It might just be all about the hokey pokey!
I will, I will, I will! weigh in on the UCSD PR nightmare that seems to get worse with each day, and which makes me want to bubble-wrap my little girl before I launch her into the dangerous territory of adulthood. But for now, I’m busy faxing and re-faxing and re-faxing again, reams of paper. I make love to a fax machine every day and quite frankly, this has got me wondering—as I fix another god^$(#(@ * motherf!*%$#^$#%^&$%! blasted paper jam—at the meaning of my life.
On Monday, I decided it was meaningless and cried twice. On Tuesday, I confirmed it was meaningless, and cried three times. I mean, holy smokes, folks: I DO NOT CRY AT WORK. It’s against my personal code of conduct. And the a realization that my career consists of minute-to-minute use of a nearly obsolete technology is that much more humiliating.
But. I can write! Right? That’s got too count for something. No?
So in the midst of all this faxing and crying and crying and faxing and feeling generally boxed in, I continued to vent my frustrations about John Mayer. You see, it’s more advisable for me to aim my freak-out at him, than it is my lovely husband. Fewer repercussions, if you know what I’m saying. Plus, Sam’s a terrific guy while Mayer is….well. You just need to head on over to Culture Lust and read on.
“What If Sarah Palin Were Black?”
“The impenetrable stupidity of Sarah Palin knows no boundaries. She wallows in mediocrity. Palin is the queen bee of a cult of personality where to be anti-intellectual is a trait to be rewarded. Ultimately, she presides over a confederacy of dunces.” So begins Chauncey DeVega in a short, compelling piece on white privilege. This Must Read can be found over here.
Just warming up for the Big Post
Overheard at my dentist’s office last week:
Patient (white, middle-aged, male) at reception: I missed Aubrey. I was really hoping she would be cleaning my teeth today.
Receptionist: I know, I know. She’s on her honeymoon.
Patient: Where did she go?
Receptionist: Africa.
Patient: Wow! She just might come back with a bone in her nose. Hahahahahahaha!
Receptionist: Ha ha…um…ha ha (ahem)…ha haa…
Patient: You’ll have to tell her I said that! Hahaha. No. Nevermind. Don’t tell her. I’ll tell her myself next time. Hahahahahha.
Book smart vs. Common Sense
On the heels of the “ghetto-party” drama at the esteemed University of California, San Diego this week—which I will be writing about shortly, believe you me, oh yes I will—my husband’s business partner found a note on the ground, lost by, presumably, one of the University’s fine, over-achieving students. It concerns me how this individual is managing in life and more so, how she/he is going to get through tomorrow without the lost memo.
Hand written in pencil on a postcard-size piece of paper with violins and cats on it (see? Already, I question the functional capacity of this person), is the To Do list:
- 7:10am = Sleep
- 7:40 = Get ready
- 7:45 = Walk to school bus
- 8:00 = Get to class
- 8:50 = Class
- 9:00 = Walk
- 9:50- Class
I mean, where on this list is this person supposed to squeeze in breathing?
Kill Buzz: On Google’s answer to social networking and other crap like it
I could have sworn I’d clicked “No, thanks.” But instead I must have clicked, “Hell yes! Sign me up now because God forbid I should have only 17 other points of access to all the mundane shit my friends (or should I say ‘friends’?) are up to.” Thanks to the shiny new Gmail Buzz, Google’s answer to TwitFaceMySpaceLinkedInPlaxoWave, I now get all the mindless shorthand drivel in octuplicate. Oh, how quaint, the days of a handwritten letter.
Sometime last week—after I’d wasted an hour on Facebook (OK, fine, so it was two hours) and an unspecified amount of time perusing the photos of my contacts on Flickr, and then a while or so reading only headlines at three newsy sites, and one quick dip into Twitter for Emily Alpert’s updates on the San Diego Unified School District Budget Kerfuffle: The 2010 Edition, while simultaneously conducting three chats, one direct-messaging session, writing a blog post, taking a phone call, tweezing my eyebrows and helping my daughter complete 29 Valentine’s Day cards—I noticed the word “Buzz” and a brand-spankin’-new rainbow-colored thought bubble just below the link to my Gmail inbox.
