Indifferent Jellybean
just a small town girl living a dull life in the cityIt’s an anti-Valentine post! What a surprise!
Happy Singles’ Awareness Day! Even the cafeteria at work is having some guitar player in to “serendade” those eating in the caf with “romantic” songs. Yes. Because nothing says Romance like cafeteria food…
One of the nicest things about not having cable is not being subjected to the myriad of crappy Valentine’s Day commercials. “Buy her chocolate/jewellery/flowers to show how much you love her! The giving of expensive material goods is the only way to show how much you care!” Ugh.
“Well, sure,” you say. “Of course you don’t like Valentine’s Day, you bitter, boyfriend-less bitch! If you had a boyfriend, you’d be complaining that he DIDN’T get you flowers/chocolates/whatever…”
Maybe. But, I doubt it. I’ve always (like, since 2nd/3rd grade) found V-Day to be a pointless exercise in blatant consumerism, with little or no emotional heart to it whatsoever. ” Oh, I love you, TODAY. Because it’s Valentine’s Day. And that is the only day of the year that I can truly express my love! Let’s light some candles and make tender love to each other all through the night.” Ugh.
Anyway, I guess my disenchantment with the whole V-Day thing is a result of my parents (and for this I am ever thankful). They’ve always been apathetic about the whole Valentine’s experience. I remember being fairly young and asking Dad why he hadn’t bought Mom any flowers/chocolates, etc.
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
“Well, ’cause it’s Balentine’s!” (Note: As a very young child, I constantly mixed up my ‘B’s and my ‘V’s. So, for example, people didn’t paly Volleyball, they played BolleyVall. Quite the difference from the articulate, well-spoken individual I am today. ^-^)
I’ll always remember his response, because it’s so representative of my parents and their relationship.
“I don’t need a special day to show your Mom that I love her,” Dad said. “Because I make sure to tell her every day.”
That, my friends, is awesome. And true. Even though they bicker and (sometimes intentionally) annoy each other, I know that they do care for each other very much. Mom doesn’t expect gifts on Valentine’s Day because she doesn’t need an object to prove that he loves her, and Dad doesn’t buy her anything because he knows she knows. After 25 years of marriage, they may not have the great passionate love anymore (or maybe they do; I’ve moved, I don’t know what they do when I’m not around), but they have a great, loving relationship.
And that’s why I dislike V-Day. Because “love” shouldn’t be reduced to objects or declarations. It should be quietly and tangibly shown, each day. If you need a grand gesture to prove your love, then, personally, I think there’s something wrong with your relationship. This is probably why my Mom blames herself for “ruining me for men”. Yes, well done, Mother. ^-^.
Also, I am very cheap. I don’t like spending money on things that I think are useless. Ranking quite high on this list: flowers and cards. I also don’t like spending money on jewellery, simply because I never really wear any. Chocolates…um, yeah, I’ll spend money on those, but not on the expensive, heart-shaped, V-Day stuff; chocolate is a year-round treat.
I remember hating to waste money on those stupid Valentine’s Day cards we would pass out at school. First of all, I didn’t like most of my classmates. Certainly not enough to spend money on them. Secondly, the process was skewed; you HAD to give EVERYONE a card, because “it wasn’t fair for little Bradley to be left out!” even though he was a tool and smelt like cheese all the time. 7-year-old me didn’t want him to “be my Valentine!”. And people always spelt my name wrong on the cards, which pissed me off (thanks again, Mom).
Ladies, I blame you for the continuance of this ridiculous farce of a “holiday”. You’ve latched on to this fabricated celebration of sentiment and created an industry based on exploiting insecurity. Women who need objects to validate their partners’ love are the driving force behind this “holiday” – it makes them feel less insecure, for at least a few days. Valentine’s Day also preys on the insecurities of single women. “Look,” the commercials imply, “Isn’t it great to be in a relationship and have a man who can buy things for you? What’s so wrong with you that you don’t have this?” And so those single women go out and they spend MORE money on clothes and products, because god forbid you should be alone NEXT V-Day, and you need to SPEND MONEY to look attractive to the opposite sex. The companies continue to produce this schlock because we let them, and that’s what’s wrong with…well, society is too broad a term, I think, but yeah, I guess.
I’ve never had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, and I’ve never felt that I was worth any less as an individual (The above is probably why. Too much effort, too little gain). I just think that Valentine’s Day sends the wrong message to those who ARE influenced by the media and the hype.
