Is There Ever a Right Time for Physical Actions or Hitting a Child is Always Stupid

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38739441/ns/travel-news/

That article is a about a flight attendant on a Southwest flight who intervened when a mother slapped her 13-month old baby in the face.

The mother says she lightly popped the baby because the child had kicked her and wouldn't stop crying.

The flight attendant says other passengers complained and witnessed the slap and so she took the baby from the parents to the back of the plane where the father joined them and held the baby until it fell asleep.

Once the plane landed the police interviewed the parents and the flight attendant where the mother demonstrated that the slap hadn't been hard and explained that when the child cries she cannot hear the mother say 'no'.

Now... I do think this mother sounds like a redneck piece of shit. However this got me thinking about raising kids and, of course, how I was raised.

The fact is, having a child does not guarantee that you will have a well-behaved angel. You can look at hereditary factors and developmental theory but really it's a bit of a crap shoot on what kind of temperament a child will have. The closest example I have is my half sister from my dad who will be 8 in december and myself. For the purpose of clarity, my dad was the main parent during my formative years, almost all discipline came from my dad while my sister has the tag team approach of my dad and stepmom. Growing up, I was an absolute terror. I once slapped a nurse in the face when I was three trying to escape a shot and had to be dragged screaming from the McDonald's playland. On several occasions I was spanked and I remember very vividly the night my dad popped me on the hand when I kept reaching to touch the million degree kerosene space heater. My stepmom came from an abusive family and absolutely abhorred any physical action towards my little sister. My sister, however, is an incredibly intelligent and stubborn young lady and during a period where she began hitting my dad and stepmom just to get a reaction my dad finally popped her on the hand and explained to her that hitting hurts, that's what it feels like, this is why we don't hit. She never hit either parent again and I never touched the kerosene space heater (except the night I sat on it not realizing it was on and gave myself second-degree burns on my hands... not smart).

Now with how connected our world has become, a lot of attention was placed on physical abuse of children. For a period of time, spanking was considered going to far and there's no reason to hit your child. This is a generalization. I was spanked as a kid and I don't think back to those days as where everything went wrong. I wasn't traumatized and, frankly, I had it coming. When a young child who hasn't aged far enough to learn that all actions have consequences and how they affect other people and they go into a tantrum that involves throwing their little fists and objects around them... well... spanking will happen. With my sister, she gets time outs in her room which to her is torture (despite all the pink and her four beta fish) and this has worked wonderfully to the point that she comes out and apologizes for her outburst (I'm not kidding, it honestly freaks me out when she speaks like a small adult). I, on the other hand, couldn't be kept in one spot for longer than a minute. It was either locking me in (which never happened otherwise I'd go through the window) or I got a spanking. When I got older I calmed down and it wasn't necessary to use physical actions with me. Besides I respected and loved my dad so much and he, in turn, was very open and fair with me that by the time I was ten I rarely dared to disobey.

Corralling kids is hard. I don't know what my dad would have done if he'd had more than one kid when I was four or what he and my stepmom would do now if they had more than one little girl running around the house. I don't think less of my dad for spanking me or think he failed as a parent in those moments. It's just what happened and he didn't spank to hurt, he spanked to shock.

And that's the important difference. If a parent's going to spank or pop the kid the kid has to be old enough to know it's the result of their actions. Otherwise it is abuse and a failure. A 13 month old baby who is slapped isn't going to think "oh my God this is what happens when I scream and throw glass angel figurines (me again). They're going to scream harder now because the person who is supposed to love and care for them and who they depend on is striking them.

Spanking and popping is a last resort. Not the first thing you do. Stressed out or not, you have a responsibility to teach your child proper actions and hitting them with no explanation and no leading reason other than crying is base awful and only setting up issues later. My dad spanked me for a reason I was aware of. When I was much older my mom hit me for less clear reasons. Usually something about how she was upset that I was leaving the house or didn't call her on birthday because I was coming over anyway. Now that I carried and that affected me later in life.

And aside from definitions of abuse and the difficulty of raising children... WHY do parents bring BABIES on FLIGHTS. I have the urge to throw a tantrum on a plane and I'm an adult. Is it really necessary? Turbulence, trapped in a small space for hours, pressure changes. You are ASKING for a miserable baby. To me, there are only a few reasons to bring a baby on a damn plane. Funeral you can't miss. Family dinner across the country with a family member who may not see another holiday. Moving. Sure, you needed to bring the baby. But family vacation with a creature that won't form coherent memories until they're three and even then it's still pretty muddy? You didn't want to leave the baby with a sitter? You HAVE to go home for Christmas just because it's what you've always done? Stop being so goddamned selfish and think of the kid. You had a kid and things fucking change. You can't always do what you want because you NEED to do for them. And one of the last things a baby needs is a flight to Idaho.

