tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19840826988783119402024-02-18T21:42:48.096-05:00Allison M SimonAspiring writer. Aspiring human.Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-89708525091897803642012-07-18T09:15:00.001-04:002012-07-18T09:22:21.211-04:00Author Update: Allison M. SimonOk, here’s the long awaited update. Drum roll please.<br />
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Yes, you read the signs correctly. Book number two is out!<br />
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<a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Academy-ebook/dp/B008HHVGM4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342616784&sr=1-1&keywords=franklin+academy" href="http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Academy-ebook/dp/B008HHVGM4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342616784&sr=1-1&keywords=franklin+academy" target="_blank">FRANKLIN ACADEMY</a><br />
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For those who read <a data-mce-href="http://www.amazon.com/Case-Study-Allison-M-Simon/dp/1456574582/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342616831&sr=1-1&keywords=case+study+allison+simon" href="http://www.amazon.com/Case-Study-Allison-M-Simon/dp/1456574582/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342616831&sr=1-1&keywords=case+study+allison+simon" target="_blank">CASE STUDY </a>and loved it, you may or may not love Franklin. For those who read CASE STUDY and hated it, you may or may not love Franklin. It’s very different, and yet similar, because it comes from the same crazy head.<br />
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For more information on Franklin Academy, check out the <a data-mce-href="http://allisonmsimon.com/franklin-academy/" href="http://allisonmsimon.com/franklin-academy/" target="_blank">tab to on my website</a>. You can also read the first few chapters, as well as catch links to buy it for Kindle and paperback. Also, the spectacular cover was designed and photographed by my super-talented little brother <a data-mce-href="http://www.jonmeckes.com/_jon_meckes./HOME.html" href="http://www.jonmeckes.com/_jon_meckes./HOME.html" target="_blank">Jon Meckes </a>(who’s also a fabulous musician).<br />
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Happy reading! (Ok, it’s me, so not so happy.) Intense, mind-bending reading!<br />
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In other news, we have another big announcement. Second drum roll please (too much tympani for one post? Sorry.)<br />
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There will be a sequel to CASE STUDY.<br />
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I’ve received many requests for a sequel and was on the fence due to a variety of factors. Finally, I decided the readers were right. Jesse’s story needs to be resolved definitively and in a satisfying way. Look for it early next year. In the mean time, there are several other works under way.<br />
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Thanks to all of you for reading my books and staying tuned to my website. You’re the best and I always enjoy interacting with you about my novels, blog entries, and anything really.<br />
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That’s all I have for now. Peace.Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-24132614597448892602012-07-07T16:09:00.000-04:002012-07-07T16:19:45.801-04:00Spam Alert: Reconnecting with my Ignored Fans<div class="entry-content">
I know what some of you are thinking. Wait a second, she just published her second book and she’s talking about spam instead? I know, but since when have we been concerned about following logical patterns?<br />
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Ok, I have to apologize to some of you. If you’ve ever tried to comment on one of my posts, you know it requires an authorization process. (I’m speaking to those who submit comments on my website allisonmsimon.com, not the blogspot version. Yes, I mirror the same posts on both. Yes, it’s because I only have twenty readers on each and I’m not about to lose half of them to save an extra three minutes.)<br />
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Please know that the authorization process has nothing to do with vetting your comments. I’m not filtering them, it’s the only way I can bar the dozens of spam posts I get each day. The thing is, the spammers are getting better. Sometimes it’s hard to filter out which comments are legit and which aren’t. Sorry if I ever deleted yours by accident.<br />
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As time has gone on, however, I realized that I’m not really <a href="http://allisonmsimon.com/2011/09/letter-to-my-ignored-fans/" target="_blank">being fair to the bots</a>, They took the time to attack my site. If I’m not going to approve their comments, the least I can do is respond.<br />
So, here. I’ll do even better than posting your comments. I’ll give you an entire blog entry.<br />
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<strong>From:</strong> Cinthia<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “My Opponent Hates Babies”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>“Wow! Great to find a post konkcing my socks off!”</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Cinthia</strong>:<br />
Thanks. I try. If I can konkc the socks off just one person with each post, I consider myself a success and my job complete. I take it you dabble in politics?<br />
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<strong>From</strong>: easy surveys for money<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “Weighing in on Generational Angst”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>“If you want to make $20-$50/hour and up to $3500/month of your time working at<br />home part-time then this is the most important message you’re ever going to read…<br />�<br />It may sound hard to believe, but it’s true. There are thousands of companies out there who are willing to pay for your opinions regarding their products. This is an important part of product research, and they rely on people just like you for your honest opinion!<br />�<br />Imagine getting paid for doing things like:<br />�<br />- Trying out new menu items from popular restaurants<br />- Take short surveys about new cars that are coming out soon<br />- Give your opinion about new clothing and shoe designs<br />But here’s a problem, it’s very hard to find out best survey site and you probably can waste too much time but I just stumbled up website (link redacted) where this guy Jack revealed his secret source where he registered and taking surveys in his free time and earning $265 within 12h and $1440 just within 2 weeks<br />�<br />Click Here To read this amazing story : (link redacted)</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Easy Surveys</strong>:<br />
Wow, kudos to Jack for sharing his secret. Personally, I’d probably keep it and make $795 within 12h and $4320 just within 2 weeks, instead. Then I could FINALLY buy an iPhone and MacBook like everyone else. Clearly, you don’t need basic writing skills to do this job, so that’s a plus, and I’m obviously an expert on <a href="http://allisonmsimon.com/2012/04/in-defense-of-fashionistas-and-fashionistos/" target="_blank">new clothing and shoe designs</a> so I can see this being a match made in heaven.<br />
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I have to be honest though, Easy Surveys. As exciting as this sounds, it might not be the most important message I ever read like you promised. I do find it fitting that you sent this to my post on Generational Angst and the struggle of young families versus the older generations to make ends meet relative to their expectations. Obviously, you connected with my thoughts and have done your best, like Jack, to make the world a little brighter. You’re a good man.<br />
<br />
No, I’m not clicking that.<br />
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<strong>From</strong>: Nhlanhla<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie: When Cookies Go Silent”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>Wow Sandi thank you for stopping by and conientmmg on my post. I am rejoicing with you that God found you and your husband in His perfect timing, and that you are leading your family in the Lord. I clicked on your comment to come here and thank you for taking the time to leave such a sweet comment. I am so surprised that you featured my post right here on your blog! Thank you!In poking around your blog, I found we have a good bit in common. I’m sure we will visit each other many times. It’s great to meet a fellow homeschooling Christian sister!Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!-Allison</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Nhlanhla</strong>:<br />
Who’s Sandi? Did I miss something? And why was she conientmmg on your post? Sorry about that. I hope I had nothing to do with it. Oh, ok, God put us together. Got it. Wait…what? I don’t remember the part of my childhood where I was homeschooled. I was a sister though, to Jonathan, not you. Oh, I see I wrote this to myself. In honor of Valentine’s Day – in July. Apparently, we didn’t cover calendars in homeschooling.<br />
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<strong>From</strong>: Roberta<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “Jealous of Jessica (but not her power suits)”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>my email adress is only a difefrent name so no one knows my real name but its safe wuth you okay so today i got a fortune saying you will conquer obstacles to achieve success. what does it mean? please reply to my email</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Roberta</strong>:<br />
Oh, well, no, I don’t think so. And if you don’t know what that fortune means, I’m not sure what I could do to help you.<br />
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By the way, capitals and punctuation go a long way. Tell your friends.<br />
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<strong>From</strong>: Aoi<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “In Defense of Fashionistas (and Fashionistos)”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>Hi Ari. She’s right about “it comes back, it repeats iseltf.” Clothes always do. What a beautiful lady who looks so full of life and seems so happy. You really know how to find them. Thanks for sharing. I did a post the other day about your blog and how enjoyable it is. Gave out your link so that other’s could come and enjoy too. Take care and thanks.</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Aoi</strong>:<br />
Hi Aoi. Nice of you to drop in. My name’s not Ari, but that’s ok.<br />
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I don’t think I was there for that conversation. It’s not ringing a bell, but I agree with you that fashion trends tend to repeat themselves. That’s what you meant with your cryptic statement regarding the photo of the dead lady, right?<br />
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Please don’t give my link out to your friends. I don’t want to have to pay for a spam filter and I’m already on the cusp of needing one. Thanks, though.<br />
<br />
<strong>From</strong>: Marvin<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “A Good Villain”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>WOW !!! The “teasers” are fabulous. Can’t wait to see the rest. Jenna, you did a wuoedrfnl job, but then you had such beautiful subjects in Allison and Jesse. Thank you for capturing the true essence of them. It was great meeting you (again?) and having you as our guest. With love, Gail and Larry</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Marvin</strong>:<br />
