Gift Me My Money Back!

Look, I have a problem. And I had this problem last Christmas. And if we're really honest, I've had it all along. I even blogged about it last year. But it won't go away and so I need to bring it up again.

WTF is up with everyone always using the word "gift" in place of the verb "give" these days? Like, is giving someone something not as thoughtful or considerate as gifting it to them?

I just can't get on board with this "gifting" business, even though iTunes, and Flickr and other businesses (for example: see every retailed that ever existed)are apparently all about it.

Please--be part of the solution. Tell everyone how stupid this sounds and help stop the madness.

HAAAAA!

I am currently the number one google search result for "Trash the Dress."

This thrills me beyond my mortal imagination. I want to cry. I want to laugh. I want to say BOO-YAH in an irritating manner (I don't know if there is a non-irritating way to say it actually).

Oh HAAA!

EDIT: This might not be entirely true. According to my referral from sitemeter, I was the number one result, but an independent search shows otherwise. In any event, actually ranking at all slays me completely.

Unexaggerated Telephone Conversation of 30 Seconds Ago

Me: My place of employment: may I help you?
He: Are you an art exhibit?
Me: Umm. Well, the museum *has* art exhibits. Yes.
He: Do y'all have information about y'alls?
Me: Are you asking for exhibit information? Yes, we have that.
He: But the artwork! Do you information about the artwork!!!!
Me: Well, they're labeled and I'd be happy to help you if you want to come in.
He: I'm in town right now. I'm coming over right now!
Me: Actually, only our administrative offices are open today. The galleries are closed until tomorrow.
He: But I have to write a paper! It's due tomorrow! I need help NOW! I went to the Kimball Museum [in Fort Worth] yesterday, but they didn't have what I wanted. What else is in East Texas?! I need to go today!!!!
Me: Well, what is it that you're looking for specifically?
He: Artwork! I am looking for artwork with information about itself!
Me: The Kimball didn't have labeled art work?
He: I need to write my paper!!!
Me: Well, you can try the Tyler Museum of Art, but I don't know their hours.
He: Well are they open?
Me: I don't know. You'd have to call them.
He: I've got to write this paper!!!
Me: Okay, well, good luck!
[line goes dead]

First of all, if the Kimball wasn't able to scratch this fella's itch, there was no way in hell we were going to. But, I'm almost disappointed that he didn't come in today just because--what is he expecting out of a museum? Maybe we're missing our audience. Also, I am terribly interested in his question of "do you have information about y'alls"? This might be the question of the ages.

Also, I don't know who gave this assignment, but I have enjoyed his or her students IMMENSELY. I have met about five of them and they have been entertaining to the Nth. Of course, I can easily classify them as the laziest students on the planet. They each have basically asked me to do their work for them, but maybe that is why I find them so charming. So ridiculous. If I wouldn't feel myself falling into the wonky land of self-parody, I might actually get one of those mugs that says something like "How is your procrastination my problem?" Only if Tweety Bird or Dilbert were involved though.

And another phone call just now while I wrote this asked if I'd ever heard of artist "Buckshot Ferguson."

No day is the same here. Ever.

Head in Sand Approach

Okay NPR, I know we're going through a rough patch, but can I make a deal with you? I'll start listening again if you can keep the amount of times you say Pakistan in one hour under 850 million.

I realize there's a lot of funky stuff going on over there--bad stuff, stuff we really should be hearing in the news. I also realize it's not going to go away just because you stop talking about it. But I could really use a break--and so could my Rilo Kiley cd, frankly.

I really need you to report on other things from time to time. Without sounding like a petulant child, I am miserably bored with Pakistan. I have compassion for the situation indeed, but it's waning with every report.

Please report on bunnies and unicorns soon. I need this. You need this. Don't you agree?

Strictly Entre Nous

I am a sucker for advice columns and now there's a new one on the block. So after you get through your Dear Abby, Dear Margo, Dear Prudence, and Savage Love (if you're spicy), head on over and Ask Mrs. Toucanella. She'll give you the rub.

With this photo, I thee commit.

Holy geez. Have I got a live one for you F-R readers! This morning I was stunned to find in my email inbox a promotional letter for a new type of vanity photography called "Trash the Dress!" wherein a past bride wears the dress she so revered and protected with her entire life for a time to splash in the mud or drag across the ground or jump into water or handle paint.

I am not making this up. Google it and see the brazillions of web sites now dedicated to this wasteful backlash of the reduce, reuse, recycle movement--or maybe just the forward lash of exerting vanity and wealth. Yes, it's a cause I can easily loathe more than TheKnot.com (or yeck! ack! TheNest.com).

