Author Archives: Molly

Women’s Fashion (According To A 1976 Encyclopedia)

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Remember how, before the internet, we had to read real, physical books to find things out? In my family, that meant turning to the cobalt-blue 1976 Encyclopedia Americana. One volume in the set was a yearbook that detailed the world events and current trends of the age. I was so obsessed with the fashion section — both out of genuine interest and childish snark — that the book still opens right to that page.

In the mid-90s, I turned to the Encyclopedia for help with Social Studies reports. In the mid-70s, people were turning to the Encyclopedia for help with looking as fly as possible. Such was the pre-internet age.

Let’s take a walk through 1976 fashion, as described in the vibrant pose of the Encyclopedia Americana editors.

  • “Chinese fashion”

    Shhh! Nobody can tell I’m Caucasian!

* Women’s fashion was “influenced by denim and China.” I hope that means you could buy a mandarin-collared denim dress or one of those flat rice-picking hat in Levi’s blue.

* The photo of the woman displaying “The Chinese look” looks like she’s wearing a kind of racist Halloween costume. I guess at least they didn’t say “Oriental?”

* Sometimes when I read this entry, I feel like a time-traveler from the future and wish that I could just save everyone without accidentally killing my own grandfather. The editors write that “politically, the effects of detente with China may not be known for years.” Not to spoil it, but the effects are a little known now and HOLY SHIT WE ALL NEED TO LEARN MANDARIN. What are you DOING, 1976? Stop importing their beautiful silk daywear because they are going to RUN us.

* Bitches wore mad “frog closings” and “coolie” jackets, I guess.

* OK, the encyclopedia DID end up saying Oriental, and they only capitalize it like half of the time. Casual racism is one thing, but casual racism AND sloppy copy-editing? I can’t.

  • Denim

* Real sentence: “The jean craze continued to mushroom at an unbelievable pace.”

* Another real sentence: “The better the figure was, the tighter the jean.” Hey 1976, could you please give that advice to literally everyone I saw at the bus stop the other day? Because the 2013 rule of thumb is apparently: “no matter what the hell your figure looks like, just say “screw it” and buys your pants 2 sizes too small.”

* In the “most horrible thing I’ve ever heard of in my life other than disease, hunger, and genocide” category: the “two-zipper” was in fashion. Jeans closed with two side front zippers instead of the usual fly front. I don’t even understand how this would work. Maybe one of you has an engineering degree and can help? I’m picturing a weird flap that would hang down, like an overall bib except in your crotch neighborhood, with a zipper on either side. If there’s one thing I definitely don’t need, it’s a 100% increase in the likelihood that I’ll forget to zipper my pants. I imagine that if you have any kind of stomach or side fat, it will accidentally get zippered into the “side front zippers” at least once.

* Unsurprising: “work” clothes like khaki fatigues, railroad overalls, and mechanic suits took off.

* Surprising: This “was an expression of the belief in the virtues of honest labor, even if the person wearing them was not engaged in it.” Encylcopedia Americana? You’re reaching. Although, sometimes I do wear a full McDonald’s uniform or nurses’ scrubs just to demonstrate that I believe in work. Who am I to talk?

  • Ladylike Dressing

* According to this section, sometimes women wore skirts and dresses, but other times they wore pants. That’s really the gist.

* Sometimes women wore suits, with “dramatic capes and soft coats” over “multilayers of separates.” The encyclopedia isn’t scratch-n-sniff, but I’m pretty confident they also smelled like sweat and patchouli.

  • The Sporting Life

* The jumper was back. A million home-schooling moms rejoiced, probably.

* Sweaters were “an education in ethnic artistic expression.” I’d complain about the cultural appropriation issues, but I am wearing “tribal” flats right now. I like to pretend that there is just a tribe of Target People who live in the basement of one of their warehouses in Indiana or somewhere, designing these things. I bet they even have native folk songs. Maybe that’s what Taylor Swift is.

  • Accessories

* Scarfs were worn big, in the “simple peasant style” or “elaborately as Arabian or African headdresses.” On behalf of white people, I apologize. This is really bad. I get annoyed at racist Halloween costumes, but apparently in 1976, every day was Racist Halloween.

You could even wear your scarf with an elaborate Art Deco costume while shopping in a general store from the 1800s.

* “Handbags ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

* “oriental jewelry” was popular (read: jade). They used the lower-case “o” for oriental, so this may just be jewelry worn to the east of other jewelry, not Asian-inspired as such.

  • The Feminine Foot

* Engineers, HELP. The earth shoe was “designed to lower the heel and raise the sole of the foot for comfort.” Does anyone know how that’s comfortable? They sound like those terrible McQueen cloven-hoof shoes.

Based on the above, here is a rough sketch of The Woman of 1976.

Live Blog: Scripps National Spelling Bee

Posted in Entertainment, Live Blogs by

Good evening and welcome to our liveblog of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Or, as I like to call it, Nerd Superbowl. Speaking of the superbowl, this is the one time every year that many of us will be voluntarily tuning into ESPN, so everyone, give yourselves a few minutes to track down the channel. Keep refreshing the blog to catch our updates, and follow our live tweets on Twitter — @cookiessangria

  • Like homeschooled 5th graders and NPR fans everywhere, I’ve been waiting all year for this. Literally, this time — I read American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and The Culture Of Word Nerds right after last year’s bee, and was pretty bummed I’d have to wait 12 months to see it play out.

  • Remember the big bee news of 2012? The youngest speller ever, 6-year-old Lori Anne Madison competed. She got dinged out on “ingluvies.” Cute kid, but can’t spell ingluvies? What are you, a kindergartner?

    I honestly have tattoos older than her.

Ugh, who am I kidding. Even though she has a name from 1973 (a good thing, as Lori is 10,000 times better than Madycynne or McKaeighlah), this kid wasn’t even born until I was a few years into college. Lori isn’t here this year, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her. I sincerely hope that she’s being seven right now and constructing a blanket fort or making a village out of tissue boxes.

  • This year, the hot story is that the competitors have to take a vocab test. FINALLY. If there’s one problem with spelling bee kids, it’s that they’re dumb and lazy and don’t know enough about words. Thank God we’re finally weeding out those bozos!
  • The Bee begins with a kind of confusing Matilda The Musical tie-in. I can only guess that we’re trying to reach out to all distinct nerd groups, from word to theater to eventually science. I can only guess they’ll bring in Doctor Who eventually.
  • Really embarrassed to remember some of these kids. Favs: Vanya, whose sister won a few years back and is ADORABLE, and Arvind, who has more charm than any child since Jonathan Lipnicki told us all how much the human head weighs.
  • Dr. Jacques Bailly is seriously just the Tim Gunn of the National Spelling Bee. What a dream.
  • Do kids with misspelled names get ashamed during the bee? Or are they drawn to it to correct their parents’ mistakes? I’m looking at you, Christal Schermeister.
  • Guys, if I’m mean about Christal Schermeister, it’s just because she’s clearly going to grow up to be far more intelligent and attractive than me.
  • First ding out! Bummer. I try not to get too attached to anyone during the early rounds. I’m sure many Panem citizens used the same tactic during the Hunger Games.

  • A little more spelling bee background: the kids arrived in D.C. last weekend, and I guess they just go hog-wild in a hotel this week. I mean, as wild as kids who spend all day studying the dictionary can go. It’s like rumspringa for a very particular kind of Amish person.

  • Vanya Shivashankar knows French very well. I mean, of course she does. Best kid ever. BTW, her sister Kavya is here and she’s so grown up! Off to Colombia already.
  • Amber Born: “Is the sentence funny?” Amber wants to be a comedy writer. Amber, girl after my own heart. Please come by and write for us sometimes! As long as you promise not to judge our spelling which is, admittedly, not always awesome. The announcers say she’s a dark horse. Move over, Arvind, I have a new favorite.
  • Sriram is from kind of near me! This matters to none of you. I’ll stop. He gets singerie, which is from French. Apparently when I was taking college French I told Traci that it was the language that they speak in hell. I don’t remember saying that, but it seems like something I would do. Such weird pronunciations! Full disclosure: French was my grandma’s first language, so I’m not just being a jerk. I’m being a jerk to my own beloved family members.
  • Arvind’s drama teacher sees him in a red smoking jacket. I’m sorry, is he a precocious 8th grader or Hugh Hefner? I’m confused.