I haven’t hidden anything from you. Look around. Knock yourself out. It’s a little creepy that you’re implying I share an essence with a character from my novel, but as far as fake people go, he’s pretty cool so I guess I can live with that. I have to admit I’m not as impressed as you are by what Jenna has accomplished. Since Jesse’s true essence is the fact that he doesn’t exist, it’s probably not difficult to capture it. Well, then again, that’s nearly impossible so I take it back. What Jenna did is actually really impressive.<br />
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It was great meeting you too, Marvin, but no, I don’t think we’ve met before. Oh, I mean Gail. And Larry.<br />
<br />
<strong>From</strong>: Trisna<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “Coffee Chat #1”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>2011 Thanks, I have recently been saeichrng for information about this subject for ages and yours is the best I have discovered so far. But, what about the bottom line? Are you sure about the source?</em><br />
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<strong>Dear Trisna</strong>:<br />
100% positive. I was there when I wrote it. I’m sorry your life is so dull that a post of me rambling random facts is a.) something you’ve been scouring the earth for, and b.) was the best you could find with your massive efforts.<br />
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As for the bottom line, I’ll hook you up with my new friend “Easy Surveys for Money.” I bet he could help you with that. Now, that’s a source I can’t confirm. Let me know how that works out for you.<br />
<br />
<strong>From</strong>: James<br />
<strong>Posted to</strong>: “Allison: Acknowledging the Acknowledgments”<br />
<strong>Message</strong>:<br />
<em>Several of these replies on this post are garbage, You should delete them.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>Dear James</strong>:<br />
I couldn’t agree more. Already done.</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-39809286496509567512012-06-22T09:35:00.002-04:002012-06-22T09:35:48.318-04:00Facebook Fraud: It’s Time for a Facebook Manual<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So all the kids are doing it. And now the moms, dads, and grandparents, too. </div>
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I realized the other day that I’m kind of a hypocrite when it comes to social-networking. I’m a bona fide Facebook Fraud.</div>
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I don’t surf. I don’t post pictures. I don’t tag people or know what those sparkly-looking games are. I don’t know how to turn some things off and other things on. I don’t understand why people I don’t know can invite me to things I can’t go to and copy me on messages I don’t need to see. </div>
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I’m a flyby user who logs in when I get an e-mail notification that someone contacted me. If your headline pops up in that big box at exactly the moment I enter my username and password, I’m happy to comment, but it’s really nothing short of luck. It’s not that I don’t care about all the other things you’ve said, I just didn’t see them. </div>
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Call me a social-networking hypocrite, but Facebook is a tool for me. A way to contact people and disperse information at a viral pace. The thing is, it hasn’t replaced my real-life social-networking, which means I’ve been left in the dust. </div>
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It’s not hate, because I actually like Facebook in theory. I’m on board with the concept of being able to connect with almost anyone at any time. Even though I’ve never said a word to half the people on my friend list, there’s a certain security in knowing I could.</div>
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My real problem is that it changed the landscape of our culture away from the screen. It’s created several new problems and didn’t fix some of the ones it should have. I’m not a heavy user (as is obvious by the calendar months separating my wall posts), so here are some results of that deficiency:</div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">I didn’t send a card.</li>
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Remember when your friends use to call you with big news like they were getting married or having a baby? Some of you may even remember when news came through letters and postcards. Now, I’m responsible for staying up-to-date on other people’s milestones. The burden is on me to poke my head into their universe, not on them to push the highlights into mine.</div>
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When I find out a week after something happened, I don’t get an apology, I get an annoyed response because I didn’t add a comment to the original post(s). After all, they “announced it” in plenty of time. </div>
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That’s fantastic, but based on my usage pattern, the statistical probability of me seeing that post works out to about .78%. I didn’t see it, sorry. </div>
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Congratulations, by the way.</div>
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<ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No more small talk.</li>
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This one really hits home. I’m not great with small talk to begin with. I have this chip in my brain that insists people have things to do. They don’t want to waste time talking to me about the current humidity level and positioning of the sun. It’s not that I’m aloof. I’m not even shy. I love people and I love talking to them, I just can’t convince my brain that it’s ok to bother them with stuff like that. </div>
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If someone approaches me and wants to chat about whether or not it’s hot enough for me, by all means, I’ll give them my opinion until the bus arrives to take us to the airport. But my subconscious immediately shuts off my frontal lobe at the idea of initiating such a conversation with the Kindle-reader next to me.</div>
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I have the same issue at parties with people I know. Those close to me understand this, and are happy to discuss the socio-political ramifications of legalizing gambling in a small municipality or why a particular marketing campaign failed and what the Fortune 500 company should do differently. </div>
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With the rest of my casual friends and acquaintances, it’s “so how’s that new job working out? How’s little Suzy? I heard you were buying a house?” I just started getting good at that when Facebook came along. Now, those perfectly legitimate icebreakers are the equivalent of saying “so, I see you wore a yellow shirt.” </div>
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I get the look that says, “How can you even ask that? I’ve been detailing the entire correspondence chain with our realtor and narrated the play-by-play for Suzy’s trip to the dentist last week to fix her broken tooth. And didn’t you know I lost out to Jerry in Accounting for the job after all and am still formatting spreadsheets for the VP of marketing? My status update yesterday was that I wished I could stab myself in the eye.” </div>
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Some of them even utter nicer versions of “the entire story’s on Facebook if you want to check it out.” Yeah, I don’t. I just wanted talk to you. </div>
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But I really like your yellow shirt. Sorry about Suzy.</div>
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<ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">No such thing as TMI.</li>
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A friend and I love to use the term TMI (too much information), mostly because we know it’s ridiculous that two women with careers and families actually use that term in serious conversation. But my goodness, Facebook has completely eliminated the concept from our lives.</div>
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It used to be that things done in the bathroom and bedroom were private. We didn’t broadcast our faults and moments of poor judgment. Now we have apps for that. Yep, you can stamp your name on your career coffin before you even leave the bar.</div>
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On a daily basis, we can watch people get heated about something or other and implode in front of hundreds of people. What would have been a venting tirade with a close friend over a glass of wine, now becomes a public display of insanity that will define you in the minds of thousands of friends and friends of friends. </div>
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I have a rule. When I’m tempted to post something, I first delete it, and then post it later if I still think it’s a good idea. It’s almost never determined to be a good idea.</div>
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<ol start="4" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">As if we needed to extend office politics to our personal lives.</li>
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Have you noticed we now have the term, “Facebook Etiquette”? The irony is that this lovely euphemism refers to a set of standard codes and procedures that doesn’t exist. We’re making it up as we go, and the process is governed mostly by trial and error. Here’s some Facebook math:</div>
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Nebulous rules + Public Persona + Permanent Record = Dramatic Apologies</div>
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“Ok, so that ruined four relationships and cost me my Christmas bonus. Guess I’ll add that to item 4.a. in what not to post on someone’s wall.”</div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;">Wow. That is not my best angle.</li>
</ol>
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This one ties closely to item #4. We’ve lost a significant amount of control over our own lives. You can be a hermit and click every privacy setting in your profile. You can use a picture of a bar of soap as your profile image and it still doesn’t mean your entire life won’t be slapped all over the internet for the world to see. </div>
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I don’t know how many pictures of me are on Facebook, probably hundreds, and I didn’t post a single one. Advice columnists love to respond to complaints with useless ideas like “you need to ask people to take them down if you don’t want them up.” Sure, like that’s gonna happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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For one, there’s no way to do that without making yourself sound like a complete tool to everyone you know and love. Second, I’m not even sure that’s possible. I know about the ones where people tagged me. What about the ones when they didn’t? </div>
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(And to those who are reading this and have posted some, don’t worry. I’m not upset about it. Just take down the ones where my eyes are half-shut and make me look like a drunk zombie.)</div>
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It’s the same with information. Thankfully, my friends are generally respectful and conscientious, but we all know there’s not much preventing a spiteful (or stupid) acquaintance from destroying your life with almost nothing but a Facebook account. </div>
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I heard a radio personality talking about the study that found the word “Facebook” in an astronomical percentage of divorce proceeding transcripts. </div>
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And what are you going to do to stop it? If you can answer that, please let me know because right now my best idea is to crawl into a ditch and wait for the Apocalypse. I can accept that for plan “H” but I’d like an “A” through “G” as well.</div>
