Tag Archives: blogging

Dear Living at My Parents’ House Post-Graduate School: things are going to be weird around here for a while

25 May

My dad’s 45th high school reunion is this month. He went to Kamehameha, a school for Native Hawaiian children. Yes, only for children with native blood. It was left to educate Hawaii’s youth by the royal family. Private, subsidized, funded by a royal trust that owns most of downtown Waikiki. Military. It was a boarding school on Oahu back in the day, when my dad went– now it’s expanded to other islands and there are day school branches.

I don’t know if everyone who went to Kam School is this crazy, but my dad’s class? They have a reunion every year. And it’s not just a four-hour luau in someone’s garage. They take cruises together. They go to Las Vegas together. Trips. With your high school class.

This year, because it’s the 45th, it’s special: it’s eight days long. YOU HEARD ME. My dad says this may not all be his class’s doing– every year, all the classes celebrating 5-year anniversaries get together and there are planned events: golf tournaments, beach picnics, etc. Of course, this doesn’t account for the 10-15 emails he’s getting a day about just the things his class will be doing. A bus field trip out to this beach, their own class’s golf tournament, etc.

Guess where they stay: in the dorms.

Boarding school experiences are weird.

Pretty sure I’m going to have major ambivalence about spending four hours at my high school reunion (two years from now), much less eight days.

I just got the save-the-date for my first high-school-friend’s-wedding. It’s not in Seattle, so I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be able to go. All I can tell you is that my first thoughts were A) I better look hot and B) If I’m still living in my parents’ house by then, I’m lying.

Of course, now I’ve just put that on this blog, so I’m screwed.

Look, I just graduated from graduate school, and the economy sucks, and I went to art school– not exactly career-oriented in the best of times. I didn’t have a lot of reasons to stay in San Diego– it’s nice, I like it, it’s not my place, Seattle is my place– so now I’m back in Seattle. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a place to live, it doesn’t particularly make sense to find a place to live before I have a job (or a plan). What if I sign a lease and then get offered a great job in Portland? Or even, what if I find a place in Ballard and then get a job in Capital Hill? That may sound dumb, but if you live in Seattle, you just shuddered.

So I’m living with my parents for the foreseeable future. And “exploring my options.”

(more…)

Dear Nice Guy Who’s a Better Person Than I Am But I Don’t Want to Date

25 Apr

This is one of those posts where you’re either going to hate me or like me more after I tell you what a terrible human being I am. (Here is where you say, Is there any other kind?)

So I went on a date a couple of weeks ago. Nice guy. Wore a button-down shirt to our coffee date. Let me pick the time and place (oh come on, did you expect me to wait for him to do it?). Brown curly hair, brown eyes. Graduate student in history (my undergrad major). According to his email, which was basically an online dating profile: “Hiking, playing frisbee golf, and drinking lots of Twinings black tea are the hobbies I’m most involved with at the moment.” 

Obviously, halfway through the date we started talking about Twilight. He asked me my favorite poet, and I said Elizabeth Bishop. This was the only question he asked me all night. The rest of time he spent answering my questions with interview-ready responses. When I asked why he went back to graduate school, he gave me his “list of qualifications” off his resume, did not ask why I was in graduate school or anything about what I was studying, and then he said, “I feel like I’m at an interview!”

To my credit, I didn’t mock him. Then.

Therefore I was desperate to string my one question out as long as possible, so I said, “Of course, a little farther down the line of favorite things to read…you know, Bishop at the top, but about ten down you find Twilight.”

He hung in there. “Of course,” he said, “that makes so much sense.” Or something like that. The fact that I can’t recall the conversation perfectly (one of my greatest skills in life) tells you pretty much all you need to know about how things were going at this point.

“No, really,” I said.

“Totally,” he said. I nodded. “Oh…” he said. “Really.”

I love talking to people about how much I don’t hate Twilight. You can find just a few of the reasons here. I think Stephenie Meyer writes a nice, clean sentence that doesn’t get in the way of me chanting make out make out make out. And no, I don’t care if it’s with Edward or Jacob. I just think people should make out more. I’ll save the rest of my reasons for when we talk face-to-face. I find it’s a good litmus test, and I don’t want to ruin it before I have the chance to see if you turn red or blue. So I told him that yes, I have in fact read all 4 books, but woefully have not yet made time to catch up on the movies. 

He said— I kid you not— “Well, I guess all this really does is reflect badly on me, that I’m judging something before I even give it a chance.” He said this sincerely. About Twilight. As if the hype hasn’t give him a pretty good idea of whether it’s his cup of Twinings black tea.

I should’ve known: in the email he sent me asking for the date, he wrote, “If I had one wish I would ask that the everyone on the globe have access to quality education considering many of the world’s problems are due to ignorance.”