So, in conclusion: Valentine’s Day sucks no matter which way you spin it. It’s a Hallmark holiday, and not even an inclusive one like Easter (Ok, you may argue that Easter isn’t inclusive because it’s a Christian holiday, but I’m willing to bet you that even little Hindu children eat chocolate eggs around Eastertime.). Whether you’re a lonely single woman listening to the sound of your biological clock ticking, or a long-married man having to waste a few weeks pay on a tacky piece of jewellery, or a parent having to spend $10 on a box of corporate-branded cards (because Dora the Explorer is all about V-Day) . . . it’s one of the most irritating days of the year.
Well, I think I’ve made myself seem like a crazed, bitter spinster enough for today. If only I could put this much effort into ACTUAL thought and work…
Be sure to watch for my March 14th post: Why “Steak and a Blowjob Day” should be a real holiday!
Of prostitution and “Persuasion”
An e-mail exchange between myself and the Roommate, on the subject of one of romantic comedies, hookers, and the inherent hotness of Ewan McGregor.
Also, the title of this post makes it sound much more interesting than it really is. You’re forewarned.
Me: Persuasion is better than Sense and Sensibility, I think.
Roommate: They both sound good. I just dont know what I want.
Me: Persuasion is much better.
Roommate: Ok, I’ll think about it. Is it pretty romantic?
Me: Not really. I mean, obviously, a little, but not over the top romantic. Anne is pragmatic. And Wentworth is kind of bitter about being dumped. Typical rom-com without all the shloopy bits.
Roommate: lol… You just like summed it up in the most contemporary terms.
Me: It’s true. Well, pretty much. That’s what I took out of it, anyway. Honestly, Jane Austen wrote the plot to every romantic comedy ever backbefore movies even existed. Well, except the ones with the prostitutes…
Roommate: Oh prostitutes. They make everything so interesting though!
Me: Meh. I hated Pretty Woman. Stupid Julia Roberts. Everyone’s always like “It’s so romantic” and I’m like, “You do realize that Richard Gere picked up a whore, right?”
R: Bahaha… I also hate that movie, I have never seen it in its entirety.And she’s not a real hooker. She’s not interesting to a story. I mean hookers with a history. I want to see Monster for that reason.
Me: Well, that’s the thing, right, that makes it romantic. Like, Julia isn’t a “real” hooker. In fact, Richard Gere was her first client! But that doesn’t mitigate the fact that she’s STILL A HOOKER. It’s not romantic. I mean, do you honestly think they would stay together after the movie ends? Like, he climbs up the balcony and then they get together and “omg, his life is changed!” but he’s still this douche who picks up hookers, and she’ll always be a hooker, and he’ll always keep throwing that in her face. And the thing is, she’ll never be independent, she’ll always be dependent on Richard Gere for money and stuff, because she has no skills/background to use to support herself, except her hooking. So, she HAS to stay with him, even though he’s out picking up random hookers, and that makes her EVEN MORE of a whore.
Clearly, I’ve put way too much thought into this. I always just felt like Pretty Woman glamorized prostitution.
I liked Moulin Rouge, which was kind of about a hooker, but it doesn’t have a happy ending, so that’s ok.
I’ve never seen Monster. But I see what you mean.
R: You have been giving this a lot of thought. And yes Moulin Rouge wasbetter, but she was a courtesan, like in a show type thing, not a on the corner, thigh high boots type. She had more class, if you can say a working woman has some.
Me: A courtesan is just a really high-class hooker. But at least she had integrity, you know. She didn’t get with the millionaire guy because she didn’t love him!
I still shut that movie off half-way through though…I like the happy dancy bits, not the sad lung cancer depression parts.R: Agreed, like the diamonds scene is so good. But I don’t love Ewan anyways. And it was in Paris. Much better.lol
Me: You DON’T love Ewan?! What’s wrong with you!
FRIENDSHIP OVER.(He was hot in Emma, even with the bad mullet-thing. And in Star Wars, even with the stupid braid and then with the beard. Also in that crappy Big Fish movie. Whatever. He’s hot. lol)
And, thus, we came back around to the original topic of conversation: Roommate wanted book recommendations, I suggested Jane Austen, and the conversation devolved from there. Just one of the many examples of a conversation veering randomly from one topic to the next.
In which I complain about work.
I’m waiting for e-mails. The Intranet and HR people are driving me insane; Intranet won’t give me a timeline until they see the finished product, and HR won’t give me a finished product until they see a timeline. There is nothing fun about being a middle-man, but at least it’s sort of interesting, trying to negoitate with both groups. Also, the Intranet people need to get over themselves. If I could be bothered to learn how to PDF things I could do that job. I mean, they still use HTML, ffs.
