writing my own rap music.

People Who Think Their Thoughts and Experiences are Just That Interesting

Modern technology has led us to post our thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, or, if you’re really ambitious, a blog.  As a writer, I enjoy many aspects of technological communication, and as a fairly lazy person, I love the ease of staying in touch with my friends and knowing what’s going on with them without actually having to get off my ass. 

I just wish some people would be more entertaining.  Otherwise, I may actually have to get up and find a remote to turn on the television.

Some people have the most lackluster statuses.  “Just woke up.  Sitting on the couch, watching tv.”  “Did some laundry.  Will probably do more laundry later.  Will eventually have done all the laundry.” I’m not faulting these people for having boring lives, because, really, I spend 90% of my time reading and writing, but do you think the world is quite that interested in the going-ons of your life when you’re as close to doing nothing as a living human being can be without actually ceasing to exist?  Just wait for something neat to happen to you or post some song lyrics.

It gets bad, though, when people are the first and only to comment on their own statuses.  A new level of hubris has been reached.  If you’re not correcting some typo, wait for someone to care enough to comment and then respond accordingly.  The worst thing about this behavior is that I always mentally imagine this person congratulating himself/herself on such pithy, inspiring posts, or imagining the hundreds, nay, thousands of people sitting on the edge of their seats for a new update.  How irritating.

And yet, a year or so ago, I went to a David Sedaris reading.  As my friend and I were standing in line to get our books signed, we found ourselves consistently bowled over by eager, stronger readers who wanted their books signed first.  Suddenly a woman all but clothes-lined the approaching swarm of would-be line jumpers, and pulled my friend and me in front of her. 
“I hate when people do that,” she said, glaring at the teenagers behind us, and then smiling warmly and introducing herself. 

“Usually I’m much more patient,” she continued, apologetically “but I just quit my job from home and now I’m working in a corporate-setting.  The atmosphere is really frying my nerves.” 

I was genuinely interested in this woman. She looked about my mother’s age, had streaks of blue and pink in her hair, a nose-ring, and just had an air of intrigue about her. 

“What did you do from home?”  I asked, picturing something very bohemian that would lead to more conversation.

“I was a phone-sex operator,” she said.

I studiously ignored my friend, who I knew would have turned a bright shade of red and been unable to respond.  If I looked at her or caught her eye, I would not be responsible for whatever reaction I had.  And, right then, I had to keep up the verbal volley.

“Oh.  How nice.  And…why the switch to corporate?”

As the conversation went on, and the woman’s boyfriend encouraged her to share particular conversations and fetishes (there was one particular story about a Nightcrawler fetish I won’t delve into), I just kept thinking, “This would make a fantastic blog entry.  I wish I could sneakily update my Facebook status and non-creepily mention a phone-sex operator in a Facebook status, because this encounter has an air of unexpected majesty to it.”  

I couldn’t help but be a little self-important, but even as these thoughts intruded, there was an undertone of, “Wow, I think I’m a very important person, don’t I?” 

And so, I invite everyone to just take a few minutes and reflect on how often we fall short of our own standards.  Don’t even lower your standards, but perhaps cut those who don’t quite reach them some slack.  Recognize the people we can’t stand, the people we judge, the people we sometimes are.

Happy holidays and happy reading.

All is Fair in Group Work and War

I am a pacifist.  I believe that violence begets violence, and that people who resort to physical altercations when angry are giving in to unhelpful barbaric urges, which will ultimately benefit no one.  No one who knows me will ever tell you that I’m a doormat, but I feel with all of my being that violence is neither an acceptable nor a permanent solution to any problem.

These convictions were how I knew I was being irrational when I considered killing my group-mates for my final project in my online class.

The class covered WWII, so, I reasoned angrily, there were bound to be some causalities.  However, the annoying “What Would Ghandi And/Or Jesus Do” mantra that stays resolutely in my mind gave me pause.  I simply could not physically harm my group-mates.  Ghandi and Jesus would both be very sad.  Anyway, this was an online class, and a few of my teammates lived off campus, so acting out on my anger would require far more research than I was really interested in undertaking. 

The assignment was to take part in a War Game, where each group took a different stance on several questions, and the professor picked which team answered the questions most efficiently.  There were war terms and whatever to make it all seem more war-like, but that’s basically the gist of it.  Our professor named generals to each team, and as The Hand of Academic Fate would have it, I was general of our rag-tag team.  This, I strongly suspected, was because I was one of three people who answered our weekly assignments in the forums using complete sentences, and whose responses were consistently text-speak free.  My natural leadership abilities most likely did not come into play, but that does not mean I did not take my position seriously.

Allow me to confess that, when it comes to group work, or, basically in any area of my life, I tend to be a little controlling.  If someone else is named “group leader” or “general” or “emperor” or whatever ruling entity the professor seems fit to dub the poor sap in charge of the group, I give this person about two minutes of my sincere loyalty.  I feel this person out to make sure he or she will not tarnish my GPA with a lack of paranoia.  Usually, this person is found wanting, and I take over.  Not officially or anything.  I don’t tell this person, “I’m sorry, you seem nice, but I really don’t trust you with this very important assignment.  I’ll be usurping your position.”  That would be rude.  I simply assert my authority by offering to aid the group leader with certain tasks, like, for example, the entire assignment.  We pretend the other person is still in charge, but we all know I have truly taken over.

