A Modern Day Parable of Optimism

Posted on May 21, 2013 by The Waiting

Sunday was a weird day for my husband. He turned 30 amidst speculation that his blogging platform – Tumblr – would be sold to Yahoo!. Don’t for a second think that the irony is lost on either of us. Peace out, twenties.

Here’s how he felt about it:

By Monday afternoon, the deal was done. Tumblr was sold to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion.

Here’s how the Internet felt about it:
I could throw us all a big pity party. I could weep and sigh and gnash my teeth with my husband and hipsters and the Internet in general. But I’m not going to.

You see, this world where Tumblr mates with Yahoo! is also a world that brought Arrested Development back from the dead. Netflix (which is no gem itself but I am willing to forgive it for all its tomfoolery last year) will be airing new episodes on Sunday. This has been a long time coming. Only a few more short days until we can all put our denim cutoffs back on!

So take heart. This world is not all evil. Things find a way of balancing themselves out.

♥♥♥

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Postal Service Marketing Tips

Posted on April 26, 2013 by The Waiting

Source

I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I feel bad for the US Postal Service. It’s kind of like an aging great aunt who, in her youth, thrived as a courtroom lawyer in all-male Atlanta, but now that she is older smokes three packs a day and insists that the Sears Towers is located in Skokie and not the Loop. I want to help the Postal Service, so here are some marketing tactics I am giving it for free.

1. Spend some serious coin on a decent commercial. Stamps are cute, but you can’t take cute to the bank. (OK, so maybe you can, but cute will eventually crash and burn and start dating men three times its own age. So, gross.) The USPS should just bite the bullet and buy the rights to some Michael Jackson songs and make a series of commercials based around them. Hello? Earworm. All I’m saying is that it is really easy to hear “Keep on with the post office/ Don’t stop ’til you get enough” when MJ sings, “Keep on with the force/ Don’t stop ’til you get enough.”

2. Hot ‘N Ready Little Caesar’s Pizza is on to something. It caters to busy parents and poor college kids by having $5 pizzas at the ready for customers on the go. The Postal Service should have something like this, too: super cheap, super fast delivery. For a low, low fee, you could drop your parcel off at the Post Office and have it delivered by another postal patron who’s heading to the final destination of your package. They’d get a discount on their own mailing fees for helping a brah out.

What if the random weirdo who promised to handle your letter never follows through, you ask? Well, Little Caesar’s doesn’t factor quality into their business model either.

3. Move its floral section to the front of the store. I am a total sucker for Whole Foods. It’s bad. If you think I get possessed when I walk into Target and inhale that first sweet breathe of salty, stale popcorn, you should see me when I enter Whole Foods. That place is more orchestrated and controlled than Disney World. Every dreadlock falls just so and each kernel of quinoa has been blessed by Incan descendants themselves (not really.) At the entrance to each and every Whole Foods, shoppers are greeted with bountiful, beautiful flowers for sale. This is because during the walk they had to take from their Prius to the interior of the store, their smugness dipped to low levels and had to be rejuvenated ASAP. The FDA said so. The Postal Service really, really needs to move their flowers to the front of their facilities. This is so obvious, I can’t believe no one has pointed it out before.

What’s that? The Postal Service doesn’t sell flowers? Well there’s their problem.

Flowers at Whole Foods Source

4. Sue other delivery companies for picking up parcels they lost. I have a dream. I dream of a world where Monsanto does not have the corner market on evil. I dream that much like Monsanto – which litigates against adjacent farms for seeds that scatter naturally from their own fields – the Postal Service will grow horns of its own and start suing FedEx and UPS for picking up their slack. There is nothing more American than a good ol’ petty lawsuit, so the USPS needs to get with the program and start some. They are on the right track for suing Lance Armstrong, but I challenge them to get more brazen and heartless in their practice. It’s the ‘Merican way.

