BABIES AREN’T ZEN

a very smart and thoughtful friend has a post about some problematic aspects of “Stuff White People Like.” thought-provoking and most def worth reading. a brief hit of his main points (which i am hopefully not obscuring):

1. it “reinforce[s] the notion of ‘whiteness’ as an independent reality.”
2. it correlates “good” activities with whiteness.
3. it blurs the distinction between wealth and virtue; potentially dispels guilt upper-middle class white people experience at their/or hypocrisy.

go read it!

Yowza. They’re making babies use Facebook now? To, like, keep in touch with other babies? Why don’t they just call it BABYBOOK? Because that is one book I’d support burning.

i don’t want to go to work tomorrow.

i want to stay home and work on the Xmas Octopus.

…is to not lie at all. You heard me. The best way to…is to not. (Yes, this may sort of be a quote from She’s the Man, repurposed to fit the situation. BUT STILL!)

I’m serious! Don’t lie! If you do, even if it’s for a seemingly good reason like that you want To Fit In and have Friends, it will NOT be as easy to cover up as you thought. Instead of merely agreeing with the other person when they tell you, conveniently, what happened on the show you said you watched, you will say you watched it before they admit they fell asleep and What Happened? and you will stumble, and they will ask Well, What Song? and you will stumble again and look thoroughly stupid or, worse, like you are eternally too much of a pothead or alchie to remember One Song. Then you will feel guilty ALL DAY and imagine the person has IMed all of your other coworkers to say that You Lied To Her, and if you lied about THAT then what ELSE are you lying about, and then you will find out later that the show you SAID you watched WAS NOT EVEN ON LAST NIGHT.

And you will feel horrible.

Because remember how you’re an awful liar and you never lie, mostly for these two reasons, that you are awful at it and it makes you feel horrible due to Lingering Religious Guilt?

Yes. That’s why. So DON’T LIE, people. Learn from my example. I’M GOING TO GET FIRED FOR LYING ABOUT A TV SHOW.

Things not to do on your first day at a new job:

1. Wear a lavender sweater with a pink watch. You will look like a Barbie.
2. Skip breakfast because you were running late and had to get coffee. Your stomach will growl during some sort of orientation presentation and despite taking four pages of notes YOU WILL ABSORB NOTHING.
3. Forget to save your work. Your boss will think you’re an idiot FOR NOT SAVING YOUR WORK. He will remind you to save your work, saying with a grin, “I checked the spreadsheet and it looked like you hadn’t gotten anything done, but I knew that wasn’t true!” You will wish spreadsheets were tangible so you could wallop yourself on the head with one.

People like the people who do Car-Toys radio ads should be aware by now that when I wake up, I am irritable and uncaffeinated, and thus their ads should at least be stabs at intelligence and cleverness. No such luck.

“Wanna plaaaay? Get yer toys,” goes the new slogan, crooned by an unseen guy full of blissful ennui. Thanks for infantilizing me, Car-Toys singer dude. What if I like to play with chainsaws? Do you sell chainsaws at Car-Toys?

for some reason, i keep wanting to call a certain individual recently revealed as a womanizing cretin “GUCCI MOTHERFUCKER.” i thought i had appropriated this insult from radiohead, when in fact good ole thom sings the much kinder “gucci little piggy” in “paranoid android.” only slightly off, right?

i maintain that “gucci motherfucker” is a valid if nonsensical insult to be brandished widely and at will.

Because I have a girl crush on Diablo Cody (the badass’s Miranda July), because it was heralded in the feminist blogosphere, and because the trailer made it look like tasty tasty cinematic junk food, I watched Jennifer’s Body last night, along with about four other people in the theater.

Other than being dragged to The Ring and its sequel in college, I hate and avoid horror movies (Saw 6? REALLY, people?). But this one promised to be Different and Empowered Or Something. It was definitely…something.

Jennifer becomes possessed by a demon after a Satanic ritual that’s seemingly a thinly veiled metaphor for gang rape. She goes on to eat people (er, “Not people; BOYS”), much to the dismay of her childhood best friend and polar opposite, “Needy,” the gorgeous but plain-Janeified Amanda Seyfried.

I can’t say I loved the movie, but it had some nice touches (Adam Brody as the guyliner-wearing band villain, Nicolai; Amy Sedaris as Needy’s “Ford Tough” protective mom). And its theme of female empowerment was impossible to miss (well, impossible if you’re straining to find it in every scene to distract you from squirting blood and bile). After being brutally victimized by a group of guys, Jennifer goes on to seduce and prey on numerous others. But is the victim becoming the perpetrator really that empowering?

Usually I’m of the mind that no, violence isn’t a solution to violence, but Jennifer’s Body used it to skewer female gender norms. Society says you’re a Bad Girl and a Slut if you flaunt your body [too much] and overtly use your sexuality to get what you want. We’re supposed to be sexual, but also doe-eyed and submissive. Watching Jennifer do whatever the hell she wanted, including (SPOILER ALERT) coming on to Needy, I couldn’t help but feel empowered. Sure, she had the excuse of being demon-possessed, but a female character acting with that kind of agency and disregard for societal approval is all too rare in film, especially horror.

I’m left puzzling over the Needy/Jennifer dichotomy, though. Are they supposed to be different sides of any woman, split by necessity into two different bodies? Our culture lets you be a smart girl, but you have to be bookish, wear glasses, and have sweet vanilla sex with your boyfriend? Is pulling strange boys into the woods for impulsive one-time encounters (after which you may or may not eat them) incompatible with friendship, cultural acceptance, and survival? Maybe sweetness, intelligence, and sexual abandon were just too much to squeeze into Jennifer’s body.

In second grade, I got incredibly lucky. Our class was writing biographies of each other, and I got to write mine on the cutest boy in class. He had spiky blond hair and tan, skinny calves. His favorite things were soccer and pizza.

Eighteen years later, we become Facebook friends, and his interests are as follows:

“I love Jesus, I love my wife, I love eating (tacos are my favorite), I love sports (soccer is my favorite), I love serving in a church, and I love life.”

Other than pizza to tacos, on the Zero-to-A-Lot-o-meter, I’d say he hasn’t changed at all.