A parse farce.

I received a formspring question today. Yes, I still have a formspring. I forget about it for months at a time and then a little notification pops up in my inbox– someone has asked me a question! It’s nice to pretend people care about what you have to say. Usually.

Today, the question was a bit unnerving. And I quote: “are you still single?” Well, the middle school girl in me immediately swooned at the thought of an exciting anonymous suitor but soon enough my linguist tendencies got the best of me. What exactly could this mean?

Oh, futility of online communication. I have a terrible tendency to meet/flirt/form important relationships with people entirely online, only then making the jump from internets to irl when I feel comfortable enough to assuage socially-induced panic attacks. This question is a perfect example — I can easily parse it to a number of different meanings.

Are you still single? // I am unsure as to whether or not you have a significant other in your life due to lack of communication/”dubious friendships”/sundry other reasons.

Are you still  single? // I have previously disclosed my relationship status to you and am wondering about yours. Alternatively, a pointed question of relationship status to “you” within a group of people.

Are you still single? // Jesus Christ, you’ve been alone for so long. You might as well buy yourself a few cats and give the fuck up.

Are you still single? // I am interested in your relationship status because I may be interested in you.

The actual meaning behind the question is null and void. I’m just interested in the intentions behind it. It’s hard to forget how vague online communication can be.

My interest in parsing comes from learning foreign languages. Junior year of high school, I took a trip to Thailand with some of my classmates. One of them bought a travel phrase book, the kind with useful phonetic translations of words you’d need to know for everyday situations — buying things at a market, getting directions, decoding restaurant menus and visiting the doctor.

A little background here: Thai is a tonal language. A rising or falling tone on a word can change the meaning from chicken to egg or from who to sell.

So, anyway, one of the phrases in the book translated to “I don’t want a blood transfusion.” If said with the wrong tone, it could be gibberish or mean something completely different. We learned this phrase in Thai, as it is obviously super useful, but couldn’t get the idea of tonal languages out of our head. My classmates and I decided to play around with the English equivalent of tones: stress.

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // There is someone here that wants one, but it is not me.

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // I am adamant about not desiring this medical procedure.

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // That’s crazy! Why would anyone want that? I’m just in dire need of one.

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // I want several.

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // I would prefer another type of transfusion. Plasma, perhaps?

I don’t want a blood transfusion. // I want a blood sausage! Clearly we’ve had some miscommunication here.

Language is so fun. Why do I waste all of this time using it on the internet when I’m clearly missing out on such vital communication?

Transportation transformation

I drive a silver 1995 Mercury Sable- a veritable boat with rear-facing seats, incredibly small cup holders and a fuzzy blue interior, fondly dubbed Cookie Monster by Phyllis in the summer of ’08. This time last year, that station wagon was my life. How else would I be able to make the five minute commute to McDonald’s for my eight AM shifts? Without Cook, who’d make the late night travels to f-hots?! I am the opposite of tidy, but the mess in my car was a loving mess- diet coke cans, receipts for books I never ended up reading, countless frisbees, bottles of bubbles, and mud from too many late star-gazing nights. We were inseparable- the best of friends! Unfortunately, our relationship has soured over the past few months.

I just can’t get excited about driving anymore. My current job is in The City (ro-cha-cha), so my commute is slightly longer. That’s not what bothers me- any prolonged opportunity to listen to NPR is a good thing. No, it’s the constant responsibility that comes with a car. I leave home. I get to work. I leave work. I come home because someone needs the car. I put gas in the car. Repeat. I’ve been spoiled on public transportation for the past year- as unreliable as the T may be, it’s always going to be there. And when I’m on the subway, I can read a book, take stealth pictures of obnoxious happy couples, or simply relax. Even better than public transportation is the walking- when I walk somewhere, I feel like I interact with the environment so much more.

Cookie and I used to be close, but now I feel one degree removed from the world I’m living in. My disdain for personal transportation is probably a clue that I’m inherently urban, something I’ve suspected for a while. Ultimate bliss would be not needing anything more than a good bike to get around.

Summertime, and the livin’ is ennui.

