Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Indie and You're Punk

It's a treacherous road with a desolated view

 Tumbalalaika is my grandmother singing me to sleep and Where Have all the Flowers Gone is her playing the piano in the sunlit living room of my great grandparents' house in the Berkeley hills.

A musical snowglobe with a basket of roses played the song played at my mother's (unsuccesful) rehab graduation and kept me company in the years she was gone.

"You're going to really like this," my father says as he puts the bright orange CD into the stereo and skips to I'm Just a Girl. Sunny summer Sunday mornings with the top down, driving me home on highway 1.

Mayonaise for the boy I spent three weeks kissing in Ireland when I was 14.

Years of late night singalongs in the Mendocino Woodlands and the smell of campfire lingering in my clothes for days are comprised of Obla Di Obla Da and Down by the Riverside.

Staying up all night next to the fire in the dining hall in the same Woodlands, with friends so close I still think of them as my family, is yelling along to Buddy Holly which is also: my first concert, Paris with Corina (another Weezer concert) endless car singalongs and dinner parties in my Berkeley apartment.

Lara and Corina are I Will Survive and the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. Stuck in traffic before the Rainbow Tunnel headed towards a Unitarian Universalist youth conference on a rare warm sunny day in San Francisco. Late night cookie bakes. Planning Sunday service.

Golden Age is rain on the roof of Jacob's room junior year of high school. It's panic attacks and aching and loss and grief and comfort and safety all wrapped in one. It's my favorite song and I rarely listen to it because it hurts. It hurts like you couldn't even imagine. Sometimes I don't even know how I got through that first year after my father died.

India when I was eighteen is obviously Redemption Song. The Garden State soundtrack is my return and the next semester in Turkey.

Our tiny, damp and cold (but cheap) apartment in San Francisco was Not a Pretty Girl, while I rocked out to Twin Cinema in the culinary classroom and walked towards the streetcar in the fog humming To Be Young is to Be Sad.

The truth is, I could keep doing this all night, almost every post on this blog for the last three years has been titled with song lyrics, each one awakening a very specific feeling. I'm one of those people. You know the ones, the ones that can't possibly get by on only the 16 gigs their iPhone allows, the ones that listen to albums with the shades drawn and the lights off, whole albums always, songs are meant to be listenened to in album order or on a playlist but never an album on shuffle (shudder), the ones who sometimes replay a song if a conversation interrupted really listening to it, the ones who devour new albums like they've never heard music before... One memory and one song? Impossible. I could more easily give you the soundtrack to my entire life.

But if you really must know, Summertime will always make me cry.

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project, prompts can be found here.

This one's for my family 'cause I guess I know exactly who I am

Lessons from my family.

Put your money where your mouth is

Donate that money. Do those volunteer hours. Shop local if you can. Support businesses/products you believe in. Sign that petition. Pick up a sign and march your heart out. Vote. If you are unhappy, do something. Change the world in whatever way you can.

From each their ability to each their need

Yes, that's kind of parapharsed and it's Marx. Get over it. I give my spare change to homeless people. I will use my unlimited fare card to swipe other people into the subway if I'm on my way out. I don't make much but I still donate to charitable organizations because there are people that need the money more than me and as my father once said when he was living in an apartment in the tenderloin "there is nothing that can happen to me that is worse then what I see when I walk out that door every day". I truly believe that society is responsible for keeping people from falling through the cracks. I am fond of my tax return but I'd rather the government keep it and give us all healthcare. I think it's stupid to imprison drug addicts instead of providing them with actual help. Actually, I think in general it's stupid that our prison system focuses on punishment instead of rehabilitation, especially the juvenile justice system.

My heart, it just bled all over your computer.

Feminism is not a dirty word

I come from a long line of feminists (one of my grandmothers has a "Votes for Women" pin that's been passed down and the other can be seen yelling about childcare in the movie Berkeley in the Sixties*) and I'm not afraid to use that word to describe myself. As I wrote before: "being a modern liberal woman isn't about fitting into a neat man hating, power bitch box, it's about choices. It's about living your life in the way that you find most empowering. It's about being able to stick to your guns without having to apologize and it's about facepunching double standards".

