Dear Thursday,
I think you are my favorite day of the week, in a traditional 5 days of work/school, 2 days rest cycle. I can't be sure; societal programming is heavily in favor of Saturday, Friday, and even Wednesday. Sunday has managed to become a calm domestic cornerstone, its enforced sedentariness serving as a foundation more than a prison. Maybe I love you so much because you don't have these expectations that you inevitably fail to live up to, like the other days.
Of course, Monday night is always the swing favorite - the night I feel most like going out, being social, and getting drunk. There's no way to compete with the wildly contradicting emotions that bespotted night puts me through. But you, Thursday, your slow unwinding afternoons have provided me with the kind of pleasure completely unexpected from the day before the day before I'm allowed to sleep in. You, after ramping up to full speed, are the strange joy of taking your foot off the pedal and just drifting.
Something in the way you unfold, you serve as a slow coasting down to a calm rest; you're the little waves caused by the cresting of the larger wave. If Wednesday is truly "hump day," when everyone hits the apex of the week, then you, honey, are the afterglow.
Love,
Vi
P.S. Tell Friday to fuck off. I hate that arrogant prick.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
because I want MORE words, not fewer . . .
Dear political correctness,
I never ask you for much. You have to admit, I'm a very good cultural participant. As oppressive as you might be, you really have made me think twice about who I might offend with my words and, in the long run, although you have shrunken my vocabulary, you have broadened my heart.
So, please, I only ask you for one thing. Can we have the word "retarded" back? I know you lend yourself to this linguistic trend of reclamation, alá "cunt," "queer" and even "nigger," but only when the words are being reclaimed by the communities themselves. Well, I may not be in a wheelchair, but I do wear glasses and have to take blood medication, and goddammit, I want "retarded" back! I don't even want to reclaim it, I just want to use it like it was meant to be used.
You see, "retard" has a perfectly legitimate, wonderfully specific meaning. It means, please do not attack me for using a conservative, traditional, oppressive dictionary written by a Great Straight White Male to define it, but, it means: "delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment."
Wow, it's so amazing. And you know why it's useful? Because "progress," "development," and "accomplishment" are not words that exclusively refer to the body or the mind, or even to people!
And yet, if I try to drop a nice, proper, deliciously phrased usage of this word in polite conversation, I get funny looks, if not a full-on comment about the word. It ruins everything. You've trained us so successfully that we can't even use words anymore.
I know what you're thinking: Why not the words "delay," "hinder," "obstruct," "hamper," "detain," or "inhibit?"
I'll tell you why. They don't sound as good as "retard." "Retard" sounds like what it is, it sounds like a huge word stuck inside a small word, unable to progress, develop, or accomplish a larger meaning. It's wondrous, and I love it, and it's your fault that it now sounds like something in terms of disfigurement or disgust, because it became one of your words, used inversely as its own label of intolerance. Not fair! If poor soil retards the growth of my lilies, why can't I say that?! I want to say that!
Look, as an English major, I've let a ton of perfectly good words go. I miss "gay," in particular, and "niggardly" is a verbal no-no, now. "Queer" was a great way to describe something slightly off, but now it reeks of politics. "Fag" was like the hippest thing to casually light on fire, until it hit this side of the ocean and referred to a person. I can't "wop" anyone over the head, or even objectively describe Jewishness without getting in some kind of trouble. I have to be careful with the color spectrum, black, red, brown, and yellow, or else I'll have you to answer to with my friends, my job, my livelihood.
For an educated young woman who enjoys the notion of "freedom of expression," I have certainly given up words, phrases, and even ideas, all for you, frequently at the expense of honesty. And that's fine. I understand. I don't want to hurt anyone, deny anyone their roots, their right to specific struggles, and so on.
Listen, I'm not cruel. I just want the one word. Keep the rest. My desires are humble. I just want you to stop retarding my freedom of expression.
I never ask you for much. You have to admit, I'm a very good cultural participant. As oppressive as you might be, you really have made me think twice about who I might offend with my words and, in the long run, although you have shrunken my vocabulary, you have broadened my heart.
So, please, I only ask you for one thing. Can we have the word "retarded" back? I know you lend yourself to this linguistic trend of reclamation, alá "cunt," "queer" and even "nigger," but only when the words are being reclaimed by the communities themselves. Well, I may not be in a wheelchair, but I do wear glasses and have to take blood medication, and goddammit, I want "retarded" back! I don't even want to reclaim it, I just want to use it like it was meant to be used.
You see, "retard" has a perfectly legitimate, wonderfully specific meaning. It means, please do not attack me for using a conservative, traditional, oppressive dictionary written by a Great Straight White Male to define it, but, it means: "delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment."