Since I had some spare time, I clicked on it.
And lo! The information came screaming at me in layers and layers of layers. Without doing anything, I already had 30 followers, was following eight people and had a bold-face offer to follow bunches more. Some of my followers and followees were already engaged in lengthy—though, let’s be honest, not exactly riveting—conversations with people they follow or who follow them, many of whom I do not know or follow. You follow me?
I felt like I’d arrived at a friend’s house in sweats and slippers with cold cream on my face expecting an intimate dinner of take out and chick flicks, only to find a hedonistic gala with beautiful guests decked out in Alexander McQueen finery (rest his poor soul). Apparently, I didn’t get the memo.
“So… is there a way to just link my Twitter feed to Buzz? That’d be so much easier…” wrote one friend whom I’m automatically following.
“Buzz can take your tweets but you can’t update Twitter through Buzz yet,” responded his friend, whom I am not following. That friend continued, “I feel like a big stupid jackass for using those words in that sentence.” Hmmm. Self-deprecation is a feature I dig—maybe I want to follow this guy, after all.
As I scrolled down in blurry-eyed dismay, I read some of the—what are they called? Buzzards? Buzzits? Buzztwits?—and noticed that most of what I was reading, I’d already read during my earlier Facebook time-suck. With the same exact content in multiple places, it would be safe to say that the linking of platforms is well underway and my friend needn’t worry about sending his message out multiple times. One voice command into his trusty-rusty iPhone and his could be the Tweet heard ’round the world. Holy Merriam-Webster! Am I even speaking English anymore? R u?
Seriously, people. It’s a sorry state of affairs when we can link all of our accounts but can’t manage to link with the people sitting right across the dinner table because we’re busy twatfacebuzzering—that is, if people actually come together in the same physical space to begin with. Our relationships have been watered down to pokes and useless virtual cocktails and serial IMs. We’re so constantly in touch that there’s hardly a need to meet.
I have numerous friends whose marriages are on the edge of a knife in large part because the blue glow of technology has taken the place of intimacy. Hell, I could end up being one of those people if I’m not careful: Just this second—literally as I typed—I was chatting with a friend in Boise and half-conversing with my husband, who was standing in front of me folding my laundry. The only reason I spoke to him rather than texting him from my Blackberry is because I knew responding would have taken him away from fondling my underwear, his only opportunity since my multitasking doesn’t often include getting naked with him.
Speaking of my phone—to which I upgraded from a 5-year-old, sticker-adorned flip phone in December—I can now check e-mail and Facebook and all that twattie-yahoodle from my car or the beach or the movies or the grocery store or the gym. If I want to, I can buzz all my friends—and their friends and their friends—to let them know I’m at 80 percent of my maximum heart rate. Right! This! Second! Instant gratification is dog-slow compared with the offerings of the 3G Network.
With all these options, it’s increasingly difficult to live in the present. But I’m old-fashioned at heart, and I’m pushing back against this nonsense. I prefer letters to listservs, and once in a while, I have to unplug. Two weeks ago, I forged ahead sans cell phone, albeit unintentionally. And that day, I heard raindrops—actual droplets of water falling from nimbostratus clouds—crashing on my sunroof. I watched them bead up and slide down my windows. I had a driveway moment during which I wasn’t texting, e-mailing or talking. It was raining, and I was listening. L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G.
This week, I got a postcard from a good friend in Switzerland. A physical piece of paper with ink on it. The original 140-character communiqué. In cursive, scrunched together to fit the limited space, my friend wrote, “Can you stop over in Zurich on your way to the Amalfi (I read about it on your blog)?”
I decided right then that a letter was the only appropriate response. But we’re modern girls and I needed her physical address. And since I’d already shut off Buzz in disgust, I asked her for her digits the old fashioned way: I e-mailed her.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
I think my husband has a secret life.
Me: I don’t get the difference between figure skating and ice dancing.
Sam: Well, figure skating is smooth with a series of elements that have to be shown, with dramatic air-type things and turns and jumps and stuff. The ice dancing is more dancey, if you will, with dance moves and lots of those close choppy steps.
