The Art of Discussion. And Daytime Lighting.

Last night we celebrated my roommate's birthday at two of the local Uptown bars and it got me thinking about how young people seem to be going about the "mate-finding" game, and how I would change it, if the rules of the game were created by me.

The Game, as it currently stands, as played by young adult humans more commonly known as homo poordecisionus:


The young homo poordecisionus does not typically plan nights out with the intention of picking up an opposite-sexed mate (creatures that do that are known as homo creeperus and are easy to spot amongst the crowd).  However, the homo poordecisionus is expected by other members of the species to keep those intentions in mind in dressing and personal grooming for a night out, particularly the females.  Thus, they spend many more minutes than average picking out outfits that include low cut tops and butt-squeezing pants, and then adorn themselves in uncomfortable shoes intended to falsify their height.  They mask their faces in unnaturally colored powders and males and females are guilty of overusing the following items: hair product, cologne/perfume, and fake tanner.

Once they look completely different than their actual selves, the homo poordecisionus congregates in small, cramped, damp buildings known as bars.  But only after dark! These creatures choose to travel in the dark and enter bars with terrible lighting, making one another indistinguishable. These establishments serve intoxicating beverages, which is only done to level out every person's intelligence-- to nearly zero.  And to allow for conversation that includes the topics of Jersey Shore and favorite superhero to be considered legitimate discussion topics.  Coordination skills of potential mates are tested on the dance floor.  Very few homo poordecisionus pass the test.  Very, very few.  Any conversation that is had is punctuated by yelling "WHAT?!" into the ears of one's companion, as the trance/pop nightmare music blares in every single room of the bar.  If lucky, numbers might be exchanged, but dates rarely go well, as it forces the young homo poordecisionus to view one another in the light and actually discuss, well anything, without the pretext of intoxication.

The benefit of the current game, however, is the sheer number of homo poordecisionus present in the low lit, smelly, damp bars making it statistically easier to find someone interested in the uncomfortably dressed, made-up, unintelligent facade each homo poordecisionus presents.

The Game, as a Mugwump would define the rules, which is intended to be played by young adult humans known as homo chilledouticus:

The environment would be similar, except well lit in earlier evening hours, maybe even daylight (gasp!).  It would not be damp or smelly.  Homo chilledouticus would arrive, still with a group of friends perhaps, dressed slightly better than average, but not like Paris Hilton. Sequins, 4 inch heels, and men in too-tight sweaters would all be banned at the door.  Intoxicating beverages wouldn't be served.  Instead, it would be coffees, teas, hot chocolates, smoothies and the like.  And there would be low-level music playing.  Or even a live acoustic singer-songwriter or band!  You would not have to yell at anyone in the room just to say simple things like "How are you?" or "What's your name?" Discussion would be on topics of current events or great storytelling that included lines other than, "This time that I was really drunk..." And no homo chilledouticus would have his or her bottom pinched, grabbed, squeezed, stroked, or slapped.  And it would be glorious.

Okay, so basically my rules of the game move the scene to an earlier time frame (slightly) and to a different venue where people aren't drunk and rude.  The trick is to draw enough people and have the right space that it is a coffee shop/cafe that people can stand around in and mingle.  I have never seen such a place, but if I did I can certainly say with confidence I would trade in the too-tight heels for some trendy slip ons, a natural face, and actual conversation.  Call me old fashioned, but I like to see people in the daylight.

Spectrum: From Bartender to Knitting Team Co-Captain

Last week's complete (and totally draining) insomnia has been officially replaced by this weeks elder-adult sleep schedule, in which as the sun sets I think "Hmm, how much more time before I can go to bed and it's legitimate? 9:30? 8:30?!"

Things that I am pretty sure aren't causing it because they have stayed constant:

1. Exercising.  I am a pretty regular exerciser- give and take.  And I haven't upped frequency or intensity too much.

2.  Diet.  Still eating some garbage and some veggies.  It's about the same.  Maybe a slight dip in caffeine consumption... hmmmm...

3. Length of night time.  In fact, technically it's shorter what with the days lasting longer and all (GLORIOUS), meaning I might be sleeping less.  I am actually not sleeping any more or less, just earlier.  Instead of 3am-10am, I sleep 11 pm-7am.  Like normal people.  

4.  Idiots in Uptown. I expected our neighborhood to be loud around bar time on the weekends, and Thirsty Thursdays.  But Mondays?  Nothing like a good drunken cat fight in the street, waking you up at 2 am.  They all go about something like this:

Girl 1: Oh my Gahd, Jenna!  Hurry up! Why do you always have to be like this?!

Girl 2 (who we now know is Jenna): Oh my Gahd, Megan! Just let it go!