I really, really hope he gets that Mr. America sash. That’s such a good answer. 

xxo,

MM

Dear Facebook Timeline

23 Apr

We all hate it. We all hate change every time it happens on FB, yes, and then like lemmings we throw ourselves off the cliff and continue to overshare online. Really, FB’s tagline is “TMI.”

So why? Why do we hate timeline? Why do some of us (guilty) hate it so much that we continue to hold out, hoping against hope that Zuckerberg will just never notice us lurking in the corners?

We carefully avoid that stupid little button that says “Get Timeline Now” like a hyperactive kindergarten teacher shilling naptime. You know it’s not really for your own good. Even as kid you were all, “Yeah, and what’re you going to do while I sleep?” Now that we have friends who are teachers we know: check Facebook. (How’s that for a transition?)

1. It’s stupid hard to find things on people’s profiles, even stuff you saw just a minute ago and you know definitely is there.

It’s even harder on Timeline than it used to be. Speaking of, why doesn’t FB have a better topical search button yet? It’s called “google search” and my understanding is that it’s basically HPV: already there, just waiting to be found.

2. You have to be a graphic designer to use it and what if I’m not, Facebook, GTFO.

Seriously. Timeline requires some sort of aesthetic/graphic aptitude: your cover photo and profile picture have to complement each other. Have you seen someone’s profile where they don’t? It’s ugly as sin. AND WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE GRAPHIC APTITUDE, FACEBOOK. YOUR MOM HAS IT.

I already have to make graphic design decisions concerning this blog and god, shoot me now. you’ll notice it hasn’t changed in two years, and didn’t change in the 2 years before that. And every time I do post a photo I realize– oh wait this has to look not-barfy against that yellow banner. Do any of you want to come draw sketches for me?

3. Have you even looked in the mirror lately, Facebook? That isn’t body dysmorphia disorder. You’re weird now.

Timeline does not look good with FB’s surrounding layout– the way that little bar at the top scrolls down with it? The settings buttons at the top which keeps the cover photo from truly being a banner, which is how we’re accustomed to seeing it work on blogs? It’s like a truly terrible tumblr theme.

It only took me seventeen tries to get a decent cover photo / profile pic combo! You?

The huge gaps in the profiles of people who almost never use FB look awful– thus forcing you into an “all or nothing” sort of use. That is, if you want your own wall to look palatable. You know how you know it’s a bad design, though? Even if people do post photos all the time, if the pictures aren’t through the same filter, or taken with similar lighting, they look strange lined up next to and against each other. Our eyes can’t reconcile them. There’s a reason movies don’t generally film every other shot with different tints to them. Film editors are paid billions of dollars to fix such discrepancies.

All those “buttons” under the cover photo (“friends, maps, etc.”)? First of all, you have to use those functions for it to be visually appealing, which most of us don’t. See that blue box with “158″ and the thumbs up in the picture above? It looks dumb. It needs an image. Second of all, the colors of them also should be in the same color family. (Right? “Color family” is a thing? See above lack of visual design ability.) But you have no control over what those buttons display.

4. What it leads to: the apocalypse and paid Facebook wall designers.

(more…)

Dear Comments on the Internet

3 Dec

Dear Comments on the Internet,

I pretty much do not read comments in response to anything.

(Except, of course, comments on this site, because you guys are hysterical and cool and your comments sound like the sweet dulcet tunes of a Whitney Houston ballad.)

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1.  Why would I care what a bunch of random strangers have to say in response to something?  I’m reading the article / blog / post / whatevs for the “expert” opinion of the author.  Or for the joke.  Or for the funny Venn diagram.

2.  Comments take one of two forms.

a.  For humor articles, they consist of this:

LOL!  LOLZZZZ!  AM PEEING MY PANTZ RIGHT NOW LOLZZZ SO EFFING FUNNY GOD YOU”RE GOD YOU”RE SO FUNNY SO GOOD EVEN MY CAT IS LLOL”ZING AND PEEING HER PANTZ ‘CUZ OBVS I MAKE MY CAT WEARS ZE PANTZ ESS A FRIDAY.

(Spelling and grammar don’t exist on Fridays, we all know this.  On the fifth day, God declared: you all shall spell like morons and laugh like hyenas and feel the need to inform people of that laughter via inane internet abbreviations that don’t actually shorten the word and pictures of your cats.  Excuse me, catz.)

b. For news articles, serious pieces, reporting of wonderful activist snarky posters, comments consist of things like this:

DEFUND all taxpayer supported colleges and universities and left them succeed on their own with their hat-filled, biased left-wing trash.

Those tax-funded, liberal, elite universities, so filled with hate….for other white people?  For God?  Man, I never knew…I went to one of those tax-funded, liberal, elite universities, and I mostly felt hate for the squirrels on campus.  So I guess it’s true.  Hate is hate.  And typos are typos.