This particular entry on the Trash the Dress blog leaves the writer nonplussed that a writer for Offbeat Bride, a self-explanatory blog, finds TTD so utterly distasteful and has duly filed it under "WTF?!" Yes, it's so shocking that someone who doesn't totally buy into the concepts of "wedding as experience" and "don't worry about the marriage! it's secondary to vanity!" is opposed to this utterly wasteful concept. But you know, Ariel at Offbeat Bride is much more eloquent than I am on this issue. Perhaps it is because I don't have millions of readers to answer to, just a devoted group who will remain friends with me even when I open my mouth and begin screaming and mouthing off incoherently.

And thank you for that friends. Now, who wants to take pictures of me blowing my nose on our marriage license?

---
BONUS round!

I posted some comments on the TDD blog that are currently "awaiting moderation." I know what that means: BUH-leted! But it's cool. I have preserved them here for you, so that you can appreciate my full-throated rage in the first few minutes of my discovery. :) For best results, read this entry first.

It seems you’re feeling rather defensive Sonya. Interesting.

I just got an email about this site and I just had to see it firsthand. All I can say is WOW! This is such a huge waste of money and artistic talent!

First of all, you’re right. What people want to do with their own possessions is certainly their business. That said, there is nothing so totally privileged in attitude as destroying an expensive dress just because you can and have some kind of bottled rage. If you’re that wealthy, I suggest therapy. Even just a run-of-the-mill tantrum will do. But you have to be in full make-up and wardrobe to do it? Ha!

Second of all, many people can’t afford to buy a nice dress even in a vintage shop and the fact that you’re harping on people who donate the dresses is frankly: disgusting. Yes, let’s rail against people who want other people to enjoy nice things instead of taking more vanity photographs. It would be such a waste to use any energy to help someone who is too lazy to be rich like me!

Get over yourself!

and back for more...

P.S. Offbeat brides are the kind who don’t promote “planning a wedding” as a total lifestyle choice. They simply want to celebrate the start of their marriage in a way that is most appropriate to their relationship and personal customs. Trash the Dress is just another site stroking the egos of couples who are more focused on the attention of a wedding than their actual marriage.

Enough with the Gay Tight Pants!

Shandi Finnessey has clearly fallen out of favor. My new number one referrer--by FAR--is a google image search for "gay tight pants." The image they are apparently after is that of Lance Bass on the cover of People magazine when he outed himself. The great irony of this is that no tight pants are involved in this shot at all, as it is just an upper torso photo. But seriously, I'm a little tired of it. I am going to host the image through photobucket instead of french-roast now, methinks. That way, my number one image will be of Dick Cheney as a pirate. Argh, indeed.

Someone else found my site today using the term "dapper danoween." And it could only be one of about five people in the world--all of whom well know of this site. So I'm confused. Or maybe, just maybe, the people's holiday: a celebration of dignity and waffles is soon on its way to worldwide domination.

Name, Rank, and Serial Number Please

Right now I am in the throes of writing a statement of purpose for graduate school, a 1-2 page document that will pretty well send me along my way or cast me back into educational purgatory. Museum studies programs do not require you to take the GRE, nor do they give a hoot if you do. This could be considered a boon to the applicant (Save several hundred dollars! No test prep! No test!), but it really shines a bright and unforgiving light on your ability to write persuasively and effectively. No sweat for a chatty Cathy like me, right?

Yes, it's very easy to adequately summarize in less than 500 words where you've been, where you're going, who you are, why you are deserving beyond measure (especially of large scholarships, please), and why you just totally freaking rock as an applicant. No problem.

I've been working on this thing off and on for the past three or four days and the navel-gazing is maddening I tell you! You start pulling anecdotes from times like 9th grade spirit week, as if I had any inkling that my whimsy of the time would somehow impact my lifelong goals. Honestly, I didn't even have very specific lifelong goals until about a week ago. Or rather, I had slightly different ones last week. (Tune in next week to see further improvements--as the world turns!)

On second thought, educational purgatory is not terrible. There's netflix in the waiting room. But onward!

Life in Perspective

Lately, some of the news stories I've listened to on my way to work have made me seriously re-consider my perspective on the world, and not in the usual ways. By this I mean, I haven't *just* been considering what it means to be an educated, white, young(ish), female person who has had every advantage relative to all the other people without my same stats, which is my usual musing. I try very hard not to be a stereotype in any way, but specifically in which I might be because of my above-mentioned roles, though I suppose my very good fortune at having the time to ponder such things is, itself, stereotypically privileged. But I can't apologize for living (or I won't, rather), so have a look in my head and see some other things I think about.

