Pointy

It's been a busy time around here, resulting in me attempting to write a handful of bullet-point, scattershot posts of whimsical thoughts and failing at even that by the time I get to about the second bullet point. Why so busy? Glad you asked.

• At work, there are a bunch of big, time-sensitive projects, and we're down three staff (in a roughly 14-person office). That means I'm working lots of extra time, which, for me, in unsustainable. I work a 12-hour day, come in the next morning and can't focus because my brain is fried, don't get much done in the early part of the day, have to stay late, wake up early and do a little work then, come in and can't focus.... You get the picture. I am hopeful that by the end of tomorrow, I'll be done with the crunch and able to focus on work at work, rest and play when not at work.
• I'm also doing a little volunteer work for my church. The volunteer work is in my professional field, which means when I'm too fried to work, I'm also too fried to volunteer.
• Outside of work, I'm stage managing a staged reading. Lots of fun, but it's two rehearsals a week with an hour round-trip commute.
• My car's broken. I've got a crack mechanic working on it now, but meanwhile, I've been on foot off-and-on for about a week and a half.
• I don't need a lot of social time, generally, but I do need some, because my work is largely unsocial and I live by myself. Trying to squeeze that in is one more thing.
• It's still beautiful up here, weatherwise. I want to be outside in it every minute I can before that gets less practical.
• When I'm stressed and busy like this, I tend to most easily cut back on both spiritual practices and physical exercise, which is unacceptable, because while those also take time and focus, they (along with aforementioned social time) are also what enable me to handle the rest of it. So, trying to make time for those.
• Oh, dishes and laundry and figuring out how to fix the front hall light fixture and showering and, you know, stuff.

Fallen asleep yet? OK, for all three of you who are still out there, you get the reward of the bullet-point-or-two from each of those unfinished posts. Woohoo!

• My left calf is significantly bigger than my right.
• Nonetheless, I found boots that fit, and I love them more than at least a couple of my friends. Not you, obviously — you're my favorite. Though the boots were cheaper than you. Wait, now we're getting into a weird place.
• The movie Brazil is less entertaining to me now than it was in 1987 — possibly because I was less aware in 1987, possibly because so much of what we could call "dystopian" then we just have to call "real" now. Or possibly because I don't like all things British — including Terry Gilliam — as much as it seems like I would.
• I know I'm in the minority, but there are few household chores that I find more satisfying than cleaning the bathroom.
• Two of my latest Pandora stations have been "Call Me Maybe" and "You Can Call Me Al." I bet you'd get something interesting if you mixed those two stations.
• Most of the "Bridezilla" phenomenon is a self-perpetuating media invention, and it makes me sad and we won't get into every nuance of feminist theory that applies here (though if any of you would like to, you need to let me know, stat). But here's one thought: How much of it is due to the weird but apparently prevalent idea that every bride-to-be needs to go on a diet before her wedding and is therefore starving and cranky and semidelirious?
• Since I wrote this post and have been, as I said above, on foot a little more often, I have worn a backpack with a shortish skirt three times. The result is, of course, that I am constantly checking my butt, which I am sure makes me look much more normal/self-aware/classy than those women I was judging.

So, how are you?

Walking a fine plank

Can we talk, just for a sec, about Talk Like a Pirate Day?

Almost 20 years ago now, I totalled a car in St. Augustine, Florida, stranding me and two friends at the Bali Hai Motel, which at the time had recently been purchased by two really lovely Hell's Angels named Calvin and Janet. It was an adventure, and it was the spring break of my senior year in college, and it was in northern Florida, so naturally, one of the friends and I began to discuss our options for becoming pirates, stealing a ship, and never going back to New Jersey to finish our degrees.

Eventually, we did go back to New Jersey, finished our degrees, and that trip actually became a turning point that most of the rest of my life points back to.

We did not steal a ship, we joked about being pirates for a few more months, and then, you know, moved on.