  • Here is a fantastic spelling bee video (not from today). This kid is my new comedy hero. He was totally punking her:

  • Oh man, I remember Vismaya from last year. She did pretty well and had a distinct air of being probably too cool for this business. Damn, Vismaya. You’re smooth. Delivered “sciomancy” like it was nothing even though she was obviously not sure of it.
  • Grace is pictured diving into one of those pits of foam blocks, which was a childhood dream of mine thanks to all of the gymnastics centers that opened up after the ’96 Olympics. There are also a bunch of trampolines, which reminds me that Amanda Bynes was photographed at a trampoline center at my old city, Buffalo. First of all, I never knew there was a trampoline center there. Second, I am really curious as to what string of events lead her to a Western New York trampo-gym. Buffalo’s right at the border, so maybe that.
  • Bailly and co. tried to recreate those commercials where kids are sitting around being asked questions. I love those commercials, but I can’t say that they’re all that effective, because I can’t remember what they’re for. Was it phones?
  • Grace Remmer is chronicling her various awkward stages that appeared during the bee. Listen. Like most American kids, I can remember my spelling bee downfall painfully well. I was a major bookworm with the vocabulary of a nerdy adult, but I didn’t have an exceptional spelling prowess. See, if they’d had the vocabulary test then, I might have been okay. Anyway, I made it nearly to the end of my elementary school bee, only to be struck down by “counselor.” To be fair, I don’t think we got definitions, and I spelled it councillor, which is a homophone or close to it. Whatever. Anyway, Grace reminds me that it’s not like I’d really want my 11-year-old mug visible on the internet today, anyway. I had the Frizz No Butterfly Clips Can Tame.
  • Christal’s little sister looks majorly concerned. Somebody didn’t study “doryline.” Oh shit. Countdown clock. Bye, Christal. It’s been real. With the sorry spelling genes that your parents passed down, it’s a miracle you made it this far. I mean, Christal?
  • According to the spelling bee kids via Mackelmore, the ceiling is no longer able to hold them.
  • Vanya, stop asking questions, you know this. I was about to wonder whether she got teased with Uncle Vanya references at school, but probably not, right? Because she’s a child?
  • Amber Born reminds me of Traci and I when we first became friends, except actually accomplished at something other than recording The Rosie O’Donnell Show so we didn’t miss it during our afterschool activities.
  • I know envoutement totally LOOKS like a word, but when you pronounce it with a fancy French accent, it sure doesn’t SOUND like one. I reiterate: The Language They Speak In Hell. With all due apologies to my dear, late Grandma. But I think there’s a reason she always spoke English with us, you know?
  • [The reason is my demonstrated inability to speak French properly, probably]
  • This may be the first time I correctly identified a history-based root. Sansculottic, related to the sans-culottes? Yeah, I KILLED AP European. That’s right.
  • Vismaya is from Bountiful, Utah. Was that the town with all of the plural marriages? I read a book on the FLDS but don’t really remember. She’s clearly too cool to take part in that though:There are nine spellers left. NINE. Don’t they know that kids stodgy 20-somethings are watching with strict bedtimes to attend to? Come on, Bailly. Stop playing so nice.

  • Can we talk about redshirting? When I was in eighth grade, maybe half of the kids had turned 14 by the end of the school year. I’d think with all the homeschooling happening, most of these kids would be ahead of grade level for their age. There are a few too many 14-year-olds, is all I’m saying. I’m only regular-smart**, not spelling-bee smart, and teachers even asked my parents if they wanted to skip me ahead a grade. I’m sure some of these old kids are being kept at eighth grade status just to eke out another year of eligibility.

    ** A cold truth to all of you precocious kids out there: eventually, you’ll be average. I may have had a sixth grade reading level in kindergarten, but by law school, I just had a law school reading level. There’s a silver lining, though. That means parents can chill out about trying to teach their babies to read and their 2-year-olds to multiply. Eventually, they’ll probably be exactly as dumb as everyone else.

  • FYI: When there’s an accent mark, the kid doesn’t have to say it. The more you know.
  • Trivia: Vismaya’s mom used to be an actress in India. She got the word right, which is nice, I guess, but I am seriously getting sleepy here. Please start being less excellent, children.
  • Awww. Grace Remmer just got a standing ovation after she dinged out. She’s been here 4 years in a row. Such a likable kid! She’s temporarily taken over for Amber Brown as my favorite of the moment, because SOMEONE had to get eliminated so that this thing ends.
  • ESPN tells me that Nascar will be on in two days. Why do I guess there’s not too much overlap in these 2 audiences?
  • The winner gets $2,000 worth of reference works from Encyclopedia Brittanica. I’m sorry, do people still use encyclopedias? Other than my dad, who pulls down his 1976 Encyclopedia Americana because he doesn’t remember to use Google? In case you’re wondering, my parents are also the people who still use phone books as phone books.
  • This kids difficulty with the pronunciation of kaburi reminds me of this gem:

BOWERY. BALLERY? Bowery. BALLERY? I don’t know if this girl has a hearing impediment or a speech disorder, but either way, I’m going to hell. I’d blame this debacle on a regional accent, but the girl is from Philadelphia. I lived there. I’d understand the confusion if they asked her to say water (“water.” “WOODER?”) or eagles (“eagles.” “IGGLES?”), but bowery should be fine. Just kidding, love you guys, send me some Tastykakes, go Iggles.

  • The announcers just said one kid was the most consistent speller. But, if you’re still on the stage, isn’t it because you’ve gotten everything right? So all of these kids are equally consistent? Well, it’s not a logic bee.
  • So long, Vanya. Unlike most of these red-shirted 14-year-olds, she has two years of eligibility left. I’d really like to see her win one of these years!
  • Guys, Born gets laughs just for walking on stage. Girl’s going places. The last person I remember getting laughs for a mere entrance was Cosmo Kramer.
  • Goodbye, Vismaya! Fortunately, she will seldom come across the word paryphrodrome to haunt her again. It is so obscure that my spell check can’t even tell me how terribly I just butchered it.
  • Amber Born is out. Want to know a secret, Amber? Comedy writer is a cooler title than spelling bee champion, anyway.
  • They just announced that this can’t go on all night. I think I may have heard all of the angels of heaven singing hymns of joy and praise. 25 more words. I can stay awake for this. Maybe.
  • Sriram’s out. Don’t cry, little buddy. There is no way that ptyalagogue is even a real word.
  • AHH WE’RE DOWN TO ONE SPELLER! I’M NOT USING CAPS BECAUSE I’M HAPPY FOR THE WINNER I just really want to go to bed.
  • Oh my God, Arvind could win! This kid! He gets a German word last. German is his language-nemesis. I get this. Right, French?
  • Guys, I just want to do something so amazing ONE TIME that ticker tape confetti is thrown all over me. One time. Other than attending a ticker-tape parade. Love his look of utter shell-shock.

That’s all, kids! Thanks for reading and thanks even more for ignoring all of my spelling mistakes. I’m a bit of an armchair QB as far as spelling bees go.

And Amber, if you want to write a guest post, we’ll be here waiting.

Did I Do That?! Top TV Teen Nerds

Posted in Entertainment, Lists by

Believe it or not, I wasn’t a cool kid. Yes, I know this might be hard to get your head around, but despite my appealing attributes – short, freckled, bookish, brillo-textured red hair — I wasn’t exactly homecoming queen.

However, I wasn’t so uncool that I was a total pariah. I was just more of a non-entity. I was also not a social striver: I figured whoever liked me, liked me and I wasn’t about to try to act cool to get cooler friends. First of all, I didn’t care enough*, and second of all, I don’t know HOW to act cool. Did those girls just get a special book at the beginning of every school year telling them what to wear and how to behave? Because if there was a book, I’d have been golden. I’m good at books.

* If you think this means I was too cool to care, let me disabuse you of that idea. I am just astoundingly lazy.

All of my favorite TV nerds are the same way. These characters aren’t all so dorky that people point and laugh at them in the hall. They’re just too busy being themselves to care what anyone else thinks. However, if they did put out an annual annotated guide on how to be cool, that’s not to say these characters wouldn’t have read it:

Millie Kentner from Freaks And Geeks

Although the entire cast of Freaks and Geeks really deserves a place on this list, I’d like to take a moment and single out Millie. Millie was that girl in high school who was a total goody-goody, but only because she actually liked wholesome activities and behaving. I can relate, as my main interests in high school were being obedient and exceeding expectations. Something about Millie is so earnest, it just tugs at my heartstrings. She isn’t so nerdy and well-behaved because she’s sucking up, it’s because that’s what comes honestly to her. Again, I can relate. I can remember one girl on my tennis team  who was acted like I was judging her because she was a “bad kid” and I was, well, hyper-compliant. I wasn’t — I just wasn’t interested in anything too badass myself.

