subscribeComputer cursed.
Friday August 20, 2010
As far back as I can remember, I’ve known how to use a computer. As a small child, I could run a floppy diskette program through DOS as easily as I could crack open an Easy Reader. (Some of you will not remember floppy diskettes, or Oregon Trail and its brethren, and that’s okay.) I never remember being taught things, not specifically. When I had a question, I’d ask. Mostly I would troubleshoot. When I was little, we had almost as many computers as people in my family. I remember watching my father solder circuit boards and thinking how cool it was that my dad knew how to build a computer from scratch. By the time computer class in elementary school was mandatory, I knew what I was doing — better than a lot of the girls. I was the only kid in one of my early computer classes who knew what Control-Alt-Delete did, using it like some kind of magic combination to unlock a frozen computer. This was never strange to me.
My parents gifted me with my first desktop computer at age twelve. It was built from a combination of new components and older ones my father had lying around the house, and I adored it. When we first got dial-up internet, we couldn’t hook up my computer, because there was no phone jack wired in my bedroom, but I didn’t need this slow, laborious thing called the internet. I just needed a word processor and Microsoft Encarta, and I was off, writing my first attempts at novels. That computer, without a CD drive, with a 15″ CRT monitor that was as heavy as the tower, lasted me through middle school and high school, until it finally started gasping its last breaths when I was a senior in high school. I loved that computer.
After that, the computer disasters started.
For college, my parents bought me a Toshiba laptop. In October of Freshman year, it imploded. Blue Screen of Death. It was two months old. Because it was so shiny, the thought of backing up my data had never occurred to me, especially not by October. I lost all of my documents and files for the start of Freshman year. I ended up having to send in my Toshiba to be serviced (it was under a 1 year warranty) and they wiped my harddrive. “An unexpected malfunction. You couldn’t have anticipated it,” they said. Once it was back in my care, I treated it better than any possession I had ever owned, and learned all I could about these kinds of mishaps to prevent one from ever happening again. Because this was at Carnegie Mellon, I was also surrounded by a horde of talented techy folks (both employed by CMU in their computer help center and not) who were willing to take a look, offer me advice, teach me a trick or two. By Sophomore year, I had it figured out. Then, in October of Sophomore year, almost a year after the first problem, there was a second. This one was an implosion. Irreparable. The harddrive made a sound like a dying cat. It was out of warranty and there was no hope. They told me it would be almost as much to repair it as replace it. So I bought an entirely new laptop, an HP.
The HP and I had some good times. I treated it well, always on a flat, clean surface, never leaving it in standby; I kept it clean of viruses and spyware, all of that. I knew computers. I understood the principles. I was as well-versed in the basics of troubleshooting as any amateur could be. So when Blue Screen of Death reappeared Junior year, I was ready. I had weekly backups of my data, some stored on the internet, some in hard copy. I had the original boot CDs and I was able to wipe and reinstall Windows and solve the problem all by myself. I never figured out why the Blue Screen was out to get me, but it seemed to be hunting me down. This time, I was ready, and it was hardly an issue worth crying over. Boom, problem solved.
One day, nary a few weeks before the end of the (free! Included!) 1 year warranty on the HP, I couldn’t turn on the computer. I started panicking. I’d done everything right. I called HP, and they told me it was an issue covered by warranty. I sent in the laptop to them. They sent it back, fixed. Data — irrecoverable. But I’d backed up. It was okay. Not something I could fix, again a problem out of my control, but it was still okay. It was fixed.
(Are we keeping track of the disasters? That’s two Blue Screens of Death and two implosions, in two computers.)
When I graduated from college, my gift was a spiffy and souped-up HP desktop. Their customer service had been top notch, but the laptop was outdated. I needed a new machine. I started a new regimen of regular back-ups and good practices (consistent harddrive crud wipes, spyware/anti-virus cleaners, etc.) and… in the course of the first year of ownership, I had two Blue Screens of Death. Windows wouldn’t load. It wouldn’t recognize pieces of its hardware. I went to bed one night having just shut down the perfectly fine computer, then woke up the next morning to a Blue Screen of Death. Inexplicable. Random. It was out to get me.
Two. In a year. One resulted in a malfunction of a piece of hardware. Snap, no more DVR capability. Thank you, HP. The other was almost comical in how much of a non-event it was. Still forced me to wipe and re-install Windows and I lost all of my data, but I’d been backing up. It wasn’t a catastrophe. I solved it myself. That did not stop the husband (then fiancé) from looking at me askance and suggesting maybe I stay away from his computer. Or maybe let him have the new computer to play with, and I’d take his college laptop. Just in case. Because it was clear to both of us that my curse was not going away.