Before you judge me, I wasn’t born this way.  I’ve been hurt before.  The harsh world of collaborative academia has jaded me, because, frankly, some people just do not care as much as I do, and I have gone through many a sleepless night redoing work for people who are OK with receiving a C on an assignment.  But, in the land of the Less Than Completely Sane, we say why settle for a C when it is possible to receive an A?  And, anyway, I had eventually learned that there are two options to group work: You can maintain an air of pleasantness and do all of the work yourself, or you can unleash and force equality on everyone.  I had never taken the second route before, and was anxious to see what awaited me beyond this new bend in the road.

Many of you have, I’m sure, suffered as I have.  But if you have not tried to complete a group assignment in an online class, (and here I must ask your forgiveness for the always-irritating move of placing my suffering in a higher category than another’s) you know nothing of pain.  People let you down in class?  The next day, come in and faux-pleasantly remind them that they need to get their shit together.  Someone flakes on an assignment?  You at least have the opportunity for the cathartic release that glaring can provide, or, if you’re less dignified, you can toss spitballs at them after your presentation.  In an online class, none of this can happen.  You’re stuck emailing people to remind them that they still have not completed their share of the work.  And a lot of grievance can get lost in cyberspace. 

But, oh, I was not above emails. 

As I said, I’m jaded, and as you’ve probably gathered, I’m sort of, perhaps an eensy bit too serious about school work.  However, after the first week passed and I had received no emails from my team, I sent a long, didactic group email to my fellow warriors.  The subject line was not THIS IS SPARTAAAA! but the spirit was there nonetheless.

The email was, as I already mentioned, long, so I will just recount its gist: I informed my team that, while I had finished the assignment on my own this time, it would not happen again, and, as their general (yup, I pulled the group leader card.  And also sort of acted like my position as a ranking officer was legitimate), I was not above telling the professor who was not participating.  Also, I hoped they had a nice day and were enjoying the end of the semester.

I proudly told my sister about this email, and she regarded me warily. 

“What?” I said, seeing her look.  “That was a very professional email...Except for the part when I essentially threatened to tell on them if they didn’t do what I said,” I added as an afterthought. 

My sister considered her words carefully.  She knew how I was about my war games.  “Do you think any of them will be asking to hang out after class is over?”

I rolled my eyes.  “I’m not here to make friends.”  I briefly wondered when my life turned into an episode of Survivor or America’s Next Top Model. 

“Well, then, that’s a great email to send.”

And with that I decided my sister just did not understand.  This was war, and I had to win.  (Along with my other captivating qualities, I’m sort of competitive.)  I eventually rallied the troops, although after exchanging a few vaguely and then not-so-vaguely threatening emails with a group member I never heard from (Deserting, I informed him in one of my many unanswered messages, was not an option in this army), I began to sincerely fear mutiny. 

“I really hope none of them, like, see my student profile picture and then recognize me on campus,” I told my sister one day, as I checked to make sure everyone had posted their parts of the assignment.  “Frankly, I’m not sure what they would do.”  Something told me that thanking me for their passing grade would be the least likely possibility. 

She was about to answer when I saw an email from my professor, declaring my group the winner of the war game. 

“YES!” I held my laptop over my head in victory.  “We’ve defeated the Axis Powers!!”  I leapt from my chair and attempted a victory lap around our dorm room, but, as the room was small and cluttered, what resulted was more of a victory shuffle. 

My sister rolled her eyes.  “Congratulations,” she said dryly. “Are you going to email your group and see if they want to get together and celebrate?”

“Those deadweights?  Please.  I am going to email them and say congratulations, because that, my dear, is what good generals do: We rise above turmoil, and then pretend others are just as deserving of credit as we are.”

I sent the aforementioned email, but, to my great surprise, received no replies or friend requests on Facebook from my fellow soldiers.  However, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

How to Make Friends and Influence People (or, you know, not)

Because I am probably not a real college student, I spent my spring break in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at a Writing Center Conference.  Florida was just too much of a warm, sunny cliche that time of year for me, and so I fled to a place that was not only still freezing, but sounded like it was a location in a Dr. Seuss book. 

Yup, somehow even with a brain in my head and feet in my shoes, I ended up in Kalamazoo, riding in the back of some woman's SUV as two huge water jugs leaked onto the seat my friend and I were hovering over.  Our boss had lost the keys to our rental car, and this woman (hell, let's call her Tracy so we don't get too pronoun crazy through this riveting tale) offered to give us a ride back to our hotel.  My boss had remained silent the entire ride, except to give some tentative directions to Tracy, who happily talked on about the history of Kalamazoo.  Now, Tracy seemed like a very nice person, and I'm not just saying that because she did not leave us stranded at the conference with only weak coffee and “I Love Writing” pins to sustain us for the night.  But she was one of those really perky people, who, hilariously enough, sounded as though she had just inhaled helium, and she remained oblivious to the strained silence in the car.  Despite the less-than-ideal circumstances, I found myself enjoying the ride in a "what the hell" sort of way.  However, the bright city lights soon faded into a foggy field, perfect for, well, hiding bodies.  