5. Patent the concept of delivery. The USPS needs to take a little more pride in itself and start claiming that it invented the practice of moving parcels around. It needs to slap a patent on the concept of delivery. No one has ever said that Apple doesn’t have high self-esteem, and this is because it has actually taken patents out on the concept of page-turning.

6. Two words: Jack Nicholson

I mean, come on. GET THIS GUY ON YOUR TEAM. He could sell ice to Eskimos.

7. Have monthly specials. This is so obvious I can barely stand it. USPS, I am throwing you a slowball with this tip. The deli chain Subway thrives on its Five Dollar Footlong promotion. Basically, every month they promote a sandwich and give it to you for five dollars, whether it’s actually worth that or not. The Postal Service should have monthly specials where they give deep discounts on certain services. Stamps are marked down in December, getting more people to send Christmas cards. Media Mail containing books is put on special during October for National Book Month. Parcels containing, um, illicit substances are put on special for April, no questions asked.

8. Spontaneous Yelling When was the last time you said to yourself, “Wow, I can’t wait to go to the Post Office to go file my passport papers!”? You’ve never said it. No one has ever said it. Moe’s Southwestern Grill had the same problem. Why would you want to go to Moe’s when Chipotle is right across the street? So Moe’s came up with the genius idea to have their burrito artisans yell spontaneously whenever customers walked in the door. All of a sudden, Moe’s had some provenance. Now, they’re known for their spastic screaming. Postal employees should do the same thing when their facilities get overcrowded. There is something about leading a crowd in The Wave to lighten spirits. I am picturing some real Cowboy Ugly action, minus Leanne Rimes. Because ewww.

I intended these tips for the Postal Service, but the DMV is welcome to them, too.

Guest Post: Beware Average Joe

Posted on March 22, 2013 by The Waiting

I am handing the reins over today to a writer who wishes to remain anonymous for reasons that you’ll understand. In the wake of the Steubenville verdict, a lot has been said about rape culture in the US. In this post, you’ll find an extremely candid discussion of how rape is not isolated to one particular demographic of society. Even the most “upstanding” men can be rapists. – Emily

I want to share a story with you. I’m going to do so anonymously, because the story involves details that can not be made known in our circle and can not be attached to mine or my husband’s name. But the story has to be told.

My husband used to have a best friend. They were frat brothers, but beyond that, they were very, very close…like real brothers. Somehow they survived undergrad, grad school, career changes, financial struggles, being roommates, multiple heartaches, and several moves…all with their friendship intact.

Over time my husband’s former BFF watched my husband marry, start a family, and progress in his career – all the while envious of his success. To our knowledge all he’d ever wanted was a family of his own.

My husband and his former friend both work for the government, they’re both Southern Gentlemen, and by society’s standards, they’re both “catches”. So when my husband’s friend bought his first house with four bedrooms and no children to fill it, our hearts hurt for him. We looked at him and we really hoped that one day he’d find a wonderful woman to love and share a life and family with.

But a few years ago, after the demise of one of his relationships, our eyes were opened to who this man really was…and how alive and well rape culture IS.

My husband and his friend shared drinks and video games the weekend proceeding his recent breakup. And after the drinks had softened their brains just a bit, the video game controllers were set down, and the walls were lowered, and thus began the end of their friendship.

His former friend began sharing with him the events of the night of he and his ex’s breakup. My husband listened with a compassionate and open ear, ready to take his BFF’s side. He told him, “She was insecure.”, “She had Daddy issues.”, “We fought all the time.”, “She never trusted me.” He went on and on and on like this.

But as the alcohol took a firmer hold, he spilled details that have haunted my husband since.

On the night of their breakup, they were taking part in some heavy petting in her car. They’d just seen a movie and had dinner. And they couldn’t wait to make it back to his house. They’d entered into a physical relationship very early, but to our knowledge, they seemed to really enjoy each other’s company, beyond the physical attraction.

