What the W

The following are random things that were either brought up recently, or unfortunately just occurred.

Famous Last Words

I will preface this by saying that Saturday was incredibly cold. Frigid actually, and I am all for dressing warmly to overcome this cruel and bitter winter. My friends and I were walking back from happy hour, and other than realizing I had probably just consumed two days worth of calories in awesome fries and artichoke dip, I was going over appropriate outfit choices in my head for the coming night. As we walked back to campus, I wondered aloud, “Natalie, would you judge me if I wore flannel tonight,” and some total raving bitch walking the opposite way of me answered “yes.” The whore did not alter her journey in any way, no explanation or apology offered, and I was left in stunned silence and the indignity of the situation. It's a really cute shirt too. If we meet again, I will unfortunately have to kill her to regain my honor. The bitch has to die.

We are the future

If one were to look up porching in the dictionary, it would describe celebrating tolerable weather with heavy drinking on a fraternity porch, synonymous with restraint and decorum. There would also be a picture of some freshman who has fallen off of said porch and dry heaving into the bushes. Anyway, the porching story with the most relevance to this post happened last spring, when my friend and I were greeting someone who had just come from inside of the house. However, instead of sanely hugging him like I had just done, she began to physically tear his shirt off. He proceeded to grab the rest of the fabric on his body, while screaming like the Incredible Hulk. In seconds he was left with nothing but his beater and scraps of what hopefully was an unloved garment. Then he walked away. The thing that disturbs me about this is not the fact that it happened, but that neither my friend nor I thought of it as out of the ordinary and didn’t even talk about it until much later the next day.

How I love morning classes

Because my course load has all the relevance and academic consequence of a feces-slinging monkey, I was lucky enough to take “Sex in Society” as one of my social sciences requirements. Last Friday we were learning about the beautiful and delicate world of BDSM. Our teacher was going over the etiquette in dungeons and what would make for an awkward party situation. She also breached everyone's favorite topic, role playing. She went over the basic and well known dominant and submissive stereo-types. Teacher/student, pirate/wench, doctor/patient, etc etc. Then she threw in Nazi/prisoner. At this point I completely lost it, along with my roommate and Ross. What I want to know is what kind of person gets turned on by the Holocaust. (WTF, “Scream it again, six million more times?”) I’m sure there are people out there playing bomber/Hiroshima victim, soldier/Darfur refugee, and priest/choir boy and hopefully they’re staying in whatever dank basement or corporate cubicle they crawled out of.

Double digits?

With 2010 and ultimately a new decade unmercifully thrust upon us, a time of change and reflection is inevitable. With the vain hope of turning my New Years resolutions into a tangible thing, I have made this list in order to grow and flourish into a decent human being by the time 2011 rolls around. If such a thing is possible.

2010: "It Can Happen."

Stop lying to strangers in social situations about my age. I’m not sixteen, I’m not eighteen, I’m “twenty-two” and should behave as such.

Get a classy tattoo, much like the man above. Perhaps a Prada triangle, or Burberry check tramp stamp.

Become a better person, preferably by wearing aviators and incorporating Top Gun quotes into my every-day life as much as humanly possible.

Not necessarily accept, but begrudgingly acknowledge the fact that I am slowly turning into my Mother. I already have inherited her Tourettes and stolen most of her blazers, but I didn’t realize how scary the situation was until today. I completely flipped out at my Fresh Grocer cashier because she didn’t ring up my sale items correctly, and after several necessary price checks a $20 bill quickly turned into $9 and change. As I was muttering about her incompetence and the general indignity of it all, searing flash backs from my childhood regarding similar episodes in Stop and Shop and Shaws made everything a little too transparent. However, I refuse to worry about this until I find myself sitting next to her intently watching the weather channel on mute, in the dark.

Find Bill in order to keep Sookie occupied. Eric’s mine you gap toothed fairy.

