Be confident. Hesitation and second thoughts are what cause accidents. – Dad
Don’t drive in heels. – Anne
Watch the people in the cars around you to give you a sense of what they are about to do next. – Brian
Invest in a nice pair of driving gloves. Steering wheels are freezing on cold winter mornings. – Mom
Drive like everyone else is crazy. – Dad
What’s your favorite driving advice?
I’m giving up sweets again for Lent this year. I did it two years ago for the first time and it went pretty well. It enraged my family and made my pants fit a little less snugly, which for me are two signs of success.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing observing Lent?” My relatives asked me. “You weren’t raised Catholic. What the damn crap?”
It’s true that my decision to give something up for Lent is not the product of religious devotion, or even interest. Some might find this disconcerting or insulting. Why observe a religious tradition just because you think you need a break from junk food? I don’t have an easy answer to that, but I will say that giving something up DOES lead me to think more about the things I take for granted in life. It also leads to some vigorous and groundless whining. Mainly, though, I just like a challenge. I think the part of me that enjoys running outside in the rain, living through Boston winters, and taking unreliable public transportation, is the part that thinks giving up something for Lent is a swell idea. And 40 days is a long time to go without sweets when you’re the kind of person who considers chocolate covered pretzels to be part of a complete breakfast. The other part being coffee.
Last year I gave up beer for Lent, and that was much harder to go without than sweets. Think about it; when you’re in the mood for a cookie, you can always go have a beer or two instead. Eventually you’ll forget about the cookie. But when you’re in the mood for a beer and instead you have a cookie, you just feel sad about life.
So, here goes. As of today, no dessert for me. I’ll try not to whine too much about how I miss desserts, because when you get right down to it, I’m not being all that hard-core. I’m still drinking soda and putting sugar in my coffee. There’s only so much a girl can take. Even Boston winters have their warm days.
My satirical take on the pursuit of youth can now be found in Happy Woman Magazine!
The newest issue of the Perpetual Post is up at midnight on Tuesday. My argument this week defends A-Rod’s choice to inject steroids he received from his cousin. Find it and the opposing view here.
Blood is thicker than steroidy water.
Many years ago during a visit with family, my great-uncle told us he’d like to make dinner for everyone. On the menu? An extremely spicy stir-fry dish. My mother pulled me aside for a brief discussion prior to the meal. At the time, I was a notoriously picky eater, and she was worried that I would embarrass her at the table in front of our relatives.
“Listen to me,” she hissed. “I don’t care what he makes; I don’t care if you don’t like it. YOU. WILL. EAT. IT. No matter what. Understand?” I understood. And at dinner, I choked the meal down politely, although my mouth was on fire. It’s a well-known if unspoken rule that you should be on your best behavior around extended family, particularly if you don’t see them often. If they give you a birthday present you’ll never use, take you to see a movie you hate, or recommend that you ingest an unidentified substance, who are you to rock the boat? They’re family!
It is thus not difficult for me to appreciate why A-Rod allowed his cousin to inject him with an unidentified substance-he was clearly being polite. To refuse the offer would have been unconscionably rude, not to mention weak, because it would have meant missing out on strength-building steroids. At the very least, Rodriguez would have risked being grounded.
Without a doubt, Alex Rodriguez found himself in a complicated situation with this particular cousin. Still, I understand why he did what he did. Some questions have no easy answers, particularly questions that start with, “Do you want to hit the ball further? Here, give me your butt.”
Really, what was he supposed to say to his cousin that fateful day and then twice a week for three years after that? “What are you injecting into my ass?” Or perhaps, “Some substances are banned by the Major League Baseball Players Association and my career could be ruined if I’m discovered using them, so maybe this is a bad idea?” How would THAT have sounded? Imagine the lack of trust-in his own flesh and blood!-that such a reaction would have implied? It would have broken his mother’s heart to know that she raised the kind of son who would look a gift syringe full of mystery liquid-gift in the mouth.
Why don’t we also insist that Alex tells his Grandma Ethel that he actually hates her Noodle Kugel? How about we make him tell his Aunt Janet that he never wears the snowflake sweater she knitted him for Christmas? How about that? When it comes to standing up to family, where do we draw the line? Alex didn’t know-but can we really blame him?
In a way, A-Rod’s choice was admirable-he chose to follow his family over following the regulations which governed the sport that rewarded him with an extremely successful career. A-Rod knew which side he wanted to be on. After all, you don’t spend Christmas with the Major League Baseball Players Association. And do you think they give a damn about your vacation slides? In a world where it sometimes seems like people will do anything to get ahead, thank you, Alex Rodriguez, for reminding us that family should come first.
The dog always knows when I’m feeling low. I was in my dark place the other night, feeling lousy about life and missing New York City. I spent the entire drive home in a cloud of gloom, and Brian instinctively knew to give me a wide berth when I arrived.
Charlie, on the other hand, padded over to me where I sat on the couch, put his front paws in my lap, and looked into my eyes. I hesitated, then put my arms around his neck and felt slightly comforted. Charlie always knows when I need a hug, I thought. It’s nice just sitting here in his warm, doggy glow–
“Charlie!” I said, pushing him away gently as he began to lick my face. “Easy, boy.” We sat in silence for a moment. My thoughts drifted back to the miserable day I’d had, and how I sometimes felt like I didn’t belong in North Carolina. What was I doing here any–
“Charlie!” Now his cold nose was sliming my face. He began licking my chin. His breath was unappealing. But, you know, he was trying. I grabbed his muzzle and pushed it away again. I wished he would sit still for a few minutes! I just wanted to sit in peace, hugging him close, while reveling in my misery–
“CHARLIE!” Once again he had wormed his head out of my grasp and was now licking me across the mouth. I shoved his face to the side and the enthusiastic tongue-bath was instantly transferred to my palm.