Flash forward to April 2009. As a wedding gift to me, the husband purchased me a Dell netbook. I hadn’t had a spiffy laptop since the HP started its downhill age decline, and I needed something to take to cafes to write on. “It comes with a year of warranty,” he said, debating whether or not we needed to invest in more. Compared to the cost of a netbook, buying the warranty was exorbitant. “Well,” the husband said, “If something implodes, it will happen in the first year.” Statistically, that has always been the case, I thought. Always. “Yep. One year is good,” I agreed. I’d dealt with having to send in both the Toshiba and the HP while they were under warranty in that first year of ownership. I had a track record. This was going to be fine.
In April 2010, two weeks after the warranty on the Dell expired, it decided it was going to make a MMRHHHHHMRHHHHHMRHHH sound one day instead of booting up. I called Dell. They told me my laptop was a goner, that if I was under warranty they might be able to do something, but it’s pretty much dead anyway. Sorry.
I turned to the husband, in tears. “I am cursed with computers. CURSED. I treat them well. I know what I am doing. I am techier than most English majors! What is wrong with me?!”
We discussed it and agreed, well, maybe it was finally the time to convert to a Mac.
I’d resisted because of the price tag but also because of my track record with computers. Something always happens. Always. But Macs have a track record, too. Their harddrives don’t implode randomly. There is no such thing as a Mac OS Blue Screen of Death. No such thing. This… overjoyed me. That, and I’d been obsessing over their product design for years, and every Mac owner I knew was immensely happy with their purchase.
We purchased the Mac in May 2010. During the checkout process, the husband says, “AppleCare protection plan. What do you think? None? One year? Three years?” I stared at him. “What do you think?” We bought a three-year plan.
Yesterday afternoon, at about 5:35pm, the six-month-old kitten was in a crazy mood, one in which she must pounce at all inanimate objects in the apartment as a point of asserting her dominance. I was in the kitchen, grabbing a drink, when I saw her pouncing on the bed. I also saw I had a flashing message on the laptop screen from the husband, at the desk just past the bed. I went over to the laptop, set my drink down, and answered the message. The kitten chose that moment to pounce, jumping across the desk — and knocking over my drink, spilling it across the MacBook Pro’s keyboard.
I stared in dumbfounded disbelief as the screen went dark and the liquid pooled on top of the keys. Then I leapt into action. I pulled the plugs, wrapped it in a hastily-grabbed towel, and submitted a request to Apple for service within three minutes. (The other desktop was on; shh, we’re techy people.) Apple called me immediately. “How are you doing today, Erin?” the service man asked cheerfully. “Five minutes ago, I was great,” I told him. “Then my cat spilled my drink across my keyboard. I’m not doing too well right now.”
He talked me through it, getting me to direct a fan at the keys, telling me not to panic, that even if the motherboard got fried, it’s totally fixable, and my harddrive is undoubtedly safe and secure. He made an appointment with a specialist at the Apple Store for this weekend, warning me to keep the fan on the keyboard for the next 24-48 hours. I giggled, with relief, and told him how happy I am that I invested in the AppleCare Protection Plan. “Oh, by the way, this isn’t covered under your AppleCare Protection Plan,” he said. “Spills, or drops, any sort of accident. We only cover hardware malfunctions.”
Blue Screen of Death, I think, where are you when I need you? Windows machines and my luck with your consistent harddrive failures, where are you?
In reality, I started crying. The Apple guy went a little quiet, talking about the weather, asking what it’s like in New York. “Warm,” I told him. “That’s nice,” he said. “So, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a writer,” I said. There was silence on the line. I could almost feel the Apple guy connecting my profession with the gurgling MacBook Pro in the corner. He could probably hear my sniffling as I started mentally calculating the cost of fixing this, out of warranty, when all we bought the warranty for was to protect us against the unexpected — this, in a way. But we hadn’t thought we’d adopt a kitten when we bought the Mac, never dreamed we’d have an accident like this. Then the Apple guy said, “Well, um, your appointment is all set. Good luck.” We hung up.
