Almost Perfect

I'm posting this little video here because it seems a little too...well, perfect.  As most of you know, I'm a feminist.  And I love music that is about empowering women.
"I don't want to look like you, because you're too perfect" could sum up my feelings about a lot of girls I was around in high school.  I don't know what it is about college, but after a certain point you're too busy to notice anyone else.  Or at least I was.
The only umbrage I take with this is that the young woman singing the song is the epitome of modern female beauty.  If this song was being sung by someone who didn't somehow fit the mold, I might like it a little better.
So, really, if the Donnas or some angry grrrl band could cover this, I'd be much more in. 

The Cat Whisperer

Tori and I went to visit Jack.  We were there so that their two kittens could meet.  Tori needs someone to watch her cat now, and we were all hoping that Mocha and Feets would get along.
On the drive over, Tori told me that they have now secured all of her father's guns.  He had fifteen rifles and five handguns, which is a small arsenal.  Apparently it's normal for hunters to have about ten rifles.  I was just worried something walked off, which would be scary.   
We tried a lot of things to get the cats to like each other.  At one point, we just opened the carrier Mocha was in, and Feets tried several times to wander up to it.  And Mocha would hiss at him.  Jack tried to pet Mocha, and Mocha started hissing at him.  And then me after that, even though there was no way I was covered in cat fur.

Meanwhile, one of Jack's roommates, David, stopped by.  He was just dropping some stuff off before heading out.  He has a degree in music and women's studies, and I thought that sounded suitably hot.  And then I met him and he was sort of adorable and nice.  He plays music at a church, and was planning on doing stuff from the most recent movie version of Pride and Prejudice.  I was definitely going to swoon, but Jack told me after he left that David was gay.  Of course he was, I thought.  This happens to me all the time. 
"We should have some music," Jack said.  Jack started showing us the stuff on his I-pod, and I picked out the Beatles.  That was something everyone could agree too. 
Then Tori held Mocha and Jack held Feets facing each other.  And they both freaked out, but at separate times.  Mocha would hiss, and then Feets would get all riled up and start clawing the air.  And then Mocha would start hissing again.
Jack was cool enough to make us some food.  As we waited in the living room, I began looking at Jack's books.  He had a lot of stuff I was interested in reading.  Lots of Ronald Dahl and other classics of young adult lit.  And books on Wicca.  I was thinking the day before of getting back into Wicca, but this would take a lot of work and time, and I really don't have much of that right now.  I sang along to Yellow Submarine.  I used to love that song and album as a kid. 

It occurred to me as we were waiting that the reason Tori asked me to come was because Tori didn't really know Jack all that well anymore.  Out of this particular group of friends, Jack is actually the one I stayed best in touch with.  And since I was the matchmaker on this one, maybe it was best I come along. 
Jack, like Jimmy, is a great cook.  (Are all of my friends amazing cooks?  When did this happen and why have I remained mostly ignorant of it?)  Jack made us pork chops, beans and rice.
Some of you will recall I don't eat pork.  This is still true, but I ate Jack's pork because it was good.  Seriously, I usually despise pork, but this was excellent.  He told Tori and I that he had added some cinnamon to it, which was surprising.
We waited for the two cats to sort of meet cute and get it over with.  No such thing.  We opened Mocha's carrier, and waited for her to come out, which she never did.  Finally, Tori pulled her out of there.  And then she sat up against the couch, trying to get under it.  The couch was too low, and this annoyed Mocha deeply.  Every time Jack got too close, Mocha would hiss.
One of Jack's other roommates, Kim, was apparently good with getting cats to like each other.  So we were waiting for her.  
Eventually, I suggested that we watch Friends.  I figured that this was a good way to pass the time.  As Jack was looking at the episodes, I was struck by how attractive Jack was going to be, even when he got older.  I kept imagining him with graying hair and wearing his glasses down his nose.  I could totally imagine him wearing sweater vests and working as a professor.
I was struck by a similar set of thoughts about Daniel months ago.  I was watching him walk, and I realized that when he looked older, he wasn't going to be all that different.  Like, more hunched over than he already is, and with white hair and maybe even a bigger beard, but basically himself.  And, like Jack, he would be cute.  He would be adorable as an old man. 
I realized a while ago that I've been nursing a little crush on Jack.  I'm not going to do anything about it because he has a girlfriend and he's been with her for four years, which I'm really impressed by.  There's no way I could compete with that, and I don't want to accidentally ruin Jack's life by telling him.  He's a sweetie and deserves better than that.   
We first watched "The One with All the Embryos" which had the Mom from That 70s Show and the episode that is an alternative reality of what their lives would have been like.  We had a good time giggling, while Mocha sat there and hissed every time Feets tried to come into the room.
I joked that Feets was like a thirteen-year-old emo boy who really wanted to get close to the girl, but kept getting scared off.  And then would inevitably have to go and write sad little songs about it. 
Kim finally came home.  She sat down on the floor next to Mocha and Mocha didn't hiss or anything.  Kim just petted her and that was that.  Mocha was definitely going to be able to stay.  Kim really was the Cat Whisperer.
Tori, Jack and I got some extra cat stuff (scratching post, bowls, toys) out of Tori's car.  Then we parted ways.  I was afraid Tori was going to have a hard time leaving Mocha, but she seemed relatively all right. 