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The scary thing is, I could probably add several more bullet points, but I won’t do that to you. You get my point. So yes, you will see me using Facebook. You will even see me seem to like Facebook when I post (I do). Just don’t get mad at me if I accidentally post on your wall instead of update my status, or deny your friend request when I meant to accept it. I probably didn’t see your post about anything unless you did something to trigger my e-mail notification system. It’s not that I don’t like you or care, I do, I’m just Facebook deficient.</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-89194176515876692422012-06-13T10:03:00.001-04:002012-06-13T10:05:28.044-04:00Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie: Animal KingdomBefore we start, I’d like to give a nod to Angela & Chris. You’re awesome. I did the math and you account for 40% of my fan base so well done!<br />
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(Editor’s note: You may submit all requests for fortune cookie interpretations through the comment sections on Allison’s blogs or contact her through <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Allison-M-Simon/131614773577921" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. And while you’re there, “like” me so I can hit 30 fans and be able to actually see stats.)<br />
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Let’s get right to it. As always, these are actual fortunes from fortune cookies.<br />
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<em>Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie,</em><br />
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<em>“It’s better to be the beak of a hen than the tail of an ox.”</em><br />
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<em>Good luck,</em><br />
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<em>Not A Farm Animal</em><br />
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Dear Farm Animal,<br />
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I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re younger. Maybe high school, maybe college. Either that or you’re a slacker who just now realized Mom’s garage isn’t cutting it and you need a job. Whatever your station in life, it’s clear that you’re at a crossroads and the cookie gods see warning lights.<br />
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Look, you’ve got two choices.<br />
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On the surface there’s the less glamorous “beak” route. That’s going to take time, effort, maybe even more schooling. Only you know the details, but you’re not sure it’s worth it. So you go through all that, then what? You get to pluck worms off the sidewalk? Awesome. They’re slimy.<br />
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The pretty option is to take the low-hanging fruit and be the ox tail. Slip right into a defined role, no ambiguity, easy to visualize. Very safe.<br />
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But I’m warning you now, that’s not where you want to go.<br />
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You’re missing a very important distinction: hen beaks do a lot more than just slurp worms. They also gather seeds and make nests. Heck, if you’re in a horror movie, they can peck people’s eyes out and portend doom.<br />
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Being an ox tail has no risk, so I see the attraction, I do. But no risk, no reward, right? Latch onto the ox and hopefully you like swatting flies of animal butts, because that’s all you get and all you’ll ever get.<br />
Build nests and peck people’s eyes out, don’t swat flies.<br />
________________<br />
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<em>Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie,</em><br />
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<em>I thought you would like this one:</em><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiTo7Ot0dqXyp6DpEN9f9fzwoqGdzdUqSUkRW2k09K265zVe6zQvrc-DiE4yCZ5nATRciu1yWSaOBI0Wyn9tp3-JH9dth7-9xmxh-xgve1dTJs0PtRxBWiLCn93ORQO7hrcFEwEMzZqg/s1600/fortune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" pca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiTo7Ot0dqXyp6DpEN9f9fzwoqGdzdUqSUkRW2k09K265zVe6zQvrc-DiE4yCZ5nATRciu1yWSaOBI0Wyn9tp3-JH9dth7-9xmxh-xgve1dTJs0PtRxBWiLCn93ORQO7hrcFEwEMzZqg/s320/fortune.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<em>Sincerely,</em><br />
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<em>Unsigned</em><br />
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Dear Unsigned,<br />
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Thanks for the picture. It makes my blog more attractive to casual drop-ins.<br />
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“People who are late are often happier than those who have to wait for them.”<br />
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I’m going to guess that this one hit home. I’m also going to guess you sent this to me because you’re hoping I twist the obvious message into some contorted interpretation that doesn’t leave you looking like a jerk for being late all the time.<br />
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Sorry. Get a better alarm clock. Better yet, I’ll <a href="http://allisonmsimon.com/2012/03/oh-daylight-savings-wherefore-art-thou-sting/" target="_blank">send you mine</a> .<br />
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Best wishes,<br />
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Dr. Fortune CookieAllison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-74681315094288623972012-05-31T21:33:00.000-04:002012-06-01T12:15:25.699-04:002012 Update: Weighing in on Current Events<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">There’s been a lot going on lately, so let’s get right down to it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">(**Editor’s note: This is not a comprehensive list, so please don’t be offended by the lack of commentary on celebrity deaths, the Edwards trial, and the NBA Draft)</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Facebook IPO Fiasco”:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I love how journalists are scouring their thesauruses to describe the catastrophic event that was the Facebook IPO. The past 20 years have featured mass genocide, multiple wars, horrific terrorist attacks, a tsunami that decimated an entire nation, another one that decimated almost an entire continent, hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, plane crashes, school shootings, high profile child molestation rings, and a global financial meltdown that’s leaving many nations on the brink of economic collapse. A man freakin’ ate another guy’s face (see below) and the media treated the Facebook IPO like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that’s</i> the sign of the Apocalypse (my money’s on the dude eating faces).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Look, I know people lost money. I know it’s looking like another example of Wall Street screwing over Main Street, but really, isn’t that par for the course by now? Are any of us really surprised by what happened? This crap doesn’t even faze me anymore. I’m much more annoyed by the new Timeline setup for our Facebook pages. I’ll be darned if I can find something on my own page, let alone someone else’s. How about using some of your new fortune to fix that, Facebook? </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Phillip Phillips – New American Idol:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Wow. There’s a surprise. A cute white guy playing a guitar won American Idol. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’m not sure why women, non-white men, and people who can’t play guitar even bother at this point.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">There Really Are Zombies:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Not to make light of a horrific incident, but if you haven’t read the account of the homeless man who ate another homeless man’s face, you’re lucky. I was going to link to it, but I can’t bring myself to promote it. We’ll leave the actual details at that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">What I do want to talk about, however, is my frustration with the media and rationalists out there trying to convince me this guy wasn’t a zombie. Let’s talk about zombies for a minute. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">There’s a lot of zombie lore to sift through, but in my opinion, there are three key features that characterize a zombie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They eat people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The guy literally chewed up a man’s face in broad daylight. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Check.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They can only be stopped by death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">He ignored police warnings and kept eating the man through a slew of gunshots. He stopped when he was dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Check.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They’ve lost all mental faculties except the desire to eat people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">He turned to the cops and growled with human flesh hanging from his mouth. Then he continued eating a person until he was shot dead. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Check.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, so here’s where people roll their eyes and say he’s not a zombie, he was just on drugs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Really? That’s it? That’s your argument? I don’t care if tainted Q-tips turn people into zombies. If a guy growls and eats people to the point where he has to be killed to stop, he’s a zombie. Period. Whether it’s because of drugs, a rare virus mutation, Voodoo, or Q-tips, it doesn’t matter. You think the poor man who was attacked cares that the dude only ate his face because of some bad trip? No. He doesn’t. Sometimes the devil isn’t in the details, the devil is just a zombie.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Republican Nomination:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So our 2012 Presidential choices are Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. My question is, does it even matter anymore? Does anyone actually trust either party? Can you even articulate a clear point that either candidate supports? Do we trust our legislators to look out for our best interests instead of their own butts? Even if by some miracle they are, do we actually believe they can make any kind of difference in a system so bureaucratic most ideas never make it out of committee? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">One of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons is when Homer and crew go to Washington DC and learn how laws really get passed. You need to watch it. They should teach 4<sup>th</sup> grade government classes with that show alone. Think of the budget implications. One year of studies condensed into a half hour. Plus a catchy song.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I just ranted against politicians a few weeks ago, so we don’t have to go over this again, but I don’t believe the American people are as stupid as they think we are. They’re so stuck in their career politician bubble that most of them have lost touch with the people they’re supposed to represent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They think we’re too ignorant to vote based on anything but fuzzy sound bites and physical attribute preferences. We’re not, we just know it doesn’t matter anymore. The system is too broken as it stands to think that investing hope in one carbon copy over another is going to make a difference. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’ll keep voting in every election, but only because I want to preserve my right to whine.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Interest Rates:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">OMG! They’re low! Did you know that?? Why didn’t anyone tell me!!</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Lawsuits:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And finally, in case you weren’t aware, people are suing for stupid stuff again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, so maybe politicians do have a point.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-52159191903854725872012-05-10T14:06:00.000-04:002012-05-10T14:06:26.103-04:00I'm Back! And Groveling<div class="entry-content">
