Adult Irresponsibilities

The thing about having your car towed because you haven't paid your parking tickets, is that you have a lot of time to reflect on what an immature, irresponsible, glutton-for-punishment asshole you are while you're walking home.

You also have plenty of time to think about how only two days ago you took all the quarters typically designated for parking meter usage out of your car's cup holder so that you could do some laundry.

Because the only thing worse than putting quarters into a parking meter is putting quarters into a coin laundry machine. Amiright?

For some reason I am fantastically irresponsible when it comes to parking tickets. I get WAY more of them than I should, and then I never (never!) pay them in a timely fashion. Or at all. Because as I mentioned earlier I'm an immature, irresponsible asshole.

For a a person who considers herself to be a fast learner this seems to be a lesson I cannot learn. Not even slowly, over a very long period of time. In college I got so many parking tickets in Ann Arbor that I finally got an upset phone call from my dad when he was notified by the State of Michigan that his driver's license would be suspended until they were all paid. The car I had at school was registered to him. This would have been problematic under any circumstance, but my dad was a professional truck driver before he retired, so it was especially bad in this case. There were a lot of tickets. I don't remember how many exactly, but it was a lot. And I was a broke college kid, which was probably why I A) hadn't properly fed the meters in the first place, and B) never paid the tickets once I got them. I'm pretty sure my parents paid to get me out of hot water that time (thanks mom and dad!), but it was perhaps more out of a desire to have my dad's license reinstated than it was to help me out. Lesson: not learned.

Fast forward to 2013. Six months ago I went into my office downtown for a morning meeting and I parked at a meter because I needed to leave quickly afterward, and also because the parking lot attendants are Creepy McStalkersons who ask me far too many personal questions and then also sometimes accidentally leave my car unlocked after they've moved it around the lot. So I opted for the privacy of a meter instead and I fed the greedy bastard its meal of quarters, but my time was scheduled to expire 15 minutes shy of my departure. I figured, "Hey, it's FIFTEEN minutes. I'll be OK." But luck was not on my side that day. Let's just say my car got a new boot and I didn't get new boots (or shoes, or groceries, or anything else) for quite some time. It's like the *only* thing that the City of Detroit can do efficiently these days.

That one I really had coming, and I knew it. I had a lot of tickets and some of them were several years old and I'd received a number of lovely letters from the City of Detroit's Parking Violations Bureau stating that my offenses had become so egregious that I was at risk of being booted if I was caught parking illegally again. Each letter offered me options to call and make payment arrangements and provided instructions for paying my debt, but I let them stack up in my basket of mail To Be Dealt With and figured I'd get to it eventually. And then that day in March those extra 15 minutes on the meter ended up costing me $645.

And I think I started to learn my lesson. I hadn't gotten a ticket in the City for many months prior to the boot, and from then on I kept a stash of quarters in my cup holder to feed meters when I needed to. And when I parked I set the timer on my phone to go off five minutes prior to the meter's expiration so that I could go out and feed it again if necessary. Check out the responsible on Maria!

But in the back of my mind I knew that underneath the stack of letters from the City there was another letter collecting dust and not a small amount of cat hair. This one was from the Michigan Department of State notifying me of a DRIVER LICENSE STOP ACTION that had been placed by the 44th District Court for - wait for it! - unpaid parking tickets!

I called the court when I received that letter. A stop action means you cannot renew your license or apply for an endorsement until you handle your business, but since my license doesn't expire til August of 2014 and I don't plan to apply for any endorsements, I figured I had some time to pay it. I was told I had four unpaid tickets, totaling $207. One was from 2010, another two from 2011, and the last from 2012. The clerk on the phone told me I needed to pay the $207 plus a service fee and then it would all be fine. I asked if I was at risk of any other action or of incurring any additional fees and she told me no. Then I hung up the phone. "I'll definitely take care of it before August 2014," I thought.

So today when I came around the corner to see the meter maid with sun-ravaged skin looking on as a young tattooed dude hoisted my car up onto the bed of his tow truck, the memory of that letter came rushing back to me. Apparently in addition to being barred from renewing my license, I was also at risk of being towed. Over four tickets! I like to think that if I had known that I could have gotten towed I wouldn't have put off paying the bill, but the boot warning didn't seem to sink in before so I can't really say for sure. What I can say for sure is that I pulled out every sad-sack excuse I could think of - complete with hysterical tears and snot for emphasis - and it made zero difference to that parking enforcement officer. I think the excessive sun exposure turned her skin into leather. She was impenetrable, unwavering, and not especially sympathetic.

Tomorrow my wonderful, kind, loving, non-judgmental boyfriend is going to get up obscenely early to drive me to the court right when it opens so that I can put my parking woes to rest, once and for all. I'm estimating the towing/impound fees to be at least $150, which means that in 2013 I will have spent a total of $1000 just so that I could park like an unforgivably irresponsible asshole.

A thousand dollars. A freaking grand!

Lesson officially learned.

(I hope.)

Dear America

Dear America,

I'm breaking up with you.

This is the moment where many breakuppers say to the breakupees, "It's not you, it's me." I could say that. But I won't. Because that's a lie. It's TOTALLY you.

