Let's All Be Men. Unless We're Women.

I don't understand Pinterest.

In my day to day life of browsing the internet for 14.5 hours a day I see the word Pinterest everywhere. On Facebook. On Twitter. On celebrity obituaries. One time I even saw it on a video of a dog jet skiing. Why would a dog jet skiing be using Pinterest? Pay attention. Both paws on the handle, Rufus. I guess I understand the basic concept of the website, but I am far behind the times in what purpose it actually serves. For those of you that don't know Pinterest is a virtual "pin board" where you can "pin" things and then I guess look at them later for guffaws and style ideas? I don't know. Let's ask the God of the Internet what Pinterest is. Take it away Wikipedia.

Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. The service allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections. The site's mission statement is to "connect everyone in the world through the 'things' they find interesting."

In my ever evolving quest to find out what everything in the universe is I decided to check out what this Pinterest thing is all about. Judging by the amount of notifications I see on Facebook it is either something I'm missing out on or people trying to annoy everyone by proving that they're cool. I see you Spotify. The other thing I've noticed is that the majority of people using Pinterest seem to be women. I guess majority is kind of under selling it a bit as ALL of the people I see using it are women.

Women be pinning.

Without seeing the website it makes perfect sense. Men aren't into pins. I have yet to meet my male friends out somewhere and say "Sweet pin bro. Where you get it?" This is mainly because I tend not to hang out with people that use the word "bro" in any social setting outside of the Jersey Shore when I was 17 and/or watching a Keanu Reeves movie. Men don't wear pins unless it's for some greater good. Aids awareness. Cancer Awareness. Athlete's Foot Awareness. Ok, Men only wear pins when they are trying to make people aware of debilitating diseases.

Men be morbid. Especially about communal showers.

Maybe I'm painting Pinterest with a broad brush. (Aside: This cliché never made sense to me which is why I'm using it now to have this aside to write. Two birds with one blah blah. When I'm painting I always want to use a broad brush because it gets the painting done faster. I can't imagine painting a house using a really thin brush. "Hey, it's been 471 straight hours; you think you want to use a bigger brush?" "Whatever, that one cliché makes it sound really bad and I'm all about appearances in life. Bring me a fruit cup!" Of course, people are going to point out that the cliché probably has to do with an "artistic" painting and not the painting of a den. If that's the case why not change the saying to "Trying to paint a Picasso with a broad brush." The way it reads now is really confusing and let's give Picasso some more props for painting one of those pieces of art I've heard about. You do you boo.)

Everything about the site without being on it sounds womanly. Even the name. Pinterest. What could be more feminine? Pink Vagina Flower? Dudes would still go to that because we think it could be a porn site. Blouses everywhere. Again, could be porn. OMG + Shoes = Fabulous. That could also be a porn site for some. People have fetishes, ok? There probably could not be a more feminine non porn sounding name than Pinterest. There is no reason for men to go a site with the word "interest" preceded by a "P." They took the most feminine letter in the alphabet* and added it to a word that is so androgynous no one has any idea how to use it without sounding like an uppity rich douche. "What's your interest in this product?" "May I gauge your interest?" "1.2 percent interest on our savings account." "I'm taking a keen interest in your thought process Millicent. DO TELL!"

Someone give Millicent the Grey Poupon.

But with all these thoughts in mind I ventured over to the dark side to see if Pinterest was in fact a site targeted at women. In my mind I had made the site out to be a vat of women pinning Bloomingdale’s sales and home cooking tips by Paula Deen (pre-hypocritical diabetes announcement.) People (see: women) that use Pinterest vow that it is not a site only for women and that men can use it too. It's just that we had not given it a chance. Fair enough. I was probably too harsh on them. So I opened the site and started browsing with an open mind. Maybe I could use Pinterest too. Let's look at the first 5 things I saw with the names removed to protect the gender innocent

1st picture - Baby and Kids Room decor of a wall with flowers on it.

Best comment: This is cute, right?

2nd picture - Women with a side profile and large afro type hair.

Best comment: Gawgeous! I Love It!

3rd picture - roughly a 3rd grade drawing of a leprechaun under a rainbow titled Cuter than a pot of gold

Best comment: Very Cute

4th picture - Picture of a female blonde "celebrity" on the red carpet titled "I want this haircut!"

