North Dakota and Other Jokes

Tonight I hung out with Ruth.  We watched some bad tv together, making fun of the shows. 
When I first got there, Claire and her were talking about crepes, and she asked me if Americans had them.  I told her yes, but I pronounced the word differently, and then she made fun of me. 
We had a good series of giggles, and I laughed so loudly and long that I think I frightened other people away.  Ruth has no tolerance for American television, which means she made a lot of faces of horror and disgust.  I turned on a crappy sci-fi show and we began making fun of how racist and xenophobic it is.  Afterwards, I turned on a show with a hot guy, and things calmed down. 
Ruth was doing some research, and she told me that the Eisenhower Library charges seventy-five cents per page to print information for you.  We talked about how steep and crazy that was.  (It really is.)  The library is in Missouri, and Ruth's not really interested in going all the way out there, "Even if it's in Kansas City, which is big," she said.
"Oh, there's Tennesse," she said, looking on Google maps. 
"It's not that close to Tennesse," I told her.
Then Ruth went off about the middle of the country having absolutely nothing. 
"Have you ever been to North Dakota?" she asked.  Then she started planning her trip there.
Two minutes later: "Did you know that there are two Hicksville's in the U.S.?  Do you want to go?"
I don't want to go, Ruth.
"Why not?  What more do you want in life?"
She is very cross with me for not going.
"It has a mall," she said, trying to get me to come.  And then she started talking about how malls are awful.
"It has a vitamin shop," she said, trying, again, to get me to come.
"I saw an advert for IHOP; I don't remember what it is."
"I might have to go to Hicksville.  It's probably just as shit as the rest of New York."
Then she started using Google's Streetview to look at the city.
"There's nothing here!  I'm going to check out the mall."
Then she found a store that sold shoes for "problem feet."  Which led into a fight over how to pronounce "podatrist." 
She explained to me that England only has dentists.  And then looked up a list of the famous people from North Dakota. 
"Sam Anderson's from North Dakota?" I asked.
"Apparently."
North Dakota has some famous people, who I hadn't heard of.
We both knew who Leonard Peltier was, so I guess we weren't completely out of our league.   
"We can go to a rodeo and a powwow.  It's part of their culture."
Okay, okay. 
"I think they are faking this 14 days of fun.  It won't load!"
Then she started researching weird deaths.  In between, the North Dakota page loaded.  "Look, they have peacocks and snow!  People jog there!"
"People jog here," I say.
"That's because you've never been there," she said. 
They also have the world's largest catfish, which she told me all about. 
"North Dakota has a special place in my heart," she said. 
She got excited for their manufacturing plants and their tax rise.  "They must be crazy," she said, about the latter.  "And they extended it for 2016, because they're crazy." 
I told her I was tired, and she gave me the chance to go to bed.

Out With Friends

I went out last night with some of my friends.  We first went over to one of the local coffee shops for treats and conversation.
One of the things that's always a bit of a problem is volume.  Tori and Ashley are particularly loud.  (You know things are bad when I think people are loud.)  There were a few brief moments where this looked like it was going to be a problem, but it was mostly okay. 
I was surprised by Tori and Ashley.  Ashley usually does not like being told that she is wrong (she's picked fights with me over very little) but Tori basically schooled her in Islam last night and Ashley didn't react as badly as she usually does.  Ashley's in anthropology, and anthropology has a bad reputation for being racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc., and even though Ashley doesn't go for the racism and homophobia, I have heard her say some pretty misogynistic things on occasion.  This time, she said some pretty awful things about Muslims, and I sometimes wonder how it is that we grew up in the same community.  We knew a lot of the same people, including a lot of Muslims (we live in an area where there is a high population of "Middle Easteners") and yet Ashley has a totally different (i.e. mostly negative) point of view about them.  But Ashley didn't do as she always does (repeat herself until you give up), so maybe that's a sign that she's changing? 
I talked mostly to Michael, Lisa's boyfriend.  He's a really nice guy, but I always feel like he's hitting on me.
This brings up one of the many problems I have.  Apparently, I am too nice to guys.  Josie says that I make people feel way too good about themselves and Dan has commented before that I am easy to talk to.  Josie believes that a lot of guys think that I'm interested in them because of the way I behave around them.  There are a lot of guys I'm interested in, but never, it seems, the ones who are interested in me.
The other problem is that I'm not sure how to strike a middle ground between being nice and being nasty.  I know how to tell someone off (some of my readers have seen me do it), but I (apparently) don't know how to be normal around people, not overly nice and not mean.
So, with Michael things are always a little weird, because well, Lisa's right there.  And I'm honestly not interested in him, and not just because of Lisa.  I met Michael before Lisa did, and I decided against him.  And I really don't want to make Lisa unhappy.  She's been very nice to me over our seven years of friendship, and it feels silly to throw that away, especially over a boy. 


Later, we walked over to a store to do a little shopping.  While walking there, some one was playing "Boom Boom Pow" and I danced in the parking lot to it.  (You can all blame Gary for getting me into that song.  Boy is a much better dancer than he looks.)
We went to look through cards, which is something that is super foreign to me these days.  In my family, we're not allowed to buy cards, because my Mom makes them.  So I haven't been in a card rack in almost a decade.  I mostly made terrible suggestions to Ashley, like saying she should get a Grandfather-themed Father's Day card for her Dad.

Lisa is a cute whore, and she got really excited when she saw cards that were from Hoops and Yoyo.  Am I totally out of the loop here?  I've never even heard of Hoops and Yoyo before, though their website has so much sound stuff on it.  Lisa was giggling and carrying on about how cute they were, especially this one slug character.  I honestly don't ever worry about buying Lisa a present.  If it's even a little bit cute, she'd probably love it.