Hey!

Get out of here! Go here.

Because I'm not a barista anymore.

I'm on vacation.

But then I'll be a law student.

There are new posts just waiting for you, and a better blog design.... here.

I need a new name.

Tomorrow is my last day as a barista.

So Hobobarista, although I love it, rhythmically, doesn't really work, factually.

I need suggestions.

Hobolawstudent, though the name of my other blog, won't work for a display name.

Tittycake: an essential recipe.

For my party this past weekend, I made a tittycake. You can make a tittycake, too! I used my Betty Crocker Bake 'N' Fill pan. You don't have to, but it helps.

Tittycake

Half Gallon, Chocolate Ice Cream
Pint, Vanilla Ice Cream
Mini m&ms.
Chocolate or Caramel Sauce
Oreo cookies, one half-box.
Chocolate chips, one half-bag.
Marshmellow Fluff, one jar.
Powdered Sugar, a lot.
Food coloring, red and yellow.

You'll need either a Bake N Fill pan, with the dome pan, or a large mixing bowl, smaller bowl, and a round cake pan, plenty of plastic wrap, and room in your freezer. I recommend having lots of your favorite dishwashing detergent around, because the whole marshmellow fluff process is a mess.

Move both cartons of ice cream (the cheap kind works best because it softens faster) into the refrigerator to soften. This takes about an hour. Drape the large mixing bowl with plastic wrap, so that when filled with ice cream, there is no ice cream-bowl contact. Make sure there is some overhang. Fill the bowl just about half-full with ice cream.

Cover the bottom of the second bowl in plastic wrap. Then put that second bowl on top of the ice cream in the bowl.

Pat ice cream down between the two bowls. Then, place plastic wrap over the second bowl, and fill entirely full with the other flavor of ice cream.

Put the whole shebang into the freezer. For at least three hours. Overnight is nice. The more expensive your ice cream, the longer you should refreeze it. Mine cost a dollar.

While freezing that magilla, you can do the other steps. Crush the fuck out of your cookies. I did that with a wooden spoon inside a heavy coffee cup. Melt the chocolate and mix with the crushed up oreos, and press all of that into the bottom of the cake pan. Put into the freezer.

When your ice cream sections are hard, very carefully remove them from the bowls, and take off all plastic wrap. Remove the crunchy chocolate cake pan from the fridge. Place the ice cream from the smaller bowl in the center of the crunchy chocolate layer. Cover with your chocolate or caramel sauce, and your mini m&ms. Place the larger ice cream dome over the small one. Replace in freezer.

Put about a cup or a cup and a half of marshmellow fluff into a greased mixing bowl. With a greased knife, spatula, or spoon, begin mixing powdered sugar into the fluff. Continue mixing powdered sugar into the fluff (it may take up to two cups) until it becomes doughy, possessing these characteristics:

1. Not sticky to the touch.
2. Powdery on the outside
3. Fairly solid.

It should be stiffer than play-dough. At this point, transfer your fluff-dough into a microwaveable bowl (greased!) if it wasn't in one before. Maybe I should put that above instead of having you do it now.

Anyway, pop that all in the microwave for 10-20 seconds. The powdered sugar will melt into the fluff, making it very warm, and shiny. Very shiny. Add two drops of red food coloring and one drop of yellow and begin mixing the colors in. It is useful to put gloves or plastic bags on your hands and kneed the dough. But the dough will be VERY warm. Separate a small amount, for the nipple, and add one more drop of red dye, and work in.

Place the flesh-colored fluff dough between sheets of waxed paper or greased plastic wrap. Roll into a thin, thin layer.

Mold the pink dough into your nipple. I use some little m&ms to help shape the nipple, and differentiate it from the aereola.

Open your freezer door. Drape the flesh colored part over the ice cream part. Smooth. Trim with a knife. Affix the nipple to the titty with a touch of the caramel or chocolate sauce.

When you have finished, this diagram indicates the composition of the finished titty cake.
a) layer of caramel and mini m&ms.
b) vanilla ice cream
c) chocolate crunchy layer
d) fluff dough layer (unfortunately, not tasty)
e)chocolate ice cream layer.

It is delightful.

It is best to let the whole thing chill for a few hours before serving.

A list of things that my boyfriend does not like about me.

By Hobo Barista
Age 23.

1. I leave knives around. Because I might need them again soon, and don't want to have to wash them again. But sometimes I forget. He doesn't like this.

2. I use the wrong knives for the wrong tasks. I will use any knife at hand to do anything. But last week I used a proper knife to cut onions, and then I cut my fingers. So no lesson was learnt.

3. I slam the toilet seat down when I enter his bathroom. He says I should do it more gently.

4. I leave the bathroom door open after I leave it. He worries his parrot will get into the toilet and drown. His parrot has trouble making it into the hallway.

5. I am always late to be anywhere. Always. Which is not true. I am on time for work. He's just not at my work, so he doesn't notice.

6. I watch shows on discovery health, about super-obese people, birth defects, and abnormalities. He does not find these programmes enriching in the least.

7. I watch medical fictional shows, like "House" and "ER", obsessively. He does not support this.
8. If the New Jersey Nets were in the NBA finals against the LA Lakers, I would cheer for the lakers.

9. I put raw sliced tomatoes on everything. Apparently, this is not done. But this is something that Bolivians do. And he likes Bolivians fine.

10. I watch movies that are not good, movies that are good, and movies that are very bad. He likes films with either character development or subtitles and extreme violence. I like movies with sound, but I'll do without. I like nearly all movies.

11. Sometimes, I don't stick up for myself.

12. I do stick up for Ted Kennedy.

13. I make excuses to do nothing but play the Sims 2. Even when he would like to use his computer to play his video games.

14. I get stomach aches all the time, and then yell at his toilet. He finds this excessive, as he only needs to make a bowel movement quarterly, as do all republicans.

In this blog: Viva Bolivia!

In my other blog: Post-graduation college commentary, on student loan indebtedness.

I went out for Bolivian food on saturday.
To "The Bolivian Restaurant" on Chalkstone avenue, in Providence. Just a stone's throw away from the Foxy Lady, one of Rhode Island's many strip clubs.

What is Bolivian food?, you might ask.

Imagine you're a 17 year old boy. Imagine your parents are away for the weekend. And, after checking whether they left the liquor cabinet unlocked, and spanking it industriously until the brink of carpal tunnel, you make yourself dinner.

What you make yourself is probably Bolivian food. Bolivian food appears to be about three things: Multiple meats, multiple starches, and a dearth of concern about societies normal culinary rules. It is beyond delicious. Filling. Savory. Mmm.

I ordered something called "Pique a lo Macho"

It should have been called "Pulled from Hobobarista's most secret meaty desires"

Pique a lo Macho is flank steak, cut into strips and sautee'd, with red peppers. Green peppers. Sausage. Onions. Bacon. Served over french fries, with vinegar. Garnished with boiled eggs and huge chunks of ripe, raw tomatoes. The steak was chewy. The onions were perfectly carmelized, and obviously cooked in beef or pork fat. The red and green peppers were at that miracle point between too crisp and too limp. I thought peppers like these existed only on pizza. But no. Bacon and sausage added the perfect seasoning. The french fries, drenched in juice from the other ingredients, were delicious.

Mmmm.

And let me tell you about something else.

Empanadas. I like empanadas, usually. They're alright. But these empanadas were like nothing I'd ever tasted before. At the Cuban revolution, the cheese empanada is full of cheddar and unidentified white soft cheese. The crust is like pie crust, but a little bit more tender. The whole thing is heavy and about the size of the palm of my hand, and brought out with hot sauce.

At the Bolivian restaurant, the cheese empanada is about the size of a dessert plate. Brushed with powdered sugar, it is more dessert than appetizer. It is nearly weightless, and the cheese inside is chewy and mild, probably mozzerella. The crust is the flakiest, most tender puff pastry I've ever encountered. Apple turnovers would be jealous. Strudel would turn green with envy. Those grenouilles francoises de patisserie would shrivel in their inadequacy.

The boything ordered something I didn't catch the name of, but is another example of Bolivian cultural innovation. It was a steak, served over roasted rounds of potato, and under two fried eggs, sunny side up. With a sie of tasty, fluffy rice, soon stained brown from the steak.

Mmm.

I can't reccommend this restaurant enough.

Especially since it may close soon.

If you have it at all in your power, get thyself to the Bolivian Restaurant.

Further on that topic.

