Rant

There is a cluster of qualities that I cannot abide in people, and that I thought ended with high school, but apparently do not. These qualities include:

Rudeness, Superiority, Snobbery, and anything similar.

Did you know it's "random," for someone to contact someone or ask them to visit for no particular reason?

If that's the case, I guess I'll stop trying to be a decent, friendly human being.

Core Values

According to Marketing Genius:

A PR consultant from New York City taught me that there are really only five benefits that anyone can mention. According to him, it does not matter what the product is or what industry one inhabits, we have to present our case so effectively that we tell our audience within the first ten seconds which of the five possible benefits we are offering.
There are five, period.
F-I-V-E.
Are you ready for them? Here goes:
1. Make me wealthy
2. Improve my appearance
3. Help me to be more well-liked by my family or friends
4. Make me live longer
5. Get me laid more often

Money, looks, popularity, health and sex. That's it.


Well. Raffi sang that "All I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly, and love in my family."

So I mean, that's close.

Facebook Chat and Gender: a Philosophical Debate

Christina

OH

today

at the bookstore

i went to wrap a present

and you have to ask if it's for a boy or a girl

bc they're heteronormative

and FINALLY

(i've been waiting for this to happen)

the woman was like, "she's gender-neutral"

9:05pmKaden

but she said "she"

9:05pmChristina

well yeah

it's the grandma

9:05pmKaden

oh

cute

9:05pmChristina

yeah i thought so

and then she was telling me how hard it is to shop for a gender-neutral grandchild

but she was really supportive of the whole thing

and i was like "i went to smith. so i understand"

9:06pmKaden

aw

9:06pmChristina

but then i told her i thought i should still be able to use pink or blue if i wanted bc it shouldn't matter -- like, why do colors have to be gendered?

i mean, i used purple and teal

i did red wrapping w/ purple ribbon and gold w/ teal

9:07pmKaden

good job

9:07pmChristina

but i was thinking, i also shouldn't be restricted from using blue or pink or ballerina or baseball stickers

i mean, just because they're gender neutral doesn't mean they can only have fish or tiger stickers

but i used fish and tigers anyway

just to be safe

9:08pmKaden

fish and tigers are way cooler than ballerinas and baseball anyway

9:09pmChristina

i suppose, seeing as it's "a girl," i could've put baseballs and trucks just to stir things up

omg

i just realized

the reason i suck at taking care of my car

is because no one ever put truck stickers on my presents

i have been taught to be scared of vehicles

Kaden

i dont think that's true

9:12pmChristina

i think it is

i have never been interested in cars

bc i was brainwashed

Soggy Zucchini

Today's verdict is that I am not very good at cooking.

But, I am very good at drinking red wine.


Aside from preparing soggy, over-oiled zucchini, I have sucked at life on multiple levels today.

At work I made just about every mistake it would've been possible to make. Never mind that I read a customer's mind and, when asked whether we sold adult books and told she was looking for something romantic, promptly picked out the exact book she'd been wanting. She was thrilled, and told Carol so, who seemed mainly unimpressed.

Still flitting about, supported by my victory wings, I then promptly mangled the next sale. I forgot to deduct the gift certificate amount when running a customer's card through the machine. Upon confessing to Cathy, the accountant, I then learned I had also rung up the sale as a gift card rather than a gift certificate.

"Well," said Cathy, "you've just got all kinds of crazy things going on here, Christina."

And when I apologized, in the most mortified of manners, she simply shrugged her shoulders, laughed drily, and said, "Well. Hmm." And shrugged again.

Later, during restock, I once again turned in a sheet on which I had forgotten to circle an item to note that I had indeed found all of the copies of said item.

Fail. On so many levels.

After work, whilst trying to achieve some level of Zen at the beach, I was pooped on by a seagull.

Probably the same seagull that bit my toe while I was sleeping last week.


So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly . . .

At least let me take some comfort by drawing parallels between my life and a classic work of literature . . .

Inspiration

Has been hovering about me lately, taking the diverse and perhaps unexpected forms of:

Julia Child (Smith Alum, mind you):




Edward Eager's Half Magic:

"Oh, there's never only one explanation," said the rather small gentleman. "It depends on what you want to believe! I believe in believing six impossible things before breakfast, myself. Not that I usually get the chance. The trouble with life is that not enough impossible things happen for us to believe in, don't you agree?"

And Garrison Keillor's answers to Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire in the September 2009 issue:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
To be wildly, desperately, carelessly, nakedly in love, of course. Crazy, obsessive love: brooding, baying at the moon, writing daily missives to the adored. Who wouldn't want this? Even though the crash is painful.

What is your greatest fear?
That this is all there is, and there is no more.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
High-spiritedness, wit, a love of repartee and wordplay and allusion and jokes -- in other words, an English major.

What is the greatest love of your life?
The simple act of putting pen to paper, even just to write a postcard.

What is your most marked characteristic?
I seem to have a distinctive voice, and if I ask strangers where the men's room is, they say, "Oh, it's you."

Who are your heroes in real life?
Old musicians who keep doing it even if it would be easy not to: Pete Seeger, Little Jimmy Dickens, Earl Scruggs, Placido Domingo, B.B. King, Ralph Stanley.

How would you like to die?
Eventually, but not yet.

What is your motto?
"Sumus quod sumus." [We are what we are].

Perfection in a Plastic Cup

I have done it.

I have discovered the perfect summer refreshment.

And by "discovered," I may or may not mean it in the same sense as those who say Christopher Columbus "discovered" America.

Let me tell you the story of my long journey towards this current state of Enlightenment.

A few weeks ago, I caved to marketing ploys and bought a copy of Skinny Bitch. I decided it was worth seeing what a former model and an ex-modeling agent turned health nuts had to say.

What they had to say, along with vilifying all animal products and extolling the virtues of Veganism, was that coffee and all caffeine-containing beverages are just as demonic as beef and dairy. I am not sure every item on their laundry list contributed to my deciding to cut down on my caffeine intake, but their words did provide an impetus for me to finally take the measures I've been meaning to take to kick what I know is really just an excessive (and expensive) habit.

Sometime during high school, I fell in love with both coffee and caffeine, and I fear that there has rarely been a day I've gone without it. Whether in the form of my morning cup o' joe (black), Diet Coke to quench my oral fixation throughout the day, or what has recently become a daily large latte habit, I always managed to get myself artificially fired up.

And now that I, who was always a little energizer bunny, find myself feeling groggy, grumpy and headachey until I've had a coffee, suffering energy drops throughout the day, and unable to fall asleep at night, I've decided that something had to change.

So get ready . . . I have not had one cup of coffee, not one drop, all week. Nor have I had Diet Coke, or any artificially-sweetened substance, as I also realized such products are slowly giving me cancer.

I switched first to chai lattes, and then, to green tea. And today, I made my masterpiece. Which is to say, I ordered the barista at Coffee Obsession in Falmouth to make one for me.

An iced Moroccan Mint green tea with soy milk.

It is summery, thirst-quenching, heavenly, zesty zinginess. The mint, on top of the ice, sends tingles all throughout your body, and tastes like those Evian water commercials look. Pure refreshment, made creamy with soy milk.

I highly, highly recommend. Plus, green tea has anti-oxidents and speeds up your metabolism. Allegedly.