Consider the GF

I just read “Consider the Lobster,” this article thing David Foster Wallace wrote about the Maine Lobster Festival. It basically starts with him and his parents and girlfriend at this festival, eating their lobster, and it ends with these really intense ethical questions about whether it’s moral to boil lobsters alive. Maybe they can feel pain! They try to climb out of the pot when you boil them! But then, what does “pain” really mean? What does “pot” really mean? What is the True Nature of Suffering?

It’s sort of not supposed to be funny–I mean, maybe sporadically, but I doubt he’d be thrilled if you texted him like, “Hey man, read your lobster thang. LOL!”–but I couldn’t stop laughing because I kept thinking about how weird it probably was for his girlfriend to read. Or maybe how weird it would be for me if I went on a date with a dude to a lobster festival and then he wrote “Consider the Lobster” (because DFDub’s GF was probably used to him).

Think about it! You go to a lobster festival with your boo. He’s writing an article about it, but for you it’s just a vacation. So you eat a bunch of lobster. You stroll around. The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. The lobsters are dying in droves, but that’s probably not your main focus. You hang out on the beach. You’re with his parents, which maybe is a big deal. You leave thinking you all had a nice, relaxing time.

Then a couple weeks later, you read the article he wrote about your vacay, which includes the sentence “There happen to be two main criteria that most ethicists agree on for determining whether a living creature has the capacity to suffer and so has genuine interests that it may or may not be our moral duty to consider.”

And you’re like, my god! I thought me and Dave had a good time at the lobster festival!

I want to start the New Year off right… but instead…

My New Year’s resolution (besides my fake resolution of going to the gym… that’s just something I tell people, not something I would ever go so far as to DO) is to be more mature. But instead, here is something stupid that made me laugh.

I was reading an issue of Glamour (see, already my maturity level is dubious) and there was an article in it called “How To Get Out of Your Lunch Rut.” It was about how you should stop eating the same sandwich for lunch every day and instead eat different kinds of sandwiches, like the Glamour gurl that you are!

But I looked at the headline really fast and stupidly. So I knew it was self-help oriented (because all of Glamour kind of is, in this really useless way. I wish they had articles that were like, “What to do if someone comes to fix your toilet, and instead it seems like they are just standing in your bathroom, moaning.” I wish any magazine had published that article. What do you DO? WHAT SHOULD I HAVE DONE?!). But instead of saying “How To Get Out of Your Lunch Rut,” I thought it said, “How To Get Lunch Out Of Your Butt.”

So yeah. Happy New Year! I guess I’ll mature when I’m dead…

Overheard in my life: Episode Gay

Friend: What’s your favorite kind of coffee?

Me: I like soy hazelnut lattes!!! [Moronic smiling. I really, really like them.]

Friend: That sounds hella gay.

Me: What?!

Friend: I’m not saying being gay is bad. I’m just saying. That sounds hella gay.

Me: Oh, well then OBVIOUSLY.

***

If more than 1 person (hi Alex) read my blog, I would probably get some e-mail being like, “My gay friend/I myself, a gay individual, drink only black coffee. You are perpetuating false stereotypes of gay people and you are a homophobe!!”

Well, hypothetical e-mailer:

1) I can think of nothing less homophobic than drinking gay coffee on the daily.

2) Read OkTrends (best site ever!) and THEN we will talk about stereotypes. (They even have a little joke about gay-curiosity and soy milk, I just realized. HEYO)

But sometimes I don’t WANT to feel special.

So I go to Starbucks a lot. Like, A LOT. Like, not every day… no, I can’t even say that. I go every day, but I can’t help it! Coffee is addictive and all the coffee in the campus coffee shops tastes kind of like mice. Mice!

It’s a little embarrassing, though. I feel like among indie-shit-lovin’ college humans, being cracked out on Starbucks is actually more stigmatized than being cracked out on regular crack. It means you’re an OPPRESSOR of SOMEBODY whose identity is UNCLEAR. Which is bad. I honestly used to try to keep my Starbucks habit on the DL.

But I can’t keep it on the DL anymore, because of the effing Starbucks customer service. It’s so good! The baristas learned my name, and they – Starbucks the corporation and the baristas at the store I go to – constantly try to make me feel special! My inbox is full of e-mails from Starbucks (they e-mail me way more than all my professors combined) (and by professors I mean friends) and they also send me coupons, snail mail. All of these communications tell me I’m a valued customer, and include shiny little pictures of stars.

And then there is the in-store friendliness. The baristas not only learned my name but call me by it constantly, which is actually quite creepy. Go up to your best friend and have this conversation:

YOU: Hi, [name]

THEM: Hi.

YOU: [Name], how is your day going today?

THEM: Fine… you?

YOU: Just fine, [name].

You probably won’t even get that far because they’ll be creeped out and leave you forever.