As far as citizens go I am a catch, and -- to be frank -- you don't deserve me. You are a lying, corrupt, selfish, greedy, ignorant, racist, misogynist, homophobic asshole, who is devoid of compassion, and to top it off you absolutely *suck* (suck!!) at managing your money (which is actually MY money because I pay taxes, jackass!). I mean, can you even do basic math? I don't want to be a bitch, but it's really not that hard. Also, you kind of have an anger/warfare management problem. You treat me and the majority of your citizenry like garbage, and it's clear by now that, regardless of how much I want you to change, you're really not interested in changing any time soon. So after careful observation for the past 32 years I've decided it's high time I cut my losses. I just need a fresh start.

Maybe once you've had some time to think and you've gotten drunk a couple of times and listened to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" and cried yourself to sleep after eating an entire chocolate cake in one sitting, you'll start to realize what a great thing we had going. As I mentioned previously, I AM A CATCH. To pour salt in an open wound, I will now illustrate more fully all the qualities I have that make me such an awesome citizen:

1. I'm smart. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am really, really smart. I ask questions, I seek truth, I demand authority, I have a healthy sense of skepticism, I am a critical thinker. I am EXACTLY the type of responsible citizen that the Founding Fathers would have wanted in their participatory democracy. Truly, your Founding Fathers are going to be really disappointed in you when they realize what a dick you've been to me.
2. I am well-educated. (And for the record, being smart is NOT the same thing as being well-educated.) I have always taken school seriously. ALWAYS. Go ask my Kindergarten teacher. I graduated from high school with a 4.0 and tons of AP credit. I have a master's degree. I learned a second language. I read the news, and history books, and economics books, and science books, and poetry, and literature. I consider it my responsibility as an adult and a member of society to keep myself in the know and constantly challenge myself to learn new things. Because there is always more to learn. Which perhaps you might understand if your obnoxious know-it-all ego wasn't so busy eclipsing intelligent discourse in this country.
3. I vote. I have voted in every presidential election and midterm election since I turned 18 and became eligible. I've voted in primary elections. Big elections, small elections. You name it. I vote! Because not only is it my right, it is my responsibility! And I vote knowledgeably! I research ballot initiatives, candidates up for school board, the regents at the University of Michigan. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME THAT TAKES? I spend so much time learning about all the shit we vote on that other people call me to ask my informed opinion about their voting options, because THEY actually appreciate the effort it takes. Unlike you.
4. I am generous. Re-read items 1-3 and then consider that I put those talents to use not only as a taxpayer that bailed out a ridiculously corrupt private financial sector with my hard-earned money (I'm still waiting for my Thank You note, by the way), but also to help actual individual Americans who are in actual desperate need every single day. That is what I do at both of my jobs (because I have TWO). And I do it by choice.
5. I am responsible. Apart from my gargantuan student loan debt (which is kind of your fault -- I mean, if you actually valued education you'd get serious about how out-of-control the cost of college is in this country, but I digress), I have NO debt. I don't have a bunch of maxed out credit cards, I didn't buy more house than I could afford, I don't have children I can't provide for. I handle my business. Take notice.
6. I am compassionate. I realize that not everyone is like me, and more importantly, I don't want everyone to be like me! When I encounter a person whose life is vastly different from mine I try to have compassion for the struggles they deal with -- because while they may not be the same as my own struggles, we all have struggles. Accepting, appreciating, and leveraging the diversity of background, experience, and opinion of all Americans is actually what could make this country truly great.
7. I am hard-working. I've worked hard in school and at every job I've ever had my whole entire life. I do something that matters to my community and is intellectually and emotionally fulfilling. I work to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend, and a good girlfriend, on top of being a good student and a good employee. I bust my ass for you, and you can't even balance the goddamn budget!

What saddens me most is that you have so much potential. You are a nation that is chock full of people who are so much kinder, smarter, and more compassionate than your elected politicians and unregulated media lead people to believe. We deserve better.

We deserve a nation that is mindful of the future, and takes seriously our responsibility for protecting the natural environment for future generations, rather than a nation that denies real science and intentionally spreads misinformation about the crisis of climate change.

We deserve a nation that uses its unprecedented resources to compassionately raise millions of our neighbors out of poverty, rather than a nation that demands that they 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps' and punishes and belittles them for being poor.

We deserve a nation that prioritizes rational discourse, negotiation, and peace, and uses war and violence as an absolute last resort, rather than a nation engaged in a perpetual cycle of expensive and violent conflict.

We deserve a nation that understands that it has a vested interest in the physical health of its people, rather than a nation that protects the rights of insurance and pharmaceutical companies above all else.

We deserve a nation that values education and ensures that children everywhere have access to an equitable educational experience and affordable (or FREE!) higher education, rather than a nation that leaves the impoverished to crumbling public school systems and forces young people to mortgage their futures in order to get a college degree.

We deserve a nation that strives for diversity, promotes acceptance, and encourages tolerance, rather than a nation that remains quietly racist and misogynistic, and is not-so-quietly still very homophobic.

We deserve better.

I deserve better.

I think if you really search your heart you'll realize this is what's best for everyone. Oh wait, I forgot. You don't actually have a heart. I guess you and Dick Cheney are stuck in that boat together.

Maybe after some time has passed we'll be able to be friends. Maybe.

Good luck.

Love,

Maria

To Read.

All of these have been on my table for approximately ever.



In other news, there's yet ANOTHER social media thing for me to master.

It's a losing battle.