Best comment: Had it. I looked hot.

5th picture - Eleanor Roosevelt quote.

Best comment: what a fab reminder.

To be fair I did like all 3 of those haircuts. Maybe we should just call Pinterest "Supercuts" and be done with it. Is that taken? All 5 of those pictures were heavily female influenced. I don't mind, but when it's the first thing I see when on a site I'm not that interested especially in female haircuts. Except when it's Rachel from Friends. Girl had it going on. Amiright? Again, I decided I was judging the site too quickly and started going down the page. Picture of a puppy. More inspirational female quotes. Wait, a guy posting something about a t shirt. That was nice. Maybe there was more of that. Scroll. Scroll. More puppies. Women's sandals. Disney Dolls. A baby. Then the coup de grace.

A shirtless picture of Taylor Lautner with the caption " HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

I don't think I'll be using Pinterest.

Unless they change the name to Pink Vagina Flower.

*study done by Highlights Magazine July 2005 issue**
**unconfirmed

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Rainman + Yao Ming = Harmony

I'm not white.

For the few of you that read this that don't know that fact you are in for a rude awakening. Sure my constant references to Gossip Girl, Whole Foods, and Kanye West may have fooled you, but the truth is that I'm as brown as Charlie. Or rice. Or whatever is brown, but don't say turds because that will accelerate the deflation of my self worth. Being brown does have its advantages such as getting entry into the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University based solely on the color of my skin and not the content of my GPA.

Sorry white people with better grades. Blame MLK.

Being a minority in suburbia in 1997 wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Not that it was cracked up to be anything. So maybe it WAS what it was cracked up to be? I'm not sure what's happening right now. I always felt slightly out of place in most situations. It always felt like people were watching me a little closer and keeping an eye out on what I would do.

Mainly because my fly was down. I blame the Arizona Jean company.

It may have been paranoia, but I did feel it at times. Playing sports as an extreme minority brings out a lot racial situations. There were plenty of times jokes would be made by opposing teams referring to "dot heads" or "turbans" to try and make fun of me. Which when you think about it is ridiculous. How can you wear a helmet on top of your turban? Come on people, simple logistics. Take physics class.

The wisecracks weren't limited to other teams though. There were jokes made by kids in our own locker room about smelling weird and horrific puns off of my dad's name. It never really stopped in high school and to be honest I never said anything about it because my dad had told me it was going to happen. I just gritted my teeth, nodded, and went home thinking life would have been a lot easier if I was white.

America is still a land where everyone is stereotyped. As we've progressively gotten more diverse those stereotypes have been broken down time and again. An Indian person isn’t always a doctor, works in IT, or owns a gas station. They can be a rap star. A Jewish person isn't always your agent, a lawyer, or a materialistic teenage girl. They can be a rap star. An Italian isn't always on Jersey Shore, in the mafia, or running a pizza place. They can be...well you get it. Wow, there are a lot of rappers. You would think they would make their living in a less crowded field. Stereotypes affect perception of people and whether they can do certain things. This brings me to one person in particular.

Jeremy Lin.

If you've noticed in the past few weeks there has been much said of one Jeremy Lin and for good reason. He's an anomaly. He is now an NBA star, but he is only one of 4 NBA players to have gone to Harvard. As little as 3 weeks ago he was sleeping on his brother's couch which I guess made him homeless. He received no scholarship offers coming out of high school.

Oh, and he's Asian.

To be fair there have been a few Asian players in the NBA led by the Jay-Z lyrical pal Yao Ming. (Aside: My favorite part of that song is not the fact that Jay-Z felt the need to drop Yao Ming in there for another reason than showing off the fact he could put Yao Ming in a song, but it is all the other name dropping his does in that song. Oprah, JFK, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Steve Madden, Beanie Sigel, Memph Bleek, Chris Rock, Stephon Marbury, Louis Vuitton, and, of course, Rainman. Any time I listen to that song I imagine those people to be in homeroom and Jay-Z rapping their name and they have to raise their hand and say, "present." How has no rich uppity school hired him to do it one day? "Can I get a what what for Adam Johnson in the front row, followed by Tanya Monson in the back? Uh, what I mean is that Janet Adams is all whack, but Tommy Sanders ain't all that... JOHN CROW WHERE YOU AT?!?!") What makes Lin different is that he's not a 7'6" giant. In NBA terms he is an "average" 6'3 200 pounder with mad hops and skills like someone that has skills.