As they petted, and rocked the vehicle, just moments before intercourse, she whispered, “No. Stop.” My husband’s former BFF was taken aback by her request. They’d gone “all the way” so many times before, so he assumed it was because they were in a car. But, she corrected him. She told him she felt like this was “all” they did. She felt like their relationship was only a physical one. And she wanted to know that she was more to him than just her body.

The words that came from his lips next were what killed their friendship. With pleading eyes, he looked into my husband’s, and he said, “I mean…it was right there. I was already throbbing. I was ready to go, I had the condom on, and then she just f*ing stopped it. You can’t just stop something like that. That sh*t’s unforgivable.”

My husband’s mouth dropped open. My husband – father to a daughter, older brother to a younger sister, son to a mother, my lover and best friend – his mouth dropped open and he sat speechless. He swallowed hard and asked him what he did next.

And his friend admitted to him…

…he forced himself upon her. He made every excuse in the world for it. He didn’t say “rape” because he didn’t see it as rape. He saw it as an injustice that she denied him and his right. He said she protested at first, but she just needed to be warmed up. He made gross and disgusting observations about her body language that “assured” him she really DID want it, even though she said “No.”

After he was finished, she screamed at him, and left him in the parking lot (they’d taken her car to the movies). And that was the end of their relationship. And somehow…this was all her fault.

My husband excused himself to the bathroom, gathered his composure, and left his former friend’s house, citing he needed to get home immediately. He came home, fell into my arms, and he wept at the monster this man was. He wept that he’d known him for over ten years and never known he was capable of such behavior. In the weeks following my husband confronted him about it and thus ended their friendship. We don’t know what happened to this young woman. But, we do know charges were obviously never brought against him. For to this day he’s single, working his fantastic government job, living in his beautiful suburban house, driving his brand new car, and all the mothers want him to marry their daughter…

and he’s a rapist.

Rape culture isn’t JUST about the act itself. It starts with someone believing that they are owed the sexuality of another. Somewhere down the line somebody taught my husband’s former BFF that it was okay to see women as a vagina to be conquered. Someone, or maybe lots of someones, taught him that he is owed sex from another, simply because he was born with a penis. The phrase “blue balls” is thrown around as a legitimate medical condition, guilting women into taking part in sexual activities they may not really want to take part in. And if they don’t submit, they’re titled a “cock-tease” and, ironically, a “whore” for not putting out.

Rape culture is born when the fathers of sons don’t teach their sons that sex is NOT their birthright. It’s perpetuated by television shows with male casts that redeem sleezy sex fiends, but condemn the women they seduce. (Barney from How I Met Your Mother, for example). Rape culture is sewn into the hearts of young men who ogle at young women freely, citing their wardrobe as the reason for it, and they wouldn’t dress that way if they didn’t “want it”.

Rape culture isn’t JUST about the act itself. It’s about a society that continues to encourage a bullying approach towards sexuality. My husband’s former BFF wasn’t born a rapist. Being born a man didn’t make him one. But, he became one. And it didn’t have to be that way. But it will be that way. It will be that way for other young men, who become grown men, because too few are stepping up and saying, “ENOUGH.”

I have a daughter. At night my husband tucks her into bed, and we have to accept the possibility that she could begin dating a man like his former BFF and this could happen to her as well. And there’s nothing we can do about it. Because not all rapists hide in back alleys, and drive creepy, old minivans. Plenty of them are your next door neighbor, and the cute guy in the cubicle next to you.

Today’s rapist is just your Average Joe. And THAT’S the reason why rape culture is alive and well.

This is a true story, and one my husband and I will carry with us for many years. We’ll hear it every time our daughter goes on a date. We’ll remember it every time she tells us she’s met someone wonderful. We’ll try to trust him, but we won’t. Because we trusted someone once…and we were wrong to.