Social Media Frenzy

When I took my iPhone with me to the bathroom at work so that I could check Facebook while taking a pee, it occurred to me that I might have a problem. While sitting there answering nature's call I was simultaneously scrolling through my news feed, because you know, I'M A MULTITASKER, and I found an interesting news article shared by a friend. I read it - OK fine, I skimmed it - and then went back to the link on my friend's page and typed an insightful and funny comment. (Because ALL of my comments are insightful and funny... and witty and intelligent and accurate. Duh.) I finished up, washed my hands, and returned to my desk. Then I logged into Facebook on my computer to see if anyone had responded to my brilliant comment, which of course no one had (IT'S BEEN AT LEAST TWO MINUTES ALREADY, I CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE'S LIKED MY COMMENT YET!), and so I went back to work.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

These are some things I love about it:

• it's fun!
• it's a way to keep in touch with friends
• it's an information source
• it's fun!

These are some things I hate about it:

• it's a mega-distracting time suck
• there are too many sites/platforms/tools
• it's a stupidity amplifier and an ego enabler
• it's in ink

But we'll start with the fun part. Because social media is fun! For example, this year I watched the Grammy Awards and Tweeted throughout the show. Some of my friends on Twitter did the same thing. It kind of felt like we got to watch it together, despite the fact that I was at my parents' house, sitting on their couch in my sweatpants, listening to my mom snore next to me (sorry Mom), and shoveling potato chips into my pie hole. It's way more fun to geek out over awards shows with other people who also geek out over awards shows than it is to watch them alone with a snoring mom and farting dog on either side of you.

Just saying.

I met my friend Leah in high school. We were not in the same grade, we went to different colleges, and then she married a guy whose Coast Guard career has moved her all around the country, so we don't hang out much. In person. But we have fun social media exchanges like this one from Grammy night all the time:

 

It might sound silly, but interactions like this Twitter conversation, exchanges on Facebook, and text messages help us to stay friends in a way that is meaningful to me. (And I think also to Leah.) Through her Facebook page I get to see pictures of her beautiful family (srsly, her kids are totes adorbs), hear about her adventures in parenting, talk about Scandal and Downton Abbey, and congratulate her on going back to school. A couple of years ago I got to answer a very special Facebook request of hers, that ended up with my dad donning his Santa costume so that we could surprise her family at her mother's home with a visit from old Saint Nick, on what ended up being the last Christmas before her mother passed away.

In addition to my valuable communication with Leah, I've gotten to congratulate and celebrate with friends across the country and all over the world on birthdays, marriages, new babies, graduations, new jobs, new houses, new cars, new pets, conquered illnesses, completed deployments, court cases won, weight lost, and every other manner of human triumph you could possibly imagine. Any way you look at it, that is awesome.

Social media is also a powerful information resource, and, as a librarian, that's kind of a big deal to me. If a trusted friend shares a news story on their Facebook page, you're probably more apt to read it too. If you see that someone whose musical taste you dig is listening to a new artist on Spotify, you're probably more apt to listen to it too. If you see that your Foursquare friends have a lot of positive things to say about a new restaurant in town, and enticing photos of items on the menu, you're probably more apt to go eat there too.

This is all cool, right? For the most part, I think so. But, as with all things, there are two sides. What if the information that is shared by a friend is bogus? This is how rumors spread. This is how misinformation spreads. This is how outright lies spread. By and large people are not critical enough of the information they consume. I am not exempt from this, and I consider myself to have above average information literacy and critical thinking skills. But with social media we can interact. We can counteract. We can correct! See how my friend, Firend, corrected me a couple weeks ago:

I'm usually pretty good at spotting bogus information on the web, and even I missed this one. But Firend didn't. I haven't seen Firend in person since 1998, but he had my back on that one.

So I think I've made my case for why social media can be great, but lately I've been struggling with all the ways it negatively affects me. And as I've spent some time thinking about it, there are a lot more negatives than I like to admit.

First of all, I'd like to remind you that I started this post with a story about Facebooking on my phone while taking a pee. I mean, that is ridiculous (not to mention unsanitary) (but I did wash my hands, I promise) and I will be the first person to admit it. There are nights I'll spend hours siting on my couch with my laptop trolling around on Pinterest, only to close my computer, climb into bed, and open up Pinterest on my iPhone.

I have used social media tools, mostly Facebook and Twitter, in all of these circumstances:

• on the toilet
• in the shower (I really wish this was a joke but it is absolutely not)
• while driving my car (aaaaggggghh.... SO BAD)
• at work (in meetings! SO. BAD!)
• in class
• at weddings
• at funerals
• on dates
• while having one-on-one, in-person, important conversations with friends, family members, and coworkers

I'm sure there are more, but this small list has already made me feel like a giant, capital-A, Asshole, so I'm going to stop here. I'm sure you get the point. There are days when I don't update Facebook (not many, but it happens), but I cannot remember the last time I went a whole day without even checking it.

What would I be doing with all this time if I wasn't glued to the Internet? Reading more books! Being more productive at work! Playing with my trouble-making kitty cats! Having more sex! Getting more sleep! Getting more exercise! Cooking more food at home! And giving my tired brain a much needed rest from the constant stimuli of the digital age.

