Somewhere back in October, just two weeks into the quarter, my mother was visiting. I wandered into my room to find her making my bed one day, and joked that she shouldn't bother, it was going to get unmade in a few hours and probably never be made again. The funny thing is, in the two months since she left, I think I've made my bed every day.
I think probably this is just a feature of the changes in my life that have taken me from using my room for sleeping only, to being in my room, reading in the IKEA chair in the corner, using my bed as a bookshelf, every waking moment that I'm not in class. OK, so maybe this is a slight exaggeration, I do try to wander to the fridge a few times a day, and I have maintained a steadfast commitment to play ultimate, but other than that, I kind of feel like all I do is read and write. I don't really have a social life. The irony of sitting in my room alone, reading all about how our development only fully occurs in the context of relationship, is not lost on me. It's not that my intitiation energy is gone, it's just operating at about 49%, and usually gets trumped by the 51% of me that thinks it's easier to chip away at the reading list so I can be an informed therapist someday. And yes, the irony that I am holing myself away alone so that I can be better at helping people with their relationships is also not lost on me.
I need help convincing the 49% to riot.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Saturday, November 26, 2005
deconstruction
I am having one of those days when I think coming back to grad school is ruining me, making me unfit for human interaction. Learning all of this stuff about counseling is stamping out any feeling of ease or genuineness, now that I'm some twisted combination of hyper-observant, armed with new knowledge, and being a bit of a psychological hypochondriac, thinking that I suffer from every new dysfuntion I discover the name for.
It's probably the experience of a baseball player who, after a long stretch of feeling like a "natural," has a batting coach come in and deconstruct every minute detail, from his grip on the bat to the rise of his knee to the placement of his feet. While the intended result is that he become an athlete whose natural inclinations are refined to near perfection, the interim effect is that he can't find the sweet spot to save his life, and bats .050 for a while.
So the unintended consequence for me these days is that the combination of awkwardness and self-consciousness about my competence is making it a little hard both to make friends and to relate to old ones, and now that the novelty of living in LA is wearing off, I'm pretty lonely this week and I feel like I'm pretty far away from the figurative sweet spot in a number of ways. So for those of you who are getting strange bits and pieces of me now, thanks for your grace, and your encouragement to cut myself some slack, while I get my swing back.
It's probably the experience of a baseball player who, after a long stretch of feeling like a "natural," has a batting coach come in and deconstruct every minute detail, from his grip on the bat to the rise of his knee to the placement of his feet. While the intended result is that he become an athlete whose natural inclinations are refined to near perfection, the interim effect is that he can't find the sweet spot to save his life, and bats .050 for a while.
So the unintended consequence for me these days is that the combination of awkwardness and self-consciousness about my competence is making it a little hard both to make friends and to relate to old ones, and now that the novelty of living in LA is wearing off, I'm pretty lonely this week and I feel like I'm pretty far away from the figurative sweet spot in a number of ways. So for those of you who are getting strange bits and pieces of me now, thanks for your grace, and your encouragement to cut myself some slack, while I get my swing back.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
The United States of Wal*Mart
I haven't seen it yet to have much of a review, but for the store I love to hate and hate to love, find yourself a free local screening of the full-length documentary Wal*Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. It's cheap, it's easy, it's one-stop shopping for the budget-minded, from midwestern housewives to LA grad students. But it also drives wages down, stamps out local businesses, promotes homogenization and convenience over character and creativity, and lives on government subsidies, either directly or indirectly (see here for a by-the-numbers list of alleged infractions).
Truly, there is never just one side to any story. Of course there's another one here we won't see, and likely there are other businesses whose practices would be just as heinous on such a large scale. But I'm not sold on Walmart's party line either, the one where it claims to build community and provide good jobs and that whole load of crap.
Also recommended: The Corporation. An extremely biased, one-sided, doomsday-predicting documentary which aligns the modern corporation with the DSM IV definition of a sociopath. Absolutely ridiculous ending (in which it suggests that the world would be fine and dandy if everything were under public ownership instead) but entertaining (if a bit long), thought-provoking, and worth the price of admission just to see a ditzy ad exec gloat over how her company uses psychological research to get kids to nag their parents for new toys.
