Milestones

I would say that one of the most significant "growing up"-type moments in my life so far has been a realization that I had a year or two ago. It's this:

Adults are just as flaky, irresponsible and irrational as teenagers.

As far as I can tell, teenagers and adults face about the same workload--is a nine-to-five job in a cubicle pushing papers much different from a seven-to-three job in a desk doing busywork?-- and are capable of doing what they're assigned in about the same proportion. Which makes sense, because those teenagers end up being the responsible adults.

Which seems obvious, but it was quite the moment for me when I found myself e-mailing a prospective employer multiple times to ensure a response and realized that she was just a flaky person. Appaaarently, turning thirty doesn't automatically make you reliable and together. Who knew?

To briefly relate this to unschooling, this is certainly not an idea that is ever suggested in school. Teachers are infallible and all-knowing, and if that test became misplaced, you probably lost it, and even if you think you did a good job on that project, you didn't until your teacher confirms it. It should not come as a surprise that adults are human, so why do schools pretend that teachers are demigods?

A Day Late, Buuut...

Happy birthday, Gloria Steinem!















Feminist icon, journalist, activist, etc.-- turned 75 yesterday. In honor of her birthday, the Ms. Foundation is asking for you to perform an outrageous act for simple justice. The idea is inspired by this Gloria Steinem quote:

“If each person in the room promises that…the very next day she or he will do at least one outrageous thing in the cause of simple justice, then I promise I will, too. It doesn’t matter whether the act is as small as saying, “Pick it up yourself” …or as large as calling a strike….”

Hell yeah. Learn more about this idea here. I have no idea if this is still technically going on or what, but I'm for sure going to be brainstorming something outrageous anyway. Why miss any opportunity, right?

Why I Blame Seventeen

So, I somewhat vaguely concluded yesterday's post by saying that I blame Seventeen. I guess I don't really blame Seventeen for every dumb teenage girl in America. Most girls are smart enough to realize when they're being played. And for the girls who aren't, Seventeen is only a small sector of all of the conflicting and ridiculous advice that media dishes out daily. But back to Seventeen-- have you read that magazine lately? It is shockingly stupid.

There's now a regular feature called Body Peace something-rather, which is a woman named Jessica Weiner's personal passive-aggressive soapbox. Although the column is supposedly aimed at making teenage girls come to peace with their bodies and crippling body image issues (which, I'd also like to mention, not every girl has), it's mostly written like your bitchy friend. "Remember that one time when you thought you looked really fat? Ha, that happens to everyone! You're... healthy! Seriously though, remember that time?" Not my fave.

Then, in addition to that idiocy, Seventeen has an admirable commitment to "real girl" models. However, most of the time, this appears to mean real models who are girls. But more offensive than that is the idea that each of these "real girl" models have a specific body flaw (pear shaped, boobs too big, boobs to small, short, skinny, etc.) that must be somehow disguised in order to sufficiently pass as a normal teen girl.

The fish rots from the head on this one. For a while, Seventeen's editor in chief was a woman named Atoosa Rubenstein, who, although giving off the distinct impression of being completely out of her mind, made a good, fluffy-but-uninfuriating magazine. She also presented herself as more of a cool aunt than a peer of the teen readers. Then she quit, or was fired-- it was never really explained--and was promptly replaced by a woman who seems to want nothing more than to convince the readers that she is just like them. She too worries about the perfect summer dress and how to flirt with that cute boy next door and has a disturbing affinity for multiple exclamation points!!! The letter from the editor is often flat-out creepy.

It's also just a really boring magazine.

So the question is, what's the alternative? Where is the awesome, bad-ass magazine for girls who like Rachel Maddow AND Lil Wayne? Wheeeeree?

What Those Kids Are Doing These Days

Sexting, apparently? Yeah, I hadn't heard of it until a week ago, either.

No, last night, I watched the movie Twilight. Obviously, I'm a little behind the times. But whatever. Basic plot-- girl meets boy, boy is a sparkly vampire, girl is all "I'm not scared of you," boy is all "I watch you while you sleep," (I'D BE SCARED), girl and boy go to prom.

The book series that the movie is based on has been slammed routinely for creating the single most boring protagonist on the planet (I can honestly say, without exaggeration or sarcasm, that Bella, the "heroine"'s two most defining characteristics are her clumsiness and her obsession with her boyfriend), perpetuating Stone Age gender roles, and generally just being pretty terrible books. The actual writing is also just... bad.

I read the first book in like two days. I'm not particularly proud of that, but it speaks to the idea that there is something compelling about these books. Why is a condescending, pedophilic (he's 100-odd years old; she's 17) vampire stalker attractive to millions of teen girls? Why do these same girls identify with a girl who is consistently incapable of saving herself from the sticky situations that she consistently leaps into?

I blame Seventeen.

Saul Williams

I saw him last night.

Getting Out the Door

Surprisingly difficult. My main struggle this morning was finding a shoelace for ones of my Chucks.

I've already replaced the original shoelace with some other white shoelace for reasons I don't remember (I would guess that the original broke), and this newer shoelace has since broken in a couple places. Instead of taking it out and buying a new shoelace for like $1 at Target like a normal person, I just tied the two broken ends together, creating one lace again. I did this a couple times.

Finally, a couple days ago, the lace broke again, and I lost the tiny second length of shoelace. So, for the past twenty minutes or so, I've raided my sneaker collection, looking for a shoelace that I could use as a replacement. For some reason, this is Very Important, and not just any shoelace will do.

I finally found an acceptable shoelace in an old running shoe.

Apparently, I am not the only one who cares about shoelaces.
















http://www.shoel-lacing.com has waay more where these came from.