But that is what the baristas do to me, making it clear to everyone that I am not a casual customer. It is extra-specially clear because this literally happened: I was waiting for my drink at the counter, and the manager said to THE NEXT CUSTOMER IN LINE, WITH POINTING, “That’s Mae [point at me]. She’s an important customer.”

Good god. I have never felt special in a dweebier way. And then the manager winked at me!

Sorry Britt…

So because I am a Young Person, a couple of weeks ago I went to a music festival. One of the bands I saw was Spoon.  It was nice, partially because Spoon is good and partially because Britt Daniel (the main dude) is FINE.  He looks kind of grumpy and sleepy, and apparently that combination really does something for me. Or maybe I am selling my taste short, because he was also wearing all white.  So maybe I’m into grumpy/sleepy/bridal. In any event – damn.

After the festival ended, my friend and I were walking through downtown, trying to find a train stop, and we’re both really tired from standing and screaming all day, and I’m tiredly drinking a Slushee (so I’m not looking MY BEST) and then we see this dude is walking next to us. And he is wearing all white. And he looks a little grumpy and a little sleepy because HE IS BRITT DANIEL.

What would you do? Maybe you would say hi and ask for an autograph or a photo. Well, WE took a different approach, partially because we didn’t remember his name and we didn’t want to go up and be like, “Hi, spoon!”  What we did is: My friend got out her camera, and we fell back a little bit, and then she took a video of Britt walking. From behind.

It is the worst (and maybe the creepiest) celebrity-sighting memento ever. You can’t see his face, and we don’t even say anything insightful to like, supplement the visual. I don’t have the tape, but I’m pretty sure the transcript is something like:

BOTH OF US: Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. [That's us breathing really loudly.] Hhhhhhhhhhh.

FRIEND: Oh my god, it’s the guy from Spoon!  He’s walking!

ME: He has a backpack!

THE END.

I have some regrets…

VINTAGE: What’s That Brown Stuff?

One of my New Year’s resolutions is going be, probably, to be a little cleaner.  For my roommates’ sake.  You will see why if you read this.

Keep in mind: THIS IS OLD. I am not this hugely grody anymore.  I’m just regular grody!

Keep in mind also: Hahahahahaha this still makes me laugh even though it’s like two years old.  It’s just.  So.  Dweeby.

*

So I have a problem.  With my bed.  I have this comforter that is dry clean only, and I haven’t had time to take it to the dry cleaners lately.  But it has this stain.  It’s brown and shady looking and when people see it, they make this really long noise that’s a combination of “urgh,” “ew,” and “Mae I’m not your friend anymore FIND A NEW FRIEND OH MY GOD.”  And then, when they’re done with the noise and they are able to tear their eyes away from the stain, they look at me questioningly with their eyes (and sometimes also their mouths) open very, very wide and wait for an explanation.

And then I say: “Don’t worry.  It’s not what it looks like.”

“What is it?”

“Well, see, I fell asleep with a candy bar.”

This is legitimately what happened.  I was eating a Snickers bar in my bed, and I was very tired BUT, I thought, not so tired that I would be unable to finish eating.  Except then I was a little more tired than I expected, and then I sort of snuggled down and oops!  I fell asleep.  It melted all over my bed.  And my leg.

Little-known fact: There is nothing scarier than waking up to find chocolate all over your leg.  When I woke up the next morning, I looked at my calf and thought groggily but also very fearfully “I AM BLEEDING AND MY BLOOD IS CHOCOLATE THESE THINGS CAN’T BE GOOD” and then I hopped around my room helplessly for a couple of minutes before thinking that oh, hey, maybe this isn’t a real health emergency.  Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.  My leg is delicious!

Not that I ate the chocolate off my leg.  I am actually a kind of hygienic person.  With my body, at least.  My ROOM is a different story.  The other day, for example, I was looking for something on my desk, and I found something very wet.

It was a pool of standing water.

On my desk.

It’s really sad how I started out this post planning to explain how I am not gross, and then ended up proving conclusively that I am very gross anyway. Or just a clean, innocent mini-swamp collector! That’s what I am! STOP JUDGING ME!

Oh dear.

I’m lovin’ it

A lot of US chains haven’t made it to India yet – including Starbucks; I tweaked so hard without it I was seriously wandering the streets grinding my teeth - but McDonald’s has.  It’s a little different, though, since cows are holy (holy cow!  HAHAHAHAHA no seriously I think that expression comes from Hinduism), so normal burgers are off the table.  Instead, there are things like the Chicken Maharaja Mac (tandoori chicken and thousand island – it’s the new PB&J!) and the Paneer Salsa Wrap (paneer and salsa in a pseudo-tortilla – it’s the new gross!).  It was very interesting.  And the Chicken Maharaja Mac was also actually good.

My favorite thing that was interesting about the McDonald’s, though, was the birthday room.  It had a sign on the door, with a picture of Ronald McDonald’s face, that said, “Sing, dance and play at ____’s birthday party today!”  (DO YOU SEE THAT CLEVER RHYMING.)  And then you could write the birthday victim’s name in with white board marker.