So what's a girl to do? I can, and will, boycott, but as one reviewer pointed out, the people who are promoting and watching this movie are probably the ones who can afford to boycott Walmart anyway. So getting enraged (and witholding the $8 I usually spend at Walmart annually) is only gonna go so far, when current economic realities have created a massive base of people who don't have the luxury of passing up the blue-vested hegemony.
Truth is, I don't know how to put my money where my mouth is much more than that. But I have to believe/hope/pray that when Jesus said he had been anointed to preach good news to the poor, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, it didn't have anything to do with rolling back prices.
Truly, there is never just one side to any story. Of course there's another one here we won't see, and likely there are other businesses whose practices would be just as heinous on such a large scale. But I'm not sold on Walmart's party line either, the one where it claims to build community and provide good jobs and that whole load of crap.
Also recommended: The Corporation. An extremely biased, one-sided, doomsday-predicting documentary which aligns the modern corporation with the DSM IV definition of a sociopath. Absolutely ridiculous ending (in which it suggests that the world would be fine and dandy if everything were under public ownership instead) but entertaining (if a bit long), thought-provoking, and worth the price of admission just to see a ditzy ad exec gloat over how her company uses psychological research to get kids to nag their parents for new toys.
So what's a girl to do? I can, and will, boycott, but as one reviewer pointed out, the people who are promoting and watching this movie are probably the ones who can afford to boycott Walmart anyway. So getting enraged (and witholding the $8 I usually spend at Walmart annually) is only gonna go so far, when current economic realities have created a massive base of people who don't have the luxury of passing up the blue-vested hegemony.
Truth is, I don't know how to put my money where my mouth is much more than that. But I have to believe/hope/pray that when Jesus said he had been anointed to preach good news to the poor, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, it didn't have anything to do with rolling back prices.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Little Old Ladies in Pasadena
It's so refreshing to hear a perspective on life from someone older than 35. We had a "senior panel" in my Development class tonight, with three rockin' old ladies between the ages of 63 and 82, and an 84-year-old man (who appeared to be past his truly rockin' days, but still had quite a bit of zip). But they were no ordinary senior citizens. The prof warned us ahead of time that they wouldn't be a representative sample, and one of the panel members even admitted she doesn't usually hang out with people her age, "because they bore me most of the time, to be quite honest."
Bob gets up at 5am every Friday morning and gets in his new Toyota Prius, goes to pick up Lydia, and they go to an activists group in LA that has met every week since 9/11. They've both been arrested. Helena grew up in the depression, has traveled to over 60 countries, and - having seen life from a less indulgent perspective - said that she often wants to follow the garbage trucks in a truck of her own, pulling out the things we waste that are still perfectly useful. Barbara started out teaching preschool, hated it, and worked her way up through nearly every grade until she finally found her niche teaching GED prep classes at adult school. They all, either explicitly or implicitly, reminded us that who we'll be at 85 is a continuation of who we are now.
Best quote of the evening? When someone asked if they had any regrets in life, Lydia grabbed the microphone from Bob and blurted, earnestly, "I could have gone to jail more often."
Most poignant moment of the evening? Bob reading a piece he wrote during the Korean war, predicting that at the end of the current conflict, the vacuum would be filled with further conflict. "I hope," he said, "that you won't be too hard on us for the way we left the world for you."
Bob gets up at 5am every Friday morning and gets in his new Toyota Prius, goes to pick up Lydia, and they go to an activists group in LA that has met every week since 9/11. They've both been arrested. Helena grew up in the depression, has traveled to over 60 countries, and - having seen life from a less indulgent perspective - said that she often wants to follow the garbage trucks in a truck of her own, pulling out the things we waste that are still perfectly useful. Barbara started out teaching preschool, hated it, and worked her way up through nearly every grade until she finally found her niche teaching GED prep classes at adult school. They all, either explicitly or implicitly, reminded us that who we'll be at 85 is a continuation of who we are now.
Best quote of the evening? When someone asked if they had any regrets in life, Lydia grabbed the microphone from Bob and blurted, earnestly, "I could have gone to jail more often."
Most poignant moment of the evening? Bob reading a piece he wrote during the Korean war, predicting that at the end of the current conflict, the vacuum would be filled with further conflict. "I hope," he said, "that you won't be too hard on us for the way we left the world for you."