And don't think I've forgotten you idiots who take your 6 month old baby to Disney World. It's not for them, it's for you. They won't remember it and they'll spend the day taking heat stroke naps in their stroller while being periodically woken up into a nightmare of flashing lights and giant mouse heads floating in front of them. Ever seen photos of babies crying on Santa's lap? Now imagine Santa is actually a huge rodent.

But I digress.

People Who Choose to Be Obese are Stupid

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Alone in my house: Summer Edition Finale

Ok... so alone in the house time was restructured into alone in the house but very busy outside the house. Dinner, dancing, 10 hours in the record store. I envied no man.

However I did have ONE night out of the original five where I was alone... in the house. Last night.

I left work at the hookah lounge around 2am having stayed late to talk and enjoy a hookah like everyone gets to. Upon arrival at home I engaged in many boring activities, feeding the cat, washing my face, eating my roommates hummus on my other roommates tortilla standing by the sink like a 35 year old bachelor who's become to accustomed to not going out he's completely forgotten the comforts of sitting at a table in a chair with either conversation or at least a book to keep him company.

Then I finally took advantage of having an entire house to myself. I played my cello for hours as loud as I possibly could. And this is what I discovered.

Covering Billy Idol's White Wedding as a slow jazz number is a either recipe for awesome or disaster.

I need another week of practice before debuting Canon in D at Joanna's wedding.

If I attempt fast slides after a week of not playing... I will cut open my pinky on my D string.

But now my roommates have returned from Bonnaroo and things are back to normal.

OH MY FUCKING GOD I GET KICKED OUT OF THIS HOUSE IN JULY!! WHY HAVEN'T I PACKED?!

Alone in my house: Summer Edition part 1/2

I swear to no one and nothing I will chronicle my whole time alone in this house.

It's summer and with summer comes sun, swimming and music festivals. In particular (at least as far as I know) Bonnaroo. I've never been to Bonnaroo (as much as I'd like to) and this year I put all my spare money into Comicon in July. However, all my roommates bought tickets and Stingray is filming out of town for the same amount time which leaves me... alone... IN THE HOUSE. This has happened before over Christmas and with so much time on my hands, I tried to blog each day to see what I ended coming up with and how I spent my time... alone... IN THE HOUSE.

I think I got two posts in 5 days.

But I'm going to do it this time. I don't promise.

Day 1/2: The First Night

Really alone time began at midnight when I got home and realized it was just me in the house. I promptly removed my pants and stole food from my roommates to make fried rice. Then I meditated on how to spend all this time deciding on composing some music and drawing some sample pieces... then I watched hulu for two hours and started updating my blog.

Good night!

Overly-Opinionated People Make Themselves Look Stupid

I'll be honest, I'm extremely opinionated. I have an opinion on everything from my love of corn to the abortions Michael Bay squeezes out. And I express them. Often. However I recognize that there is a time and a place.

Allow me to set the scene. I'm at my record store job as the mid-day. At the store there's an opener, a closer and a mid-day who works basically as the overlap between the two. Every shift I have the opener leaves an hour early and the closer leaves an hour late which leaves me two gloriously uninterrupted (except for customers) hours for me to play whatever music and watch whatever movie I feel like. No worries that my suggestion of Henry Rollins or the documentary Hell House falling flat or a coworker politely tuning out Rasputina or Pink (yes I said Pink). Plus it gives me time to catch up on stfuparents.tumblr.com and stfumarrieds.tumblr.com. There is a downside to this sweet deal. The two hours fall right at my dinner break. Luckily there's a pizza place, Gumbys, right next door. Not the best pizza in town but good in a pinch. The pizza was coming, it would have banana peppers and it was cheap.


It's so beautiful

I danced to the front when it arrived and did my happy pizza dance in honor of my dinner. In front of me was girl, blonde hair, black t-shirt, combat boots, seemed to be of the punk persuasion, renting out some dvd's. She took one look at my highly anticipated meal and remarked,

"Never eat Gumby's food,"

I was stunned at first, my pizza rug almost pulled from under me and hesitantly responded,

"Well if you're going to have that idea... then you really can't eat anywhere in town,"

"I used to work in their kitchen. I could tell you some stories,"

Now mind you my pizza from said SUSPICOUS store had just arrived RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I continued to passively argue,

"Well I've worked in almost every kitchen in this town, I pretty much know what goes down,"

I was getting a bit defensive of my poor innocent pizza, sitting there vulnerable and exposed the lid hanging open, it's warmth drifting away in the air-conditioning.

"I only prepare my own food,"

What? WHAT? Do you have a farm? I wasn't aware you slaughtered your own cow and made your own mountain dew from fresh fucking dew of the early morning rolling down the mountainside mixed with your stash of meth!


garfieldminusgarfield.net is the shit

I'm sure everyone's had that person. That person who waits until the Big Mac is in your mouth to state all of McDonald's atrocities. That person who tells you the funny internet story you're recounting rots the brain. That person who responds to your excuse of car trouble with "That's why I ride a bike,". That one quick syncopated loaded sentence is enough to make you set a field on fire rather than let them see they got under your skin so easily. I hearby declare all such people are to be referred to as a Gumbys Girl.

