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Gift registries

Have you ever thought about what a gift registry means? I mean, it's pretty selfish if you think about it. It's like "I'm getting married, and here's the stuff I want you to buy me." Or, "I'm having a baby and here's what I want my baby to be wearing after it's born." I mean, why should I care about your wedding or baby? Now that we live in 2006, when people are post-poning marriage and families to further their education, or choosing not to have families at all, why can't those folks have showers? I should have a "I'm going to continue to be a poor student for the next 4 years" shower. I mean hell, I need money, a laptop...but you're probably thinking "why should I care that you're going back to school?" aren't you? That's what I thought.

I had sent out a wish list to close friends and family of birthday gifts. This is the first time in many, many years that I asked for anything for my birthday. In the past I always pulled the "I just want your lovely presence, please don't bring gifts." I mean, I turned 30 this year, a milestone (not to mention I'm a poor starving student), so I wanted the celebration to be special.
But one person's nonverbals were telling me she thought it was ridiculous of me to ask for gifts. But um, last time I checked, birthdays have been associated with gifts, am I wrong? So rather than people giving me shit I wouldn't use (cuz if you haven't noticed, people who have known you for many many years still won't know what to get you), I thought I'd just let people know. Or, just get me what you can afford, and if you don't consider me to be a close friend, then don't get me anything and it's okay, my world won't fall apart. Just shut up about it. I mean jeez, gifts at a birthday party, SHOCKER.

To top all this off, when people get the gifts they registered for, they still act so surprised when they open them. You get the "Ohhh, that is sooo nice. It is so beautiful! I haven't seen anything like it, it's going to come in handy. Thank you!!"

So you didn't KNOW you might be getting that as a gift if you registered for it?? It's also funny how some folks don't want to know the sex of the baby until it's born. "We want to be surprised," they say. Surprised?? I thought that, for the most part, it can be one of two things, a boy or a girl.

You know what would be a surprise? Meeting a man who's not chicken shit.

God bless

I love when you hear on people's outgoing messages: "Have a great day and God bless." or when they sign greeting cards that say "God bless." In case you haven't figured it out, I DON'T love it (I was being sarcastic, imagine that).

That expression is quite pompous isn't it? What, you talked to God directly and KNOW that he blesses me? How do you not know I'm a jerk and God has decided I'm going to hell?

I should end my messages with, "May you have learned from your pansy-assed actions in this lifetime and not be born as a cockroach in your next life."

Miracle

I love how many people consider the birth of a child to be a miracle, particularly those religious ones who subscribe to gender stereotypes. I had a conversation with a male friend on Friday, and he believes that it's a shame that so many women don't want to have families and focus on a career instead. "Because having a child is such a miracle," he said. Okay, hmm. I don't get the miracle aspect of it quite frankly. You have unprotected sex and a sperm fertilizes an egg and there you have it. And then the woman has to push something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a grape (relatively speaking, of course). So explain what part's the miracle exactly?

The miracle would be suddenly given a child without having to go through pregnancy, having them be little princes and princesses during adolescence, and them not needing to take your money. With that said, my cat's more of a miracle. She costs a lot less money and doesn't talk back.

Allergies

So not only does 120-degree heat come with the territory when living in the desert, but so does having allergies. So when I glare at you, that's my "I have allergies" eye. Because, as empathic and caring as I am (cuz I have to be for my damn profession), the one time I do not care to get loving attention in return is when I'm sneezing due to allergies. It's so annoying when women with their annoying little saccharine voices say "Oh sweetie, are you sick? Do you have a cold?" (That's almost worse than the 10 sneezes in 5 seconds.)

"NO!!!!!! I'm fucking sneezing all the time because of this damn desert weather."

But rather than say all that, I'll just glare at you. Not the stink eye, not the evil eye, not the crook eye, not the "it's so hot" eye, but the glaring allergy eye.

