I’m not much of a movie person. I realize that this puts me in the minority, but I’m just far too restless. I also don’t like getting all worked up and emotional about people who don’t actually exist. Worrying about whether Jennifer Aniston and her mildly gay co-star will be able to work it out just seems really silly. I don’t even care if Jennifer Aniston and her real-life mildly gay boyfriends work it out.
I do love to watch human interaction though. I just prefer the real-life variety. Instead of going to watch a movie, I’ll go to a crowded bar and sit in a corner and observe. Watching real people do the dance of interpersonal attraction is infinitely more interesting than watching actors do it. The power dynamics, the intimacy transactions, and what happens at the end of the night? Now that’s cinema.
I have an MA in Communication, and even though I no longer am an active Communication scholar, I still do studies all the time. If being able to tell how people feel about each other ever becomes a marketable skill, I’m going to be a very successful woman. I know when someone loves someone. I know when someone wants to have sex with someone. I know when someone is repulsed. There are stories all around us. Why pay $10 to watch one on a screen?
Archive for the ‘Communication’ Category
all you need is love
In Communication, Home, Relationships on December 3, 2010 at 10:02 pmIt has come to my attention that my previous post appears to paint a dismal picture of relationships.
I don’t think it’s bleak… but maybe that’s because I’m an optimist. Like, love still happens. What makes love amazing and awesome is that it overcomes all those natural urges. Like we are fighting our own biological nature. Compromise is a beautiful thing.
I don’t want to imply that relationships are something to be cynical about. I’m really not cynical at all, and the reason I’m not cynical is that I don’t see malice in people’s behavior; it’s just human nature. But I’m super optimistic about people and relationships and love. I think people are amazing.
I hate to say that I saw good advice in Glamour magazine. but I did. It said make a list of everything you want in a potential mate. When you meet someone who makes you not care about the list, you’ve got your winner.
The point being- love is what makes all of the bullshit about women treating men as a strategy game and men treating women like sex objects go down the drain, because they can’t stand up to love. There is a magical thing about a relationship where two people are in it to win it. Maybe they aren’t soul mates, and maybe they won’t be together forever, but for the time being, it’s them against the world.
I believe in love. I even believe in marriage (although it’s not for everyone, I imagine). As much as I see myself as more trouble than I’m worth, it’s never crossed my mind that there isn’t someone out there who is all about putting up with my shit for the long haul.
But please, no heart-shaped jewelry. I have my limits.
don’t hate the player; hate the game
In Communication, Entertainment and Nightlife, Food and Spirits, Health and Wellness, Relationships, Technology on December 2, 2010 at 12:06 amMen get a lot of flack for treating women like objects. Which they do. But women treat men like objects too. Just not a sexual object. Honestly, we have to keep our minds OFF of you if we want to have sex. You’re a hairy ape, okay? But I digress.
Women treat men more like game pieces. To women, every man is just a game of Jenga, where we push and pull and see what comes loose until you’re completely destroyed.
Louis CK first brought this to my attention where he pointed out that men are always destroying things. Whether it’s a toddler knocking over someone’s Legos or grown men at war, men think anything less than annihilation is acceptable.
Women, while still set on creating havoc, have a different method and target. Women, and I am including myself in this statement, crush men’s souls by nature. As prone as a man is to spread his seed amongst the womenfolk, women are set to trap one of those men and make him ours. We have to make you fall in love with us on the off chance we need protection. You are our bodyguards, and we are Britney Spears. You are the Secret Service, and we are the president. Woman = baby-maker, man = guard dog. It’s elemental, but I don’t think men or women realize it.
I don’t think it’s out of malice that women are destroying men’s souls. Just like men aren’t thinking of women as sexual objects not because they don’t have respect for them, but because sex is their favorite thing. Women need to be loved, and if you can’t do it on your own, we’ll help you.
I’m not saying women are bad for destroying souls or men are bad for wanting to fuck everything. But I don’t get so worked up about relationships when I remind myself of this fact.
thanks
In Communication, Entertainment and Nightlife, Food and Spirits, Health and Wellness, Home, Relationships, Work on November 24, 2010 at 7:38 pmIt’s Thanksgiving eve, and instead of celebrating the biggest party night of the year, I’m going to stay home and watch Chappelle’s Show. I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Let’s do a rundown.
I have health insurance. I have already been to four doctors, and there are more lined up.
I have the most amazing friends in the world. I am in awe of how truly smart, funny, kind, and beautiful the people are who let me hang around them. I have a best friend who is like a sister to me. I have friends who have helped me move multiple times in the past 10 years. I have friends across the entire spectrum of age, beliefs, and backgrounds. Different colors, different genders, different orientations, but they all manage to put up with me.
I have a dog. She teaches me patience as well as being so cute it makes me kind of wince.
My parents are people that I would feel lucky to know, much less be their child. I have more fun hanging out with them than just about anyone. If you wonder where my confidence comes from, it’s from having parents who love me unconditionally and have never let me believe there was anything I couldn’t do.