Since I brought it up, tennis is the dorkiest physical activity you can join that still counts as a sport. Seriously. Even bowling might be cooler, in an ironic, blue collar, old-man way. Tennis: The Reading Of Sports.

Also this:

Seth Cohen from The O.C.

Seth Cohen made teen nerdiness hot. And God, do I still love him for it. It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since we first met young Seth, who is the first and only person I would ever describe as being “adorkable.” From his snarky message t shirts to his enthusiasm for comic books to his dorky joy about introducing people to Chrismukkah, Seth was everything good about uncool adolescents. I also appreciated how Seth was into indie/alternative music, just like most of my unpopular friends. This just goes to show that most nerdy teens aren’t lame and boring, they’re just not into whatever is in the teen mainstream. Cohen reminds us that dorky teenagers are just one semester of liberal arts college away from being hipsters. Also, just look at him.

Sue Heck from The Middle

The Middle really does not get enough play. I think it’s funny (usually) and hilarious (sometimes). Like all teen nerds, Sue is supremely enthusiastic. Rather than understanding and accepting that she’s a geek, Sue has total faith that someday, she will be one of the cool kids. Because of this, she flies whole-heartedly into the nerdiest activities (see: specialized cheerleading squad for the wrestling team). I especially love her supporting cast of dorky Wrestlerette friends:

Lisa Loopner from Saturday Night Live

By far the most hilarious teen nerd on the list, Lisa Loopner had a chronic stuffy nose, frizzy hair, and a boyfriend named Todd. She may sound like a typical dork, but this character is played with classic Gilda Radner joie de vivre, and that makes all the difference. I… listen. Just watch this.

Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons

Lisa may be too smart to fit in at Springfield Elementary, but she’s also too smart to care… usually. While she does try to fit in with the mega-90s kids on her beach vacation and the occasional third-grade mean girl, she is usually pretty content filling her time with her music, inventions, and Thanksgiving diorama of influential women in U.S. history. However, she is still just a kid, and can be seen playing hopscotch with Sherri and Terri or pining over Malibu Stacy. Lisa isn’t technically a teen nerd, but she has the reading comprehension and math skills of a girl twice her age, which has to count for something.

Landry Clarke from Friday Night Lights

On paper, Landry (or Lance, whatever) doesn’t really sound like a nerd. He’s a high school football player in a land where high school football is king. He’s the lead singer and bassist in a garage band. He loves the lovely and sometimes-badass Tyra. He even may have committed a pretty big felony (seriously, what WAS that plotline?). However, life isn’t lived on paper. Somehow, despite all of these cool factors, Landry is kind of a dork. He’s also proof that sometimes dorks can emerge victorious. Or crucifictorious, I guess.

Fun fact: As far as I know, Jesse Plemons is the only actor who appeared in both Varsity Blues and FNL. Those, along with the times my high school won states, mark the trifecta of Things That Have Made Me Actually Care About High School Football.

Kimmy Gibbler from Full House

Kimmy Gibbler sucked. I’m not denying that. The thing is, I feel so sorry for her! It didn’t occur to me as a child, but she had three grown men living next door to her who mocked her mercilessly. Danny? Joey? Jesse? You’re bullies. Also, her BFF was kind of a dud. Remember when DJ forgot Kimmy’s birthday cake and made her a dish of hashbrowns with Happy Birthday written on it in ketchup? I sometimes use that as a metaphor when I’ve made really weak gestures of friendship. Try it for yourself sometimes. Kimmy did have some positive attributes, like being a pretty decent keyboardist when Girl Talk butchered The Sign (no, not that Girl Talk).

Steve Urkel from Family Matters

I wasn’t even going to put Urkel on the list. I think he forfeited his Teen Nerd title during the later seasons, when suddenly it was All Steffon, All The Time. I’m also still a little bitter that his affinity for cheese made cheese seem nerdy. I freaking love cheese. Come at me, nerd haters and vegans!

You gotta hand it to Urkel, though. He really knew how to deliver a nerd catch phrase.

Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air

He invented “The Carlton,” and that alone earns him a spot on the list. It’s got to be hard being a nerd when you live with super-cool Hillary and Ashley and your badass cousin from West Philly. Having so much money that you live in a full-size replica of the White House probably softens the blow a little. While mostly a classic uptight nerd, Carlton also knew how to let loose and dance.

Best SNL Sendoffs

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Remember the pomp and grandeur of high school and college graduation? Saturday Night Live sendoffs are nothing like that, thank God. It’s more like that last get-together before all your friends took off for freshman year of college, or the final walk-through of your college house the week after graduation. It’s informal, and everyone is trying to be light-hearted. In most cases, you are genuinely happy for the opportunities ahead for your friends. But underneath all of it, there’s that knowledge that you have reached the end of the life you’ve gotten used to. A few tears, some laughs, and a lot of gratitude – here are a couple of my favorite goodbyes from cast members leaving Studio 8H.

Seth Meyers and Bill Hader

I wrote this post last week hoping against hope that I would be able to add another great goodbye from this weekend. I wasn’t disappointed. This included Stefan’s club attractions brought to life, Anderson Cooper, Amy Poehler, and the wedding of Stefan and Seth, who were sent off by all of the great Weekend Update regulars of the past several years. I loved it, and keep seeing new callback club characters every time I watch it. Which has been … some times.

Kristen Wiig

I cried watching this. I cried re-watching it. Then, I cried just thinking about it as an emotional Kristen Wiig took the stage as an SNL host this month. Everything about this was perfect. Poehler and Dratch even show up, which is exactly how I plan to leave every job ever.

A note: a few articles after the fact talked about how Jason Sudekis was clearly pissed off because he wasn’t clapping and dancing. I disagree – am I the only one who sees the man fighting back tears? I recognized the need to hang back, as another person who is terrible with permanent goodbyes. Seriously. When I said a prayer over my grandmother’s coffin, I think I told her “I mean, we’ll still get coffee sometimes or something.” When I visit graves of loved ones, I pray “don’t worry, we’ll totally keep in touch.” I get it.

Jimmy Fallon

We were just teens in the early 2000s, when this blog would have probably been hosted on Livejournal and called Cookies + Juiceboxes. And man, did we spend our fair share of study halls and lunch periods discussing the merits of Jimmy Fallon. So, how much did I love it when Jimmy went out on a parody of a classic high school flick right before we graduated high school for real?

On a related note, for all of you cringing at the YouTube video clearly snagged off of someone’s tv screen, let me tell you this. When I was in high school, we would have watched this as a camcorder video made of someone’s home VHS recording of the episode. And it would have been posted on Kazaa. And that’s if we were LUCKY, because we usually had to wait for someone to get off the phone so we could use the internet. I mean, we were practically accessing the internet via a tin can and string. You kids don’t know how comparatively okay you have it.

Gilda Radner

On my well-worn childhood VHS tape of The Best of Gilda Radner, there was the classic sketch “Dancing in the Dark.” I didn’t learn that it was also used as a farewell until years later. As fate would have it, Gilda’s dancing/comedy partner Steve Martin was hosting SNL the day she died, and this is how he said goodbye. Radner passed on early on a Saturday and there was time to assemble a tribute by showtime. Of course. In fact, she even would have been ready for prime-time.

A note: I wrote this post last week, as well as another mentioning Gilda that will be posted later in the week. I didn’t realize it at the time, but today marks the 24th anniversary of her death. The subconscious is a funny thing. Not funny “ha-ha,” like this classic song I’ll throw in for good measure:

Phil Hartman and Chris Farley

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/stacylambe/the-top-5-snl-departures?sub=1578360_309810]

Sorry for all of the tragedy and heartbreak in this post. I didn’t mean to. I still remember how shocked I was by both of these deaths.

All sorrow aside, this is by far the most ’90s thing you’ll probably watch all week.

Do you spy Sarah Silverman looking exactly the same 20 years ago as she does now? I think she bathes in the blood of virgins.

The only place I could find this video online was a Buzzfeed article with the exact same thesis as mine. No surprise there — Buzzfeed is always one step ahead of me. When I order a special at a restaurant, and they “just ran out,” I am almost positive that Buzzfeed ordered the last one. It’s like that.

Amy Poehler

As always, among the best of the best.