Phone books

I don't think I've hated material objects in my life as much as I hate the phone book. Funny, I've completely personalized it, and resent it. Another couple phone books showed up on my doorstep yesterday. AGAIN. Why the hell they think I need them, I do not know. We now have internet where I can look up businesses and people. So if we have dexonline, why does Dex keep showing up at my door? And worse yet, there's no place nearby where I can go to recycle them, all the more reason to resent them. So for the past few times I've gone in and out of my apartment, I've just looked the other way, snubbed 'em.

But you know, snubbing material objects just isn't as satisfying, cuz they don't know you're snubbing them. That's the fun in snubbing in the first place, having the object being snubbed know they're being snubbed.

Fun

Okay, so I was eating some M&M's today, from the small, miniature packets. Do you realize this size of M&M packets is called the "fun size"? Fun size. I wouldn't call eating fewer M&M's as being FUN. In my book, the more the merrier with M&Ms but hey, that's just me.

You know what would be fun? Not having to interact with those annoying people who like to tell you to smile. "Jeez, smile for a change why don't ya?" Who the hell are you to tell me to smile? I spend a long fucking day of talking to classmates, instructors, clients, students, family, friends, blah, blah blah, blah blah, and I will have you know that like 90% of the time, I'm a pretty fun, cheerful and pleasant person to be around who usually has a smile on my face, despite the dimwits I have to talk to all the time. So if one day I'm not quite feeling 100% CHIPPER, give me some slack, ok? Hell, I work like an 80-hour week, so if I want to not smile for 1 out of 60 days, that's my perogative.

What would be a good comeback for the annoying, "Why don't you smile?" Probably, "Because I'm looking at your sorry ass."

Soy sauce

So I was eating my lunch today (stir-fry noodles, tofu, broccoli and a spring roll-quite yummy, I made it myself) and put soy sauce on it. Well, in order to cover all the food with the sauce I poured a good amount, in concentric circles around the container so as to get good coverage. So you know where this is going right? I poured too much. I always forget that soy sauce is in fact soy WATER and I end up with a puddle of it at the bottom of the container. And when the spring roll accidentally slipped out of my hand, it splattered some "sauce" on me.

So if we're capable of instant messenger, nanotechnologies and cloning, why can't we come up with a soy sauce that's really a sauce: thicker so that it's easier to dip the spring roll, and it doesn't make a puddle at the bottom of the bowel?

The gym

I think health gyms are probably the organizations who make the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. Think about it, how many people do you know who have gym memberships actually use them? Now don't get me wrong, there are a few people who do go about an hour or so every day or every other day and put their money to use.

But, there are 2 extremes for the most part. People who either don't go at all, or those who go for like 4 hours a day. In the first case, they're wasting money while the gyms say "suckers!", and in the second case, they have no life cuz they just work and go to the gym, that's it. Who in their right mind is motivated to do something like that? 4 HOURS??? Exercise is supposed to help you be more productive in your life, not keep you from having a life.

And what really blows me away is that instead of doing something fun for exercise like playing ball and enjoying nice weather, people would rather spend 4 hours in a building which a bunch of machines and smelly, stinky, sweaty people. Can you imagine: "No honey, I don't want to have sex with you, I have to go sweat on the stairmaster instead."

Vision

So pilots have to have 20-20 vision. But those who drive don't, yet on the road people have to read traffic lights, signs, see other cars' turn signals, and watch out for bikers and pedestrians. Okay, makes sense.

So why DO pilots have to have 20-20 vision? They have the control tower telling them what's coming, and they look out and just see a fog anyway. So they need perfect vision to see the controls in the cockpit just a few inches away from them?

In that case, men should have to have 20-20 vision in order to engage in any sexual activity. I've had situations where it was like, "Ouch, that's my NIPPLE. It's small and delicate, so why the hell are you treating it like it's a popsicle??!"