Most of all, I’m thankful for faith. I’m not going to get into a lot of religious stuff here, because my beliefs are mine and not your concern and vice versa. But I’m really glad that I have faith, because that’s where the peace is. Shit hits the fan on a regular basis. My life has plenty of downers, trust me. I could throw myself a little pity party and actually get people to show up out of sympathy. There’s no sense in that, though. I’d rather throw a birthday party and get people to show up out of desire for slap bracelets.
One of my credos is a morbid little ditty I saw at a deli in my neighborhood. It said, “I don’t know how it will all turn out. All I know is: I’ll end up dead in the end. So what could go wrong?” It’s just another way of saying life is short. Like Oscar Wilde said, life is too important to be taken seriously.
Every day is my thanksgiving, because I would rather be grateful than complain.
I promise to bring back my asshole ways in the next post.
a dog’s life
In Communication, Home, Relationships on November 11, 2010 at 7:44 pmI have a dog. She is a puggle and her name is Deva (which is pronounced Day-vah). She is very much a princess, and I have no idea where she gets it.
Deva is almost entirely opposite of my last dog, Yogi Beara. Yogi was a black Chow Chow. Yogi is the only dog I’ve ever met who would walk away from you while you were petting him. He had no interest in treats or toys. I would fill his food bowl and he would eat when he felt like it. On the occasions that I managed to get some petting in, he would immediately shake himself off (we referred to it as “shaking off the love”). He was mostly content to lay around and nap and stretch and yawn. He refused to get onto furniture or my bed, despite my frequent invitations. The only thing that ever really got Yogi interested was Indian food. I could leave a nice medium-rare filet mignon on my coffee table, and he would lazily lift his head, sniff two times, and go back to snoring. But a paper plate that had at some point held Indian food would be devoured.
Deva loves toys. She loves attention. She eats her food within 15 seconds of it landing in her dish. She has to be curled up next to me at all times and is happiest when she can lay behind me on the top of the couch and rest her head on my shoulder (seriously). Deva would love nothing more than constant petting. And I can’t keep her off the furniture. If I have any socks or underwear in my bedroom, I can rest assured that I will come home to her surrounded by them with a pair in her mouth.
These two dogs are able to so perfectly portray the dichotomous nature of my personality, that I have to figure it was in the fates or the hands of God or my horoscope or something that they have been my consecutive pets. I’ve learned a lot from both of them, and as much as I would prefer to embrace my laid-back, Yogi-style side, I can’t dismiss the parts of me that are all Deva.
Which makes me the worst kind of girl.
all the world’s a sale
In Communication, Relationships, Work on November 9, 2010 at 8:00 pmAs much as I’d hate to admit it, Donald Trump has a point.
Stick with me on this one.
In an episode of The Apprentice (I have no idea when the episode aired; I read about it), when asked about his lackluster performance in a challenge, the candidate said he wasn’t an experienced salesman. The Donald replied that everyone should be an experienced sales[person], because we are constantly selling ourselves.
I’m not going to dye my hair orange and comb it over my forehead, but I agree with the Donald. We are constantly selling ourselves- as a potential employee, friend, mate, or friend-with-benefits. When I was a professor, I considered my lectures to be my product. It was my job to sell my students on it- i.e., get them to pay attention and give a shit. The responsibility was mine. I had to figure out my target demographic and how to get them to buy.
Dating is the same way. You don’t lead with your weakness. You do your hair, you dress up nice, you try to keep the stink to a minimum. You mention all of the things about you that are awesome and not your lack of employment, criminal record, or irritable bowel.
I hate to think of myself as a product (I’m complicated, damn it!), but when we get down to it, we’re all just turds that need to be shined enough to sell.
For all potential suitors, I am employed and have no criminal record. And, um… yeah. That’s it.
nobody needs you that badly
In Communication, Relationships, Technology on November 5, 2010 at 9:43 pmI have a cell phone. You probably have a cell phone. The last two standing of my cell-less friends got them years ago. I have a smartphone with access to the internet, my Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail acounts. You can reach me in at least 5 ways via a device that fits in my back pocket.
I’ve had a cell phone since I was a freshman in college. Before that, I had a pager.
I was a 16-year-old girl living in southwestern Ohio, and I had a pager.
The point of a pager is so that people can communicate with you at a moment’s notice. It’s urgent. You can’t wait until they get home and check their answering machine. You need to know if they are going to the football game this weekend, and you need to know RIGHT NOW.
Can you even imagine a scenario where a 16-year-old’s attention was needed that urgently? The only people who take 16-year-olds seriously are 16-year-olds. Every other age, younger and older, all know that 16-year-olds are the least significant and most attention-hungry members of society. What argument can be made that results in a 16-year-old having a pager to be a rational decision?
I’m still not that important. No one needs to get a hold of me at a moment’s notice. I’m not saving anyone’s life. My input is not needed to make time-sensitive decisions. I have no one for whom or to whom I am accountable. There are absolutely zero reasons I need to be reachable at all times. Nobody needs me that badly.
And yet, my phone is less than 2 feet from my left hand even as I type these words.
Just in case.
The Snarkler 