When I stared at the laptop, filled with sticky beverage, tiny desk fan set on its frame whirring quietly, I started bawling. Crying as if I’d lost a family member. To my embarrassment, I’ve cried every time I’ve lost a computer. When the netbook died, it was like I’d lost a limb, an extension of my arm, like all of my writing went with it, despite its safety net. This time, though, was the first time with the kitten. The little, innocent perpetrator of the accident. I was bawling, standing in the kitchen, feeling completely helpless, and the kitten wandered up along the countertop and put her paws on my shoulder, sniffing at these things called tears. I realized I hadn’t yet cried in front of her. What reason would I have had? She started licking the tears off of my cheeks and it could have been scripted, it was so adorable. (Then, an hour later, she tracked poop from her litter box across the apartment floor… then across the cream-colored bed linens… necessitating a bath that neither of us wanted to endure. Yep, she’s a kitten, all right.)
I’m cursed when it comes to computers. Ever since that first laptop purchase, they’ve broken on me. In warranty, out of warranty, problem not covered under warranty. There’s no explanation to this string of bad computer luck. The husband, even techier than I am, is confounded. Our families shake their heads and remind us that so long as the data’s backed up, it’s only a tool, not the living entity I keep thinking my computers are. It’s funny. Some people are into cars, or into designer clothes, or into tasteful art — we’re into computers. And I have a black thumb when it comes to them. What luck.
I hope Apple can fix my computer this weekend. I’ll keep you updated.
Star Wars, Inception, and how a small child made my brain hurt.
Wednesday July 21, 2010
First of all, kids are brilliant. Especially curious, thirsty kids who ask a dozen questions a minute. I was one of those kids, and in every child-related job I’ve had I’ve worked with kids who are like that. I enjoy answering questions with as much patience, honesty, and thoroughness as I can muster.
But this can become complicated. It’s also led to some fascinating discussions with four, five, and six year olds. This discussion one called into question why I love Star Wars and why Inception is too complicated to be a kids’ movie. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers.) Pretty heady for a five-minute conversation with a small child.
The six-year-old: “Monsters vs. Aliens is probably my favorite movie ever. Ever, ever. Well, maybe Cars, but that didn’t have monsters or aliens. What’s yours?”
“Star Wars.” I paused, wondering at my automatic response. Is Star Wars my favorite movie? I’ve certainly seen it enough to quote it — but by that criteria, I can also rank Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future up there with Star Wars. (All right, I admit it: the accompanying films in their respective trilogies, too, though I have Opinions about them.) What other criteria are there? A movie I would willingly watch on repeat all day long? (Under that category I can add most Disney and/or Pixar animated films; every Miyazaki film; a handful of Oscar nominated films of the last fifteen years and The Sound of Music; a handful of record-breaking blockbusters both of the critically-acclaimed and the revel-in-the-mediocrity variety.)
“Yeah,” I said, “Star Wars.”
“So why do you like Star Wars so much?” he asked. He knows exactly what movie I’m talking about although he’s never seen it. His friends have Clone Wars backpacks. He has a Star Wars: Heroes and Villains Young Reader book. He went to a birthday party where the theme was Star Wars and he brought home a lightsaber as his goody-bag prize. He knows who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are. He understands Jedi and Sith. But he has never seen this movie.
“Luke is a farm boy who becomes a hero by rescuing a princess, eluding Darth Vader, destroying the Death Star, and saving the galaxy.” Another pause. Not only did I just give an example of Joseph Campbell‘s hero theory in a happy nutshell, but that same plot is also that of a ton of books and movies (just substitute different nouns).
He stared at me, skeptically, as if to say, “That’s all? Lame.”
I found myself compelled to add, “It’s not just the story. The characters are memorable, the action is great, and there are spaceships, blasters, lightsaber fights, and a really awesome world. It’s got the whole package.”
As I said this, I realized that part of the entire reason I love Star Wars is because it started what became a phenomenon, spawning sequels, prequels, merchandise, books (so many books!), video games — it’s a part of culture, a nerdy subset of American media culture that has influenced a generation (or two, by now) and helped pave the way for better technologies (ILM, THX, Skywalker Sound) that have influenced the way film and media have evolved in the past three decades. Not to mention Star Wars’ pop culture influences. (Just look at the Wikipedia articles.) So it’s not simply the first movie, or the first trilogy, but the entire technological and cultural phenomenon of Star Wars that makes it something I love, something I value and appreciate. I can no longer separate Star Wars the single film from Star Wars the cultural beast. As I realized this, I also realized that while I can admit the original Star Wars isn’t stylistically or artistically the best movie I’ve ever seen (and let’s not discuss the prequels, mmkay?), I can’t separate the film from the context of its time and its place in cinema history. It’s like trying to separate Dickens from nineteenth century London, or New York from its skyscrapers. For a fan of science fiction and fantasy, it’s impossible to separate Star Wars from the consciousness of American media and culture.