International travel

International travel is like a huge slumber party. You're in a large plane with 200 people who are talking, watching movies together, eating together, and sleeping VERY close to each other. Except it's worse than a slumber party. It's kinda gross if you think about it; sometimes you're spending like 10 hours with these people, some of whom have not showered or brushed their teeth in who knows how long.

So then, you would think that the immigration line at the airport would go much faster but no, they are painfully slow. Why do those officers want to spend that much time talking with people who haven't brushed their teeth and have bed hair and rings under their eyes?

Trash cans

Okay, I am a very culturally-sensitive person and I'd like to think I am not ethnocentric. But I'm sorry, there is one thing that I cannot understand outside of the US: lack of trash cans. When I visit my family in India, there is just one "dust bin" in the ENTIRE house. When I was in a hostel in London, we had to ask a number of times for a trash can before we got one. What do the people in these places DO? How hard is it to have a trash can in the rooms where you'd frequently need one?

If I'm brushing my hair and I have a bunch of hair that comes out of my brush, am I supposed to put it in my pocket until I come across a trash can?

Training bras

Okay, so it's called a training bra. A training bra. I don't get it. What is the girl being trained for? It's not like training wheels on a bike where she completely loses it after a while. From that point forward, she has to always wear a bra. So it's not training. She actually NEEDS it at that point, and will continue to need it for the rest of her life.

In that case, we could have training shoes, training underwear, and apparently what's needed now (given guys not being able to pull their pants up all the way so that I have to see the poka dot boxers), training jeans and khakis.

Money

Okay, so, whose brilliant idea was it to have value of currency coins have no relevance to their size? So our dime is smaller than our nickel though it's worth more, and the penny is larger than the dime, which is worth less.

Now of course I don't have to think about US currency since I've lived here my whole life; I know it now, right? But when I go to another country and their currency has the same UNlogic, it takes me flippin' 10 minutes to buy a damn candy bar as I'm trying to figure out which coins to give the cashier.

Logic, folks, is not only underrated, but it is underUSED.

Museums

So I saw the Tate Museum and the British Museum in London last month, and realized that I am a historical museum person, NOT an art museum person. In a historical museum, you can learn about cultures, history, religion, etc. It's interesting, and I walked out with more knowledge than I had walking in.

In an art museum on the other hand, you are walking around looking at a bunch of paintings and sculptures and after a while, they all look the same. And then you have those know-it-alls who make cheesy comments like, "Here you can see that his choice of colors indicates his strong emotional state at the time, yada yada yada." And people say such complete bollocks (like how I put that British phrase in there? ;) ) with such CONFIDENCE! How the hell do YOU know what that artist was thinking when doing that painting 100 years ago??? For all we know, they were drunk when they threw something together to make a few bucks.

Then, to insult people's reading capability, these museums offer audio tours for like 15 bucks. 15 bucks! Why do I want to spend that? So that I can walk around with headphones on listening to an annoying voice telling me what I can already read on the sign next to the painting??? But amazingly, you still see people taking the museum up on this offer and they look ridiculous walking around with these headsets. Next time I'll have to ask someone who uses the audio tour what they learned and if it's worth the 15 bucks.

Pasta

So I went out to an Italian restaurant with a couple friends last night and was thinking, "Why the hell do people need a giant spoon to help twirl their pasta?????" People are incapable of cutting it, or twirling it above their plates? No, instead, why don't we add another piece of silverware to the already crowded table: shrimp fork, salad fork, dinner fork, spoon, knife, big ass spoon for twirling, glass, wine glass, salad plate, appetizer plate, dinner plate..good lord. Yet notice how you just get one skimpy paper napkin that's supposed to last the whole meal.

All of those utensils take all the fun out of eating for me. I can't help but think people need that big ass twirling spoon just because they think they look cool while they're doing it. Think about it: all you need is a glass, plate, spoon, fork, and about 20 napkins. On the other hand, forget about the spoon and fork, we should just be able to dig our hands in and chomp down!