Pin Interest

December 24, 2013

"The sunflower?" my mom asked?

"No, mom. Try again," I replied. 

"You sound like such a teacher right now," my sister said. "I'd have lost my patience by now.  Better you than me."

I was trying to teach my mom how to shut down her new Chromebook I'd gotten her for Christmas.  I asked her what icon looked like the button we had used to turn the Chromebook on, (the power-on button on the keyboard), and that's when she gestured at the sunflower on the screen, only the sunflower was the image associated with her Username I had picked for her when she set up her computer.

"Um, is it this thing?  That says, shutdown?" mom asked, trying again, as she selected the correct icon on the screen for shutting the Chromebook down.

"Yes, Mom!  Good, mom!" I exclaimed in a way you'd praise a new puppy for going pee outside.

We generally don't exchange gifts for the adults in my family at Christmas, but my aunt had recently gotten a computer, and my mom has taken a lot of interest in technology lately; so much interest, in fact, she ran up my sister's phone bill on Pinterest and claimed she hadn't been on the web on her phone—apparently she didn't understand that she was on the internet. I thought a computer would be something she could use since she had been using Facebook regularly on her phone before Christmas, and she's always just on the edge of using all the data on my sister's phone plan, though she blames it on my nephew listening to music.

Mid-October 2013

The night my mom signed up for Facebook, I was stunned.  How did she do that?, I thought to myself as a Facebook request showed up on my page from my mom.  It was her second Facebook page—someone in my family (either me or my sister) had set her up an account before. Apparently, she decided to abandon that one…or something.

7:00pm (first call after Facebook friend request)

"I need a picture for my profile," she said when I answered.  "I'm the weird gray person now.  I want to be Lady Gaga."

"Mom, that doesn't make sense.  You can't be Lady Gaga," I said.

"Other people are crazy things.  Why can't I be something?"

"Mom, you're supposed to have a picture of you—that's why it's called your profile picture.  You need people to know it's you.  People need to recognize you.  If you're Lady Gaga, they won't know who you are."

"I want to be Lady Gaga.  I don’t have a good picture of me."

"I have a picture of you."

"Okay, can you put a picture of me on there?"

"No, you have to."

"I can't.  Can you?"

"I need your username and password.  I'll put the picture of you, but I am not putting a picture of Lady Gaga, mom."

8:00pm (a conversation in which I have called my mom to explain tagging):

"Mom, you tagged some old man as Sandy in a photo," I said.

"That's Clarence!  That's Clarence!  He's with his daughter, and I wanted your sister to see it, so I tagged her."

"Mom, when you tag someone, you're saying that person IS THE SOMEONE YOU'VE TAGGED.  You've just made my sister some old man in a photo."

9:00pm (a conversation in which I inform mom she doesn't have to sign everything because she's signing everything on everyone's walls all over the place):

"Mom, when you post on my wall, it says your name.  You don't have to sign it mom."

"Oh."

"People know it's you because you have a picture of you there and your name."

"Oh, okay."

10:00pm (when I give up)

I look through my mom's friends.  She has about 70 friends in common with me.  I am pretty sure my mom and I don't know 70 of the same people.  I am certain that my mom doesn't know some of these people because I don't really know some of these people.  Oh, shit.

So, when I bought the computer, I thought it would be an opportunity for my mom to cruise the web, Skype with my sister back east, and check stuff out.  She's a smart, smart lady, but computers have never been her thing.  We got a computer when I was a junior in high school and my mom was afraid to touch that computer.  As she's gotten older, she's gotten less afraid of technology, and now that I have newfound patience, I thought this Christmas would be a good time.

December 24, 2013

I turned on the computer.  Chromebooks are different, and you need your gmail account to set it up.  That’s where we started.

“Mom, what’s your username and password?”

*blink* *blink*

“You know, the email and password you used to set up Facebook?”

“It’s GoldenPoppyXXXX,” she says.

“Great, now what’s the password?”

“Oh, I don’t know that.  Your sister set it up,” she says.

“Sandy, what’s mom’s password?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she replies.

“You’re the one that set it up.  You have to vaguely remember,” I say.

“I wrote it on a card,” mom says.

“Where’s the card?”

“At my house somewhere.”

“Okay, then we’re going to have to set up the computer later,” I say.

“But I want to do it now,” mom says.

“Sandy, no idea?  None?” I ask.

“It’s like her name and her birthday or something like that,” Sandy replies.

My sister gives me a combination of what she thinks it could be.  “It’s what I always use for people’s usernames, like when I do their taxes and stuff.  I always use their name and their birthday as their password,” she says.

While thinking to myself, that is SUPER helpful.  This could be any combination of my mom’s name and birthday ever, I type in something like 900 combinations and strike out every time.

“Maybe it has your middle name in there somewhere,” I say to my mom.

She looks back with reassuring, sparkling, and deeply hopeful eyes.

“Definitely not.  Her password definitely doesn’t have her middle name in it,” my sister says.

“Okay, great,” I say.  “If you REMEMBER WHAT IT IS, WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING TELL ME WHAT IT IS?”

“I don’t remember what it is, but I definitely know it doesn’t have her middle name in it.”

Jesus lord almighty.  Help us all.

