Public Transportation & Me

Taking buses is kind of like casually dating someone who also happens to be dating 50 other people. Sometimes things are going great: we take road trips together and it takes me to the places I want to visit. Sometimes there are funny things that happen on them that bring us closer. Remember that crazy woman that started yelling about overhead storage space? And what about the time that you broke down on the side of the road and we had to wait 2 ½ hours for that tow truck? Oh, buses, you are too funny. We have so many memories together!

But after several dates, the honeymoon glow begins to fade. Then some of the uglier aspects of the relationship start to make themselves known. How come you lied to me about having internet? Why do we have to hang out with your other 50 “friends?” Why do we always stop at the Arby's on 684; can’t we try someplace new this time? Just WHAT is that weird smell? You know what, don't tell me. Let's keep some mystery in this relationship alive.

Despite this love-hate roller coaster, I still find myself going back to them, month after month after month. It is the same way that one might keep crawling back to a boyfriend that they know is cheating on them, yet the appeal of convenience and familiarity is too good to let go forever. You might convince yourself that it is not the worst option out there. It has to be better than being stuck at home alone, right? Besides, you have already done it so, so many times before. So I find myself buying another ticket, telling myself that it is only going to be like this until I get my own personal chauffeur. Or a segway. Or a segway driven by my own personal chauffeur while he drives me piggyback style over the Brooklyn Bridge. But I digress.

I am a better traveler than I used to be. When I was little, a 20 minute ride felt like an expedition, and I prepared for it as such. Any trip longer than the drive to the grocery store required no less than five activities with which to be entertained by: a game boy with at least five games, two books, a deck of cards, a miniature magnetic checkers board game, and a stack of Brainquest trivia flip-style questions. Never mind the fact that playing cards in a moving vehicle is one of the most impossible activities to successfully do, just having them there in my backpack was my pre-teen form of Prozak. I was seriously concerned about even the slightest possibility of being bored, as though there were no worse threat to my *Nsync-riddled mind.

Today, I packed a computer. Seeing as a computer encompasses 1,000 activities in one, I will conceivably never get bored. I can even play cards without the mess that occurs when physical playing cards inevitably meet the card-flinging effects of deceleration. (Let's be honest- 52 pick up was the lamest game, ever.)

Traveling by bus can be an unnatural experience because humans, by nature, are noisy. There are things to chatter about, plans to sort out, gossip to discuss, things not going right that need a proper complaining, etc etc etc. There are ample opportunities for loudness. But on the majority of buses I’ve taken, it’s been silent. Eerily so. The kind of silence where you might possibly hear the lower levels of a dog whistle if you try hard enough. Today is no exception: the other passengers around me have their multiple gadgets to entertain and pacify them. Only a select few are reading or napping.

How can 50 human beings in the same 300 some-odd square foot area be quiet for 4 and a half hours, you may ask? Because though we are all smushed together into an area no larger than your average New York City apartment, we are all being entertained by no less than 3 gadgets. This is exactly how I picture Fahrenheit 451 to be, minus the government-restricted education and the smoke from the pyres of burning books.

One day, I might look back on this experience as emblematic of a simpler time, a time where one had to sit on a bus for hours but with the convenient luxury of wireless internet. Where one could go onto a virtual site and “post” on the “walls” of our “friends” from the slow-moving, gasoline-powered machines of yore. Before the weekend trips to the moon and eating food that comes in easy-to-swallow pill-capsules.

“When I was young, there weren’t none of these fancy-schmancy teleportation devices,” I will instruct the youths, throwing in a slight country twang to help flesh out the down-home nature of my point. “Riding the subway only cost $2.50. And don’t even get me started on how cheap those buses were. And quiet, so, so quiet.”

We may not be there yet, but I can see that horizon line fast approaching. And by fast, I mean 45 mph "fast" due to traffic. There is nothing like that extra hour of enclosed space surrounded by strangers on that most special of all places, el autobus.

Cultural Drinking

Not counting toes, which have a tendency of getting caught between the rungs of the antique furnaces that used to line the walls of my parent's house, the only bone I every really broke was my wrist. It was my right wrist, to be exact, and a spiral fracture, to be graphic.