Keepin' it real.

Lin has been tearing up the NBA and setting records for most points in his first 7 career starts and leading the Knicks back to respectability. He’s turned the team around and given life to a city dying for a basketball winner. This is what columnists around the country tell me. They also don’t understand how Lin could have been overlooked for so long. He’s obviously very good, how could not ONE school in the country offer him a scholarship. As I’ve been reading these articles many writers pussyfoot around the topic of race. They say Lin went to a small school. He fell through the cracks. Some say his jump shot wasn’t good enough. Many of these articles are written by people who have never been given a sideways glance due to the color of their skin. But they don’t say what they really mean. Jeremy Lin didn’t get a scholarship to play basketball because of one big reason.

He’s Asian.

Asians aren’t supposed to be able to dunk, or run fast, or be quick off the dribble. They are supposed to be maddeningly unathletic and love Hello Kitty. When coaches looked at Jeremy Lin they saw a good ASIAN basketball player. How could he match up against more athletic guys? They couldn’t separate his race from his ability. Some coaches have come out and said “Lin was the best player on the floor,” in his championship game, but just a “nice player.” Does that make any sense?

I feel confident in saying that Lin was stereotyped because I’ve been stereotyped my whole life. When people look at me they don’t think “he’s athletic.” They think he can probably keep the right score. I’ve been picked last many times. When I moved to LA I would play pickup basketball, ask someone if I could play next with them, then watch as I got kicked off the team when someone else who “looked” better showed up. I’ve had to prove myself over and over again. People don’t know that I shot thousands of shots at my basketball hoop in my driveway growing up. Or played thousands of hours of baseball. One of my friend’s boyfriends once said “You’re the best Indian basketball player I’ve played with.” Not one of the best players, but an Indian qualifier.

Minority Report.

I’ll be honest. I don’t really watch the NBA. It bores me with its constant timeouts and infinite “tallness.” Last week was the first NBA regular season game I’ve watched in 5 years because Jeremy Lin was playing. I was intrigued. I wanted to see the hype. I wanted to vicariously live through him that moment seeing as he’s tearing down stereotypes. I wanted to envision an NBA with a guy running around with a turban. Jeremy Lin may not carve a path for future Asian players, or Indian players, or Alien players from Mars that won’t be overlooked due to skin color. He’s not Jackie Robinson. Hell, he’s not even Barack Obama. But he’s making people realize then when someone is damn good at something maybe they’re just really good and that’s what we should judge them on.

Or maybe we’ll judge them on their rapping.

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Just Breathe. And Other Tips On How Live.

I read Slate Magazine. Contrary to popular belief this does not make me smarter, more well rounded, or give me a larger vocabulary than the general population. I was already all of those things. Hey-Oh! Ego burn. Anyways, I enjoy Slate due to their vast array of topics and writers who seem to pick at things that most of us don't even think about. I also enjoy them because of their cheeky rotating scroll, which in typical newspaper esque headline writing, is called, "The Slatest."

"Guys, we put an 'S' in front of 'latest' and it spells out our name plus what just happened. Can I get a What What from Web Development?!?!"

You can get smart writing on topics that integral to America on Slate on a daily basis. The Republican Primaries. The Debt Crisis. How to live longer. If hibernating animals get up to go to the bathroom. Yes, that's correct; on the front page of Slate today is a very important article on if a bear does, in fact, take a dump in the woods. A question many generations have been sarcastically saying in retort to obvious questions asked by other people. Hard hitting journalism at work.

When are they going to break down the sound of one hand clapping?

But none of those topics really even matter. (Aside: If you're still intrigued by if hibernating animals do in fact get up to go pee, the answer is yes. The answer is given in the second paragraph of the story which then goes on unnecessarily for 3 more paragraphs. It was basically the Phish of Slate articles.) There's really only one section of the online magazine that I read on a regular basis. Sure, I read about Gingrich's Literal Moon Bounce House and the fact that scientists have been messing with Avian Flu that can eventually help create dangerous bio weapons, but that really doesn't tickle my fancy every day. There's only one place that does that on Slate.