While my sister and I are exchanging more ideas, my mom is rifling through her purse.  And what does she find?  Yes, the card.  On which contains the information we’ve spent the last 30 minutes trying to guess.

We turn the computer on and off a half a dozen times—this is when my mom figures out the sunflower does not shut down the computer.  Then I take the computer from my mom because I figure rather than reinventing the wheel, I might as well just set up her bookmarks for things she likes.  I set up Facebook, her email (which I don’t call GMAIL, I call EMAIL, so she doesn’t get confused), and Pinterest (which I don’t use, but I know my mom does).

“I want a horoscope,” she says.

“You mean, to read everyday?” I ask.

“Yes. I want to check my horoscope.”

“Okay.”  So, I find an astrology site, and I set the bookmark to say “HOROSCOPE”.  It’s easier this way—rather than forcing my mom to figure out the semantics of what these things mean, let’s just emblazon it—take out the mystery of the web—so I get less phone calls.  Thinking ahead.  Good call, Andrea.  Good call.

“Did you get Pin Interest on there?” mom asks.

“What, mom?”

“Pin Interest.”

“Mom, are you saying Pin Interest?”

“Yes, Pin Interest.”

And my sister and I die laughing.  The sad thing about my mom is every time my sister and I laugh when my mom does something funny, mom thinks we’re making fun of her.  She’s the last person I would make fun of on the planet.  If I catch anyone criticizing my mom or making fun of her or even giving her a wrong look, I will publicly and loudly shame that person (and she can tell you I have, in fact, done this in a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the day after lunch).  But as my mom ages, she gets funnier.  Not just in her mannerisms, but in her sincerity.  She tries so hard, and I love that about her.  She’s so earnest.  And the older I get, I realize I think I got my humor from her, so when she says something like “Pin Interest”—which the site is literally supposed to do, pin your interests—there is something endearing and funny about the way she says stuff. 

“Yes, mom.  Pin Interest is on there.”

So, then I let my mom play around on the Chromebook for a while as I’m talking to my sister. Until we both hear an exasperated sound.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I ask.

“I don’t know what all this stuff is!” she says.

I look over, and she’s got her Facebook feed up.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Oh.  She’s annoyed that all this stuff is on Facebook,” my sister says. “She gets really frustrated because she doesn’t want to see all of this stuff.”

“Mom.  Those are all your friends.  This is your NewsFeed, and this is the stuff that people have posted.  This is what Facebook is about—you see what your friends are doing.  See, this person here?  This is my 2^nd cousin, you know, XXXX.”

“I don’t know him,” she says.

“Mom, you’re his FRIEND!  Of course you know him.”

“I don’t know who that man is.”

“Mom, you are friends with like 70 of my friends from Facebook,” I say.

“I think she just added them one day,” my sister says.

As my mom scrolls through her page, she comes across some old pictures I have posted of my friends in high school. “Oh, look,” she says.  “It’s Kristine! She’s working at K-Mart!”

“Mom, yes, that’s Kristine, but she worked at K-Mart when we were in high school.  This is an old photo.”  Side note—Kristine looks much different than this photo now, and my mom just saw her in person in September to be able to differentiate.

“But how did this photo get here?” she asks.

“I put it there.  I posted it.”

“But it wasn’t here yesterday,” she says.

*deep cleansing breath*

“I know, mom.  I posted it this morning.”

“Oh.”

“And see?  If we click on this, it will take us to all of these pictures.  We can hit this arrow, and it scrolls us through the photos that are here.  See?  Remember?  This is Ian, and John, and there’s Andrew—remember Andrew?  And here’s a picture of my Japanese class from high school.”

“What were you doing?” she asks.

“We were in class.  We were taking a class photo.”

“But what’s on your head?”           

*DEEP CLEANSING BREATH*

At this point, I feel like I am teaching an Alzheimer’s patient to use Facebook.  I often TEACHER my family—when I am upset or angry, I often put on my teacher voice and try and explain things in a mildly condescending manner—Fortunately, this voice is only reserved for my family, I don’t mildly-condescend my students, but when I am trying to be patient, it’s the only voice I can use.

Timestamp: A week or so post Chromebook set up

My mom calls.

“Hi, mom.  What’s up?”

“I clicked on horoscope.  And then I clicked on something, and it wanted $2.99.  I was just trying to read my horoscope.  And then I clicked and it wanted me to pay.”

“Mom, DON’T PAY FOR ANYTHING.  You probably just clicked on an ad.”

I got virus protection, didn’t I?

January 15, 2014

I post a note to one of my friends because it’s his birthday.  Under my message, here’s my mom’s message to my friend:

“Happy birthday from Andrea's mom!!”

I live my life in constant fear now.

Top 5 BOPs

My name is Andrea, and I suffer from nostalgia.  At key times throughout the year, I am reflective—the real holidays (each of the Federal government-approved ones), the fake holidays (ones recognized by really good jobs with good benefits), and all the holidays in between (my birthday, others' birthdays, solstices, death anniversaries, my cat's birthdays): you name it, and I reflect.  This year, however, the nostalgic impact presented itself earlier in the year when I discovered a big box of unnamed and uncategorized pictures from my past.  There seemed to be no time-period organization in this box: one day Andrea of moving-past dumped a bunch of pictures into a plastic tote, as if to leave them for present-day Andrea to find as a fucked-up time capsule of her life circa 1988-2007.  Let me do the math for you: there are roughly 19 years of memories in a box; memories I only vaguely remember making, but definitely memories I do not remember freezing in time.  I can't recall ever carrying a camera, and present-me has mixed-emotions about past-Andrea's intent.