Never cross a picket line

My daddy was a longshoreman. His daddy was a longshoreman. When I turned 18, I took all the tests to inherit my father's book even though I didn't go that route. My grandfather, his brother and all of his sons are contractors. My grandma is a nurse. We do believe in unions, and we don't cross picket lines.

It's always better to be overdressed than underdressed

I probably mostly choose to believe this piece of wisdom from my grandmother because I like wearing pretty clothes. But also, I would rather present myself to the world as somebody who puts in the extra effort.

Home is where they always have to take you in

This is one of my father's sayings. He valued family immensely, even if he wasn't on the best terms with somebody. I think part of what I learned from him is that your family isn't just your blood relatives. Your family is the people you trust, the people you would give the shirt off your back and who would do the same for you. The people that support you and the people that take you in when you have nowhere else to go. I think I have a lot of homes by this standard. I am blessed.

I am a product of my upbringing and I am 100% happy with it. Thank you, to my entire family for making me the kind of person that cares, I don't want to be any other kind.

*This movie is oddly on Netflix instant watch, I think my great grandfather, great grandmother and at least one of my great uncles also have appearances.

Running from one falling star until another until I drop

What label/story/box/belief clipped your wings this year?
How can you flip the script in 2012? What’s your new story?

High strung/type A/control freak/over achiever

Fact: I am these things. Kind of. But only about very specific things and mostly in reference to myself. And there are plenty of things that it turns out I'm a million less times high strung about then other people. I work myself into a frenzy and get down on myself for trying to do it all, for getting so stressed, for CARING.

Y'know what? I'm tired of apologizing for caring.

I care about my job. I care about how I present myself to the world. I care about how my food choices effect the environment and the economy. I care about politics because the personal is political. I care about plans because if I made plans with you, I care about you and I hope you care about me.

So, no I'm not sorry for so often fitting into that neat little over achiever box because I like to always be working towards the best version of myself and I get depressed when I start to feel stuck in a rut.

Not high strung.

Successful, motivated, organized and caring.

See also: intentional

What made you laugh?

This is such a tricky question. It's easy to remember what made you cry or yell but the specifics of what made me laugh? I'm not so sure.

Laughing with Sarah in Boston at the ridiculous skills she learned in Waldorf school. Like how to sign "butterfly" when she still wasn't allowed to learn how to read.

I remember laughing when I met Erin, Stephanie, Kelly and Jon IRL at my 2nd AMNH tweetup as we were standing and looking at a blown up picture of a bug penis. And I remember laughing for most of that night, primarily at "Obama sleeves" and convincing Jon to drunkenly explain the Matrix to me like I'd never seen it. I think there may've also been something about Stephanie saying that cheese fries were better than cuddling and me telling her that she must be doing cuddling wrong. I don't know. There were a lot of funny things. I think. Also, alcohol.

Then I had to work in a slip the next day because I had to be there at 4am, didn't have time to go home and wasn't going to bake in the white eyelet dress I was wearing. My coworker laughed a lot at me. It was one of those situations that was so ridiculous you just had to.

I laughed a lot when Lara and I went to see "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," which was fantastic. I laughed when we spent the evening with our friends Elise and Dick and their friend Tom who conveniently came to New York at the same time as Lara. I think we laughed hardest when we realized the picture they had taken of us on our way to the top of The Empire State Building somehow managed to be taken at just the right moment so that it looked like Tom was grabbing Dick's crotch.

Clearly, I've laughed at some very mature things this year.

I laughed the night before Michelle's wedding when she had us watch "Big Easy Brides" which is easily the most hilarious terrible wedding show I have seen. I laughed as we stayed up trying to come up with a playlist because all the songs people had suggested on their invitations were terrible.