Characters From My Inner-City Childhood

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself) by

For some reason or another, I grew up in the inner city.  Long before I was born, my parents bought a house in a neighborhood of elderly Italian people. This makes sense: they were only about 4 years out of law school and grad school at the time, and it was inexpensive. Other young families had the same idea, so your main demographics were crazy-old people and families with kids. Except for the octogenarians, it looked like Sesame Street, all happy and diverse. Then, the elderly Italian people started dying, as really ridiculously old people are wont to do, and the houses were bought up by slum landlords. With low rent and zero landlord supervision, the “wrong element” was attracted to the neighborhood. The wrong element, of course, is drug dealers. There was a dealer across the street from me and one next door, and that’s just what I could see from my bedroom. Gang activity skyrocketed.  Did you know that, according to the graffiti I saw there a few years back, there is an Upstate NY branch of the Crips? I don’t know if there’s reciprocal admission with the West Coast Crips or if you have to apply and get re-jumped in.

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, my parents had decided it was time to move. It was a shame, because except for the people engaged in a life of crime, some of the best people I’ve ever known were ones I met on that street. It was a good life, don’t get me wrong.

The reason I tell all of you this is just to set the stage. Here are the characters.

Princess

“Princess” was not really named Princess, but I don’t know how this girl is with Google these days, so I felt a pseudonym would be appropriate. If you want to know her real name, it is based on the novel Push by Sapphire, if you know what I’m saying (and I think you do). Anyway, Princess had only one leg. Or two, but one was plastic. She was also absolutely indomitable. She rode her bike and played tag with the rest of us, and since we were all just kids, her plastic leg was just one thing about her, like my freckles or her sister’s green eyes. Sometimes she had the prosthesis on backwards, but what do you expect, I couldn’t even tie my shoes at that age! You know how everyone complains that band-aids aren’t really flesh colored? Well, Princess’s leg wasn’t either. It was white. Not the band-aid approximation of a Caucasian person’s skin, but ivory-colored plastic. While it never occurred to my five-year-old self to think that Princess’s missing leg was unfair, I thought the fact that they couldn’t make prostheses for people of color was pretty much the most unjust thing I could think of.

The best thing ever? One of my friends spent the first years of his life a few blocks from me, though we didn’t know each other as kids. We got to talking about the neighborhood, and he knew Princess too! You don’t really forget something like that, after all. We tried to look her up, but apparently there is no “Princess” in our hometown with “having one leg” as an interest, so that one died in the water.

The would-be kidnappers

One day, I was biking down the street when a group of men sitting on their porch pestered me to come into their house. I threw down my bike and ran. I brought it up as a very casual aside in an unrelated conversation with my mom, probably a week or two later. She was pretty upset that I hadn’t mentioned anything. Thing was, do you remember elementary school? They prep you like crazy for what to do if a stranger tries to take you somewhere. That’s a good thing, but it also made abductions seem like a commonplace event. Oh, an attempted kidnapping? Happens all the time, I thought! I mean they talk about it on, like, Reading Rainbow. Anyway it wasn’t really a big deal, and I practically forgot about it until I was writing this. That’s probably because it was the most half-assed would-be kidnapping ever. Seriously, have a little pride! Put some effort out there! What an embarrassingly awful kidnapping attempt for everyone involved.

The warrior for Christ

A teenage boy down the street was really into Jesus, and started a children’s Vacation Bible School all by himself. A jaded six-year-old, I thought it sounded really lame. There were puppets, I remember that much. However, all of my neighborhood friends were going, so I kind of wanted to. My mom wouldn’t allow it. Apparently she had this crazy notion that people were trying to kidnap little girls. I don’t know.

The Smelly Boy

I don’t even think you understand. My brothers went to Smelly’s house one time and said there wasn’t even toilet paper. That may have been some childhood hyperbole, because that’s probably one of the grossest things you can think of when you’re 8. One time, Smelly was going to sleep over at our house. My mom made him take a bath if he was going to stay, because she was worried about the transfer of smell otherwise. As an adult, this all reads as being very sad, and I feel terrible for the kid. But as a kid, all I know was that he stunk.

The Two Deaf Families

Two families with deaf parents lived next door to each other. I was friends with a few of the kids (who were hearing), and the fact that the parents were deaf was honestly not that interesting. The interesting thing is that these families were my introduction to hardcore fundamentalist Christianity. I went to church with them on “friend day” and ooooh boy, that was some serious business. Like, there were prayer boards asking for prayers because a member’s family was Jewish. The horror! The girls could only wear dresses, and they had to ask their father’s permission to cut their hair (often denied). I know you’re probably wondering why we were friends. When you’re 10, neighborhood friends just need to be kids who play nice and like playing the same things as you. You aren’t exactly comparing world outlooks and socio-religious viewpoints. Plus, they taught me some cool sign language.

The House of Hookers

It wasn’t a brothel, per se, but I’m pretty sure several prostitutes lived together in a house. They were fine, really. Friendly, threw back the basketball if it landed in their driveway. I must have been going off of things the adults said, because I still wouldn’t know a whorehouse unless I was living in it, probably.

FRANCES

FRANCES gets her name in all caps because she was SO AWFUL. Although I’ve mentioned drug dealers, slumlords, and prostitutes, we all knew who the real villains were in the neighborhood: tiny, stern Italian women. The old ladies died piecemeal during my first decade or so of life, and Frances was the WORST. She once called the cops on my family because my brothers were “shooting BBs through her window.” The police officer knocked on my mother’s door and asked to see her sons. “Really? I guess so…”, my mom said. “Do you want me to get them up from their naps?” The police officer looked a little confused as to why these little hellions were napping mid-day, but probably figured that delinquency takes a lot out of a kid. So, my mom went upstairs and carried down my sleepy-eyed older brothers, then ages one and three.

FRANCES. They’re babies. Even in the inner city, babies don’t have BB guns. Really everywhere that’s not the 1950s, babies don’t have BB guns. Dammit, Frances.

The Kids Who Were Allowed To Go To The Playground

There was a playground right at the end of my street. How great is that?! There were swing-sets, a jungle gym, even a weird giant turtle you could climb on, and I suppose also some stray hypodermics. Yeah, evidently it was like The Hob for our neighborhood gangs. I wasn’t allowed to go there. However, sometimes we’d drive by it in our ’88 Dodge Caravan, and I’d stare longingly at the children who were allowed to play inside. Who were they? What did they do there? I’ll never know, because I wasn’t allowed to go to the playground.

The Thieves

One time our house was broken into, which is pretty unremarkable. We didn’t have an alarm system or metal door until after that, and our dog was so sweet she probably followed them around. The burglars had greasy hands, so when they were digging through my mom and older sister’s underwear drawers, they left grease prints on everything. “Oh my gosh!” my sister exclaimed. “What if they TRIED THEM ON?”

It was one of those moments where the big-picture catastrophe (burglary) takes a back seat to the little, terrible details (WHAT IF THEY TRIED ON THE UNDERWEAR). It’s like when I was taking a shower, and the ceiling below started leaking. My roommates all yelled for me to get out, then afterwards one of them said that I could have fallen through the ceiling. “And you would have been NAKED!”, another added. See, it’s all in the little, terrible details.

I once left my bike in the front yard, and my father came upstairs and told me that he had just watched a little girl walk away with my bike. I ran downstairs, only to find my bike strewn on the front grass, where it had been before. He just wanted to scare me into putting my things away, I suppose. I was 5. When my brother’s bike did get stolen a year or so later, it was safely stored in the garage, so take that, Dad.

If you grew up in the suburbs, you might think it’s silly to have to put your bike away immediately. But you have to understand, bitches stole everything. Everything. My mom had to bring her hanging baskets in off the front porch because they kept getting stolen. Was someone trying to spruce up their drug house with a few double impatiens? Possibly. The drug house next door had a beautiful, vibrant American flag hanging from their stoop. It was so customers could see the house easily. By the by, the busiest night at the drug houses? Prom. Minivans by the dozen. So you can judge city folks all you want, but I blame the suburbs for keeping the drug business alive.

The Farm Truck Guy and The Soda Truck Guy

Because I also apparently grew up in the 1920s, there was an elderly farmer who used to drive his truck full of produce to our street after he was done at the Public Market. The old Italian ladies and I loved him, and that’s how I started to learn about cooking. He sold whatever was in season, as well as milk in glass bottles and eggs that had been hatched that morning. The Soda Truck Guy came every Sunday with glass bottles full of soda. You could drink them during the week then exchange your bottles the next week. Yes, there may have been Crips and hookers, but at times, it was also like living in Newsies or Ragtime.

No wonder FRANCES thought my brothers had BB guns.