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Top Ten Reasons You Know You're Not in Berkeley Anymore
Becky D posted her top 10 reasons here on the B-Did Blog, but she's in Boulder now and I can't say any of ours overlap. In contrast, here's the LA version (hint, this may not make much sense unless you read Becky's first):
10. It was 85 degrees today.
9. I regularly encounter a 12-lane freeway on my way to work/school.
8. Craigslist exists, but you're more likely to find a job as a personal assitant to a minor celebrity than you are to be cold-calling to save the environment.
7. I've stopped adding the possibility, "if there's traffic" to driving estimates.
6. I was almost run over by a herd of Hummers on a recent bike ride.
5. Ditto on the lack of oxygen, but for different reasons. It is disturbing to be unable to see mountains that are 5 miles away.
4. There are still homeless people, but instead of holding signs that say "Money for pot?", they've each claimed a cart from the 99-cent store one block over, and push them up and down the street collecting cans, so I bring my recycling out to them every week.
3. The Metro Gold Line is impossible to find and doesn't have a parking lot. I tried to take public transportation and they seem to be trying to keep me on the freeway!
2. White people are a minority.
1. OK, can't comment on the governor thing, so I'll just add that I may be the only person within 50 miles who still eats bread.
10. It was 85 degrees today.
9. I regularly encounter a 12-lane freeway on my way to work/school.
8. Craigslist exists, but you're more likely to find a job as a personal assitant to a minor celebrity than you are to be cold-calling to save the environment.
7. I've stopped adding the possibility, "if there's traffic" to driving estimates.
6. I was almost run over by a herd of Hummers on a recent bike ride.
5. Ditto on the lack of oxygen, but for different reasons. It is disturbing to be unable to see mountains that are 5 miles away.
4. There are still homeless people, but instead of holding signs that say "Money for pot?", they've each claimed a cart from the 99-cent store one block over, and push them up and down the street collecting cans, so I bring my recycling out to them every week.
3. The Metro Gold Line is impossible to find and doesn't have a parking lot. I tried to take public transportation and they seem to be trying to keep me on the freeway!
2. White people are a minority.
1. OK, can't comment on the governor thing, so I'll just add that I may be the only person within 50 miles who still eats bread.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Spiritual Boob Jobs
Got your attention with the title, eh? You'll have to read the whole thing to figure out where it fits in :) .
Zoinks, I don't even know where to start. Ever have two very different themes running around in your head for weeks, or months or years even, and you can't make sense of either of them? Then one day, for better or for worse, they collide and begin to fuse in ways that give each the power to interpret and make sense of the other. I've had twin obsessions with grief and adulthood for a while, and somehow being here now has heightened my awareness of both. Studying human development, on the brink of turning 30, emerging from "emerging adulthood," feeling vulnerable and lonely in a new city, reading the news, reading the bible, trying to reconcile it all and make sense of any of it. And every once in a while, along the way, something punctuates the chaotic mess and illuminates, just for a moment, the point of collision. Today, it was an article on adolescence by Frederick Buechner, in which he writes:
I'm turning 30, in nine months. This fact does not bother me. In fact, I think I am the only person who actually rounds up already. I don't look 30. I don't feel 30. I don't act 30. Yet I find myself constantly trying to convince people that I am. You'd think I could just let it go and start being glad I don't look my age, since it will probably come in handy to finally look 30 when I'm 45. But for some reason I get hung up on wanting to assert that I've lived long enough to have lost my idealism (as if anyone could spend five minutes with me and not figure that out). Perhaps that is why I hang on to my cynicism, why it's hard to shake. It marks me as someone acquainted with grief.