"Wow, it's pretty creepy out here," Tracy chirped over her Christian rock music.  "It looks like an episode of the Twilight  Zone.  This would be a horrible place to get lost, but a good place to murder someone; no one would ever find you!" Tracy concluded cheerfully.  My pleasantly neutral expression morphed into an alarmed glance that I shared with my coworker, trying to ask with my eyes if she was willing to do a Charlie’s Angels roll out of the car to survive.  Because if she wasn’t, hell, there was more of a chance for me to escape.  Tracy realized her slight faux pas.  "Oh my goodness, why would I say that?  You don't know me.  That's an awful thing to say..." 

At Tracy's "You don't know me" realization, I felt a rush of affectionate camaraderie, because I frequently assume familiarity where there is only ignorance and, after my inevitable outburst, fear.  

My biggest problem comes when I forget people often need eased into acceptance of my sense of humor.  I'm somewhat of an acquired taste, but I don't always remember that about myself, preferring to instead imagine people instantly appreciate my brilliance and charm.  Sometimes I will, for example, joke about my alleged brilliance and charm in front of strangers, who will not know that I’m being hyperbolic for comedic effect. 

At times, though, people not fully understanding when I’m joking has aided me greatly.  For example, the other night, I was celebrating my friend’s 21^st birthday at the Tiki Lounge. 

For anyone looking for a recommendation concerning clubs in Pittsburgh, if you’re feeling tolerant and not at all claustrophobic, the Tiki Lounge is fine in small doses.  However, it is the sort of place that, upon leaving, may inspire comments such as “I feel like I need to shower.  With bleach,” and so on.

But, I digress.

I was dancing with a guy for a few songs, when he leaned next to my ear and yelled over the music, “Why didn’t your boyfriend come along?”

I rolled my eyes at him both for the transparent line (no, my boyfriend will not materialize and kick your ass for putting your hands on me), and also for bothering to start conversation at all when the music was so loud.  We both had to shout to be heard, and the fact that the strain on my vocal cords reminded me vaguely of talking to my grandmother was causing this person’s sex appeal to rapidly diminish.

  “I’m single,” I responded.    

He backed up from me, put his hands on his hips, and looked me over slowly, grinning.  I narrowed my eyes and tried not to feel like a piece of steak he was considering purchasing.  “Why in the world are you single?” he asked, coming in closer again. 

I took a miniscule step back and answered, “Hunchback.”

He blinked at me.  “Huh?”

I gestured vaguely behind my shoulders.  “Hunchback. You know, Victor Hugo’s novel, or the admittedly more famous Disney movie…?”

He regarded me for a second.  “Oh,” he said, realization lighting his features.  “You’re joking.”

I stared at him and said nothing.  His face went from cautiously relieved to a little creeped out.  Even though he could visually ascertain I had no hunchback, and probably did not escape from the bell tower for the night, he was likely wondering how many shades of crazy I had been painted before I entered the club. 

I’m not sure if that technique would have worked as an escape maneuver (meh. Probably.), because my sister gallantly pulled me away from Prince Charming to dance with her.  Regardless of the outcome, I enjoyed myself more in the two minutes of forcing my sense of humor on a stranger than I did in the ten minutes of actually dancing with said stranger.

You see, that’s the secret to it all—no one needs to think you’re funny except for you.  It’s like when I went hiking with my friends the other week, and one of them asked what path we should take.  I responded, “Take the road less traveled!  That will make all the difference,” and then I chuckled gleefully while they all ignored me and looked at the map.  Maybe by now your friends, like mine, know that your literature classes have forever tainted you and made you incapable of real social interaction (so they make you hike through the woods away from where anyone else can hear your Frost allusions.  Yet, never fear, if you’re really cool, you’ll have a blog to tell everyone about the references anyway), but that doesn’t matter as long as you think you’re funny.  And as long as you don’t scare away too many strangers in the meantime.  

I'll Write You a Love Song, Sara Bareilles

There are two types of revelations.  First, you have the illusion-shattering, orbit-reconfigurating, gasp-rendering revelation.  And then you have the "...and?" revelation, which everyone already knew, but someone nonetheless felt the need to make a big deal out of sharing.

The revelation of this post falls under the latter category.
 I'm somewhat of a geek.

It's true.  I enjoy reading and talking about what I've read.  I love going to class and carrying on class discussion outside of the classroom.  I had a superhero obsession when I was little (I was Batman for Halloween, like, five times) that I never quite outgrew.  Often a follower of underrated shows, I can answer any Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, or Veronica Mars question someone would ask.  Or, more accurately, I spend a lot of time wishing someone would ask such a question so that I could bond with a fellow fan in a scarcely populated fandom.  And, yes, I employ the term "fandom" naturally.  Geek.

