Letter to some pretty neat male human beings

Today I'm putting aside my casual hatred of men to make a post about the ones I appreciate. I'm thankful for the dudes who make my life a little bit cooler:

• To the large dude on my bus who wears powder pink high tops;
• To the guys in the coffee shop who switch up their indie playlists for the occasional ABBA, which makes Monday mornings a little bit easier to stomach;
• To the businessman in front of me in line, who grooved to "Dancing Queen" without any hint of embarrassment;
• To the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, reasons obvious;
• To my PI, a man who is so good at being a boss that I somehow never have any complaints (about him);
• To my dad;
• To my awesome boyfriend, who not only puts up with my neuroses but sometimes claims to like them;
• To the men (and women, too) who have invented and improved modern plumbing so that I can take hot showers and use indoor toilets.

Props to you, dudes. Props.


Enjoy that. It's all you'll get from me until men learn what it's like to menstruate.

Some thoughts about women and their blogs

There's scads of blogs by women I will collectively refer to as Barbie Kenswifeywife (nee Homemakertobe) who slave at their computer to rehash every detail of the meatloaf, pancakes, muffins, pie, sandwich, etc that they made for their husband that day and then show us a pretty picture of what it looked like on the plate before he tore it to pieces with his giant dirty man hands. Or feel the need to describe what type of flower a bunny was chewing on in their garden that morning and how it felt to watch a carrot grow. Some of these blogs are actually written by unmarried women (perhaps Skipper Homemakertobe) who seem intent on establishing an anecdotal resume accounting for her skills as a future wife and mother.

What I don't get about this is why these women are so anxious to throw themselves on the pyre of matronly incarceration-- are these the same people that yearn for the retro $150 aprons at Anthropologie? Because listen, honey, the underwear there is much cuter. Your husband will like it more than another apple pie. Also, there are hobbies that won't make you and your husband look like saggy troll dolls when you're naked together. Just a thought.

As women in real life we hit glass ceilings at work, suffer under the antiquated ideals of the older generations, and juggle our personal narratives with conflicting global endeavors. On our own blogs, we are able to choose who are we and what we present to the world-- so why is everyone my age trying to transform herself into a 1950's housewife?

Not to say my blog's perfect, but you won't see me listing my typing speed and a list of dinners I know how to make. You won't see me writing cutesy little things about my weekend or about the homemade facial recipe I tried this weekend. I write this blog with only one aspiration:

For the irritated, for the frustrated, for those embittered and disenchanted with the world, that they may experience catharsis and laughter and fraternity in my rage;
For the dull and boring at heart, that they may be enlightened to all that is more interesting in the world than reality TV, pop music, and baking chocolate chip cookies;
And for the lame, the clueless, the assholes, and the sadsacks, that they may be shamed, shamed, shamed into making this world a less annoying place.

In closing, I would just like to say: I would love to read a woman's blog that is not about cooking, gardening, mothering, knitting, or any sort of crafting. Maybe a law blog, or an auto-repair blog. Send me some links. Next week, for Valentine's Day, I'll make a post highlighting women who are cool. VIVA LA FEMME.

ROAD BITCH: The story of my life

Before I explain how bad NC drivers are, let me tell you two things about the South:

First, let me clarify that when people talk to you about "cities" in the South, they don't mean real cities*. They mean something similar in size to large suburbs in the North, except there's less traffic and less stuff to do. What I mean is that when I drive around Raleigh, NC there's typically street parking available, a scant few couples dispersed on the sidewalk, and if it's a weekend night, a 10-minute wait at the most popular restaurants. That's kind of nice.

Second, when they say there's a slower pace of life here, this has only been apparent to me in a few ways. (A) It takes at least twice as long to grab a cup of plain ol' black coffee anywhere here than it does in Chicago and (B) people walk excruciatingly slow. I'm talking pausing-between-steps-to-not-run-into-the-person -ahead-of-you, awkward-passing-people in the grass, block-away-from-your-apartment-but-not-sure-you'll-make-it-to-the-toilet-because-man-in-front-of-you-is-strolling-at-an-insanely-leisurely-pace slow.