Dear Prudence.

I'll admit I'm a sucker for any kind of letter. If it starts with "Dear," "To Whom It May Concern," or "My brother you have a windfall of $1000000 GBP," I'll always read it. But people writing letters for advice are massively entertaining for me. Growing up I would get the Sunday paper and immediately flip to the Life section where I could read the hilarious trials and tribulations of Beetle Bailey and Garfield, while doing only half of the Junior Jumble due to its ridiculous secret phrases. Right there on the page across from those was the Dear Abby part of the paper. Or was it Dear Ann? I don't know, but I'm more enamored with the fact that two sisters (And neither of their names were Abby or Ann) could both have advice columns. Can you imagine those Thanksgivings?

"So kids, I have this 'friend' who got pregnant, but doesn't want the dad to be involved because his family is very intense."
"I got this sis."
"Wait, why do you always get this?"
"I just had some woman ask me the same thing in my..."
"I have a column too! MAAAAAAA! Which one of us should answer this?"
"Well, Ann. You can go first."
"ANN ALWAYS GOES FIRST. I HATE YOU."
"Suck it Abby."

I'm not sure if it's a secret love of drama that I have, but I immensely enjoy Dear Prudence. It's fascinating that people would take advice from some woman that they don't even know. Who is Prudence? There is no way that's a qualified person that's giving advice. Prudence. I wouldn’t trust anyone with that name mainly because it sounds too hoity toity for my taste. Why not just call it Dear Grey Poupon? Or Dear Mummy the Limo is Late? It could be any Joe or Joan off the street yet people still write to "her" like she's Dr. Mother F'in Drew. I would love to see a Prudence Prudencensky PHD in something. Can someone provide that? The other day I noticed I was actually getting fired up at some of the questions people were asking. Here are some examples of questions being asked. (Abridged versions)

“I farted in the middle of the night with my boyfriend in bed. What should I do?”

“I have fallen in love with a man, but he’s allergic to cats. I’m thinking about giving up my 8 year old cat and my friends are incredulous! What should I do?”

“My girlfriend and I are going to a wedding. She told me she made out with 3 groomsmen, but before we ever met. I’m horrified and don’t want to go to the wedding. What should I do?”

“My husband has grown a beard. I find it unattractive and told him to shave it. He won’t! Now we’re barely speaking. What should I do?”

“I dropped a piece of fruitcake on the ground. It’s only been 3 seconds. What should I do?”

“I have to pee. What should I do?”

All of those are real questions to Prudence*. Are we this helpless in America that we’re asking strangers for help? You farted? Your friends want you to keep your cat over someone you’re in love with? YOU HATE BEARDS?!?! YOU HEATHEN. Ahem. And even though these questions are so ridiculous in nature and don’t require any “advice” at all I still read what Prudence has to say. While I’m reading these I’m usually trying to imagine what’s going through her head at that instance. I’ve narrowed it down to one thought.

I can’t believe I’m getting paid for this.

To be fair Prudence does give the obvious advice with a bit of snark on the side. As for the farting one her advice started with “It’s obvious that upon waking yourself up with your trumpet blast, what you should have done was gotten dressed, gathered your things, moved to another town, and changed your name” All that was needed was right after that sentence a pop up showing up with sound saying, “No she Did UNT!” and two snaps. I, for one, don’t begrudged Prudence, whoever you are. People in this country love getting advice about anything. It’s entertaining and unnecessary all at the same time. I hope one day I have a very solvable problem to ask her too.

Or I’ll see what she says about one hand clapping.

*unconfirmed

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PIPA, but not Middleton

Dear Ms. Boxer and Ms Feinstein,

It troubles me that I have come to find out that you are a supporter of the PIPA bill that will be up for a vote in the Senate on January 24th 2012. As a California resident and voter of yours I have put my faith in you to continue to do the proper thing when it comes to our state and country.