But I often do not fully embrace my geekiness.  Sometimes I go so far as to pretend I am not geeky, but that takes so much acting effort, I usually just hope my geekiness is subdued enough to be inoffensive.  This aspiration to keep my inner geek meek led me to hold off on writing this blog entry until almost a full week after the discussed event occurred.  OK, I had papers and, you know, a life, and everything to contend with, as well, but mostly I was too excited to not just have this be the entirety of my blog entry:

I LOVE SARA BAREILLES AND SAW HER IN CONCERT OMGGGGGG SHE WAS SO GREAT AND FUNNY AND TALENTED AND NOW I HAVE A CONCERT SHIRT AND AM SINGING HER SONGS OFTEN AND LOUDLY!!!!!!!!!  :D

But, as Wordsworth would say, "Poetry is emotion recalled in tranquility," and you know I work hard to make this blog as poetic as possible (-ignores scoff from reader-), so, again, I had to wait.  Since I waited so long to talk about this, however, I am going full disclosure, here.  I will not shield you from my fangirl moments.  We'll begin at the beginning, because who am I to challenge the system?

A little over a month ago, my roommate told me that Sara Bareilles was going to be playing in Pittsburgh, and I handled the news with all the grace of Bambi's handicapped cousin, Gimpy, the three-legged deer, on ice.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!  Do you want to go? Who else would want to go?  Ah! Do they still have tickets?"  And then I turned around and ran up to my room to order the tickets.  In my excitement, I accidentally bought four tickets instead of the intended three.  I'm blaming my unusually giddy emotions instead of my inability to add, because I have counted to three successfully before.  I swear.  Once I officially purchased the tickets, I jumped up and down for a few minutes.  I did not celebrate that much when I received my college acceptance letter (probably because part of me is still bitter about not getting that letter from Hogwarts).

I will fast-forward through the months leading up to the concert, because they're predictable, and everyone who has ever waited to go to a concert of a band they love will probably relate to the musical limbo.  You're very careful not to "over-listen" to the artist's music, because you don't want to get tired of your favorite songs, but you feel a little disloyal for abandoning an afore much-visted section of your playlist.  Sometimes, days will go by when you forget you are eventually going to a concert, but then you'll suddenly remember and become excited again.  So you're basically close to mental instability, because of the denial of everyday pleasures, guilt, memory lapses, and sporadic mood swings.

The day of the concert, I had to force myself to admit that the "Will Sara like me" question was contributing to my anxiety level, and then I had to gently remind myself that I would not actually be meeting Sara Bareilles.  I was slightly disappointed. Although, I did spend some time joking with my friends about the probability of me lying on her piano as she performed.

Sara (we're on a first-name basis now) was very funny, which won me over immediately.  She mentioned how great the crowd was several times, stressing, "No, seriously, you are all fantastic.  Did they screen you before they let you in? Are there, like, four jackasses standing outside with their tickets, like, 'Man, they said this concert was supposed to be awesome. This sucks.'"

Along with her own original songs, she covered "Fuck You," "Little Lion Man," and "Yellow," and all of her covers were great.  When she started to sing "Little Lion Man," I screamed my approval, but was apparently standing in the section of people who did not love Mumford and Sons, and so I got a couple wary looks.  "I love this song," I said, defensively to anyone who may have brought their super-hearing to the concert.

"I love this song" was my refrain to my poor roommate.  Every song that they started to play would lead to me leaning over and saying, "I love this song," and my roommate would nod and smile.  God bless her, because if our positions were reversed, I may have made her switch seats or take a sedative.  It was after approximately the third song when I realized my excitement level was about 17 notches above everyone else's.  I did not attempt to tone it down, though, because a concert is the ideal place to know music you already love on a different level and also express your appreciation for the songs that have been with you through a myriad of moments in your life.  Anyone who has belted out "King of Anything" after a trying conversation with a know-it-all, mournfully sung "Hold My Heart" while driving through a dreary night, or reaffirmed their independence with "Love Song," can understand a fan's desire to vigorously applaud Sara Bareilles's performance.

In short, totally worth the $25 and the shreds of the cover under which my geekiness once hid.

*Blog Extra*

On the way to the concert, for reasons that are both too complicated and too strange to recall here, my friend and I texted back and forth about Sara Bareilles songs that would be fun for a....ahem, funeral playlist.

"The Light" --There's a line about following someone into the light that my friend found appropriate.
"Breathe Again" --You get it.
"Hold My Heart" --If the person was an organ-donor
"Come Round Soon" --Merely for irony's sake
--I would have warned you about inappropriate humor, but I think if that sort of thing bothered you, you wouldn't be reading my blog in the first place.

A Bucketlist Turned Upside Down

It was sometime around the middle of January that I started compiling this list.  For those of you who do not know a lot about SHU (and here I assume that I'm addressing a vast majority of you), we have a very long Christmas break.  We're off for about six weeks.  And, yes, six weeks away from school is a large amount of time and very welcome by the end of the first semester, but there comes a point, generally around the middle of January, when you realize you can no longer pretend you're spending hours in front of the television to rejuvenate from the fall semester.  Your batteries have long ago recharged and now you're just being sort of shameless in your sloth.  It's sad, but not the kind of sadness that motivates one to change.  More accurately the kind of sadness that motivates one to sigh forlornly and eat a leftover Christmas cookie.  You know, that really specific kind of sadness.
Anyway, I was telling you about this list.
Well, because of the t.v.'s strong gravitational pull during the middle of January, I saw a lot of advertisements for the medical drama Off the Map.  If anyone is unfamiliar with the premise of this show, because you didn't spend two months living on your couch, all you really need to know for the purposes of this post is that good-looking doctors (are there any other kind on television?) are working in this jungle-esque place.  In the most common commercial for the show, one of the doctors spontaneously leaps off a cliff and into the ocean.  This moment began my list.