Nerve.com featured a movie review today that touches upon something that I often talk about. The review, of a film about a teenage girl who turns out to be an abstract comic seducing and torturing an older man who turns out to be a murderous pedophile, turns out to be a feel-good romp through comforting inaccuracies about teen sexuality.

The reviewer is insightful and honest; she talks about being a teenage girl, even a preteen, with feelings for older men that went beyond the level of a crush. " It was clear that the hot substitute science teacher, or perhaps the dad I babysat for, would be able to see what no one else in my life seemed to have noticed: I was a sexy, mature, brilliant woman trapped in the body of an eighth grader. " she writes, admitting more than sympathy for the first scene of the film, which appears to show a teen girl deliberately pursuing sexual contact with a far older man. However, from there the film goes on to have that the girl was feigning interest in the man, and was only interested in vengeance. This is some kill bill shit right here.

The reviewer rightly mourns that the film could have said something very interesting and controversial; that many teenage girls go through a stage where they long to be the object of affection of a much older man.

I did.

There is something surreal about being a young american teen girl. You feel complex, adult, confused. You're supremely vulnerable to anything that smacks of romance. You consume books and movies featuring highly romantic and highly sexual themes. And you want in.

And you don't want this piddly, high-risk, low-yeild teen fucking puppy love bullshit. Groping in cars. Freshman/sophomore semi-formals, with breathalyzer tests at the door and greasy boys with unwashed hands. Any action judged and reported on to catty, leering peers. Almost criminal sexual incompetance. Parental judgement. It isn't what you want, but it's what's available to you.

It's not what I wanted. It's never been what I wanted. I've always pursued, almost exclusively, men who are far too old for me. The first one to respond in any significant way was sixteen years older than me. I'd been eighteen for less than six months. It was intense. Exciting. Scary. Important. And I pushed things. Not as much as he did, but he would have never started anything without my not at all guileless invitations to impropriety. Nothing in my life had ever been so ...breathless...

And nothing in my romantic life had ever been so deliberate. At that point, my experiences with guys my own age had been sparse, bizarre and haphazard. I didn't know how to date. I didn't know how to date a boy from school. I didn't know what the rules were. How much to be interested. How much to be interested in him. Where to go. How far to (let him) let myself go. And that's been the pattern of my romantic life so far. I am dense, confused, blind to guys I work with, go to class with, sit on the train next to, make friends with. My boyfriend is ten years older than I am, and we've been together for almost for years. It's real, it's sure, it's profoundly nice.

And if I had been able to pursue older men from a younger age than I began to, I would have.

However.

Just because something is easy and feels good doesn't mean that it is a good idea. That's why people wear pants. Not wearing pants is easier than wearing pants, and being pantsless, in general, is better than wearing pants, when weather permits. And yet, it is a bad idea to go out, even to go through the drive through, sans pants.

But just because something isn't a good idea, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Teenage girls will continue to desire attention from adult men. Teenage girls will continue to look enough like the atavistic archetype of ripe fecund potential to tempt even some adult men who know better than to become involved with them. And predatory men, who deliberately choose adolescent girls as partners, due to some mental pathology, will exist. These circumstances combine to form a situation wherein at some times teenage girls must be protected from themselves, at some times adult men must be protected from teenage girls, and at other times, teenage girls must be protected from adult men.

But at this moment, in this Law and Order: SVU world that we live in, the third situation is most comfortable to focus on. The idea is that any adult man who becomes sexually involved with a teenage girl was not just the aggressor, but the predator, is very comfortable and clear cut for parents and media alike. Teenage girls are thought to be blind to the effect their bodies and brassy experimenations may have on these 'predators among us', and accidentally blunder into victimhood when their innocent play becomes masturbatory fodder for the leering perverts who live on the internet. This situation exists, sure. And no girl who is truly victimized did ask for it. However, that does not preclude situations where other dynamics exist.

Adult men should know better than to become involved with teenage girls. Adult people should know better than to get involved with teenagers. Society has evolved many safeguards against this. Primarily, we have statutory rape laws. These provide an incentive to adults not to have sexual contact with minors, even in the absence of immediate evidence of contraindications. Secondarily, we have culture. When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I was watching 'Friends'. (Forgive the network TV reference. At the time, I had neither cable, nor friends) It suddenly occurred to me that even though I was funny enough, and smart enough, to picture myself sitting on that couch, and flirting with a pre-bloated Matthew Perry, it wouldn't work. Because there should be no room in the life of a healthy twenty-five year old for a sexual relationship with a fourteen year old. His friends would shun him. Picking up a girlfriend from junior high, post college, should be humiliating. It just doesn't work. If a co-worker of mine (we are all around 23) began to date a girl of even 19, the social repercusions might prematurely doom the relationship.

So what?

That means two things:
1. Most adult men will avoid sexual contact with teenage girls, for a variety of reasons.
and
2. Most adult men who do not avoid sexual contact with teenage girls will not be normal, as they will have decided to risk social standing and a criminal record to do so.

That simulteneously makes the situation both better and worse. If teenage girls can be successfully convinced that there are almost no exceptions to the second principle, then they will not seek to fulfill their fantasies of romance with an older man. That would leave the only sexual contact between older men and young girls in the strictly predatory realm. However, teenage girls do not believe that any older man that would consider breaking stringent social codes in order to associate with them must be deeply flawed. Because that is terribly depressing. Teenage girls want to beleive that older men, as the author above fantasized, have the ability and insight to see their worth, beyond their age.

Which gives actual predatory older men a ready-made expressway into the Junior's Lingerie section. They know what girls want to hear, and they know the argument that will be made against that argument. And they know that their argument puts the girl in the better light. So she may be convinced.

So what is to be done?

First, parents need to make sure that just because it is terribly uncomfortable to think that little Cindy's crush on her soccer coach may be more serious than her crush on Scott Baio in the second grade, they need to address those feelings. They need to explain to her that while it's fine and natural for her to be attracted to older men, it's best that she never act on those feelings, at least until she's older herself, because any older man that would be involved with her is not one that she should be involved with. Like old Groucho said "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member."

Second, society needs to back up off teenage girls for a minute. They've got fifty million messages coming at them about who they need to be. (And feminists, shut up for a minute - "Be Thin!" isn't the most toxic message out there) They've got no messages coming at them telling them how quickly they're going to be adults, and how normal it is to feel sexual, to feel deeper than everyone else seems to be, to want to be friends with older adults of both genders. Sometimes teenage friendships are so toxic that it seems like there is no respite. Forging equal friendships with older adults who are not parents and are not romantic partners may provide much-needed perspective. Maybe the reason I've always pursued older men and ignored contemporaries is because otherwise, I'd be alone with all these dangerous peers.

I wonder, sometimes, whether my experience with that much older man has had any long-term effect, positive or deleterious, on me. He was my first experience of acceptance on an intellectual level, first experience of direct expression of sexual desire, first experience of rejection. He was the first man to say certain words to me that I can now barely manage even when I'm desperately hammered. I can't ignore that he should have known better than to get involved with me, even as shallowly and tangentially as he did. But I can't ignore that he wouldn't have if I'd even once told him to stay away.

I wonder if, without him, I would have ended up with someone my own age. Or even able to be with someone my own age. If I hadn't used him as my crutch, would I have fallen into a lasting relationship with a college boy, that fall and winter? Would I have learned to treat peers as potential partners?

Who fucking knows. Who cares. Behavior is a mystery, yet all we know is that all non-reflex actions are in some way willful. That means that no person can take responsibility for the actions of another. Anything I do to myself, I have only myself to blame for. I knew what I was doing. No amount of revisionist history can change that. But does that mean that other girls should be just as free to choose so poorly?

"I cling to her innocence"

That's a quote. From a story in today's Boston Globe. A mother is talking about how she'd give her daughter the new h.p.v./cervical cancer vaccine, but not tell her what it's for. This h.p.v vaccine has the potential to prevent thousands of early deaths from a sneaky cancer, that strikes mostly young women.

If there were a breast cancer vaccine, there would be no controversy. Everyone wants to cure breast cancer. Everyone wants to wear a pink ribbon and think about saving people's mommies. And saving people's titties, too. Saving the very essence of femininity. Fertility. Maternity. Mature sexual appeal. That's why breast cancer is so marketable. It's the madonna.

Cervical cancer is the whore. Because cervical cancer, despite striking women at their most marketable age, is a little bit dirty. A little bit bad. Because, unlike breast cancer, mostly, you have to do something to get it. You have to fuck. And not only do you have to fuck, you have to fuck someone who has fucked someone before. Absolute monogamy prevents cervical cancer, but only if the h.p.v naive fuck only the h.p.v naive. Which doesn't happen. Because most people don't lose their virginity to a virgin. That's why no one goes to the hospital seeking treatment for pathologically dilated urethras anymore. So in each pair of fuckers, at least one has been broken in. Or been around the block.

