Won't you be my friend?

Okay. Let's just put it out there that I pretty much Facebook and/or Google every person I ever meet (whom I think is Facebook- and/or Google-able, anyway). Frankly, I'm not embarrassed because I know that everyone else does the same thing.

There does, however, exist a level of dignity on Facebook that I refuse to cross. That, my readers, is the sin of "friend"-ing someone whom I have JUST met.

Would you call somebody whose number you'd just acquired the previous night? OF COURSE NOT! Would you contact last night's date to rave about the good time that was had? Not unless you wanted to prematurely drop a few notches on the Mysteriously Alluring Stranger scale.* Then why the hell wouldn't you wait a few days and play the oh-yeah-I-met-you-but-was-too-busy-with-my-cool-life-to-officially-request-your-friendship-just-yet game?

Look. We all want people to think we're cool. But there is nothing more UN-cool than to demonstrate any effort in this quest. In fact, in recent years, it has become decidedly cool to shun any idea that we actually may BE cool, opting instead to self-deprecate by lamenting our alcohol intolerance and stressing our penchant for staying at home on Friday nights to watch whatever may be at the top of our Netflix queue.**

Does anybody actually fall for this ruse? No. But must we all continue to play this game? Well, for reasons unknown... yes! And on Sunday, when you open an email that was sent at 7:24 a.m., informing you that the stranger with whom you exchanged maybe four awkward-as-fuck sentences at your mutual friend's birthday party that you'd left SIX-AND-A-HALF HOURS AGO wants to be your "friend" (a word that has lost all meaning, ironically, since the advent of Facebook)... you can't help but judge him just a teeny bit for not abiding by the tacit code of Pretending To Have a Life.

Like in most cases of pointing fingers, I suppose this condemnation comes from a total lack of comprehension... which gives way to fear... and then sometimes hate. WHY don't these people play the waiting game, like the rest of us do? WHY must they tamper with our understanding of acceptable social customs of cynical twenty-something New Yorkers? To think that my interpretation of these rules, a codex of carefully orchestrated gestures and language that few people ever truly master, has been completely off-base is just too great a headache for me to even begin to fathom. Ergo, I don't bother. Instead, I judge... even when I know deep in my heart that I am no better.

In the meantime, I'm rereading my profile. I'm not sure that it projects as high a level of editorial apathy that I'd like.

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* Since I partake neither in the activity of collecting people's phone numbers nor going out on dates, for the sake of journalistic (?) integrity, I concede that this is all purely speculative.

** Author points to previous footnote, introductory paragraph, and pretty much this entire blog as examples of this trend.

Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I couldn't help mentally comparing this book to The Tipping Point and Blink (I mean, the publishers even got Malcolm Gladwell to proclaim on the cover, "Prepare to be dazzled!"), but I thought it still stood on its own. I thought the most interesting chapter was the one called "Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?"

Unfortunately when I was looking at the lists of baby girl names for low-class white girls (Destiny, Harmony, Chastity, other stripper-type names), I was like, "Damn. MY name sort of fits on that list!" Plus, apparently one of the signs of low-class minority boy names are nicknames as first names, e.g., Ricky, Johnny, Danny instead of Richard, John, Daniel, etc.

Or "Anny" for "Anne"? Boo.

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Last night, when I was reading this book while waiting for the bus, the guy behind me asked if I were waiting for the 20. I said yes. Then he pointed to my book and asked me if I were learning English. IDIOT. His accent sounded Eastern European so I can maybe overlook it since I think he was just excited that I was an immigrant too or something. Anyway, another guy in front of me (who I think overheard) looked back at us and gave me a look of what I interpreted to be incredulity. So I feel a little better since somebody else witnessed my indignation.

People are stupid.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

People from all circles of my life were raving about this book to me: my college roommate, my elementary-school best friend, two girls I'd met in Spain, and my former co-worker. So I ignored my long-standing aversions to both fiction and precocious children and finally read it.

Blech! Did I miss something? I feel like something must be wrong with me because I really did not like this book. I guess it's all supposed to be cool and post-modern (whatever that means), but... I found all that unconventional new crap really distracting and kind of pretentious. "Ooh, my book is special because I have pictures of kooky stuff in it!"