Blogging from North Korea

Posted on March 11, 2013 by The Waiting

So, did you hear about the time Dennis Rodman went to North Korea? Yeah, that happened. He’s been dealing with it like a pro too, declaring Kim Jong Un an “awesome” guy and ignoring the flagrant human rights violations the Kim regime has instigated. Rodman tweeted at Psy of “Gangnam Style” fame and mused whether he’d run into him on the streets of Pyongyang. I am crossing my fingers that this was a joke; no matter your opinion of Psy, it’s insulting and it does nothing to improve the image of Americans knowing next to nothing about the goings-on of countries other than their own. It’s basically the equivalent of asking Le Clown if he is a member of the WBC since they are from the same continent. The US State Department is obviously distancing itself from Rodman and his trip to the Hermit Kingdom.

The most exciting basketball game on record. Source

But wait, it gets better. Now Rodman has accepted a position to train the national North Korean basketball team so that they have a shot at competing in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. This requires him to live (at least part-time) in the DPRK until the Games. To be sure, it’s somewhat admirable that he’s taking this on. Good for him for wanting to share the love of an exciting sport with people who are ostracized not through any action of their own but because their leadership is more oppressive and isolationist than we can pretend to understand. However, when pressed on whether he condones the human rights offenses of the Kim regime, Rodman claimed ignorance and inferred that his love for “fine ass Asian honeys” was enough to get him to look the other way if indeed they have occurred. Deep stuff.

Rodman panders to the worst type of media that circulates around North Korea. In order to work with the team on a national level, he must put up a respectful demeanor towards the country’s leadership, but to outright condone and praise it makes a mockery of the dire situation in North Korea. Instead of celebrating the innocent people of North Korea, it baits the media to focus its attention on Kim Jong Un’s bizarre, ridiculously secretive behavior. A recent op-ed for CNN by Ellen Kim and Carolyn Dumond summed up Rodman’s trip nicely: “Such sideshows are not in the interest of the North Korean people.”

I am a longtime reader or the blog American In North Korea, which features the photography of Joseph Ferris. Joe has taken multiple trips to North Korea and has been allowed unprecedented liberty to photograph the people and country because he does so respectfully. The purpose of his blog and his trips is not to disseminate more information that would further ostracize the people of North Korea and make the country a veritable freak show. Instead, his photos highlight the small moments that take place there. In those small moments is humanity. The tone of his work has always appealed to me because it has absolutely nothing to do with North Korea’s politics nor its leaders. It is difficult to find media about North Korea that do not place the country’s government front and center, so as I look through Joe’s photography and commentary, I am refreshed to see editorial work of people living their lives rather than staged pictures of military parades and waving dictators. As of yet, his trips and photography are largely limited to the areas in and around Pyongyang where the elite class of party officials live, so his photography does not include images of intense poverty and disease that is rampant throughout the rest of the country. He simply has no access to that, and it is my opinion that more long term harm than good could come out of him pressing his minders to take him to those areas. If he did, his access could be cut off completely and the good work that he’s doing to show the media that North Korea is more than its leadership could be cut short.

The same loosening of Internet restrictions that allowed Dennis Rodman to tweet from North Korea is now going to enable Joe to blog live from North Korea during his upcoming trips there this spring. Unfortunately, the monetary cost of doing this is a lot higher than the ~$30 we pay per month for Internet access here in the United States. If you would like to help Joe reach his goal to blog from North Korea, click here for more information. He is offering some really awesome incentives (other than the resultant photos and blog posts) for helping him out.

The entire Korean peninsula means a lot to me because I made my home in a town outside of Seoul for two years. Only about sixty years have separated the citizens of South and North Korea. They speak the exact same language and have the same traditional diet and dress. The people of North Korea are good. They are not their leaders.