Roger Sterling, Silver Fox: My Top Old Man Crushes

Posted in Entertainment, Lists by

Mad Men is back on the air, and with it, is one of my favorite grey-haired characters, Roger Sterling. I’d like to say this is outside the norm for me, this attraction to a mature gent, but truth be told it isn’t. Even though I’m young-ish, most of the time I’m into a celebrity, it begins with the phrase “I have this weird crush on…”.

If, like me, you think that Roger Sterling is pure platinum, then maybe you will understand the following weird crushes:

Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was my first weird crush, probably. This dates back, embarrassingly enough, to his sex scandal days. However, I probably didn’t fully understand that at the time, because I was a pint-sized 11-year-old at Catholic school. In hindsight, I don’t know if my crush began with Slick Willy himself or with Clinton as played by Darrell Hammond, because I was really into SNL at the time. Actually, the latter is probably more embarrassing, so let’s just say not that. Really, I like Bill in spite of the Lewinsky thing, not because of it. He’s so smart and charismatic! Babies love him, as do some old people. Bill’s a charmer. Besides, if anything or anyone is Hillary Clinton-endorsed, they can’t be half bad.

Friedrich Bhaer

Friedrich Bhaer is a fictional character. He’s not what you’d call real, exactly.  He is a  much-older German professor who takes up with Jo March at the end of Little Women, but he’s exactly the right match for her. She and Laurie wouldn’t have worked out, long-term. Anyway, in Little Men, they open up a boarding school for boys and it’s pretty much the cutest. In the 1994 film adaptation, Bhaer was played by a dapper, gray-tinted Gabriel Byrne, and it really worked. Or, it really worked if you were the world’s creepiest third-grader, anyway.

Christoph Waltz

As I sort of suddenly discovered during the Oscar liveblog, I have a weird crush on Christoph Waltz. I don’t know. I guess my type is middle aged, kindly, intelligent German nationals. But he is kind of appealing, right? No? All the more aging Bavarian men for me, then.

This One Professor I Had In Law School

This guy taught… I don’t know, civil procedure? Criminal procedure? He taught a class in law school that I definitely attended. We called him the Silver Fox and he was, he really was. I wish I still worked in his legal market so I could run my hands through his glimmering locks… or, I mean, attend one of his CLEs.

The Late Paul Newman, Circa 1980s

I’m not even sorry about it.

The Gracefully Aging Matt LeBlanc And Matthew Perry

In normal cases, I’d list these two without reservations. The only problem is that their greying hair also carries with it the demise of my youth. I don’t like that reminder. But still…

Roger Sterling

Obviously.

Lovestruck: The Musical: The Liveblog: The WORST

Posted in Entertainment, Live Blogs by

– I am a minute late and have no idea what’s going on, though I don’t think I’ve missed much. I was making tea for the first minute or so. Also, a bowl of fruit with a couple nilla waifers. I ended up with the wafers by accident today: I was shopping with a two-year-old who sneaked them into the cart. I like how casual the name is: ‘nilla. They aren’t bad. But seriously, never let a toddler go free-range at Target. They don’t understand how money works but are very fascinated by everything, like greedy, tiny aliens.

– A 60-ish year old woman is singing Just Dance by Lady Gaga. God, I miss this era of Lady Gaga. Everything was so new and interesting and beautiful then, like falling in love when you still believe in it.

– They keep cutting to a young blonde girl so I think she’s important. Now’s the time to tell you that I’m PRETTY AMAZING with subtleties like this. If there’s a gun on the mantle in the first act, the young pretty blond is the star of the movie by the second minute, that kind of thing.

– The older lady is the young blond’s mom. Didn’t see that coming. I’m already less pretty amazing than I thought. The young blonde is in the show that the mom is.. directing? Choreographing? And the mom isn’t happy because YB wants to move to Europe with the man she loves.

– Some woman (Amanda) who is probably evil because she has dark hair and is wearing all black, finds a vitality tonic. Bingo. Gun on the mantle.

– Mirabella. Mirabella is young blonde’s name. The older woman has already declared “I am your MOTHER!” 8-10 times so I’m pretty sure that’s a bit of a plot point.

– DAMN IT. Old woman is named Harper. That’s my dog’s name. She is going to be freaking.out. for this whole movie. Before you say anything, I named my dog before Posh Spice, Kelly Kapowski, and Doogie Houser named their babies, thanks.

– Italy! Beautiful, beautiful stock footage!

– Harper drank the vitality tonic and became young and attractive. FYI, I’m on IMDB trying to find out if I should know all of these people, but I really shouldn’t, don’t worry. Harper has turned into Chelsea Kane, from such hit films as The Bratz Movie. My friend and I used to dislike the shit out of Bratz in their heyday, in large part due to Baby Bratz. They were all sassy with their short skirts and diapers, and we imagined that they were all saying things like “hey, look’it my tush!” and we were always like “noooo, I really don’t want to look at your tush.” In any event, she’s singing I Want To Dance With Somebody, which is a really fun song at a wedding reception or when you’re driving. I guess when you suddenly become 30 years younger, after the initial shock subsides, you just want to DANCE. Luckily, there are plenty of guys here to dance with, and everyone knows the steps. Harper changes outfits like 5 times during the song.

– Also from IMDB: This movie has fewer than two stars.

– Old Harper is Jane Seymour. Thanks to Dr. Quinn, I never would have recognized her without a calico frock and a 4-foot-long braid. I thought she was making enough cash-money off of those open heart necklaces she’s always schilling that she wouldn’t have to do this sort of thing. I guess she just really, you know, believes in the product.

– Gold tinted stock footage of a beautiful Italian villa, and a building that looks sort of like Chilton from Gilmore Girls.

– Mirabella is played by Sara Paxton, who you may recognize from the cinematic great, You’re Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley’s Christmas Party. I’m familiar. In college, we used to watch You’re Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley’s School Dance Party while we were getting ready to go out sometimes. BTW, Paxton has a really beautiful head of hair. Enviable.

– Harper is pretending to be Mirabella’s cousin. I can’t wait for the scene where the truth gets revealed and everyone’s feelings are hurt due to all the deception! Because that will mean that this movie is ending. And it’s really quite boring.

– Someone mentions the color puce. Does that remind anyone else of Summer of the Swans, or did I seriously date myself there?

– Harper has texted/ called Amanda, and now Amanda knows what’s up. I have decided that she is Harper’s personal assistant. Also, Amanda glances at a poster of the young Harper to see what her young self looked like. The poster is from a flapper revue. I know that Jane Seymour isn’t supposed to be a spring chicken, but I don’t think she was exactly supposed to be round tabling at the Algonquin and partying in West Egg, right? I am expecting a subplot where she’s actually 120 years old and has been bathing in virgin blood or has a portrait that ages for her in the attic.

– I think Harper is flirting with her daughter’s fiance, but I can’t be positive because I’m too bored to pay much attention. She wants to break them up so Mirabella can be a STAR. She is also wearing a weird, floppy corrugated shirt with a GIANT purple flower. Kinda Georgia O’Keefe-y. Um, does she know what those were supposed to be? And is it supposed to be from her middle-aged wardrobe, or did she go shopping real quick when she got young? I don’t know why I’m looking for logic in a tele-musical about a woman who drinks a special tonic that turns her into a Bratz doll.

This freakin’ shirt. What this picture doesn’t tell you is that it has a weird wavy texture, like someone accordion-folded it because they needed a quick fan and were 7 years old.

– A group of girls, including Harper and Mirabella, are at the pool sharing their losing their virginity stories, because Mirabella doesn’t realize that her mom’s there and I guess other audience members have higher tolerance for secondhand embarrassment than I do. Harper wears a giant sun hat, which is stupid because it’s not like she needs to worry about aging.

– OH. That was all a setup so Mirabella could sing Like A Virgin. That makes sense. I think one of Mirabella’s friends is a Cheetah Girl. Does anyone have receipts on that? They’re all singing and dancing together, which I was expecting — unlike the time I wasn’t POSITIVE that From Justin To Kelly was a musical when Traci, I, and our high school friends went to it. This is not good.

– It’s like they just tried to make a plot around whatever songs they could get the rights to. I honestly think that’s what’s happening. I’m half expecting to hear public domain tunes like Wheels On The Bus if they run out of pop songs.

– Whenever the plot needs to move forward, Amanda calls and gives information. Mirabella is out of the show if she doesn’t come back, and the tonic is from a vaudeville trunk, because of course. I think that’s wrong because vaudeville trunks would just have top-hats, curly mustaches, and those giant canes you use to pull people offstage.

