we interrupt this journal to bring you the following public confusion
08.21.2003
There are things in this world I just don't get. I've tried. It appears that those around me simply take these things at face value and move on. It's part of the cultural landscape to them, I suppose. In my case, however, these things are more a part of some weirdly distorted pseudo-Dali landscape, along with melting clock parts and naked conjoined twins with giraffe heads. They just don't make sense to me, no matter how hard I stare at them and no matter how many millions of neurons I hear go "pop" because of the aforementioned stare. Why are they there? Who came up with them? And why are we still following that person's ideas when it's obvious, based on their last creation, that they're completely bonkers?
Without further ado, I introduce to you -- things that make me go "mwuh?"
Ties
That's right. Ties. The fabric things that men, and some women, put around their neck. Why are you still doing that? Are you crazy? I can accept torturous apparel and accessories that exist to accentuate bodily features considered sexually attractive, or that reinforce a sense of physical power. Shoulder pads. Pumps. Wonderbras. But ties? What the bloody hell do ties accentuate? How big your head is in comparison to the rest of your body? Oh look, Martha, there's a man with a noose around his neck. See how it's cutting the circulation off to his brain? I think I'll go get me one of those.
The act of cleaning ashtrays
Emptying an ashtray I can understand. After all, one can create quite the bonfire if an errant smoke lights up the mound of refuse built up within an unemptied ashtray. However, why clean it? Really -- why even bother to put it in a dishwasher or sink, or to even run a damp washcloth over it? What do you put in an ashtray? Ash! Dirt! Nobody is going to eat out of the damn thing, so why go through the bother of enduring that horrid wet tar smell that permeates the entire kitchen when you do clean an ashtray? Ashtrays don't deserve soap, nor do they need it. It isn't as if there's going to be any bacterial growth in a dirty ashtray. After all, the chemical compounds in cigarette ash would kill bugs dead. Eat your heart out, Raid�.
Traditional weddings
"It symbolizes our love for each other." As far as I can make out, it symbolizes the idiocy of spending thousands of dollars for one day, a great deal of stress, and an outdated and rather boring religious, or even secular, ceremony. I suspect that a traditional wedding exists for similar reasons that diamond rings do: to make the man spend a great deal of money. It's a symbol of how much you're willing to shell out for me, darling. It seems that many straight women are under the mistaken impression that this, and this alone, offers tangible proof of a man's love for them. The dresses are ugly, the fruitcake vile, the time spent watching the whole affair interminable. But boy, does it cost a lot to get there, so that must mean he loves me. Awwww.
To those who tell me it's the symbolism, the act of announcing one's love to the other, that creates a worthy, lasting bond, I say, "What's missing in the relationship that you don't feel you have a worthy, lasting bond right now?" Frankly, a half-day's ceremony and a piece of paper aren't going to give that to you if you don't have it already.
The original reasons for traditional weddings, and with them the act of marriage, to exist -- as a legal affair as much as anything, a bartering of property (give me a female to make babies with and I'll give you a hunk of land and a few cows) and/or political power (give me a female to make babies with so that I can give all my stuff to my relatives instead of giving my stuff to strangers and I'll tell everyone you're my best friend and send armies over to beat people up who pick on you) -- no longer apply, particularly since divorce is so very easy to pursue. If people as property along with politics are no issues when it comes to a wedding ceremony, why not save your money, put it in the bank, put a down payment on a house, create a college fund? Just don't buy the damn Vera Wang. You look like a vat of cotton candy that exploded.
Chat rooms
There are no rooms. There is no chatting. Any questions?
Of course there are.
A chat room is not a room; it is an algorithm or set of algorithms that makes your monitor light up a certain way and causes text to occasionally pop up on the screen as sent from other computers in various locales. A chat room does not involve chatting; there is no sound, no voice (although that's starting to change, but excuse me -- that's what a phone is for). There is text. You're not chatting; you're reading and writing. Those aren't people; that's electronic data. Essentially, a chat room is an electronic bulletin board without the time to think things over, with unstable and frequently crashing interfaces, and with a lot of unintelligible shorthand. Why would someone want a fast answer over a well-thought answer? Why would someone want to read "u r 2 keeeeeewwwwlll!!!!!!!!" instead of "I've quite enjoyed corresponding with you over the past 2 weeks"? The only way I've been able to fit the chat room attraction into my brain is by assuming that, when a person enters a chat room on the internet, they are somehow able to suspend all disbelief and actually imagine themselves in a room, chatting. This is one time where I can safely say I'm thankful I don't have that particular talent. There aren't many things of which I can say that, except perhaps shooting flames out of my mouth and swallowing glass.