Wake

A couple of day ago someone showed me the website of a new literary magazine called Wake.  They are associated with GVSU, and they're looking to publish works about the Great Lakes.  Since MSU is right smack dab in the middle of several lakes, I thought some of my readers might like the link.   
I actually heard about this literary magazine about a year and a half ago, when they were first starting.  I happened across a bookmark from them, promoting their about-to-start journal. 
There's not much on the website, but I did find this little piece about an "Okie" who identifies with being from the Midwest.  It's an interesting piece.  I've never thought of Oklahoma as Midwest, or, as this author comments, from the Southwest.  I've always thought of it as Great Plains sort of place, which may or may not be right.   I once knew someone from Oklahoma , but he defined the place as Southern, which, again, totally not what I thought. 
Maybe I need to go to this Oklahoma.  Just because it seems to be a place in-between or at the very least, unidentifiable in some way.  And that's the sort of place that would be interesting to me. 

Talk is Cheap

Talk radio is generally one of those things that I don't have a lot of patience with.  I hated eating in the cafeteria in the morning and listening to one angry man carry on about hair arm pit lesbians in Ann Arbor and how people just "don't get it."  At one point, about three years ago, I considered calling in and agreeing with everything he said and then adding "And you know, that's the same reason why I think I should be allowed to eat babies."  And then prattling on with some completely bogus idea about baby eating, and thus making him look completely ridiculous.  I would inevitably get cut off, sure, but the idea's stayed with me. 
I was in the car with Ashley, which was probably the first mistake.  No, on second thought, the first mistake was being up so early.  The second mistake was being in that car. 
But we were listening to another one of these heinous programs.  This one was all about the misogyny, and it made me sick.  A bunch of (mostly, but not all) men.  They were infatuated with the idea of the penis, saying it a lot.  All this worship of a sexual organ, one that is valued above another sexual organ, one that is gendered differently.  Oh goodie, I thought.  I'm so glad I got up for this. 
And then some woman called in with a story about some lesser-known sexual act that her boyfriend wanted to do, and this prompted a whole slew of carrying on about how this act, no matter if it was consensual, was automatically bad.  No one who called to comment or was hosting the show could stop from laughing nervously.  We get it people: you're afraid of sex.  Especially something where a woman is dominating a man. 
Ashley felt the need to ask me how I felt, and, God, I wish she wouldn't, because I was already smart enough to know we weren't going to agree.  I told her how I felt, that it wasn't that big of a deal, it wasn't really that strange, and that making something forbidden often just made it more desirable. 
She said how much she disapproved on this act.  Ashley disapproves of anything that people do that she wouldn't, and I think she is so judgemental and ridiculous.  I don't pretend for a moment that I should be running every aspect of everyone's life; I don't even have time for all the things I want to do with my life. 
"Maybe I'm a prude," she said at one point.  It was the most honest thing I heard that whole morning. 