– Back at Chilton, Mira is trying on her wedding dress. At this point, I realize that I should have just tracked down a Mamma Mia DVD if I wanted to see people singing and dancing in Europe during wedding shenanigans.

– Shouldn’t Mirabella be worried that her mom isn’t in the country yet? I’m sure they covered that but like I said, it’s hard to pay attention to something this terrible.

– Harper isn’t a star anymore because she “blew her knee out.” That has got to be the least-romantic career ending injury they could think of. They couldn’t have had her faint off of a bridge or be diagnosed with a delicate heart?

– Harper’s hands and neck are aging. You know what they say, hands and throat always age first, so do to them whatever you do to your face. For me, that would be routinely examining them for more wrinkles and crying about it sometimes.

– There’s a Huggies commercial that uses the phrase “baby in your stomach” in regards to a pregnant woman. HATE. Whenever I hear someone say that, I always think “how’d she eat a whole BABY?”

– Long story short, Mira knows that Harper kissed her fiancee and Harper knows that she knows. Ryan, Mirabella’s dad, is here. I think that they are saying Brian for the first hour, so I don’t think the actors were even paying attention. Or maybe the writers forgot and changed it halfway through. Maybe Ryan is a nickname for Brian.

– Cheetah Girl just said “tequila shooters.” Is shooters vs. shots a geographic thing? Everyone I know calls them shots. Related: call them shooters or call them shots, I will probably need several of them to make it through this movie.

– Mirabella sings her feelings in the woods as her memories play on the screen. This is either an original song, or just an extra-terrible song that I have been blessed to get by without hearing thus far.

– The commercial breaks are going on longer and longer. It is almost as though this movie doesn’t want to come back. It is probably embarrassed.

– I know I should be paying better attention, but I am reading about Reese Witherspoon’s disorderly conduct arrest, which is a string of words I never though I’d type. Evidently, when told to stay in her car, she said that she is a U.S. citizen, and she is allowed to stand on American ground. I don’t know why that makes me LOL so bad but it does. BTW, she looks downcast and introspective in her booking photo, like a 16th century Madonna (sans child. What would Ava, Deacon, and Tennessee think? Tennessee the child AND Tennessee the state).

Dammit, Laura Jeanne.

See? Yeah, that’s right, I took art history once.

– (B)ryan is magically young too, now.

– I think I’ve found our problem. The writer is someone named Jaylynn. That means either (1) She is young enough to be named Jaylynn, so probably under 18, or (2) She is older but voluntarily chose the name Jaylynn as a nom de suck.

– Okay, so. Mirabella still thinks that Fiance kissed Harper, when actually Harper kissed fiance.

– I packed my lunch, loaded some dishes into the dishwasher, put my dog out, and the commercial break is STILL going on. It’s okay, Lovestruck: The Musical. I didn’t want to come back, either.

– Aunt Birdie (oh yeah, there’s an Aunt Birdie) drank the whole bottle of Vaudeville Youth Serum, and is a child. Personally, I would take just an itty-bitty sip of it. Just enough to get me to an hour and a half ago, before I decided to watch this mess.

– DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again. You know what’s extra bad about this, other than everything? In the Freaky Friday remake, Lohan really sold the whole adult in a young person’s body thing, but there’s none of that here. Harper is just straight-up young. I’m sure this isn’t the first time that someone’s told Bratz that she’s no Lindsay Lohan, but in most other contexts that would be a compliment. Not here.

– I will never make it through all of the ONTD comments re: Reese Witherspoon, so I’m just going to switch over to the Jennifer Lawrence hair post. I like it.

– Mirabella can’t tell that her father has a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT VOICE on the phone, but again, I don’t know why I’m even looking for logic here.

– Heartfelt speech portion of the night: Harper and Fiance, whose name is Marco but which I keep hearing as Margo.

– Harper and (B)ryan are back in love, which is a lot easier when one of you is suddenly young and beautiful, I suppose. Also, Ryan is old again.

– Mirabella and Marco/Margo are singing a reprise of the terrible original song they sang earlier, I Do/ Me Too. I will have this song at my wedding if the following conditions are met: someone pays me $100,000 to do so and I have also become deaf by that time.

– Amanda is here. Deus ex personal assistant.

– Judging by the commercials, the main viewer demographic of Lovestruck: The Musical is women with UTIs. Sounds about right.

– I’m looking at the tv listings to decide what show I should fall asleep to tonight, and realized that my standards for TV Shows To Fall Asleep To are so exacting that it should be its own post. However, I noticed that Lovestruck: The Musical is on again right after this. Woo hoo!! Who’s ready to do this all over again right away???

– Mira and Margo get married. Everyone sings Everlasting Love. Then there’s a reprise of DJ’s Got Us Falling In Love Again over the credits. They make us watch scenes of things that happened in those two hours we just sat through, in case we weren’t ready to let ourselves forget yet. The lyrics “keep downing drinks” come up, and seriously, ABC Family? I don’t mind if I do.

How To Survive Life With A Host Family

Posted in GSOY (Gratuitous Story of Yourself) by

Studying abroad is a whole lot of exciting mixed with a little bit of absolutely terrifying. This is never more true than when you’re living with a host family. Living in another country- even one that doesn’t use your primary language? Fine! Studying through a new college where you don’t know anybody? Okay! But living with a new family? YIKES. Even living with an American family would be tough in college. Besides,  everyone else I knew who studied abroad got to stay in dorms or student apartments.

I am by no means an expert on the homestay, but I spent almost 5 months with a family in a Madrid apartment and another month in a village in Nicaragua, so I know a little. In Nicaragua I had a sweet host mother and great roommates, and in Spain I had a prickly host family and one roommate I don’t even like reliving over a decade later. In both cases, it was this weird in-between status where you really weren’t part of a family, but you weren’t exactly just renting a room either. Sometimes it was hard, so here are a few tips from someone who has been there.

 Chat with your family a lot:

Homestays are great for language practice but doesn’t always make for easy, casual, fun interactions. The plus is that these situations give you a lot of bang for your study-abroad buck, and your language skills will improve in a way they never would if you lived with American kids. After a while tense changes and figures of speech become almost effortless – all that stuff you can’t REALLY learn in a classroom.

In my second language, sometimes I was like this weird alien who spoke the language just slightly wrong. But what do aliens do? Well, according to Unsolved Mysteries, some weird stuff. But they get to their host planet (or family), they observe, and they try to make sense of what they see.

Plus, you will learn a lot about another culture when you talk with your  family- how they think, what they value. You will find things to like and dislike, and you will probably hear some negative opinions about your home country. You might find yourself questioning things you hadn’t before, even little things – why am I asking for fake sugar for my coffee if I’m not diabetic? And if nothing else, it is a chance to learn a lot about the people in your fake family – and people, as a whole, are so, so interesting.

If, say, your family doesn’t seem particularly friendly, then having these convos can (1) help them realize you’re making an effort, or at least (2) give you this kind of anthropological motive so that even when they aren’t being that nice to you, you can narrate the encounters like a National Geographic special in your head.

But, take space where you need it:

Even with my real family, a lot of times I need to get away. Like, when you came home in high school, what would you do? At some point, no matter how much you loved your family and how many tv shows were on your common schedule, you would go to your room and shut the door. If you need some alone time to do homework, read, or write letters, close your door. It will make you a more sane and happy person, and thus better to live with. I had a roommate (… another story) who told me I was being rude because I was in the bedroom reading when she was at the table talking to our “brothers” one day, but I knew I needed take an hour to recharge after a particularly long day. It’s fine. One of the things that you learn living with a host family is that people everywhere have a lot of things in common. Your family will get it, and they won’t think they’re being rude. The homework excuse is good if they press you on it.

Know the rules:

Hopefully if there are any hard-and-fast rules, your family will let you know in advance. However, some things are so culturally ingrained that they might just take them for granted. This is where your awesome alien skills come into play. Try really hard to observe what people around you are doing so that you don’t get it wrong. One day, I came to the breakfast table and said something to my madre about the weather (or something. It was innocuous and I can’t really remember). She was NOT happy. I guess in Spain, if you see someone (even someone you live with), you always greet them with Good Morning first. Yeah, I… did not know that. And then, I did: feedback, not failure. Also, be prepared for something embarrassing to happen, if you’re an embarrassing person. You might get a stomach flu and puke everywhere, or come home having had too much to drink one day, or tell your host mom that you’re “so pregnant” instead of “so embarrassed”. I know people who have survived all of those experiences, so I promise that even if you slip up, you’ll be fine.