Girl 1 (who we now know is Megan, right?): You're such a tramp.

Girl 2: You're just jeal-ous. (Most words have that horrible "this is one word, but I am going to pronounce it like 2" thing going on, but I notice it happens with jealous a lot.  I think the emphasis is used for extra sting)

Girl 1: Puh-shh! Get your own ride home, you dumb skank. (Yeah, I talk to my friends like that all the time...)

Girl 2, realizing she is about to be left on my street corner: Meeeeeeeh-gan!  Dooooooon't! It's so lame to be mad at me for this*! Let's just go home.

Which is always funny to me because I thought they were on their way home, in which they came to a terribly circular conclusion after whining under my window for 5 minutes.  

That was a terrible digression from my actual story, which is about whether or not, and more importantly when I sleep.  Well, "not" when Megan and Jenna come to the neighborhood.  

Now I am not really sure how to wrap this up, and at a whopping 10:16 pm, it is like decades past my new favorite bedtime, and I can't think of much more to say.  Lame ending, sorry guys.  At least blogging frequency went back up.  Pretty sure something more enjoyable will unearth itself around these parts in the next few days.  G'night!

*No one, in the history of the world, will know what "this" is.  Not even these lovely ladies.

Please Swerve for Pigeons if You Drive Through Uptown

Remember these guys?  These are the pigeons that sit on my neighbors gutter every sunrise and sunset and who we can see from our kitchen window.  An adorable pair, the animal example of what we all hope to have one day in our own old age.

Tonight, there's just one.  Looking less cuddly, and awfully solo.  I hope nothing has happened to the other.  There's still maybe 10 minutes before true sunset... maybe he/she will come around.  Fingers crossed.

Do You See That Blip? That's Me, Getting Back on Radar!

Sorry for the long hiatus.  I had once vowed I would never do that again, but I did.  Luckily, there won't be a marathon review of what I have done in the last 2 weeks because it really hasn't been much.  In the interest of full (blog-appropriate) disclosure, I will let you all in on a little secret of grad school:  it messes with your mind.  Majorly. And there are honestly stretches of time that can last for weeks in which grad students feel as if they never have done anything right, and likely never will.  And at every turn someone tells you what could be better.  And in reality, this is a great time for constructive criticism-- maybe less so that undergrad, but still more so than the real world, grad school is a beautifully safe place to make mistakes.

So anyway, long story medium, I had a minor lapse in mental health.  And it was different from midsemester breakdowns of semesters past, as it was accompanied by a break up*, and then both of my roommates went on Spring Break vacations, and I was home alone at the apartment.  Until I jumped ship and did what every independent, courageous young adult would do in the same situation: I went home and cried to my mom.

And I am finally feeling like I didn't fall off the face of the planet.  And that I am making some progress.  And things are going to be fine.  I am back, literally to my blogging, and figuratively back to my life.

And holy crap, I have a lot to do.

*Yep.  I was dating.  Nope, I didn't write about him.  Not that it was bad or anything-- it was an excellent 10 week relationship that ended out of circumstance, not disinterest.  Despite my gift of gab and inability to filter, some things just don't get blogged about.

Calvin and Hobbes is the Cure for Graduate Burnout

Found a fit of extreme motivation because I am ready to be done with school.  Ready ready ready.  Right after I post some Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that perfectly express how I feel about school right now! 

This wish has been wished so many times...

I have been known to add over a page in length by using more complex words and sentence structures in a paper.

This is one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes of all time.  

I think you can only get away with calling everyone a drip when you are 6.  

I have never considered math to be all that 'miraculous,' but if it got me out of doing some, I could cite this cartoon as major logical evidence.

Haha.. haa..  ha, heh... back to work. 

Another Spoonbridge and Cherry- SOLD!

Another painting for a fellow grad student.  These are getting more and more fun (and easier and easier) to complete.  Even though painting isn't really what I do for a living, it is sometimes kind of surreal to admit that I am a professional artist, in the loosest sense of the word.  Pretty. Darn. Sweet.

Thursday Afternoon Show and Tell

Show: Fruit 

Tell: What's better than a great tasting fruit salad? A great looking fruit salad.

Show: Painting

Tell: The last painting I sold.  It was designed by request for the purchasers mother, who was one of 11 children who used to ice skate on a backyard pond.  It was definitely a challenge, but I think it turned out well and the purchaser and her family seem happy with it.