So sex is a risk factor for cancer. But only significantly so for women. It's a perfect threat.

"Darling, your mother and I love you very much, and we want you to listen to us. Sex is a very important part of life, but it's best when saved until marriage. Because if you don't wait, you could DIE OF CANCER. SOON."

"Hey, Tiger. Your mom and I want you to know you probably shouldn't have sex until you get married. Because maybe you'll have sex with some girl, and then another girl, and if the first one had something, the second one might die, while you still know her, and that might be a pain. Maybe. Or you could stop calling her. Whatever. Wrap that shit, I guess."

It reinforces our society's absured purity fetish. Bad things happen to girls who like it, but a man's best protection is still a fake name.

So what happens if condom use and frequent testing remove the threat of aids, hepatitis vaccines prevent that jaundicy drag, anti-outbreak medications attenuate the embarassment of herpes, contraceptives continue to prevent pregnancy, and a h.p.v. vaccine prevents cervical cancer?

The worst thing in the world.

Parents have to stop seeing their daughters as perpetual children, with innocence to be protected, even by threat of death, and begin seeing them as potential adults, who must be communicated honestly with about the role sexuality has in adult life. The woman in the globe article says "I cling to her innocence." I cling. I cling. The parent needs her daughter to remain innocent. As long as possible. For her sake, not her daughter's. Because we've got this fucked up system in this country that makes a daughter's virginity her parent's possession.

From virginity balls, where little girls dance with their fathers who pledge to help them save that blessed cherry for their husbands, to my own graduation dinner on friday, where a freudian slip nearly ruined the evening for everyone. (I'm 24, goddamnit. Mild accidental innuendo should be ignored, not a reason for my father to threaten to snap my boyfriend's neck), the idea that daughters must remain virginal in perpetuity for the sake of the family remains, though it should have gone out with arranged marriages and dowrys.

Do we really want to kill young women because they didn't stay little girls long enough?

Irrational Rage.

Lovely.

Yesterday and today were hot.

Yesterday and today were quite hot, and open campus days for a local boarding school.

Between yesterday and today I made more frozen blended beverages than I have ever cared to make in my life.

(What's a frozen blended beverage? I thought you were a barista.)
(I am a barista. But as I've discussed before, most people don't like coffee. They like fucking ridiculous ass things that are not coffee. Like frozen blended beverages.)

Banana. Strawberry. Fucking tea. Fucking mocha fucking chip. Fucking dingleberry macha surprise. Anything but fucking coffee.

And even the coffee kind bears little resemblence to actual coffee. It's cold. It's milky. It's icy. It's sweet enough to hurt your teeth. It's like a coffee milk shake. Without ice cream. Being from Boston, I almost said a coffee frappe. But that is meaningless to those outside my little enclave. Because, you see, order a milkshake in Boston, you get sweetened, shaken milk. If you want milk and ice cream, it's a frappe.

But it's all people want.

And people don't realize that they don't come from a machine. They mill around, in front of the espresso bar. They huff. They sigh. They make over-loud conversation to friends about how long it takes.

We have two blenders. Each beverage must be blended, poured, and finished. Then the blender must be rinsed. Then the next beverage may be started. And I'm not so bad. I can do two drinks at once, and have the rest almost ready to go. But I can't reach my bare hands into the ice bin, stuff my mouth with ice, milk, sugar and coffee, make a whirring noise while I chew and regurgitate an icy cool refreshing beverage into a glass. And even if I could, that would only increase my efficiency by one-third.

There was a moment yesterday when I had eleven of these beverages in front of me. There were no other drinks to be made. There was nothing to be done. My supervisor just told the other girl to stay out of my way. Not because I could do it faster, or because I'm better than anyone with these goddamned things. But because there's nothing else you can do.

Rage. There's no other reaction. First, annoyance. Then, resentment. Then, rage. Because people don't think. And you can't ask. You can't say "Hey, motherfucker, everyone else can have this kind of drink, but you can't, because five is too many. It's going to make everyone else behind you wait forever", or "Hey, asshole. You're thirty-five. Try an iced coffee."

If you have a job, imagine a day at work. Imagine there is something that is a small part of your job, but not something you do a lot, and not something you're expert at. Something you're barely set up for, but certainly qualified to do. And it's all anyone wants. And they can't see that everyone wanting this one thing is a problem.

And they just keep fucking coming.

And they think it's such a small thing.

But it's not. We have about fifteen different flavors of these goddamned blender drinks. And no one wants the same one. People will come in and order four different.

You don't understand. You can't understand.

But if today had been my last day, this is what I would have done:

(Picture me, behind the bar, six blended beverages in front of me, waiting to be finished. A gentleman comes up and orders three more, each one different and fucking retarded)

Me: Excuse me, sir, would you like a waffle cone with that?
Him: A waffle cone? Do you have that?
Me: No, we don't. How about some jimmies?
Him: Jimmies? You have those?
Me: No, we have no jimmies, either.
Him: Well, why did you...
Me: Because, motherfucker, we have no fucking waffle cones, and no motherfucking jimmies, because we're not a fucking ice cream store.
Him: I know, this is -my coffee shop-, and frankly, I'm offended-
Me: What do we sell at -my coffee shop-?
Him: I don't have to be spoken with this-
Me: WHAT DO WE SELL HERE?
Him: Coffee?
Me: You're fucking right we sell coffee here. Get out of my sight.

I will soon not be a hobobarista.

So, soon enough, I will switch over to a new blog.

Here.

Let's get some pussy!

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An actual quote from work today.

Me: Were you just on bar?
Guy: Yes.
Me: So this is the milk you've been serving?
Guy: Yeah.
Me: I will destroy you.

What I learned on my memorial day weekend.

By Hobobarista.
Age 23.
Grade 18.

The first thing I learned on my memorial day weekend is that nice girls from south suburban boston can drive into cities without sponteneously driving the wrong way up a one-way street, off a cliff, burst into flames, bounce, end up in a river, and drown because the seat belts are jammed. This is only accomplished by good directions, however. Otherwise, flaming, blistering death followed by unnecessary drownings, I'm sure.

The second thing I learned on my memorial day weekend is that Brooklyn is very large. As I am not a mapologist or mathologist, however, I cannot compare it to Rhode Island in size, using fractions.

The third thing I learned on my memorial day weekend is how to bowl. Bowling is a game, where you mostly sit, but sometimes you throw something at something. Which makes it somewhat like baseball, except bowling happens indoors, near women named Carol. I also learned that staunchly heterosexual men can protectively cradle sparkly things that they've named after members of the E street band.

The fourth thing I learned on my memorial day weekend is much more thinky. Who you are is what you do, even if you don't do anything. Especially if you don't do anything, but significantly so otherwise. I'd managed to take this trip while my host and his friends were attempting something they've called the psuedo-sport olympics, which to me seems to combine all forms of gaming that can be accomplished without major physical conditioning, while drinking, with many visits to bars, for drinking, when gaming is not happening.

At the final bar visited Saturday evening, (Sunday morning, at this point) something started to crystalize for me. And not calcium in my gallbladder. Cognitions. Questions. Dissonance. Despite not actually knowing these people, I was having somewhere between 2/3 and 9/12 of a hell of a time. Much like I do with friends from home. But something was different. Around four am, it suddenly occured to me.

My friends were getting up for work.

These guys were going strong.

This was the first sunday that I haven't worked, excluding two brief vacations, in two and a half years. If you are a waitress, a coffee girl, a bartender, a cashier, a salesgirl or boy, or work in any job that requires you to facilitate anyone's outside of work life...you work weekends. That I have saturdays off, and have managed to maintain that for years, is a minor miracle of manipulation, whining, and threats of quitting. If I stopped working sundays, that would be quitting. If I stopped working holidays, that would be quitting. I have worked two thanksgivings, two christmasses, a new year's eve and a new year's day, two halloweens, and this is my third memorial day.

Skilled labor gets holidays. Unskilled labor, despite how hard the job is, stays on. Because without unskilled labor, how would the rest of you fuckers spend your sundays and holiday weekends?

And it gets to you.