These type of fractures, I soon learned, are caused by torque. For those of you who have been out of a physics classroom for a couple of years, when torque is applied along the axis of an object there are two results: either the force stops or the object fractures. In this instance, the force (the Rialto Bridge) was greater than the object (my wrist). That, my friends, is how one ends up in an ER with Italian doctors looking at my wrist, concerned that I was in an abusive relationship.

"I fell down the stairs."

"Would you like to speak to someone? It's entirely confidential..."

"No, no. There's no abusive boyfriend. I am just an idiot."

"Well. Here's a list of services we offer that are available to you, if you choose..."

"No, it's not like that. I swear. It's just...look, I'm really embarrassed about it, ok?"

It was a lose-lose type of situation, because the only way to assure them that I wasn't involved with a man that took his anger out with his fists was to assure them that I was just abroad and drunk one night. Yeah, I'm that American. The doctors did eventually let me out of the ER with black flexi-cast and a stern warning about alcohol. "But it wasn't even really my fault." I told them. "It was the mojitos!"

The summer of the "mojito incident," my twin had been taking courses for college credit in Venice, Italy. By the time I visited her, she told me that she was "cultured," having exhausted the Piazza San Marco, the Basilicas of both Saint Giovanni and Paolo, and all of the Catholic iconography tours, at least five times over. She informed me that Venice was fun for a week, but "there is only so much gelato you can eat, Em."

During my stay, I discovered that she had learned a maximum of five Italian phrases. They mostly centered around how to order a chocolate brioche for breakfast. ("Vorrei una brioche.") A very important skill, to be sure, but perhaps ever the slightest bit shortsighted.

We played scrabble in cute little cafes off the canal, or walked down random streets just to see where we would end up. At night, we drank with a lot of Americans. It was Italy, minus the Italians. It was that trip that made me start to recognize why Americans abroad are so reviled. We ordered traditional Italian cuisine like "tagliatelle al nero di seppia" only to discover, a minute too late, that it's name means "squid ink pasta." (A marine creature's defensive excretion as my pasta? Really, Italy?) We asked for ice in our water at restaurants, and were taken aback by the confused looks we received. (Do only Americans like to be refreshed by the temperature of their beverages?) We get drunk off of the poorly mixed mojitos from the one Spanish bar in Venice and fall up the Rialto Bridge in front of every Venetian citizen who happens to be out for a late night stroll to get some gelato along the canal. We are suddenly happy that we do not know enough Italian to understand what they are saying.

No, that summer I did not help promote positive international relations on behalf of the red, white, and blue. But I did learn a valuable lesson: when you're visiting a new and exciting country, just don't drink. But if you must drink, you stick to the cultural beverages of the land that you happen to find yourself in. Would I have broken my wrist if I had drank red wine or spritzes instead of those mojitos? I can't definitively say yes, but it's not a clear no, either.

But I can tell you one thing: no Italians were physically harmed on my fall up the marble steps of the Rialto. And that has to count for something, international relations-wise.

Yes, I Have A Few Concerns

Life today confuses me.

There are ugly sweater parties popping up with plague-like popularity, so prevalent that there are entire sites devoted to providing you with all your ugly Christmas sweater needs and, of that weren't enough, even the Wall Street Journal wrote about it. One time, not too far back in my generation's past, we would have inwardly (and perhaps even outwardly) cringed if some distant family member (with all the best intentions, we're sure), sent us a sweater from someplace where sheep might have a greater domination over the road than cars. The type of place where the temperatures were so cold that people didn't care how bulky their sweaters were, but they still tried to make them festive with pom poms and glitter thread, anyway.

These are the sweaters that I'm talking about. Such a sweater would have been buried way deep inside our collective closets, hidden beneath the XXL tee shirts our mom's wanted to get us because we would "grow into them" one day and thus, fully grown and still too large, we will never actually wear be able to wear them. But now, thanks to my generation's inclination to think that it is suddenly incredibly hip to look like the kind of uncoordinated dork that would have never been invited to Stephanie Miller's no-adult-supervision-7th-grade-make-out party, there are very real opportunities that prompt us to dig that sweater out of the back-of-the-closet obscurity and don it publicly in front a group of our peers. Perhaps we might even take a few photos and post our favorites on facebook, so that other people will be able to see how cool, ironic, and refreshingly un-self-conscious we have become.

