Things that are absurd:

• The fact that I can be charged almost $100 for a 10-minute urgent care visit with a physician's assistant back in August during which said physician's assistant just told me I had the flu and sent me home without even doing any tests. And that's with insurance. I'm furious about having to pay this.



• The fact that our local school system requires that each child entering school be categorized according to race (you may only check one box) and that neither "biracial" nor multiracial" are among the options. I refused to check any of the boxes, much to the displeasure of the people who were screening Little C for his entrance into kindergarten next year. They tell me I'll have to pick a racial designation for him before he goes to school next year. Essentially, they are going to force me to decide if he is "White" "African-American," "Asian," "Hispanic/Chicano" or "Native American."
  
  Little C fits three of those (arbitrary, socially constructed) categories. He describes himself as "brown." I will not pick one. We'll see what happens.

Little C loves my sunglasses. And dancing.

Terrorism and thesis fodder

So here I am, writing my thesis about how domestic terror attacks are made foreign in the media, when this happens. Some (probably not very articulate) musings:

• I've been studying these kinds events for almost two years now, and after writing three papers on the subject and reading thousands of news articles and transcripts (which, I should mention, have driven me back into the arms of reality TV, if only for my own sanity), one big trend I'm noticing is that after one high-profile event (a major school shooting or an attack like the one on Fort Hood) there is almost always another attack, if not several more attacks, within a week. There were weeks in 2007 and 2008 when there were 3-4 shootings. Then none for months. The day after the Fort Hood attack there was a major rampage shooting in Orlando.
  
  Anyway, I think the copycat phenomenon is alive and well.



• Articles like this one annoy me to no end. All of a sudden, the military is "rethinking" Muslim soldiers? Really? Because William Kreutzer, ANOTHER soldier who opened fire on a military base, was a Christian... and so was Sgt. John Russell of the recent Camp Liberty shootings... to name two. But did those shootings somehow force the military to rethink Christian soldiers? No.



• The Fort Hood shooter was as American as I am. Relatively recent immigrant roots, but born here. Raised here. If someone with my ethnic and religious background (Italian, European, Christian, Protestant) committed this kind of attack, how would the narrative be different? I know it would be. I'm just more interested than ever in finishing my thesis. The topic has suddenly become more relevant than it was last week.

"Well, DOGS need licenses..."

I'm really tired of this dumb and poorly thought out argument about requiring potential parents to pass a test or get a license to be a parent.

The logical conclusion of this argument--the natural place it leads--is a totalitarian environment that dictates who is subjectively "fit" to have a child and who is not. A world in which every potential parent must literally submit him/herself to a screening process, or receive a mandatory license to procreate, is NOT one I want to live in. Can you imagine where that could lead? I shudder at the thought.

It's easy to point to poor parenting and gripe that "there oughta be a law." But the implications of actually putting such legislation into practice are, frankly, terrifying.

Facebook BLORF and Asshattery

From the start, I knew this one was shaping up to be a doozy:



That's right, this 21-year-old man has changed his profile picture to a photo of a note his girlfriend wrote him for their one-month anniversary. But it gets worse:









Auuugh. Nauseating. You'd expect this from 13-year-olds, not grown adults.

But did you hear? It's their one-month anniversary!



OMG!



Anniversary cupcakes! Maybe they'll take pictures!




Maybe there will be soft music in the background!



Maybe he'll post three videos and two albums worth of pictures.


Okay, now here's the really gross part. I poke fun at his ridiculous over-sharing on Facebook, but the real heart of this issue is that this guy is a jackass. A real asshole.

Exhibit 1:



Very nice deduction there, Sherlock. What the hell was he expecting? I can't decide if he's being racist or just smugly assholish. ("It seems most obvious?" Seriously?)

Exhibit 2:



Then there was this... and finally...

Exhibit 3:



This was what put me over the edge with him. Read the whole thing. What a jerk. Really.

So this is what I said:



And I unfriended him. Done.

[sigh]

A sign I may be getting old.

Went to a modern art museum today with some friends from my cohort and Little C. Little C wasn't thrilled with most of the installations; he tried to climb through a tunnel-looking thing sitting in the middle of a vast white room that for all the world looked like a piece of playground equipment and growled at the security guard who told him he couldn't touch it. He didn't care for the room lit entirely in a foreboding red light full of free-hanging Venetian blinds, either. He called an interactive display of a computerized dolphin "scary" and refused to go near it. Privately, I agreed.