This Could Be as Successful as Booger Flavored Jellybeans*

This is me, attempting some html coding Houdini-esque trickery to exclude myself from my Google Analytics stats.  Why? you might ask.  Because I visit my stinkin' blog all the time.  Because sometimes I think I am funny. So I reread my own stuff.  Vanity-- it's an issue I am trying to deal with.  This post is a part of the Google instructions for how to exclude my bad self from tipping the visitors scale.  Well, it's not all part of the instructions... some of it was of my own free will.  Google doesn't own me... yet.

*Any Harry Potter fans?  The every-flavor jellybeans?  Interesting in literature, awful in practice.  I mean, from personal experience I will tell you that the fart-flavored jellybean actually tasted like a fart.  And yet, kids bought them.  And ate them.  Myself included (although I feel this is something you only do once).  On the other hand, who can resist the temptation of such mouth watering flavors like: vomit, ear wax, and the ever-funny booger?

Dear Beholder, Behold!

Earlier this week I caught an interesting article in an old issue of O magazine (the reading material at the Y isn't always all one might hope).  The first half of the article was written by a mother who admittedly was over-obsessed about her daughter's weight when she was a child, to the point of restricting food and (inadvertently) only showing praise for her daughter's efforts and accomplishments in physical appearance.  The second half of the article was written by the daughter, who is now a 27 year-old young woman who admits that for many years she thought her mother's love was conditional on her being thin and beautiful.  At 27, after battling diets, excessive exercise, disordered eating, and struggles maintaining her mental health, she is overweight and part of a growing movement of "fat acceptance," which challenges people to accept that bodies have various shapes and that overweight does not always equate to someone who is lazy and unhealthy*.

I don't know that you could find many young women who could honestly admit that they have never had some sort of hang up about their body.  We seem to love getting together and poking at our own bellies, bemoaning over "how fat we've gotten." We say ridiculous things like "I wish I had..." or "I hate my..."  We look in closets bursting at the seams with sweaters and bright tees and fret over having "nothing to wear." 

Anyway, after reading the article I had like, 23 minutes left to go on my bike workout and I got to thinking about what does beautiful mean?  It's clearly subjective, and there is the pop-culture waif of beauty that we seem to torment ourselves with (because seeing your ribs pop out of your chest is so in).  While being the independent, fiercely outspoken, slightly confrontational young woman I have been for some time now, at points in my life I definitely struggled with my own ideas of whether or not I was someone that other people considered beautiful.  So I made myself a little list.  And it's kind of a vain list, I will be honest.  But sometimes, you just have to do that.  And I don't struggle with the idea of my own beauty much anymore.  This is not to say that I always love the shape my body takes, but I don't question 'beautiful' like I used to.  Anyhow, getting on with the list.

To a young, thoroughly Modern Mugwump, beauty is:
1.  The confidence to rock a pretty eclectic pair of stockings and purple shoes at an event.
2.  Deciding that decisions to engage in adventures would no longer be made on the size or shape of my body (read: signing up for my second triathlon and countless 5Ks).
3.  Choosing outfits based on what they highlight and showcase about me (like some wicked blue eyes or totally buff calves) rather than what they hide or mask (like a squishy winter belly or linebacker shoulders).
4.  Bearing striking resemblance to great-grandparents on both sides of the family.
5.  Reaching in to my admittedly shallow wallet so the woman in front of me who realized, at the register, that she couldn't afford her groceries wouldn't put back the produce to save a few bucks.** 

6.  Making original art accessible (although if you want a Mugwump Masterpiece, act quickly as prices are likely to rise as my time becomes more and more limited/precious).

So I reject the idea that beauty is completely what's inside.  After all, even you are thinking the most delightful and generous things, are you really being beautiful if you don't act, at least once in a while?  Realistically, our actions aren't always above and beyond.  I don't buy everyone's groceries, or make art for any price.  Sometimes we all go home and sit on the couch and watch Oprah.  And we have to-- that's how she shares her beauty.***

I looked and looked for good quotes about beauty to start this post off with, but found nothing that did it real service.  And in the theory that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I realized that you must behold it first before you can give your beautiful self and beautiful talents to others.  You are always the first beholder of your own beauty, even if you don't first recognize it.

-------
*While I respect that bodies come in different sizes, trust me I respect it, it is important to remember that the idea that just because an overweight person is not currently experiencing known symptoms of disease or illness, it is a risk factor for serious diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, and cancers.  And a lot of people just don't know they are ill.  So there is a balance between being plush, chubby, round, padded, or whatever else those of us who carry a few bonus pounds, and being unhealthy.  
** In studying social inequalities of health, I have decided that it is heartbreaking that apples and broccoli are much more expensive than Cheetos and Oreos.  
*** I get it, this is probably a judgment call.  You may not like Oprah, but let's admit it, she has done some beautiful things during her career and she relies on viewers and followers for that.