I laughed on Tuesday when Tracy and I went to "The Daily Show," both during the show and while we were waiting in line and the older foursome behind us kept complaining about how terrible SNL is now. Except when that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were on it. They also kept saying things like "It's Tuesday, so of course it's raining". I don't know what that means, but blaming Tuesday for things is my new favorite activity and I think it's hilarious.

Almost as hilarious as Obama sleeves.

I am small but I am strong

Quick practical note: This December I'm participating in #reverb11. Last year I only managed about half the month before the questions all started to seem like they were asking the same things in different ways. This year there are so many lists of prompts that I'm hoping I'll stay inspired through the entire month. I'm doing it because making time to write daily is something I really wished I did on a more regular basis and obviously it's easier when you have a whole internet community supporting you. Basically #reverb11 is like my work out buddy for writing. Also, it's that New Year's-y, birthday coming up soonish time of year so I'm probably going to be spending a lot of time all up in my head over analyzing the last year and making decisions about the new one anyway, and some of that stuff needs to get out of my head so I don't go insane. The posts won't always be eloquent or long, but they will always be true.

So...

Reverb11 Prompt 2: Who are you? Describe yourself.

Alana Margaret. Baker. Pastry Sous Chef in the most competitive food city in the world. But in my head, just a baker, creator, recipe writer.

Quiet, shy, sensitive, bookish but if I have my way you'll never know it. I never outgrew those things, but I got better at pretending, which I guess, is a lot of what growing up is about. A sometimes broken, bitter, midnight crier and sometimes the one who has weathered much and come out more whole than anyone had any right to expect.

I cling to schedules, routines, normalcy the way those of us with hectic childhoods do, trying to keep control, always. Hating when I'm not in control, always. Life has a way of not letting you be in control. It's tricksy like that.

Blunt, harsh and honest. To a fault. But once you're in, once you make it under the layers, there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, nothing I wouldn't give. Happiest as a care taker, food maker, present giver.

Small but curvy. Dark haired and light eyed. Fair Irish skin. Thankful for Eastern European cheek bones adding definition to a round, dimpled face. Rosy cheeked and dark lashed. Arms and hands covered in burn scars and knife nicks.

Not so secret lover of all things living and adorable. Small children (not babies, they still mostly look like aliens), puppies and kittens especially, though if I thought a baby polar bear or tiny penguin wanted to cuddle me and I lived in the right climate, they'd be right up there on that list.

I find equal comfort in the quietness of museums and the way words string together. Sentences over stories. Phrases get stuck in my brain the way songs get stuck in other's. Flavor combinations too. Repeating until I find a space to let them out.

Alana Margaret, almost twenty-six. New York City born. California raised. New York City returned. Baker pretending to be a Pastry Sous Chef. Reader pretending to be a writer. Unabashed liberal. Rule follower and authority hater. Goody two shoes with a foul mouth. A pile of contradictions, just like you, and at the same time, not at all.

Not even a little bit.

I'm moving to any other industrialized nation so that I don't die in the next year or become homeless to cover my health insurance payments

I've never broken a bone. I can count my emergency room visits on one hand. 1 panic attack, 1 asthma attack, 1 migraine that had me curled up, vomitting and crying on the bathroom floor, 1 boxcutter cut across two fingers. I've never had to stay in the hospital and the most major surgery I've had is having my wisdom teeth removed.

My need for health insurance has nothing to do with major catastrophes so the "low monthly payment and we'll basically start paying for shit if you're on your death bed" plans aren't really going to work for me. But neither does "just don't get sick".

For as long as I can remember, I was prone to every cold that came around. When you combine constant colds with asthma there are times (like right now) when I can barely walk a block without an inhaler. In the winter, my Eustachian tubes have an unfortunate habit of malfunctioning causing constant ear pain. Basically the solution is to take endless sudafed and spray gross shit up my nose. When I take sudafed I'm not supposed to drink coffee or use my inhaler because sudafed has a tendency to give me heart palpitations. Usually if I'm taking sudafed, I need my inhaler. Also, not the best stuff for insomnia. All this stupid sinus stuff plus sometimes bronchitis means I am that person that's probably creating super viruses by taking all of the antibiotics. Like, I'm on antibiotics 2 or 3 times a flu season.

Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but I have fucking insane allergic reactions to EVERYTHING. (And in that 2nd link the post mentions having a kidney infection the month before! If I had been born a hundred years ago, I would not have made it to 25)

Luckily, most of the time, I can pretty much manage my migraines through diet and stress reduction, so while I do need the meds about once a month, it's rarely more than that these days.

So, no, I don't have any major health problems (knock on wood) but I tend to be kind of a mess in a dress healthwise so I'm pretty much freaking out about my lack of health insurance come January. Also, I'm pretty sure I have an ear infection right now, but I can't use my current health insurance in New York, so I'm freaking out about that too because I've felt like death off and on for about a month now. The problem is, I need affordable urgent care visits and prescriptions which tends to be what you get if you can afford to pay eleventy billion dollars a month, otherwise it's all high deductible plans that don't cover office visits or prescriptions which seems totally useless to me.

It basically comes down to this:

Can I please just pay some more taxes so that the government takes care of this for me? That is all I want for Christmas/Channukah/Birthday. Socialized medicine. That's it.

Because I am actually near tears, freaking out trying to figure out how I'm going to be able to do this. This might also be related to the whole being sick and exhausted and only having one day off thing. Also the figuring out how little money I'll be making in January when my work is closed for ten days thing.

Why can't you be the FDR I wanted you to be Obama? We had such high progressive hopes for you.

More grown up and a better daughter

Source: None via Alana on Pinterest

 

 

Thing you may or may not know about me: I'm kind of a control freak. Kind of.

It's the downside of being incredibly self reliant. All it really means is I'd rather just do things myself than trust that somebody else will get them done in a timely and correct fashion.

Sometimes this is a really awesome trait because I'm all about getting shit done.

Sometimes (ok, all the time) it means I'm incapable of leaving work at work, it has a lot to do with my constant struggle to learn to say "no" to people and it makes me nearly incapable of asking for help.

I've spent my life being the responsible one, the calm one, the in control one. I'm the friend you call when life gets crazy. I'm the person that calms you down, supports you, sympathizes and figures how to pry you out when you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Unless you know me really well (or read this blog), I am a rock.

If you know me really well, and I mean, really well, you know I'm not.

If you know me really well, you know that I take personal responsibility for everything. Everything. And it makes me really really stressed if I fall even slightly behind on any aspect of my life.

Like, I get stressed that I'm not making time to go to yoga. Which basically means I get stressed about not destressing, which kind of makes sense, but also kind of makes me think I'm doing it wrong. NOTHING RELATED TO SOMETHING THAT RELAXES YOU SHOULD EVER BE STRESSFUL.

I'm constantly stressed when we don't get a lot of business at work. I know this has nothing to do with me, but it stresses me the fuck out and not because I'm afraid of losing my job or anything, but because I think somehow, I am personally responsible for our lack of business despite doing my job of making sure there are awesome tasty treats every day.

The lack of volunteer work in my life makes me stressed. I can't even find time to go to yoga, and I'm stressed that I'm not doing volunteer work. How does that even make sense? I feel like there's something vaguely narcissistic in thinking that I matter that much.

I don't read the news every day. That makes me feel irresponsible. Feeling irresponsible makes me feel stressed. This also relates to the volunteer work.

The world is fucked up guys, do you know that? Doesn't it stress you out that you can't fix it all? Yes, that is on the list of things that overwhelm. SO MUCH IS WRONG ALL THE TIME AND I CAN'T FIX IT. I just want to fix it.

Also, totally on a different level, but why dont' I have a boyfriend? Not having a boyfriend makes me stressed. Oh right, because the idea of going on dates stresses me even more.