Children of North Korea
Mt. Myohyang, DPRK, North Korea
Courtesy Joseph Ferris

Pyongyang Street Scene, April 2012
100th year birthday celebrations for Kim Il Sung
Courtesy Joseph Ferris

Arirang Mass Games
Pyongyang, DPRK, North Korea
Courtesy Joseph Ferris

Drug Store Memories

Posted on February 21, 2013 by The Waiting

Let’s talk about drug stores because we can. Freedom of Speech is a beautiful thing, especially when it enables me to drone on about something as inconsequential as CVS and Walgreens. I kind of think that Freedom of Speech is meant to protect our right to speak out against the government, but the only time I got in “trouble” during high school was when I was constantly talking to my friend in Government class, so I clearly wasn’t paying attention. Full disclosure: I also got sent to the Dean once for chewing gum in Mass when I was a senior, but the instant I got to his office he sent me back to class because he didn’t know who I was and I also don’t think he was Catholic so he didn’t care all that much.

I have several distinct memories of drug stores. The first is of the CVS that was down the street from us when we lived in Chicago. I used to go there all the time because they were constantly sending me coupons for two for one ice cream. I figured this was good because it was the double-churned kind of ice cream, which is allegedly less unhealthy than the regular kind. Four months and thirty pounds later, I stopped believing that. The problem with CVS is that unlike Walgreens where there are actual little checkout aisles, CVS has this giant area up at the front where you are just supposed to stand around and form a line. It is a fact that humans cannot form lines if left to their own devices. They will just meander around and likely climb onto each others’ shoulders unless they are corralled in an orderly fashion. Without those little nylon barriers you often see at the airport and banks, customers at CVS can become feral. There were uncountable times when I would go and buy my ice cream and the person behind me in line would be literally four inches away from my back. I am lucky they didn’t breath on my ice cream and melt it. They are lucky I didn’t punch them.

Another great memory I have of drug stores was when B and I were back in Memphis for Christmas 2011. One day, my brother, my mom, and pregnant me were going to go to a local jewelry store so my mom could show my brother some charms for a charm bracelet that she wanted for Christmas. I tagged along in the hopes that someone would forget that the shopping trip was for my mom and buy me some jewelry too. While we were out, my mom asked my brother what he wanted for Christmas and he said that we should go to Rite Aid so he could show her. Since Rite Aid was across the street, we headed over and my brother picked up two giant canisters of whey protein that you make into a shake after you lift weights. My mom was like, “Really? That’s all you want for Christmas?” and my brother nodded. We went up to the checkout area – which, I might add, was a lot more organized at this particular Rite Aid location than at CVS – and the lady rang us up. The total for the whey protein came to like $120 and suddenly we all understood why my brother didn’t want to buy it himself.

My final memory about drug stores isn’t really my memory at all. It’s my husband’s, but since we’ve been together for so long I can lay claim to his memories and pass them off as my own. Plus, this memory is indicative of 99.9% of the stuff we talk about so you can get a good glimpse into the depth of our relationship. One time he was at Walgreens, which evidently puts out a circular with all the sales and promos that are going on at the store. You can find them inside the newspaper but you can also find them at the front of the store if you want to live dangerously and wing it. I think on the day in question he had just ducked inside Walgreens to pick up some almonds and a Naked juice because his drug store food purchases are always far more nutritious than mine. In the checkout line, there was an elderly lady ahead of him who had scoured the circular and found an ad on Whitman’s Samplers. She was trying to get the discount for them, but apparently that was an outdated ad so the nineteen year old checkout person was trying to explain to her that Whitman’s Samplers were no longer 1% off or whatever. The standoff continued for what seemed to B like eternity and he finally left without his snack because he had to get back to work. That one incident isn’t all that interesting by itself, but I swear ever since it happened, every time I go to Walgreens there is an elderly person bickering over the circular with the sales attendant. Here’s a word of advice to all of you aspiring Walgreens checkers: just give them the discount. They are retired so they have all the time in the world to wear you down.

This blog post is in honor of my homeboy Mooselicker AKA Tim Boyle AKA the Voice of a Generation. He wrote this post that spawned the one you just read above. He is one of the nicest people I have encountered while blogging and to him I say “thank you” and “huzzah!” for being unapologetically original and great.