And honestly, I'm overwhelmed by all the options for interaction. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Instagram. Google+. Foursquare. LinkedIn. Spotify. GoodReads. Blogger. And now MySpace is back? COME ON. How many digital versions of myself am I supposed to be able to maintain? I can barely maintain the actual flesh and blood version! This shit is exhausting. I have three jobs! I'm taking three classes at my local community college! I'm trying to read every single Pulitzer prize-winning piece of fiction! I tell people all the time that I would kill to have free time, but the truth is that I do have free time, I just fill it up with Facebook.

And for all the quality interactions I have via social media, there are plenty of completely worthless ones. Status updates about the mundane details of people's boring lives, eleventy billion shitty pictures from people's phone cameras, location check-ins at every freaking crap ass store visited on a day full of errands. Stupid political propaganda (from BOTH sides), massively offensive/racist/homophobic/sexist/ignorant opinions, and a veritable avalanche of poor spelling and worse grammar. Don't even get me started on all the stupid game requests. Farmville! CityTown!! Bejeweled Super Gem Attack IV!!!

I observe this activity and think, You think people care about this stupid boring shit? I'm giving up my golden free time for this? Again, I don't exempt myself from any of this behavior. I always think my Tweets are supremely witty, and my photos visually intriguing, and my musical tastes superior, and my book reviews authoritative, but really they aren't. I'm human and therefore susceptible to vanity and stupidity. And really, probably almost no one cares. If I disappeared from social media tomorrow no one would text me like, OMG! WTF? WHERE DID U GO? I TOTES MISS UR UNIQUE AND INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING YET FUNNY STATUS UPDATES!

But I might get a phone call from my friends Ann and Megan, asking for a book recommendation. Or I might hear from Sara if she wants to know if I've tried the new restaurant around the corner. Or I might get an email from Rebeca with pictures from her house, post-renovation. Without social media all the quality interactions could still exist if my friends and I made more effort, but without social media practically all of the crappy interactions would just disappear. So really, how much value is it adding?

And I've finally arrived at my last point. (If you're still reading this, thanks for hanging in.) Social media is online, on the Internet, on the World Wide Web, which is written in ink. It is permanent. If you say or do something stupid online, even if it was unintentional or seemed innocent at the time, it will be online forever. All it takes is one little screen shot and your Tweet/Facebook status/Instagram pic is as permanent as a tattoo. It is really, really, really hard to get things off the Internet. (Just ask Beyonce.) This means that if you do something that could jeopardize your job, your marriage, your friendships, your ability to attend school, or WHATEVER, it could exist online forever.

The other day I mentioned to someone that I was glad Facebook didn't exist when I was a teenager, because teenagers can be obnoxious and stupid and hurtful (yet again, teenaged Maria was not exempt from those behaviors), and now they can do obnoxious and stupid and hurtful things to each other online. Imagine creating a Facebook page at age 15, and maybe you're kind of a bully, and you keep that page all through high school and college, and there's some stuff on there that, as an adult, now seems kind of dickish. Over the years you've grown attached to this digital representation of your personality, all the pictures! All the memories! And maybe you've outgrown the propensity to bully others, but way back on your profile it's there. And when you get a job and start to become Facebook friends with your coworkers, with your boss, with your company's CEO, they'll be able to find all of that dickish teenager stuff in your profile. And even though you've outgrown it, it's right there on the Internet for everyone to see. And is that really the kind of impression you want to make?

Think about that one person you know that does not have a Facebook account. Have you ever seen an embarrassing or inappropriate photo of them? Have they every overshared some information about a child's bathroom activities? Do you know every single store they went to last Sunday when they were running errands? Isn't it OK and maybe kind of awesome not knowing all that stuff about them?

Just saying.

So. After all that. I don't know what I'm going to do. For me, the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks - although by a much closer margin than I originally thought. And if I'm being honest, I could control ALL of the drawbacks by exercising more discipline in my own behavior - both in where and when and how frequently I engage in social media, and with whom I choose to engage.

Too bad I am basically the least disciplined person, ever.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to publish this on Blogger and share it on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

What Do You Mean You Don't Want To Get Married?

So recently I got this part time job at a store at the mall because it seemed like a more reasonable way to catch up (ha!) on my student loans than selling a kidney or robbing a bank. And you know, it's a retail job in a swanky store in an uppity mall, the pay sucks, the hours suck, and it is in addition to my normal full time job, so every time I go to work it's kind of a soul-sucking, pride-swallowing, misery-inducing experience. But I put my big girl pants on and I go and at least I get a discount on cooking tools and I've been meeting a lot of new people.

Meeting new people in this context and at this point in my life has been interesting. I get asked where I'm from, where I live, if I have another job, if I like to cook, if I'm in school. Sometimes they are surprised to learn I already have two college degrees. They ask if I have or want kids. Often they are surprised to learn I don't want to have kids. But more than any other question, they ask if I'm married. Sometimes shockingly soon after the initial introduction. Once just like this:

Me: I'm Maria, what's your name?
Her: I'm Martha Washington*, nice to meet you!
Me: Likewise.
Her: ARE YOU MARRIED?

I'm not kidding. It was the second sentence out of this woman's mouth upon meeting me. When I told her that I am, in fact, NOT married (THE HORROR!), she said, and I quote, "Oh don't worry, you're young! And beautiful! You'll find THE ONE soon!" Thinking at first, Do I look desperate? and followed closely by, Who in the HELL does this woman think she IS? I bit my tongue, swallowed the sarcasm, and simply said, "Well, actually I have a really great boyfriend who I love a lot!" I figured that'd be that. Not so much.