My controlling nature also makes me hate the world where all plans are left until the last minute. Choose a movie time! Tell me when to come over! Decide when things need to be done and stick with it. I don't keep my life meticulously scheduled but there is nothing I hate more than "I'll text you and we'll figure it out" or "We should do (fill in the blank) sometime". Let's just figure it out. Right now. Ok? Otherwise I am. Or I'm not going to wait around because I don't trust anyone to actually follow through with anything ever.

Yes, I am one of those people whose parental units were never on time/didn't remember I needed to be picked up or at which after school activity I was located. And in this case, I'm talking about my grandparents, THE RESPONSIBLE ONES, not even my parents (aka, the not so responsible ones). Consequently, I am obsessed with concrete plans and timeliness. Sorry. Also I'm obsessed with it because it makes figuring out the rest of my life easier.

And after that list, now you know why I'm never actually joking about the klonopin.

One time just my type boy told me "I think you're one of those people that shouldn't even have a job, you find so much to take on even without one".

I think that was just a nice way of saying "You are really high strung, chill the fuck out for a second".

And part of my being high strung, is making sure you don't know just how close I am to sitting in the walk in and bawling my fucking eyes out some days.

It's all really exhausting. I wasn't joking when I said I push myself to the point of being curled up in a ball in the corner, exhausted. That was me most of this past week.

I gave myself permission to not do anything for the last two days. I told myself it was ok to not go to yoga, to not think about the ten day food festival we have coming up, that I will have time to do laundry after work tomorrow, that I was not less of a human being because I didn't go for a run.

I reminded myself that despite what my somewhat sporadic blogging makes it seem like, mostly, I've been pretty damn satisfied with life lately.

And that when I do feel the overwhelming urge to sob, it's because I'm stressed and frustrated and it's not because I'm depressed. I know that seems terrible also, but I'd rather be sobbing because I worked myself to exhaustion and then did five favors for friends than be sobbing and in the bell jar, barely able, or unable to get myself out of bed.

I just need to chill the fuck out for a while. Because, actually, everything is OK. There's a lot to do this month, but I've got it and if some things slide, I'll pick them back up next month.

The world isn't ending because I haven't gone for a run in a week.

I know, I'm shocked too.

Alana Goes to Boston, Part 2

So probably one of the reasons Sarah is my soul mate is because she says things like "OH! We have to go to my favorite socialist bar, you'll love it!". Sadly we were too tired to actually go into her favorite socialist bar on Saturday night, but we did walk by and it's definitely on my next time I visit list. Yeah, that's right, two Irish Jew girls are going to go chill out at the socialist bar in their Banana Republic heavy wardrobes. That's just how we roll. Probably because when we were in high school Sarah said something like "all my dad's side of the family went to socialist Jewish Summer camps" and without batting an eye I was like "Yeah, my great grandfather told off McCarthy" and then we were inseparable.

Anyways...

Right. Recapping Boston.

Sunday we had AMAZING brunch with possibly the most pretentious person I have ever met. He spent an inordinately long amount of time talking about grad school and the tax law related research he was doing and then turned to me and said "So what do you do?".

"I'm a baker"

And I wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face. The only response he could come up with was "oh" and it was kind of like he had discovered some brand new species and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Most of the time telling somebody my profession garners responses more along the lines of "Can you make...", "I have a brother/uncle/sisterwife that's a pastry chef at..." or "That's so awesome". That was the first time anyone had seem dumbfounded that they had met a real life baker. But the guy did have fruit, ricotta and honey for breakfast while Sarah and I were eating pesto, chevre, bacon and egg sandwich goodness, so really, what can you expect?

Plus side: Free meal, because obviously, us ladies couldn't be allowed to pay. Whatevs. I'll take it.

After breakfast I learned that the Harvard Natural History Museum is crazy. There's just stuffed animals and skeletons everywhere. I'm entirely unclear about the organizational logic. I guess most of the time when Sarah brings people there they get really disturbed because it's so many dead animals in such a small space so she was really excited to be able to explore farther due to my exceptional looking at dead animals stamina. Yeah, It's basically like if all of AMNH was stuffed into three small rooms and some hallways. But with less dinosaur bones and a bigger Lestodon. At least I think it was bigger, I can't actually back that up for sure.