Taking these things into account, I am wondering why, how, why!? are the drivers here so incompetent? They seem to be simultaneously so hurried that they can't be bothered to pay attention to traffic laws and also lackadaisical about actually arriving anywhere efficiently. For example:

1. Traffic. There's no traffic, per se, but there are traffic jams. The reason this occurs is that 50% of drivers, seeing that they will need to merge with the lane to their left in the next mile, choose to stay in the right lane, ZOOMING past people who merged at an obediently reasonable distance from the stoplight. Then, a car's length from the intersection, they force themselves into the leftward lane. This practice, I conclude, is what causes the slowdown in the left lane in the first place.
2. Turn Signals. In spite of their exquisite predilection for merging where no one wants them to merge, it seems as though NC drivers are unaware that their cars are equipped with turn signals. I would say that 90% of the time a car in front of me applies its brakes, I am not sure if there is a dead animal in the road, if their engine has stopped, or if they are in fact turning left or right. It's like a mystery novel without any clues or red herrings, and if you aren't paying attention you could die.
3. Intersections. NC drivers do not seem to understand intersections. In fact, let me explain it for them right here: When a light turns yellow, you stop if you have time, and continue through if it would be unsafe to attempt to stop. Whether or not the car in front of you makes it through the light is not the deciding factor. If the light is already red, do not proceed through the intersection. Do not stop in the middle of the intersection. Do not honk at someone with the right of way who will not let you illegally turn into their lane. Easy, right??? Maybe you can print it out and put it on your windshield.
   

So let me tell you about my day yesterday. I was driving to Target to buy a leash for my cat. (This is a topic for another day.) The following events happened in the should-be-15-minutes-but-took-45-minutes trip.

• Several cars in front of me, a car came to a complete stop on the freeway (with everyone behind him having to slam on their brakes from a 55 mph speed) to let a car from the left lane merge in front of him.
• A few minutes later, another car in front of me swerved ENTIRELY off the road and into the grass and then IMMEDIATELY back on again, without regard for the confused and frightened cars behind him. When I passed him a few minutes later I realized that he was fiddling with his blackberry instead of looking at the road.
• At the fateful merged-intersection #1, the light turned red as a car was passing through. Instead of like, you know, continuing... this car came to a complete stop in the middle of the intersection and then attempted to back up into her lane, which had a car in it already because rational drivers assumed she would continue through the intersection.
• At merged-intersection #2, as we were merging onto the interstate highway, the enormous white trash truck behind me was throwing a hissy fit, honking, and flashing his brights as two cars simultaneously tried to cut me off without using turn signals. All this as we made a 45 degree highway exit and merged into 70 mph traffic.

My first commandment for driving in NC is to never let people merge in front of me. If they continue trying after I make it clear I won't let them, I give them the finger and a big smile. I am not some nice country girl. They can kiss my ass.

NC drivers, listen to me. You need to get better. You need to take your drivers' exams in another state so someone can tell you what is right and wrong. You need to get your money's worth out of those expensive new-fangled turn signal gadgets. I do not want to wonder if I'll die driving 1.5 miles down a country road to my boyfriend's house. THANKS.

*Except in Texas. Texas has real cities, or so I've heard.

TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO BLOGGING, in case you care

Oh hi... here I am.

By way of apologizing for not writing in my blog for the better part of a year and a half, I give you the lame lame lame excuse of saying that I have a boyfriend lately and I'm happy. And you wouldn't want to read posts about how happy I am week after week, right? Otherwise you'd be reading somebody's baking blog or garden blog or "I AM PLANNING THE PERFECTEST WEDDING" blog. And also by way of not apologizing, I suggest you imagine that YOU were dating some really perfect person, and ask yourself if YOU would prefer to stay home on Saturday nights to rant about idiosyncrasies.

Well, the thing is, I sort of miss being able to rant in a way that doesn't make people I know in real life think I am an unabashed murderous weirdo. Actually I really miss it, because there's not enough space in the microblogging world to express my irrationally strong feelings about people who don't use turn signals or post on Facebook six times a day about the kinds of cookies they baked for their increasingly corpulent husband or the depraved misuse of commas in New York Times headlines.

The really good news about my absence is that it has given me time to consider what exactly it is I would like to do with my blog, and also enabled me to accrue a large amount of minty fresh antipathy for the world.

So I'm back. Please come read my blog again. I missed you. In the words of the Jackson 5: Oh, baby give me one more chance! Won't--you--please--let--me back in your heart? How can you resist that?

Quickie

A friend and former coworker in the depressing world of holiday retail recently sent me a link to the following comment because of its obvious relation to my recent diatribes about the marginalization and communal fear of weirdness in society:

not an insult

and I think it's awesome and better than any vile insultry I could possibly spew about discrimination against the odd and unusual on this blog, so I'm sharing it with you now as a lazy but entertaining substitute for my own writing.

I have lately been inundated with science and read-a-thons (not too late to donate!) and angst and exercise, embattled with addictions to coffee and sleep, and so busy being disenchanted with the world that I haven't had time to process it verbally. But soon I will appease the Internet with a fresh entry. In the mean time, have you seen that new movie Babies !?! It is ADORABLE and ETHNOGRAPHICALLY STIMULATING!