Ok, so here’s my belated thank you note.<br />
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You know how you got that candle from Aunt Millie and you suddenly realized in all the hectic craziness of your life you forgot to send a thank you note? You sent the other 12 for those house warming gifts that trickled in over the last month, but poor Aunt Millie is still wondering if you even got the thing, let alone whether it’s on your coffee table. She’s probably miffed at this point, it’s been three months now, and you feel terrible, but what do you do? You can’t just send a quick note like you did for all the others. You’ve missed that window. You need something more. At this point you pretty much have to author a groveling opus that’ll send her into convulsive sobs of touching emotion. That should work, but since you have no idea how to write that, you just continue to hold off. And time drags on. And the sentiment grows. And now you need to send your own candle to make up for it.<br />
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Well, that’s this entry. It’s been weighing on me to post for quite a while, but as time passed my options for acceptable entries diminished. I couldn’t just slap up a Dr. Fortune Cookie response to break the silence. After weeks of nothing, I needed more than a few band recommendations. The worst part is, I’ve even had ideas, just not the time to sit down and execute them.<br />
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So here we are. My groveling post of apology. Feel free to sob and wail.<br />
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There’s no excuse for my silence, but for the sake of an explanation, if there were a time-consuming venture that justified my absence, I’d guess re-writing a 350 page novel would make the list.<br />
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As some of you know, after a couple years of editing, I had finally begun querying my latest project. So far I’m ten for ten in premise interest, zero for ten in writing style fit. Apparently people don’t want to read a high concept YA paranormal suspense novel written in a style suitable for middle-aged psychology professors. Who knew?<br />
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We like lists here, so let’s highlight the three options I faced:<br />
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1. Take the delusional American Idol contestant approach to pursuing success. <br />
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“My mom and choir teacher say this is the bestest book in the world. These dumb agents don’t know a thing about writing. I’ll be back America! This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me! You’ll see! I’m gonna find that niche of APA phD’s who like YA paranormal romances and sell millions of copies! I’m gonna be huge! I’ll haunt your dreams as the one who got away!”<br />
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I’d then waste the next ten years of my life reading kindly worded rejection letters.<br />
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2. Decide there really is an untapped appetite for intriguing premises delivered in an inaccessible, detached tone. I’d then self-publish to find that niche.<br />
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“I’m gonna sell 32 books to people I know!”<br />
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3. I could bite the bullet and realize I have something special and take the hard road to make it happen and do it justice.<br />
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Options 1 & 2 would not have required a several week absence. As I’m sure you can guess, I went with option 3. So here I am. After 1 year of writing, 2 years of editing, countless reviews by friends and acquaintances, dozens of queries, dozens of rewrites of queries, more reviews, more edits, and an insane number of hours, I decided I loved the idea and characters enough to start over. So I did. Which meant I didn’t have much time for blogging.<br />
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Now I’m back. Thanks for your patience. You may not need a tissue, but I do.</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-55139711639581366512012-04-20T09:04:00.001-04:002012-04-20T09:11:56.986-04:00My Opponent Hates Babies<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I was originally going to do a post about American Idol and re-evaluate some of my comments the other day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot can change in a few weeks, and I was happy to revisit the issue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And then, I saw it. American Idol had no chance against this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Shoved between two local ad spots about something I can’t remember, was that grainy, dark, overly dramatic tone that can only mean one thing: political ad. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">There’s a special election for a local race in my district, and campaigning is in full swing. We’ve got yard signs, we’ve got phone calls, we’ve got postcard mailers in our mailboxes. Apparently, that also means we’ve got cheesy political ads.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The reasonable, truth-seeking debater in me hates political ads, which is difficult since the snarky cynic side loves them. Come on, in what other context do you get to make up blatant lies about someone and pretend it’s not your fault by adding “Committee to Elect” in front of you name? I wish I could do that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Allison was late to work today because she rescued a burning bus of kittens on the way, says the Committee to Elect Allison Simon. Cuddles will be forever grateful.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In theory, politics should be the one field that lives and breathes my Primer in Ideological Discourse. It’s not like I spent a lifetime composing that opus of truth and you were fortunate enough to have it bestowed upon you in my final hours. I threw together a few key points in my in-laws’ guest room and slapped them up with numbers in front. Those were general ideas that are supposed to be common sense and certainly second nature to supposed learned professionals. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Seriously, these are people who make a living at events called “Debates.” Their whole existence depends on their knowledge and stance on controversial issues. They wear power suits like nobody’s business. They’re Ivy League millionaires who should follow the rules like you and I stop for freight trains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And yet, they’re notorious for the opposite. We don’t trust them. We don’t believe a word they say. They amaze us with their ability to talk for hours and say nothing. They straddle lines we didn’t even know could be a line, and 9-year-old bullies blush at the pace in which they hurl names.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">At election time we expect stupid commercials that not only insult their opponents, but insult our intelligence as well. I don’t know what I saw last night. Apparently, we’re supposed to believe his opponent is pro-spousal abuse, pro-tearing-down schools-to-drill-for-oil, and pro-whatever-was-going-on-in-the-dark-creepy-geinocological-office. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Right. I’m sure when his opponent sat down with his election committee those were the headings on his “Platform Spreadsheet.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Ok, Sam. So after we legalize abuse, which school should we tear down first? I’m pro-large corporations so let’s just put all the kids in a work camp so they’re not a drain on resources.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Personally, I’m pro-not-being-treated-like-an-idiot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">You know what I really learned from that ad? That the guy running it has a very weak platform if all he could come up with were ridiculous generalities stretched into outright lies. At the very least spend your campaign money on shots of you chatting with an elderly couple in their dated wood-paneled parlor room. Kiss a baby. Bend down and pat a random dog in the park. Smile at the mailman. If you’re not going to say anything of substance, at least make yourself not look like a jerk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And this, everyone, is the perfect illustration of what happens when you don’t follow the rules for respectful ideological discourse. You end up looking silly. You end up looking dishonest and uncomfortable and completely out of your league. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">You end up implying your opponent hates babies and murders bunnies and now you get a blog post. </span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-22174358076209585922012-04-17T20:09:00.000-04:002012-04-17T20:09:49.266-04:00Coffee Chat #1<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I just made coffee. Grab a cup. Have a seat. Let’s talk. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We’ve been getting to know each other for a while now. Wait, no. That’s the problem. Actually, I just drone on and on about myself. That would be fine if I were remotely interesting, but I’m not. The thing is, I happen to know a lot of you out there are. I also know from personal interactions and the private comments you’ve sent that you even relate to some of the posts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So please, this is me, asking you, to make yourselves known. I love getting your private comments. I love talking to you. Now, it’s your turn to talk back. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Please post something about yourself. Anything. Funny. Serious. Completely random. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I feel like we always talk about me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Since it is my blog, I’ll start. You already know more than you want to, but here are some extra tidbits.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’m deathly afraid of spiders. I’m so afraid of spiders that I can’t even kill spiders. I can’t get close enough. I don’t like talking about spiders. I don’t like thinking about spiders. And I especially don’t like people who say “don’t worry, they won’t hurt you.” That’s right. They won’t. Because I won’t go within 10 feet of a spider. So unless it’s one of those weird rainforest leaping spiders or hyper-projectile vomit spiders, it won’t get close enough to hurt me. I even have a built-in spider radar that can detect them way before they detect me. It freaks people out. We’ll be talking and then I freeze. Two rooms over is a spider. They don’t see anything, but it’s there. Trust me. I have to go now. That’s how much I don’t like spiders. I may need help.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">My sunglasses were $5.99, but they look like they were at least $12.99. That’s value.