I mean there's just an elephant head stuck on top of a case of unrelated skeletons. What? Who's in charge of curating this craziness?

Sunday afternoon was dedicated to walking through Boston commons and downtown Boston. Also to choosing things for the other person to try on at H&M. This isn't at all travel related but it did lead to a lot of jumper and skorts outfits. They were pretty terrible. It was fun.

Home for siesta, which is probably another reason I love Sarah- we had afternoon chilling out and reading time each day.

Sunday evening I went to a party where I met a bunch of her friends who all had much more normal reactions to "I'm a baker," though a surprising number of them had never met a baker before. This seems really weird to me, but I do spend almost all my time around other food service people, so that might have something to do with it. Also, I'm pretty sure I consumed an entire bottle of two buck chuck by myself. It's been a while. Does that stuff actually have alcohol in it? I'm not really sure it does, because normally when I consume an entire bottle of wine I am a) fairly drunk and b) hungover the next day and neither of those was true.

And I will save accidentally walking into historical reenactments for Part 3, because I need to go be irresponsible and possibly pull yet another all nighter now.

 

And I stand here with my arms outstretched

One month into 2011, what question(s) are you living? Are there any prompts/questions that arose during #reverb10 that are still resonating in your life? Are you living new questions?

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris

I moved across country, is it any surprise this is the question I would be dealing with?

I went to church my first Sunday in New York. The Unitarian Universalist community was a huge part of my life from about 14-21. From 21-25, I've probably been to church maybe four times. It's not because I became disenchanted, or began questioning my religion or anything like that. Unitarian Universalism is a religion largely about questioning and with very little creed. I did get a little burned out after spending close to six years spending a large amount of my energy on organizing and being a leader in district youth conferences but that also wasn't really it. The truth is, the UU church just doesn't provide a very good container for young adults. There are youth conferences and there is church service which often tends to be more family oriented or geared towards answering different questions than twenty somethings have.

So why did I go to church?

Community. Familiarity. To sit in a room full of people with similar beliefs to mine. To stand and thumb through the hymnal to a familiar song. To repeat the familiar affirmation "Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth its sacrament and service it's prayer". I chickened out and didn't actually go to coffee hour, but I spoke with both the minister and the student minister (who had delivered the sermon that morning) and found out they had a young adult group and though there are many UU churches in New York, that one seemed like a pretty good fit for me.

For me, church has always been about community, not God or prayer* or any of that other stuff I frankly don't really understand because while there are many things I have faith in, a high power is not one of them. I don't think this a particularly uncommon view in a religion where Humanism is often found more acceptable to talk about than JudeoChristian beliefs. In fact, the only part of the bible I've regularly heard quoted from UU ministers is "to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God," and trust me, we don't use the G word a lot, but we do talk about social justice, how to live your values in your every day life and be an active member of your community a lot.

Yes, there are a lot of negative things about organized religion I could throw in here. On the liberal side of the aisle we are really good at equating religion with teaching hatred and ignorance and I'm not denying that it can be (and is) used for that. We get distracted by those who are self righteous about their faith and don't notice those who are quietly helping those in need with humility. Most importantly I think we forget that churches of any faith are places where people come together and share their joys and sorrows, give each other a helping hand and a girl from 2,000 miles away can feel welcome.

* I'm with Susan B. Anthony on this one "I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with man. Work and worship are one with me. I cannot imagine a God of the universe made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him 'great'."

Wear clean draws

Easter turned out to be a highly quotable day. SO quotable, that in fact, Matt declared something I said as the quote of the day before we even got out of bed. I have no idea what it was, but I’m sure it was both hilarious and memorable.