I just finished reading last week's issue of the LA Weekly. The articles were diverse and typical: the Catholic church's obsession with virgins and whores; a profile of the activist father of the first Mexican soldier to die in Iraq; a review of a book of short stories by the author of Found Magazine, who writes about items found from lives left behind as he rummages through the wreckage of New Orleans. It is full of the reality of life. But surrounding the articles, the ads: Botox. Breast augmentation. Colon hydrotherapy. "Massage" with hot asian girls. Are we in denial about the reality of life, or are we so well-acquainted with grief and loneliness, and so ill-equipped to deal with our own - and others' - that we seek relief in places we'll never find it: fitting in, looking the part, intimacy-free sex, and, um, what exactly is colon hydrotherapy for? A quote from the book review struck me: "Rather, [the author's] worldview is distinctly old-fashioned. It recalls Fitzgerald and Kerouac, writers for whom sadness wasn't the product of historical accident, but simply a condition of American life." When did an understanding of sadness as inherent in the human condition become "old fashioned"? When did we get so far from our grief that we have only two options for dealing with it - to be shocked by it or to insist that it doesn't exist?
I recently trained as a hospice volunteer. During my interview, I was asked why I was interested in working with hospice patients and their families. I actually hadn't really thought through the answer before, so it mostly came out as a jumbled string of experiences and interests and training that led me to this point (the coordinator, in fact, mentioned it was the longest answer anyone had ever given to that question). In hindsight, I think I did it for the same reason I came back to school to be a therapist - to be there as people integrate their grief. There is reality in grief, and meaning. People are not defined by their grief and loss - there are still groceries to be bought, and work to do, and conversations to have, about love and politics and football teams - but it's part of us; a part we can't cover over with fake boobs and clean assholes. The funny thing seems to be that if there's nowhere to deal with grief, it does become us. It becomes the undercurrent, the pirate radio station in our head. I don't just mean "big grief" -- death and divorce, trauma and tragedy. There is plenty of that to go around in the world, but there is also the little grief, that's not so little: transition, loneliness, fear of hope, loss of idealism, and the realization that it doesn't go away when one "grows up."
I think that as Christians we're supposed to live lifestyles of integrated grief. I don't really know what that means but I want to think about it. Maybe grief is like a prosthesis: at first, it is painful and obvious, but slowly it becomes part of you and you learn to live as fully as possible in the world again. Some days you may be limping more than others, some day you may wake up and realize that even though it hasn't gone away, you stop noticing it every second of the day. Maybe if we're lucky we have days where we take it for granted, and we might discover there are even some things we can do with it that we couldn't do before, like roast marshmallows on our toes. But we can't get there by pretending we still have all our limbs... and I'm irritated today with the Christians who have spiritual boob jobs, saying, in essence, don't pay attention to those scars over there, take a look at these instead! Aren't they fabulous?
I recognize I'm probably being a little intense about all of this. It's just hard not to be right now. I tire easily of surface conversation, and when I am denied a chance to tune in to pirate radio as background noise, I usually find it stuck on volume 11. So that is why Grief and Growing Up (with capital letters) are a big part of what's on my mind these days when I write. I miss my church in Berkeley, which sometimes felt like a combat-zone war hospital, where those of us who were currently free of shrapnel did our best to help keep the recently wounded from losing too much blood. But then we'd go get beer and talk about other stuff. I'm looking forward to having a few friends here that I'm sharing life with, so that it's not a case of going from small talk (with new people) to cathartic release (with old friends who know me). I'm looking forward to having depth and whimsy overlap again, and feeling a little more balanced. In the meantime, I'm starting to figure out what I want to do with my degree and that's not all bad.
Zoinks, I don't even know where to start. Ever have two very different themes running around in your head for weeks, or months or years even, and you can't make sense of either of them? Then one day, for better or for worse, they collide and begin to fuse in ways that give each the power to interpret and make sense of the other. I've had twin obsessions with grief and adulthood for a while, and somehow being here now has heightened my awareness of both. Studying human development, on the brink of turning 30, emerging from "emerging adulthood," feeling vulnerable and lonely in a new city, reading the news, reading the bible, trying to reconcile it all and make sense of any of it. And every once in a while, along the way, something punctuates the chaotic mess and illuminates, just for a moment, the point of collision. Today, it was an article on adolescence by Frederick Buechner, in which he writes:
"... the word adolescent derives from the latin verb adolescere, which is made up of ad, meaning toward, and alescere, meaning to grow. The word designates humans who are in the process of growing up.... I am sixty-four years old. I have fathered children. I have written books. I have letters after my name... but to call me an adult or grownup is an oversimplification at best.... Let me put forth an alternate etymology.... Let me suggest with total innacuracy that the word adolescent is made up of ad, meaning toward, and dolor, meaning pain. Thus adolescent becomes a term which designates human beings... trying to come to terms with pain, to figure out how to deal with pain, not just how to survive pain but how to turn it to some human and creative use in their own encounters with it."This post is mostly just a purging beginning. There is nothing succinct about it. I want to start processing this stuff and in the absence of humans to do it with at this particular moment, I need to get it all out so I can start picking and choosing and finding the connections. So I'm throwing it all out there and I'd love to know what hits home, so that I can focus in on some of it.