I don't know what it feels like for most scorned lovers when they find their boyfriends-of-past (BOPs) hiding in a box in their garage, but for me, it was fun and sad and unnerving and uncomfortable.  Discomfort surfaced mainly after I posted some of the old pictures containing BOPs on Instagram and a more recent BOP made excessive comments on my previous pics of other BOPs, and it started a BOPs-fest that I couldn't contain.  When I joked that I had opened Pandora's box, I thought a joke was all it was.  Opening the BOPs box (if you will) has lead to an interesting mid-life BOPs reflection I feel I have been forced into by the universe.

In High Fidelity (the book, then the movie, both of which I have read and seen), the main character, Rob (John Cusack), makes a Top 5 list of past girlfriends.  In the movie, Rob tells his past story and present story with dramatic scenes of girlfriends-of-past (GOPs) in alternating narrative time-sequences.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, here's a brief scene where we see Rob pondering his GOPs.

What's interesting is I literally opened the BOPs box (which, for the record, contained other pictures, too), then a BOP resurfaced, and then for over a week after the BOP commented on the pictures, the BOP kept contacting me.  Let's give this BOP a fake name: Adam. Adam wasn't just texting to say, "Hey!" Instead, Adam sent serious long missives via text about inane topics, seemingly in an attempt to reestablish regular contact.  In keeping with the High Fidelity metaphor, I'd compare the resurrection of Adam to when Rob contacts GOP, Charlie (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Charlie then accuses Rob of having a "What does it all mean?" moment.  She says she's had a rash of past boyfriends going through the same thing.  And in the movie, Rob's purpose in contacting the Top 5 GOPs is to indeed come to grips with "What does it all mean?"

After a visit to my therapist on New Year's Eve, she said I had to cut Adam off—or "take out the trash," as she called it.  It's not to say I hadn't already avoided contact with Adam, but he moved away for many years, came back to Idaho, and tried to contact me, but more often than not, we just didn't talk: I thought it would stay that way.  My nostalgia, however, became his nostalgia.  I got to the therapist's parking lot and drafted a text to Adam "texts can't continue...contact can't continue...not trying to be mean...I've got issues to work out...this isn't helping...blocking your number if you don't comply..."  He tried to engage, but Adam isn't even the point of this story, as it turns out.

The moral of this story is the universe might hand you nostalgia in a box: she'll give you a big fucking stack of BOPs and feelings you haven't explored, and you could just leave those BOPs sealed tightly in their fucked-up time capsule, or you could let them seep out one night—give their little BOP ghost-bodies an airing out—all while you drink a bottle of red wine, stay up until the wee hours of the night, thinking the reminiscing you're doing is innocent: then you discover, you can't stop the nostalgia ghost-train you've started.

It took approximately 3 days from Adam to most-recent BOP to contact me.  In the interest of protecting the most-recent BOP's anonymity, I am going to give him a super-generic name: Millard Fillmore—Fill for short.

Fill and I have a long and sordid past.  I met Fill when he was 31, and I was 19.  I worked at a record store; he was a customer at the record store.   Fill was the man of my 15 year-old dreams.  He was burly and rugged and rock and fucking roll.  I was enamored; it took years for me to talk to him in an unencumbered way—normally I stammered, was awkward, and flush.  I sweated and crushed and avoided eye-contact and was breathless when Fill came around—I was young.  Fill was married, and he was a laborer I lusted after.  A lot of ladies lusted after Fill, then, I think.  It wasn't until many years later, when Fill was divorced, I no longer worked at the record store, and Fill was 43 and I was 31 that I got Fill.  I wasn't even planning on having Fill, but sometimes you get what you want when you don't actually need it, but 15 year-old nostalgic you just can't resist some things, even with the red flags falling all around you like snow on a cold-winter day.

For over a year, Fill and I played some strange game resembling a relationship.  I was introduced to Fill's friends, we hung out with Fill's friends, Fill hung out with my friends, but more importantly, Fill and I spent a lot of time together.  We spent hours on the phone, in contact, making dinner, hanging with his son, watching movies, seeing concerts, drinking, doing activities, and I got to even hang out with Fill's mom at his son's extracurricular activities.  During this year, Fill was short on cash for Christmas: I knew he wouldn't accept help, so I arranged a scheme in which a friend delivered an envelope filled with cash to his door.  I didn't want Fill's son to have a bad Christmas.  I didn't want Fill to have a bad Christmas.  I was attached to Fill, but only after I decided that 15 year-old nostalgic Andrea could have actually snagged this person.  With red flags a fluttering, I decided I was going to give it a go anyway, and just like that, the go was halted.  It turns out Fill didn't "believe in relationships." This seemed funny, considering relationships, romantic or otherwise, are something we can agree exist: right now, in you reading this, you are having a relationship of some kind.  For someone to profess that they just don't believe in the existential nature of relationships make no sense.  When Fill said, "I just don't want to be one of my friends.  You know—45, married for the 3^rd time.  I don't want to be that guy," what he really should have said is "I just don't want a relationship with you.  I see no future.  I'm really glad you've made me dinner, been a part of my life, and had sex with me, but after this year, I just don't think it's going to work out."