I think my mother’s favorite quote of the day was when I loudly declared, “there’s no fucking cherries in Hawaiian Punch”. (Which is totally true, but there’s a fucking picture of cherries right on the front of the bottle. Half the things they picture on the bottle are not listed in the ingredients. They should replace them all with corn. Corn shaped like a syrup bottle.) She told me I should tweet that. I told her that she should get her own twitter account and then she could tweet whatever she wanted. Maybe she could rival “shit my dad says” and then she said “That’s enough to almost make me get my own fucking twitter account”. And then she and Matt yelled “Des NUTS” and grabbed their crotches. Ok, that’s not quite what happened. But all those things did happen and it was all during Easter family time.

You know how there’s at least that one David Sedaris story in which his sister says “You’re not going to write about this, are you?” and he replies “Of course not”? I feel like that is the point my life has reached constantly, except at least 50% of the time it’s people telling me I should blog about things. Which is kind of hilarious, because basically they’re telling me I should write a story about them for them to read.  Which means everyone I know is either at least as narcissistic as I am or thinks that somehow their recollection of a situation will become more hilarious through my retelling it to the whole internet OR I’ve somehow managed to surround myself with people that realize life really just is that ridiculous. There’s also option four, which is just that I’m that ridiculous and everyone I know is constantly but slyly acknowledging it, but I’m choosing to ignore that option.

The point being, my boyfriend doesn’t wear underwear because of linen pants and guns.

Backing up…

“Your boyfriend doesn’t sag and have half his ass hanging out”

“Well he’s older”

“Yeah, but I feel like he wouldn’t anyways, he’s just not a sagging kind of guy”

“Also he’s so skinny I’m pretty sure that without a belt his pants would just fall off. Oh, and if he were sagging his ass would literally be hanging out”

“He’s not wearing underwear?”

“No he doesn’t wear underwear”

“TMI!”

My mom says “TMI” a lot but it’s always followed up by questions like “Is it true, what they say about tall skinny guys?” which is obviously a cry for too much information without being blunt about it and since I’m the most wonderful loving daughter, I like to fuck with her and respond with things like “What do they say?” and try to get her to out and out say that she’s asking about the size of my boyfriend’s penis because if she just wanted to know about tall skinny guys I could’ve answered that question years ago. Now she’s totally thinking “TMI” in her head.

I guess it was also possible she was waiting until I had a more reasonable sample size. Good thinking Mother, this question needs to be scientifically answered, I’m pretty sure we still need a larger test group so you’re going to have to set up everyone you know with tall skinny guys ‘cause I’m planning on sticking with this one. (Because this is the only one that will tolerate me writing about speculation on the size of his penis and lack of underwear on the internet.)

“Is it because that would require doing more laundry?”

See? Not actually TMI.

“I don’t know. Probably. It’s not like it’s something we’ve had discussions about. You can ask him and find out”

Except, somehow I ended up asking him many hours later and I have no recollection of why it came up again.

“I just haven’t really worn underwear since I was like sixteen. It’s not that I don’t ever wear underwear, I just generally don’t wear underwear”

“You said you didn’t even know where a pair was”

“Well that was an exaggeration, I know where maybe two pairs are. I mean there are certain situations in which I wear underwear”

“Really? Like what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like wearing underwear with linen pants… also packing is a bitch with linen pants because it’s not like you can just put a holster on your linen pants, you have to wear a belt and the whole point of linen pants is they’re supposed to be light and breezy”

And at that point I basically go into hysterics, which is totally unreasonable because seriously, I feel like the problem of gun vs. linen pants is probably a really pressing issue.

 If you’re a mobster.

In Miami.

But I feel like there’s not actually a lot of overlap between the militia email and NRA car insurance offers getting community and the linen pants wearing community. Yet somehow I’ve found the person in which they meet. And somehow, this person is somebody that crazy liberal pacifist me is pretty damn into dating and I am now standing in a gourmet grocery store discussing the issues of packing heat while wearing linen pants because I asked my boyfriend why he doesn’t wear underwear.

Of course, through this whole chain of thought and fit of hysterical laughter Matt is just looking at me like I’m crazy because in his mind he just made a totally pragmatic reasonable statement.

And that’s when I said “I should tweet that”.

“You should just blog about it”

Meta.