But I ask you, when does this "ugly-as-cool" mentality end? Will one day Ke$ha be slipping on shin-length socks, suspenders, and shoes without laces, the kind traditionally chosen more for their time-saving nature and utility than their fashion forwardness? Will it one day be cool to, instead of looking like a 40 year old in the 1980s as we strive to now, to look like an 80 year old in the 1940s? I see the future, and it's all too real.

Then there are some old conveniences that have stirred up new guilt. Since the early 1800s, modern refrigeration has afforded our species a whole new level of nutrition that can be accessed year round, a technology that has tacked on years to our average lifespans. But this convenience brings with it a whole slew of new concerns. Should one even be buying tomatoes at all, since it is the winter season and present day opinion pressures us to "think global" but "buy local"? But, on the other hand, if New England-ers were to strictly buy local, the only available foods would lean heavily towards the less-than-nutritionally fulfilling winter squash, leeks, and potatoes, prompting the potential new marketing campaign of "buy local, get scurvy." Though you are not an 18th century sailor, should you be concerned with getting scurvy? Possibly, quite possibly.

There is the national health care reform that can provide everyone with access to medicine and health services, but it may be a sign of the apocalypse. I'm all for everyone getting access to a doctor, but do I personally want to be a playing piece in the end of the world? Deodorants might give you cancer, but not wearing deodorant will label you as the "smelly kid" and may also damage your health. If research shows that stress can play a big role in overall health, should I now feel stressed about being stressed? Where do I go when I start feeling guilty about feeling guilty?

If we were to take a look at what our music is telling us to do, Katy Perry instructs us to show the world what we're worth by shooting fireworks out of her breasts. Ke$ha's chooses to hide her inner firework by forgoing conventional dental hygiene and "dancing like she's dumb," but at least she's trying to not be such a douchebag. Then there's Bruno Mars who insists that because we happen to be young and bored, we should all just get married.

We're told over and over again "don't sweat the small stuff," and we get books for graduation like "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" (though the only places most of us ever seem to go are our homes, offices, public transportation, and back again). Was this what Dr. Seuss was talking about? Where are my rainbow-striped hilltops and banners flip-flapping?

There is lot of talk of "c'est la vie" when we meet with something we can't overcome, and "carpe diem" when we get discouraged. However, because of the under-funded public school education system, we might not have learned any language besides Spanish, and studying about that culture is apparently pretty frowned upon in certain parts of the country. (These are the same parts of the country that grow the tomatoes that sparked the think global, buy local concerns.)

And lastly, there's our fashion trends which, much like the in-vogue ugly sweaters, have taken a turn into the world of glitter and unexpected adornments. (This is most definitely an influence from MTV's tv show the Jersey Shore.) At first blush, I thought that this purple beauty (found in an aisle of a favorite local discount clothing store) read "Lobe Kills Slomly." Tell me you didn't, too.

I stared at this top for a full 3 minutes before I realized that it was supposed to read "Love Kills Slowly," words more clearly scripted in the upper left hand corner, above the heart on the skull-n-crossbones glitter decal. While tempted to buy it as a Christmas present for my older sister, I ultimately decided against it, because at the end of the day, I just couldn't justify New Jersey Shore as a local source. I just couldn't.

But don't worry, if it all gets too much for you there are anti-anxiety meds for that. Even though you probably shouldn't be taking them.

UPDATE: I received this article from a friend who had a former student who actually contracted scurvy. And then that same student won an award for it from the Washington Post. So now, through the transitive property of  equality, I know someone who got scurvy. The threat is real, people.

My friend, Babor

Living in this communication-saturated world, unsolicited commercial email (UCE or "spam") is pretty much inevitable. It no longer shocks me when I receive emails from one "Kesha Willow" advertising the sale of "Incredib1e penislong pill" or emails from a person who is named "me" with the subject line "mr. emflynn, get super prices." Why would I address myself with a formal title in my own email, and an incorrect one at that? That's just ridiculous, Mr. Spammer.

The majority of this spam is simple, penis-enhancing messages or codeine offers (discounted at 99 percent!) that don't humanize the sender in any way. I can deal with these types of emails. (And by me, I mean google's spam folder, which neatly disposes of nearly all of the spam within 30 days. Simple, efficient, hands-off. Spam me all day long, spammers! I gots my google team on it.)

But then my facebook messages were infiltrated, and it touched me in a way I didn't fully anticipate.