Things I Will Never Do, No Matter What, Even Though I Saw Them Happen on TV
1) Spontaneously Cliff-Dive
Maybe I watched too many of those "we videotaped this gruesome accident" shows with my grandfather when I was young.  Maybe I've just never experienced a moment of euphoria so intense that I've felt compelled to leap from a great height.  Maybe I just enjoy being able to move all of my limbs too much.  But my first thought when I see television characters whooping with joy and flinging themselves from cliffs into a body of water beneath is always, "How do they know how deep that water is?"  For real though, the water is lapping against the jagged rocks beneath these people, and they're just thinking "yay."  How do they know that water isn't, like, two inches deep?  Would I ever cliff-dive?  Perhaps.  If someone measured the depth of the water, tested the wind resistance, and then, you know, went first.
2) Be the "Don't Worry, I'll Hold Them Off" Person
In chase scenes, especially if it's a small group of people running from another group of assailants, there pops up, in the moment where the window of hope is slowly closing, a person who volunteers to stay behind and fight off the attackers to buy his or her friends some more time to escape.  Um, no thank-you.  Like, that's all brave and whatever, but in these situations, if that person isn't badly outnumbered, then the would-be hero is insurmountably out-powered, and the attackers are held off for, like, a second longer.  Usually this selfless person isn't even a primary character, and quite often this person is offering this sacrifice as an act of redemption for sucking for the entire movie.  Dude, if I can't even be featured favorably in the movie, I am not going to undergo this painful death to buy the protagonist some time to run off, get trapped somewhere, and end up facing the antagonist at the end anyway.  I'd rather serve out my redemption in my long life by stopping completely at stop signs from now on, or actually smiling at people I vaguely know and pass in the halls instead of pretending to text as they walk by.
3) Abruptly End Phone Conversations
It's an odd staple of television that when phone conversations take place in order to provide some sort of exposition or reveal a long-kept secret, people just hang up without actually saying goodbye.  I don't understand this break from reality, and it bothers me, because I would be calling someone back if I was all, "I've unlocked the secret code! You must listen to the green rooster crow at midnight and then burn the bridge to the island of the harvest moon!"  and the person on the other end was like, "Ah, I thought so." Click.  Would an "OK, thank-you.  Talk to you later" really take that much more time?  Usually the person that is hung up on has just done a considerable amount of work or uncovered some really stressful piece of information, so that makes the dropped call theme even more annoying.
4) Be the Person Who Sees Where that Noise is Coming From
This one pretty much speaks for itself.  We've all seen horror movies where someone cheerfully jumps up and volunteers to investigate some strange noise, likely thinking some variance of, "'Tis the wind and nothing more," but being, always, hopelessly, obviously, fatally wrong.  We can play nose goes to figure out who has to be the detective of the day.
5) Assume Villain is Dead
Ever watched Zombieland where we're encouraged to "double-tap," or, rather, shoot the bad guy more than once?  Agreed.  I don't even know why you wouldn't.
6) Give Cryptic Answers to Straightforward Questions
This doesn't really bother me, because only in fiction can people be so vague and metaphorical without having the person talking to them just give up and walk away, but I just know I'd never do it.  "Where are you heading?"  "Away from here."  (Often said while looking moodily out a window)  Dude, the person does not truly care where you're going.  He or she was just trying to be polite.  Stop making people work so hard to talk to you.
7) Be Stoic about a Life-Threatening Injury
It's not just the "No, no, I'm fine" response to being shot or stabbed that baffles me, but also the not saying anything about the injury or ailment.  People on television will be hurt and not say a word so they don't distract their team from whatever mission they're on.  Or, they'll find out they have some debilitating disease and keep it a secret so no one feels sorry for them.  If someone shot a gun around me, I'd constantly be like, "You remember the one time I almost got shot?"  or if I found out I had an illness that could possibly, one day affect my sight, every day I'd be like, "Well, since I'm going to go blind soon....le sigh."  And most people I know would be the same, so I don't really get why television wants us to think people are selfless.  We're not buying it, t.v.
8) Not Lock the Door when Partaking in R-Rated Activities
No one locks doors on t.v.  In fact, privacy in general does not seem to matter often.  Cheating on a wife?  Oh, don't bother with the deadbolt.  Selling drugs?  Let's exchange goods by the open window.  I'm so paranoid when I'm doing anything even mildly less than acceptable that I cannot imagine not being the most annoying, neurotic "OK, but do you know for sure that the walls are soundproof?" type of villain in the world.

Surely the list could continue, but in the interest of your time, and, frankly, interest, I'll just end by asking if there's anything you frequently see on television, but would never, ever attempt.  As always, happy reading.