The first year goes by fine. While everyone in the world gets up for work, you may be still asleep. Or while everyone is hitting the middle of their work day, yours may be over. You may get tuesdays off, and spend a day strolling through uncrowded museums, see an afternoon movie in an abandoned theater. It's moderately cool. It's almost like finding a loophole. You feel like you're cheating. Then the holidays come. And it's not so bad. You get time and a half. Big tips. Maybe your family holds dinner until you get off.

By the middle of year three, which is where I am, you're just fucking tired. Everyone you know, by that point, works in the same type of job you do. Because everyone else in the world does things on the weekends. And you can't. So people get tired of inviting you to do things that you can't do. So you pal around with the same exhausted, embittered, tip-dependent, apron, smock, and vest-wearers. People who understand that they may never have two days off in a row for the rest of their life People who have gotten used to wednesday hangovers and clear-eyed sunday mornings.

It's not a class thang; it's a caste thang.

And the bright dividing line between the upper castes and lower castes in America is weekends and holidays. The upper castes get them off. The lower castes spend theirs in service to the uppers. We're no longer a white, blue, and pink collar society. The white collar workers experience more instability than the blue, and can't really be distinguished from the pink. Is an administrative assistant really a secretary, or an administrator? Nobody knows. Try getting a plumber on a sunday, though. Or a mailman, mechanic, tow truck operator, electrician- they've got the day off. Manicurist, hair stylist, waitress, waiter, bartender, anyone who feeds you, touches you, or pretends to like you for money- all at work.

Saturday night was my first saturday night with the ivory to lavender collar crowd, followed by a sunday morning being served instead of serving. It feels odd. The whole lifestyle is foriegn to me. Knowing that everyone you know has the day off, all at the same time, and will have tomorrow off tomorrow, seems so foreign to me. But it's the lifestyle of my friend, and his friends. A lifestyle I haven't known since college.

It's a different world.

Another thing that I learned was that a grey-bearded man in a fifteen year old Toyota can get a blowjob while stuck in traffic in front of yankee stadium.

And that I'm a little bit of a bitch when I'm overtired.

And that a mid-sized blonde, fucking a man a little too affable to be entirely heterosexual, in a borrowed bed, can sound exactly like a wounded seal taking refuge in a hefty bag full of water balloons and astroglide.

Rottin' my brain, thinkin' bout sex roles.

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Holy shit: All I need to know about psychology I learned in the promotional aisle at CVS

I never understood the phrase "boggle the mind" until I went to CVS today. I was looking for a pop-up laundry hamper. They sometimes sell them in the bargain or seasonal aisle. I was walking past a display of mini-grills (hibachis and psuedo-hibachis) when I came upon something that had a peculiar neurological effect. It actually caused the neurons of my brain to pop up and rearrange to accomodate the new information, a la Boggle.

A la serious cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the phenomenon where an extant mental schema conflicts (is not consonant) with new information. It's an uncomfortable situation for the brain, which attempts to reconcile the two cognitions. In this case, I had an existing schema, which assumed that though unjust and chaotic, certain forces will tend to stabilize and normalize most of civilization along easily understood grounds.

Then, a new observation, yielding new information, and birthing dissonance:

Hot Dog Toaster.

Not a toaster shaped like a hot dog. Not a toaster for hot dog buns. A toaster that cooks two hot dogs at a time. And does nothing else. Look carefully at the picture. There are no slots that would accommodate a normal piece of bread. This toaster does not produce toast. It cannot be used to produce toast, and also hot dogs, in the way that the breakfast sandwich toaster (also a terrible idea) can be used to fry an egg and heat ham while making toast. It can only be used to make hot dogs.

Not grill, not steam, not fry hot dogs. Toast hot dogs. One might argue that the actual difference between grilling and toasting is small. But I believe that the line between grilling and toasting, while permeable, should only be permeable in one direction. While things that may be toasted mostly taste wonderful grilled (corn muffins, bagels, bread), those things that are meant to be grilled should not be toasted. And yet here is something meant solely to toast that which shouldn't be toasted. That which was never meant to be toasted.

But moral concerns aside, there is the question of utility. Not just of the appliance itself (I have made hot dogs. Hot dogs...sweat...when you cook them. They drip something that can't quite be easily described. There are some lipids, sure, in hot dog sweat. And water is a component. Definite condensation. It beads on the surface. But also other compounds, surely.

So this sweat may drip to the bottom of the hot dog toaster, combine with bun crumbs, and create some evil sludge. Do you clean the crumb tray of your bread toaster as often as manufacturer reccommended? I don't. So obviously, I could not be trusted with a hot dog toaster.

But who could? Who SHOULD? who needs a hot dog toaster? Even among people who consume hot dogs with enough regularity, enough passion, to justify owning a hot-dog dedicated appliance- for whom is a hot dog toaster the right choice? Hot dogs can be made without a stove. It takes a hot plate and any kind of pan. If you have a pan, and a heat source, you have hot dog accessibility. No hot plate? Microwave? If you don't have a heat source, or access to a heat source, and you live indoors, and you have access to electricity, should increased hot-dog eating convenience really be a priority?

I lived in an apartment without a kitchen for ten months. I bought a hot plate and an electric skillet. I cooked two meals a day with ease. I had full hot dog capability, even then. No need for a dedicated hot dog appliance, and surely not a toaster.

When dissonance arises, the natural response is to attempt to reduce dissonance. This can happen in a variety of ways: denial of the new information, denial of prior belief, etc.

Immature reactions to the dissonant effects of hot dog toaster:

"There is no hot dog toaster. I am dreaming, or possibly on drugs. I never saw a hot dog toaster."

"I always knew that toasting hot dogs was not only reasonable, but a bargain at 9.99"

"I always put my hot dogs in the toaster. It is a normal and natural and patriotic thing to do"

A mature reaction would incorporate the new information provided by hot dog toaster into the existing schemas that it relates to.

"Buns are like bread, and bread can be toasted. Toasting hot dog buns is part of what some people would like a toaster to do"

"Toasting hot dogs is possible."

I haven't incorporated hot dog toaster into my greater toaster schema. This is alright. I am embracing the discomfort. I am allowing the dissonance. I refuse to deny or forget that hot dog toaster is a part of the world I live in. It's probably in several fine people's kitchens right now.

Boggled.

BOGGLED.

HOT DOG TOASTER.

Hobobarista's ongoing pre-graduation coverage.

Today's segment: College Majors Explained.

Most people believe that college majors lead to careers, in real life after college. This is not true. College majors are measures of self-identification that may lead to one of various career paths, but mostly have to do with interest, naive hopes, and who you hope to exchange various fluids with before graduation.

For example, most people think that art history majors pursue the major in hopes of becoming museum curators, art critics, and art history teachers. This is not true. Art history majors pursue a variety of diverse careers, such as waitressing, bartending, and food service. They become art history majors because they dearly hope to sleep with studio art students (male) and marginally heterosexual art history professors (female).

• American Studies: This is as close as you can come to majoring in "stuff". American studies, a fairly new field mysteriously oversupplied with kindling quality PhDs, is the study of America, without specifically touching on history, politics, or high art. Vh1's various nostalgia series sum up legitimate topics of analysis for American studies. However, advanced American studies majors should be able to discuss topics as distant as the mid-nineteen sixties. So why major in American studies? Your final paper may be on a beer commercial, thinky topics are discouraged, and no actual knowledge is required to be aquired. American studies majors try to have sex with other American studies majors. And students from your finer community colleges and beauty schools, who find any major with "studies" in the title to be fairly impressive.
• Sociology: What do you do when you're too judgemental for psychology, yet not judgemental enough for political science? When you're too smart for criminal justice, but not smart enough for economics? Sociology! Sociology- the study of what people do as groups, but not in groups, and not what they think or any effects they have in specific contexts! Sociology, where you can take classes on substance abuse and alcoholism without actually aquiring any scientific knowledge about the brain or behavior! Sociology, where all you have to know is how many, never why or how! Sociology majors tend to try to have sex with psychology majors or business majors.
• Literature: Literature makes a single, desperately strong statement; I like to read things. Literature majors really, really like school. They like to read. They like to write. They like to get comments on their papers. They like to talk passionately about people who don't exist and things that never happened. They are often dreamy and easily disappointed. Literature majors like to have sex with people who make far too many preparations for the act. If you've ever selected curtains specifically for their billowing potential, you can have sex with a literature major. Be prepared for long discussions afterward about the ramifications of the moments you've just shared. And be prepared to listen to poetry they've written. All literature majors write poetry.
• Acting: Acting isn't so much a major as a cry for help. A cry that says "For the love of god, please, somebody, pay attention to me!" with a secondary echo of "oh, shit, I don't have anything of my own to say". People who study acting in college are people who, in 12-16 years of schooling, have found nothing more interesting than improving their skills at pretending something that isn't happening, is. Acting is something that can be learned outside of, or as supplement to, a college education. When a person majors in acting, they say; I am not interested in history, literature, or even American studies. I'm going to sit in a dingy room with acoustic tile on the walls and say "Mimosa" over and over again until I beleive that I'm a rock, or an onion, or a tubercular southerner. Acting majors only have sex with other actors, directing students, graduate students, or their own professors. They love to transgress, but only in aesthetically pleasing ways.
  