I'm turning 30, in nine months. This fact does not bother me. In fact, I think I am the only person who actually rounds up already. I don't look 30. I don't feel 30. I don't act 30. Yet I find myself constantly trying to convince people that I am. You'd think I could just let it go and start being glad I don't look my age, since it will probably come in handy to finally look 30 when I'm 45. But for some reason I get hung up on wanting to assert that I've lived long enough to have lost my idealism (as if anyone could spend five minutes with me and not figure that out). Perhaps that is why I hang on to my cynicism, why it's hard to shake. It marks me as someone acquainted with grief.
I just finished reading last week's issue of the LA Weekly. The articles were diverse and typical: the Catholic church's obsession with virgins and whores; a profile of the activist father of the first Mexican soldier to die in Iraq; a review of a book of short stories by the author of Found Magazine, who writes about items found from lives left behind as he rummages through the wreckage of New Orleans. It is full of the reality of life. But surrounding the articles, the ads: Botox. Breast augmentation. Colon hydrotherapy. "Massage" with hot asian girls. Are we in denial about the reality of life, or are we so well-acquainted with grief and loneliness, and so ill-equipped to deal with our own - and others' - that we seek relief in places we'll never find it: fitting in, looking the part, intimacy-free sex, and, um, what exactly is colon hydrotherapy for? A quote from the book review struck me: "Rather, [the author's] worldview is distinctly old-fashioned. It recalls Fitzgerald and Kerouac, writers for whom sadness wasn't the product of historical accident, but simply a condition of American life." When did an understanding of sadness as inherent in the human condition become "old fashioned"? When did we get so far from our grief that we have only two options for dealing with it - to be shocked by it or to insist that it doesn't exist?
I recently trained as a hospice volunteer. During my interview, I was asked why I was interested in working with hospice patients and their families. I actually hadn't really thought through the answer before, so it mostly came out as a jumbled string of experiences and interests and training that led me to this point (the coordinator, in fact, mentioned it was the longest answer anyone had ever given to that question). In hindsight, I think I did it for the same reason I came back to school to be a therapist - to be there as people integrate their grief. There is reality in grief, and meaning. People are not defined by their grief and loss - there are still groceries to be bought, and work to do, and conversations to have, about love and politics and football teams - but it's part of us; a part we can't cover over with fake boobs and clean assholes. The funny thing seems to be that if there's nowhere to deal with grief, it does become us. It becomes the undercurrent, the pirate radio station in our head. I don't just mean "big grief" -- death and divorce, trauma and tragedy. There is plenty of that to go around in the world, but there is also the little grief, that's not so little: transition, loneliness, fear of hope, loss of idealism, and the realization that it doesn't go away when one "grows up."
I think that as Christians we're supposed to live lifestyles of integrated grief. I don't really know what that means but I want to think about it. Maybe grief is like a prosthesis: at first, it is painful and obvious, but slowly it becomes part of you and you learn to live as fully as possible in the world again. Some days you may be limping more than others, some day you may wake up and realize that even though it hasn't gone away, you stop noticing it every second of the day. Maybe if we're lucky we have days where we take it for granted, and we might discover there are even some things we can do with it that we couldn't do before, like roast marshmallows on our toes. But we can't get there by pretending we still have all our limbs... and I'm irritated today with the Christians who have spiritual boob jobs, saying, in essence, don't pay attention to those scars over there, take a look at these instead! Aren't they fabulous?