Getting smashed regularly
OK, let me see if I have this right. You showered, got all dressed up, called a cab, met your friends at the club, went inside, got drinks, started dancing, and kept getting drinks until you threw up, passed out, woke up at noon the next day completely broke, unable to remember what you did the night before, with a raging hangover strong enough to incapacitate a rabid grizzly and a purplish blue stain of unknown origin down the front of your best shirt, and you're going to do it all over again next week.
Right.
There's a physiological reason that this makes no sense to me. I don't get drunk. At least, I don't appear to get drunk the way the majority of human beings appear to. One drink relaxes me, relaxes my muscles, makes me a little sleepy. Two drinks accentuate that drowsiness. Three drinks and I stay as I did with two drinks. As I do with four drinks, five drinks, six drinks, and so on. Then 1 a.m. arrives, and I'm hungover. Just like that. *BAM* Hungover. Headache, slight nausea, spins. Once I go to bed and fall asleep, I wake up the next morning perfectly fine, to the dismay and hatred of my drinking companions from the night before. A doctor once told me that she suspected I had a cast-iron liver, which would explain how I process alcohol. (It would also explain why I hear bells ringing within me when I burp.) I may just be too good at it. Whatever the case, whatever happy giddy feeling you may get out of getting pissed eludes me. Ergo, my lack of understanding. The real kicker to this story is that I'm allergic to marijuana as well. It's amazing I'm as laid back as I am. Thank goodness for Valium.
Frilly bedspreads
Just who, exactly, is a frilly bedspread for? You? Excuse me, but when you're in the bedroom, the last thing on your mind is your bloody bedspread. You're either sleeping or screwing, and in both cases the bedspread ends crumpled up on the floor for the dog to sleep on. It isn't for the guests. Guests congregate on the patio, in the kitchen, and within the living room. The bedroom has a natural magnetic repulsive force surrounding it that makes even the process of throwing one's coat onto the bed -- without turning on the light in the bedroom, thereby rendering a person unable to see the frilly bedspread due both to said lack of light as well as the pile of coats on top of the aforementioned bed -- an uncomfortable act for any guest, an act to be performed while looking away down the hall and tossing said coat unseen in the bed's general direction with a rapid, nervous flick of the wrist.
The above statement is now in the running to win the award for "painfully long yet grammatically correct sentence". Vote now, vote often.
A bedspread, along with those stupid frilly dust ruffles, which are even worse, serve no purpose. No one but whoever you happen to be screwing or sleeping on is going to notice, and they honestly don't care. Especially if you're naked. If your bedroom companion becomes absorbed in the fact that the floral brocade doesn't match the wallpaper while you're polishing your brass knobs, so to speak, I suggest you find a new partner pronto. Or better yet, get new batteries.
Spam
Not the mail. The meat.
Who in their right mind would come up with Spam? I strongly suspect it was the English. They'll can anything. "I say, jolly good pie-in-a-can this is, lovey." (I have special dispensation to make fun of the English. Both of my parents are from West Yorkshire. I have the teeth to prove it.) But it's not just canned meat. Regardless of what it says on the label, there is no way this is a bunch of ham chopped up, compressed, and then stuck in a tin, although that would be bad enough. Oh no. This is no-name meat. This is meat of undetermined origin. If that wasn't enough, amalgamated with this je ne sais quoi protein is its own weight in undetermined greasy lardish fat product. Nothing like a wad of unidentifiable meat product coated in what appears to be slime mould to whet the appetite. And people buy it. They cook it. My god, they even eat it for breakfast. If anyone ever needed proof of mankind's imminent downfall on earth, that has got to be it.
This is just a small sample of that which confuses the hell out of me. The list is long, but the same points continue to arise within that list, points such as "were you actually thinking when you did that?" Also prominent in mind are such points as "you spent how much on what?" However, I'd like to ask that you just keep doing what you're doing. Regardless of whether or not I understand, it's extremely entertaining, and I don't have cable.
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