I kept a certain fondness in my heart for all things pirate-themed out of nostalgia for that trip for a while.

And then I started thinking about pirates. Pirates aren't like cowboys. They aren't people who were a little rough but had a job to do and yadda yadda independent spirit yadda yadda campfire song.

They were, and are, thieves, at best. Not clever thieves, so much, not con artsists or cat burglars — more like muggers on the high seas. They rape and murder and kidnap and torture and destroy as they need to to steal stuff; they stab their friends in the back; they engage in slave trade. Sometimes, I guess, they sing (or sang) and drink (or drank), and I guess that's fun, and sometimes, they got rich, but even getting rich meant constantly fighting or running away or both. What made piracy a romantic idea to me in the heady days of 1993 was the running away, frankly, but that can't stay fun for too long. And pirates are real, and current. They steal and murder now. Of course, "Talk Like a Pirate Day" is more like Arrr and less like Somali.

But — what's the appeal? Not for the real pirates; I assume money is the appeal for the real pirates. What's the appeal to the rest of us?

I know to some degree we glamorize other violent criminals, too, between mob movies and gangs and people who write to serial killers in prison. But none of those are generally considered good themes for children's birthday parties.

So, if you spent some chunk of yesterday saying "avast" or "wench" or some such — what's the draw?

More sex talk, thanks to Facebook

Warning: This post is about sex, and while it is not especially graphic, it may make, say, people who are squeamish about sex, or elderly relatives of the blogger, or the blogger herself (who is totally unsqueamish about sex, sort of), a little uncomfortable. Read past this point at your own peril.

Disclaimer: None of this comes from any form of personal experience. It is absolutely all just following a logic that has maybe eluded some folks.


A Facebook friend of mine claims that a man, after sex with an acquaintance of hers, actually took said acquaintance's pulse to make sure she wasn't faking it.

A few things about that:

• I'm not sure what the pulse is supposed to prove. I mean, it might tell the difference between bored to death and acting excited, but it won't tell the difference between excited-but-it's-not-gonna-happen-tonight and acting like it already did, right?
• Even if it did help, it's not information you want. If a woman is prepared to fake it, it's not because she's hoping her partner will do something more or different. It's because she would like her partner to stop trying, for some reason. There is no useful information to be gained in the moment from knowing whether she is faking.*
• If what you hope to gain from such a test is an understanding of whether she can be trusted to be honest in intimate moments, because you care so deeply about that particular piece of honesty, you should figure out whether your problem is that you don't trust women or that you don't trust this woman. If it's the former, get yourself some professional help, because you are not making any friends this way. If it's the latter, stop having sex with her.

Anything to add to this, readers? 

*There might be something to be gained from, in an entirely separate and clothed moment, letting said woman know that it won't hurt your feelings if she just asks you to stop — but only if that's true. Under no circumstance should it be connected to any alleged fakery. Oh, and it should go without saying, but may not, that if your partner asks you to stop, you do, immediately, even if you think you could do better or your feelings are hurt. You know that already, right? If not, for real. You have to.

...and it feels so good

I have a friend, C, who I was close to in high school. We've reconnected in recent years, and I love having her back in my life.

A few weeks back, she asked me if I'd like to come along for a weekend-long reunion some of her friends from high school were having — these were folks I'd known, and in some but not all cases been friends with. But I had not seen most of them literally since the 80s. That's the 1980s, for you youngsters, and it was a magical but complicated time to be a teenager.

We'd all stay in a lodge in the mountains, far from any cell phone service (just like high school!). And folks who had them would bring their significant others and kids.

And for some reason, that sounded awesome in the moment C mentioned it, and so I said yes, enthusiastically.