Her: DO YOU THINK HE'S [gasp for dramatic effect] THE ONE?
Me: Um... [blinking]
Her: Howlonghaveyoubeentogetherdoyouthinkyou'llmarryhim???

The thing is, I don't really care about getting married. Marriage is not the important part, love is.  And I definitely don't care about having a wedding. I have enough debt to last me several lifetimes, thankyouverymuch. I told her this and she looked at me as if I were an alien from the furthest reaches of outer space.

You see, once upon a time ago a man asked me to marry him and I said yes. It was definitely not the right answer, but we spent almost two years (and several thousand dollars) after that ill-fated Q & A session making each other acutely miserable before we finally came to our senses and called it off. Thinking back on it now, we were so truly and incredibly wrong for each other that I'm not sure what was stupider, him asking in the first place or me agreeing. Actually that's a lie, it was much stupider for me to say yes. Of course he asked me to marry him, I'M AWESOME. But if he had not popped the question, that day or ever, we would have broken up much, much sooner.

When we were in the downward spiral I vividly remember thinking things like, "He should not be behaving this way. This is not how a MAN should treat his FUTURE WIFE. BUT I AGREED TO THIS AND GAVE MY WORD AND MADE MY COMMITMENT AND NOW I JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK."

Did I mention I'm stubborn? Usually my stubbornness is a good thing, but in this case it made me stay with a man I was no longer in love with for so long that I had paid a photographer and bought a wedding dress and then almost legally bound myself to him FOR LIFE. Yikes. I was miserable and everyone who loved me knew it and yet I stayed and stayed until I just couldn't stay anymore.

But I made it out alive.

Fast forward a few years to present day. That aforementioned really great current boyfriend who I love a lot is, hands down, the best boyfriend I've ever had. He is intelligent and generous and passionate and funny and creative and mature and hardworking and supportive and kind and reasonable and trustworthy and committed and he makes my life better every single day. He also doesn't care about getting married. It is an amazingly liberating thing to be in the strongest love of my life and not spend a moment's worry thinking WHEN WILL HE ASK ME TO MARRY HIM? It means we just get to love each other, and be together, and learn and grow and be partners, even though we will never be spouses.

Awhile back we were discussing our respective reasons for nuptial avoidance and I admitted that, considering I'd once agreed to marry someone who was totally wrong for me, I wasn't sure I trusted myself to choose a lifelong mate. And of the four times I've fallen in love in my life, three of them didn't stick. Do I have the capacity to love someone for my entire life? Even through the shit times?

Jury's still out.

Although things are looking up. Here's hoping. I know I am!

*not this person's actual name

Marshmallow Gore

Because I am a self-declared domestic goddess who once happened to make a batch of simple fleur de sel caramels (the recipe and idea for which I admit I stole from a friend), several Christmases ago I decided to make marshmallows. Complete with red swirls and peppermint flavor courtesy of oil, not extract, I planned to package them in petite cellophane bags tied with splashy red ribbon, pair them with decadent Godiva hot chocolate mix, and bequeath them to my loved ones as holiday gifts.

This idea came to me while I was making To Do lists. I’d made gift baskets for the adults in my family before, but I’d taken a hiatus for several years, first while I was in graduate school and then while recovering from a pre-holiday breakup. That year I spent the gift basket assembly energy on dividing up a collection of CDs (remember those?) that had been five years in the making. Don’t worry, I got every last Beatles album. But I digress.

The marshmallows – oh, the sure to be brilliant, melt-in-your-mug mallows! – would mark my triumphant return to the holiday goody baskets. This idea came to me and I paused in the middle of my list making.  I imagined my mom making a delicious mug of hot chocolate and plopping two fat, fluffy, scratch made mallows into her drink. She’d sit down in front of her fireplace and Christmas tree and take a sip of the Greatest Cup of Hot Chocolate in the History of the World. And that would be it! I closed my eyes and pictured my dearest loved ones succumbing to similar fates at the hand of that victorious combination: my marshmallows and Godiva’s cocoa. In one fell swoop I’d repay all of the sweetness, warmth, and comfort that the people who loved me most had shown as they helped me pack up half a house of belongings, and purchase new bedroom furniture, and learn how to flirt again, and put my heart back together.

So you know, no pressure.

I read the instructions several times before starting. The making of the marshmallow fluff went off without a hitch. I managed to dirty more of my kitchen utensils than ever before with sticky, sugary, mallow goo, but it tasted like heaven and, hey, I’d successfully produced a pan of smooth, snowy white, lighter than air marshmallow batter! The penultimate step was upon me; it was time to add some drops of red food coloring to make the signature swirls.

Thinking about it now, I’m still not sure what compelled me to use quite so much food coloring. Maybe I declared victory too early, the batter was just so good. Maybe I caved under pressure. Maybe I lost focus because I was singing along to Chris Isaak’s “Forever Blue” too loudly. Maybe I’m overeager. Whatever the reason, I overdid it. I applied the drops quickly in evenly spaced rows across the entire surface of my pristine layer of marshmallow fluff. Toothpick in hand, I started swirling.