Wow, it's so amazing. And you know why it's useful? Because "progress," "development," and "accomplishment" are not words that exclusively refer to the body or the mind, or even to people!
And yet, if I try to drop a nice, proper, deliciously phrased usage of this word in polite conversation, I get funny looks, if not a full-on comment about the word. It ruins everything. You've trained us so successfully that we can't even use words anymore.
I know what you're thinking: Why not the words "delay," "hinder," "obstruct," "hamper," "detain," or "inhibit?"
I'll tell you why. They don't sound as good as "retard." "Retard" sounds like what it is, it sounds like a huge word stuck inside a small word, unable to progress, develop, or accomplish a larger meaning. It's wondrous, and I love it, and it's your fault that it now sounds like something in terms of disfigurement or disgust, because it became one of your words, used inversely as its own label of intolerance. Not fair! If poor soil retards the growth of my lilies, why can't I say that?! I want to say that!
Look, as an English major, I've let a ton of perfectly good words go. I miss "gay," in particular, and "niggardly" is a verbal no-no, now. "Queer" was a great way to describe something slightly off, but now it reeks of politics. "Fag" was like the hippest thing to casually light on fire, until it hit this side of the ocean and referred to a person. I can't "wop" anyone over the head, or even objectively describe Jewishness without getting in some kind of trouble. I have to be careful with the color spectrum, black, red, brown, and yellow, or else I'll have you to answer to with my friends, my job, my livelihood.
For an educated young woman who enjoys the notion of "freedom of expression," I have certainly given up words, phrases, and even ideas, all for you, frequently at the expense of honesty. And that's fine. I understand. I don't want to hurt anyone, deny anyone their roots, their right to specific struggles, and so on.
Listen, I'm not cruel. I just want the one word. Keep the rest. My desires are humble. I just want you to stop retarding my freedom of expression.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
college parties like anthropological experiments . . .
Dear anonymous college freshman,
No, I don't go to this school anymore. No, I don't care about your inside jokes. This is what I know: that clique you've formed will fall apart, that girl who's in it is not going to fall in love with you, there is no novelty to what you're saying, but you don't know or care about that, at all.
You probably find yourself unattractive, but if you could get your obnoxiously adolescent lust under control, you'd be fuckable for a wide range of women who would teach you the things you inevitably need to know in order to get that girl in your clique to fall in love with you, and stay with you.
You're not going to learn very much about women, or life, or even school, by standing in a kitchen yelling at the top of your lungs while you drink unidentifiable alcohol out of an ironically purchased floaty cup.
All that lifestyle will show you is that women are fickle, you are lonely, alcohol really can substitute for meaning, and life is full of strange rituals that have nothing to do with gaining actual happiness. In the meantime, you will not experience those life lessons in the actually fun ways of fucking, crying, thinking, and laughing.
The sad thing about it is, you could. You're young, attractive, and intelligent. You could get much further in life by avoiding the scene, being direct, asking questions, and making moves. This is, trust me, far more effective than going along with the social flow and waiting for the right people to develop that attitude first and then aim in it your direction.
It's going to take a lot of hungover pain before you figure this stuff out, at which point you'll be significantly less young, attractive, or truly intelligent. But you will be having what you think is fun, which is so depressing.
So let me know when you're a senior, because right now, you, my dear, have no idea who you are.
No, I don't go to this school anymore. No, I don't care about your inside jokes. This is what I know: that clique you've formed will fall apart, that girl who's in it is not going to fall in love with you, there is no novelty to what you're saying, but you don't know or care about that, at all.
You probably find yourself unattractive, but if you could get your obnoxiously adolescent lust under control, you'd be fuckable for a wide range of women who would teach you the things you inevitably need to know in order to get that girl in your clique to fall in love with you, and stay with you.
You're not going to learn very much about women, or life, or even school, by standing in a kitchen yelling at the top of your lungs while you drink unidentifiable alcohol out of an ironically purchased floaty cup.
All that lifestyle will show you is that women are fickle, you are lonely, alcohol really can substitute for meaning, and life is full of strange rituals that have nothing to do with gaining actual happiness. In the meantime, you will not experience those life lessons in the actually fun ways of fucking, crying, thinking, and laughing.
The sad thing about it is, you could. You're young, attractive, and intelligent. You could get much further in life by avoiding the scene, being direct, asking questions, and making moves. This is, trust me, far more effective than going along with the social flow and waiting for the right people to develop that attitude first and then aim in it your direction.
It's going to take a lot of hungover pain before you figure this stuff out, at which point you'll be significantly less young, attractive, or truly intelligent. But you will be having what you think is fun, which is so depressing.
So let me know when you're a senior, because right now, you, my dear, have no idea who you are.
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