A misconception I think a lot of men often have about women is that we are fragile: we can't handle the truth when we discover we are not wanted.  What's harder, however, is not hearing the truth.  It's harder for us to bounce back and move on.  It's harder to not know the truth because instead of finding out we aren't wanted, and that, yes, it is in fact, US that are the problem, we spend needless time trying to figure out how to fix ourselves into being a solution.  If we knew we were the problem from the start, we could move on to being someone else's solution instead of trying to factor our way into a convoluted algorithm we will never be a part of no matter how hard we try.

I don't singularly see my role in this world as a solution for men: in fact, I see myself as something completely different.  But in opening the nostalgia box, I realize that in my twenties, BOPs came and went and my nature and interactions with BOPs was attention-driven: I wanted recognition.  I wanted to be loved and lusted after.  Love was a romantic ideal, and I wanted confirmation that I was wanted.  In my thirties, I want to be wanted, but moreso it seems that I have spent the first part of my thirties seeking out someone to take care of.  I haven't figured out, yet, if this is the biological imperative: we want to care for someone (some women have children—I have cats), and we want someone to care for us.  I want all things that come with partnership, and I have a notion that this start to the idea of finding someone to care for will bring me someone to care for me as we age, get cancer, get sick, get ugly, continue to sag, start to resemble the opposite gender the older we get, and begin to die.

A friend recently asked me, "But don't you think your friends would take care of you?"  And my answer is, yes, undoubtedly, my friends would take care of me no matter how saggy and disgusting and bitchy I get, but there is something in a love pact, though deceiving as we all know the truth to be, that makes someone "required" to be there.  I know that even in the face of requirement, people have ditched each other, but there is some place in my heart where I feel a sense of peace in thinking that one day I will have a partner who is required to take care of me even when my boobs are dragging on the ground behind me.

So, three days post-Adam, Fill sent me a text-message.  It's not the first Fill message I have gotten; Fill has been text-messaging me for months, even after I told him I didn't want to speak to him after our non-relationship ended when I found out that Fill had "a girl come into his life."  A girl who is in her twenties, and blonde, and thin, and attractive, and seemingly everything that I am not.  I'm not bitter, but I was extremely hurt at first—who wouldn't be after finding out not only they aren't wanted, but they are also being exchanged for a newer model?

Fill's text said, "I am having a baby."

My first thought was, "Seriously?!  Seriously?  Seriously?  Why are you texting me?"

My first action was to call my sister.  And then I opened a cheap bottle of red wine.  And then I called another friend, then another, then another.  In 36 minutes, I had consumed a bottle of red wine and called 6 friends because when a BOP shows up, it's one thing.  However, when a nonrelationship-believing BOP shows up to tell you he's about to embark on an adventure of new FATHERHOOD, a pretty HUGE RELATIONSHIP, and that the womb of the child is that of a twenty-something, there really isn't much to do other than open a bottle of wine—and then open a second bottle.  And drink the second bottle in just under an hour, and pass out at 9:30 on a Friday night.

In uncorking the BOPs box of nostalgia pictures, I had no idea what I was inviting from the universe.  And when I tried to take the trash out, the universe decided it would take out all of my trash in one motion.

I don't care what Fill's motives were for texting.  I didn't respond.  Because how does one respond to that message?  And why is it even important?  It's not to say that I haven't thought of making a Top 5 BOP list: I have.  I'm not going to post it on the web.  And it's not even to say that I haven't wondered about one person in particular and maybe two that I would have the "What does it all mean?" conversation with—I want to have that conversation still, and I hope the urge is fleeting and disappears before I am 40, but I just never imagined people would be wanting to have the "What does it all mean?" conversation with me.  But it turns out, nostalgia doesn't have a "block" feature.

Pepperoni Man

 

When my sister got divorced, she started dating furiously.  I used to write about her and called her “Datingzilla,” and now I think the term Datingzilla still sticks, but it’s a more endearing term—it’s a term I can only strive for in this horrible, horrible dating world. What I didn’t understand at the time was my sister married really young—at 21 she was married and by 24 she’d had her first child.  At 21, I hadn’t figured out how to drink properly; I drank to excess and threw up each time I drank and usually lied down on the carpet behind the counter at the record store where I worked on Saturday mornings.  And on particularly brave nights out, I would take barf breaks to drink more or because the margaritas I was drinking caused such bad heartburn, that I needed to get the "burny" out.  There’s no possible way I could have been married to another human at that point.  And at 24, the only thing I figured out about men was that it feels fucking awful to beg one to love you, fall to your knees, and snot all over yourself when they leave you in the middle of the night while you’re weeping like a sad bastard on the dirty carpet of your duplex that you share with the gay man next door who smokes so much that the smoke smell seeps through the dishwasher, which is located on the mutual wall you share: the same next door neighbor who did not mind me having parties where my male friends dressed in togas and danced in the front yard while wearing beer boxes on their head.  The neighbor didn’t like the noise, but he liked the show. 