The Big Questions

I'm a pretty deep person, so I think about a lot of really philosophical and important things more or less all the time. Recently, the question that's been keeping me up at night is, WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY HAIR?

Like I said, deep stuff.

I recently received a bizarre and awesome compliment of my hair. I was standing around at Track practice, and a friend of mine standing to my side asked if I had a hair binder. I didn't (my hair is short, I don't need one), and she smacked her head when I responded. "Duh! Your hair is too short. Anna," she added, "I love your hair! It's like an orphan's!"



















...Yeah! I don't exactly wake up every morning aiming to look like a parentless street urchin, but I think it's pretty sweet if that's what ends up happening. (I'm actually being completely serious here.)

Anyway, so the question is, cut or grow? I'll probably just end up growing it out until I get bored, and then cutting it all off, to be honest, which is what I always do. But I generally go through an obsessive period where I worry about what to do with my hair when it reaches chin length. Which is where it is right now. I am nothing if not predictable, I'm afraid.

Merriam Park

As the weather warms up, I begin to spend more and more time at Merriam Park. It's a huge, grassy area, with a skate park, a rec center, soccer fields, tennis courts, and roving groups of loud teenagers.

I spent an hour there yesterday with a friend, and we spent most of the time observing the skaters sliding up and down the ramp at the skate park. They sag their skintight skinny jeans, wear baggy shirts on top (for a Cosmo-esque touch of balance and proportion?), and puffy, ridiculous shoes. They stay in the same fenced-in area of the park for hours, attempting to grind on low railings, gliding around the ramp, and taking long breaks to sit at the of the ramp and look put-upon.

At Merriam, they're mostly under the age of 14, which is even better. You haven't seen real attitude until you've had an 11-year-old boy scowl at you as he struts across a soccer field. (Kids these days! So sassy!)











Good times.

Anticipation and Bubble Gum

I am so excited to start using my normal, non-monstrous, skinny-wheeled bike. Hooray for being able to shift gears! Hooray for unstudded tires! Hooray, hooray, hooray.

Blame my enthusiasm on the weather. It's 60 degrees and sunny out today, and it's enough to make me walk right through the muddy puddles everywhere. Hello, spring. It took you long enough.

I'm planning on being obscenely productive tonight. I want to rip through a chunk of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is currently teetering on the edge of unbearable-- the narrator used to be another person? Really?), finish my Political Philosophy paper on cultural relativism, finish up a million late Physics assignments, and start writing PSEO applications for next fall. Good times.

Unfortunately, planned productivity is generally a complete failure with me. The only time I ever clean my room is when I get home on a Friday or Saturday night too late to go out again but too early to go to bed. Cleaning my room in that 11PM-2AM-ish period seems perfectly reasonable. Cleaning my room on a Thursday afternoon seems ridiculous. This inclination extends to almost every other productive thing I do. Why do it at 8PM when you can do it at 12AM? Whee!

Needless to say, it's not my best habit. Neither is chain-eating sticks of gum, probably, but I think I'm on my sixth piece since beginning to write this. Yeeah.

Taking Poetry to the Streets

Liiiterally! Ha.

I was considering whining about a number of things (my bike broke epically this morning, the day today was 14 degrees, I need to do laundry-- obviously my life is a living hell), but I saw something a couple days that might be a little more interesting.

The other day, I took my dog Archie for a walk. This isn't a regular occurrence, because I kind of hate animals, but I was feeling restless and needed to get out of the house. So Archie and I plodded along the uniformly unattractive streets of wintertime Frogtown, me listening to my iPod and Archie sniffing anything remotely interesting. As we walked, I complained to myself about the weather and my uncomfortable shoes and Archie sniffing everything remotely interesting.

Just as I had crafted a particularly devastating barrage of complaints, I looked down. There were words in the sidewalk. More than words-- there was a poem on a single block of cement. It was simple and beautiful, and as I continued walking, more and more appeared. I walked eagerly down the block, watching for the poems. And there they were, for another two blocks.

I finished my walk with a spring in my step, and only cursed Archie a few more times before arriving at home.

(Photos to come?)

Central Moment #2

An occasional series of snapshots of Central Senior High School.

Boy, to another boy standing near him: Then you gonna look like Lindsay Lohan when she's drunk and can't control her titties!

Sylvia Plath-- Kind of a Downer

Uhh, yeah.

I just finished The Bell Jar. Loved it. Amazing book, I totally agree that it's Salinger-ish. More Franny and Zooey then The Catcher In the Rye, because, like F&Z, it does kind of have a plot, but that's not what's important at all. I mean, the plot is meandering and tenuous, but it does exist. Which I realized last night when prefacing an explanation of The Bell Jar by saying that it doesn't really have a plot, and then trying to explain the many, many things that happen in such short book.

But the book mostly made me extremely grateful that I am a happy person.

I've Found the Love of My Life

Seriously. In Highland Village, no less. Which is a little surprising, because the Village, as a general rule, contains everything that's wrong about everything.

And yet.










HALF-PRICE BOOKS. I got a copy of The Bell Jar (my previous copy of which I have, um, temporarily misplaced) for $0.75. How cool is that?? I stopped in at Borders a couple days ago to get an SAT practice book (barf), and the paperback copy of The Bell Jar that they had was $16.00.

I also got Female Chauvinist Pigs, because I'm a walking feminist stereotype, and The Life of Pi, on my mother's recommendation. They didn't have a copy of 100 Years of Solitude, but I expect to be able to find that at some point once I start, you, know, living there.

Beautiful

The kind of thing that makes me stay up way too late.