Explore the neighborhood:

You have the advantage of being integrated in a real, working neighborhood. This is amazing! Make sure you walk around your area in your first days and weeks and get to know where the useful things are – maybe ask one of your hosts for a walking tour, if you are so inclined. Over time, you will get to know your neighbors – the unhappy ice cream lady (Nicaragua), the adorable kids in preschool smocks (Spain), and so on. That gives you even more chances to learn about the culture and to practice the language, if applicable.

 Chances are your family is fairly hands-off (my Spain family was, anyway), so you will not have much guidance from them. Plus,  you won’t have the input of school staff like other study-abroaders, since they likely won’t live near you and know your neighborhood. There is a silver lining to this. You will find that people are more likely to treat you like any other local when you’re the only non-native college student in the area, compared to if a pack of you descend all at once speaking English. At the very least, know where your nearest post office, library, pharmacy, hospital, grocery store, and department store is. You know, all that Mister Rogers stuff. This was particularly useful in Nicaragua where the streets were made of dirt and unnamed – if someone tells you that the farmacia is two blocks over from the iglesia, on the corner next to the guy who owns the really huge pig, you better know where that is!

Going back up to the tip about taking space: if your home is small or if there’s no place to get away, you can make the most of your time at home by leaving to take walks and explore the neighborhood. You get exercise, learn about your neighborhood and get some time away from your family. I honestly took a walk just about every day in Spain just to get away.

Get a phone:

Hard to believe, but in both of my host houses, I didn’t have internet access. And I was okay, really! But it’s probably a good idea to get a phone if yours doesn’t travel well internationally. In Spain, I went with one where you pay by the minute, which is good if you won’t be around for a long-term contract and are trying to negotiate a cell phone store while jet-lagged and in your second language. In Nicaragua, I just didn’t talk to my real family, which was fine because it was only a month. Any longer, though, and you should really get one. This goes for students who are staying in dorms, too.

Ask if you can help:

Laundry with my Nica-roomies and our beautiful mom-away-from-mom, Sonia. My Spain mom was named Lidia, but both of my host fathers were named Alberto; maybe yours will be, too.

Since you are paying to stay with a family, there may be some very definite rules about whether or not they can put you to work. Try, anyway. You might be able to learn a new skill, something that you’d never have learned staying in your country or living with other people from your homeland. At the very least, they will probably let you learn how to make a favorite dish if you ask really nice and compliment it. Thanks to that tactic, I make a mean tortilla espanola. In Nicaragua, I learned how to smash open a coconut (not easy!) and wash my clothes without a washer and dryer (even harder!). Little things like that, believe it or not, make the whole homestay experience worth it.

 Kill the green-eyed monster:

Unless you have a super-amazing host family, in a fabulous house or apartment, in the best city ever, you might be a little jealous of your friends who are back home having the real, normal college experience. Or, your friends who are staying at a dorm in London while you are in an old lady’s apartment in Adalucia. This was very true in Spain, where, in my experience, you weren’t so much part of a FAMILY. It was a weird cross between being a boarder and being a visiting cousin or something, and sometimes it could be uncomfortable. It’s fine to have these feelings, but acknowledge them and then let them pass. Yes, those friends of yours back home or in dorms are having more of the typical “college experience” than you, and you chose to give that up for a semester, or a year. You gave things like chatting after dinner, and speaking English, probably, and hanging out in a big group at all hours, and running through what happened last night at Sunday breakfast. But you got some other great things in return.

Listen. I’m not writing this because staying with a host family is THE way to go and I want everybody to know how awesome it is – I’m writing it because it’s hard sometimes, and this is the advice that would have helped me. However, big rewards come when you do hard things. By the end of the semester, and certainly years down the line, I can almost guarantee that it will have been worth the trouble – so don’t be too jealous. You will have had 6 or 7 semesters of regular college compared to your 1 or 2 abroad – you are not missing out. Really.

Get an activity:

This actually goes if you’re doing a more traditional study abroad experience, too. Find a way to interact with your new community outside of whatever courses you take at your university. Temporarily join a church, if you’re into that. Volunteer. In Spain I volunteered with Girl Scouts; Nicaragua was a bit different because the whole point in going was to teach, translate, and work at a camp. Take classes. I took flamenco class in Madrid, because  where better to learn flamenco than Spain? Maybe cooking classes or music lessons appeal to you Join a recreational soccer league. Get out there and do something!

If your host family is not great — sometimes people find this post searching on things like “my host family hates me,” and I don’t mean to minimize that — this is also a way to get the heck out of there and meet other people. You just might find that your unfriendly host family isn’t typical of the country as a whole, which can make your study abroad experience a lot more pleasant.

Accentuate the positive:

Like I’ve said, there are some down sides to the homestay experience. Remember, if your family is awful, they don’t necessarily represent the whole country.  If you’re having a tough time, make a list of the things that you actually do like. If you don’t even have much that you like, make a list of the things that you’re learning instead. Make a paper chain until you can go home, like you’re a child awaiting Christmas. Until you board that plane, though, try to take advantage of this situation as much as you can. I know it can be difficult, but it can also be really amazing. One of the hardest things when I came home was people asking “how did you like it?” Well, it was five months of life. You don’t just like or not like almost half of a year.  You live it – and I can almost promise that you’ll be glad that you did.

Supreme Court Crash Course: Marriage Equality Edition

Posted in Miscellany by

There’s a lot of speculation about the decision the Supreme Court may make in a few months about marriage equality. Chances are, you took at least a high school civics/government class, and have a pretty good working understanding of how the Supreme Court works. You understand that they’re interpreting the constitutionality of a law. You know that they don’t just look to the language and intent of the Constitution, but also to how the Court has interpreted the Constitution in the past. This is called stare decisis, or standing by what is decided. Feel free to pull that one out at your next bar night if you want to impress nobody and go home alone.

Although you already know all of this, you might not know exactly which former cases will come into play and why. That’s where I come in. Here are some Supreme Court cases that may affect the marriage equality debate, what they’re about, and why they matter now – in a short-ish, for dummies package. Not because you’re  dummies, but because I took Con Law four years ago and I can’t even remember what I packed in my lunch this morning or where my keys are.

* Note: I may have gone to law school, passed the bar exam, and have “attorney” in my job title, but none of this is legal advice. I have an employer, and my opinions are mine, not theirs.

Griswold v. Connecticut

What it’s about: Birth control – but, in the grand tradition of Supreme Court cases, it’s about so much more than that. The story was that a Connecticut law (not often enforced)  completely banned contraceptives. Some brave people opened a birth control clinic in New Haven because hey, that law was seriously not enforced anyway. Well, and also because the Court had previously held that it was totally fine to outlaw birth control, and I think they had a hunch that the times were changing. Or a-changin’, as Bob Dylan would have me believe everyone talked at the time. They got fined $100 and the case made its way up to the Supreme Court.

How they got there: This established that the right to privacy is found in “penumbras” and “emanations” of other constitutional rights. So, it’s implied, pretty much.  A broad privacy right is implied in the Fourteenth Amendment (personal liberty, restrictions on state action) and Ninth Amendment (rights reserved to the people). This reasoning showed up about 8 years later in Roe v. Wade (you know that one! That’s the abortion one!). The Court declared an all-out ban on abortion illegal by reasoning that the Constitution and the cases that interpret it carry an implied right to privacy. There’s also some stuff about trimesters in there that really doesn’t have much to do with marriage. Although, now I am anticipating that we’ll get a misguided Google hit asking “what trimester should I get married in?” My vote is to wait til the baby is born because the only thing harder to  find than a good maternity prom dress is a good maternity wedding gown. Cue the misguided Google hits.

Why it matters: We’ll get there, but basically cases with more direct implications for the marriage equality struggle rely, in part, on an understanding that citizens possess a right to privacy.

Loving v. Virginia

What it’s about: Interracial marriage – but really, the basic right to marry whomever you choose (I mean, as long as one of you has an XX and the other an XY chromosome. OMG remember Kyle XY? Is that on Netflix? Loved that shit. ).