Here are the rules of sharing your opinion as I see it.
1) Don't challenge a person with your opinion. Facts are concrete. Opinions are just what you think. They're not solid weapons you can wield and expect everyone to respect.
2) Don't get short and nasty if someone doesn't go with your particular train of thought. I'm of the opinion that sloths are terrifying but I don't expect people of the street to take my pamphlets on Sloth Awareness. Their funeral.
3) PICK THE RIGHT FUCKING TIME. The time to express your opinion is not when a person in engaged in that activity. You don't tell a friend driving you to work "Thanks, if my knee wasn't shot I wouldn't need a ride. I try to walk everywhere because cars just add fuel to the fire burning in the middle east... get it?" Fuck your pun, you're an ass.

Now I think I know what someone might say to Rule 3. "But anonymous internet stranger, what if that person is doing something that hurt them or something around them? Shoudn't you say something?"

There are activities that are dangerous and we know this because it is a fact and stating a fact is not stating your opinion. If a friend is smoking meth and you say, "Meth will alter your brain with the first try" that is a proven fact. If a person is lighting a bush on fire and you say "You could set this whole forest on fire where is that unicorn?" that is a fact. A bush fire can spread and ignite the things around it and you probably shouldn't be tripping with matches in the first place.

Fact:Proven

Opinion:You own ideas so follow the rules.

Don't be a Gumby's Girl and fuck with my pizza.

l

On the Subject of Friends: Losing Friends is Stupid

It's been awhile since I've updated this but now I have a subject close to my heart and familiar to many.

It's recently occurred to me that the two people who defined and molded my formative years through adolescence are no longer my friends.

I met Shannon when we were toddlers and we lived around the corner from each other (if you can consider the wooded and cornfield spotted area we lived in as having corners). I met Ginny through Shannon in middle school latin class at the age of twelve. From then we did everything together and hit growing mile markers separate but always with the other two present. Shannon was the first to start dating boys, Ginny was the first to excel at school and I... was the first to have a car. I'm sure there was something I hit first but being the late bloomer I was... it's a little doubtful.

Anyway, we remained close friends on to graduation. We had fights, times when two thought they were closer to each other than the other one, but we still had the common ground of growing up together in Mechanicsville. Staying out all night at the Walmart, Veneral Disease mall (a dying one level mall with an ever present feeling of scuzz) choosing movies to see together based on our personal criteria (me: comedy, Ginny: hot man action, Shannon: no subtitles), inside jokes (eating at the new Tai Kwan Do place, the blonde joke that blonde Shannon didn't get for two years), eating an entire cake together by first eating a path through the middle to divide the cake.

But things change as we say to explain sad changes. After graduation, Ginny and I went to separate colleges and Shannon stayed at home using her cosmetology license to fix my nest of a hair when I came home.

The story is the same, everyone has lived it. We were close through the first year but feelings changed as we did. Ginny found what excited her at school as did I though they became increasingly separate. Shannon began building a life finding a boyfriend and looking to long term plans.

There was a point in between my crazy schedule of working and studying for the GRE (another post in itself), Ginny struggling between keeping the shitty job that offered great benefits and quitting to do what she really wanted and Shannon getting married and moving into a new home to share with her husband while earning a CNA certification that we stopped speaking to each other. In fact, those last tidbits about their lives I gleaned from facebook.

And then you come to question of whether or not to keep trying. People grow apart. While there are still hints and bits of who I was four years ago still in me like tints of red at my split ends from dying my hair, I've changed a hell of a lot. And so have they. Would trying harder to keep the friendship be worth it for all three of us if the relationship that held us has so morphed it can only be seen in the right light? Would continuing to try and to have expectations be akin to keeping the ripped posters of Jack Black and Jimi Hendrix that hung in your teenage bedroom?

Hard to say, isn't it? And for me, that's the difference between childhood friends you held for years and college friends. In college, you come in with the expectation that most of these people who know about your crappy childhood and fear of ketchup at some point will leave. You're at least slightly prepared for late conversations on a futon turning into once a month emails and the pictures online no longer being the two of you together. But childhood friends feel like they should always be there even if logic and rationality tell you otherwise. How can the first people to know you lost your virginity be the people who disappear from your life?

But it's the natural way of things. If two people aren't present for the changes happening in your life, even if they were the closest people to you, how can they or you be prepared for how different things are when you finally get to sit down with a cup of coffee with them? How can they have a frame of reference for why you're so excited for a short film you worked on and how can you understand how excited they are about the new house they bought in the area you've never been to?

I'll still give them both a call this weekend and I'll still text when I'm in town just in case one day they see it and think "What the fuck, I'll have lunch,".

But I'm not going to think of it as the great loss. Rather, it's natural to grow apart and doesn't mean the memories aren't still there.

Taking the GRE makes you seem stupid.