It was October 2nd, 2010. A Saturday. I received a private message from one "Babor" with the simple subject line, "business letter from Babor, Retired principal officer, Grameen Bank." Here is what Babor told me.

"To: Emily

From: Md. Babor Ali
Managing Director
RASHEEQ FASHION
House-177, Road-10, Block-F,
Bashundhara Residential Area,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: baborali@gmail.com,
Phone: 01190298727

Dear Emily,

How are you? This is Md. Babor Ali I was your coordinator during your internship at Grameen Bank, in Bangladesh. I got retirement on August, 08, 2010. I start garments business. I am exporting garments from Bangladesh to USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and Africa. As you were my intern please help me to find a buyer from your country or you could start business. It’s a profitable business.
I am providing my business profile bellow.
Profile of our Organization

RASHEEQ FASHION
House-177, Road-10, Block-F,
Bashundhara Residential Area,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: baborali@gmail.com,
Phone: 01190298727"

"Wow," I thought to myself. "That is a lot of contact information. Seems legit..." I mulled it over for a second. Then I called my sister.

"Did I ever have an internship at Grameen Bank?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing. Just curious... have you ever heard me mention the name Babor Ali?"

The fact that this guy had actually found me on facebook is impressive enough. All those privacy settings I set up long ago have to mean something, right? (...right?) Maybe I should be one of the first investors in his budding garments business. Whenever you are on the cusp of the opportunity of a lifetime and yet, at the end of the day, ultimately decide against it, there is always that nagging question: what if? What... if?

What if I invested some of my non-existent money in an out-of-the-blue solicitation from an internship that I never held in a country I've never been to by a man I've never heard of? What if I legitimately became his intern, and helped him build a, as he put it, "business profile," a profile that has more substance than just the name of his "business" with its address? This could be the opportunity of a lifetime. All thanks to Babor!

But, as it usually goes with all things on facebook, I got distracted. I spent an embarrassing amount of time sifting through other people's facebook photos. Sometime later, I signed off. I went about my life.

Because the power of the facebook is stronger than us mere mortals can resist, later that night I signed back on. I checked out the "top news" section that always brims with the daily inanities from friends and acquaintances both close and... not so close. While scoping about, I noticed something. It was a message, a new message for me! What could it possibly say?

"Emily this is Md. Babor Ali. I was doing my job at the Nobel winner organization Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. On August 08, 2010 I got retirement and start garments business. Here in Bangladesh people are poor. For that a lot of man power is cheap here. People established garments factory and sending their product to USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and Africa.
After getting retirement I started this business here and collecting product from factory and sending to those countries. Above mentioned organization I established and doing well. Now I need your help. I have a lot of interns of the globe, they could start importing garment product that produced by the hand touch of the poor people. So now my new initiative is also with the poor people.
Objectives:
• To eradicate poverty,
• To create employment opportunity.
• To meet the appropriate expectations of clients.
• To add substantial contribution into the national exchequer.

Product:
• Knit Fabric: Single Jersey, Heavy Jersey, Pique, Lacoste, Interlock, Eight lock design, Rib, Pleated design, Rib, French terry, Fleece, Collar and cuff of Cotton, Viscose, Modal, Cotton viscose, Viloft, Polyester, Cotton Polyester, CVC, Synthetic, fiber & micro fiber, x-static, and also made of polyamide, tactel, Coolmax, Suplex etc. by making order to renewable garments factory.
• Garments: T-shirt, Polo shirts, Sweat-shirt, Golf-shirt, Tank tops, Kids wear, Jogging suits, Runners pant, Skirolly, Functional wear, Fashion dress, Under garments, Sports wear etc. by making order to renewable garments factory.
• Garments: long sleeves, shorts sleeves, Denim long pants, Kargo short pant for mens, ladies, boys, girls, kids by making order to renewable garments factory.

I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you once again.
Best Regards,

Babor."

How, in the name of all that is good and holy, could I attempt to deny Md. Babor Ali my assistance with his new initiative, "the poor people?" Only a truly selfish person would deny importing such "garment product" made by the "hand touch of the poor people" to the United States. Isn't that what our grand country is based upon? But yet, if his cause was so right, why did it all suddenly feel so wrong?

