My highly productive life

I… Uh… Accidentally started playing World of Warcraft again. While a lovely weekend* (post Thanksgiving fun) with my game and some Star Trek was great, I’m afraid for my future free time.

Oops 😦

Project photos are coming! I swear.

*Here, weekend can be read “last two weeks”

“Men are Simple”

I recently came across a Facebook post about women, their attire, and the attention they should expect to receive from men. I’m not going to take a screen shot or copy it word for word out of respect for my relationship with this person. I am, however, going to break one of my own rules for this blog and talk about something that matters, and not just my creative adventures/childhood stories.

The idea of the post was this: Women like the idea of receiving attention from men but do not know how to handle it. A woman who wears a low-cut shirt and is startled by the kind of attention she receives is in the wrong. Men are simple. Their brains are designed to focus on reproduction, so women need to be conscious of what they wear.

It had 75 likes.

That means that this person has 75 people who liked her comment about the simplicity of men and the folly of women enough to slap their names on it. Those 75 people managed to annoy me enough to write this:

“I like to think that the men in my life are a little more than simple. There may be simple people out there, but quality people are respectful. This post could be taken in several ways depending on the type of behavior that prompted it. Should someone be shocked if they receive attention over the course of their day or life (regardless of their apparel)? Probably not. Should anyone have to worry that the cut of their shirt will cause harassment? No.”

It is as wrong of us to dismiss an entire half of the population as “simple” as it is to justify harassment based on an article of clothing.

 

The Most Important Part of Game Day

I went to a college football game today. Overall, it was a good experience. Siri’s description of it is that my team “crushed” the visitors (which they should have, based on rank and all of that other stuff). It was free. I got to go with my siblings, husband, and a brother-in-law. Heck, I even got hot chocolate. Our seats, however, had one drawback: They appeared to be in some kind of makeshift backup student section.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was a student, but being in that crowd made me realize that it was probably a good thing that I didn’t get tickets in college. The rowdiness, shirtlessness, and rudeness weren’t really my thing. I learned that college students are capable of squeezing 15 people into the space of 9 seats. As a result, I couldn’t see for the first quarter. The two rows ahead of us had three rows worth of people, and they were standing on their seats. Not in the plentiful space in front of their seats like normal humans, but on them.

During that time, I had to keep myself occupied, so I found myself doing a lot of people-watching. As I sat an contemplated whether or not I wanted to be the bad guy and complain (or wait for someone else to do it for me), I found myself counting selfies.

I swear it’s almost as good as counting sheep. During that first quarter the girl in front of me took 14 selfies. I’m in at least 2, which is a shame.

I guess I belong to the selfie generation, but they don’t quite click for me. Okay, I get that you want a picture of yourself at an event or with a person, but do you really need 14? I stopped counting after that, but since it was only the first quarter, surely the number grew. I imagine the girl’s Twitter feed looked something like this:

For anyone who’s curious, I didn’t report them. I strongly considered asking someone to take a look at the number of people crammed in front of me, or at the very least ask them to stop standing on their seats so the rest of the section could sit (we were in the upper level, and the only section where people were standing. It was like reverse dominoes). Someone else thankfully took on that task.The kids ahead of us still ended up having a good time, even if their friends were forced to go sit in the correct sections (a pair of them had significantly better seats, so I guess it says something about their friendship that they were willing to stand in a crowd much further from the field just to be with them). We got to see the game. The elderly man next to me was able to sit during the bulk of the game, and reserve his standing for big moments rather than every moment.

But boy, did I learn the value of a selfie today.

Little reminders

On my mind today…

A week of moments

I’ve entered that phase of my late twenties where it seems like the “grown up” moments won’t end. You’d think I’d be passed these “ohhhhh shoot, that was such an adult thing to do/want/say” moments, but judging by what I hear from my peers, I think it’s a reality of adulthood, especially at my age.  This past week seemed to have more of these moments than normal.