The food coloring immediately began eating through the soft candy. Eroding it like acid, the little red droplets sank through the surface, making tunnels through the sugar. Neighboring drops merged to form pools. I began to despair. Biting my lip and clenching my teeth I tried to work faster, lamenting that I’d opted not to work in smaller sections. Why wasn’t that included in the recipe’s instructions! Damn that shoddy recipe!

By the time I reached the last row I had a tray of marshmallow fluff that looked like an axe murderer had stood over it while hacking twenty people to death. No longer a smooth cloud-like pillow, it was a jagged pan of pink slime. A bloody, gory monstrosity, unfit for human consumption. Always optimistic I thought, “Maybe once it cools it’ll be alright?” and placed it gingerly in my fridge, hoping for some kind of late night fridge miracle.

The next morning I entered my kitchen on tiptoe, fingers crossed, and opened the fridge to discover that the slime had not so miraculously cooled to rubber. I tipped the pan into the garbage and made some coffee. As I filled my sink with hot soapy water to scrub the now petrified mallow remains off my cookware, I said, “At least my kitchen smells nice and pepperminty. And it’s the thought that counts, right? Next year I’m just making pies. Pies are way easier than candy.”

Famous last words!

Right to the Babymaker

I don't want to have kids.

There. I said it. Lately a lot of people seem to be asking, so I thought I'd save everyone the trouble and just come right out with it. Most people are surprised to hear me say, "Nope, no kids for me!" And I just continue to be surprised that people - many I barely know - think it's acceptable to ask me such a personal question in the first place. I mean, I don't go around asking what you do with YOUR sex organs, do I? Why don't you just ask me how my last Pap smear was while you're at it? Gawd. But it's happened so often and with such increasing frequency that I've come to realize there's no changing it. People are going to ask me this question for the rest of my life, so I better get used to answering.

There are two basic responses that I receive when I tell people I don't want to have a baby. The first is, "Oh, you'll change your mind," which is sometimes followed by, "when you meet the right person to be their dad." (I got that second part a lot more often before I was in a serious relationship.) The other response usually comes after my second or third insistence that kids aren't for me, and sounds something like, "Are you sure? But how do you know?"

Both of these reactions irritate the shit out of me.

First of all, telling me that I'm going to change my mind minimizes a major life decision that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. In fact, I'm willing to bet that I've spent more time deciding that I don't want to have children than many people who actually have children spent thinking about becoming parents. Which, considering the level of commitment involved in being a parent, is a little pathetic.

No one EVER tells an expectant parent that he or she is going to change his or her mind about that decision. And rightfully so, it'd be a super shitty thing to say. What would be the point? It is one of the few irreversible decisions that a human being, especially a woman, can make. Once you've had a baby you can never un-have it. Jobs you can quit, husbands you can divorce, mortgages you can walk away from, but you can never, ever change the fact that you had a kid. Parents, mothers especially, who realize too late that maybe they didn't really want to have a child after all are not judged kindly by society, and many become negligent parents who do tremendous harm - both emotional and physical - to the children who are in their care. It is not socially acceptable to tell a roundly pregnant woman, "You might change your mind!" And it should be equally unacceptable to say it to me. Yes, I realize that it's possible that I may live to regret my decision, but if and when I ever do it will be much too late to do anything about it. And which situation is worse, not having a kid and regretting it, or having a kid and regretting it? Exactly. So shut up already.

The second response, "But how do you know?" is irritating because no one is ever satisfied with my reasons. If I say, "I just know it's not for me," they shake their heads doubtfully, and press me for a more valid response. But a mom who says, "I just knew I wanted to have kids," gets nods of appreciation and admiration from her audience. Why is my understanding of my own feelings somehow less authoritative? I've never felt the urge, never felt compelled, never felt a pang of longing when seeing a mom with her newborn, never wished myself in her position. Shouldn't that mean something?

If I say, "I'm too selfish to be a good parent," I get frowned at. Like it's so terrible to admit that there are things about my life that I enjoy too much to give up in order to have a kid. Look, I like staying out late on the weekends without coming home if I want to. I like being free to quit my job and join the Peace Corps if I want to. I like being able to donate a (very) little bit of money to charities I care about. I like being able to skip a bill in favor of buying a pair of shoes that I totally don't need if I want to. I like feeling like I can leave my 401(k) to my best friend's son or my niece and my nephew or whoever I want to and it will not be expected, only appreciated. I like knowing that if I needed to take care of my parents as they get older that I'd be available to do so. I value my freedom and flexibility. I said I was too selfish to be a good parent, I didn't say I was too selfish to be a good person. Plenty of good people end up being bad parents - I'd like to avoid ever becoming one of them.

Sometimes I'll say, "I do not want to put my physical body through a pregnancy." That really raises the eyebrows. I know a lot of women who have had babies. Some of them loved being pregnant. Some of them hated it. All had struggles of some kind or another - either prior to, during, or after their pregnancies, and some of those struggles were very serious. To quote my best friend, "Growing a human being is hard." Damn straight it is, and I know I'm not up for the challenge. Plus, I like my body just the way it is and I'm not willing to upset the ecosystem by bearing a child. Post-baby bodies (and breasts, and vaginas, and hormones) are difficult to navigate. I'll pass.