Stop being such a raving bitch, and to take more time in the morning to think about proper accessories. Not only am I cheating myself by not thoroughly mulling over my headband drawers and jewelry boxes, but the general population as well.

Care more about the general well being of reality TV stars…because they’re people too.

With each passing year, the transient and ephemeral nature of life becomes more and more apparent. In 2010 I will make a TV watching Excel schedule so I don’t miss an episode or made for TV movie about the joys of life and the triumph of the human spirit.

Stop hating people based on first appearances. Loathing, strong dislike, and abhorrence is perfectly acceptable.

Find a signature perfume, because I’m a fucking lady now. Preferably one I already own.

Blog more in order to maintain that crucial thing called sanity. My parents and the .75 of a person who read this have a right to my blithering and stale remarks and general dislike of humanity.

Lose enough weight to feel comfortable in my slutty high school clothes. Because that really does totally encompass living the dream.

Become an excellent cook, so when people refer to me as that “pretentious, conceited bitch,” they can then add “but she makes an amazing brisket so I can find it in my heart to forgive her.”

Totally embrace my heritage and the Jewish faith. By 2011 I hope to have watched all of the Mel Brooks and Woody Allen movies.

Find a way to become an Avatar.

Why I love being a design student.

Now that I am a so-called upperclassmen, I am lucky enough to be finished with a good portion of my required gen-ed classes and can take the electives that I have been patiently waiting for. One of these electives would be sculpture class. Because of my "breakdown" last spring term, where I "gave up" and decided to make "whatever the fuck I want" because I will "see you in hell COMAD," I have thoroughly enjoyed my classes. One of my favorite projects from last term was my first sculpture assignment, where we were to make something out of a found object. Behold, the watercooler found in the fourth floor Crossings trash room.

Pride and Petulance

I just finished watching Pride and Prejudice (basically late 18th century porn) and although I’ve probably seen it around twenty-something times, the cinematography and scenery never cease to amaze. While I was expressing regret (bitching heavily) on missing out on the English countryside during my study abroad fiasco this summer, and the tragic fact that I do not own a riding coat like every other tramp in Netherfield Park, my father mentioned that I should be grateful for all that our time period affords us now. With my luck and the lack of modern medicine, I probably wouldn’t have survived infancy in the age of propriety and pandas. (I couldn't think of another P word, fuck off) I readily agreed, as I have a pretty serious allergy to lanolin (found in the sebaceous glands of wool bearing animals) and there was a shit-ton of sheep back then. After my parents stared at me for a good ten seconds, they kindly explained I probably would have kicked the bucket from something like pneumonia, which is no stranger to a household that thinks sending their precious daughter to shovel snow in a New England blizzard builds character. I’m like a frail, belligerent flower and should be treated as such. And to be fair, we discovered I had developed an allergy to lanolin when I was given a tube of evil called Triple Lanolin when I was around eight or so. Considering it was winter and I had dry skin, I thought it would be a grand idea to smear the entire tube all over my body. To this day I’m still afraid of moisturizers. And sheep.

It’s hard to believe that Jane Austen novels like Pride and Prejudice were equivalent in popularity to what the Twilight crap phenomenon is now. While most literary critics of her time praised Austen’s work (considering she was proficient enough to pen a best seller without airing a morbidly obese pre-teens daydreams of dry humping a twinkly vampire) some of her peers thought otherwise. Charlotte Bronte, the eldest (and sluttiest) of the famed Bronte sisters and author of Jane Eyre, found Pride and Prejudice "...a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but... no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck.” Put bluntly, Bronte is saying that Heathcliff could kick Mr. Darcy’s ass. While I have much better things to do on my winter break than envisioning what would happen in a death match between fictional characters residing at Wuthering Heights and Pemberley, it’s hard to decide which arduous task takes precedence over the other. Like trying on all my old prom dresses before or after I catch up on Nip/Tuck. Like some great Chanukah miracle, which really has a lot more relevance than that retarded oil thing, I actually fit into all of them. Because I was truly grateful I could still fit into a size 2 BCBG cocktail dress (I don’t get it either) and during the holiday season we’re supposed to reflect on what we’re thankful for, I decided to make a list.

THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR

Coffee
Grain Alcohol
Netflix/Hulu
J Crew
Raccoons
Coupons
Happy Hour
Melatonin
Robert Downey Jr.
Top Gun
H1N1 Vaccine
Disney Princesses
Bedazzling
My Co-op
Adult Swim


THINGS I AM NOT THANKFUL FOR

Rabid Raccoons
Dirty Pirate Hookers
Jew-guilt
Twilight
Facebook chat
Christmas Carolers
Nesbitt
Epson printers and paper
Interviews
Fake luxury goods
Petroleum
PC’s
All of the white trash that Sharon has seemed to accumulate
Slut magic

Top 10 Reasons Why New Englanders are better than you

For those of you wondering why Aviva, Mike Kelley, Lauren and I are such well rounded and wonderful people. The list below should answer any questions you may ask yourself, as you drive down to Jersey to pick up your boxed wine and hookers.

1. Two words: Boat shoes. From gripping the slippery decks of our schooners to the slickly polished floor of Banana Republic, Sperry’s are the quintessential three season shoe. The harsh New England winter is reserved for Uggs and fairisle knit slippers (but only in front of the fireplace surrounded by three generations of the trust fund and your incompetent but faithful golden retriever)

2. Bawston: Ah good old Beantown, home of the infamous tea party. To put it bluntly, a bunch of our wasted forefathers dressed as offensively stereotypical Native Americans and dumped a fortunes worth of the kings’ tea into the Atlantic. In retrospect, the catalyst to our great nation’s independence and first step towards a Starbucks monopoly.

3. Sports: The Red Sox, The Patriots, The Celtics and the Bruins, need I say more? Boston teams and its fans are clearly a force to be reckoned with. Even those who haven’t the faintest clue about team stats or players (or really only watch because of the social aspects/beer/Tom Brady in spandex) can still be a complete ass when the Northeast sweeps an entire year of championships and play-offs. That smell isn’t the Charles River, but the slightly polluted scent of victory.

4. J Crew: Better known as Mecca, J Crew sells anything and everything a true New Englander could need or desire. (Unless you're looking for that elusive article known as dignity) However, whatever said person is lacking in principles and/or judgment can easily be remedied with a seersucker blazer or yet another madras headband. Ethics can’t keep your warm in our subzero winters, but that cashmere cardigan from the monogram shop sure as hell can.

5. Our Foliage: Do you see the magnificent turning leaves on our maples and elms? The swirling crimsons and golds as they drift down from the oaks and birches? The sheer poetry of New England fall foliage is one to be desired and envied, and has inspired generations of artists from the great Walt Whitman to the lowliest finger painter. What, you have changing leaves and autumn in your part of the country too? Well fuck off, ours is better.

6. JAPS and WASPS: Once easily identifiable, the typical New England JAP or WASP is much harder to categorize due to advancements in rhinoplasty and higher frequency of Range Rover dealerships. While they do not better New England in many ways, it’s always fun to watch their squabbles over lawn service providers and Bar-Mitzvah dancers. Many a little league game or PTO meeting has become a hotbed for gratuitous violence. A parents homecoming committee meeting in recent memory resulted in a hospital trip, when a woman was strangled with her own pearls and forced to "bite the curb" by another mother in boat shoes.

7. The Universities: Harvard, Yale, MIT, BC, Emerson, Brandeis, the list goes on and on. While these great schools have always been a source of pride and accomplishment for our community, they all pale in comparison to the fact that Emma Watson now attends Brown. Screw all of your Muggle loving schools, there's a fucking wizard and Burberry model walking down Thayer street.

