Simply the stressed

I need a stress relief ball to squeeze. They're always there when you don't need them (waiting in line at Bartell Drugstore) and they're never there when ya do (right now).

This urge to clinch a sand filled balloon comes from an epiphany I had in the shower yesterday. I am STRESSED OUT. To make matters worse, I am not just temporarily stressed out- it is part of my personality! Hells bells.

I know this revelation probably comes as no surprise to many of you, but to me it was shocking. I've always pitched myself as a laid back person. Ha!

Silver lining: this explains a lot.

Why I have irritable bowel syndrome. Why I have restless leg syndrome. Why I webmd things. Why I never successfully open cereal boxes (impatience coupled with stress). Why I want to cry right before I sign into my school email. Why I eat popcorn really fast. Why I speed walk to every destination. Why the sight of elderly people fills me with guilt. Why I bite my nails. Why I chew gum a pack at a time. Why I sigh so much. Why I don't sleep.

So on and so forth.

It all comes down to priorities- what REALLY matters? Not a lot. It doesn't take much to be happy. I have everything I need.

Love,

Margaret

Suit Yourself

The other day we were playing the game "what would I buy you if I won the lottery".

I told Andy I would buy him a set of perfectly custom-tailored suits in the style of every decade since the 1920s.

What a nice gift, eh?

Well, all the Mad Men I've been watching lately has given me a new appreciation for mens' suits. It really is a sharp look. Classy. Powerful. Serious. Important.

As for the female suit- meh, I am not convinced. Actually, I think I might hate female-business-chic. Pencil skirts, white blouses, blazers. Doesn't work for me. Again, with Mad Men as my muse, I much prefer colorful and printed dresses. Old fashioned, maybe, but also more flattering and more fun.

On a completely unrelated note, I have come up with about a million potential dissertations that I prefer to my own. Some include:

1. A Winning Foreign "Ball-icy": How sports aids international diplomacy.

2. Candidate Mr. None of the Above: The history of politician name-changing for better ballot positioning.

3. The political ecosystem of national animals- the food chain from the Latvian White Wagtail to the Armenian Dragon.

4. Vitamin Addiction: A Mental Illness

Well, that's all for now. I am watching the health care bill votes via nytimes.com- vurrrry interesting.

Toodledo,

Mog

Grey Areas: The Good, The Bad, The something in-between good and bad.

I tend to shy away from defining things in black and white. Everything is a bit of both. Life is complex. It'd be irresponsible to think in such dichotomized terms. Right?

However, I can't help but think that floating around in this purgatory of opinion makes me a pathetic weakling. I can manipulate any topic so neither side is credible, or both sides have areas of merit, or perhaps boiling it down to two sides is dangerously oversimplifying things. I'm too good at this, it makes me queasy. I remember Max Kay once told me "At a certain point, you have to choose a side". We were talking about Democrats and Republicans, but the sentence could be applied to a lot of topics (satsumas v. clementines for example).

BUT, to stick with my inescapable compromise philosophy, I think there are situations that require concise, undoubting conclusions and there are situations that really are too complex to put in a nutshell. It really just depends on the situation. Ahhhhh, I can't help it. I'm a deplorable apologist.

Anyway, something that I am CERTAIN about is peoples' love of lists. So here are some lists for your viewing pleasure:

Enjoyable Grey Areas:

1. Your semi-autistic friend. Everyone has one (or more) of these- a friend who isn't diagnosed with autism, but definitely has some of its quirks. An autism grey area- this could mean saying bizarre, cringe-worthy things, being freakishly talented in one specific area, or having a weird tick.

2. Last orders. When a barman hollers out "last orders" this could mean another hour in the pub. This grey area varies depending on the friendliness of the bar staff and the stubbornness of the patrons.

3. Finger food. Even if you're at a ritzy, 5-star, restaurant, it's still ok to eat some food with your fingers. It's at least acceptable. Ribs? Pizza? Bruschetta? Go for it.

Non-Enjoyable Grey Areas:

1. Teacher's names. Do you call them by their first or last name? If you're sticking with the last name, do you preface it with "Dr", "Professor", or just "Mr/Mrs"?? This is a stressful grey area.

2. High-five? Handshake? Hug? For the past two years I've just gone in for the hug...it's better to go for it than wind up with an awkward fist-pump or a side-hug.

3. Acknowledgement of homeless people who are on the street asking for change. Bear with me- but we've all been in this situation many times. I think most people just ignore and walk past. Some say "sorry" and keep walking. I tend to smile and shake my head. Does anyone actually give them change? Should we? I've heard both.

Also interesting, is the spelling of "grey" is itself a grey area. It can also be spelled "gray". I think.

Have a nice grey (HAHAHHAHAHA),

Madge

P.S. No, I don't think the picture really relates to the "grey areas" topic. I just found it on google image search and liked it.

Phoney and Deafiant

My friend George got punched by a deaf girl last night. The whole thing was very weird.

One of us saw one of them take George's phone off the table while he was up having a boogie to the song "I Saw Her Standing There". You know the one. It goes "She was just seventeeeeeen if you know what I mean. And the way she looked was way beyond compare...". Great song. We were doing the twist, spinning each other around, pointing at the singer and giving all our fellow dancers thumbs ups. If only it was possible to freeze that moment in all of its glory, because what followed was not pleasant.

It really did not help that they were deaf. It made us the bad guys. It made communication difficult -conveniently difficult- or maybe just difficult. They denied taking it before we even asked. I've seen enough episodes of Law&Order to know that's suspicious.

George was calm. He had just returned from two weeks back home in Greece. Goodbye sunshine, family, and delicious fresh-pressed olive oil. Hello frigid weather, puke-splattered streets and phone theft.

He and Andy motioned "Do you have the cell phone? Please give it back" as best they could. The main suspect and his friends heaved and flailed their bodies angrily. I was perplexed by the bizarre scene. They were so angry, but obviously not at the accusation which they knew was justified (by the way, the perpetrator has since texted using George's phone, confirming that he did indeed take it). So what were they angry at?

The situation was almost instantly impossible. We were at a standstill.

Then, in an act of seemingly unprovoked rage, the girlfriend of the main guy lunged at George and smacked him on his right eye. It made his eyebrow piercing bleed and swell a bit. The bartender got him some ice.

Our two options at that point were to leave the pub or to call the police. We just left.

What I learned from the experience:

1. There is no excuse for being objectively angry- not even deafness.

2. Most people are nice and understanding. The bar staff, for example, were genuinely concerned. And I will not forget that before the whole drama happened we were dancing with random, happy, friendly people.

3. Violence is irrational and scary. I felt sick a bit and apparently the bartender's hands were shaking (Andy saw when she was writing down his contact details).

Anyway, on a less depressing, more generic note- isn't the internet great? I'm STILL not over it's incredible awesomeness. Today, in Starbucks, I googled the lyrics to a song that was playing as I ate my chocolate chunk cookie (indulging after last night's insanity). Now the song is purchased and resting patiently in my iTunes library until I can get home and play it without the fear of disturbing the fellow s-bucks patrons. So, yeah, the internet is once again brilliant.

Love you,

Margaret

UPDATE: George has a legit black eye!