I recognize I'm probably being a little intense about all of this. It's just hard not to be right now. I tire easily of surface conversation, and when I am denied a chance to tune in to pirate radio as background noise, I usually find it stuck on volume 11. So that is why Grief and Growing Up (with capital letters) are a big part of what's on my mind these days when I write. I miss my church in Berkeley, which sometimes felt like a combat-zone war hospital, where those of us who were currently free of shrapnel did our best to help keep the recently wounded from losing too much blood. But then we'd go get beer and talk about other stuff. I'm looking forward to having a few friends here that I'm sharing life with, so that it's not a case of going from small talk (with new people) to cathartic release (with old friends who know me). I'm looking forward to having depth and whimsy overlap again, and feeling a little more balanced. In the meantime, I'm starting to figure out what I want to do with my degree and that's not all bad.
Talk Nerdy To Me
I had a sad 20 minutes this week. Not really a sad week, it was actually fine, it just had a sad part. And I happened to call Andrew during my 20-minute pity-fest, thinking it would help, but somehow it didn't. After a minute or two of talking about me, and realizing that was just going to make me cry, I insisted that we stop talking about me and talk about something else. So what did he pick? Economics and Sociology statistical research. After a few minutes, I really was crying. "You're making me lonelier," I said, "because there are no nerds in Los Angeles."
Time to infiltrate Cal Tech...
Time to infiltrate Cal Tech...
Friday, November 11, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Deja vu, again
Apparently my name means "youthful." I shoulda seen all of this coming...
Neighbor: "what do you mean you worked with college students, you're, like, 21!"
Me: "WHAT!?? We had this conversation already."
N: "You're turning red and the cords in your neck are popping out. Why are you upset?"
Me: "Because I'm not 21!!"
N: "You had students? Did they call you Julie Brown, like the VJ?"
Me: "I know who both of the Julie Browns are... the redheaded one with the obnoxious voice and Downtown Julie Brown! Does that prove it?"
N: "So what, are you.... ummm.... 26?"
Me: "I'm TWENTY-NINE!"
N: "Oh... I was even guessing up, too. I thought you were gonna say 24 so I gave you the benefit of the doubt."
Neighbor: "what do you mean you worked with college students, you're, like, 21!"
Me: "WHAT!?? We had this conversation already."
N: "You're turning red and the cords in your neck are popping out. Why are you upset?"
Me: "Because I'm not 21!!"
N: "You had students? Did they call you Julie Brown, like the VJ?"
Me: "I know who both of the Julie Browns are... the redheaded one with the obnoxious voice and Downtown Julie Brown! Does that prove it?"
N: "So what, are you.... ummm.... 26?"
Me: "I'm TWENTY-NINE!"
N: "Oh... I was even guessing up, too. I thought you were gonna say 24 so I gave you the benefit of the doubt."
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Top Ten.... funniest quotes from Christian online dating sites
So, taking a break from thinking about the historical, theological, and psychological implications of the death of Judas for a few minutes (for a paper, of course... not like I sit around and think about such things for kicks -- except when Andrew and I get on a roll), I was surfing through the profiles on online dating sites, which is not nearly as entertaining without Natalie and Hannah around, but it was a nice brain-break.
Anyhow, tonight I happened to run across a Christian online dating site. However, while acknowledging that one of my most impervious bad habits is judgment-as-self-protection, I have to say it was a scary sight. I feel horrible that I seem to be selling out my peeps, and there were certainly a few exceptions, but mostly the men seemed to fall into two categories.
First, we have the idealistic, verbose, closet-poet-who-works-in-sales type. His photo shows him hugging a small child that he is quick to point out is his niece. He frequently mentions that his deepest desire is to be a doting husband/father to "the woman God is preparing" for him and the children who will be "vessels of God's love to the world." His response to the type of woman he hopes to find is seven paragraphs long and includes a frighteningly impossible plethora of yets: laid-back yet driven, tough yet tender, adventurous yet nurturing, playful yet serious, shares his interests yet has a mind/life of her own. His site name is something like "greatguy883" or "live4him".
The second type of guy doesn't spell, punctuate, or write in complete sentences (sorry, I'm a little hung up on grammar). His photo is either tilted at a funny angle from where he tried to cut out his ex-girlfriend, whose arms you can still see around his waist, or it's a head shot that looks like it could get him a job on General Hospital circa 1983. He uses all caps whenever he writes the word GOD, and his ideal woman, if he bothers to answer any of the questions, is some type of cross between Betty Crocker and Mother Teresa.