So far, summer has been less than summery. I’m working at a creative writing day camp (: McDonald’s:: Brown: MCC), but sessions don’t start until next week so I’ve had three weeks to myself. I’m absolutely awful at filling time- I absolutely need to be busy at all times or else nothing gets done. Case in point: my room.

Back in May, I never really unpacked from college. Sure, I put away most of my clothing and the more essential things (toothbrush, favorite book, desk lamp), but this is nowhere near being done. I have two boxes full of yarn and aprons to go through. There are eight different ziplock bags full of sundry items that used to be my desk (pro-choice pins, bits of string, striped paper clips, yellow toy cars, etc.). The perimeter of my room is packed with boxes, bags and piles. At the time, I figured this was fine. I was going to be out of the country for a month- of course the mess would mysteriously disappear. And now this is all just magnified by the two (!) suitcases half-filled with Italian souvenirs and sweaty clothing. I’ve always had a theory that my room is the outward manifestation of my mindset- it’s probably a causation vs. correlation issue, but whenever I’m struggling with depression or anxiety, it’s like the room is mirroring the clutter in my mind. The bad thing about this is that I usually end up spending no time in my room and let things pile up to an ungodly level until they start to smell. The good thing about this is when I can finally motivate my lazy ass to clean, I usually feel eight hundred times better in every way. So, a fifty-fifty situation.

New hobby: cooking. My life became distinctly more culinary in April, and it’s a trend I’d like to perpetuate. I’ve always been a baker, but my cooking is so poor that I’ve been having to do it in secret. My own mother judges me so hard when I try to make anything, from eggs to soups to cookies. She’ll stand over me, insisting I add more salt or turn down the heat. Phyllis is quite the cook, as she’ll be quick to tell you. She’s been cooking ever since the great depression, when she’d have to make a three course meal for her twelve siblings out of a sack of apples and a handful of flour. She’s a traditionalist, so she doesn’t understand why I want to add goat cheese to everything. Spreadable goat cheese is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It turns normal sandwiches into Champion Sandwiches. It turns scrambled eggs into Amazing Scrambled Eggs. And, most importantly, it turns every food into Food My Brother Will Not Eat, ensuring that I will actually get to eat some of my creation.

I’ve been listening to a lot of folk-punk lately. I made a huge playlist of Andrew Jackson Jihad, Captain Chaos, Ghost Mice, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, Paul Baribeau and Defiance, Ohio. So good.

Travelin’ Through

I used to absolutely loathe the stress of traveling. As a kid, nothing made me hyperventilate, dehydrate and obstinate more than the hour or so spent in an airport before a family trip. Now that I’m a big girl, having taken an airplane by myself a whole four or five times, I’m ambivalent to the process itself. I find myself scoffing at skinny twenty-something guys with beards who don’t understand that laptops must be screened in a bin by themselves, not with their accompanying laptop bag. I sneer at the evian-toting, heel-wearing businesswomen trying to sneak a carry-on the size of a medium-sized bear onto the plane.  The minute I step foot into Logan, I become a jaded, hyper-observant frequent flyer, judging the actions of those around me who can’t, won’t, or don’t conform to conventional airport standards. I am, in short, a puppet of the system.

If hell was on earth, it would be the Newark airport.  A short list of reasons why:

1. The people here are the reason why the world hates America. There are balding men with baseball hat tan lines. Fifteen-year-old boys with cargo shorts are eating ice cream, letting it melt all over the floor of the moving sidewalk. It is impossible to find a space that is not infected with the putrid cry of a terrified baby and his accompanying neglecting/ignorant/abusive parent, usually standing in line at McDonald’s. This is not just vitriolic commentary; it is the absolute truth that I have observed with my own eyes and (unfortunately) ears.

There are few other places in the world where the Ugg-to-shorts ratio is lower than here. It’s a combination I’ve never understood; yet I have bafflingly observed time and time again, even in the winter when there’s snow on the tarmac and, presumably, most of these people trudged through thirty-degree weather to catch their flight on time. And I know I mentioned it before, but the ubiquitous cargo shorts really must be emphasized. As a wise man (or a drunk dude in a Bruins t-shirt) once told me on the T: “No one has ever gotten a blowjob in cargo shorts.” I don’t have any empirical evidence to its truth but I can, as a woman, attest to the unattractiveness of this particular clothing item as a “turn-off.”