I think, at this point, the six-year-old was wondering why I was looking so lost. I was having something of a revelation — Do I love Star Wars because of what it represents more than the film itself? How can I even answer that? — but of course all he saw was a blank look. I have a tendency to get lost in my head and I think by now this six-year-old understands that.
“Oh, okay,” he said. His question had been answered to his satisfaction. “So what was the last movie you saw?”
“Inception,” I said. Without really thinking. Why do I do that?
He frowned. “What does that word mean?”
“Well. In the movie, the ‘inception’ is the idea of planting an idea in someone else’s head. In their dreams.”
“Did you like that movie?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“Why isn’t that movie your favorite movie, then?”
I stalled. That’s actually a good question, I thought. Stylistically, aesthetically, in terms of the effects and the vision, it was pretty excellent. Is it too new to be in my top favorites? Is it too controversial? In the days since, I have read quite a few reviews about it. I’m still wondering what to think, how to interpret it. I kept guessing throughout the movie, throwing my theories against the inside wall of my brain only to see the plot shoot them down later in the film. In a word, though, it was brilliant. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen it once,” I said.
“So it’s about dreams,” he said, going back to what I’d said earlier — did I mention he’s a very smart kid? — “dreaming and ideas?”
“Yep.” And, because I had only just seen it that same morning and I was still itching to talk about it to someone, I added, “It’s about what happens if people can go inside other people’s dreams and change them.”
He grinned. “Oh! It’s a kids’ movie!”
“Oh. No. It’s not.”
“But it’s about going inside other people’s dreams. That’s cool. That could be a kids’ movie.”
I imagined, for a moment, Inception as a kids’ movie and had a wild notion of kids playing with dreamscapes and getting in trouble. Star Wars, I thought, is something of a kids’ movie. But not Inception. Could I explain it to him somehow? Then I recalled the time when the six-year-old, at age five, asked me to explain multiplication and division to him. He’s a math whiz, so I did. I struggled to conceptualize it in a visual way for him to understand. Explaining about dividing apples among children as my example, he understood the principle of division — but didn’t want to try it in practice. (He was five. That’s okay.) Multiplication, though. That was hard. So to explain the complexity of this film to a young audience? One would have to be terrifically gifted or terrifically crazy.
“Maybe. But this one isn’t. It’s too complicated.”
“Too complicated how? You can explain it! Come on, come on, please?”
I really wanted to find a way to level with him, that impulse of being straight and honest with all kids as much as I can. But sometimes, it’s better just to give the simple answer. “I can’t explain it. Why don’t you go set up a game to play?”
“PLEASE!”
I sighed, seeing the look. The I-won’t-give-this-up-because-I-need-to-know-PLEASE-tell-me look. “It’s not a kids’ movie because it’s a grown-up movie. Okay? That’s just what it is.” Christopher Nolan, I thought, you have just made me give a blow-off answer to a small child because of your dastardly fascinating film. Why couldn’t Inception’s plot have been as simple as Star Wars’? But then, I wondered, would I have loved Inception so much had it been simple — would anyone have loved it? Its beauty is in its complexity, as perhaps Star Wars‘ is in its simplicity.
“Aw, okay, fine,” he muttered, then went to set up Connect Four.
Kids these days, I tell you. They make my brain hurt.
Productivity! I has it.
Tuesday July 6, 2010
Despite the holiday weekend (ahem, Friday to Monday) and despite a few out-of-town jaunts, I’ve written over 20,000 words in a fresh rewrite of a project I started on Saturday, June 26. I needed something to work on while I’m still sending out / waiting on the most recent completed project and switching gears entirely and working towards another fully-completed, sellable project made perfect sense. Also, with my summer break from work, I finally have the time to simply get this done. It feels so good.
This one is YA fantasy (shocker), with a lot of the elements of a swords-and-horses-and-princesses kind of fantasy, but with a couple of flip-the-genre-on-its-head unconventional twists of plot and character. (Yay for being vague!) At its heart, this is a story about mothers and daughters, fathers and sons; about questioning one’s role in one’s family and the larger world; of others’ expectations versus personal desires; of truth, deceptions, and consequences. (EVEN MORE VAGUE!) Is it better to break out of the shadow of your elders and try to be your own person, strike the consequences, or is it better to surpass your elders’ expectations of you in following the path they’ve set for you? I always find I write stories about finding one’s identity, about reconciling expectations: those of your parents, of others, and of yourself. Granted, it’s fantasy, so I’ve taken some, ahem, magical liberties shall I say, in the extrapolation of these circumstances. But like any interesting fantasy, this story resonates with me (as a writer especially) because it’s ultimately about the journeys of the characters as they try to come into their own, to prove they’re just about grown up — to everyone as well as to themselves.