Me: What about the long program? Good God, the long programs go on forever.
Sam: I think the longs are more dramatic and the shorts are more whimsical.
Me: Why do people watch this…?
Sam: OHHHHHHH!!! She! Just! Ate! Shit!!! She just went down on the first toss! These are Olympians?!? Isn’t that the whole point: That they defy gravity and don’t fall down? They had four motherfucking years to practice this shit and she falls on the first spin? That’s why people watch this shit! And–and!–you get bitchin’ crotch shots all day. Check it.
Me: “The Way We Were”? For real? Don’t they want people to stay awake for their long program? Hello 1973. Our century doesn’t have any music to choose from.
Sam: I like their little outfitsOHHHHHH!!! She ate shit!!! She went down on the triple salchow! That’s three for three. I don’t know…maybe one fall per deal is normal? I don’t know…Whoooa!!…She almost packed that in! She was starin’ at some serious ice right there…
Me: Okay. I’m gonna go work now.
Dear Dodge (in the words of Jerry Garcia): That’s right! The women are SMARTER!
My friend Melanie wrote a short post at The Women’s Colony this week about the stereotyping portrayed in some of the Superbowl commercials. Then, my current columnist du jour, the delectible, naughty, rib-crushingly smart Mark Morford—who, were I not betrothed, I would love to devour slowly and in small increments using an espresso spoon just to make it last longer—wrote more extensively on the topic. Mr. Morford: Je t’adore. Especially when you wear your faux cat fur jacket.
Anyway, here is one video that both Melanie and Morford found offensive:
And then, today, because certain women are extra incredibly bad ass, there is this response, which earned a raucous standing O in this house. Enjoy, and happy weekend.
Dear John Mayer,
When Playboy asked you whether black women “throw themselves” at you, you said:
“I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.”
Well, jeeze. This is awkward but…dude! You said that—among many other inane things— OUT LOUD. To a reporter. And anyway, do you really think your racist dick is the reason black women don’t dig you?
The Benetton folks must be cringing.
Honey, you are an affront to frat boys everywhere and that’s a damn near impossible feat. You are not smart. You are not cute. You are not deep. You are not intellectual or witty or cool or hip or dope or fly or whatever it is you fancy yourself to be. You have a small, small, small brain and a very big mouth. You are a self-important asshat raised to the 11th power, quadrupled by dickheadery, topped with three servings of phony and one heaping scoop of overcompensation.
Do humanity a favor, John Mayer, and please stop talking. Just shut the fuck up and go far away. Make that annual Mayercraft Cruise of yours permanent. Put on your Gopher-from-The-Love-Boat costume, set your vessel on starboard tack and make a bee line for an iceberg.
Just…yeah. Don’t come back.
xoxox,
~aaryn
Roller Derby Girls
I was in the kitchen, setting out the frosting and the jimmies for the cupcakes Ruby and I had just put in the oven, when I heard a couple of heavy thuds come from the front hallway. It was pouring rain, Sam was away for the weekend and my heart had already exploded into a million shimmering pieces of glitter when my One and Only—after after cracking her fourth perfect egg into the batter—looked up at me and said, “I love girls weekend.” I couldn’t have been any happier.
There was another heavy clunk! and then, “Mama, helllllp!” I stepped out of the kitchen and looked toward the front hall closet. There was my kid, hanging onto the doorknob of the front door, her long spindly legs spread wide and sliding out from beneath her because she had found and was wearing my rollerskates.
She didn’t want to take them off and I wasn’t about to deter her from trying, so I showed her the necessary side-to-side motion by gliding across the floor in my slippers. And other than letting me tip-toe behind her while she made her way around the couch two times, she was fairly explicit in her instructions when I tried to help her. “No, Mama! I can do it!”