“Charlie, I just want to sit here and relax,” I said in frustration, then gave up and started to laugh as he went back to licking my face in earnest. His breath smelled like a rotten corn dog. The fog began to lift, my melancholy dissipated. Things didn’t seem so bad anymore, and I couldn’t remember why I’d been upset. Thank goodness for dogs, sometimes.
If suggesting that this book be brailled was the only thing I accomplished when I worked for this lovely company, I would be happy. Hopefully it’s not the only thing. But it’s probably the thing I am most proud of.
Leanne’s recent video-game related post reminded me of how I too dislike violent, fighty first-person videogames. With the realistic graphics and sound that these games have, they are just too real for me. I can’t handle the heat.
I used to watch in horrified fascination as Brian played “Bioshock”, which was set in a rotting underwater city populated with cackling madmen. Apparently one of the objects of the game was to locate and rescue several children. “Why are you saving those kids?” I remember asking him. “What kind of lives are they going to have, growing up in that horrible place?” Brian would pause the game to give me a look.
One time (and only one time) Brian tried to get me to play “Army of Two” with him. He must have been desperate. In “Army of Two”, you and your teammate are in a war zone together, shooting bad guys with automatic weapons and getting shot at and blowing stuff up. Occasionally if you get hit, your character lies down and you hear a harsh, husky voice say, “Save me, I’m not gonna make it,” or something dramatic like that. I’m pretty sure that line brought tears to my eyes.
“Who are we even shooting at?” I kept squeaking. “Don’t shoot those guys! They might be civilians! They have families! Why are they trying to kill me? They don’t even know me! WAR IS SO TERRIBLE!”
I lasted through about ten minutes of “Army of Two” before Brian gave up and stopped the game. If you ask me, he should have seen that coming. He knows I’m a Bubble Bobble kind of girl.
(The latest issue of the Perpetual Post is up at Midnight on Monday. Here’s a sneak peak at my anti-mall article. Read both sides of the story here.)
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to express my intense dislike of malls without coming off looking like a huge snob, and I have to admit, I’m having some trouble. I just really hate chain stores, pregnant teenagers and food courts, and that pretty much runs the gamut of the mall experience in a nutshell.
I’d like to think that my anti-mall stance comes from a place of self-preservation rather than elitism. It’s not that I think I’m too good for the mall; it’s that for some reason I lack the means to protect myself from the mall. I let the mall get to me too easily. The mall oozes over my brain like melted cheese over a hot pretzel. I am powerless to stop it, and so I do my best to avoid exposure.
I have always been a little oversensitive– prone, since childhood, to bouts of melancholy that often seem to come out of nowhere. These depressive spells can be triggered by the most seemingly insignificant details– and somehow, malls are always swarming with such details. A woman in her fifties trying on pink stretch pants at Hot Topic. A dead-eyed teenage employee slumped behind the counter of a cell phone kiosk. A store that sells only baseball caps. Most normal, well-adjusted people will witness such depressing occurrences and move on without giving them another thought. But not me. I’ll spend five minutes watching a teenage father, in headphones, trying to quiet a screaming baby by feeding it chicken nuggets, and I’m ready to tear my hair out at the miserable agony of life. And then I’m ready to have some chicken nuggets.
Needless to say, I am not a popular mall companion. No one usually asks me to go to the mall with them more than once. I feel bad about this to a certain extent. I wish I could be the fun friend who says things like, “Hey, check out that cute security guard! Let’s get curly fries.” Instead, I trail gloomily behind you like Eeyore, mocking the “Just Nightgowns” store and sneering at all of the slow, obese children. I can’t blame my friends for leaving me at home. Who wants to browse Forever 21 with Droopy Dog? What’s pleasant about wandering through Crabtree & Evelyn with a Chekov character?
Part of the problem may be the lack of mall exposure in my youth. Growing up in Manhattan, there was a dearth of malls. We had big department stores that took up a whole city block, like Macys and Bloomingdales, but that wasn’t really the same. Mom took me to get my first training bra at Macy’s. Groups of teenagers didn’t hang out at Macy’s all day and make eyes at each other across the Home Goods and Bedding aisles. Macy’s was not cool.
As teenagers, we had to find other ways to entertain ourselves, and these included going outside between stores while we shopped. Sure, it was cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and when it was raining out we got rained on, but we also experienced sunlight and breathed in fresh air (well, Manhattan fresh), and avoided food courts. And somehow, I recall encountering fewer massive people in motorized wheelchairs and underage parents walloping their ratty children for spilling their Big Gulps.
We hung out at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, too, which was kind of like a mall in a way, except it was closer to George Romero’s version of a mall in Dawn of the Dead. That is to say, every third person in Port Authority would just as soon stab you as look at you, for various reasons. But, you know, there were shops and restaurants, and a bowling alley, and an ever-present urine smell. I always kind of liked Port Authority Bus Terminal, actually. Maybe it’s because there, the feeling of sadness and desperation is not hidden like it is in most malls. It’s out in the open; even palpable. The sense of danger and despair, the commerce and the crowds, the ugliness and the monotony and the meaningless passage of empty hours; all in plain sight. Maybe I don’t hate malls after all– as long as they’re done right.
I just learned, upon checking the balance of my credit card, that Citibank is now on Facebook. It almost makes me want to rejoin Facebook, so that I can become Citibank’s facebook friend and then leave comments on its page like, “STOP WITH THE F&#%-ING INCREASED FINANCE CHARGES, YOU A%&-HOLE.”
Or maybe I will say, “OMG Citibank you were so crazy at that party last weekend! You are such a slut! LOL”
Maybe it will reward me with a status message:
[Citibank is]: making Molly poor.
I Heard Tell 