This new email brought forth too many questions. What was a "national exchequer?" Why would he assume that I would know what a "Viloft" or a"Skirolly" was? Why did he spell the word cargo with a "k?"

The more I read, the more I started to notice other things. Why didn't his verb tenses match throughout the sentence? Why didn't he mention my alleged internship at the Grameen Bank anymore?

"Babooooor!" I shouted, shaking my fist at the heavens above. "Why must you do these things to me!?" 

I did not respond to his request. And ever since, my facebook messages have been eerily absent of one Md. Babor Ali from Grameen Bank. Did I mean nothing to him? Did he take me for a fool? Since it's notoriously difficult to get any direct answers from Facebook, I may never be able to answer these questions for myself. I suppose I could try to contact him directly. I mean, I do have all his contact information. I'm just not sure I am ready to trust again...

So if you're interested in investing in a "profitable garments business," let me know. I know a guy.

The Jaded Writer

Though I haven't been doing a lot of actual writing lately, I've been thinking a lot about writing, and that has to count for something. As a soccer coach once informed me, the mental game is 90 percent of the whole thing. So, by the standard of sports clichés, I'm practically all the way there. The tangible evidence of this writing habit of mine comes in the form of one half-written coming-of-age novel, one fleshed out sketch of a dystopian end-of-the-world type novel, and one nearly complete but as-of-yet unedited satirical memoir. There are also the thousands of scraps of paper that are currently falling out from my desk drawers into my lap. They contain scribbled turns of phrases in blue and black (and sometimes pink!) ink that I wrote on bits of newspaper and backs of programs as a reminder of some intriguing story idea or polysyllabic word that I thought sounded fancy. With all this inspiration literally spilling out around me, what more could a fledgling writer possibly need in order to produce that dream of the next great American novel?

The answer, my friends, is whiskey. As a housewarming gift, my friend Tyler bought a bottle of Johhnie Walker Red. Being more of a connoisseur of the Trader Joe's 2010 Charles Shaw variety, I recognized that I may not encounter such a thing anytime again in my near future. So, upon receiving the gift, I promptly hid it from the other house guests in a tall, out-of-reach cupboard behind a container of glow sticks and some unused plastic plates. While I may not have earned the "shares well with others" sticker that day, I had big plans for that Johnnie Red, things far grander than simply being used as shots before the customary Saturday night excursion to the local chinese food restaurant slash top-40 dance club.

For the record, I neither condone nor condemn drinking. Alcohol, when used responsibly, can be a fun, recreational, and (let me emphasize) social undertaking, especially when it comes in the form of five colorful straws inside a dragon-painted scorpion bowl at the aforementioned "restaurant." But with this bottle of Mr. Walker, I wanted it to be different. More meaningful. Less Bieber lyrics, more Brontë prose. Like many other great writers before me, I decided that whiskey was going to help get me there.

In college, my friend Lori convinced me that whiskey and water was the drink of choice of college students, hardened alcoholics, and fledgling writers alike.

"The water hydrates you, and you still get drunk," she told me. Her logic was sound. My hangover-free Sunday mornings were pleasant. Everyone won.

Then there's Faulkner, who was quoted as saying, "the tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey." What kind of young writer goes against nobel-prize winning American novel-writing William Faulkner? I may be young, but I'm not stupid. 

But, you might ask yourself, aren't you just romanticizing hard alcohol because you are a 23-year old with too many hopes and dreams and not enough real world practicality to know that you shouldn't be drinking alcohol by yourself on some random Tuesday night? To which I would reply: absolutely. Sure, whiskey is not always unicorns and rainbows, but everyone deludes themselves in some form or other. It's like when teenage girls layer on dark eyeliner to make themselves feel like they look older, or when one of my ex-boyfriends used to put on dress shirts when he had to write a final paper. Everyone subscribes to different ways of thinking that help them to transform who they are into who they want to be. For me, a glass of whiskey conjures up the vision of hunkering down over a pad of paper on a snowy wintery night, a drink on the table in front of me, a fireplace at my back, and the entire night free to pretend to be a hardened, wizened, jaded writer exploring the world through words and letting my inner muse wander where she may. Being presented with a bottle of whiskey moved these visions from the back of my mind to my kitchen table.

So thank you, Tyler, for enabling and abetting my writing habit through whiskey. One day, you just may have a book dedication aimed at you in the form of cryptic inside jokes. I'll just have to drink more whiskey to become clever enough to think of something first. And before that, actually finish a novel. But first things first.