A few days before the gathering (that'd be last week), I wondered what the hell I was thinking. These folks have all kept up with each other for more than two decades. Their kids and significant others all know each other. I'd be living with more than 20 other people for days, and some of those people would likely scream a lot. Probably none of them would even remember me. Probably none of them even liked me in high school, and when they saw me again, they'd remember why. Probably the food would consist entirely of mangos and walnuts and raw onions (all of which I have mild allergies to). Probably everyone would wonder what was wrong with me that I didn't have a spouse or kids. Probably no one would wonder what was wrong with me, because it's obvious.

Maybe I don't talk all that much about being occasionally irrationally inconsistently horrendously insecure here on City Mouse Country. That might be because I assume it's the most boring thing I could blog about, but hey, the Bloggess writes about it all the time and she's got a fantastic blog and a book deal.

So, in a turn that will surprise none of you who are either more rational or more removed from this story than I am, which is all of you, I went and had the time. of. my. life.

I reconnected with people who might have been gone from my life forever. I met the amazing people who've come into their lives since the 80s. And I was, to my shock, welcomed with open arms. Two old friends in particular spent not-insignificant chunks of time just staring at me and saying my name, like it was simultaneously so cool and so unlikely that I was there they couldn't get over it. We laughed and laughed and laughed. There was hiking and playing and music and a campfire and incredible food and lots of time to catch up. These people who were kids the last time I saw them have kids who are just unbelievable. I also learned a bunch, which I'll share soon but not now, because this post is already plenty long enough.

But the very worst thing that happened to me was a mild sunburn that doesn't even hurt.

And that, my friends, is a damn good weekend.

Oh, also: I do observe that my house seems improbably quiet with just me in it. Is it always like this?

Pro Fashion Tip

Privately, I am superjudgmental about fashion. You should not bother trying to impress me, because my opinions are as firm as they are illogical, which is why I rarely share them out loud and also why I ask for advice so frequently.

Publicly, I do not think my judgments of what other people wear matter much, as long as they are happy with how they're dressed.

But sometimes, I just can't imagine people would be happy with how they're dressed. That's where this excellent advice — from an actual blogger with a "getting dressed" label on some of her posts — comes in handy.

COLLEGE WOMEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE*: You cannot wear both that short fullish skirt and that bookbag-sized backpack. The backpack makes the skirt ride up and I can see your underpants or the part of your tights that is covering your butt. I am not exaggerating.  I have seen your butt. You need to either ditch the backpack or wear pants — or maybe a longer skirt. You could also get one of those 90s teensy backpacks, though I will admit I never really saw the point. I know your skirt is all the way past your mid-thighs in the front, but in the back, people you would like to date you and/or employ you and/or give you a passing grade can see your butt. For real.







*And also anyone else who wears a backpack with a short skirt.

"Wide calf" is a lie.

I do have more pressing things to share, both political and fashionable, but for now, you get the great disappointment of my day.

The most beautiful boots in the world have arrived at my home for $65, and they are:

• not quite (but almost) as beautiful as I thought they'd be 
• way too small in the calf 
• also too small in the foot. 

 Back they go.

A stream of consciousness about scandal

Here is a hint for the folks at the New York Post, and also voyeuristic journalists everywhere: The phrase "sex orgy" is the creepiest way to say what you mean. Just "orgy" is probably sensationalist enough, and "sex party" would get the point across as well.

I had reason to be aware of that helpful tip for writers of things because apparently a porn actor claims Kim Kardashian was in one 10 years ago.

Oh, about that: YAWN.

The only thing that could make me interested in Kim Kardashian's current romantic or sex life is if she was in an exclusive, very normal relationship with an attractive but unflashy woman, in which they were pleasant to each other and their neighbors and stayed off TV about it and didn't talk about sex but did have a fun jokey relationship with Kim's stepdad. Or maybe Chaz Bono. You can let me know if she gets involved with Chaz Bono.

I do not think anything could make me interested in her past sex life, sex orgies or no.

Except Richard Dawkins.

If she has ever been involved with Richard Dawkins, or ever becomes involved with him, I would also like that information.

Otherwise, I am not interested.

I cannot wait to see what search terms drive people to this post.