2. Airport food is not supposed to be good or cheap; however, the food at Newark is absolutely terrible. Every place is either disgustingly unhealthy, ridiculously expensive or both. As much as I love junky Chinese food, the last thing I need in my body when I’m hurtling through the sky is an excess of sodium and MSG.

The only place I can realistically afford to eat (both financially and health-wise) is McDonald’s. My dinner tonight is as follows: One bottle of water purchased from McDonalds at a whopping $2.50, One pack “apple dippers” with caramel sauce priced thirty percent higher than any other fast food restaurant that doesn’t require a full body x-ray to patronize, one fruit and yogurt parfait sans granola for god knows what reason and two crumbling cookies from Outtakes, found at the bottom of my backpack.

I wish there was some secret code to let McD’s workers know. “I worked here, it’s okay. You don’t have to treat me like crap. I may look middle class and privileged, but I too know what its like to feel the stinging burn of French fry oil on your inner wrist. I understand how annoying it is to have a customer order a five-piece nugget and the ensuing conversation about how nuggets only come in four or six pieces, and yes, two four pieces are cheaper than a six piece but I don’t make the pricing rules and if you think you’ve figured out such a way to cheat the system then why don’t you just gorge yourself on chicken parts mixed with corn and deep fried until unrecognizable as food? What kind of sauce would you like?!”

But, alas, I cannot find it in myself to admit to this shared sisterhood of the fry and am stuck with the hurried, harried customer service that is the hallmark of busy fast food restaurants everywhere.

3. Newark is, apparently, a breeding area for sloth-like creatures with a disturbing inability to fend for themselves in the all-important human sport of WALKING TO YOUR GATE.

Moving sidewalks are one thing; if you walk down the moving sidewalk, it increases your efficiency in reaching your destination. You’re a part of your own movement and are simply using the environment at hand to your advantage. But, as we all know, they are never actually used in this fashion.  Instead, people laze around on them, passively moving towards the obvlivion of their gate, mere pawns in their own existence. But at least these sloths make the attempt at individually arriving at their destination.

The worst is the goddamn motorized carts that take up ALL of the non-moving sidewalks, honking at me to move out of the way so some family of four doesn’t have to walk the ten minutes to their destination. I’m going to step right in front of the next one of these honking menaces I see. It’s a death wish, but I’d die defending my ideals (mostly the right to a stationary sidewalk).

And with these three examples, I rest my case. Newark International Airport has officially replaced Cortland, NY as the shittiest place on the planet.

It’s a mystery.

Things that stress me out:

1. Facebook- I’ve never been good with people in general, but I think I’ve carved out my own little niche, found out what works for me. Seeing how other people interact socially makes me worry that I’m doing it incorrectly or that I’m somehow missing out on all the Fun And Crazy Times that everyone is having. It’s a silly delusion of mine that I just can’t seem to shake. I took three days off of facebook at the beginning of spring break and I was more calm and anxiety-free than I’d been in years. But it’s still a necessity in my life- it’s my primary method of communication with friends both old and new. Hence, the stress.

2. Coffee- Gives me jitters when I drink too much, gives me headaches when I drink too little, can taste like burn acid in hell and is probably my primary expense right now. Sometimes I enjoy a double americano while banging out an essay at ERC but generally the entire thought of bean juice just stresses me out.

3. Saturday nights- If you’re in on a Friday night, you’re having a chill night. If you’re in on a Saturday night, it’s pathetic. The pressure to make plans and have Fun And Crazy Times gets overwhelming sometimes. But this goes back to #1 and my social interaction anxieties. I guess this is a good time to point out that I am not anti-social or standoffish, just shy and awkward. You can talk to me! I enjoy it!