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I like food better in theory than in practice. Eating and preparing food is a nuisance. I’ll be first in line for the pill version. Cooking for me is adding a condiment to my instant mac & cheese. May I recommend horseradish sauce or spicy brown mustard to you heat lovers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Avocado makes a great addition to grilled cheese. Chicken nuggets are more appealing from the oven than the microwave. I use an oven. See? I cook.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I don’t like plants. I should say, I don’t like having plants. I actually like plants, which is why I don’t like when people give them to me. I kill them. I kill them dead no matter how hard I try not to. It’s like they sense fear. My earnestness is a poison to their little green souls. And it’s painful to watch the slow shriveled last breaths that inevitably make our plant-human relationship a tragic mistake. It’s too stressful. I’d rather have a Roman bust.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Speaking of Roman busts, I’m a Rome-a-phile. I like anything about ancient Rome. Movies, books, art, anything. I read books about Rome for fun that make Latin 2 students cringe. Heck, I even took Latin 2 in high school as an elective. I have dozens of worthless Roman coins that I love just because they’re Roman. The thing is, I don’t even admire much about Rome. I’m just fascinated by it.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, enough about me. Your turn. C’mon. Don’t leave me hanging. I already get enough spam from SEO reps telling me they can tell by the lack of comments I don’t have any friends. Yes, SEO rep. That’s a great strategy. Make me feel like a loser. That’ll win my business.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-22725433410750456292012-04-15T14:43:00.000-04:002012-04-15T14:43:56.241-04:00Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie: Planning Your Future<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie,</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">My fortune tonight said "Put your mind into planning today. Look into the future."<br />
<br />
What could this mean? Write a to-do list while gazing into a crystal ball? <br />
<br />
Curiouser and curioser.</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dear Curious,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">It’s a rare treat these days to encounter specific tidbits of prophesy from the cookie gods. For whatever reason in recent years, they have adopted a more vague and universal approach to their communication with us. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In light of that, I certainly can’t blame you for your general approach to interpretation. After all, why should they bless you with a direct message when the rest of us receive only broad truths? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But you’ve been contacted and now have a very specific task ahead of you. I’m glad you’ve sought my counsel while there’s still time. They’re not asking you to plan today’s activities, though you should be opening your date book as we speak. They’re asking you to plan for the future today, as in, right now. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Hopefully, you’re already prepared, but in case you’re not, the cookie gods have warned you, so take heed: This summer is poised to be an exceptional TV season. If your household is not equipped with a DVR, you still have a few weeks to call your cable provider.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Trust me, as an addicted DVR user, they haven’t steered you wrong.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Enjoy,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dr. Fortune Cookie</span></div><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">(Editor’s Note: If you would like to submit your fortune cookie fortune for interpretation, please send your letter to Dr. Fortune Cookie through Allison M Simon’s page on Facebook or as a comment on this website. Comments posted anonymously will remain anonymous.)</span>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-48624838454193102202012-04-11T11:51:00.000-04:002012-04-11T11:51:07.959-04:00In Defense of Fashionistas (and Fashionistos)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, I’m going somewhere I don’t go often. I know I may come across as a pop culture snob at times. “Ooh, look at me! I only watch movies that you have to read! Ooh, I don’t listen to music you’ve heard of! Ooh, I’m not a fan of Twilight. Ooh, I don’t like when people cause car accidents because of their stupid iPhones!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But when it comes to fashion, I came to a harsh realization the other day as I attempted week four of my experiment to be more stylish: it’s all a defense mechanism. I’m the copout, not the masses. See, it’s actually hard work to conform and it’s only fair that I admit it. I know you think my tongue is firmly in my cheek right now, but it’s not. I’m dead serious. “Dressing for Success” is hard and I have respect for those who can do it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’d say my fashion sense straddles a confusing line, but it’s more of a trapezoid, really. Somewhere muddled in rock chic, feminine sporty, laidback urban, and business casual is my wardrobe. I wear what I have. And there’s no rhyme or reason to what I have.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">A few weeks ago I got caught in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Not to Wear </i>web of fashion guilt. As victim after victim marched on camera, I found myself saying “wait, I wore that Tuesday” more often than I would have liked. Inspired by a few friends who somehow look like magazine covers to do yard work, I decided to try my hand at fashion as well. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Let me tell you, it was ugly (but not literally).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reason 1: It’s expensive and time-consuming. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">You have to go to stores. You have to drop what you’re doing, get in your car, and go to stores. You might as well ask me to replace your roof. But I was committed, so there I was, in a store, gazing at the sea of clearance racks like a goldfish asked to pick its favorite three drops of water. I had no clue what I was doing, I only knew I didn’t belong there. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">As other shoppers circled around me with their armloads of ocean water, I sensed I was fighting a losing battle. I studied them for a moment. Studied as they expertly manhandled those racks and seemed to know when to pull something off them and when to keep shuffling. I tried it to. I probably even looked like I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t. I only knew that some things came with free belts and other things didn’t and getting a belt seemed better than not getting a belt.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">After two hours and six thousand garments, I walked away with three shirts and a pair of jeans. That’s fashion, and I stink at it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reason 2: Accessories.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">As if it’s not hard enough picking out a stylish top and pair of pants, truly fashionable people also accessorize. Look at them closely next time you admire someone. They don’t just have the perfect jeans. In addition to clothing, they wear things like scarves. Scarves! It never even occurred to me to pop over to the scarf section after I was done with my belt shirts. And I’m not talking about the functional ones when it’s 20 degrees outside. I’m talking about those pretty circle ones that make someone look like they know what they’re doing. Those are the people I wanted to be, but now know I can’t. I can’t, because I didn’t know about scarves.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They also must have endless drawers of costume jewelry. I have my six pairs of earrings and two necklaces and I thought that was fine. I could cycle among them without a thought. I rarely wear necklaces anyway. They always bang on my laptop or get caught on my seatbelt. But fashionable people don’t cycle. It seems like they never even wear the same piece twice. I have no clue how they do that. No one has that much money. Well, no one I know. So it must be magic or something. I’m not kidding. I know it’s not possible that they’ve never worn the same thing twice, but truly fashionable people are master magicians. They can take the same shirt and make it look like four different shirts spread out over a year. I think as long as I don’t repeat a shirt in the same week I’m good.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">They also know what to do with things like that big feather earring. Yes, I saw it on that turning thingy in the jewelry section. Yes, I thought it looked cool, but I’ll be darned if I’d know what to do with it. But they know. And they look amazing. I’d look like Peacock #2 in the rock musical of Noah’s Ark. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reason 3: Shoes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I have many roles at my job, one of which is in IT. That may sound impressive, but it really means I spend a lot of time crawling around under desks and playing with power cords. I climb on a lot of boxes, stand on chairs, and squeeze behind things. Heels and I don’t have a very good relationship. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Try being a fashionable woman without wearing heels. You can’t. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I have my favorite flats, and they’re not even old lady support shoes. They’re actually various shades of glittery cuteness, but they’re not what I’m supposed to be wearing. I know this because all my pants are too long. Pants are made to be worn with heels. Flat shoes are made to be worn on the one day every two weeks that you don’t wear heels. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And it’s not like you can have just one pair of heels to get you through the season. You need a pair of funky ones to wear with your non-funky outfits to make them work. You need plain ones to wear with your crazy outfits to make those work. That’s what Stacy and Clinton say, and I believe them. I do, the problem is, my logical brain can’t seem to process that. You need at least 5 pairs of heels and you wear them with the opposite of what you think you should. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I can’t wear heels anyway. That means I’ve lost the fashion battle right out of the gate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Reason 4: Go, but not match.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And finally, reason #4 why I will never be as fashionable as I want to be. Stacy says your outfits need to go, but not match. If I knew what that meant, we’d be having a much different monologue right now. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, I should clarify, I know what that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">means, </i>I just have no idea how to execute it. Matching is easy. I’ve been playing that game since preschool. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Oh! Blue! Here’s a blue stripe. Here’s a blue that’s not a stripe. I can wear my blue eye shadow and blue earrings with it!” That makes sense, right? Logical brain says, yes! You have an outfit. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Clinton and Stacy say no! No, no, no! You put that blue stripe with a red<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>top, a yellow handbag and leopard print heels. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Wait, huh? Now the math gets hazy. So if I wear leopard print heels with a leopard handbag, I’m on the show for looking like a hooker, but if I wear leopard print heels with a yellow handbag, I’m accessorizing. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And here’s where the gap between the haves and the have-nots becomes irreparable. This is not a learned a skill. You can give me an unlimited budget, a week of time, a stack of scarves, heels, belts, and jewelry. You can coach me on the right cuts for my body type, the appropriate looks for work versus play, and an entire mountain of choices to achieve it all. But that means nothing if you don’t have the innate ability to distinguish “going” from “matching.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And that’s what it all boils down to, right? The fashionable can stand in that ocean of possibilities and decide which three drops of water they should bring home with them. They know there’s a scarf section and a sunglasses section and a hair section that has those little flowers. They know when to wear those little flowers and when they’d just look like forest nymphs. I’m a forest nymph. And a peacock. And a slob whose pants are too long.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fashion is not a science. It’s an art. It’s an ability. It’s a subjective sixth sense. If it were something that could be learned, I could join their ranks. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.3pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But my experiment taught me that I can’t. I don’t have the gift. I don’t know how to wear a peacock feather. I just want the free belt.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-22433193962005608922012-04-04T12:21:00.001-04:002012-04-04T12:24:17.253-04:00Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie: When Cookies Go Silent<em>Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie,</em><br />