Anyway, I was very very bad today and went to the caf for lunch. Whatever, I’m sick of soup. I got fries (bad) and a Pepsi (very very bad). So much for my kicking the habit. But you know, it doesn’t really taste all that great. AND I noticed this morning that my teeth have actually gotten whiter in the 2 1/2 weeks since I quit drinking it. So, I’m going to finish the bottle and then I’ll be fine. It’s like smoking, you know; you can quit but still have a drag every now and then and it won’t kill you (well, it might, but whatever).
I’m also waiting on LDD to get back to me with a translation. Because they thought the text they gave me was “too wordy”. Because, you know, all of 30 people look at my weekly messages, and we’d hate for those people to have to read a little. I doubt they’ll click the link anyway.
Ok, so HR is pissed now. They want to know why the Intranet team can’t just post half now and then the other half later. Honestly, I can’t see why they can’t do that either. In fact, I think it would be easier for them to work in chunks, so as to be less rushed come the end of March. The Intranet people have never been anything but polite and accomodating to me, so I hate to have to bitch them out, but this really needs to be done, and I can’t see what else they’re doing that would possibly take up so much of their time.
I’m still waiting on the translation from LDD. I’m giving them until 2pm, and then after that I’m sending it out. Also, I think certain people on the Intranet team are avoiding my calls. Good times.
Of chocolates, both shiny and sweet.
I bought a new cell phone last night. It’s an LG Chocolate, in “Cherry”; it’s very shiny, and red, and I like it very much so far. I tested it out last night and the reception seemed fine (apparently some people have had bad reception in the Ottawa area) and it didn’t fall apart in my hands or anything.
I am very hard on my electronics. Every electronic I have ever purchased or had given to me for personal use either breaks entirely or malfunctions. For example:
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my laptop (busted USB port, motherboard failure, hard-drive crash, and the disk drive makes funny noises, not to mention the general slowness and constant random reboots)
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my clock radio (the alarm clock always works, but occasionally it won’t let me change the times, so I’m stuck either getting up at 4:30 or 11:00…yes, I have an alarm set for 11:00 am. You know, in case I need to get up early on the weekend.)
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my camera (“accidentally” doused in Coke. No longer functions AT ALL. Technically NOT my fault, but still makes the list.)
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my portable CD players (prior to the iPod, I owned several CD players, each of which had problems, including intermittent skipping, abnormal humming noises, and loud and constant static. As far as I know, my last CD player still works, but I haven’t used it since 2005, and it’s sitting in a drawer in my parents’ basement.)
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my parents’ PC (technically, this wasn’t just for me, but since I was the primary user, I was the one responsible for causing it to function at the pace of a slightly mentally-challenged snail, “what with all the pointless downloading”.)
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my iPod (sometimes it just sort of stops working…randomly, in the middle of a song, and then I have to hold the buttons down and plug it in to get it working again.)
So, imagine my surprise when, after two years of daily use, the one electronic item that didn’t stop working was my cell phone (although I did have some battery issues when I first got it).
In the spirit of “better safe than sorry”, I also purchased a warranty along with my shiny new cell phone (I’ve read some pretty bad reviews of the Chocolate, and wanted to make sure I could get a replacement if the microphone goes/the buttons stop working, etc). While doing this, I remarked to the Roommate (who came with me), “Well, I think Dad will be pleased that I got a warranty. You know, just in case.”
Dad wasn’t pleased.
Him: “You shouldn’t have to buy a warranty!”
Me: “But…but…I thought you’d want me to!”
Him: “Tsh. It should just work. Besides, you never had any problems with your old phone.”
Me: “Well, no. But…”
Him: “You wasted your money!”
Lesson learned: Even when you think you’ve done what they want you to do, you’re wrong.
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I’m being good today, and not going downstairs to buy chocolate or chips, despite the fact that I’ve actually got cash in my wallet for once. Nope. I’m staying right here, for two reasons. Reason 1: I’m tired of spending more on empty calories that don’t do anything for me. Reason 2: I need to lose weight, and eating chocolate isn’t really conducive to that. Besides, I have a chocolate bar at home (which I bought 2 days ago and haven’t eaten yet! Unprecedented!). I had to wear jeans to work again today because I took my dress pants out of the dryer and now they’re too tight. Because I’m fat. So I’m wearing “skinny” jeans (which are actually more loose than my regular jeans), a short-sleeved mock neck (because I’m not happy with my boobs just now) and my office-sweater. Oh, and sneakers, which look really stupid with the jeans. Uh huh. Sexy, no? It’s almost as if I got up 15 minutes before work and just threw on whatever! (I didn’t! I had to try on the too-tight pants first, and then came all the low-cut tops, and then I finally put on the clothes I’m wearing now.) Ugh.