The Virtue of Rawness

Posted on December 15, 2012 by The Waiting

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a news program that discussed the aftermath of Sandy. The specific topic that was addressed was that when disasters and tragedies like Hurricane Sandy occur, there is a huge push to help victims at the beginning. Money is given, food is donated, mental health services are provided to the victims. There is a ton of help provided – all of it appreciated – but it tapers off after awhile, even though the rebuilding of the entire destroyed infrastructure is still on the horizon. The irony is that that rebuilding is by far the most difficult and challenging, but there is less help.

Today we are all praying and thinking of the evil act that was committed yesterday in Connecticut. We will continue to pray and think for awhile. We will think about those families more and more as the holidays get closer, and we’ll reach out to them in whatever ways we can. We’ll voice our outrage and clamor to be heard. We will appreciate what we have and cry because our world is sick and broken. But then, before we know it, it won’t be the first thing on our minds anymore. We will sleep through the night and feel safe.

But we shouldn’t. As a country, as a human race, we gave up our right to sleep through the night the moment those shots were fired. How dare we become complacent now that the most innocent of innocents have been taken from us?

I felt raw yesterday. You likely did too. I cried at the store the way I did on September 11, 2001. I refuse to believe that this is only because I’m a parent now. You don’t have to be a parent to know that our country is broken and that we have run out of excuses to avoid confronting the reasons behind the filthy acts that now occur here on nearly a daily basis.

Do what you need to do to make yourself raw each day. Do not forget that our society is extremely sick this very instant. It is dying. Those shots that rang out yesterday were the death rattle. Let your outrage fuel you to defend what shred of goodness and innocence we have left. Do not believe for one second that time will heal the wounds of December 14, 2012. Those children whose lives were stolen will celebrate no more birthdays, will never fall in love, will never have children of their own. Their parents will never smell them again or hold them in their arms or rock them to sleep. That is forever. It is disgusting, and it’s the state of the world right now.

For all that is good and innocent and right, do not slip into complacency. Let’s rebuild our infrastructure. It will be the hardest thing we will likely ever do, but we owe it to all the life that was lost yesterday to defend what we have left.

The One Thing I Have No Patience For

Posted on December 7, 2012 by The Waiting

I can tolerate a lot. I’m learning to get over it when I don’t get around to the nineteenth vacuum cleaning of the day. (C’s rice cake granules can suck it for all I care.) I’ve blocked out the ridiculousness that abounds on Facebook during election season by unsubscribing to people. I’m well on my way to letting it go if I don’t get to shower until 1PM, if at all.

But I do not, under any circumstance, have any patience whatsoever for people who text while they drive. I’m airing my grievances. Hold on, kiddos.

Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous, inane functions of the modern age. Not only do people insist on proliferating typos all over social media while they’re in the safety of their stationary homes, but they also feel as though their stupid messages must be transmitted while they are hurtling through space in their vehicles. I can’t even. People will risk their lives typing a message about Burger King to someone they will see 10 minutes later. And we wonder if our society is in trouble.

Let’s break this down.

Your car is one of the most expensive things you own. Even if it’s not a super nice car, it was a sizable investment, kind of like attending graduate school. Graduate school often only takes one or two years, and the investment is roughly on par with that of a moderately-priced used Toyota. I can speak to this because I’m paying off both. So basically, texting while driving is the rough equivalent of drinking heavily and not preparing at all before your degree-conference exams. You may be OK, but the risk of completely destroying your car / jeopardizing all your work is upped dramatically when you text and/or drink heavily the night before your exams. Both your car and your degree will be negatively affected by you typing LOL, LMFAO, OMW, and “Asses! That’s so cute!”*

*A real Autocorrect misstep I made. Just ask Becoming Cliche.