My favorite line I remember uttering from that time in my life is, “When you told me you didn’t love me, I thought you were lying.”  Part of me still believes that guy loved me; part of me believes that guy still loves me now.  You don’t want to believe it when someone tells you they don’t love you after all—after you’ve poured your guts into something.  But moreso, you don’t want to believe someone doesn’t love you after you have displayed such pathetic behavior: sobbing, crying, begging.  There’s something about someone leaving you even after you’ve begged that makes the begging seem that much more cringeworthy and pathetic when you reflect on it in the future.

 I don’t understand how my sister continues to find men in this town that are willing to take her to drinks and dinner.  Actually, I can’t believe my sister finds men in this town that have boring jobs and are the kind of men I would potentially date because they have boring jobs and drive fuel-efficient vehicles and have the financial capability to bore her with a night on the town and free dinner.  Essentially, I just want the free dinner and the effort that comes along with spending money on a lady to buy her a piece of meat because you “want to get to know her.”  I’ve had free dinner and drinks and dates out, but it’s generally only after I’ve established a relationship with men.  I want free meat with no cost.  And my sister recently was offered meat for free.  And it turns out, as I am sure we have all had to admit at some point, meat is never free.

Every few weeks, my sister and I trade dating stories; usually, I have found someone I am crushing on who I date and it goes horribly wrong, or I fall into like with someone and don’t know what I want to do or what is going on at all.   Recently, I was relating my woes of not being certain as to what I was doing, but my sister consistently has stories of real dates.  Dates where men drive Priuses or small Nissans that she hates, and they take her to dinner (though sometimes that even falls apart).

My sister went out with a butcher, who seems like a perfect date for me, actually, seeing as I like meat.  But I don’t understand the series of events with this butcher man, necessarily.

My sister met the butcher online.  And funny enough, it’s not the first butcher she’s been out with.  Somewhere in the progression of their conversation online—BEFORE THEY HAD EVEN MET—the man starts sending my sister pictures of his pepperoni-making process.

Here’s the first one:

Note the flyswatter in upper right-hand corner

Let’s discuss this photograph.  If a man, meat or no meat, sent me a picture of a meat grinder before we’d even had our first date, I would seriously reconsider going out with him, and that’s maybe why Datingzilla gets more dates than I ever will.  But I’d also like to note the flyswatter in the photo so close to the meat grinder as a preface to the next photos.  Also, I imagine him saying something like “Girl, I’m gonna spank you with this fly swatter and feed you into my meat grinder,” and this is why Datingzilla is far more successful than me.

Here’s the second picture in the series:

Pepperoni hanging out to dry

All I can say about this is, here’s a picture of the meat that came out of the grinder (who knows what kind of meat it was) and here is the pepperoni hanging to dry because what doesn’t impress a lady  more than a photo of drying meat?

Here’s the third and final photo:

Bag O Pepperoni

This one speaks for itself.

So, here’s the question: at what point does a man think it’s a good idea to send you pictures of his meat-making before he’s even taken you for meat?

My sister went on the date, and she’s lived to tell the story (she was not killed in the grinder):

1.     Butcher and her go to dinner.  It seems okay.

2.     Butcher walks her to her car in parking lot of restaurant and says, “Hold on a sec!” and leaves her standing near here car while he runs to his car.  He runs back with the bag o pepperoni (see above photo).

3.     He gives her the bag o pepperoni, and she says, “Thank you,” because it turns out when someone hands you a bag of meat after a date, you’ve got to say something.

4.     (My sister left these particular details of the date until the very end.  And when I heard this part, I cringed, laughed until I cried, and nearly fell on the floor.  I could not breathe because it’s horrible and awkward and awesome.  It went something like this—in her words as I have re-imagined them):

“His nose bothered me a lot.  It was like, one of those big alcoholic noses.”

“Like the big, purple, veiny bulbous ones?” I asked.

“Yes.  Exactly, but his was creepier.  It was all, like, nubby.  Like diseased-looking.  Like really nubby.  And I feel like a jerk saying this, but it really bothered me.  And I feel guilty, but it was freaky.”

5.     After my sister says thank you, she thinks she sees something on the guy’s nose—something like food, presumably—and she reaches up, and touches his nose with one hand, while clutching a bag of pepperoni in the other.  And it turns out, there was no food on his nose, it was just his nose.

In closing, my sister texted the guy later to let him know his pepperoni was delicious.  She never actually ate it, but she fed it to her son, a 10 year old.  And he loved it.  So, she said something like “Your pepperoni is really good,” because something my sister and I share in common is never wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings even if we secretly think they have creepy noses and they’ve unveiled their secret meat-making process too early in the game.

His response: “As a butcher, I get the special cuts of meat that no one gets.  I get first dibs.  If you keep dating me, I’ll make you all kinds of meat treats.”

It turns out though Pepperoni Man was my sister’s date, in an alternate universe he is my dream man: in this universe, however, he is my worse nightmare and the reason why men continue to be a mystery.