The Siblings

One of the best parts about our siblings now all being in their 20’s and 30’s is transitioning away from the dynamic we had as kids and finding more common ground as peers. My baby sister, now 21, and I have grown much closer in the last year, to the point where I realize I’d like her even if we didn’t share genes. My bother, 23, has as grown into a responsible man, and I find myself proud of him every time I see him.

Then we had a moment that could have happened 10 years ago.

The husband and I recently bought a new bed, a significant upgrade from our Ikea frame and the box spring we’d attempted to repair with spare bits of 2×4. My brother, meanwhile, had just moved into a new place with his girlfriend and they found themselves short on storage. Since we didn’t need the frame anymore, we gave it to them so they could enjoy the large drawers in it.

My brother then sent me home with his crappy metal frame, and today my sister showed up with my dad to take the crappy metal frame and our old mattress to her new  apartment, since her twin had broken.

So big sister buys herself something nice and new and gives her mediocre bed frame to her little brother, who in turn gives his crappy bed frame to baby sister, who would have been happy sleeping on the floor otherwise.

It won’t be long before we’re beyond the basic hand-me-down phase, and it made me incredibly happy to let my siblings benefit from something I no longer needed.

Grown up moment #1: Realizing that as close as we grow, that even if my siblings surpass me in some parts of life, I will always be the big sister.

The In-Law

Well, we’re going to go ahead and hope none of my family ever notices this blog… We’ll follow that with a disclaimer that I like my in-laws very much. Having almost made of mistake of marrying into another family once, I fully appreciate how lucky I am to have these people in my life.

One of them, however, doesn’t super like me. I don’t think this in-law super hates me either. I’m think I’m like a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich to them. For most people, it’s not their favorite food, but it’s not the worst thing either.

How do I know? Well, maybe I read into things too much. That’s entirely possible, but this particular in-law has a habit of saying “well, I know how you are,” or “oh, I know what to expect of you” in reference to things people might associate with a female dog. It bothered me for awhile. I may be more forthcoming than some people. I may not fall for a lot of the same charm that entices so many. I don’t know that my most defining characteristic, however, is bitch, as this person tends to make me feel.

It doesn’t bother me so much anymore. For awhile I took it too far. I wouldn’t be deliberately bitchy, but I stopped trying to fake happy so much around this person, because I figured it wasn’t doing any good. This past week I ended up having a conversation with said in-law (they didn’t have my number and paused to think about it when I gave my name, if that gives you an idea of how often we see each other). In this conversation, I was mildly assertive, and I felt like I found a nice comfort zone. I figured out how to be polite while realizing that this person and I can see through each other’s BS, so there wasn’t a point in engaging in it.

Grown up moment #2: Realizing that there will be times when being part of another family is the most difficult part of marriage.

Grown up moment #3: Realizing that a whole heck of a lot of people have had that moment long before I did.

Deactivating Facebook

Everyone has done it at some point, right?

I joined Facebook when you still needed a college e-mail, though not long before they removed that requirement. It’s full of stupid pictures of high school classrooms (you get that e-mail address senior year, after all) and ridiculous posts made by a teenager. As I got older, I became more and more cautious of what I posted, to the point where all I ever put up were pictures of my cats, and the occasional picture of my husband and I at some event. No statuses. No selfies. It usually sat unattended.

Well, except that I’d gotten to a point where I’d hit the Facebook app on my phone without thinking about it. I realized that I knew way too much about someone I hadn’t seen in 10 years: Her husband’s name, the names of both of her daughters, her cat, where she worked, and the type of things her toddler would say.

Why did I care? I didn’t know this girl any more. We hadn’t been particularly close. I’d kept Facebook this whole time because it felt as necessary as an e-mail, a way to keep in contact with people who I don’t text.

Grown up moment #4: Still in progress. Staying away from things like Facebook, that suck up my time and make me feel creepy. even if all I’m doing is reading material on people’s lives that they want everyone to see. I’m not going to pretend that I won’t go back. I imagine something will get me back at some point. This is about growth, though. I’m removing something that has done me no good for the last 9ish years, and choosing to find other forms of entertainment (hellooooo WordPress).