I think I mostly could not get around the fact that Oskar's mother apparently had no problem allowing her nine-year-old son to roam all of New York alone, especially after she lost her husband in such a traumatic way*. And how the hell did Oskar stick with this mission for EIGHT months? I doubt that nine-year-olds can even commit to something for eight HOURS. I mean, yeah, he's supposed to be precocious, but please. (And where'd he get money for MetroCards and cabs?) Also, I found it hard to care about the subplot with Oskar's grandparents. Just the whole thing about their courtship or whatever... and what he wound up doing to her was pretty terrible. Am I supposed to find it romantic somehow? Oh, and he doesn't speak! Does he actually write down ALL of those sentences when he speaks to Oskar later?

Yeah, so in general, I am pretty impressed that JSF has such distinct and original voice (at least, I've never read anything like that), and I appreciated what he was doing artistically. But I just didn't think that any of the characters were all that likable, and I didn't think the plot was very plausible. (But maybe I'm just jealous that I'm not that distinct or original. But... yeah I still didn't like it. Maybe I'm supposed to like it because it references 9/11 and Dresden. Shrug.)

For more fun reviews, check out my friend Arielle's book blog: Two Jews Reviews

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* True story. I knew a set of twins in college who grew up in Manhattan but had never once taken the subway. I was wondering how on earth that was possible until I found out later that while they were babies in Singapore, their baby-sitter tried to kidnap one of them and take her back to the Philippines. The kidnapper's plan was thwarted when she got to the airport and didn't have a passport for the child. So when the family moved to New York, the twins' mom was overly protective of them and forbade them from taking the subway, even up through high school. Therefore, I really cannot believe that a recent 9/11 widow would let her kid just roam around (although I suppose you could argue that people grieve differently, rendering this footnote pointless).

Vomit smells bad

I went to see THE FARNSWORTH INVENTION* on Broadway with my sister today. It was totally one of those things where since I didn't know anything about the subject matter prior to seeing the show, I'm forming all my knowledge and opinions about the history of television based on this, i.e., Russian-American-moguls = bad; earnest-Mormon-farmers = good.

I enjoyed it immensely but it got pretty mixed reviews. Shrug. I don't think I'm a mature-enough theater-goer to know what constitutes a good play or a bad one. Especially since (I think) this was only my second actual play (normally, I see musicals). But I wonder how much of my favorable opinion of the show had to do with my awe that Hank Azaria was like three feet from me (we were front-row). I kept thinking, "Comic Book Guy is practically spitting on me!" It made me happy. Man. I'm so one of those loser non-theater-goers that only sees things when some big-name actor stars in something. (The other play was ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO's NEST, starring Gary Sinise at the time, which I saw with my 12th-grade English class. I was all, "Lieutenant Dan! It's Lieutenant Dan!" I'm sure Ken Kesey loved that.)

After the show, I went down to the bathroom, and there was a big puddle of vomit on the carpeting right outside the bathroom. There was another big puddle of vomit on the floor of the actual bathroom. And you could see a big pile of vomit in the first stall. Wow. It smelled so effing terrible. Like... TERRIBLE. Like rotting death. I almost threw up myself just from smelling it. I tried pinching my nose but then I got concerned that I was breathing vomit fumes into my mouth so I tried keeping my mouth closed, but then I couldn't breathe. It sucked.

Anyway.

I felt bad today because I assumed that Jimmi Simpson (who plays Philo Farnsworth) was gay, based on the spelling of his name**. Which is so prejudiced, but whatever, I know most people would too (not that it makes it right). So I checked Wikipedia, and he's actually married to Melanie Lynskey, the actress who played the horse-masked stepsister in EVER AFTER, aka the mother of the baby in the bar in SWEET HOME ALABAMA, aka somebody whose role I don't recall in COYOTE UGLY. And she's from New Zealand! I thought she was English this whole time... but sadly, my mistake made me feel closer to Bret and Jemaine since everyone thinks they're English in FOTC. Woo. (What a dumb story.)

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* Yeah, I'm capitalizing movie/play/TV names now. Weird. Something new I'm trying since I can't italicize on my Mac, and using quotes just made me feel dirty.

** Stewie Griffin once told a cheerleader that he bounded and gagged, "You know, Cindi, I would feel worse about this if you didn't spell your name with that insufferable 'i'!" I think that pretty much sums up my take on names that end in "i" (or even "-ie").

So does it still count as a compliment?