Also, this story has nothing to do with “destiny” because I happen to think the “destiny” trope has been done [well and poorly] by others and I’ve no interest in exploring it. Besides, I happen to think “expectations” are a lot more annoying, harder to handle, and more interesting as a relatable concept to a reader in a non-fantastical context because we all have them, or others have them for us. Really: which is harder to live with, being destined to do great things, or being expected to do great things? The externality of the pressure of “destiny” is interesting, but it’s remote. Destiny implies a deity or other such remote being/concept with a “plan” (for one or for all), and that can get sticky — and epic. I heart epic, but this story is not epic. (And that’s another thing this all comes down to: what is right for this story.) Here I’d much rather stick to human beings and their relationships.
Like everything I write, it has no title, so I may refer to it here as a lot of things including “this story” and/or “the WiP.” I hate titling things until I must, then even afterward I squirm uncomfortably. (Even titling these blog posts feels odd, which is why so many of them seem like partial sentences or involve language reminiscent of I Can Has Cheezburger.)
Now, back to Scrivener and its loveliness!
The twenties. An aimless rant.
Friday June 4, 2010
(Warning: This didn’t start as a rant, but it became a rant. Yay!)
First of all, it’s June. Where the blazes did half of 2010 go already? Secondly, there are many happenings this month so far. It’s my last month of the day job before summer vacation (sweet!) and I cannot wait until I have all of that glorious writing time. Because it will be glorious. As it is, I can’t dig into a local café (and there are tons in Williamsburg) for more than an hour before I need to get back to work/life, and one of my favorite places to write is at a café, with an iced coffee or tea sweating on the table beside me.
Then, nearly every weekend this month we have friends visiting from out of town. It’s a magical time when friends visit. It gives us an excuse to stop being homebodies and actually explore this fantastic neighborhood and the entire city, making us feel better about the money we’re spending. We’re seeing a Broadway show! There are street fairs! Museum exhibits! Good times to be had by all! If left to our own devices I will hide in a corner with my laptop and the boy wonder will play a game (or, now, play with the kitten)… or I’ll play a game (oh, Little Big Planet, you are addictive), or we’ll cook or bake… But we live, as so many people remind us, in frakking New York City! Which apparently obligates us, by virtue of the necessity of allowing others far away to live vicariously through us, to go “out” and “have fun.” We do. Just last week, we were invited to Milk & Honey, a bar that is not myth! I had two of the best cocktails I’ve ever had in my life. But we don’t do that kind of thing all the time. We strive to live sustainable lives.
The “New York City life of a twentysomething” is one stereotype I’ve never fully understood. (There’s an episode of Sex and the City that goes into this; twentysomethings here are supposed to live lives of fun, carefree frivolity involving many one-night stands and much alcohol, the kind of lives that thirtysomethings and fortysomethings regard with mild jealousy. This confuses me!) But how can a twentysomething (who isn’t one of the rare 6-figure earning twentysomethings, or who doesn’t have daddy’s credit card) actually afford to go out all of the time, especially in an economy where so many people in our age bracket are losing their jobs? Unless you love dive bars, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, or you know someone who can pull you into a “cool” place, bypassing an expensive cover, going “out” costs add up. Usually going out makes more sense than, say, having a house party — especially when a lot of people I know are either renting rooms in multi-room apartments with relative strangers, living in a “box” of a studio (which we did! We did that!), or living outside the city entirely (which makes grabbing a group together to go to their place a trek rather than a casual jaunt).
This phase is a unique one: the post-college, pre-”real life” phase of learning to be an adult, finding a grown-up identity (because, yes, that identity we discover as teenagers gets smashed by college, then that collegiate identity gets ripped apart by the “real world”…) All of that fun stuff! I’ve been told a lot, by a various folks that the twenties are “a magical time” or somesuch, that I mustn’t “squander” my time, that I need to “live life while I still have one.” Um, what? (Does that mean that one’s life ends with marriage and/or children? Really?) Do those people realize that telling me that is akin to telling a teenager that they will “get over” all of their teenage drama and hardships, that they just have to “suck it up and deal”? (Because I was told that. That being a teenager was a phase I needed to push through, like slogging through mud, and I’d get through to the other side filthy but whole. Thanks, advisors, for telling me that. Helped so much with the day to day of teenage life, knowing that I was sunk neck-deep in mud out of which I’d eventually discover how to crawl.)