Parents Just Don't Understand

I happened upon this post about recently banned books.  I notice they're almost all young adult books, which makes me shake my head and quote a particularly great rapper: Parents just don't understand.

If you look at that list, you don't seen poetry books by Charles Bukowski or novels by John Updike.  No, it's the stuff that teens read.  I feel terrible having read only two of the books on that list, but some of these books weren't even out when I was a teen, and I can already tell you, my teen!self would be totally all over at least one of them just based on the title alone.
And if there's anything my parents failed to do, it was stopping me reading, especially if I decided I needed to read it.  I worked through a lot of romance novels and religious books as a teen because I wanted to. 
So, besides all the other problems with censoring books, I'm pretty sure it's a useless endeavor because bookish teens are usually the last people who are going to be told what they can't or shouldn't read.  And if anything probably encourages them, it's telling them no. I can say from personal experience that it is really easy to hide books from your parents.  I just removed the jackets of my Danielle Steele books and put all my religious books under the bed for easy night time access.  (That's right: normal teens put porn under their bed; I put The Book of Mormon.) 
So make sure you celebrate banned book week by doing something naughty: getting into bed with an "illicit" book.  Trust me when I say it doesn't have to be a dramatic choice like Story of O. 

Real Person Fanfiction

I told this story to Dan, Jimmy and Kristina, and I thought I'd share it with some of my other readers, since it's based on my experiences with real people.
"So, Alex is going to be a director and make movies.  Every time there's a premier, Nick is going to be all 'God!  Do we have to go to this movie!?!  Alex is a terrible director, and he's an even worse writer.'"
'He's not that bad.'
'Oh, please, you have no taste.'
But Nick will always still go, along with everyone else who likes Alex.  And every movie, there's going to be a character that is clearly based on Justin.  The person who will hate these characters the most?  Justin. 
'That Trustin character was hella annoying.  And fugly.  If I knew someone like that, I would just slap them in the face.'
I would turn to look at Dan and we would exchange a look.  'Justin,' I would say, as gently as possible.  'Trustin was based on you.'
'No he wasn't!  You're just being mean!'
'No, really, I think that-'
'You're wrong!  You're just trying to make me feel bad!' And then Justin would march out, slamming the door behind him.  And then-"
And then I stopped telling this story, realizing I was basically writing real person fanfiction.  Dan once told me that I read too much fanfiction and that it was affecting how I looked at people, and I must admit, it is changing how I view things.  But whereas Dan was viewing it as a bad thing, I'm thinking it's actually both a good and bad thing.  It's bad because, well, there's something really random and potentially creepy about these thoughts.  But it's also good because it allows me to take another angle at the people in my life.  It gives me a way of analyzing them but in a more creative way.  If that makes any sense.  Possibly this is one of those things that makes sense only to me, like my surreal poetry.  
And I think we should all be grateful that story was G rated.  I think we all know I'm capable of writing stories that are totally not. 