<br />
<em>I had a first. I opened my fortune cookie, and imagine my surprise when it was empty! I looked around, but nothing fell out. My cookie was blank! I know it means something, but I'm not sure what. What do you think?</em><br />
<br />
<em>Thanks,</em><br />
<br />
<em>Empty</em><br />
<br />
<br />
Dear Empty,<br />
<br />
How scary for you. When a cookie goes silent, the world seems to stop for a moment. We're lost without those little slips of paper to help navigate through our complicated existences. I know your confused mind went to one of two places. <br />
<br />
Are you a pessimist? Then you probably began visualizing your doomed life of emptiness. Put down your deposit for a nursing home now, my friend, because you're going to be sick and alone as those final years tick by. An optimist? The world is your oyster. Your destiny is in your hands! Go get 'em, tiger!<br />
<br />
I won't blame you for either. The gods have a way of keeping experts like me employed with their ambiguity. We're human. We've made an art out of reading our bias and perspective into everything around us. Literally, in my case. It's normal. It's common. Unfortunately, it's still wrong.<br />
<br />
See, the cookie isn't interested in your future happiness or despair. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. The radio silence is because it's miffed. <br />
<br />
Did you remember to tip the delivery guy? If so, it wasn't enough.<br />
<br />
Sorry,<br />
<br />
Dr. Fortune CookieAllison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-29543032197297268902012-03-30T10:12:00.003-04:002012-03-30T10:14:01.458-04:00Jealous of Jessica (but not her power suits)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Have you ever been jealous of fiction? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Murder She Wrote </span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">is an old family favorite in my household. It’s an odd mix of inside joke and serious pastime. I like Jessica, she seems fun, but I’d never be friends with her. People always die in weird ways when they hang out and I’m not really on board with that. I want to go quickly and painlessly, not with an ice pick and broken umbrella. Plus, you have to wear terrible shoulder pads and say things like “You’re a worm, Frederick! You’re a complete louse!” in an overly dramatic eighties voice. I’ve never called anyone a louse in my life, although I wouldn’t mind bringing the term back on occasion. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Anyway, I’m going somewhere with this, trust me. I know it’s absurd, but I realized the other day as we strolled down memory lane with a Sunday evening of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Murder She Wrote</i>, that I actually get a twinge every time something happens in a movie, TV show or book. A legitimate twinge, a sinking feeling that makes the entertainment suddenly less entertaining. It’s crazy, but I finally figured it out – I’m jealous! Yes, there it is. I’m jealous of Jessica Fletcher and her deadlines.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Scratch that, I’m jealous of every fictional creature who has deadlines. Do you have any idea how badly I want deadlines? My agent and/or editor would never be hounding me for the next chapter. I wouldn’t be glancing at my phone and rolling my eyes toward my sophisticated friends at their wine and cheese party. “It’s just my editor,” she says. Just your editor?? I want an editor!! I’d do anything for an editor! My editor wouldn’t know what to do with all my chapters! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’m the Queen of Conscientiousness, the Supreme Empress of Deadlines. I make deadlines like other people breathe, for things I don’t even have to do. I have a deadline right now to finish editing my new fantasy novel that no one will ever read. It’s what I do. I’m a Type A personality with an artist’s soul. Figure that one out. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And I’m insanely jealous of people who have deadlines to do the things I do in addition to my real deadlines. It would be a dream come true to meet deadlines for my passion instead of reorganizing the linen closet. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So stop complaining, Jessica! Stop complaining you fictional characters with your lucky breaks and fancy NYC lofts on an editor’s assistant salary. I will take your deadlines! I will take your deadlines and double them, because that’s what I do. I double things. And then I meet them. And then I won’t hate you anymore and we can go to that posh café and chuckle about stuff.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-6233818115195177982012-03-28T17:11:00.000-04:002012-03-28T17:11:56.375-04:00Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie: Feature Introduction<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">There’s a void in our lives. We’ve all been there, and up until now there was no one to fill it quickly and directly. At least, no one whose brain is as out there and eclectic as mine. But, alas, I am here to tell you I’ve heard the call. I have decided to take on the burden, be the answer to your confusion, the voice of reason at the end of your meal. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">That’s why it’s time to introduce my new blog feature: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dear Dr. Fortune Cookie</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">That’s right. From this point forward you no longer have to stare in utter bewilderment at that little slip of paper birthed from a stale orange cookie. See, I have a direct line to the fortune cookie gods and it’s my duty to humanity to share my gift. I may not be an expert on music, or art, or sports, or politics, or social theory, or any of the many other topics I like to discuss, but I am an expert in this. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">That’s right. I will transform that seemingly jumbled mess of letters into the life-changing message it’s supposed to represent. You needed an interpreter and I am your champion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">From this point forward, I am: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dr. Fortune Cookie.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">You may submit all requests for interpretations through the comment sections on my blogs or contact me through <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Allison-M-Simon/131614773577921" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. But it absolutely must be an actual fortune from an actual cookie.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">For now, let the games begin with the first interpretation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dear Dr. Cookie,</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I recently had takeout with my friends and the night was ruined by my baffling fortune. At first I was offended, then just confused. Please help!</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Handsome is as handsome dose.”</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Thanks so much,</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Decidedly Not Handsome</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dear Not Handsome,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Don’t you know that beauty is relative and best represented by an internal condition, not an external one? It is, but that’s not what your cookie is trying to tell you. Sorry. It still thinks you’re ugly. (Kidding!) Ok, so it’s much deeper than that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">At first glance I’m sure you, like my readers, thought “dose” must be a typo for the word “does.” While “does” certainly gives the sentence an actual grammatical structure, the fortune gods are clearly far above the need for comprehendible sentence construction. They meant EXACTLY what they said. They always do.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Handsome is as handsome dose.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">See, is our society superficial? Yes. Do we reward external beauty? Yes. Beautiful people have the edge in every category imaginable except the casting of ugly people in film and TV. And even then, directors are usually happier just to make a beautiful person ugly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 248.6pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Oh, my friend, there’s class warfare going on, and it’s not the rich versus the poor battle you hear about in the media. I’m talking about the pretty versus the ugly. You know what I mean. Just the fact that complete strangers say things like “what’s SHE doing with HIM?” tells you all you need to know about the level of our value on physical appearance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">You were nervous when you saw that the other job candidate was gorgeous, weren’t you? Good! You should have been, because not only did he beat you out for it, he’s now making twice as much as the ugly chick who’s been there forever. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">It sucks, it really does Not Handsome, and I’m sorry you got the short end of the stick. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">But guess what, I have good news for once. The fortune cookie gods have heard your agony. They’ve watched us poison our world with this superficial fluff for long enough! They’ve chosen you, yes YOU, to be their messenger.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">“Handsome is as handsome dose.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">It’s very simple, my dear. So simple I’m not surprised you missed it and I hope you can take this truth with you as you embark on your mission through life with the one advantage you have over beautiful people. The gods didn’t make a typo, they are blessing you with an important fact that will change your perspective: Beautiful people are popular and social. Therefore, they are more prone to illness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Sleep well, my friend.