She carried on like this on and off throughout the weekend, my big girl in my too-big-for-her skates, until I decided our Sunday expedition for Valentine’s Day cards, would include a trip to the Sports Chalet, where I bought my girl the very last pair of purple, pink and white skates they had in stock. The uninhibited joy she expressed as she tested her new wheels in the store is what makes parenting so totally awesome and instantly vaporizes the anguish of those many years of sleepless nights. And if that wasn’t quite enough, the child further transformed the glitter of my heart into a fine sparkling dust when she skated across the carpet like a foal trying to walk for the first time, lifted the bottom of my shirt and kissed me on my belly. It’s impossible not to be schmaltzy about it.
If you look closely, just beyond the wrist guards, you will see me wrapped around her little finger.
Next Sunday, we’re going to the skating rink.
Going Rogue or Somewhere Over The Rainbow
I had dinner and drinks last night with two friends from my adoption group. One of them has three adopted children. Her eldest, a 7-year-old son, is from Haiti. My friend went there to meet him when he was ten days old. She lived there for 100 days, as is the requirement of all adoptive parents. She and her husband stayed at the Hotel Montana, a place she will never be able to revisit because, like most of the buildings in Port-Au-Prince, it was flattened in the January 12th earthquake. Her son’s homeland is demolished, his people suffer more than they did when he left there and what remains is part of his story. The anguish this tragedy has caused my friend and her family cannot be understated.
Not surprisingly, the number of orphaned Haitian children has spiked exponentially, with parents going so far as to relinquish their kids to orphanages in the hopes that they might receive food, water and medical care. It’s a terrible problem, the solution to which will require leadership, international cooperation, many open hearts and some innovative thinking.
However.
An overflow of “orphans” does not mean there is a giant green light in the sky giving the go-ahead to any Tom, Dick or Job who fancy themselves in God’s image, to swoop in and label children with name tags, tell them they’re going to Disneyland and secret them off to be raised up right. Even if they were “just trying to do the right thing,” as their spokeswoman initially claimed. And even though they have since admitted they knew what they were doing was wrong. Does that bear repeating? Yes, I think it does, and in all caps, too:
This group of self-important crusaders—without adoption experience or proper paperwork or association with an orphanage or even knowledge of international charity—people who probably didn’t know two weeks ago whether Haiti was to the West or East of Boise, KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS WRONG.
Another term for it would be “illegal.”
The now-jailed Americans are members of the Southern Baptist Convention, an organization “which has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide,” according to the Associated Press. Which begs the question: With the many “extensive humanitarian programs”—aka, bribery in the form of salvation in exchange for acceptance of a Western view of God but let’s not split hairs—wasn’t there a more appropriate and organized outlet for these nice folks from Idaho to display their do-goodery?
Something tells me they didn’t need to airlift themselves to Haiti to find what they were looking for. Like Dorothy, they could have gone into their own backyard if they wanted to be heroes. I suppose it does help one’s image as The Great White Hope if you’re saving impovershed black kids, as opposed to white ones. Memo to the Renegade Ten: Though perhaps not in the potato state, there are plenty of the former in the foster care system right here in the U.S. of A. In fact, they wait approximately 9 months longer for a placement than their white counterparts. Sure, 9 months is a longer wait than a flight to Haiti. But hopefully, it will be less time than the sentence you receive.
These selfish, presumptuous people, who knowingly engaged in child trafficking, have put unnecessary stress on the decimated Haitian judicial system and will end up doing the same here in the U.S., where they will likely be prosecuted. They hurt proper adoption practices in Haiti, which are currently stalled. They are taxing the relief efforts of organizations on the ground, since now they need to be housed and fed and looked after, which is to say nothing about the one who has required medical attention. And now their lawyer has the balls to say they’re being treated poorly, that “[t]here is no air conditioning, no electricity. It is very disturbing.”
Disturbing about covers it. I feel really sorry for their plight. They must be suffering so.
Like a timeout for a toddler, they should sit in that jail cell until rainy season so they can contemplate the nature of what they did in their Lord’s name.. They should be left to feel a little bit hungry as they think about the entitlement which led them to believe that rules and laws and formalities and bureaucracies don’t apply to them. Then they should be brought home, prosecuted and sent a bill for expenses.
Who wants to place bets they get off with time served and glowing interviews on all the morning shows?