I will often respond with, "I really can't afford to have a child," and then I get pooh-poohed, like kids aren't expensive as HELL, but I'm dead serious. Don't believe me? If I were to get pregnant this year I'd spend almost a quarter of a million dollars on the kid by the time it turned 17. That's an average of $12,800 a year for the next 18 years. I don't have that. I don't have anywhere close to that. Now if I didn't pay for the kid to go to college I'd save myself a good chunk of money, but considering what I spend each month on my own student loan payments and the even-increasing cost of a college education in this country, there is no way I'd willingly have a kid unless I could pay for all or most of its education. Even sans college the cost of raising a kid is over $8,000 a year, which is $8,000 a year more than I can afford. Would you encourage me to buy a house I couldn't afford? No. So stop encouraging me to have a kid I couldn't afford. (You can use this calculator to figure out what it would cost you to have a baby, if you're curious.)

The thing that is most annoying about telling people I don't want to have children is that they often assume that I don't like children, which couldn't be further from the truth. I love children! I look forward to being Aunt Maria to both real and honorary nieces and nephews for the rest of my life. I believe it is precisely because I respect and love children so much, and believe that every last baby on this planet ought to be born to parents who want it and will work as hard as they can all the days of their lives in order to care for it properly, that I don't want one of my own.

So it'd be nice if everyone, especially other women, could stop with all the questioning. Lay off with all the disbelief and insinuation - both subtle and overt - that my choice is somehow wrong or invalid just because it is not traditional. Because every time I'm unfairly judged that way it feels like a hit right to the babymaker.

More Comfortable and More Exciting

About a year and a half ago, one especially brilliant friend and I were discussing what it means when two people really love each other. More specifically, we were discussing how you can tell when a man is genuinely in love with you. For really real in love, in that mature, grownup way that happens rarely and is sought-after the world over.  There was some discussion that I don’t particularly remember (probably because my memory of it was eclipsed by what she said next), and then Ann dropped this little gem, “If a man is in love with you, he will use whatever resources are available to him – be it time, money or sheer creativity – in order to make your life more comfortable and more exciting.”

At the time this sounded logical.  Straightforward. Perfectly definitive!  And it resonated with me because most of the things that deeply troubled me in my past relationships related to incidents where I felt my former partners were behaving selfishly, inconsiderately, or both; occasions upon which my life was made decidedly less comfortable and markedly less exciting by their actions. If only I had been armed with this knowledge! I could have applied it to so many situations by asking myself, “Does he use his available resources to make my life better?” And after repeatedly answering in the negative, as I surely would have, perhaps I could have avoided investing so much time and effort in relationships that were always ever only going to fall apart.

I fell asleep that night thinking about her statement, and woke up the next morning still thinking about it, and I started wondering if these criteria for determining whether or not a man loves you were perhaps too simple? I mean, after so many years of attempting to figure this out through my personal experience I’d never come anywhere close to narrowing it down to one simple, all-encompassing sentence. Not to mention all my exploration through fictitious literature and film scenarios. If someone had asked me the day before our conversation how you know when someone is in love with you, I would have had only vague and flowery words to offer in response. Perhaps, “Oh, you just know when you know.” Or, “You can feel it in your bones.” Embarrassingly silly, I admit, yet sadly true.

But now, thanks to Ann, I had this new concept. This powerful idea that a true partner, someone who actually loves you as he says he does, will back up those words with deeds. He will walk the walk! And it will come naturally to him, both because of his genuine love and affection for you, and because he is not a total douchebag. I wasn’t looking in a mirror while pondering all of this, but I’m fairly sure my eyes were twinkling at the time, thinking of all the ways to use this wisdom in the future. The next time a potential love candidate showed up on my radar, I would know how to identify him. I put Ann’s words in my pocket that night and have been carrying them around with me for the past year and a half.

I used that time to make observations and test them against my new method. To my delight, I found a lot of love all around me. And when I say “a lot,” I mean a lot. It was abundant. The proof was in surprise, elaborate, or expensive (but always thoughtful) gifts for a partner’s birthday, Christmas or no particular reason at all. It was in offers to help with undesirable tasks – like staying up late on a school night to bake many dozens of cookies, doing loads upon loads of laundry, and helping someone move. It was in taking out the garbage without being asked to, planning surprise birthday parties, cooking a favorite meal, and saving the last bite. It was in finish line proposals, the exchanging of vows on Caribbean beaches, and in less traditional commitments. It was in hospital rooms at the birth of first babies.  It was in the building of plush dog houses for neighborhood strays.  It was in the opening of hard-to-open jars, and the checking of tire pressure that may be too low, and the purchasing of hard-to-afford plane tickets, and the bandaging of cuts, and the wiping of tears. It was so ubiquitous that I felt shame at my failure to notice it for such a long time.

And now I think it may be facing me. It’s possible that someone just might love me like that. He brings me pizza and “Say Anything” and Super Mario Brothers 3 when I’m sick. He kills spiders and reaches hard to reach items and lifts heavy boxes. He makes sure my bicycle tires have enough air in them and gives me pepper spray because he wants me to be safe. He accompanies me to Bed, Bath and Beyond and dances to Bruce Springsteen in the aisle and surprises me with fancy knives for no reason at the checkout counter. He never ruins the plot of a movie he’s seen that I haven’t. He snuggles with my cats. He makes me laugh. He spoons me. He sings along. He suggests a weekend trip to Chicago and a random lobster dinner and thinks I’m beautiful without an ounce of makeup on my cheeks. He is intelligent and generous and passionate and he makes my life both more comfortable and more exciting.