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Sincerely,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Dr. Fortune Cookie</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-80483099439327524772012-03-23T11:02:00.001-04:002012-03-23T21:03:25.919-04:00American Idol: Top 9 Evaluations<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Lately, we’ve been pretty serious here at the blog, so let’s liven things up a bit by talking about a subject we Americans care about infinitely more than free speech and ideological exchange: American Idol.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">As a self-proclaimed pop culture critic, it’s only right that I comment on our most American of American institutions – mediocre singers vying to be named prom Queen on national television. (Come on, we all know singing ability is the least important criterion for winning American Idol.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So as neither a music expert nor pop culture expert, I now give you my non-expert opinion of the Top 9 American Idol contestants of this season. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In no particular order, except reverse alphabetical:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Elise Testone: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Personally, her musical style doesn’t appeal to me, but there’s no doubt this woman can sing. With the current popularity of gritty female vocalists, she’s got an actual shot in the music industry today. She’s a legitimate talent and I wish her the best at finding success after she gets kicked off Idol because she’s not a cute boy or country singer. There’s no way in you-know-what that she’ll win this competition. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Jessica Sanchez:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">She’s cute. She’s stylish. She can sing ok. It’s just not my thing. I’m not sure exactly what the producers are trying to do with this girl, because there’s not much room in the music world for a teenage ballad singer. You either have to be a precocious 9-year-old or a 40+ comeback artist to appeal to the audience that wants an album of over-sung ballads.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Phillip Phillips:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Our first real contender here. He’s a boy and he’s adorable which means he could go all the way. And I’m actually ok with that. He seems like the most authentic of the contestants, as though he’d be just as happy plucking away in a circle of ten-year-old cousins at a family reunion. Believe it or not, southern soul is my second favorite musical genre behind alternative rock, and there’s actually a hint of it in his performances. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Although, for some reason it always surprises me that he wears shoes. I don’t know why. He just seems like the type of person who doesn’t wear shoes a lot.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Joshua Ledet:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">He can sing. Seems like a super nice guy. He likes crawfish. I don’t think I would, what with their long tentacles and prickly legs. I also don’t know what I’d do with an album of gospel-style pop songs.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Skyler Laine:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">She doesn’t even try to be pop country. She’s just country country. You already know how I feel about country, so I’m sure you know how I feel about her performances. But then, the rest of Idol nation strongly disagrees with me and they actually vote, so she’ll probably win or come close. She also wears the biggest earrings I’ve ever seen. I can’t decide if they help or hurt her balance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Heejun Han:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And now we get to the most controversial of the contestants. There’s a lot of speculation out there about Mr. Han. Is he legitimate, but quirky? Or is he trying to make a mockery of the show. Personally, I don’t care. This show lost its legitimacy long ago. The selection process and voting have nothing to do with raw talent. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I actually find his antics hilarious. His pre-interviews and rehearsal clips are the only ones I consistently don’t fast forward through. (For the record, I can watch a 2-hour episode of Idol in 10 minutes.) He gives life to this tired show. Would I buy his album? Heck no. Would I invite him to every party and BBQ I could? Hope you like grilled steak, Heejun. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Colton Dixon:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Now, I know what you’re thinking. He’s probably my number one pick, my champion. You couldn’t believe I didn’t start with him. After all, he’s already been crowned this season’s Alternative Rock god. And to you I say, you didn’t listen to my alternative rock suggestions, did you. The only thing about this guy that’s alternative rock is his skinny jeans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I knew we had a problem when he explained last week that he was going to do “Broken Hearts” like the hard rock song that it was. Oh. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Now, to be fair, by Idol standards the presence of an electric guitar automatically grants a song “hard rock” status. But by my standards, that makes it the same pop/rock-lite performance Idol gives us every year from the many other Idol faux rockers. Fitting that he was thrilled to “hook up” with that hard rocker we all know as Chris Daughtry. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I don’t know what it is about him, but something rubs me the wrong way. If there were a slope of authenticity he’d be at the opposite point of wherever Phillip Phillips fell on that scale. That’s actually not a bad thing in terms of the music industry and is probably why Mr. Dixon will end up a huge star and Phillip will go back to playing town picnics. Colton seems very self-aware with a practiced fake humility that could take him all the way to the top whether he wins this competition or not. Here’s a guy who’s been told he’s amazing all his life and believes it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">See, I understand him so well because he’s a younger, male version of me. It’s creepy, really. We both have the indie piano rock thing going, including the dark emo make-up and streaky hair color. We even have the same clear, slightly too pretty voice to authentically do the music we’re trying to do, right down to the same Sinead-break at key moments. The clip of his original song last week could have come from my own songbook of melodic over-the-top angst. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So, ok, maybe that’s why I don’t like him. I’m just jealous and mad that we’re not collaborating in our own faux rock indie piano band. (Call me, Colton!)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Hollie Cavanagh:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">See “Jessica Sanchez.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Deandre Brackensick:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">He seems like a sweet kid, and since I’m sure he reads my blog, I don’t want to be too critical. So let’s just leave it that. Sweet, sweet kid. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">So there you have it. This season’s Idol Cheat Sheet. Why do I have the feeling I ticked people off a whole lot more with this post than with last week’s?</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-20383079764478090622012-03-17T09:58:00.000-04:002012-03-17T09:58:40.644-04:00Primer in Ideological Discourse Part II: Time to Make Enemies<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Bring your picket signs and rocks. It’s time to make enemies. But I have to. I’d be a hypocrite not to put some real world applications to my theoretical mumblings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Last month I released the <a href="http://allisonmsimon.blogspot.com/2012/02/primer-in-ideological-discourse.html" target="_blank">Primer in Ideological Discourse</a>. In it I gave hints and examples on how people can discuss ideas intelligently and respectfully, thus becoming a more informed and understanding society. That’s all nice and fuzzy in theory, but there’s a complicated problem today that pretty much trashes everything I said. It rears its ugly head more and more, even though we like to pretend it doesn’t exist:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We’re no longer allowed to have strong stances.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Oh, don’t get me wrong, if you agree with the popular side, there’s no issue. You can feel free to climb on your soapbox and preach to every cocktail party and grocery checkout line you please. But beware, those with a strong, well-informed opinion that’s not embraced by the masses. You are submitting yourself to crucifixion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Now, please stop now and read my take on what it means to have an opinion. Until you’ve read my primer in ideological discourse, you can’t put these thoughts in the proper perspective. If you’ve read it, you know I call for respect, listening more than speaking, and delaying the formation of an opinion until you can support it well. I railed against name-calling and unacknowledged ignorance. This post in no way supports those who call for bigotry, hatred, or violence. You’d think that would go without saying, but you all know it doesn’t. And that’s my point.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m going to be blunt:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">The pendulum has swung too far. In our effort to accept all ideas we have criminalized those who stand firm. Particularly, those who stand firm against the tidal wave of popular opinion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">This is a huge problem, and it’s one we don’t like to admit and are terrified to talk about. We’ve essentially eliminated the right of free speech. We punish those who project unpopular views. We’re so used to the gray, we’ve forgotten black and white exist. We’ve been conditioned to fear them. Let’s dissect this for a moment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">If you don’t believe me, think of a controversial topic. Anything, I don’t care what it is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll give you a spot on my blog to argue in favor of the unpopular side (as long as you follow all my rules for respectful ideological discourse). The catch is, you have to sign your full name, no anonymity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Write 400 words against abortion. Explain why homosexual couples shouldn’t have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Maybe our teachers actually have a pretty good gig compared to the rest of the workforce. Tell me why unions have too much power. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Any takers?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I’m not even stating my opinions on the topics listed above, but I guarantee you just cringed when you read those sentences. We’re not used to it. Just for suggesting there are two sides to those topics is going to get me in trouble, even if I don’t admit which side I’m on. Is that the “enlightened” society we want? A place where the minority is afraid to speak, regardless of the topic? Maybe the majority is “right” today (maybe not), what about tomorrow? What about 50 years ago?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In my opinion, we got it so wrong with racial segregation and sexism. Thank goodness the minority was willing to speak up and be collectively attacked for their stance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We’re different now, more enlightened and accepting as a society, right? Please. If anything, we’re worse, because now we’ve parked on self-righteous pedestals of political correctness. We pat ourselves on the back because we’ve whitewashed our brains to the point where we’re all just blank poster boards of ideas. We’re so afraid of offending anyone that we don’t stand for anything, muttering through superficial conversations and elevating meaningless topics just because they’re safe. What is it they say about religion and politics?