The purpose of this blog was to create a sort of following so that I could begin to add pieces of my book of short stories so I can throw them at an agent as I scream "THERE! PROOF that at least a few people will read my writing! PUBLISH ME!"

Unfortunately I haven't been able to put as much into this blog as I hoped. I'm thinking of adding random photos of cute animals and zombies to increase traffic but we'll see...

Anyway the main reason I haven't been able to put as much into this blog is the bane of many Grad school hopefuls.

THE GRE.

What's a GRE you ask? Think of the SAT but make a giant bear/shark with anger issues and a loaded gun. It's scored somewhat like the SAT, 1600 is the highest you can get, but structured to exacerbate anxiety disorders and depression. There are three sections of doom, writing (you're given your choice of topic in two areas, argument and something else), verbal (analogies, reading comprehension, that jazz) and... QUANTITATIVE, the math portion.

The first two sections are not that bad. I looked up writing examples before hand and the pattern of what gets a 6 (the highest score on writing) and what get's a 1 (the lowest) is pretty clear. Open with a quote and support it... you're done. Verbal is pretty straight forward. Have a wide vocabulary and you're there.

But the quantitative.

Oh the quantitative.

Every area of arithmetic, algebra, geometry and basic statistics you can remember and beyond.

As I already stated, the scoring is LIKE the SAT in that the highest is a 1600 but, again, the structure: bear/shark anger gun.

Unlike the SAT, if you take the computer-based test (and you will unless you're willing to drive a day for a three hour test on paper) does not allow skipping around if you can't figure out the answer. Each question comes as you answer the preceding one. And they increase in difficulty as you answer them correctly. The higher number of difficult questions you answer right, the better your score. Get a question wrong, you're slapped back down to rung one questions. You could made it as far as an equation that requires both Standard Deviation and the Pythag Thereom only to get it wrong and the next question be a simple fraction division.

And did I mention it's timed?

So quick recap, three sections, no skipping questions, higher scores the harder the question and it's all timed.

My experience.

This was my second attempt my first being last year when I panicked and started my period in khaki pants in the middle of the test. You see, when you start the test you cannot stop the test. For three hours, you are to be the test's bitch. The test does not like you leaving to pee or find a tampon. The test feeds on knowledge and is impatient and will not be denied.

Anyway, my first attempt total fail. Terrible score terrible confidence.

BUT I decided to try again and THIS TIME I would make it MY bitch. I studied for four months nonstop. There was a lot of math I didn't remember like... multiplying, adding, dividing and subtracting fractions. Even the verbal was terrifying with the trick answers and repeating of words in first the questions then the answers to trick into picking what was familiar... what you had seen two questions earlier. Tricky, tricky.

Amanda drove me the forty minutes to the testing center as Final Countdown played in my head. I stepped into the building nervous but convinced it was just an online game not the test that determined entrance into Grad school. I was padded down before I went in and warned if I was going to keep my earrings (two white plastic hoops that were grandmother's I wear for luck) I'd have to leave them for the duration of the test.

There are camera's all over that room. Pointed into every little cubicle because God Help You if you try to cheat. First is the writing portion which is the only section I ever have time left over on. Give me a topic and ask me to build argument, consider it done by dinner. Show me a question with five answer choices and expect me to second guess every. single. one. They offer a break between the writing and the last two sections. This time I opted to take it. Fifteen minutes of reading a dated issue of US Weekly. Tiger's wife is pissed and Jersey Shore is getting renewed. Take me back to the GRE PLEASE.

Back in. Nerve wracking but fun when I realized what questions I was getting right. Besides, at that point why freak out? I'm already in the test, better just keep going so I can leave.

The scariest moment. You get your scores immediately on the computer-based test. You have this brief moment after the final timer has disappeared and the screen offering to show your scores sits in front of you. It's THE moment. Four months of studying. $120 to take the test (yeah you pay a fuckload for this shit), and three hours in the over air-conditioned room and the result of all of this is one mouse-click away. So I right-clicked.

1100

BOOM! AVERAGE! EXACTLY WHAT I WAS AIMING FOR!

That's right. I AIM for average. That is my goal because this whole standardized thing, while I understand the need and use of, is total BULLSHIT. Getting a high score only means you can take the test. In my mind, if it's possible for me to blindly guess for three hours and get a perfect score then the test itself says diddly squat about my intelligence.

For example, when I received my detailed score report (where the percentiles and writing scores are listed) I was 80th in the verbal, 30th in the quantitative and had near perfect scores in the writing. If I were an idiot, then I'd think the writing would reflect that.

But Kest Lay Vy. The damn thing's over.

I suppose the lesson here is while these tests matter they really don't which seems like a lovely analogy to life.

bear/shark

Marijuana makes you stupid... if you're already stupid

Makes sense that eventually I'd write something about pot. I've spent a lot of time researching the effects of marijuana and the legal issues surrounding it and I've smoked since I was 19.

Backstory for clarity.