Everyone's an (Anonymous) Critic

Yesterday will forever go down in history as the day that this blog received its first negative anonymous comment. Oh sure, you might say, I've been fortunate to fly relatively under the radar and to have all of my fantastically hilarious anecdotes and genuine insights be hidden from popular society on some obscure pun-inspired blog nestled deep inside the google blogosphere. It might even be considered surprisingly lucky, astonishing really, if one were to compare the comments that have appeared on this very blog against a standard Youtube-style comment riddled with amusing mis-spellings and racist undertunes. The fact that I have written for this blog (relatively) regularly for over a year and have survived with only a 151:1 nice-to-mean comment ratio is nothing to shake a stick at. In a way, anonymous comments legitimize this blog. Someone, somewhere, cares enough to post! And it's not my mom! (Sorry, mom. I love your comments.)

The original post, a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the lyrics to Taylor Swift's "Love Story," was intended to be funny (or at least mildly amusing). Even if (especially if?) the comment was anonymous, that first internet betrayal still stings. As Sheryl Crow so wisely croons, "the first cut is the deepest."

However, holding myself to be the type of person that strives for justice above all else, I thought to myself, "Hey, Em. Let's get a little crazy up in here. What if this anonymous commentator was right. Why don't I step back and re-assess my role in the inundated drivel that is the world wide web? What would be the harm in fact-checking my lyrics analysis with a specific Act and Scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that was provided by the anonymous commenter, an Act and Scene which might reveal my wrongful interpretation of Taylor Swift's pop-country classic?"

And so, dear reader, I did just that. Thanks to the marvel of the modern age, SparkNotes can give all the literary answers that a girl with a blog could ever possibly need (or want). Now, instead of drawing upon my less-than-kodak memory from when I read that most notable of Shakespeare's plays way back in junior high, all can be explained to me in clear, concise, bullet-point form. Thanks, Sparknotes!

Before we get to the comment, let us first review that original offending post that triggered an anonymous single-entity backlash. In the analysis, the only resources used were the lyrics to the aforementioned pop song, "Love Story." At more than one point in my analysis, I implied that Taylor Swift's literary allusions were perhaps ever the slightest bit off the mark from the literary references' more commonly understood meaning. To save you, fellow reader, the time, here were my main points. (I am copying what I said in the original blog post, because a) I had it right the first time and b) I am lazy.)

Taylor Swift lyrics, Love Story:

And I said, "Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone./ I'll be waiting, all that's left to do is run.
You be the prince, and I'll be the princess,/ It's a love story, baby, just say, 'yes'."

The commentary that was originally posted alongside the lyrics:


"If you follow Shakespeare's logic, unrealistic expectations will only end in double suicide. Take heed, young Taylor. Also important, princes and princesses are an entirely different metaphor from Romeo and Juliet. Most princes and princesses had arranged marriages that were intended to unite kingdoms and promote royal agendas. Yes, now there's a love story to base your life around."

Taylor Swift lyrics, Love Story:

'Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter,
And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet."/ But you were everything to me,
Begging you, "Please don't go". 

The commentary that appeared alongside the lyrics:

"I may not have been the happiest with the Romeo and Juliet metaphor, but those emotions feel like puppy love compared to how I feel about the Scarlett Letter reference. Starcrossed lovers- fine. Ok. You're a teenage girl. But has the girl, or any person in her family or friend circle, even her staff for that matter, ever read the Scarlett Letter?

Let's review: the Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Protagonist Hester Prynne committed adultery and then carried the resulting child while being marred by an outcast reputation and trying to repent for her sins. Hawthorne sure enjoyed himself a good love story.

It's not just the fact that the whole Scarlett Letter thing was just a completely ill-used metaphor, it is the idea that it written explicitly to be an interchangeable allusion with the Romeo and Juliet and prince/princesses lyrics. My IQ, it rolls along the floor, slowly, away from me. "

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here is the anonymous comment in full.