 

"Spotlighting for Santa"

Anyone who read my last entry will know why I'm subjecting you to my creative writing ventures.  I'm feeling guilty for the lack of updates, and I'm also lazy.  Also, I'm beginning the studying process for my Chaucer final, which means I have to take roughly ten breaks per hour.
This story was written for our English club's comedy reading; making it Christmas-themed was my own preference since 'tis the season and all.
Generally, I don't go into detail about my writing process unless someone specifically asks me a question, because I can't imagine that many people are terribly interested, and also because I generally write analyses of different types of literature, so, frankly, I don't even care that much about my writing process.  But this does take a smidgen of explanation, lest you think I'm more creative than I actually am.  The concept behind spotlighting for Santa is not mine.  Yeah, this is my "I do not own Spotlighting for Santa" disclaimer.  A good friend of mine participates in this activity with her family; although, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Santas have ever been maimed or injured.  Everything else, though, is purely fiction.  This is a bit longer than the previous story, which is more of a monologue.  I think it comes out to about three pages, so it's not a novel or anything, but I don't want people thinking they signed up to read a pamphlet and feel like they got Les Miserables.  Again, happy reading.

Spotlighting for Santa

Because my parents were visiting relatives out-of-state, I spent the first few weeks of Christmas vacation with my roommate Lauren and her family. Lauren extended the invitation to me somewhat delicately.  “We’re going to be having some pre-Christmas celebrations,” she said carefully.  “I know your family doesn’t…traditionally…celebrate the holidays…”

I did not want to spend two weeks alone at my house, so I told her it was no big deal, and I was looking forward to the new experience.  I’d just have to make sure I was careful about telling my mom I’d be staying in a house where they perpetuated the Santa myth.

My mother is very, very religious, and thinks that those who teach their children about Santa Claus are actually worshipping an idol that the devil has placed in a red suit with white trimming and gifted with a deep, somewhat disturbing laugh.

“The good Lord hates this time of year,” my mother somberly told me once after we watched a holiday commercial.

“Well, it’s normal for people to dislike their birthdays as they get older,” I said, but fell promptly silent at the look on my mother’s face. 

“I believe,” mom said, attempting to disregard my interruption “that God wants me to remove traces of Christmas commercialism from the world.”

I paused, trying to think of a way to make this conversation less insane.  There was none.  “God wants you to exterminate Santa?”

My mother rolled her eyes.  “Well, there’s no reason to make me sound like a holiday version of Charles Manson; God wants me to eradicate the pretentious aspects of the holiday…But essentially, yes.”  And from that point on, Christmas became a dicey time of year.

Mom’s passion regarding her belief has moved her to extremes.  I still remember riding home from the grocery store with my parents when my mom yelled at my dad to pull over.

“Steve, stop the car,” Mom said urgently, digging in the glove department, and placing a pocketknife in her coat pocket. 

Dad steered to the side of the road.  “What is it?” he asked, but my mom was already out of the car, sprinting to the yard that boasted the offending symbol of Christmas cheer: one of those huge inflatable Santas.  She was running all hunched over, like she was trying to avoid spotlights from police helicopters, and when she got to the strings that were holding the inflatable Santa to the ground, she glanced back and forth quickly before she started sawing away.

“My God…” Dad muttered, sinking down into his seat.

Seeing that mortification had rendered my father useless, I put my window partially down.  “Mom,” I hissed.  “What are you doing?  Someone’s gonna see you!” 

But by then, my mother had cut through a cord, pulled Santa down, and stabbed him viscously until he was a deflated plastic pile of dashed dreams and manic vandalism.  She ran back to the car, cackling.  “Drive!  Drive!” she yelled at my Dad while she slammed the car-door shut.  And it was then, peeling out of the Jones’s driveway with my mother laughing and putting her knife away, that I realized I would always have a very complicated relationship with Christmas.

So, with experiences like that influencing my image of Christmas, imagine my conflicting emotions when Lauren’s dad informed me we were going to “spotlight for Santa.”

I smiled a polite, excited smile for him, and then waited until it was just Lauren and me in the living room.  “What is spotlighting for Santa?”  I asked the question with no little amount of fear and accusation in my voice.  I had a picture in my mind of a fat, bearded man staring blankly into a bright light before meeting an untimely demise at the hands of a group of hillbillies.  Or my mother.

“We just have one of the adults put on a Santa costume, and have him go out into the woods,” Lauren explained.  “Then we take the little kids out on four-wheelers, and we pretend to have sighted Santa.”

The idea actually sounded pretty cute, and so I put aside my jaded associations with Santa, and hopped behind Lauren on her four-wheeler, pulling a wagon in which sat three of her little cousins.  The plan was to rendezvous at a certain spot and shine the spotlight towards a specific tree, thus finding Santa.  For a girl who consistently loses her car in the Walmart parking lot, driving around in the woods at night seemed a little risky, but Lauren assured me she knew where she was going.  After about 15 minutes of circling the same area, I remembered that Lauren is the person most often with me when I am looking for my car in the Walmart parking lot. 

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”  I asked Lauren, balefully.

“Well, I think if we just head back to the house, and start over, we can end up where we need to be,” Lauren attempted to reassure me, but then she admitted, “I’m not really positive which way to go.  We’ve been circling so much…”

“Really, Lauren?  Really?  You were all, ‘I’ve grown up in these woods.’  You made it sound like you were Squanto showing the pilgrims their way around Plymouth Rock.”  I was, admittedly, overreacting.  But I was from the city, and to someone who only ever saw, like, a dozen trees at a time, getting lost in the woods was basically like walking the plank.