While I do agree that online piracy is an issue in this country and people with original thoughts should not have their work stolen, the PIPA bill as currently written will not promote more creativity, but stifle it for many years to come. Our country was built on the creative outlet of many people who were told no and had no avenue for their ideas. In today's age the Internet has given EVERYONE an avenue to show off their talents to a mass audience. Voting in favor of this bill will not only bring a halt to that creativity it will bring undue consequences to people trying to start their own business or continue their dreams.

As currently written PIPA will give government the right to seek court orders against any site even linking to one with pirated content. Sites that are just starting may not have the man power to check every website they link to yet they will be shut down. This piece of the bill is especially troubling.

"Directs the AG to identify and provide advance notice to operators of nonauthoritative domain name system servers (NDNSSs), financial transaction providers (FTPs), Internet advertising services (IASs), and providers of information location tools (ILTs), including search engines, online directories, and other indexes with hypertext links or referrals to online locations, whose action may be required to prevent such NDN-related ISDIA activity"

Not only will search engines be forced to remove sites with even a hint of online piracy, many search engines will be shells of themselves. The education of young people in this country has been greatly enhanced by the Internet (including my 11 and 7 year old cousins who are immensely smarter than I was growing up due to the usage of Google) and that will slowly erode. If not done in time they will have legislation brought against them, but it is unrealistic to expect websites run by Americans who are trying to run their business to be able to eliminate it all in one fell swoop. The Internet is a home for free speech which will now be curbed due to legislation at every turn.

And Yes I agree 100 percent about stopping pirated content. But there are measures in place right now that can be expanded on. If an artist sees something on You Tube and wants it pulled they can tell them to pull it and they will. We need to make those measures more prominent with overseas sites. But there are better ways to do that than this bill. In fact, today two of your fellow senators backtracked on their support of this bill for that very fact. The slogan on the front of Ms Boxer's website says, "Your Voice Counts." Today, we'll find out if that is a truth or more spin from another politician. I please hope you do the correct thing.

Sincerely,

Rahul Subramanian

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Harry Uranus Was Never Going To Work

I didn't have a date in high school.

If I was sitting in the audience of a movie and someone said this line on the screen while I was attempting to put 10 sour patch kids in my mouth at once, I would most definitely finish chewing said "kids" and let out a huge groan. It's become such a cliché in Hollywood that one of the main characters of any entertainment medium was seen as undesirable growing up and then turned into Rachel Leigh Cook. We get it. She wasn't all that then she met Freddy Prinze and blah blah blah now she's...Wait, what happened to Rachel Leigh Cook?

Coming next summer. She's Still All That 2: Hold the Chips.

Unfortunately, my not having a date story in high school doesn't end with making out with Freddie Prinze Jr. Maybe I meant fortunately. In either case my high school days were not as one would say, "fun." To be fair, if you categorize fun as writing down the statistics of your favorite baseball players so you can figure out their batting average WHILE THE GAME WAS GOING ON (No Internet, a TI-82 calculator, and some Hi-C. Where the ladies at? No?) fun, then I was living in a Bounce Castle filled with Mentos. The Freshmaker was so cool in the 90s.

Look it up. Not only did I not go on any dates I also never went a high school party surrounded by people named Jeff Podruski, which is what movies told me were the names of people that went to high school parties. There were two reasons for this. One, I was never invited to one. And two, I didn't know anyone named Jeff Podruski. This was a shame because I'm sure if I had friended anyone named Jeff Podruski I would have been doing keg stands and giving wedgies to undesirables.

Damn you Jeff. (Wherever you are)

I really don't care if anyone believes me because I have the audio cassette tapes of Z-100’s morning zoo to prove it. I'm not saying I recorded the show in the morning and then listened to it when I got home at 3pm while doing homework, but I’m not saying I didn’t. I always thought when I was in middle school that my high school experience would be the same as TV. Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, Head of the Class, Welcome Back Kotter sans the weird leather jackets, but with the cool catchphrases. I knew once I got to high school I would shout out “Hey Mr. Kott-aire!" to some unsuspecting teacher and my classmates would laugh and laugh at my quick wit. Little did I know Welcome Back Kotter came out in the 70s, all the jokes had run their cycle, and no one found them funny anymore.

Thanks for being old, dad.