"You are entirely wrong romeo and juliet would have had arranged marriages hence paris and capulets Act 3 Scene 5 outrage of Juliet not following this. shut up"

Let us, as scholars, attempt to dissect it. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the words "not following this" was intended to be a separate statement from the "arranged marriages" critique. Here, I am forced to dock one point from Anonymous Commenter (AC) for their complete disregard of conventional sentence structure and possessive forms. (Even if they did use the word "hence.") However, I cannot deny AC's point that Romeo and Juliet, though not princes and princesses as the Swift song hints, would have had arranged marriages. So one point awarded back to them. If you're following, AC has a total sum of love. (Deliberate double entendre tennis/"Love Story" pun. Carry on.)

Let us go to the action of Act 3 Scene 5 that AC references as the crux of both their argument and my wrongful interpretation. Here's 11 pages of Shakespeare condense into one riveting paragraph:

Romeo and Juliet wake up the day they got secretly married and after Romeo kills Juliet's cousin, Tybalt (even though she didn't know that. Marriage dealbreaker.) Juliet wants Romeo to stay. Then Romeo wants to stay, but Juliet wants him to go. Romeo leaves so the Capulets won't kill him. Juliet is sad. Juliet's mom comes in and breaks the news that her dad arranged a marriage between Juliet and Paris later that day. Juliet says no, they fight, and Juliet weeps a lot. The Nurse tells Juliet that Paris is better than Romeo. Juliet gets mad. She tells the Nurse that she's going to Friar Lawrence's to repent for her sins, but as we later find out (SPOILER ALERT) Juliet actually goes there to commit suicide because she thinks her life with Romeo is over. End scene.

Hm.

While I do agree that Juliet's dad asked her to stay away from Juliet, as Taylor Swift did sweetly sing about, I still fail to see the deeper connection to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. Forbidden love, perhaps? Still, the details of both relationships seems like apples and oranges to me. And how does it fit into the the prince and princesses allusion? The fact remains that just because they sound relatively romantic when you sing about them and your target audience doesn't really know what they mean, it doesn't mean the lyrics actually make sense. So if an anonymous commenter on some unknown blog argues that a certain lyrical analysis doesn't make sense, but offers an argument that in itself does not make sense, does that mean I win?

Of course it does! It's my blog. I hope we all learned something today, kids. I know I sure did.
And that lesson is that SparkNotes has amazing "study break articles" like PDA: When Is It Ok? and The Secret Crush Test. Screw Shakespeare and Swift, I'll be here for hours.

Stop, Look, Wave

Spotted: on a lonely pedestrian walkway, somewhere in a sleepy cattle-town of New England. A pedestrian crosswalk that states, "STOP LOOK WAVE."

This is a new development. I lived in this town for four years and yet, in all that time, one (eins, uno, one) person got hit by a car. The car at fault was, it should be noted, traveling at less than 10 miles per hour. The man that was hit was only slightly bumped, a little rattled, and mostly embarrassed. In the scope of vehicular accidents, this one may not have even registered. And yet, here we are given irrefutable proof that there was a committee who decided to assuage their deep concern for pedestrian safety in that one main street two-thousand person town through explicit written directions about how to cross a street. STOP LOOK WAVE.

I would like to point out, for the record, that if one were to follow these directions of "Stop Look Wave" exactly, then they would be putting themselves in a situation that has them staring directly at the ground and not, you know, oncoming traffic. Some people can't walk and chew gum, what if you can't walk and read words at the same time? Then what? This would be especially difficult to do if you're not expecting words to be there on the ground to read in the first place. And what if you're a slow reader? There you are, walking across a nice, bright, well-lit, seemingly safe pedestrian walkway when, hark! What are these strange new symbols affixed on the ground? Why I bet someone wants me to read them... BAM. Log-loader truck.

I would also like to point out, for the record, that these instructions don't actually tell a pedestrian what to do after one has properly stopped, looked, and waved. Now what? Clearly, if I've taken the time to read the words, I am simply trying to obey the letter of the law. If some city councilman is going to go as far as to tell me how to properly cross the street through explicit written directions, at least take the time to make them a complete set of directions. How long has mankind been crossing the street as a pedestrian? Since the invention of the automobile? Since the dawn of time? (Woolly mammoth crossings. Real threat.) I hate to be one advocating survival of the fittest here, but if at this point in the history of humanity you can't safely cross a street without something hitting you, then maybe you just shouldn't be passing on your genes. You know? It's not like there are directions dictating what to do about revolving doors, and people seem to manage those just fine on their own. Well, almost.