“I know, and I’m sorry.  I may have exaggerated my knowledge of the woods a bit.  Do you have any idea how to get back?”  Lauren was being meek and apologetic, and since I still wanted to be angry, I found her humility annoying.

I sighed deeply.  “Just turn right and keep driving.” 

In reality, I had no idea how to get back to her house.  But at that moment, it felt very important for me to maintain the upperhand intellectually.        

As we were driving, I heard Porter, one of Lauren’s cousins in the wagon, gasp and shout, “Is that a person?”

Lauren stopped and I shined the spotlight around, until I saw a man in a red suit huddled on the ground, clutching his leg.

“Santa?” Porter said, and the two other kids, Amanda and Jake, peered over the sides of the wagon as well.

I jumped off the four-wheeler, and Lauren followed me, telling her cousins to stay in the wagon.  I had a second of fear where I considered the possibility that this was not, in fact, Lauren’s uncle in a Santa costume, but instead a serial killer with an elaborate and fetish-y game-plan.  “You go first,” I nudged Lauren forward.  She paused and looked at me questioningly.  “He’s your uncle,” I insisted.

“Uncle Mike?  Are you OK?”  Laruen asked, also not getting too close. 

Mike groaned.  “I tripped over a root, and I think I broke my ankle.”

I looked closely at our surroundings to make sure my mother was not hiding behind a tree with a club and a scary smile.  For a moment, I also wondered why Santas always ended up in painful heaps around me.  I had somehow, it seemed, become my mother’s unwilling apprentice.  I was actually a much more apt Santa-slayer than my mother, who had to plot and take risks.  All I had to do was be, and, bam, down went Santa. 

Lauren and I heaved Mike up so we were both supporting most of his weight, then we helped him hop over to the wagon.  The children were thrilled to have found Santa, until they realized he was hurt.

“Will he be able to work on Christmas Eve?”  Jake asked tearfully.

I was not familiar with all of Santa’s powers.  I mean, yeah, he could squeeze down chimneys and order elves around, but could he heal himself?  If healing broken bones was part of his allure, I was starting to see a little of my mother’s point about the confusion between Santa and God.  Lauren was busy trying to make sure Mike was comfortable, so I was left to field the question.

“Well, I’m sure with a few weeks of rest and some serious physical therapy, he’ll be able to get around on his own just fine,” I said, patting Jake’s head. 

“But Christmas is two weeks away!” Amanda whimpered.

Lauren glared at me as the kids started to cry. 

A tear-filled ride, a hospital trip, and some cookies and comfort later, the children were reassured that Santa would live to ride again, and I was calling my mother to let her know how I was doing, and explain the concept behind spotlighting for Santa.  It struck me, somewhat belatedly, that my mother may not be the best person with whom to share this experience.

“Spotlighting for Santa?” she said, with way too much interest in her voice.

And so it with trepidation and regret that I forward my apologies to any Santa unfortunate enough to run into a laughing woman on a four-wheeler.  If you see a bright light, duck and cover.  Merry Christmas.  

"The Story of My Life"

I feel a little bad, because I started this blog with very good intentions.  There actually was a brief window of my life when something funny would happen to me, and I'd think, "This would make a good blog post," but that's about as far as I got.  In order to revive the blog a little, I'm going to update twice.  In, like, a minute.  It sounds impressive and everything, but I'm going to cheat.
We've had two readings at school over the past couple of months.  One was a Halloween reading, which called for Halloween-based stories or poems (you might be thinking, "duh," but it's the weekend before finals here, so this all seems like necessary information to me).  I wanted to support the English club (sponsors of the event) and write something, but a couple problems presented themselves.  One: I'm a literature major, not a creative writing major.  Two: Even if I were a creative writing major, horror is not my preferred genre...mainly because I get freaked out by, like, the movie Jumanji, so I'm confident what scares me does not align with what scares the rest of the sane world.  In order to be supportive-ish, I decided to risk getting sent to English club jail, and bent the rules a little.  Are we all seeing a pattern here?
Now, if anyone wants to read real work within the horror genre, check out this blog.
And, here we go.  This is called "The Story of My Life."  Happy reading.

Let me just start off by saying that I’m angry, and I feel like I have every right to be.  I mean, how would you feel if your ex-boyfriend was basically canonized?  No matter how great of a person you are, I can guarantee that after you break up with someone, there’s at least a small amount of time when you want the rest of the world to hate that person with you, so how would you feel if basically every girl in the world, from seven to forty-five, was drooling after this fictionalized ideal of your ex-boyfriend?  Now add in the fact that someone stole your life story and made millions of dollars off of it.  So, basically consider yourself poor, cheated, and misrepresented, and see how happy you are.  Yeah, the smiling sunshine is not exactly peeking from behind the pink, lacey curtains of my soul. 

Maybe I should just cut to the chase.  You know the Twilight books?  More specifically, the first Twilight book.  Yeah, that’s a romanticized version of my life.  Don’t talk to random Mormons on the street when you’re heartbroken, kids.  That’s the real moral to my story.  I made the mistake of trusting a stranger with my sob story, and suddenly my ex is a Barbie doll.  Please.  If you people knew what he really looked like, no one would ever complain about Robert Pattinson as a casting choice for the movies. 

