There is seriously less cohesion in this post than there is in a drop of water (actually, that's not a great comparison...), but there are several things that I've been thinking about lately and they should get said.
1. Girl power/gender roles.
One thing I've heard in my life is "if girls are the same as guys, then why can't I hit a girl?" Okay, seriously? Because hitting people is shitty behavior. Don't hit girls, don't hit guys, don't hit turtles. Why is this even an argument? "If a girl is pissing me off, why can't I punch her in the face? You say you have the same rights as guys, then why can't I punch you?" SHUT. UP. No one is fighting for the right to get punched in the face. This is why it really bugged me that they edited Snooki's getting punched but not Gary from Teen Mom getting hit by Amber. It's not about size comparisons. It's not about men and women. People hitting other people is horrible and shouldn't happen regardless of who the people are. So stop using this as an argument.
2. "Only The Good Die Young."
Everything about this song bugs me. I still don't get the title: if you're "bad" you get to live longer? Logically that's the only conclusion you can come to: just because you're young doesn't mean you're going to die. (I teach formal logic for an LSAT class; don't judge me.) I gots me lots o' favorite lines for this song.
"You Catholic girls start much too late." If you opt out of something that's supposed to be fun, you get a whole bunch of awesome names tacked onto you: frigid, wet blanket, Mom, lame, and my personal favorite, "don't know what you're missing." I'll start when I want to, thank you, Mr. Joel. When this song makes me angry I like to think that "Virginia" is sitting there saying (a la Meg Ryan as Sally), "I never considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice."
"They showed you a statue, told you to pray/they built you a temple and locked you away"
No. "They showed me a loving God, asked if I wanted to pray/I chose to be Catholic, now please go away."
"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints/the sinners are much more fun" makes me so boiling angry I don't even know how to talk about it. If this line makes sense to you, you've completely misunderstood exactly what makes the "saints" awesome.
3. Bruno Mars
Seriously this is awful. If I hear anything about him going back and forth from catching grenades to not feeling like doing anything and letting things hang loose, I will hang something else. It's not "cute in its simplicity," it's lazy songwriting.
4. Talking about literary genres you don't get
Since I'm a sci-fi and fantasy buff, that's the obvious conclusion here, but this can be applied to anything. First of all, don't say "I don't like [type of book]" if you haven't read any, or if you've read one, or whatever. You don't like that book, or that author, fine. It's probs not the genre. I'm not a big chick lit person, but I've read some pretty awesome entries in that category so I can't exactly summarily dismiss errythang. I read Twilight for this reason.
Second, you're not better than me because you've decided my genre of choice is low-brow. I hate the Twilight series, but as long as you're not making your life decisions on the plot, knock yourself out! And in the same vein, you can go ahead and criticize what I read if you've read it and hated it, but you're not better than me because you're reading God-knows-what and I'm quoting Ender's Game.
Third, this is a shout out to newspapers and magazines: don't let people who hate the genre review books, and don't let people who haven't read the book on which something is based review that either. Read a review a few months back on HBO's Game of Thrones, and the woman obviously hated fantasy and hadn't read the series. How do I know? One of her lines was "omg there r sooo many peeps to keep track of itz HARD" and another was "how any woman ever could like this is wrong." Seriously? Your argument is that there are TOO MANY characters? Get out.
5. Complaining about getting hit on
This one might be my favorite. I've overheard loud conversations more than once on trains and in Starbucks-type places where pretty girls are complaining about attention they are getting from guys. And I'm not talking about "staring through your window with binoculars" dangerous attention. I'm talking about "had the audacity to come say hello at a bar and offer to buy you a drink."
girl 1: Ohmahgah, I was out with Steph this weekend at PinkSparklyPalmTree and this guy just came up to me and started talking!
girl 2: Ugh, I HATE when that happens.Was he at least cute? I doubt it, LOLOLOLOL
girl 1: Haha, he was like four feet tall and I was in my 6 inch stilettos so why bother? And you'll never guess what happened next!!!
me, in my head: I CAN!
girl 2: What? WHAT??
girl 1: he offered to BUY my next DRINK! Can you BELIEVE that? Seriously, dude, I'm way better than you in every possible way, how dare you offer to do something nice?
Seriously, ladies? You're at a BAR, you are PRETTY, and you're ANNOYED when someone pays attention to you and offers to do something nice? I'm not saying you have to take the drink, or that you even have to talk to him, but to get annoyed by the attention is a bitchy move.
I'm sorry for the lack of any sort of central idea in this post, but it's been a while, I owe you all one, and I'm whiny. Much love.