Maybe you are made of money and the expense of destroying your car in order to text a bunch of wrongly autocorrected garbage is no big thing. Texting while driving still remains the most dangerous thing I can wrap my head around. If you are so important that you have to text someone about your comings and goings while behind the wheel, then why are you driving yourself? If you were truly as useful to our society as your progressive opinions on Kelly Clarkson and LipSmackers suggest, you’d have a chauffeur. The president may put hits on people for all I know, but he’s never going to off anyone by driving in to them.

People in my town are always driving around and texting even though it’s been outlawed here. Lawmakers that they put in place have spent time authoring and passing legislation that hopes to save them from their partially-evolved selves, and yet they still insist on texting, especially when they’re breezing through a 28 lane intersection whose light is out. The way thing works, too, is that these people will end up harming pedestrians and other law-abiding drivers before they damage their own car. If we’ve learned anything from the stats on drunk driving, it’s that the worst offenders are often the ones who come out unscathed.

I had intended to write a light post on how ridiculous it is that we have to beg people to refrain from texting while they’re driving, but I’ve worked myself into such a tizzy that I don’t want to mince words. If you habitually use your phone while you’re behind the wheel, get a grip on reality and realize that whatever earth-shattering message you need to send can wait. Make it a habit during the holiday season to quit texting so that we can all have a safer 2013.

****

Remember that you have until Monday, Dec. 10 to get your Secret Santa presents in to Ashley and me at pressedivus@yahoo.com. Let me know if you write a Festivus post so I can share it on my Facebook page!

I’m Up

Posted on November 14, 2012 by The Waiting

Today it’s my turn to throw my hat in the ring at Canadica! Woot woot!

I wrote about Thanksgiving, nasty Canadian cocktails, Korea, and what it’s like to be married to B. Why doncha go check it out?

Click here!

In the case that you don’t want to read my Canadica post, here’s a someeecard, just because I feel like I should give you something:

I have a political opinion.

Posted on November 7, 2012 by The Waiting

So I know that the election is over and everyone is sick of hearing about it and that you are only reading this because you have literally NOTHING else to read. But I have a small observation that I just want to flesh out here, on my blog.

Yesterday I read a lot of comments on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs about voting. I’m grateful that I surround myself with people who care and who go out to the polls. I’m not so grateful for people who conflate their political ideologies with their religious beliefs and who insult others who don’t agree with them. It’s never nice to blatantly insult people, especially people who you call your “friend,” but that’s another topic for another post. Several people who I think really highly of talked yesterday about how they voted for third party candidates. I admired them before they said they did so, and today I admire them more. On all their posts, status updates, and tweets, they were civil and kind. They were thought-out and reasonable. And on all of their posts, there were not a lot of comments, and the comments that were there were also civil, kind, thought-out, and reasonable – whether they agreed with the voter or not.

I don’t know why, per se, there weren’t a lot of comments. It may just be that not a lot of people were online at the time and didn’t see the posts (although I highly, highly doubt this). But I will venture a guess and say that there weren’t a lot of comments because people don’t see third party candidates as substantial and completely worthy of their attention. A lot of the attention they get is patronizing, at best. People only get fired up about third party candidates when they threaten the dominance of the other two parties. This is unfortunate because, like I said, most of the people I know who vote third party are extremely wise and thoughtful and measured in their views. They think for themselves and aren’t persuaded by the polarizing cacophony that often (I repeat, OFTEN – not always) results from the two-party system.

Is this my straight-up endorsement of voting third party? No. I will never endorse any particular political party on my blog because to me, it’s just not worth it. Politics are not my thing and I can’t really converse in such a way that I can hold my own. Did I vote for a third party candidate? Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I didn’t. And I have a really lame excuse for not doing so: I have a baby, and while everyone was complaining that this election season seemed like it went on FOREVER, I felt like it went by in the blink of an eye because I’ve been a little preoccupied with my child’s first months. I didn’t have a tremendous amount of time or energy to devote to researching candidates and being a completely informed voter. So yeah, I know I’m kind of a hypocrite in this respect.