How they got there: A Virginia law prohibited mixed-race couples from getting married out of state and then living as a married couple in Virginia. Sort of like how now, gay couples can go from, say, Ohio to New York to get married, but Ohio won’t recognize their marriage. But this was even worse than that, as Virginia didn’t just fail to recognize the marriage – it was a felony. Here’s the big thing: VA tried to say that since both white and black people were affected by the law (You’re a felon! You’re a felon! Everybody gets a felony!) then it wasn’t racially discriminatory. The Supreme Court thought otherwise, and said that this law violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Check out this little gem from Justice Warren: “marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as… these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the fourteenth amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of the law… Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

Why it matters: Loving declares that marriage is a fundamental right. Laws that impinge on fundamental rights are subject to a harsher level of review by the Supreme Court than other laws. Standards of review crash course ahead:

  • The lower level is rational basis review – does this law have a reasonable relationship to a legitimate state interest? The anti-gay marriage folks would argue that the state has a legit interest in protecting kids from growing up in bad homes so that’s why you and your boyfriend/girlfriend can’t get married. I’m not even going to go there because we all know that’s ridiculous.
  • But if a fundamental right is at risk, the stakes get higher: strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny asks whether the law was narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest. Loving matters because it seemingly gets us to the strict scrutiny level when the right to marry is in question. It’s harder for a law to meet “narrowly tailored” and “compelling state interest” than it is to meet “reasonably related” and “legitimate interest,” so if you support marriage equality, you’d really like to see strict scrutiny applied.
  • What happens if the Supreme Court says that there isn’t a fundamental right at stake here? There’s also a strict scrutiny review if a law targets a suspect classification. No dice: courts have tried like crazy to get around declaring sexual orientation a suspect classification, even though suspect classes usually include things you’re born with (race) and even some things you’re not (religion).
  • But even if we can’t get there, there is a level called intermediate scrutiny. If a law unfairly targets a quasi-suspect class, then we ask whether the law is substantially related to an important government interest. So, it’s harder for a law to meet intermediate scrutiny than it is to meet rational basis, but easier than strict scrutiny. The Supreme Court has not yet said that sexual orientation is subject to intermediate scrutiny, but the Second Circuit Court Of Appeals has, so who knows? But anyway, even if sexual orientation isn’t a suspect class, gender is. Loving says that a law that limits what race you can marry is racial discrimination. If anti-gay marriage statutes limit what sex you can marry, then maybe, just maybe, it is sex-based discrimination and gets intermediate review.

The Supreme Court is usually loathe to declare new members of the suspect and quasi-suspect classes, though. We may be more likely to see them say that laws against gay marriage don’t even meet the rational basis test, then stop there.

Lawrence v. Texas

What it’s about: Texas had an anti-sodomy statute, as did twelve other states, as recently as ten years ago when Lawrence was decided. Over 25% of the states in this country cared a whole lot about what you did in your grown-up time. Police walked in on two gents going at it, which usually would be the worst thing EVER anyway, right? But it gets a lot worse when instead of a bit of embarrassment, you get a misdemeanor. And the Supreme Court was like, nah, Texas, you can’t do that.

How they got there: Kennedy’s opinion rested on the right to privacy (Griswold! Roe! Thanks, ladies!). Lawrence struck down Bowers, a case that said that it’s okay to make laws against sexual conduct between consenting adults because condemning homosexuality is “firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards.” Basically, it’s fine to discriminate against gay people, because it’s our tradition! Like apple pie on the Fourth of July! Or, for those of us who aren’t that into pie, like those cakes with strawberries and blueberries that look like the American flag on the Fourth of July! Because that cake is GOOD.  After Lawrence, limiting what adults do behind bedroom doors is understood to be a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Why it matters: Note that they didn’t go with the equal protection analysis and invoke a suspect or quasi-suspect class. Just the legitimate basis test, which these laws failed gloriously. There’s no legit state interest in who you get busy with and when and how.

So what do I think is going to happen when the Supreme Court term is up this summer? Well, I didn’t discuss the DOMA challenge here, but I’m hoping that’s a goner. But as for the right to marry in California, my guess is that we’re probably going to get a narrow decision that doesn’t help many people outside of CA. I think the lower court’s holding will get reversed, but only on the grounds that the people who brought the challenge to same-sex marriage didn’t have standing. It just didn’t affect them, pretty much. I think we might have to wait for a case from someone with standing – a person who wants to get married and can’t. Or at least a state defending its law instead of an interest group from the state doing it. But I’m not putting any money on it or anything, because the Supreme Court can surprise you sometimes. And also because legally I don’t think I can put money on it.

Update: 6/26/13: Well, SCOTUS sure did keep us waiting til the end of the term, didn’t they? For anyone who follows these crazy kids, it’s no surprise (now can they PLEASE just let my girl Ginsberg retire?). Also, this is the 10-year anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas, which might make you a little emotional if major Supreme Court decisions make you happy-cry like they do for me.

As I predicted, SCOTUS held that the petitioners in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the prop 8 challenge, did not have standing to appeal the district court’s ruling to the 9th Circuit. Here’s why :”we have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.”

But do you know what that means? Since they didn’t have standing to appeal the initial ruling on Prop 8, the district court’s decision stands. Which means…. Prop 8 is struck down! We revert back to the district court’s order, which was lovely. Here, a little light reading for you, Perry v. Schwarzenegger (actually one of the better opinions I’ve read lately): https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf

This isn’t as useful to the rest of America as an outright ruling on marriage equality would be. It’s state-specific. But, it’s a victory for California!

100 years ago, when suffragettes were doing their thing, there was a debate about whether to achieve equal voting rights state-by-state or by Constitutional amendment. The state-by-state thing was slow-going, and we all know how that ended up getting resolved. But for the time being, anyway, that’s what we’ll have to do with marriage.

Unintentionally Disturbing Boy Band Lyrics

Posted in Entertainment, Lists by

Time for a confession: although I was of prime age during the boy band golden era of 1997 – 2002, I was terribly disinterested in them. It was all too manufactured! Find 4-5 young men between the ages of 15 and 27. Make sure they can all sing. Choreograph dances that make heavy use of folding chairs. Try to ensure that key “types” are present: the cute one, the older one, the funny one, the weird-looking one with stupid hair, the sporty one, the ginger one, the posh one. Some of those might just have been Spice Girls or Disney dwarfs. All that’s left is finding songs for them to sing…. but that’s where things really fell apart. In a rush to move up the TRL charts as quickly as possible, some songs got released with lyrics that were sort of awful. Terrifying. Disturbing as heck. Now that we’re all adults here, I think it’s time to admit that these were very, very bad.

We Got It Goin On by the Backstreet Boys

“Well I’m creepin’ up on your left

Straight up funky when I get with you

Keep it ruthless when I get wet”

Did anyone else know about this? Because I sure didn’t until right now. I think they hid this creepery in the middle of the song and figured nobody would notice. You know what actually sounds like the worst thing in the world ever? A wet gentleman creeping up on my left and then being ruthless at me.

As Long As You Love Me by the Backstreet Boys

“Every little thing that you have said and done

Feels like it’s deep within me

Doesn’t really matter if you’re on the run

It seems like we’re meant to be

I don’t care who you are (who you are)

Where you’re from (where you’re from)

What you did

As long as you love me”

This song takes codependence to new and terrifying lows. It sounds a lot like BSB is definitely singing about someone with a criminal record here. “Doesn’t really matter if you’re on the run?” “Don’t care what you’ve done?” Maybe I’m just hard-hearted, but I care A LOT whether or not you’ve committed murder, stolen from a church, or have to put one of those signs on your door telling trick-or-treaters that you’re a registered sex offender. As if that weren’t enough, BSB doesn’t care “as long as you love me.” That’s what low self-esteem will do to you, kids. You’ll go out with someone who isn’t allowed within a half mile of an elementary school, as long as they say they love you.

God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You by NSync

“The heart of a child

That’s deep inside

Leaves me purified”

Dude, no. You have to date GROWNUPS, though.

Most of NSync’s 1997 Self-Titled Debut

Individually, none of the songs are too bad. But taken as a whole:

  • Drive Myself Crazy
  • Crazy For You (“wherever I go/ Whatever I do/ I’m crazy for you”)
  • I Just Wanna Be With You, which includes the words “you’re driving me crazy,” “my love is insane/ pleasure and pain,” and then an unsettling repeat of “I just wanna be with you” and “you and me gotta stay together”
  • I Want You Back (“I’m going crazy without you”)

We’re looking at a whole lot of crazy. Right? These are… not healthy relationships. If there are a lot of 20-something ladies who think that the ultimate in romance is somebody declaring that they love you so much that they are mentally unstable, I blame this album.

Can I Touch You There by 98 Degrees
Literally this whole song. I feel like if I type out the lyrics my very hands will catch an STD, but just trust me. Still, props for getting permission instead of just creeping on my left, I guess (looking at you, Backstreet Boys).