8. The real melting pot: New England is generally a very liberal and accepting community. No one needs to be ashamed of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. However, shame and acceptance into certain country clubs are two entirely different things. One comes with a key to the pool house, and the other comes with the carton of eggs you will use to deface said pool house. Both have their own redeeming qualities.

9. The History: New England has always been deeply rooted in its history and associated traditions. That cobblestone path you are walking on has been trod on by the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the one and only Samuel Adams. With twenty four variations of his beer currently on the market today, the true patriot has been helping ours and future generations live out the original American dream: going home with someone more attractive than you and telling amusing anecdotes about it to your friends and co-workers.

10. The Food: It would be a crime, nay a travesty, to squander number ten on something other than New Englands finest delicacies. Lobster, chowder, baked beans, and of course the magical Dunkin Donuts. One might argue that Dunkin Donuts is a national brand, and totally irrelevant. I would stand there in silence, and then point to the two of them located mere yards away from one another. Then I would ask you to pronounce the words Gloucester and Dorcester, as I proceed to eat a carton of munchkins. Just trying to live the dream.

Social Networking Whoredom

Dictionary Definitions for the websites that take up way too much of my time/one of the main reasons why many of my college brethren cannot hold a lasting face to face conversation.

^{Dictionary Definitions for Social Networking Sites}

Facebook

Definition: 1. Whole novels could have been written, cancer cured, the homeless fed and Darfur saved with the amount of time the world’s population has spent writing posts and going through inane photo booth albums.

2a. Because there is truly nothing classier than taking a self-portrait with your laptop camera, unless it’s a self-portrait superimposed in front of the Eiffel Tower.

2b. Except for the hundreds of photos of yourself intoxicated/high/passed out over a toilet for the world to see. Congratulations, your shining moment has instantly become public property and will come back to haunt you for years, nay generations to come. Enough slander for a future political campaign could be generated from last nights trailer trash themed party, not to mention that the fact that you listed beer pong as one of your “activities.”

Example: “That guy I just cheated off in OChem? Totally friending him.”

Twitter

Definition: 1. A sense of desperation and desire to be accepted paired with the vain hope that someone cares about your dinner plans. Nay, your thoughts on the anticipation of dinner plans.

2. Seeing the same people twitter over and over again about the mundane aspects of their life is comparable to repeatedly stabbing your inner thigh with a dull knife.

3. Blackberries and iphones are like the pipes to these crack messages, which at first begin with a little experimentation and then ultimately lead to incessant posting and our good friend carpal tunnel.

4. The new language that evolved around twitter is incredibly confusing. What the hell do you say, twitted, tweeted, or twat? It is expected that within the year only one term will rise to the top like butter in this churn of utter narcissism and finally be grammatically accepted by both scholars and sycophants alike.

Example: Lolz @hulksmash224 it’s not your kid.

LinkedIn

Definition: 1. Post millennia internet equivalent to sleeping your way to the top. (So I see you’ve added a few more “contacts”) Except this time lowering your standards gets you an extra partition for your cubicle and a reference for your page.

2. Amidst this recession, one has to use every possible means to gain that slight advantage over your equally under qualified peers. Even if it leads to you paying upwards of $25 a month to litter the internet with grammatically incorrect and out of date versions of your resume.

Example: I put my drinking blog and twitter account links on my page, why has no one contacted me?

MySpace

Definition: 1. All but dead save for garage bands unable to afford a website and perverts not hip enough to switch over to Facebook. Myspace has spawned the twisted social networking malcontents we are today.

2. Aside from making you think it’s okay to post pictures of that totally sweet new bong and perfecting the angle from which you can take photos of yourself in the mirror (with the least amount of flash obstruction) Myspace has done very little for society, but add to the population. Unfortunately it was misused as a dating site for some time, and the poor demon seeds will have to be told the origins of their birth. Also why Daddy can’t afford child support because he blew it all on a custom bike. “But it has the entire cast of the Dukes of Hazzard airbrushed on it…”

Example: OH MY G-D WE HAVE THE SAME MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE PAGE LAYOUT

Diary of Matilda, Facebook Farmville character

I hate myself for doing this. Enjoy.