4. Foreign languages that are not French- I’m bad at them and it’s an irrevocable badness. No matter what I do, I can’t learn a language to a degree where it may have significance. I can learn every irregular future tense conjugation in Italian and perfect my accent, but I couldn’t combine the two. I’d have to think of what I wanted to say, write it down, fix it, and then read it off the paper. My brain has decided to shut down after 1.5 languages- enough is enough!

5. Ladybugs- They are everywhere and they are falling on me and I can’t open my blinds without seeing at least twenty and so now I am just pretending that they don’t exist but it’s hard when they are IN MY BED.

Puppy for sale: free to a good family

Every year around the holidays (which seems like a rather ostentatious term for December, as there are many holidays in many other months but this is irrelevant), it seems like numerous media outlets, from radio ads to newspapers and television, advise against the impulsive purchasing of animals. It seems that people tend to go for the raucous puppies, the ones that lick their face, run circles around the room and pee a little bit on their shoes at their first meeting. These cute little quirks attract adults to the animals, thinking that such fun puppies would be great gifts for the kids. Two weeks later, these puppies still aren’t toilet trained. Rover’s barking becomes less adorable when it’s constant, day and night. And, goddamn it, the fucking puppy just broke the expensive fucking vase in the den while he was chasing his stupid fucking tail. So, the family abandons him on the street. They just weren’t really ready for that huge responsibility. It’s easy to block these two weeks out of their mind- though the puppy might never forget them, they’ll never think about that puppy again.

This is exactly what it’s like to make friends in college. Everyone’s just a puppy looking for their family. In high school, being friends was like visiting the neighbor’s dog- he might smell but he’s fun to be around for an hour or so. You’d take him for a walk, then return him and go home for dinner. In college, it’s completely different. You’re constantly exposed to everyone- you have to own your best friends; you can’t get by on renting.  Your cute little habits might make you friends initially but you must quickly learn to curb them, lest you get kicked out to the streets for barking at three in the morning. Friends are really just two people who piss on each other’s carpet; you piss on mine and I’ll piss on yours.

This isn’t meant to be pessimistic- I’ve certainly found many people who I would gladly let run about my home, bumping into walls and being destructive. It’s just all based on the acceptance of undesirable traits in the face of larger happiness. With so many puppies, it’s easy to wonder if you’ve picked the right one but I think I’ve done well enough.

…has a good home

“I don’t care if you’re naked, just don’t rub your nipples over the pizza!”

–My lovely mother to my (pants-wearing) brother

Every time I’ve come back home from college (a whole three times now), I’m conflicted. On one hand, it’s great to come home to a house full of real food (usually meatballs) then play my piano and walk my dog. But conversely, it never feels quite the same- my dorm feels more like a “home”, a place in which I am completely comfortable. There’s always a slight disconnect at home; I never manage to completely unpack so I’m living out of a suitcase, always ready for more travel.

My room is freezing, full of ladybugs and there are tiny dixie cups containing bay leaves in every single corner, supposedly to combat said ladybugs. It also contained three gifts: fresh flowers, strawberry pocky and a white sweatshirt. Now, I think flowers are a waste of money, pocky reminds me unfortunately of 8th grade and I have a horrible inability to wash white things without them turning into some odd approximation of gray. Nevertheless, it’s incredibly sweet of my mother to try.

Today, it snowed. This is hardly unusual up here in almost-Canada, but this was a ridiculous snowfall. I haven’t seen anything like this since I was a little kid. Thanks to a few days of accumulation, there are piles taller than I am around our driveway. And it isn’t stopping- I woke up to shouts of delight from my brother that quickly turned to horror when he realized that he would mostly likely be delegated the task of shoveling.

My entire family ran outside in our pajamas (I had on only tights, a long shirt and boots) and played in the snow for hours. After shoveling, we got into an all-out snowball fight (which my brother completely dominated) and made a snowman (named George). My brother and I made forts and jumped from the front yard trees into the largest piles. Then we all came inside and warmed up by the fire. I was a little kid again- my every need (food, shelter, warmth, entertainment, love) was accounted for. It was so lovely.

I enjoy the faux-nomadic lifestyle too much to ever live here again; however, it’s nice to come back to for a bit. It’s a good place to call home.