• Film. Film majors seem as if they'd be a lot like literature majors, but they aren't. While "I like to watch stuff" seems like "I like to read stuff", the characteristics are totally different. Film students can be divided into two categories: Film students who like the godfather, and film students who do not like the godfather. Film students who like the godfather are willing to embrace the aesthetic qualities of popular films. Film students who do not like the godfather will purport to like movies, when in fact they hate them. Film students who do not like the godfather become film students specifically in order to force people to pay attention to their sour dissappointment in popular culture. They only like movies you've never heard of. They masturbate to non-narrative porn. Sometimes, these film students are merely too unnattractive to be acting students. Film students of both types will have sex with any type of person, yet monogamy is difficult. Film students watch so many depictions of character and circumstance that a sense of lingering incompleteness dogs their relationships. No relationship can compare to the sun-drenched montages in their heads.
  
• Business: Business majors have one of two motivations. 1. Please, dear god, I want to earn more than 12 dollars an hour at some point in my life. 2. Please, dear god, please let my parents keep paying for my apartment and my visa card. Business majors will attempt to have sex with anyone who seems willing, and some who don't. Majoring in business is a bold attempt to come out of college more employable than you went in; in that way, the business major is to be admired. At least they had a plan. However, ask any arriving or departing business major what, exactly, they've learned. And wait. Because the blank stare is priceless.
  
• Psychology: Psychology is not a science. It isn't literature. It's a humanity. What's a humanity? Something that doesn't require math past the 130 level. And that's alright. Psychology is a subject studied by people that aren't sure they can pay attention to anything that isn't directly relevant to their own burgeoning neuroses and pathological self involvement for more than 52 minutes. I am a psychology major. I have sex with a computery man. The way to get into a psychology major's pants is to pretend to be really interested in her self-analyses of her own myriad problems.
  
• Classics: Classics majors combine the cosmopolitan yearnings of the foreign language majors with the fictional focus of literature majors, with the lack of social skills and day-to-day utility of history majors. In short: Classics majors want to have sex with people from strange lands, but are so afraid that havin sex with people from strange lands may be difficult, disappointing, or smelly, that they'd rather giggle over the dirty bits from Catullus than actually interact with anyone else's genitals.
• 
  

Pancakes!

Dump the frump: Casualties of the mommy wars.

First of all, I don't condone the phrase "the mommy wars". It's stupid, uncreative, and perpetuates the problem I'm about to attack.

The problem I'd like to talk about today is pandemic frump. The wide, high waist-banding of American women. American women are voluntarily re-juvenilizing themselves after having children, despite the location and compensation of their major toil. American women with children, by and large, after that first head through the vagina, seem to begin a process by which the number of seams in their clothes decreases, leading to the sack-effect, and the number of stretch fibers increases, leading to the perpetual gym class effect. Most American women, by the time they've completed childbearing, have plunged so deep into the creeping frump that they own several varieties of matching sweatsuits; including 'nice ones', which are for going out, not working out.

A woman I work with has regained about 85-95% of her swerve after having her third child. It's not just about losing weight, which she has (and she looks like the smoking hotness- I say this because her husband occasionally reads this blog), but about dying her hair. Reading grownup books. Successfully coming to work with a swipe of well-selected berry lipstick. Saying "fuck" and "shit" occasionally. Reading books clearly meant for an adult audience, that have nothing to do with raising her child's IQ score by 3 1/2 points, or the benefits to the family bed. She is a mother, and yet retains her identity as a thinking, complex, sexual, adult. And I salute the hell out of her.

Yet she is rare.

Most of the women in her closest demographic seem to dive with great speed into the fanny pack and factory second sweatpant rack and never come up for air. They wear disney characters. Warner brothers. Pink and blue and baby yellow sweatpants with frayed bottoms and sagging asses.

This is a larger problem than it seems to be. Why shouldn't busy women wear whatever they want? Why should a woman with other things on her mind try to put on a certain aesthetic front? Why shouldn't a woman who runs after kids, does endless errands and chores that would disgust and bore a sensible person like me- get to wear whatever she feels like?

Because it's not really what she wants. It's what she feels is her default setting. Her uniform. What she is expected to wear. Wearing a matching sweatsuit, unflattering high-waisted jeans, or a t-shirt with a cartoon character on it isn't anymore comfortable or practical than wearing clothing that is considered acceptable for the nulliparous american female; it's just become expected.

It has become expected that a woman, having begun or completed childbearing, should begin to divorce herself from her former life, and throw herself entirely into the mommy world. Thus: Mommy wars. It's not a war about women's lifestyles, women's choices, women's guilt, or women's achievement- it's a war about what is and is not appropriate for a mommy. A woman is increasingly judged on how much of a mommy she becomes. Can a mommy be a mommy when she's still working? Can a mommy be a mommy while she tries to maintain a romantic relationship with her husband? Can a mommy be a mommy while she pursues her own interests?

Fuck that shit.

A woman is a mother to her children; she will remain a mother to her children until they die or are given or sold away. Mommy is how her children see her, regardless of how she is seen by others. Children are little narcissists. They see their mother as mommy, and mommy only, no matter if she continues to work, or fuck, or wear adult clothing. Because that is what children do.

So why mommify women with children? Who benefits from the rampant mommification of women? Who has an interest in guilting women into becoming, not just mothers, but full time mommies?

It's a post-feminist backlash. I normally get a kick out of post-feminist backlashes. Because, in general, post-feminist backlashes happen when the protections of feminism get out of hand, and begin to confuse adult women with adolescent girls. When protectionism threatens agency, sometimes a backlash is needed. However, this is not the case with mommyism. Mommyism is a post-feminist backlash that juvenilizes. It simplifies the complicated lives of women into one issue. It nullifies the complex internal lives of women into cookies and cartoons.

I think the root is from the children of feminists. Something jarring happens, when growing up, when we realize that our mothers (formerly mommies) are people. With all the strengths, weaknesses, foibles, hopes and yearnings, failures and vices, that we recognize in ourselves and our contemporaries. This happens sometime between 16 and 24. It's a good thing. But it can be uncomfortable and upsetting. Suddenly, mommy is gone. And someone new, a human being, is in her place. My mom and I have a great relationship, post mommy. We drink red wine and laugh. But it was hard, and weird, to learn that she was more than I had ever thought she was.

So this is natural. It happens. It will always happen. But maybe it happened a little too early for this past generation, women just older than I am. Maybe their mommies got divorces and boyfriends, and it was hard. Or maybe they felt betrayed and upset when learning that their mommies were people, and never really got over it. And maybe they blamed this transient dissonance on feminism, and swore never to put their kids through it.

And so.

Women became mommies. Housewives became stay at home moms. No longer head of household operations, in charge of serious adult business that included amounts of caretaking and nurturing, everything became in service of mommyhood. Forget cooking and cleaning and housework; household tasks are not what mommy is here for. After all, cleaning and cooking are for the adults in the house. Mommy is here for her babies. And her babies only.

The mommy uniform, the defiantly frumpy, the elastic waisted, the ugly and pastel and indistinguishable from outsize toddlers clothes identify the mommy's priorities. Children first. It's as if they dressed her, even. Then sundry other developmental and educational priorities for the children. Then, midway down the list, her own interests are. The less she exists, the better mommy she is. The less time and energy it looks like she has spent on herself, the better mommy she is.

This is bullshit.

Yes, putting children's interests first is important. Children should be clothed, and fed, and nurtured. But children's whims should not come before adult needs. When that happens, a dangerous imbalance occurs. Adults vanish. I've been reading debates on whether people with children should have alcohol in the home, whether they should smoke, even far away from their children, whether they should own pornography or sex toys or R rated movies and books with naughty passages. Should adults have parties children aren't welcome at? Should adults go to restaurants their children wouldn't enjoy? Should adults go away for a weekend? Lock their bedroom door? Have sex? The answers, by the significantly mommified, to all of those questions, is no.