Throughout middle and high school, when drugs and drinking first came on the scene for me, I was "straight edge". Not the irritating straight edge where you turn abstaining into an ideology with half-assed punk references and hideous black splotches of tattoos, I just didn't partake. I was friends with many people my age who did and I didn't get on my high horse if they offered, I just didn't take. And I'm glad I didn't. The brain during puberty is already a hotspot of chemicals, the last thing a teenager needs is an outside influence. However... with my obsession with Jimi Hendrix and love of the surface 60's culture, it's pretty amazing I stuck to my guns.

Flash forward to college. My freshman year, I never even took a drink much less tried drugs of any sort. Hell it was hard to get to take advil. But I am a very curious lady and by the time I was 19, again I'd made friends who drank and smoked pot. Now no one ever pressured me (something I've always appreciated) but they did offer and at the beginning of my sophomore year, living off campus and having declared my psychology major, I embarked on a semester long research project into the effects of marijuana on the brain. With that knowledge, I tried pot and found it not the demon elementary school DARE had made it out to be.

Because here's the thing. Marijuana doesn't MAKE you lazy, uninteresting and a waste of human life. Chances are, when you start smoking pot, you already are lazy, uninteresting and a waste of human life. People will turn to drugs for two general reasons. Curiosity and to escape. Marijuana causes brain damage like alcohol, in extreme heavy doses over a long period of time ie dependency. Now that's to say a person can't become addicted to marijuana. Each brain and body is different and a normal person (if any of us are normal) can become addicted to really anything. Drugs, alcohol, bread, sugar, caffeine, video games, Big Love (I freaking love that show). It depends on a myriad of factors from biological to environmental. Predicting addiction is like predicting the weather. We have a good idea of how and when it can happen but you can always be caught by surprise.

Anyway, the first time I tried pot was at a good friends house on my terms. He said to me one day "We're going to watch Xena tonight and you should come over," I knew what Xena meant and I went nervous and excited. I'd only tried to hit a bowl once in my life but a whole lifetime of never smoking anything meant I did not know how to inhale smoke into my lungs accustomed to only "pure" oxygen. Back at my friend's house, the bowl was passed to me and I looked around confused flummoxed as to what I was supposed to do with this contraption. My friend immediately whipped out a lighter, instructed me to hold the bowl to my lips with my thumb over the carb (a hole in the side of the bowl) and held the lighter over the pot. I coughed, a lot. The rest of the night was a blur with the bowl continuously finding it's way into my hand and his lighter poised over top. I got very high and I enjoyed it. But it wasn't like I'd been told. I didn't have a freak out though I couldn't follow what was on TV and at the end of the night I went home and woke the next morning... well... normal. From then on, I smoked recreationally usually with that same friend. A few times I hit a joint at a party but usually we'd meet at his place, smoke and play chess. Because we're so cool.

And I admit, smoking pot did open the door to me trying shrooms (another demon that I had a wonderful time with) two years later and acid a year after that (which was not fun but that's a different story) but never have I considered trying anything "harder". I still find powders and needles disturbing and have never been so scared by a drug as I have meth and coke. My pot consumption increased over the years and while that would seem like burgeoning problem to most I'm sure, I still hold down three jobs and graduated with my B.S. and a certificate of completion on time. I still finish film projects I'm consigned to and perform (when I'm not performing as a wage slave).

What has brought all this to mind lately is Lent. I'm a recovering Catholic, confirmed but non-practicing for many reasons but I do recognize Lent every year. This year, having already done cheese, alcohol twice, cursing three years running (I have a dirty sailor mouth), meat, chocolate... basically most my vices I decided to give up cursing and pot. Since giving up pot, I haven't slept well in days. I've been an insomniac since I was 5 literally. My circadian rhythms are completely off for a normal functioning adult. I've tried exercise, sleeping pills, meditation, yoga, hot showers which all worked for a short period of time but in just a matter of time I'd find myself talking to invisible people in my room again and watching my clock slowly count up. Marijuana has been the only drug to shut my brain off long enough for me to sleep over five hours for longer than two weeks. And now... I can't sleep. Maybe it'll get better. Maybe my body will become exhausted enough over time I'll eventually conk out like a normal person but if you've never gone weeks without sleep, you probably don't understand the immense stress that comes with no sleep over and over again.

The other down-side. I have generalized anxiety. And I don't like pills. When I'm high on pot, I know I'm high. When it's a pill, you may have no idea that you're changing as a person. In your head, you're the same. Outside, you're withdrawn, or spacey or whatever side-effect that pill has on you. I noticed that when I smoked, I could engage people easier without tightening up or overthinking. I was actually a more gregarious person when I smoked.

I suppose you assume that what I'm getting at is RAH RAH legalize pot MAN! What's the big deal? That's not what I think at all. Legalizing pot means government control. Government control means possible additions to the plant and forcing "legitimate" growers out for government sanctioned pot farms. The best example there is of that is farming. With government controlled farms, we have the use of random pesticides, animal abuse, and industrialization. Carrots weren't always orange and tomatoes are not supposed to be the size of your face.