So anyway, after I finish that chocolate bar tonight, I’m giving up chocolate for Lent. Despite the fact that I’m not a practising Catholic, I think it’s good motivation, like a reboot to my failed New Year’s resolutions. Anyway, I think I can go 40 (or 39, whatever) days without chocolate. I’ve been cola-free for 2 weeks today, and it’s really not that hard. My problem is the sugar, really. I get really bad cravings for something sweet, and instead of eating a fruit or something with natural sugars, I binge on chocolate. So, giving up chocolate seems to be the logical step, no? I foresee much gum-chewing in my future.
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CS continues his campaign of annoyingness as I type. He’s blah-blahing to the guy in the office behind my cube. “Wah wah, here’s what wrong with the government today,well, when I did this it was so special, blah blah, everything is done wrong here and I would fix it by undermining the process, etc etc. This is insightful to me, blah blah.” Seriously? STFU. “Let me impart my amazingly insightful advice to you!” Um, how about NO. I don’t know what myproblem is, but he just grates on me. “Let me complain about everything, and yet do nothing!” Argh. ARGH.
Of lettuce and lack of forethought.
Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about switching from Live Journal to WordPress is the lack of customization. WordPress, your layouts are ugly! and I am unwilling to pay to change them! I don’t like the fact that the text portion of this layout is nearly too narrow to read, but it’s the only one without stupid buttons, ugly colours or “professional rounded edges”. Also, if you can offer me a “custom header” (very generous of you, by the way…ooo, a whole free header!), then why can’t I opt out of having a header entirely? Oh, and your new layouts with “colour choices”? Those suck too.
Maybe I’m making a big deal out of aesthetics, but they’re important. It’s what’s inside the blog that counts, but honestly, I’m not going to read anything if it’s ugly. I do indeed judge your blog by its cover. So, now, because I can’t opt out of the header, I have to figure out something that is less…pointless?…than the lake/beach picture that currently sits atop my empty blog. And despite my little rant about how much I like nice web design, when it comes to actually designing my own graphics? Massive fail. So, we’ll see what I come up with.
Oh, and WordPress, why the lack of listed tags? I don’t want a cloud, I want a list.
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Maybe I’m just cranky. At the moment, I’m trying to eat a very runny tomato with nothing but a very sharp knife. I’ll be happy if I don’t stab myself in the nose.
Here’s my problem when it comes to packing a daily lunch: I don’t think ahead, and I’m very lazy. For example, this morning, having gotten up at the last possible minute, I didn’t so much pack a lunch, but instead just sort of threw the elements of a lunch in my bag. Bread. Sandwich meat (in a baggie, obviously. Despite what you may think, I wouldn’t just throw meat in my bag…). Lettuce. Tomato. All the elements required to make myself both a nutrious and delicious sandwich. I also included the necessary implements for eating my lunch: sppon (for yogurt) and knife (for cutting the tomato).
At noon, I proceeded to make my sandwich, sans tomato. The slightly squishy tomato would have ruined the deliciousness of the lettuce/meat combo by making the bread soggy. So, I ate the tomato separately (as outlined above). However! Here’s where my lack of forethought comes into play: I used three pieces of lettuce to make my sandwich, which I took directly from the romaine lettuce heart I threw in my bag this morning. Of which a good 3/4 is left.
I have to spend the rest of the day walking around with lettuce in my bag. I have to attend class, knowing the lettuce is slowing getting wilty and brown. I have to go to the mall tonight, knowing that at any moment, if I were to pull out my wallet, I could potentially also pull out that lettuce, much to my embarrassment and the confusion of the sales staff and my fellow shoppers. Also, I’m concerned that it will get mushy and leak lettuce-juice onto my iPod.
Of course, I didn’t think of any of that this morning as I was rushing out the door, keys in one hand, lettuce in the other, and with my ID card between my teeth.
Much like my never-ending struggle with putting things off until the last minute, I doubt I’ll ever learn to think about the consequences of a hurriedly packed lunch.