Apparently, the best thing a mommy can do for her children is become one of them. Forgo the privileges of adulthood entirely. Become a creature whose motivations and cognitions are entirely comprehensible to a three year old. Mommy's here. Mommy loves you! Anything that would appear, even momentarily, confusing or (horror!) rejecting to a preschooler is out.

"Why would mommy and daddy want to go away without me?"

"Why do mommy and daddy lock their door?"

Mommy would never lock her door. Mommy would never go out without her babies. Mommy would never even own anything innapropriate for her babies to see or chew or know about, because mommy's babies are her only thought, ever! And this continues.

And this is not sustainable. Certainly not. Because, like it or not, Mothers are adult women. Adult women want what other adults want. Some amount of sacrifice of instant gratification is necessary in parenting. Some amount of economic, or aesthetic, or even physical sacrifice is inherent to parenting. But the complete sacrifice of adult identity, evident by creeping frump, is uneccessary and uncalledfor.

Please. Ladies. Dump the frump. For your own good. Buy some pants with belt loops. Get a babysitter. Go watch an R rated movie. Have a little sex. Drink a little wine. And please, for the love of god, throw away that goddamned kitten sweatshirt.

I have made...

a bad decision.

That bad decision- to stay up, through the rest of the morning, through two classes, until three pm or so. At which time, I will be at my boyfriend's apartment, and I will crash. For a mijillion hours. In a half hour, my coffee shop will open. I'm not working, but I will visit. I will make them give me a hot chocolate. Then I will wait until it is reasonable to go to cvs, and I will buy those little paper corners to stick my graphs onto papers, and I will staple my paper, and print my paper, and go to school.

Then I will go to substance abuse, and be tired, and try not to fall asleep. Then, I will go to animal behavior, and be tired, and try not to fall asleep. Then I will come home, get on my bike, and ride around the neighborhood, and try to not fall asleep. Then I will drink an insanely large coffee, and drive to providence. And then I will try very hard to fall asleep.

I like to make bad decisions.

I used to make these bad decisions with my friend Will. We would stay up all night, and I was never sure why, talking. He may be the last person I stayed up all night talking to without ever attempting to show him my genitals.

I miss that guy so much. So much. Aw. Now I'm tired enough to get weepy. Here's the secret, though. I haven't slept in two days. Because last night I was working on a different paper.

Soon enough.

I won't be a hobobarista anymore.

I'll be a hobohobo, then a hobolawstudent. My hobo love of canned goods shall persist through any career move. I'll live my hobolife less suburban. Less easy. Less middle class. More impoverished student.

I think I decided on a quit date for my job: June 23rd. It's the last friday in the second to last week of june.

Too poor to fuck.

It's official.

My pill just went up to fifty dollars. That's with my insurance. See, my insurance only covers generics for ortho products; I'm not on an ortho. I'm on yasmin. It's a lovely monophasic pill that comes in a fake purple suede cover and costs more than a gym membership, cable, my phone bill, or groceries.

My nurse practitioner never told me why I'm on yasmin, and not what I was on before, a generic that cost me ten dollars a month, or something else that would be affordable. I can't ask her, because last time I went in, I was charged 230 dollars in lab fees that my insurance doesn't cover. Also known as most of my rent.

There is a there are two three problems with this. One. A person should be able to afford prescription medications. Two, a person should be told why they are prescribed one medication over another, and, if there is an economic or personal reason to choose another pill, that should be heard. Three. If the pill were available without all those fucking tests, maybe I wouldn't be having to decide whether to take my pill tonight, or save this pill pack, to make my prescription stretch until I can afford a pap smear again.

It is so fucking expensive to be a woman.

Women's clothes are more expensive, and more cheaply made. Women are expected to look cleaner and smoother than men, despite having relatively similar distributions of sebacious glands, and a similar epidermis. This requires a hell of a lot of fucking money. Women need to own more clothes. More shoes. More things, period. And we're brainwashed into thinking, feeling, beleiving that shopping is fun. Are there more things for women to buy because women want to buy more things, or are women buying more things because there are more things for women to buy?

I own mascara. Eyeshadow. Nail polish. Hair dye. Face wash. Exfoliating face wash. Body wash. Moisturizer with and without spf. Razors. Depilatories. Contraceptive pills. Deodorant. Powders. Foundation. Lipstick. Lip gloss. Lip stain. Tweezers for my eyebrows. Separate tweezers for splinters. Nail files. And I'll never know exactly how to use that arsenal to manufacture a consistently innoffensive facade.

My boyfriend owns soap and condoms. And toothpaste.

If men are clean, entirely clean, they meet expectations. Women need more; whether it's for men or women's eyes- they need more. Clean and hairless and current and smooth and pert.

On top of these crap expenses, that any sensible hippy, lesbian, camper, or poverty stricken barista knows in her heart that she can do without, there are the real costs of being a woman.

Pap smears, every year. STD screenings, whether you want them or not. Contraception, and the consequences of not using contraception. A man can live his life in any manner he sees fit, without ever seeing a doctor. A woman is lead to believe that without once-yearly undercarriage maintenance, she will die or lose the ability to have children.

And that's always the way they put it. You may die, or become infertile. Slickly sliding that infertility jab in there, as if a woman may play fast and loose with her own health, (and not believe that getting poked in the vagina by a professional once a year really has a significant protective effect not found in amateur vaginal proddings), but if she can't have some fat, drooling baby produced by her very own cooter and cooter annex, life is really over.

"Don't you want to be tested for STD's? You could get PID and become INFERTILE?"

"You need a pap smear, or you'll DIE!"

1. Fine. Good. Get me some chlamydia. Immediately. I want the clap. I will leave it for a long time. Until my organs get all crusty with scar tissue. Then I won't need the pill anymore. And it will be very cost-effective.

2. No.
Thank you, very much, but I'm able to judge my own risk factors for cervical cancer. As I don't smoke, have no family history, and have only had one partner- my risk is very low. Not absent, but very low. Close to my risk of colon cancer, as meat eater only recently on a high fiber diet, with a family history of polyps and cancer in that area. Lower, probably. But you don't want me to present my camera up the ass card to get a burger at McDonalds, do you?

Ivy League Trash.

My boyfriend and I walked around the east side of providence. We thought it would be fun to photograph things like this forty ounce malt liquor, which we found, just as pictured, nestled near the ivy-covered halls of Brown.

Olde English 800. 40 ounces of escape, reasonably priced and available at package and convenience stores in neighborhoods much discussed, but never visited, by Brown students.

No matter who bought it or drank it, whether out of a desperate need to divest sobriety inexpensively, or out of shrunken-tee'd, skinny jean'd, bright sneaker'd irony, it was left just as we found it: Trash of the ivy league.

Which brings me to Kaavya. A 19 year old Harvard sophomore, she's recently been caught plagiarizing her first novel, a teen lit-piece that was first thought to be semi-autobiographical and is now known to be a high-strung, overdone, overwrought retread of a similar novel, with a jaunty subcontinental flavor.

Her parents paid up to twenty thousand dollars to get her into Harvard. A set of coincidences hooked her up with book packagers- author handlers that turn an attractive person of any talent level into a hot property. Privilege potentiates privilege. And the location of that potentiation is the ivy league.

Harvard. Brown. Yale. Occasionally, the children of the middle and lower classes get onto these nepotism factories, but that only serves to perpetuate the illusion of a meritocracy. The poorer you are, the less likely it is that you'll get into an ivy league school. The poorer you are, the less likely it is that if you'll get in, you'll finish.

Her parents so wanted to secure her a place in the class I can only assume they occupy themselves, they spent tens of thousands of dollars on consultants. They had the connections to help her get an agent, and get their attractive, ethnically distinctive, charming daughter to the right handlers to get her a very lucrative book deal. She had everything going for her. Everything other people- regardless of talent, ability, or skill, would kill to have. And none of it, other than the workmanlike manner in which, I'm sure, she got the grades and test scores that got her in the door- was a product of her striving. It was a product of connections and consultants. Her edge was not her own.

I'm smart. I'm driven. I'm a super writer (!). I'm talented. I'm graduating from a third-rate university, skin peeling off my hands from work. My classmates from my third-rate liberal arts college have faired not much better; those who came in with connections left and met with success. Those who had no connections left and went to work for the New York City Public Schools. Talent had nothing to do with it. I have friends who could write a screenplay that would blow Sofia Coppola's ass out through her pussy; but they don't have famous daddies. Or even rich ones.