All I’m saying is that we could all learn a lesson from the third-party voters I observed yesterday who were careful, measured, and informed. They were thoughtful in the way that they conveyed their political views and didn’t dump all over the other two parties who were far more popular than they are. I sincerely hope some day that the electorate will emulate them in these aspects.

Again, let me just reiterate that this is not a typical post for me. I wrote it in literally 30 minutes – which is far less time than I ever devote to other posts – with one eye on my crawling baby while I wrote it. Now go read the other post I wrote today about her. She’s way cute.

All Hail Lukewarm

Posted on September 19, 2012 by The Waiting

The last few days have brought an onslaught of extremes. The baby has either been so freaking happy she can barely contain it or homocidally miserable with her teeth. People have been upset with things going on in the American presidential race, so they are making big declarations on their preferred method of social media. This vacillation between extreme ire and utter elation makes me appreciate the things that just leave me with comforting meh.

Meh is easy. It’s inoffensive. It’s what fills most of our days. Is it always time for meh? Absolutely not. Often you have to take a stand and herald aspects of life as either horrible or wonderful. Sometimes you must have a strong opinion and act on it. But being fired up all the time is exhausting. Plus if you’re yelling all the time, no one listens. When you’re watching a movie and someone who has seen the movie before is like OK OK NOW WATCH THIS PART. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT/EPIC/AWESOME, you are less likely to want to watch it. Does this make that part of the movie less important? No, but it makes you sigh with annoyance that your friend won’t let you watch the movie by yourself and form your own opinions.

Things that we sit on the more positive side of lukewarm fill our days and make them go by easier. They don’t present us a set of challenges to improve ourselves, to write strongly-worded status updates, or to legislate change. They are the things we don’t feel bad about taking for granted.

So today I present to you the first ever blog post that examines the mediocre in life and doesn’t criticize it. Here are some things that I like. Just like. Not like-like or hate.

1. Chilis. I like Chilis. It is not the best restaurant in the world. It’s also not the worst. I like it. It’s OK. Clearly, a lot of other people think it’s OK too because it appears to be doing well. But would I be sad if everyone stopped liking it and it went out of business? Nope. There are a million other restaurants just like it.

2. Going to the gym. I never want to go to the gym. I wish I did, but sorry, I’m not programmed to be an exerciser. But when I do go, I don’t hate it that much. I’m always pleasantly surprised by how not terrible it is. I daresay I like it. Amazing.

3. The Counting Crows. A lot of people like the Counting Crows, I bet. They are fairly innocuous. You can hear “Mr. Jones” in the waiting room of a doctor’s office or at a party and both times, it’s pleasant. But do I need the Counting Crows to make a new album? No, thanks, I’m good. I like them, not love or hate them, and that’s just fine with me. They are my male friends who I will never complicate my relationship with by dating.

Pretty good

4. Doing the laundry. Believe it or not, I like doing the laundry. It’s not that hard, and it accomplishes a lot. After the laundry is done, I can wear my favorite shirt again. If someone volunteered to do my laundry for me, I would take them up on it. However, that will probably never happen, and I’m OK with it because it’s not the worst chore in the world. It’s not washing the dishes or cleaning the toilets. So I like it.

LOL “salad”

5. Salads. Salads, when prepared correctly, are likable. And that’s about it. I get slightly annoyed with people who hate on salads like they are the antithesis of food. I also get slightly annoyed when people freak out that salads are the best things in the entire world. This is because salads are supposed to be healthy, so if they taste REALLY good, they likely have fried chicken strips or bacon or a gallon of bleu cheese on them, which negates the healthiness of them. Salads – real salads – are good, and that’s it. Not awesome. There is no such thing as an awesome salad.

So what do you just like?

The Waiting

Turns out, it's not the hardest part.

Category Archives: America