However, he did enjoy making paper airplanes out of several of the fliers stuck to a wall for visitors to take in one gallery featuring a particularly pretentious exhibit, which I found so funny that I didn't stop him. He amused himself by making loud airplane sounds and throwing them across the empty white space. He also spent a long time dancing madly in some sort of light exhibit that cast patterns on the floor.

The museum was chock-full of teenage hipsters, many of whom were wearing skinlight lamé pants, huge Ironic Glasses with no lenses, keffiyehs and (duh) Chuck Taylors. Here was my internal rant:

• Ironic Glasses are just stupid. They make you look like an ass.


• Gold lamé has never looked good on anyone, ever.


• I remember the '80s (albeit dimly) and '80s fashion went out of style FOR A REASON.


• You did not invent Chuck Taylors, young hipsters.


• COMB YOUR HAIR.

...sigh.

Little C is Quotable

Little C: Mommy, look at the wind in the trees. The leaves are flopping around and tickling themselves.

...

Little C: [To the Sportswriter, on why he should play football with him] The football was waiting for us to play with it.

...

Little C: Why is your school called "campus" and mine isn't? What's a campus?

Me: It comes from the Latin for "field."

Little C: What's Latin?

Me: It's a very old language.

Little C: But what is language?

Me: Oh boy.

...

Little C: Mommy, today I watched Peter Pan at school (at his preschool/daycare).

Me: Wow, that sounds like fun. Who is Peter Pan? What is he like?

Little C: [pauses] ... Well, he's different.

Me: Oh.

...

Little C: [out of the blue] What is money?

Me: Well... it's something you use to buy goods and services. And you have to work to earn it. You know what it looks like. Paper and coins.

Little C: Okay... but what is it? What is money really, Mommy?

Me: Gosh, you know, I'm not even sure I know.

An open letter to the nocturnal meathead who works out in the wee hours of the morning:

Dear Nocturnal Meathead,

If you want to damage your body by working out several hours a day EVERY DAY without giving your muscles time to rest, that is your prerogative. If you want to be Mr. America, good for you.

But DO NOT WORK OUT WITH 50-pound free weights and DROP THEM ON THE CONCRETE FLOOR OF THE GYM CONTINUOUSLY for hours at a time during the times when people are normally sleeping. Like, say, at midnight, or one in the morning.

And when I come downstairs at one a.m. and tell you that the gym is RIGHT UNDER MY BEDROOM and you are making an ungodly amount of noise and could you please work out just a wee bit earlier, DO NOT act startled, agree to do so, write me flirty notes that my boyfriend discovers on my door the next morning, and then continue to bang the weights on the floor WHILE I AM SLEEPING DURING NORMAL HUMAN SLEEPING HOURS.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop.


Sincerely,

Ruthie

How to Write a Passive-Aggressive Status Update: An Illustrated Guide

It's an art, the Passive-Aggressive Status Update. Not everyone is capable of becoming a master—some purists say that Passive-Aggressive Updaters are born, not made.

But I say that's nonsense. All it takes is a little determination and a lot of patience. And my four-step plan:

1. Refer vaguely to "haters," or those who are allegedly jealous of you, but make sure to let them know that you don't care:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Please note that this tactic is apparently most powerful when followed by an "lol" or "lmao;" the imagery is meant to invoke an image of you laughing at your haters, not at all hurt or the slightest bit put out by their hateration (because if you were, you wouldn't be "lmao"ing, would you? Never mind that you took the time to post the status in the first place, thereby recognizing their obviously laughable lunacy.)



2. Post extremely specific complaints that, paradoxically, are aimed at no one in particular (since it's a status update broadcast to all your friends indiscriminately):
   
   
   
   This tactic works especially well if you have a problem with someone but just can't muster up the energy or decency to talk to them about it personally. PASUs are the perfect outlet for clearly specific complaints that have no discernible target.
   
   
   
   Thanks for clarifying, dear C. I'm glad you were clear about something.
   
   



3. Be vulgar and antagonistic. When possible, exhibit as little understanding of English grammatical structure as possible. Talk about bitches.
   
   
   
   My favorite thing about this one above is that she apparently thinks the not-a-word superlative "bitchest" is the plural of "bitch."
   
   
   
   
   
   



4. Finally, when in doubt, express frustration with the "fake-ness" of certain unnamed parties:
   
   
   
   

Remember: The best outlet for your half-formed frustrations and poorly articulated petty disagreements with friends is the public forum of The News Feed.

Now go. Practice. Godspeed.

Augh. Winter.

So here's my living room window last week (it was a particularly pretty day):



And here's this morning:



Sigh. I was hoping autumn would be more than four days long this year.