So, without further ado, I present 10 (OK... 11) direct quotes from a cursory search of our eligible bachelors.
10. "i think im funny when i dont try to be funny i am when i try to be funny im not."
9. Describing a perfect first date: "Anywhere That we could look into eachother's eyes....to witness the truth of our beings."
8. Describing hobbies, presumably attempting humor: "I like shooting beer cans with my beebee gun. Oh, and Ima trainin' the dawg to get beers from the frig"
7. Regarding prior relationships: "What you put into a relationship, you might as well kiss goodbye, you won't be getting it back. Have I learned anything?... Crap, I am not THAT stupid."
6. Also regarding prior relationships: "I was just such a pain."
5. Describing his faith: "In the words of Jerry Maguire - 'JC Completes me.'"
4. Regarding the ideal woman: "think Drew Barrymore meets Janice from the muppets"
3. Regarding the ideal woman: "im looking for a talented,witty beautiful lady that compliments me with her bieng there with me. Not a woman whos has my back from way back."
2. Regarding the paragraph he had just written about the ideal woman: "Wow, this is really boring."
1. "I would love to be a father and a husband, but just having a relationship with a woman would be a great start." (OK, so this guy seemed really sweet, I feel bad putting him in here)
0. "And yes, contrary to popular opinion, engineers are people too!"
Anyhow, tonight I happened to run across a Christian online dating site. However, while acknowledging that one of my most impervious bad habits is judgment-as-self-protection, I have to say it was a scary sight. I feel horrible that I seem to be selling out my peeps, and there were certainly a few exceptions, but mostly the men seemed to fall into two categories.
First, we have the idealistic, verbose, closet-poet-who-works-in-sales type. His photo shows him hugging a small child that he is quick to point out is his niece. He frequently mentions that his deepest desire is to be a doting husband/father to "the woman God is preparing" for him and the children who will be "vessels of God's love to the world." His response to the type of woman he hopes to find is seven paragraphs long and includes a frighteningly impossible plethora of yets: laid-back yet driven, tough yet tender, adventurous yet nurturing, playful yet serious, shares his interests yet has a mind/life of her own. His site name is something like "greatguy883" or "live4him".
The second type of guy doesn't spell, punctuate, or write in complete sentences (sorry, I'm a little hung up on grammar). His photo is either tilted at a funny angle from where he tried to cut out his ex-girlfriend, whose arms you can still see around his waist, or it's a head shot that looks like it could get him a job on General Hospital circa 1983. He uses all caps whenever he writes the word GOD, and his ideal woman, if he bothers to answer any of the questions, is some type of cross between Betty Crocker and Mother Teresa.
So, without further ado, I present 10 (OK... 11) direct quotes from a cursory search of our eligible bachelors.
10. "i think im funny when i dont try to be funny i am when i try to be funny im not."
9. Describing a perfect first date: "Anywhere That we could look into eachother's eyes....to witness the truth of our beings."
8. Describing hobbies, presumably attempting humor: "I like shooting beer cans with my beebee gun. Oh, and Ima trainin' the dawg to get beers from the frig"
7. Regarding prior relationships: "What you put into a relationship, you might as well kiss goodbye, you won't be getting it back. Have I learned anything?... Crap, I am not THAT stupid."
6. Also regarding prior relationships: "I was just such a pain."
5. Describing his faith: "In the words of Jerry Maguire - 'JC Completes me.'"
4. Regarding the ideal woman: "think Drew Barrymore meets Janice from the muppets"
3. Regarding the ideal woman: "im looking for a talented,witty beautiful lady that compliments me with her bieng there with me. Not a woman whos has my back from way back."
2. Regarding the paragraph he had just written about the ideal woman: "Wow, this is really boring."
1. "I would love to be a father and a husband, but just having a relationship with a woman would be a great start." (OK, so this guy seemed really sweet, I feel bad putting him in here)
0. "And yes, contrary to popular opinion, engineers are people too!"
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
No time to be clever myself, I'll let someone else do it....
OK, so, falling under the "things I shouldn't be doing when I have a midterm tomorrow" heading... I was looking for something online and found this instead: a blog on why men shouldn't be ordained. Might only be funny to people who regularly hear these excuses about women in ministry...
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