Sometimes at the store, when I'm forced to make meaningless small talk, I'll just compliment the customer, especially if she's a middle-aged woman. (I mean, chances are, she prob thinks she's unattractive and her husband is prob cheating on her... so might as well compliment her cheap-looking Walmart handbag, plus I can walk away proudly feeling like Mother Teresa.)

There are a lot of people who drop off their stuff in their child/parent's name. Sometimes I am truly astounded because the mother will look way too young to be the child's parent... which results in my wanting to yelp, "Whoa, you look WAY too young to be [so-and-so]'s mom!" At this point, I'm not even trying to be complimentary... sometimes I'm just shocked.

Half the time, I feel like the person should be really happy... particularly in the type of community where I grew up when people prob had kids when they chose to have kids. And everybody wants to look young, right? But then I realize... huh... maybe she IS too young to be this person's mom. Maybe she just got knocked up by some loser boyfriend, and every time a well-meaning stranger compliments how young she looks, she's reminded that her hypocritical cheating dad (whose actions didn't teach her to respect herself) wouldn't let her get an abortion because it was against their so-called morals.

Or maybe it's just good genes?

Superficial observations about Puerto Rico

1. Burger King is everywhere. EVERYWHERE! My sister and I did a few day trips outside of San Juan, and that familiar fake thatched roof was just ubiquitous. (Probably outnumbered McDonald's by like four times.) There were also a substantial number of Blockbuster, Curves, Walgreen's, and Baskin Robbins... which was all really depressing when you realized that it looked like any other generic highway in the U.S.

(But seriously, there was a crazy number of Burger Kings. And for those interested, "drive-thru" in PR Spanish is "servi carro"!)

2. Speaking of chains, I saw two Condom World stores... one located right by our hotel on Avenida Ashford (total tourist strip) and the other on a highway on the way to the Bioluminescent Bay (very cool, by the way). Since the one by our hotel was so decrepit-looking, I was surprised it was actually a chain (and I think I recall seeing one in Boston on Newbury Street?). As a business owner (ha!), I was curious to know how a store could survive selling something that is so universally available. I mean, I'm sure they have other stuff but these stores were pretty centrally located which made me even more curious about the merchandise. I wanted to check it out, but my Catholic guilt (or I guess Protestant guilt) was raging like whoa.

3. Have you ever noticed whenever you travel somewhere, people from that region seem to think that stuff that just happens to be in that region is totally unique to said region? During our first meal in Puerto Rico, our waiter* asked me and my sister, "You ever try AVOCADO? A-VO-CA-DO? Avocado!" The next day, our tour guide at El Yunque National Forest helpfully pointed out when it started raining that umbrellas were originally created for protection against sun, not rain. She looked at us expectantly as if we were supposed to gasp in surprise. (Isn't that a "fun fact" that pretty much everyone in the world learns in, like, the fourth grade?)

From these two encounters, I can concede that either:

a. These people are stupid. (Not likely.)
b. These people think that WE are stupid. (Fairly likely.)
c. I'm an easily offended bitch that needs to lighten up... especially since I'm getting upset at myself all over again that I can't think of the more-than-two-things word for 'either' and therefore feel very dumb right now. (Fact.)

(Anyway, this all reminded me of when I was watching The Simpsons with my six-year-old host sister in Salamanca, and she asked me if I'd ever seen The Simpsons before. I answered that yes, I had, and in fact, The Simpsons is actually a show from the U.S. that gets dubbed into Spanish and many other languages. [Although I think that was too much for her to understand, so she just looked at me like I was nuts.])

4. Yeah, so overall, Puerto Rico is pretty darn cool. Go.

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* Eduardo can pretty much be described as a totally offensive caricature of what you'd imagine a Puerto Rican waiter to be. He greeted us with an effusive "Hel-LO! How are YOU? We have no sushi here! No sushi!" I COULD read into this, or I can choose to believe that a disproportionate number of previous diners at Cafe del Angel were all disappointed sushi aficionados, ergo he greets every patron this way. (Then again, he later told us about how he saw a documentary about the national orchestra in China, emphasizing how pretty the women were. I then had to ask myself if a man needs a reason to tell somebody about the attractiveness of orchestra members of a country to which you have no connection... I guess one doesn't.) But yeah, when sending us off, Eduardo was nice enough to say, "Good-bye, my sushi girls! You are pretty! Be careful!" so I guess I can't get all that annoyed at a well-meaning local.