I Have Tits, but I'm Not a Tard: Why I Hate Being a Girl Sometimes

Some of the reasons I hate being a woman include these:  I bleed monthly.  I have to stuff cotton in my vagina to stop the bleeding or wear a miniature diaper around just so people don't think I have sat in chocolate pudding.  I am emotional, and at times these emotions can cause irrational behavior.  There are certain expectations I am to adhere to by our society; for example, I am not allowed to stick my hands down my pants in public to scratch my labia.  However, men are allowed to scratch their balls, and I see it happen a lot.  If my cooter starts itching, and I reach down to scratch it, people automatically think I'm disgusting, have crabs, or am a freak.  (Just a note: my cooter isn't diseased and is not currently itchy.) Men are allowed to fart in public--they can't hold it in, they say.  The only other person I have heard make that claim is my sister who loves to crap in public restrooms it seems. (Don't tell her I told you that, though.)

There are equally as many things I enjoy about being a woman:  I have boobs, and men don't.  I get to wear lipstick.  I can ask for help when repairing things or when I am having a hard time opening a jar of pickles, and I don't get stared at or accused of being a wuss.  Men often hold the door open, and for a germaphobe like me, this is a welcome blessing in disguise.  I am a crazy cat lady; crazy cat man just doesn't have the same ring to it.  I can watch romatic comedies and it's okay.

But the two most irritating things about being a woman are cars and computers.

While I was growing up, my step-dad taught me a lot about cars.  I was mostly an unwilling participant, but I happened to always be a fan of old junkers, and old junkers naturally come with problems.  While I only asked to physically help fix my 1987 Chevy Sprint once because I wanted to "get my hands dirty," I listened.  I listened to every single word my step-dad said, even when I didn't want to know how carburetors or fuel-injected cars work.  If it was a lecture about batteries and alternators, though I didn't necessarily want the long explanation--I just wanted the thing fixed already, please, damnit--I was a sponge for information.

This was recently (in the last year) most helpful to me when I looked at a new car at Dennis Dillon.  I bought a Saab a few years ago, and I have become a big fan.  As my Saab is past 200,000 miles, I thought it might be time to start looking.  On a Friday, I saw a red, 1999 Saab on Craigslist at Dennis Dillon.  I went to check it out on the sly;  I just wanted to see it and drive off--no salesmen, just a quick glance.  My roommate was the getaway driver, and as we turned into the lot, I jumped out, checked out the car,  and I was about to jump back in when a man was shouting across the lot at me.  Damn.  I was trapped.  To make a long-story short, I took the Saab for a test drive.  And when I started it, a red warning light was on.  I asked the salesman about it, and he said he didn't know what it was, and he didn't think their service department guys could get it looked at over the weekend because it was a Saab and they needed a "special computer" to look at it since it was "foreign."  "Oh, really?"  I asked, as I stepped out of the car after the test drive.  And as he told his disheartening saga of the foreign car, and made his way to his office--implying I should come along to work out a deal--I said, "Hold on a second."  I walked back to the car, opened the door, popped the hood, and lifted it up.  On top of the engine or right inside the hood on the frame, there are usually specifications for what kind of instrument your car needs to read warning messages.  Once again, I have owned cars with problems; this is something I know and have soaked in from listening to my step-dad.  "Yeah. It takes the ODB II.  The service department should have that."

My roommate stood nearby, and I could tell it took all her energy to hold back the biggest bout of laughter.  The guy looked humiliated: he was caught.  And I didn't care.  I didn't buy the car.  The manager and I had many phone calls about the car and what was wrong with it; he treated me like a girl.  What he didn't know is the whole time I was talking not only to my step-dad, but I was also talking to my mechanic, the one person I am thankful for who has never treated me like a girl.  When there were certain things that my step-dad couldn't fix on the car, I found a reputable mechanic whom I can call and tell what I think the problem is when the car is having issues.  He actually listens, and listens well.  He trusts that even though I can't do the work myself, I am capable of diagnosing a problem, even though I am a girl.  However, there are many other people in the car industry that don't understand this about the gender with boobs: parts guys, tire guys, tow truck drivers.  They just don't get it.

This leads me to today.  I got a Time Capsule for my computers to do backups.  For those that don't know, boobless or boobs-having, it is essentially a big hard drive that functions as a wireless router, too.  I have an old laptop and a newer desktop that I wanted to backup on this Time Capsule.  My desktop had no problem backing up, but the laptop was a completely different story.

I kept getting the same two error messages, and after searching forum after forum online for an answer, I reached out to friends for help on Facebook.  I got the best advice they knew how to give, but unfortunately, the problems weren't solved. 

I took a trip to the Mac store here in Boise.  And instead of trying to listen to my theories, the guy kept talking over me.  I told him I had set up a network and that my internet was working.  He said, "Well, you could be on anyone's internet connection if there is an unsecured network in your neighborhood."  It took me forever to explain that, no, I was positive I was on my OWN network.  It took me forever because the guy wouldn't shut up for a second and listen to me.  I explained that I understood how to set up the network and how to set up the Time Capsule, and he couldn't accept that as truth. As I tried to ask my questions to diagnose my problem and give my theory that it might be an operating system error--to possibly get his input--he cut me off and said he needed to see the computer and the Time Capsule. 

"How much will that cost?"  
"$100.00 bucks an hour," he said.  "It should take about a half hour to figure out." 
"And then it will be fixed?" I asked.
"Not necessarily."

After I got home, I researched more forums and found a temporary work-around the situation, which I will not explain here--boobs or no boobs, it's boring.  I researched the upgraded operating system online and discovered it 30 bucks. I decided I would try it to get a more permanent solution, so I went to Best Buy to get the operating system and to ask someone and try and pick their brain; it seemed as though a number of people had the same issue with their Time Capsules.  Some computer person had to have an answer.