I win! He wins! We both win.

The Vagina Conversations

My dear friend Nik recently emailed me to let me know she will be performing in an upcoming production of The Vagina Monologues. Unfortunately I can’t attend to support her and her vagina (she lives 10 hours away), but her email made me realize that the reappearance of The Vagina Monologues in art culture at this moment in American history is extremely important. Perhaps more now than ever before.

I remember attending a production of TVM in college, when I was bright-eyed and innocent and struggling to develop and solidify my nascent opinions about the rights of women in America. I invited my mom to my college town for the Valentine’s Day performance because I thought she’d enjoy it (and probably also in the hope that she’d take me out for a dinner of higher quality than Ramen noodles, and foot the bill), and she had the misfortune to trip and fall in the aisle of the theater. (Don't worry, she was OK.) Having inherited her charming clumsiness myself, she often recollects this event when one of us trips or falls but she gets the name wrong, calling it alternately, “The Vagina Dialogues,” or, “The Vagina Conversations.”

It seems that each day’s news brings me more information about American politicians – especially male politicians – who could probably benefit from a straightforward conversation with an American vagina or two. Men who claim that it oppresses their right to religious freedom to have to provide health insurance that covers contraception. Men who want women seeking an abortion to submit to an invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound, be lectured on the parts of the fetus, and then wait 24 hours before being able to have the procedure. Men who declare that they want abortion to be illegal, while simultaneously slashing funding for programs like sex education, preventive health care for women, and accessible contraception – three things that are proven to reduce the occurrence of abortion. In other words, men who really hate women who enjoy having sex just for the pure physical and emotional enjoyment it brings. Men who hate women like me, who subscribe to no religion, derive great pleasure from non-marital sex, and are childless and prefer to keep it that way, thankyouverymuch.

As the national discourse on this topic, which is unfairly dominated by close-minded men, continues to escalate, I find myself experiencing a multitude of emotions.  They range from disbelief (Are you fucking kidding me?) to utter outrage (ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?). Yet more than anything else I keep returning to disappointment of a magnitude that I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced before. I’m disappointed in the group of politicians who are waging this war against women, and I’m disappointed that there has not been an uproar so deafeningly loud that it instantly silenced those very same politicians. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it is extraordinarily unlikely that I will be able to convince anyone who disagrees with me to see things from my perspective. They seem to have their beliefs (and inevitably their religion) and they are holding on tight and closing their eyes and shaking their heads and that is pretty much that.

But what about the people who agree with me and somehow aren’t incensed enough to be screaming at the tops of their lungs about these state-sponsored abuses? Being an optimist I have to believe that there are enough people, women especially, who possess the minimum amount of required common sense to see that the political agenda being proposed and executed by religious conservatives across the country is disrespectful, abusive, and short-sighted. Why aren’t they following Nik’s lead and finding a production of The Vagina Monologues in which to participate? Why aren’t they speaking up on their Facebook pages and blogs and writing letters to their elected officials (my current preferred methods of civil discourse)? Why aren’t they livid and letting everyone know about it?

Perhaps it’s because, like the majority of women in America, they don’t believe they will really ever need or want to get an abortion. And since they already have to pay their $30 co-pay for their birth control pill each month, it’s not too terrible a stretch to have to spend another $30 to cover the whole cost. Maybe the added expenditure each month is worth it to avoid a series of uncomfortable conversations with their families, friends, co-workers, and community members.  It’s also possible that – what with the time and effort women are spending pursuing education, starting and maintaining strong careers, supporting spouses and partners, and raising children – they simply don’t have the time or energy to put up a fight.

But maybe it’s even worse than that. Maybe it’s because they are worried that they will be further and publicly insulted and disrespected and just prefer not to subject themselves to any more nonsense than they’ve already had to endure – like being accused of being a slut, as Sandra Fluke recently was by Rush Limbaugh, or being wrongly characterized as a group of human beings too ignorant to decide for themselves what’s best for their bodies and their lives and their families. If this is part of the reason for what I believe to be relative silence on the part of many people (especially women!) who ought to be speaking up, then I have some words of encouragement: What a woman consents to do with her vagina and with whom she consents to do those things is nobody’s fucking business except hers and the person or people with whom she does whatever it is she’s doing. If I want to have a lot of sex and never want to have a baby that is MY business. If YOU don’t believe that contraception is moral, then YOU don’t have to use it. And that is your business. If YOU don’t believe that abortion is moral, then YOU don’t have to get one. And that is your business. It seems that some politicians and leaders of conservative thought in this country need to be constantly reminded of this. So let's remind them.

When I read articles like this one I feel like I’ve woken up in some terrible episode of The Twilight Zone. This is 2012, right? We live in the United States of America, right? Are men REALLY still THIS threatened by female sexuality? After how hard we’ve worked as a nation to promote the rights of women, are we seriously letting this happen? We must stop it, and to do that we have to speak up. We have to speak out. We have to DO something – lots of things! So I’ll ask you, please, please, email your representatives in Congress. Share this blog post with someone. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Tweet a news article that you think is important. Or, you know, go all out and do ALL of those things, and then participate in a performance of The Vagina Monologues like my homegirl Nik.