This is really just an explanation and exploration of one individual's experience with an illicit drug. Yes, a lot associated with drug culture is annoying. I don't think Doug Benson is funny (though he seems like a really nice guy), I hate patchouli, and I don't listen to Grateful Dead. But assuming that anyone that smokes pot doesn't bathe is like assuming anyone who gets a beer after work every night beats their wife.

Away We Go's Ending is Annoying Stupid

Being on an indie Romantic Comedy kick, I finally rented out Away We Go. I'll admit I was prejudiced against it since throwing the love interest Jim from The Office into a romantic comedy is like throwing McNolte from The Wire into an Irish Gangster flick. A very "no shit" moment. I don't expect to be surprised by a performance, rather I expect to see more of the same which is so lazy to me and insulting in a world of "casting to type" which really means casting a woman who's HOT and kind of looks like what you'd expect.

But I gave it a sporting chance and for the first half I was pleasantly surprised. I'm a closet romantic and the roots of their relationship was a breath of fresh air. Not the "we're pregnant and I'm a woman so I want to get married right now but my guy doesn't want to and how do I convince him!" relationship I've become accustomed. Rather, Maya Rudolph had no interest in marriage and John Kransinski was not pushy but clearly the one putting marriage on the playing field. That may not seem like much but the continuing trend in film and television of female characters wanting marriage while the male characters dig in their heels is not only outdated but insulting and tiresome. Most of my female friends older and younger than me are not interested in marriage. Some are, and that's fine, but lumping all women in as desperate for marriage basically says that all of us believe a relationship can only move forward if legal marriage is on the table which is a slap in the face of LGBT relations.

But that's just my opinion and already this movie is interesting to me. The plot is that Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) have found themselves pregnant and after discovering their only close-by family Burt's parents, (short-lived but great performances by Catherine O'hara and Jeff Daniels as usual), have decided to move out of the country they decide to travel across the country to find the right place to raise their baby.

Thus we follow them through a meeting of different friend's and family with different philosophies of parenting that range from heart-breaking (college friend's who've adopted while weathering five miscarriages) to hilarious (Maggie Gyllenhaul amazing as a new age mom who shuns societal expectations of motherhood like strollers and "hiding love-making" from their children). The first half the movie strikes a nice balance between what is expected and what works when raising a child.

Then is seems that the director Sam Mendes suddenly realized this film was supposed to be serious. Cue the drama-soaked indie music reminiscent of Garden State mixed almost too loud to hear the dialogue. Suddenly, I couldn't take the film seriously anymore. A few moments that treated subtly could have wrenched your heart were dragged out so long I either got bored or annoyed. And that's a shame because the scene involving Burt's brother discussing how lost his daughter would be now that her mother had left was not only painful but very true. If Verona's loss of her parents had been discussed beyond a brief but lovely interchange between Verona and her sister, the moment of Burt and Verona exploring the house she had grown up in would have felt right instead of tacked on last minute.

All in all, an ok film. I wouldn't kick it out of bed but I wouldn't ask it to stay for breakfast.

I Fought the Law and I WON

Here's the breakdown of what happened.

I have 20 year-old Cadillac. She is my baby is the most punk rock vehicle I've ever owned. Basically, I'm a shantytown Rockefeller. I own two cars. That's right. TWO cars are in my name. How did this happen? How did a woman who makes BELOW minimum wage at ONE of her jobs, just barely minimum at her second and above minimum to fall asleep naked on the floor while art students sketch her rolls in charcoal end up with a four bedroom house with a bar and two cars?

Well, my four bedroom house is kind of ridiculous. First off, I have three roommates but even then a kitchen that large (big enough to fit a full-size super awesome 60's formica dining table and for my roommates to cook a prethanksgiving dinner) and separate room for a bar (painted hideously and then repainted beautifully by Lauren... I don't care how much pride you have a maroon and orange bar needed a repaint) our rent is higher than I promised myself I would pay. $350 before utilities where we are is pretty steep when you live with three people southwest VA. But, with the space, it's like living alone so for me it evens out.

Why do I have two cars. My first car, my first love, was and is a 1989 copper Toyota Camry. When they say they don't make 'em like that anymore they mean my car. You will rarely see a copper Camry in your life. My baby (named Hiroshima by my non PC dad and Penny by a very PC high school me) could BARELY make it to RIchmond twenty minutes from my home much less make it to my college town four hours away. So come college time, I was carless for the whole four years which is not a death sentence. Seriously, you can not only survive but college is a LOT easier without a car. You don't make the choice to live out of town because there's no way in hell you'll get to class and you never have to deal with parking permits. However!, I graduated and found out that my grandma had not only paid for her oldest grandSON (our family is unusually patriarchal for a white family) but for her oldest grandDAUGHTER college education.