When I started to ask the guy at Best Buy--the supposed expert--he didn't even want to listen to my question.  He immediately started writing down a phone number.  It was the number of the "in-home" tech who could come and set-up the Time Capsule for me. 

"But I don't need that," I said.  "I understand how to set it up, and it is working on one computer, just not the other."

And this is why it is frustrating to be a girl:  most everytime I have had to ask for help in cars or computers, men write me off.  And that's an interesting point: men are always the ones in the positions to be asked; there are rarely women in the fields of cars and computers. 

Men tune me out.  Instead of listening to my questions, as if I were another man asking the question, they assume I am incompetent and not worth their time. I swear the next time a man treats me like this, I am going to stomp on his toe--serious, look for me on the news.

Oh, and by the way, Mac store and Geek Squad guy?  The fucking operating system upgrade worked.  Eat it, fuckers.

My First Teaching Dream

In August, I begin teaching a class of 25 Introduction to College Writing Students.  While I'm nervous, mainly because I'm a sweater when I'm nervous (as in a person who sweats, not someone made out of wool), the idea of me sweating in front of everyone makes me even more nervous--maybe even more nervous than the thought of teaching.  Yes, I'm nervous about sweating in front of 25 people; I'm not nervous about what I am going to say to them.

But my anxiety isn't inhabiting my every thought, so I was surprised I had my first teaching dream last night.

I was in front of a huge lecture hall.  In real life, I won't be; I'll be in a small computer lab.  The room was dark, made of wood, had three groupings of seats, with two aisles.  On one side of the room was a chalkboard, on the other side, a whiteboard.  On the whiteboard side, there was a ladder.  I was supposed to climb the ladder to write on the whiteboard.  I am terrified of ladders; I am no good on them, so I chose the chalkboard side.  My theory has always been, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and I am a fat girl.

The students all sat on the side of the room with the whiteboard, opposite of where I was standing.  I had my bag of stuff on a chair in the back of the room, and I kept going back to my bag for stuff.  I opened my iPad, where I have been keeping notes for class--a tentative plan for each day--and I realized it was Wednesday, and I had yet to take attendance.  In real life, I will be teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was then that I noticed one of my professors observing my class.  Since I had yet to take attendance, and I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I had planned for the day--my nerves made me forget everything, it seems--and I was worried about being observed and be caught not taking attendance, I made an attendance speech.  "I have not taken attendance for the past couple of days because I wanted to wait around until next week until things have settled down.  Ya know...people are moving from class to class, and there is just a lot of tumult."

It's then that I decided we should do some sort of activity--since we were being observed and all.  I can remember seeing some kind of clustermap--a way of generating ideas for writing--and somehow I was turning it into a group activity.   I started to write the instructions on the board and then I turned back to the class.  There were only about 11 students left.  Where the hell did everybody go, I wondered.  This isn't enough people for a group activity!

At this point, since everyone randomly disappeared since I wasn't taking attendance, I decided it was time for the mandatory attendance speech.  "I will take attendance everyday.  You need to be here on time and ready to work.  If you miss more than four classes, you will fail the course.  I am not afraid to fail anyone, and I will do it if I have to."  There were grumblings from the students and shouts of protest, and all of a sudden, the room was full again.  A student stepped up to a microphone in one of the aisles I hadn't noticed before and started to shout at me--I was unfair, I was incompetent.

All of the students were talking.  They were talking really, really loud in fact.  Everyone that has been to college knows that this is generally not the case for the first week.  People sit and are quiet, nervous.  And I was trying to talk over them, and it just didn't work.  Then, a group of head honchos--presumably the university president and some others came to my class.  They walked to the front of the room, and someone I knew was saying to one of the other men while gesturing to me, "Oh, she's great.  She's just going to be a great instructor."  Then the same man who complimented me looked down at my shoes, "What kind of shoes are you wearing?  Those aren't professional shoes.  You're wearing Crocs while teaching at a university?"

"No," I said.  "These are dress flats, but my feet are so big and wide and I have flat feet, so my feet make my shoes look like crocs."

And magically, it was the end of class.  Everyone was gone.  It was then I discovered there was a microphone on the podium, since the room was so large. Oh, I thought to myself,  they just couldn't hear me.  And as I approached the microphone, and messed with the volume, all I could get was feedback.

The next instructor, a new instructor, too, showed up for her class.  She was a beautiful black woman with an afro.  She was stylishly dressed, and as the clock hit 10:40, she began her class by grabbing a big microphone (one straight out of The Price is Right) from the middle of the stage, one that I had somehow missed while I was teaching.  She started her lesson plan, and her students were quiet, and then suddenly she began to sing the lesson and her students started cheering.  I thought to myself why didn't I find that microphone?

The Cat Lady Writes a Letter to the Cat Food Company: What Idle Cat Lady Hands Do With Their Idle Time

While I am waiting for school to start and am spending most days when I am not at work preparing for the class I am teaching this upcoming semester, I periodically go to the store to buy groceries.  Today, I bought some beets to bake, some La Croix, a bottle of beer, some Krab Salad, Wheat Thins, wet cat food, a gay pride-themed poof for my body wash (it was the cheapest one they had) and a donut.   I stuffed everything into my canvas Kiss bag, as I realized I was wearing my Kiss Destroyer shirt, something I vowed I would never let happen in public--be seen with the bag and the shirt together.  One by themselves is kind of ironic and amusing, two together verges on weird.