Those of you who have been paying close attention will have realized that this means I’ve dated a vampire.  Yeah, I did, and as you have probably figured by now, I’m not really in the mood to be judged about my taste in men.  It’s not really that unusual anyway.  I mean, most women have dated guys who’ve slept all day and had a questionable diet.  My ex is just defined by those two characteristics.  Let’s not forget that I’m the afflicted party here, and I think judging my choice in men is getting very blame-the-victim-y, and also missing the point of my narrative: Twilight is my story, and Stephenie Meyer owes me a lot of money and a sincere apology.

Though, the woman is talented, I have to say.  I mean, she managed to make Ted of all people into a sex symbol, which I would have guessed was impossible.  Somehow she turned all of his annoying quirks into these shining attributes…But we’ll get to that later.  First, I’m sure you’re all wondering how one meets a vampire. 

I work a lot of graveyard shifts at a grocery store.  I know, ha ha, graveyard shifts.  Really, I’m over the humor.  Anyway, I met Ted on the bus when I was commuting to work.  He was just this pale guy, dressed in black, with a very intriguing accent, which, coincidentally enough, made me think of Count Chocola.  I’ll admit that it was the accent that did me in, and it was the accent I was imagining hearing on the other end of my phone when I gave him my number.  We talked for a while, he was very charming, and we started to date.  I didn’t think it was unusual that we only talked at night, because I figured he was being considerate of my work-schedule.  We went out on a couple dates, and by the time he told me he was a vampire, I’d kind of already worked it out for myself.  Unlike Meyer’s corrupted version of my life, in which the male lead looks nothing like a typical vampire, Ted had sort of noticeable fangs and also liked to wear a cape around.  I thought that by not mentioning these things, by never saying, “My, Ted, what big teeth you have,” or “What’s with the cape?” I was avoiding a story about a family who was too poor for some sort of vital dental surgery, or a confession about a strange superhero obsession.  Don’t avoid the hard topics, ladies.  You only end up hurting yourself. 

So, anyway, I’ve always been superstitious, and believed in ghosts and everything like that, so the fact that Ted was a vampire was weird, but really also great because that meant that I was right about supernatural stuff and the rest of the world was wrong.  Who doesn’t love it when that happens?

OK, so the relationship progressed and we moved in together.  Mistake.  You know the inherit dangers of that kind of step.  You find out all about the other person’s bad habits, and the other person finds out all about yours.  Well, Ted had one really, really bad habit: He was always watching me sleep.  Somehow in the book of my would-be-life, Meyer makes this pastime seem endearing.  But, really, who would be OK with this?  I would wake up and Ted would be standing over me, just staring.  And, I know, I know, a relationship is all about trust, and Ted said he didn’t eat people, but I was not comfortable with him just peering at my exposed neck when I was at my most vulnerable.  Sometimes when I’d wake up and see his dark eyes a foot away from me, I’d scream, and he’d be all offended.  But, for God’s sake, that’s creepy!  I’d tell him how weird he was being, and he’d pout off somewhere.  You’d think a person who walked around in a cape would be more impervious to criticism, but whatever. 

Another point of contention with us was how poor Ted constantly was.  I know the literary ideal of Ted drove a Volvo or something and had all of this money he showered on his girlfriend, well, the reality of the situation is that Ted was 300 years old and never had over 50 dollars in his checking account.  “You haven’t learned a marketable skill in over three centuries?” I would ask him.  And he’d get all defensive—again with the sensitivity thing, and say that money wasn’t everything.  And I would say, “You haven’t learned an alternative to tired clichés in over three centuries?” And he would say that I was being awful just for the sake of being awful, to which I’d reply he was being poor just for the sake of being poor, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to find his poverty bohemian and attractive, but I definitely didn’t.  And he’d cry.  Like, really.  You know how emo the vampire is in those books?  That’s about the only thing Stephenie got right. 

Meyer also completely misrepresented me.  I mean, it’s bad enough she constantly stresses how plain and borderline ugly Bella is.  The woman just met me on a really bad day, OK?  I had just broken up with my boyfriend, I was entitled to forgo curling my hair that day.  Also, Bella was always like, “Oh, gee Edward, since you’ve been stalking me for months, maybe you should turn me into a vampire so we can be together forever!”  I was totally not like that.  Ted was the clingy one, the “eternity” obsessed one.  That’s part of the reason we broke up; I thought the next step in our relationship was, like, getting a dog or something, but he thought the next step was having me join the ranks of the legions of the undead.  We were just going in really different directions.

So, anyway, things ended, I vented to someone I didn’t know but thought I could trust, and now everywhere I look, someone is in love with this make believe Ted.  I’ve contacted Stephenie and told her I’m prepared to go public with her betrayal, but I have not gotten a response yet.  I just thought all of you had the right to know that you’re obsessing over a lie, and someone is profiting off an innocent girl’s pain.  But, I guess if there’s any justice in the world, Taylor Lautner will eventually show up to comfort me, and I can finally settle this ridiculous Team Edward, Team Jacob debate.