The special thing about this room wasn’t that it existed, per se (although I do love rooms and think that they are all very special in their own way!) but more that a) it had no fun furniture, just tables and chairs like the rest of the restaurant and b) I never saw a party in it, but I did see a large business meeting, complete with formal suit-and-tie outfits and laptops.  I am sad to report that this meeting featured no dancing, singing, or playing, though.  Literally NONE.

It really made me realize what a restrictive definition of “birthday” I’d previously had.  I used to think that a day when someone’s age changed was a birthday, and that middle-aged dudes doing work was not.  Well boy, have I ever grown as a person!  Travel: It opens your mind.  To the wide spectrum of birthdays that there can be in a McDonald’s Birthday Area.

I love you like a creepy kid loves cake

Over break, I was at a hotel somewhere (I forget) and I bought an hour of internet from them.  So the receptionist guy takes me to the room with the computer in it, and I sit down, and he leaves, and I start using the internet.   La la la.  Piece of cake.

Then the receptionist comes back, holding a piece of cake (watch out there I might FORESHADOW YOUR SOCKS OFF).  “Cake?” he says.

“Yeah!  I like cake!”

“Okay.”  He starts moving the cake towards my mouth.  Instead of towards my hand.  He is going to feed me the cake.

“Um… I think I’ll just eat it the normal way.”

“No!” he says happily.  The cake is touching my nose.

I move my face so the cake is further away from it.  “I will really just eat it myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I think that would be… awesome!”

“Okay, okay.”  He seems sad.  He gives me the cake and then watches me eat it, which is creepy but still falls within the acceptable range,  along with unblinking staring and asking me if I have one boyfriend or two (which  is so rude.  People should be asking me if I have ten boyfriends or TWELVE.  GOD.)

Eventually, I finished the cake, which was awesome, and he said, “Ha ha.”

“What?”

“Hahaha.”

“What?”

“I eat also.”

“You had a piece of cake too?”

“Yes.  Hahaha.”

And then he left, and I wondered if I had missed something or if he actually had the worst sense of humor (and social norms) in the world.

Although it’s actually kind of nice.  I can think of a lot of jokes he would like, like “Once, I ate a hamburger, and my friend ate a hamburger.”  Or “Knock knock!” “Who’s there?” “Two pieces of cake!”

Man.  I am a HOOT!

 

 

 

Things From The States That I Did Not Expect To Miss But Actually Miss A Lot

1. Bagels.

2. Cream cheese.

3. Any cheese that isn’t paneer.

4. The absence of stray dogs sleeping in the streets. I can never tell – are they sleeping? Or are they dead?

5. Seatbelt buckles. All the cars I’ve been in here had the belts, and only the belts. It’s like someone heard a little bit about seatbelts, assumed they worked through magic [because OBVIOUSLY], and then went off and made a car. A stupid, stupid car.

6. Starbucks Muzak. There is a pseudo-Starbucks here where I can get overpriced coffee, but their Muzak SUCKS NUGENTS. I kid you not – today I was there, and they were playing The Real Slim Shady, which is not great in and of itself, but to make matters both worse and really ironic, the rapper was not Eminem. It was a cover. A fake Slim Shady was performing The Real Slim Shady. And he sounded totally unqualified for the job, like he was the record producer’s dad or something.

7. Fast internet. Every time I get Facebook to load, I feel like the guy who invented the wheel. NO. I feel like the guy who invented WATER.

Negotiations

So I’m in India, and I’m going to be straight with you: nothing is expensive. Nothing. Yesterday, a bunch of us went out to dinner at a restaurant so fancy that if you ordered a bloody Mary, it went through five Rube-Goldberg machines before it arrived at your table. And, at this foxy restaurant, we did not hold back. We ordered three appetizers, one of whose menu descriptions was “indescribable flavors will gallop around your mouth!” We borderline ordered a live horse MADE OF FLAVORS. So we were expecting to drop major rupees on the meal.

And then it was like, $10.

So all of us are pretty chill about our cash flow – except when it comes to rickshaws. Our program coordinator warned us that rickshaw drivers would try to rip us off, so we have all been very vigilant about our fare negotiations. This leads to totally ridiculous situations almost all of the time. If the rickshaw drivers dreamed big, it would totally be a problem – if they would charge in sexual favors, maybe, or if they charged us in laptops instead of rupees (60 laptops per cab ride!  I can’t afford that!). But instead they rip us off by like, a dollar.

And you know that it’s time to take a serious look at yourself when you are arguing about a dollar with a guy who might live in his rickshaw. Not that I haven’t done it, but man do I feel weird afterwards. There is just nothing for me to really say to these dudes. Except “I know what you are going to spend that dollar on. You are going to spend it on FOOD. YOU CRAZY FOOD ADDICTS. YOU ARE ALL THE SAME.”