I didn’t know how to deal with that well-meaning advice then, and I don’t really know how to live without “squandering” my life now. What does that even mean? Perhaps it’s because I spend part of my days with a lot of New York City moms — every conceivable (positive and negative) stereotype of them — and all sorts of babysitter/nanny-types. A lot of them ask me the usual questions, get a little picture of me, then proceed to give me life advice. Sometimes there are some pleas — “Don’t have children yet! Please! Don’t! Doooon’t!”) Sometimes there are lectures: You should do this. You should do that. (Because I’m asking for it? Like I was when I was a teenager? I am definitely the kind of person who enjoys making and learning from her own mistakes rather than getting inundated with well-meant but not applicable advice, thank you!) I heard a peer say that the twenties are for partying, the thirties for marrying, the forties for kids. That was the life plan, and she was following that perfectly. Plenty of time, later, for “important things”! Some moms have made similar comments. Why are you married so young? The twenties are a time for freedom! (Because a marriage isn’t… free? Because one can’t do what one wants to do… while also in a committed relationship?) This is not to say that one ought to be in a relationship, please don’t get me wrong, but can’t we make our own choices? Can’t we decide that being committed is just as fun as being single, simply different?
This whole sensation, this well-meant advice about how I ought to be spending my twenties, is very similar to what people said when we got engaged. That for a forward-thinking, modern, feminist woman to be engaged! Before thirty! Oh dear me! What is the world coming to? My response then was, well, wasn’t the feminist movement — isn’t it still? — ultimately about freedom of choice? The ability for a woman to make individual life choices that suit her, not ones that should suit all women or ones that used to suit most women? So why am I supposed to be living my twenties in one way? It’s almost as if there’s this implication that my example pulls down the average for all free, single-life loving twentysomething women everywhere. I’m ruining the curve, oh no!
If I lived in a different state, in a small town, would it even be weird for me to be married? Some kids I went to high school with have kids now. I read a piece in New York Magazine this week, a brief spot on 26-year-old Leelee Sobieski. About being a “young” mom, she says,
“People in the middle of America have babies at my age,” Sobieski says. Had she and Kimmel planned to be parents this early? She pauses. “We fell in love,” she finally says. Still, “I wish I had a girlfriend that had a baby. That would be so nice. I feel like I’m doing this thing that’s really weird, but I look around me and realize that everyone has babies. Look at all these people! So what?”
This is, I think, what some people who have urged me to “live life!” in my twenties are worried about happening to me. That now that I’m married, logic says BABIES! and clearly, babies will ruin my stereotypical twentysomething fun. Some mothers (especially some of the mothers I’ve met who had their first children rather “late in life”) have even expressed mild skepticism when I say we’re not planning on babies yet. (Clearly, I must be mistaken, because I am married. CLEARLY. Women who want no babies, who are married? I feel your pain. Why does society insist on it? Can’t it be up to us?) If I spend a Saturday night — or Memorial Day Weekend — at home, watching TV, cooking dinner, playing the PlayStation… why is that wrong? Someone asked me recently what I’d done over my holiday weekend. Did I go on vacation? Did I go to the beach? Did I leave the city as one ought? No, I said, we stayed in. We adopted a kitten. We made hanger steak. There was a significant pause. “Why didn’t you go out?” I paused. “Should we have?” They paused. “Well, we had fun this weekend! We went to X, we did Y…” Well, good for you. No, really — good for you; I’m not bitter. I had fun. You did, too. Yay for all!
I don’t know where this rant is going — do rants go to any sensible conclusion? But the bottom line is that I am in my twenties and I am having fun. I’m not living my life with any regrets and it bothers me that some people assume I am because I’m married, because I’m… I have no idea! Well, people will assume and I can let them. I’m happy and I’m enjoying the experience that is my life, in all of its uncertainties, new experiences, and happy days of relaxing in front of the television or cooking dinner with my husband (and kitty!). We do things, too. Maybe they’re not the things other twentysomethings do, but we’re not interested in being them. We’re interested in being us. A lot of the “grown ups” I’ve gotten to know the last year assume that there’s something wrong with my life because I’m not following the life path they followed. Some have blatantly judged me for it. To them, I say: I’m doing just fine, thanks.
the latest updates