It's hard to know what Kaavya's intent was. She may have genuinely been stressed out, and recapitulated bits of someone else's work. She may have thought she wouldn't get caught; although, I recommend Harvard add a course in common sense and reading comprehension if that is true. When one plagiarizes, one should pick a novel more than five years old, and one without a sequel currently on the best seller list. She may have wanted to get caught. She may have not wanted to write a novel, and not known how to get out of it. She may have been misled by handlers.

It's easy to know what the problem is: there is no reward for merit or talent in this society. Connections matter first. Knowing someone gets you in the door; it doesn't guarantee success. However, this is no great comfort to those waiting in the hall. I will never be a writer, or an artist, or an actress, or a journalist, or anything with any specific cachet. These careers are too attractive to the children of the rich and powerful to be available to any but a lucky few of the children of middle class. Also, I'm too fat for like, three of those careers.

I've given up on writing, lately. It's too hard to be told that you do something well, and have to explain to people why it doesn't matter.

I wonder if Kaavya values the things she does well, whatever they are. Poor girl. She's been consulted and packaged and marketed for years now. I wonder if she shits by committee. I wonder if she wipes by consensus. I hope she isn't able to parlay this plagiarism into success in any field. I hope she learns from this, and finds something entirely satisfying to her, that she doesn't even want to take short cuts in- and does that.

Third Acceptance In

Drake University School of Law.

Full scholarship. All three years.

Why yes, I am planning to go to the only law school that didn't offer me a full scholarship. What do you think about that?

Women and children.

Women and children.

People can't seem to be able to differentiate between these groups. I'm watching a Penn and Teller show on legalizing prostitution. Most of the anti-prostitution groups seem to believe that if prostitution becomes legal, children will be forced into prostitution, or young girls will be forced into the lifestyle.

A lot of the anti-legalization energy that does not confuse adult women with children comes from two camps: economic and feminist. The economic camp are basically classic nimbys. They don't want prostitution, gambling, adult video stores or all-night diners anywhere near them, because it might bring down their property values, bring in an unsightly element, or might lead to uncomfortable conversations with children, when they catch sight of an unfamiliar business establishment.

The second camp is the feminists. Feminists see prostitution as an instance of female exploitation. And it is. In most of the world, prostitution is a degrading, dehumanizing state. It is commonly forced. Sex slavery occurs. Children are sold, male and female. In the United States, women addicted to drugs, impoverished, or otherwise open to exploitation may become prostitutes by economic coercion. They become virtual slaves to pimps. This is wrong. Both situations are very wrong; however, because a situation exists in which people are vulnerable to exploitation does not mean that a similar situation may exist where no person is exploited. Their second argument is that if prostitution exists, women who are destitute, undereducated, or naive will be forced into that life out of necessity.

One of the miraculous, lovely, wonderful things in the United States is that, by and large, our laws and legal system protect workers from exploitation. Even in the garment industry, mining, and farming industries, where many workers are exploited world-wide, the United States manages to create a climate of safety relative to developing countries, and manages to balance business and individual interests better than many E.U countries. We've got this labor law shit down.

It could be argued that legalization of prostitution in the United States would extend that climate of safety to sex workers. Which would be a good thing.

Safety + People = Something I like.

It could also be argued that women would be no more forced into prostitution than other relatively unskilled professions, such as garment manufacture, food service, and home health services. Women without skills will always be more prone to filling the physical needs of others than men without skills or women with skills; whether that need is sexual or medical should be a choice that a woman can make. Home health services are grimy, often demeaning jobs. They, like prostitution, are a shunting off of personal relationships onto professionals. Health aides turn the elderly, to prevent bed sores. They change the diapers of the profoundly retarded. They wipe stomas. They empty colostomy bags. This job seems much more horrible, to me, than providing sexual services. I couldn't do it. However, it is one of the jobs available to unskilled women, and taken largely by recent immigrants and the similarly disenfranchised.

I'd rather give handjobs than wipe somebody's grandpa's ass- wouldn't you?

My shower smells like baloney.

this doesn't bother me.

When the zombies come.

When the zombies come, many people will not realize what they are. Those people will get bitten quickly, and turned into zombies. This will be sad, as they go to bed at night, feeling slightly sore where that strange man bit them, saying goodnight to loved ones, and wake up with a terrible complexion and lust for blood.

After those people, who didn't expect there to be zombies, become zombies, next will come the people who do not want to believe. These people will see their children, their wives, their co-workers, acting strangely. They will be concerned. Mothers will reach for their children's foreheads, to feel for a temperature, and have their arms ripped off.

And they will become zombies, too.

After a while, either the zombie problem will become acute, and most people will become zombies, or it will be managed as a chronic problem. Like homelessness, or immigration. But zombies are the only thing that can solve homelessness, and immigration. If the problem is acute, the few people left over will band together, have adventures, learn about themselves and each other, have gritty sex in post-apocolyptic urban wastelands, and fashion a makeshift life for their small tribe, all the while strategizing, waiting, and planning.
T
here will be a moment of hope, as it seems they've found a solution. But, alas, in-group fighting, jockeying for power, and banal human frailty will lead to their getting picked off, one by one.

If zombies become a chronic problem, the following things might happen, that may be interesting to watch.

• some guy will get scratched or bitten at a zombie fair, and, not realizing it, or not believing it, will go to the post-apocolyptic gay porno store, and sit down in a booth. He'll start up a loop, and start going at himself, hoping for someone to get into the next booth. Feeling ill, he'll pass out. He'll zombify. Too late, someone will go into the next booth, and poke an optimistic dick into the glory hole. Which our new zombie will bite off. This also works at rural rest stops. With gay zombie truckers.
• people will have to explain zombies to children, in a non-traumatic, yet firm manner. This will resemble the "stranger danger" presentations of current society, yet more colorful, and with a sense of urgency. "Remember, children- If our mommies and daddies get all pale and stinky, what should we do?" "Cut off the head or destroy the eyes!" "Very good! Gold star!"
• zombies will become a fixture of scientific inquiry first, documentary next, politics after, and pornography last. After it's realized that becoming a zombie, consuming zombies, or implanting parts of zombies has no medical, military, or aesthetic value, filmmakers will start setting up blinds in zombie-blighted areas and making films about their quiet dignity. After "Silent Uncle" wins an academy award and spurs on both non-zombie Baldwins to advocate for the creation of a zombie preserve in wyoming, pornographic spin-offs featuring living people who can pass for zombies performing drippy, gory, slobbery sex acts on up-and-coming starlets, gonzo porn will push the envelope and start featuring actual zombies. Becoming a zombie will be considered a reasonable career move.

Know what I haven't had in a long time?

Lobster pie.

Normally I'm against recipes that disguise expensive foods- truffle mashed potatoes, lobster neuburg, crab quesadillas.

But lobster pie, a relic, not of jaded chefs seeking novelty, but thrifty new englanders stretching ingredients, and eating something previously thought of as inferior bait. As is common knowledge, lobsters were once so cheap, only the poorest and most protein-deprived would eat them.

Thus. Lobster pie.

It's buttery, breadcrumby, sometimes cheesy, sometimes creamy. And these days, it's far too expensive to be worth it. But the weather is getting warm. And with warm weather, the new england girl's thoughts turn to seafood. And as a middle-class new england girl, my seafood cravings tend more to the fried, broiled, and baked than the mango-chutneyed, sashimi'd, grilled, stylish fishes that well-to-do pregnant women despair of eating, lest their well-to-do fetii get some very lower-class brain damage.

I'd love clam strips, broiled scallops, fried scallops, broiled cod, fried haddock...schrod, even, whatever it may be at that moment. Crab cakes. Clam cakes. Summer time, greasy face and smile food. Served openly with corn and potatoes in any incarnation.

But lobster pie is what I'm thinking about, right now. I haven't had any in years.

Another easter at work: Uneccessary Post About Penis Size

I worked today. I've worked, now, since starting my current job-

Three easters.
Two christmases.
Two christmas eves.
Two thanksgivings.
Two halloweens.

And countless arbor days.

It was dead tonight. Mostly it's busy on holidays. Next to the pharmacy, we're the only thing in the neighborhood open on holidays. The first thanksgiving we were open, we sold more milk and cream than coffee.

My coworker told me a joke, because it was so dead. Normally, we can't say vulgar, obscene, funny, critical, controversial, etc- things in the cafe area, but tonight there were hours at a time where no one came in. We tried to stay away from the doors so people might drive by real quick and think we were closed.

Q. How do you tell when a woman's having an orgasm?
A. Who cares?

It could just as easily be, or more honestly be, "How can you tell if a woman is happy?".