Let's regroup. I'm $20,000 in debt due to loans for college. To make things fair, my grandma offered me (with some prodding) her precious 1987 Cadillac Deville. Not really a fair trade, the car is worth MAYBE $200 BUT having a car after graduation when your life doesn't center around campus is pretty valuable.

Now, here's the story. I hadn't had a car for longer than a week of break for five years when I got my Caddy named Moe. I'd forgotten the basics like, for example, making sure the registration is up to date. I was pulled over THREE TIMES in one day for my registration. Only my registration. Once going to work, once going for lunch (when I received a ticket... that's important remember that) and lastly leaving work. Three. Times. In. One. Day. The officer, when I received the ticket the first since I was 16 I kid you not, told me that as long as I updated my registration I would be fine. I didn't know (because I have clean driving record, this is also important) that I needed to present the updated registration to be safe. I thought, in our information age, that the system would see I was updated and the ticket would disappear.

WRONG!

WRONG!

WRONG!

My parents (because I move around so much I leave my mailing address with my parents) received a notice that my license was in danger of being suspended due to unpaid court fees.

Hold on a minute. Unpaid court fees? Suspended license? What's going on here?

I didn't know. So, being the kind of girl who's very unskilled at preemptive action but exceptional at crisis management, I went to our local court... where I was treated like SHIT.

Now, it's a college town. Lot's of parking tickets, unpaid bills and kids trying to get out of the trouble they caused. I understand that, I pulled the same tricks when I was an undergrad.

But I'm not an undergrad and the day I went into the district court to figure out what had happened it was my day off. I've been out of college for a year and working in the downtown since two months after I graduated. But it was my day off so I was dressed in a tasteful mini skirt with black leggings and my giant goodwill faux fur jean jacket with leopard print lining. The woman working talked to me like I was dirt.

"Well you'll have to explain to the judge why you couldn't show up to court" with a snooty attitude.

"I work three jobs and rarely get time off"

"Well you'll have to explain that,"

"When I come back to file for an appeal you'll be here to help me right?" I said with a hint of frustration as she turned her back on me before we finished.

"Yeah, I'll be here,"

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I make you work extra hard? Did I distract you from a day of filing paperwork for stuck-up college kids followed by you going out with your friends who only talk about their pencil-pushing days or a guy who seemed so interested in them but then suddenly wasn't and oh no another husband down the drain what will woman due in the mancentric world and then you go home to your cat and reruns of Friend's as you dream of having the life you imagined in high school but gave up for the safety of gainful employment but every so often you wonder what it be like if you had kept your art or writing major and did live on Ramen or nothing but were still passionate and just before you rip your hair out you pop a sleep aid then get up put on nice clothes and do your damndest to make a 19 year old feel like an asshole? Is that what I did?

Anyway...

I put in for my appeal and was assured my license was safe. Then I get a notice that as of 12/24 my license was suspended. Good to know after I just drove four hours plus back home after holidays. Good thing you can't speed in my Caddy. Here comes the week of panic, anger and remorse.

I was panicked for my court date. The morning of one of my best friends came over to coach and dress me since I'm the Shantytown Rockefeller and can't be bothered with higher class dress and act. We get to the court and I'm prepared to lose some money which, to me, seems unfair for a woman with a clean driving record BUT when someone's made an example of it's usually me. It's why I know most of the loopholes... keep that in mind. It's only bad luck if you don't find a way around it.

I was ready. A pile of paperwork and high heels and you try to not feel ready. I was in court five minutes before my case dismissed. I was out of court three hours before my license was returned to me. There were a few stops and circles to be run but by the end of the day...

All charges dropped and nothing on my driving record.

What's the lesson of all this? That you don't need money to survive in our system. Just education. My dad wanted me to just pay the fees and be done with it and, in a way, he was right. That would have solved it a month ago but we would have lost over $200. Instead, by having all my information and a minor amount of internet surfing I came out the same as if I had taken care of the ticket forthright. And I watched a girl with a speeding ticket argue it down to an offense that wouldn't affect her insurance.

Learn people. Pay attention and never assume that the bitch behind the counter knows all that needs to be known.


I don't feel like editing so just deal with the grammatical mistakes.

Good Dick is yet another Stupid Indie Flick

With so much time on my hands, I decided to actually sit down and take a look at the films that has just come out on DVD. One of the perks of my part-time job is free rentals so I really have no excuse except procrastination for not seeing a new release or at least catching up on older films. While walking the aisles, I came across a lone independent film called Good Dick starring Jason Ritter who I guess is famous for something other than his dead dad, and Marianna Palka.

The premise is a lonely video clerk (given a modern twist in that the store rents DVD's ANNNND VHS's) who pursues a lonely troubled girl out of love and in hopes of helping her.