This is the land of opportunity, not the land of guarantees. If you stupid libs think minorities have not have more help in taking advantage of those opportunities, then you are fools. Try that on someone else.
My family was poor and I grew up poor…I chose to study hard and go to school…I chose NOT to sink into despair and a life of crime. I worked hard and still do…nothing is given to me and I am sick and tired of jerks like you trying to make me feel guilty for my accomplishments.
Everyone has a CHOICE in this country…EVERYONE.

I’m assuming the person who wrote this is white, and that’s why s/he is “made to feel guilty” for their accomplishments.  I’d like to point out a few things.  Classism is a problem in this country.  Yes.  Good.  Ok.  Also.  If this person is white, and s/he has gone to school (albeit not one that taught s/he grammar) and “made good” and is no longer “poor,” then s/he has successfully changed her/his status in American eyes.  No one will ever “know” s/he grew up poor.

Whereas it’s kind of hard to hide your skin color.  And no one should have to hide their sexuality.  My point is: classism is terrible, yes, but changing your class status is possible.

P.S. it’s bullshit that “nothing is given to me”– this is why it’s called “invisible privilege”– because it’s so subtle that for all intents and purposes, it’s hidden.  Nobody said, “Oh, you’re working hard and you’re white so I’ll give you a promotion even though you don’t know how to use verbs.”  You are right, anonymous internet commenter: everyone has a choice.  Including you. Not to post this comment revealing your own ignorance.

P.P.S.  The original poster: “White Privilege: I got into Stanford without having my peers suspect that I only got in because of my race”

Commenter: “If you stupid libs think minorities have not have more help in taking advantage of those opportunities, then you are fools.”

….Whose point are you trying to make?

these kinds of terms are divisive. Why can’t gays and minorities just get along with white people?

GUYS.  Why can’t gays and minorities just get along with white people?

Oh wait…wait!  I know.  It’s like, maybe if slaves just tried to like their lifestyle, they would be happier.

No, that’s unfair of me.  No, wait.  Oh, hell.  Sigh.  These things are just so complicated to figure out.  I might have to think about my own life and how my actions affect other people, and systems and institutions, and the daily, subtle reinforcement of cultural norms and all the different ways that people are made to feel oppressed…  I better just leave a comment on the internet.  Preferably with a typo.    That oughta do it.

This is what I get for reading FOX news online.  Liberal hippie commie elite news media.

One last one:

And this is a “premire” school ? ?…………..You can tell it’s “run” by liberal dolts,…………….. It’s totally “f’ked up”

Who wrote that?  Joey Tribbiani?

My point is I don’t read comments on the internet because they fill me with rage.  Good thing I believe in gun control or I probably would have shot the internet by now.

MM

Dear Katie

19 Nov

Dear Katie,

So, you guys, my sister (Katie) sent me an email the other day with a suggestion for a letter.  About herself.  Except she went ahead and wrote the darn thing, so I’m just going to copy and paste it below and hope that the joy of the family dog’s delightful antics and soft fur keep her (sister, not dog) from suing me for plagiarism.  I don’t think the dog knows how to call the lawyer.  Yet.

I’m constantly getting “helpful” emails from my sister with “great ideas for my blog” and correcting typos and helpful hints like “link the homepage to the banner because the other blogs I read do” and she expects me to appreciate her efforts.

Then she adds this note:
You should also include that many quotation marks. It would be better if they were air quotes but that’s kind of hard to do in a letter. I know, I’m so helpful. You don’t have to thank me, just remember me when your blog starts making it big.

Psh.  First of all, I would totally correct that banner thing but I don’t know how to.  I spent like 30 whole seconds trying.

Secondly, I always fix typos when she catches them.  Sometimes I yell and pound the keys while I do, I’m so excited that she has chosen to help me out in this manner.  She usually includes a helpful little reassurance like, “That’s an easy mistake to make” or “really, the f key and the p key are very close together if you’re a penguin and don’t have any fingers.”

Which makes me feel “so” much “better.”  It’s kind of like when we were little, and she’d say, “Well, that’s a really pretty mudhouse you drew!” and I’d say, “IT’S A FAIRY PRINCESS” and she’s say, “Brown was an interesting choice.  And is she just really fat or what?  Don’t worry, I bet if you start over it will be better next time.”

She’s a real encourager, that one.  She could totally coach football in Texas with that kind of encouraging attitude.  And oh, I’ll remember her when my blog makes it big.  Maybe I’ll prove it by just writing every letter from here on out to her.  I have some things to say, all right?

Thing #1: She went through a phase when she was in college when she would bite me.

Love you!

MM

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