Who cares, who knows, who can even judge the criteria these days. It's a dark, damp, and scary subject. Who knows if a woman is happy? Who knows what a woman is even getting out of a relationship? Who knows if she's enjoying herself in bed?

You can't know. You have to depend on her for all of it. Men are easier. Even if they hide their emotions and motivations, anyone can tell if a man is enjoying himself in bed. Anyone can tell if a man is grossly unmotivated to perform sexually. His body is a fairly reliable indicator (see how I resisted that pun there? See. I'm such a grownup. I'm an intellectual) of his level of arousal, and the effectiveness of any sexual technique used on him.

Women- there's no way to tell. They can lie. Their bodies can be out of sync with their emotional state. They can be mentally aroused and sahara down below. They can display all indicators of emotional and physical enjoyment of the sexual act, while trying to watch televison in the reflection in the bedroom mirror. How frustrating!

It is the male dedication to the sexual act, and only the male dedication to the sexual act, that makes it possible. A woman can be entirely passive and unaffected, while theoretically participating in the exact same experience.

The penis size debate, penis size anxiety, mostly grows from the paradox of uneven sexual requirements. As a measure of sexual success, it bypasses mutual enjoyment entirely. It reframes the debate- rather than a question of sexual ability and talent, it becomes about capacity and potential. Filling, rather than fulfilling.

By making length and girth the measure of himself, a man takes his sexuality back into his own hands (as it were). Female arousal and enjoyment is abstract, unreliable, easily misinterpreted or falsified. The size of the erect phallus is a constant. No woman can, during a break up, flippantly declare that she faked your penis size for the entire relationship. Your penis size is unchanged by the time she tried to change channels during sex. Your dick doesn't get smaller when she leaves you for a woman.

It's actually quite liberating, when you think of it. And, it explains why men are never comforted by such platitudes as "It's the motion of the ocean, not the size of the boat." Of course it's the motion of the ocean, not the size of the boat. But if you can't tell whether you've got a Tsunami or not, or if that's a good thing, or if lapping waves are really the way to go- maybe you'd be happier knowing it's a canoe.

Mysteries of Suburbia and Fat Children: Reprise

So.
I have no time right now.

(then why are you blogging?)
(shut up)

So I've been eating off the fat of the land. I live in a suburb, so the fat of the land comes wrapped in paper and handed through the window of my car. Tonight I went to KFC. By the benificence of Yum Brands, my local KFC is also a Taco Bell. Being naturally perverse, I can't order just KFC, or just Taco Bell, or any rational, suggested, combination of the two. No crispy strips and tacos combo for me.

I got a bean and cheese burrito, a small mashed potato, and a biscuit. And a pepsi. Diet. Because diet tastes better. Hippy. I got home and unpacked my colonel/south of the border booty on the floor. They pack the biscuit in a little envelope now. As if you're going to eat it like a hamburger, on the go. When I'm actually in a can't-stop-can't-sit-down hurry, I don't go for a biscuit. I don't go for pudding or yogurt, either. I go for foods designed for convenience. A stick of butter wrapped in bacon- something sensible like that. Makes its own lube.

Anyway. I unwrapped my saturated and trans fats, and found, at the bottom of the bag, something bizarre. Four little packets of ranch dressing.

I ask you: What was I supposed to do with that ranch dressing? Before you jump to conclusions, remember, KFC mashed potatoes come pre-drenched in gravy. To compound the absurdity, the total volume of ranch dressing exceeded the volume of any food item ordered, excepting the burrito. It was less a condiment than a terrifying bonus side-dish, or beverage.

Hidden valley.

Goes down easy.

Last night I saw a new show on TLC. I really, really shouldn't watch anything from the discovery channel family of programmes. This was called "Honey, We're killing the kids." I was so delighted to be able to watch this show, as it's basically just an hour of belittling families with fat children, without even the warmth, efficiency, effectiveness, or british accent of any of the nanny programs.

I missed the first few minutes of the show, because the celtics were just finishing their brutal, fourth quarter humiliation at the hands of the evil, evil New Jersey Nets. When I tuned in, the thin and perky nutritionist/hostess of the show was giving the family some rules and suggestions for how to make their kids be not such dismal little pigs. (Although, as dismal little pigs go, these were a little more endearing than most. I would have recommended against the etiquette classes, though- they were already tending towards mamma's boyishness)

The new family rules included: Five fruits and vegetables a day. No junk food. No tv in the rooms. Be good. Have a block party and share what you've learned. Seems sensible. Seems like things the british nannies would endorse.

But this program doesn't seem to be engineered for impressive success, like the nanny show. Because impressive success in not making your kids dismal little pigs can't happen in two weeks; behavioral interventions for selected problem behaviors can show success in that period. Punishment and reinforcement act more quickly than caloric restriction and lifestyle change. The other family projects (block party, etiquette lesson) were just gimmicks, to fill time.

And since there could be no success demonstrated in such a short period of time, TLC was left with a boring show. So, like the fine people at Fox (who, if you recall, nearly employed me, so they must be getting pretty desperate saints), they manufacture drama.

How?

By making the program the family must follow deliberately more difficult than it needs to be. The first night with the new diet, the father is instructed to make something called "Tofu-onion-bok choy stir fry". Which wouldn't be gross to me, but certainly would be gross to any eight year old who didn't grow up on it. The fat twelve year old rebels. The fat eight year old rebels. The still-miraculously-skinny six year old vomits.

Children don't need to eat Tofu to eat right. A much more palateable program would be more sustainable in the long term- breaded baked chicken tenderloins, roast potato wedges, and a fruit plate would have been a better balanced meal. It's also a much better lesson to learn about portion control with foods that actually taste good.

They also could have substituted the world of cheap indulgences- cookies, mini-muffins- much more successfully by introducing small amounts of great-tasting foods, as a treat- instead of the large volumes of over-sweet crap we pawn off on kids. You find me a kid who would rather mini-muffins for breakfast, oreos with lunch, and an ice cream sandwich for dinner- to a huge, warm, fresh baked cookie right after school. Just one. But a good one. And that's what fat kids have to learn- it's not about volume. Fat kids don't know there's a tomorrow, a later.

And, they could have done more to get active. They could have introduced the kids to a ton of sports and activities to see if they find one they like. Kids like to move. Trampolines. Hikes. Swings. Bikes. Rollerblades. Give a kid a new bike on the day you take away the TV- that works better than just unplugging it.

But unplugging the TV and taking away the cookies sure does cause colorful tantrums.

I think I've shown that "Honey, we're killing the kids" won't really stop anyone from killing their kids.

We can't even stop from killing ourselves. I went to a fast-food restaurant, didn't order anything fried, but didn't even delude myself into beleiving that my meal was healthy. But it wasn't fried. It wasn't buttered. It wasn't covered in cheese. So what did I get, by default?

Four packets of ranch dressing.

Yikes.

My shoulder hurts.

It looks like, because I like to make poor decisions (good decisions), I will end up going more than 100,000 in debt to go to law school.

Whee. So if I seem a little more resentful than usual, that's why.

There was a rally/protest/thingie on campus the other day. It was about the high cost of higher education. Massachusetts is one of the only states in the nation without a public or semi public law school. (Rhode Island is another, Vermont is another). Here in New England, we like our education liberal, well-reputed, and private.

I'm at this moment lucky to only be about 18,000 in debt from my first go-round. Which means that I'm better off than most of the people I started undergrad with. I had a very fortuitous combination of circumstances- briefly wealthy parents, a hefty scholarship, and a nice early expulsion.

So I'm going to be signing loans, and getting cosigners (if my parents can- they may not be able to. My sister defaulted on about 60,000 of student loans. Go Sis!) for an amount of money I can't even picture. I'll spend most on tuition, and the rest on living expenses. In America's most expensive housing market, you can't get anally raped for less than 1,025 a month.

I actually may have to start renting out my vagina as an ocean view condo (great neighbors! Cozy charm!) It'll actually be illegal, because there's no real second means of egress, but I could put a little exit sign in there, and a fire escape, and just learn how to do splits and spend a lot of time at the beach. If I stand on my head, there's a skylight. But I'm not putting in wall to wall carpeting. That's where I draw the line. Too tacky.

I broke a hundred posts.

My hundredth post was titled "Show Me Your Pussy"

Which, I think, sums up the entire purpose of this blog. Stranger's vaginas, and what should and shouldn't be done in and around them.

Temple, by the way, sucked.

A lot.

A LOT.

It was like....

I can't even describe.

Sucked.