Even though my high school experience didn't turn out like those shows or even Boy Meets World, I still do love myself a good high school show or movie. This is why in the last month I started watching Veronica Mars. Sure, I know what you're saying. What's a Veronica Mars? Veronica Mars was a show that ran for 3 seasons on the WB/CW/ whatever and incorporated everything I like about life. Mysteries, cute girls, and high school settings. In the list of things that are perfect for me it falls somewhere between a Kool Aid making robot and red starburst.

When I was a kid I loved Encyclopedia Brown. He was solving all those mysteries in less than 10 pages and running down Bugs Meany for measly 10 cents a case. Now if you take those detective skills, put them in a cute, sassy blonde girl (Kristen Bell), and then have her be a social pariah in a high school all the while dealing with normal high school dilemmas (underage drinking, boyfriend cheating, murder of your best friend), there's only one word for that.

Narnia.

The last week or so I’ve been telling people how infatuated I’ve become with the show. The reaction ranges from, “Ugh” to “Are you a 14 year old girl” to “That’s the worst pickup line ever.” One of my friends asked me what my deal with high school TV shows is. I don’t really have an answer for that. It may have to do with never getting a high school experience that incorporated parties and girls. It may have to do with wondering it would be like to do high school-y things. It may be my gravitational pull to lockers with built in locks. I’m not really sure. I know I enjoy them, especially Veronica Mars. She always knew where the party was at even if she wasn’t invited.

She must have known Jeff Podruski.

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Do the Resolution

(I wrote something for my friend Zoe Blue and am now reposting it here for a myriad of reasons which include not coming up with anything original and being too lazy to insert my cacophony of vocabulary on the western world. As you can tell I received a thesaurus for Christmas. You can stop cachinnating now! As previously seen on *Wink *Wink *Wink)


I'm not a fan of making New Year's Resolutions. To me making a resolution for the when the calendar turns is lazy. Why don't we make Flag Day resolutions? It's in the middle of the year and then you have the whole year to turn around that crippling tic tac addiction you've tried so hard to quit. I can't quit you orange tic tac! The realization is, though, that we live in a world where the quote "Why do today what can be done tomorrow" is a life motto. A quote that was uttered by the incorrigible Aaron Burr. A man who was so great at procrastination that he killed Alexander Hamilton during a duel. Why didn't he follow his own advice and wait until the next day to shoot him?

Do as I say not as I blah blah.
This is not to say that I don't make resolutions. I do. Sometimes. I tend to make resolutions throughout the year so my New Year's resolution doesn't really carry any extra weight than the others. Also, I lose track of what is a "resolution" and what is a "wish." When people ask me what my New Year's resolution is I usually say, "I want to own a casino." As has been pointed out to me many a time that is not a resolution if you're not willing to work towards it. It's a dream. I usually scoff and tell them I'm still holding out hope for that genie in a lamp. Let's all resolute for more wishes!

Rules are for losers.

When my friend asked me last week what my New Year's resolutions were I faked a coma. I don't really make any so falling on the floor was the only way to get myself out of the conversation. After she told me to stop being dramatic she rattled off 4 or 5 resolutions she had while i kept saying, "Why wait until the New Year when you can just start today?" If I didn't drive her to the restaurant I'm pretty sure she would have lit me on fire. She always has plenty of resolutions every year which always conclude with, "Get tennis lessons." When I told her I don't have any she said that I had to have one. After an interrogation session of 3 and a half hours (see: 8 minutes) she noticed that I need to have one resolution.

Be more selfish.

Normally, this would be seen as a bad thing. When you're 8 and you're selfish your mom sends you to your room and takes away your Game Boy. When you're 18 and selfish your girlfriend takes away your Playstation. When you're 34 and selfish your wife takes away half of your money. But she meant selfish in a good way. I always care how other people feel without taking my own feelings into account. As long as they feel better my mood doesn't matter. But it should. My heart has been broken before, but I always care to make sure the other person doesn't think I hate them. Even at the expense of my own feelings. In 2012 it's time to be emotionally selfish. If someone makes me feel bad I shouldn't care about them before me. It should be the opposite. So that's my resolution for the New Year. Care about me.

Or I could take tennis lessons.