Typical premise already, guy looking for love, loner girl who just needs a hand to hold to get through this world. It's been done quite a few times. Pretty Woman. The Truth About Cats and Dogs. 10 Things I Hate About You. Must Love Dogs. My Super Ex Girlfriend. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Happy Endings. Garden State. Secretary. Me And You And Everyone We Know. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The list could go on and not all of those are hand-cringing. Some are successful even poignant in their story-telling and performances ( Secretary) while others are just fluff for a bored mind (My Super Ex Girlfriend). Besides, while navigating basic human interaction, who hasn't felt like a clumsy elephant in a world of graceful swans and felt comfort in a like-minded individual? It's a well-used premise because so many people can either relate to it in one way or another or, for even just a second, wanted it.

But all of these films have one thing in common. Though not all the relationships are text-book healthy or even plausible by the end, none of them are sick. As in, you rarely have two (or more) people who should go through extensive therapy before even owning a cat as the subjects of a romantic comedy.

This is Good Dick. Jason Ritter (Man... I'm not kidding he's credited as Man how fucking edgy) works in his hip video store (how many rental places have you been in with soft lighting? Seriously? In any city?) where Marianna Palka (Woman, doesn't that piss you off?) is a regular customer. She only rents erotic videos in any format until one day MAN suggests a different title. Woman does not like this interference in her life and expresses such by glaring at him, snatching her video and walking out. Man then goes to her apartment, catches her masturbating through her window, watches and then we cut to him waking up in his car.

Now here's the first problem with this film. My first reaction when Man wakes up in his car is he stayed outside her apartment all night. This is not the case and if the film didn't want me to think this, why was did it cut immediately to him in his car and then to him outside her apartment only to tell us later, through vague dialogue, that Man is living in his car FOR WHATEVER REASON and was an addict OF SOME SORT. Unless that was the point in which case... why? Why would the film want us to think he's a stalker to then show that he's not? Neither his living out of his car or possible drug use are ever explained and thus we never find out what the Hell this guy is about.

Man's next move after spying on Woman, is to show up at her apartment and make up a lie (using a neighbor's mail) that his Great Aunt lives in the complex. Woman rebuff's him. He then regroups and shows up again at her apartment with a new lie that his Great Aunt died and he needs someone to talk to. He talks Woman into letting him in... at butcher knife point. They then begin this dance of her treating him horribly... I mean horribly and him manipulating her into letting him sleep in her bed with him after betting her his dick was bigger than the one they saw in a porn and just letting him stay in her apartment in general.

The film begins to add in scenes of them bonding and Man trying to coerce if something sexual happened to her which in a film where characters were fleshed out and the editing paid attention to, might be believable. Instead it looks like a deeply desperate man taking advantage of a very "troubled" and depressed woman. At one point, after scene and scene of Woman screaming at him to get out and stay from her and how disgusting he is to her, he stands up and declares himself her boyfriend. And that's why he's staying. Even now, I don't know why he becomes so interested in Woman and the film shows nothing in her that would endear her to another person. Instead, I suppose, I guess this is just true love working it's magic.

At so many points in this film, I had to stop to figure out if this was a bait and switch thriller or if it really was supposed to be a romantic comedy.

Then Tom Arnold showed up.

All the mysteries of Woman are tied up in a final scene between her and her DAD TOM ARNOLD. Well, at least they're vaguely cleared up. Ok they're not really cleared up, they're just hinted at. But Tom Arnold is her dad and that's something isn't it?

In summation, this movie in all it's poor story-telling, boring performances and hipness made me want to punch Zach Braff in the face. He had nothing to do with Good Dick but he got the ball rolling on this indie love in the face of stupidity trend and I could murder him for it. As a warning to all indie film makers who got their little sensitive hearts broken, if you're going to dance in the ballroom of "real" romance in film you better go back and pay better attention to the people who actually did it successfully (Jim Jarmusch and Robert Altman to name a few) or I will find you.

Alone in my house: Day Two and Three

Apparently I'm terrible at documenting my real life.

Day Two and Three:

Following my 5 hours of reorganizing the kitchen I threw myself into DVD's, hand-crafts and unusual meals made from room-mate abandoned food. Like eggs three days past their due.

Did you know you can tell whether an egg has turned using only a bowl of cold water? Thank god that was true considering the faith I put into it. Fill a bowl with cold water and place the egg on the bottom. If the egg sits "flat" (it's round, get it?) on the bottom, that's a fresh egg. If the egg floats a little bit but is still touching the bottom, it's still good but running out of time. If the egg floats, you better find something else to do with it other than eating it. Unless that's your thing in which case, you're an idiot.

After the egg didn't float, I boiled up some Ramen and drained it like pasta. I mixed up half the Ramen seasoning (oriental because I dabble in vegetarianism and the meat seasonings are made from animal) in the noodles then fried an egg sunny-side up with tabasco, thyme and montreal steak seasoning (because I love irony). I bowled up the Ramen and placed the egg (which I left a little runny) right on top.

Cost of meal: I already had the egg and seasonings so all I needed was the Ramen for $.89.

After my shanty dinner, I started working on a mobile using giant paper clips, fishing line, needle-nose pliers and cut up Kroger cards. This was an odd time for me.