I got home, unpacked the big box of canned cat food I opted for finally--the variety pack!  Usually I like to pick out my own cans of cat food, envisioning what it must be like to be my cats, savoring each Salmon and Cheese Savory Shred bite, or Flaked Tuna in Sauce.  But today, I was practical.  At .4 cents cheaper a can, I opted for the box--those cats can get used to the 3 flavors in here and like it!

I opened the box, and as you'll read in the following letter to Purina, this is what I discovered:

Dear Purina,
Usually I buy the single 5.5 oz cans of Friskies for my cat so they can have variety, but today I bought a 24-can pack with Mixed Grill, Ocean Whitefish and Tuna, and Turkey and Giblets. There are 16 cans of Turkey and Giblets and 8 cans of Mixed Grill; there are no Ocean Whitefish and Tuna in the pack at all.  I won't ever be buying the packs again, because I hate being lied to. I am sure my cats are going to appreciate the 16 cans of Turkey and Giblets; it's not even Thanksgiving!  BORING!  It's called a variety pack for a reason! 

I'm waiting for a response.  I particularly hope they pay attention to the Thanksgiving part: the only thing giblets are good for is stuffing a raw turkey's ass and pulling them out of a nasty sack for making gravy.

Nerdy Birdy, Look Who's Turning Thirty

There is nothing more depressing than reading the New York Times Weddings/Celebrations section close to a month before your thirtieth birthday. The Weddings/Celebrations section is full of presumably the elite in and around the New York area that are getting married--the ones who can either afford to announce their marriages or whose elite parents advertise for the engaged.

Here's an example of one: "Dr. Ezekiel Shields and his wife Myrna are proud to announce the marriage of their daughter Sarah Shields to Brad Goldberg.  Brad and Sarah met while attending law school at Cornell.  Brad was birthed from the womb playing classical piano, and Sarah the same.  After they met, both found they shared an interested in Russian literature at the age of 3."

Okay, so I made that up, but that's how I feel when I read the announcements.  And the pictures always kill me.  The engagement photos of these people make them look so old.  I don't mean wrinkly, but like distinguished.  Though the couples average in age from 25-30, they looks so well put together--like they take their clothes to the cleaner and have facials and professional expensive dye jobs or makeup artists--all while I rinsed my hair this morning, halfway blowdryed it, and sprayed some TreSemme in it because I was in too much of a hurry to do anything else.

I haven't thought much about turning thirty until today.  I used to think about it.  After I re-enrolled in college and found out I would graduate in 2010, I laughed.  I never thought 2010 would come, and I never thought 30 would, either.  I think I had more of a problem with turning 25 because at 25, you're expected to quit fucking off and decide what it is you want to do with your life.  And it is looking at these people in the New York Times and comparing myself to others in my age group that makes me nervous.

Lady Gaga--born in 1986, she just turned 25.  She still gets to fuck off and drink a lot and wear meat suits, but she is easily now a millionaire (billionaire) and shits gold records.  I will never shit gold records, though I will eat plenty of meat and never wear it.

Jessica McClure--better known as"Baby Jessica" born two days before Lady Gaga, just turned 25.  While her claim to fame was falling in a well, and the media attention and multiple surgeries she had to endure were horrendous, she just cashed in on a trust fund set up by "well-wishers" in the eighties which contains $800,000.  She is also married and has two kids.

Tiffany Brissette--better known as V.I.C.I. the robot in A Small Wonder is 36 years old.  She's a nurse.  And she was once a child-actor and a robot.  How can I compare with a robot?

Erin Smith--totally not her real name, but a girl I was in G.A.T.E. (gifted and talented education) with in elementary school.  She got a big set of fake boobs--what's that cost?  $5,000 dollars?  Seems like an accomplishment to me.

Alisa Baxter--her maiden name.  Another girl I went to school with.  She is now a neurosurgeon.  In the tenth grade, do you know what her dream was?  To be a neurosurgeon.  How the hell do people know that at 16?  Did Alisa know her boob would fall out of her dress at the high school prom?  Probably not.  Did she want it to?  Probably not.  Did she assume I would remember it for the rest of my life?  No, but I did.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is, I don't know what I want to be, yet.  I know I am going to graduate school, and I know that is an accomplishment, but it took me a long time to get here.  I did a lot of screwing around in my 20's, and it was a time of tumult (some self-inflicted, most not.)  I just don't feel like I'm an adult yet.  I don't take my clothes to the cleaner; in fact, I don't even buy clothes that have to be taken to a cleaner, especially since my gay friend that did my ironing moved away--no lie.  Most of my friends have kids and spouses and dogs and houses and things to take care of.  I'm lucky that I remember to feed my cat (I remember when he meows at me) and water my plant (I remember when it is sagging down the sides of the planter).

I wonder this:  will thirty make me feel and look like more of an adult? I doubt it.  Will I keep fooling people?  I hope so.  Will I come to love vacuuming?  Never.