Wednesday

Woke up at the ass crack of dawn to begin my daily toil in the Farmville Fields. The unseen master left me explicit instructions that I must plow to the right of the futile pagoda, and plant Pattypan Squash because he had recently unlocked level sixteen. I am allergic to those bastard gourds and am forced to live off of stolen soybeans. As a result of my poor diet I have had dysentary for some time now, and feel quite weak. The sickenly stale smell of Natural Light wafts from the master’s manor, as he was up all night with the neighbors celebrating a lucrative pumpkin harvest. I shan’t see a dime and he won’t even let me plant aloe vera (from level fourteen) to tend to my various blisters and rake wounds. Oh how they pus and burn. To make matters worse, I am forced to wear an insufferable red bow in my hair and my eyebrows are barely visible. My shame knows no bounds.

Friday

I awoke somewhat later today as it was forecasted to be cloudy, and I would not have to deal with the intolerable cruelty that is the Farmville midday sun. Unfortunately, the clouds quickly released a torrent of rain and enough lightning to make Zeus himself quiver in fear. However, I must press on as to not ruin the strawberry harvest. I once accidentally let the crop wither while my master fell asleep in the library studying for his business ethics exam. As just punishment, he made me sleep outside of the protection of the Farmville cottage for a week. The wolves are ravenous, and travel in packs seeking sheep and weak farmers such as I. Luckily, they could not climb the plum tree I had made myself a sleeping nest in. I grew quite fond of that tree, and was sad when it was sold for thirty coins. The money was most likely spent at the Farmville “massage” parlor, as Master quite enjoys those happy endings. Farewell for now, the duck and pig topiaries need pruning.

Saturday

I have asked incessantly for a tractor to aid me in my chores and give me a free hour or two in the day, but my master has continued to ignore my pleas. Instead of wisely spending his coins on something to keep the farm in a stable economic condition, he blew a substantial amount of coins on garden gnomes at the market today. I believe he was smoking some strain of Farmville marijuana. Today I saw another farmer at the market. He had overalls like mine, and a green mohawk. We both nodded at each other, and I hope we meet again, for I am so very lonely with only the chickens to share my hopes and dreams.

*Later that night

I awoke to a knock on my sleeping cupboard only to discover the boy with the mohawk and overalls. He silently motioned me to join him into the night, and being an innocent and naive soul I quickly followed. He led me to a hut in the forbidden Farmville woods, where I met dozens of other sad and malnourished farmers such as myself. They spoke of evil words such as "mutiny," and "uprising" and "union." I clasped my hands over my ears to muffle out the horrid sounds, but they were forcibly ripped off my head and I was pushed to the ground. A girl farmer readied her arm to throw an eggplant at my frail frame, and I raised an arm in withering defense. In the nick of time my friend with the mohawk reached out before the aubergine could hit me, deflecting it and sending it sailing towards a plaster bust of Mark Zuckerberg's head. It fell to the ground and instantly shattered, sending an audible gasp throughout the crowd.

"Enough." Spoke my friend. "For too long have we stood in the shadows, hiding behind our groovy scarecrows and pink hay bales. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!"

The crowd cheered, and he was lifted amongst shoulders and carried out of the cabin. I was happy to have shared his shining moment with him, and didn't feel it was necessary to tell anyone he had ripped off his entire speech from Return of the King.

Sunday

I wear a mask and gloves. My breaths come short and rapid as I fumble with my semi-automatic and flamethrower. It is time to take back Farmville for ourselves. As I run into the night amongst my farm brethren free of fear, free of hunger, free of pain, I realize what I have been denied. Too long have I been shackled with these fields of wheat and pineapples, which doesn't even make geographical or meteorologic conditional sense. I cannot take back my youth or my optimism, but I can damn well take back my dignity.