(Caution: What follows reveals a lot of my craziness, but I feel better after having thought it out and I used to pay over $100 an hour for that kind of therapy. So that's got to be a coup.)

Sometimes I think BIG:
What I was thinking of this morning was: Holy crap! I am the same age as the mayor of Pittsburgh. Why am I not the mayor of Pittsburgh? Why am I not even the boss of anything?

And just a few days ago, I was thinking about the oustings of the Merrill Lynch and Citigroup CEOs. They each were responsible for BILLIONS of dollars of losses, and they each left their jobs in great fanfare with a "sorry, that sucks" severance package of $150 MILLION dollars or more. Think of all the Estee Lauder Re-Nutriv creams they could buy! I will likely not ever make that much money in my entire life and that's their "you messed up BIG" condolence prize?! Geez. When I mess up little, very little, and ruin no one's lives or retirement plans, I hear about it for days! Weeks! I do not get a cookie. I do not get cash in hand to buy a vacation home, a yacht, a small country, and never have to work again.

And sometimes I think hopelessly small:

For example, I am applying for an online degree program at the University of Oklahoma because, hey, there aren't a lot of ways to get a master's degree in Museum Studies when you live in Nacogdoches. But I get all frantic thinking that I am not living up to my full potential if I don't go to Harvard and make all A's and I don't know, have the nicest Quidditch scarf of all to wear smugly among the Ivy Leaguers. And I want to smack myself for this vanity, for not saying: hey! you are so lucky to be able to even embark on this educational program, to pay for it, to succeed in it, and to attend a university that is certainly of high quality (although Texas pride alone makes me kind of snarl at all things Oklahoma just because)!

And I wonder if what I write on Facebook will cause people to judge me for NOT being all that I can be. Yes! I think they will see that because I live in East Texas and not, I don't know, Paris, that I am not seizing the day or stretching myself intellectually, culturally, spiritually, or a thousand other ways. And I just want to slap myself because one of the main reasons that East Texas's biggest export is its people is because jerks like me are not standing up saying: "This is a good and worthy place to live, our home, and a place we are proud of and want the best for!"

Or sometimes I think my friends or family will come over and see that our front room is still pitifully unpainted and desperately in need of shelving and will judge me for not having everything in its place and will find me lacking in some way.

In short, I do not always trust that the choices and decisions I am making are serving my highest self and constantly wonder: am I enough? But then I think of all my friends, my good and kind and wonderful, complex, interesting, beautiful friends and I know: I did something right. And I didn't ruin anyone's retirement plan.

So can I have my $150 million, please? :)

Reality Chic

Look what my online shopping turned up.

This Estee Lauder moisturizer, 8.4 oz, is A THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Sure, it's a generous size for a moisturizer, but let me run that price by you again.

A THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Yes, that's 1 followed by three zeros BEFORE the decimal point. Aye.

NaNoWriMo Ambivalence

We're now nicely into NaNoWriMo and I have something to tell you. I wish the something I had to tell you could fill the space of approximately 50,000 words, but I am a little more in favor of economy. In fact, the back space key and I need to part ways if I am to tackle this thing in earnest.

No, the thing I have to tell you is that I actually have the makings of a truly good story--I think. I mean, who doesn't like to read about unlikely and extraordinary friendships that teach us about compassion and love which is greater than selfishness in selfish times? The thing is, I really don't feel like it.

I have been so bogged down of late that I sort of just want to work on my cookbook, or my holiday cards, or on daydreaming about Losers' Thanksgiving, which is going to be oh-so winner-like this year. I want to online shop some, maybe Wist a few things. I'm truly not one to procrastinate (seriously, I gave this up), so now I am wishing ill feelings heaped upon this extraordinary opportunity for making me feel guilty for enjoying free time, for thinking I should be doing something else, when I am typically much more taskmaster than putter-offer, and for being this totally rewarding experience that I just don't want to do right now, even though I actually have a great story that, if all goes well, will rid me of fiendish supervisors for the rest of my days.

Then again, I'm not really sure I want to be a novelist. And neither does my character! This is great. I need to write this stuff down. Sorry again for the blogging abyss. I don't have anything good to tell you right now. Soon, friends. Soon. Now I better get back to this extraordinary friendship...