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No One Shops In The "Old Adults" Book Section

When I was a kid I was convinced by the year 2012 we would have a drug that makes you immortal. How hard could it possibly be to make a pill where your body turns to armor and you don't age? What are we paying scientists for? To cure cancer? DNA Testing? Vaccines for unforeseen diseases? Bollocks, I say! I don't really say "bollocks," but it's a nice thing to write in print and makes me seem more "couth" or as the British say, "Pip Pip!" The fact that the calendar will turn to 2012 and we will be no closer to a cure for mortality aches the soul of an 11 year old me.

Also soul crushing for an 11 year old me? Being out of fruit roll ups.

Every year around this time I'm reminded that I won't live forever. No matter how many times I let a spider bite me or run into a lightning patch (is that a thing?) or try to book a 5 day/4 night stay at the Downtown Krypton Regal it never works. (The previous sentence brought to you by the Nerd Association of America. Come on down and check out our literature on more things that won't get you laid.) As I get older in age, hanging out with my family becomes a 20 Questions game where every question is "When are you getting married?"

We never specified if it was a person, place, or thing.

The perpetual barrage of marriage questions does get cumbersome at times, but it's not without merit. When you get into your 30s the questions start because your parents are worried about their impending morality. Sure, that may be macabre (word of the year 2011), but if scientists actually did something (see: above) we wouldn't be discussing it. The past couple of Christmases I've noticed the questions ramping up from once a vacation to now the standard once a day during vacation. It's even gotten to the point that my grandmother who tends to not speak English is telling me on the way to the airport, "Next year I'll be waiting for you to bring something. (Wink, Wink)." It's either a wink or her cataract eye drops. I'm pretty sure that if I bring a pound cake and a button that says, "World's Best Grandma," it won't be the surprise she's looking for.

Maybe I'll make it Universe's Best Grandma. "Grandma, you're the best in the Universe! That includes Neptune! No one even cares about that one!"

The marriage questions aren't necessarily what make me feel older even though they should. What makes me realize that I'm now supposed to be a responsible adult is hanging out with kids and shopping with my mom. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily together, but necessarily necessary for this story of necessities. I apologize for everything that just happened. I've become what I always feared when I hang out with kids.

Out of touch.

The other day while I was driving in the car my 11 year old cousin turned to her favorite radio station. A song was playing and I had no idea who it was. It was a sort of catchy tune and my cousin knew it so I asked her what it was. That right there should have forced me to do a tuck and roll out of the moving vehicle. I'm asking an 11 year old what music is playing? ME?!? I read TMZ. I have a subscription to Spin Magazine. I've seen Taylor Swift YouTube videos and quite possibly left a comment on one of them which cannot be confirmed. I shouldn't be asking her what it was. Of course, it was Selena Gomez which led into an epic pre-teen rant which included Justin Bieber's Christmas CD, Wizards of Waverly Place, something to do with a promise ring, and another mention of Justin Bieber.

Then she told me to shut up.

It was at this point in the week that I was starting to realize that I'm becoming my dad. No idea what is "hip" or "in” and reading street signs out loud to no one in particular. (Aside: When I tell people he does this everyone looks at me like I’m embellishing for the sake of a laugh. No. This is what he does as evidenced by when I was dropped off at the Airport and he starting to read the Terminal signs. “Terminal, A, B, D. Long term parking. Departures. Arrivals.” He is a walking Rosetta Stone. I don’t know if he does this because he likes reading or to prove to everyone that he is a literate person. Because if he told me could read I would believe him, even though he’s an immigrant.) As I confronted this reality, the next day I went shopping with my mom. We were walking around the mall and stopped in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. My mom was perusing the flatware or some such kitchen item and said she was done looking around. I turned to her and said something I never thought I would say.

“Let’s keep browsing. Bed, Bath, and Beyond has some stuff I want to see.”

WHAT.

It is at that very moment that I understood what being a grown up was all about. I wanted to stay in triple B longer than my mother. The same mother that spends 8 hours in a mall. The same mother that I would be begging, when I was a teenager, to be finished so I could go home and listen to the AM radio. All that I needed to complete the adult outfit were a pair of ill fitting Dockers and the ability to yell at a child for wanting more candy. My morality was in front of me. It’s in front of us all.

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