Lefty Loosey

A young girl and a mother came in.  They asked if I had anything with just Taylor Lautner and not the rest of the Twilight cast.  "No, we don't," I answered.  And then the young girl and I talked about how cute Lautner is.
This actually happens a lot.  Someone will come in asking for something, and it'll occur to me that "Oh, hey, we should sell that." 
I also broke one of the rules about work and called Dan.  Dan hates texting, which I really don't understand.  I don't text people I know who can't get texts or have to pay for them, but neither of these is true with Dan.
"I didn't think you were going to call my bluff," he said on the phone. 
"Yeah, well, I'm not suppose to be doing this.  If I have to put this down for a moment, that's why." 
Dan went into one of rants about why texting is a terrible medium for communication.  He carried on for a bit, complaining about how you can't get the timber of someone's voice. 
He brought up some good points, but the thing that hung in the back of my mind as he was talking was how much of my communication is written.  I'm a writer, so, duh, of course my communication often takes place in written form.  But even disregarding that, I spend a lot of time writing to people.  Obviously, I write on this blog.  I write emails and keep correspondences up with several friends (Ashley, Robert, Josie, Caryn and Jennifer as of right now.)  I even use instant messaging to talk to people, particularly Christine.  And then I texted about twenty-five people within the last week.  If I could only use my voice to communicate, I'd be cut off from a lot more people.  And I would miss them.  (And in some cases, would have trouble getting things done, since some of those communications are work-related and not just making small chat about lip piercings, made-up words, and homework.)  I didn't really get to making this argument back to him. 
A couple of customers kept asking me questions (which I didn't mind, because that's what I'm there for, dur.)  This ticked Dan off, and he hung up on me, which of course ticked me off.
I know that I explained where I was and how I was breaking the rules for him, I thought to myself.  But then I decided to carry on.  I can't let this kind of stuff bother me.  I've clearly got a full plate of drama.
Later on in the evening, a woman was asking me about a particular model we had out for people to try out.  It runs on batteries, and I noticed a small amount of liquid around that area.  My breath sort of held.  It looked like pop, but maybe I was wrong.  I told her it just needed new batteries. 
It took me a few minutes to take off the lid, just because it didn't adhere to the whole "righty tighty, lefty loosey" concept.  But even as I was trying to work it off, more liquid was coming out and all I could think was "Eww."
Midway through my battery incident, I turned around, an older woman was standing there.  I had one of those scare moments, but she just had a question. 
I finally opened it up, and indeed, there was a nasty oil over everything.  Great.  Someone had left these batteries in here so long they leaked out.  I picked them each out and discovered only one of them was spilling out, which I guess I should have been grateful for.  I picked up the two good ones and threw them into the recycling batteries bin.  I went to the back to get papertowel and lifted the bad, leaky battery.  And then used more paper towel to clean the rest of the mess up. 
Then I nearly face palmed over how stupid I was.  I was treating this like what happened when batteries exploded with white Manganese.  This wasn't that, and maybe I was doing something unsafe or unsanitary. 
I wasn't sure what to do then.  Who among my friends would possibly know what to do?  And then I realized the only answer: Dan. 
So I texted Dan, even though I know he hates texting.  I asked him what to do.  And then I waited.  About a half and hour later he texted me back, recommending baking soda.  Oh, bloody hell, I thought.  We can't even get enough room for our stock.  I sure as hell don't have baking soda, and of course, I'm working alone, so I can't even leave to try to find some nearby.
Maybe this is like one of those things where I can substitute something, like in baking.  So I texted him back asking if there was something else I could use.  He told me no.  Frak. 
So I ended up just doing what I had done and then leaving the model out for an extra half an hour to make sure it dried out.  And then I put new batteries in it and it worked, no problem. 
Speaking of batteries, this woman came in and demanded that I sell her batteries.  We don't sell batteries, but we use them in our models.  And we have gone weeks without them, because the boss hasn't purchased any.  So I didn't sell her any, and boy, did she let me know how much she disapproved of that.  A part of me felt like I should just sell her the batteries for an ungodly sum and pocket the money, but that would be dishonest. 
I've been closing a lot at work lately.  I think I would prefer to open, just because it involves less work.  I also wonder if my brain's just too tired to make things work, because after a shift of six or seven hours, it feels like I'm moving really slowly and in that sluggish way that signifies nothing good.  
It's also so cold where I work.  We're suppose to have the door open, and I try to keep it open for as long as possible.  Even after I put on a sweater I find myself shivering.  The good and bad thing about shutting the door is I think it makes some people think we're closed even though the lights are clearly on.