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And then we hear it. Someone <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dares </i>to cut through the hum of weather reports and sports scores. They bravely pierce the gray cloud with their white or black lightening strike. And all hell breaks loose. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We swoop down from our pedestals. Our fangs drip with saliva as we circle our prey and rip it to shreds like the school of piranhas we’ve become. We fill his comment section with bile. We call for her resignation and label her in ways that are infinitely worse than anything she ever said. We cry foul. We toss all our self-righteous stones and embrace the spectacular hysteria that lines the pockets of our favorite media outlets. That’s the society we’ve become.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I have tremendous respect for those who are willing to speak up, on both sides. I tend to give their opinions tremendous weight in my own evaluation of the subject. It’s easy to spout off surface opinions everyone will love. You have to have a thick skin and a ton of supporting evidence to go the other way. I don’t always agree with them. In fact, a lot of the time I don’t, but I want to listen to them. I’d rather talk to the guy at the party who admits he’s in favor of the governor everyone else pickets. I want to read the thoughts of the woman who voted against the bill that everyone else pasted on their bumper. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We’re hypocrites. We are. There’s no way around it. In our efforts to accept everyone’s beliefs in everything, we’ve become a society that’s afraid to believe in anything. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">And we gleefully destroy those who do.</span>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-17933566032752358152012-03-09T08:28:00.000-05:002012-03-09T08:28:21.742-05:00Oh, Daylight Savings! Wherefore Art Thou Sting?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">You would think an alarm clock that doesn’t accurately tell time would be a useless device. I thought so too at first, but that was just the jaded cynic in me. I’m enlightened now. A changed woman. An optimist, even. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Three years ago I asked for one gift: my own alarm clock. At that time, I shared one with my husband and it was a disaster. It should have worked in theory, but we never seemed to get the hang of dual alarms. Either I’d turn his off when I woke up first or he’d turn mine off when he set his the night before. Either way, what was supposed to wake two people up at two different times woke no one up ever. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I got my wish. Wrapped awkwardly in cheap Christmas paper was my own little radio alarm with a small footprint. Digital red numbers and AM/FM tuning capabilities made it the dream clock for someone who loves transparent technology. (I prefer things to do what they’re supposed to do. All my phone can do is call people. All my coffee maker does is make coffee. My car only drives. And attracts mice for some reason. Don’t ask.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Anyway, all was well. I could never quite get it tuned exactly to a radio station so most mornings I woke to a mix of hard rock and staticky stock tips. Nevertheless, that first morning my sweet little alarm jumped to life and sent me out into the world happy and on time. The following morning, the same. The following morning I was early. Then I was earlier. Then I was really early. After two weeks, I was way too early. That’s when I realized my clock was only almost perfect. It may have had a lot to offer a girl, it just wasn’t so great at telling time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">So it couldn’t tell time. There are bigger crimes. It was still thin, sleek, and offered a hint of music amidst its static rumblings. I wasn’t going to abandon it to the appliance graveyard just because it had one small shortcoming. I was going to nurture it, maybe rehabilitate it with my patience and love. Three years later it still sits proudly on my nightstand, not telling time with the grace of a pro.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">On the surface having a clock that doesn’t tell time may seem like a liability. Imagine looking at a clock and having no clue if what you see is accurate. In fact, you know it’s probably not, but you don’t know how far off it is. What’s the point then, you ask? I will tell you. The point is, ever since my broken clock became my sidekick, I’ve never been better with time management. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When you don’t know what time it really is, you always have to be ready. There are days I’ve “overslept” and jumped out of bed in a panic. I got ready for work in record time and raced down to the kitchen, only to learn I was ten minutes early. That wouldn’t have happened with a functional clock. When clocks actually work, if you oversleep you’re late. Other people panic. I have hope.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When my forgiving clock goes off, I get up. I have to. There’s no snoozing or rolling over for a few more minutes. That’s not an option when your clock doesn’t work. You don’t know how many minutes you have until the real time approaches. Is she four minutes fast today? Twenty minutes? Twelve minutes? You don’t know. So you get up and move. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I should clarify that she only gains time, she doesn’t lose it, so I don’t have to worry about it being later than she says. And honestly, what’s more perfect than that? A clock that can only make you early, not late. Right now it’s 10 PM. Except I know it’s not. Yet, my brain is still getting ready for sleep mode even though I probably have another 10-20 minutes before I actually have to think about bed. A real clock wouldn’t give you that grace period. A real clock would be chiding me and nagging me to shut down my laptop and turn off the TV. Not mine. She’s polite and merciful.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Oh sure, I hear you skeptics out there. Why not get a functional clock and just set it ten minutes ahead? Ha! Setting your clock ahead doesn’t help anyone because there’s no mystery. You know the secret trick. You’ll just compensate the other way. If you’re like my husband, you’ll overcompensate the other way. No, this only works with my baby. It only works if you have no idea how far ahead it is, if at all. There’s no math when she sings at 6AM. It’s up and in the shower. It’s like playing the lottery every morning. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I win big. Sometimes I barely break even. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">But I never lose. No, she won’t let me lose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I was a cynic. I thought I had a useless paperweight. A dust collector. A piece of junk wasting most of the precious real estate beside my bed. Instead, I had a priceless weapon against the relentless morning routine. I had my answer to a lengthy commute and intimidating closet of clothes that never seem to fit the same from day to day. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I have my perfect clock and now I say this: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Take that daylight savings! I used to fear you. Now I laugh at you. Others may set their clocks ahead this weekend. They will dread their loss of sleep and being forced to adjust to a new schedule. But I, yes I, have been conditioned for years now to adjust to new schedules. Every day is daylight savings for me. Yes, I laugh at you. My clock and I will dance into Sunday the same way we’ve danced into every day for the past three years: with a bit of hard rock and a chorus of staticky stock tips. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s now 10:23. Except it’s not. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Probably.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-59396383539897519032012-03-02T11:09:00.002-05:002012-03-02T11:09:24.803-05:00How Many Lawyers Does It Take To Exist?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When did life get so complex? Sure, it’s always been hard, and arguments can be made that, on average, humanity has an easier survival now than at any point in history. But have we eased our existence at the expense of simplicity?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s been a while since my last post for many reasons. (Although silence hasn’t discouraged my vast readership of spammers. That’s right Sexy Theresa, I’m talking to you. You go, girl!) The biggest culprit has been our family’s recent house sale and move. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nothing highlights the insanity of our postmodern world like trying to pick up and relocate. If it doesn’t exist already, I am officially patenting the concept of “Moving Coordinator.” That’s right, for a respectable fee, I will coordinate every aspect of your relocation: research and organize the moving company, process your change of addresses, notify friends and colleagues, cancel accounts, schedule final readings, find new doctors, dentists, and daycares and transfer corresponding files to said doctors, dentists, and daycares. I’ll be your one-stop guide through the red-tape and bureaucracy that put the prospect of moving on par with alien abductions, flesh-eating zombies, and registering a child for school. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s frightening that we’ve reached a point in our society where you need a permit to leave and another to arrive. I could be wrong, but I doubt that’s what our founding fathers intended when they drafted the Constitution. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Hey, George. That thing about freedom of speech and religion - good right? What about the twelve forms required to move your crap to your parents’ house?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">And forget selling a house. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I went to closing on Wednesday not with a folder, not with a brief case, not even with a backpack. No, I went with a burlap sack. Yep, there’s me scooting around the business suits and cherry conference table with my crusty black sack filled with papers. And the scariest part? I needed half of them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Anyone who’s been to a house closing can relate. Typically, you start out with an awkward smile that quickly transforms into a dazed grin. As your eyes glaze over and you nod absently at each legal-sized paper shoved toward you, you realize our society has lost its collective mind. If, for some reason, you’re superhuman and can stay alert through the whole process, it gets even worse then you realize what you’re signing. My favorite are the documents that essentially confirm you signed other documents. Then you sign ones to confirm the buyer signed some. Forms to confirm forms. That’s freedom, people!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">And you’re reward? You get to try to move. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">My moving folder is three inches thick. That’s not my mortgage folder. That’s not my house sale folder. That’s not even my home inspection report remediation file. Nope, nothing except moving issues. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">As if the process isn’t complex enough, it all costs money too. I tried budgeting for this thing, but I probably would have had an easier time sorting through NASA’s fiscal data. Don’t worry, this won’t be a rant about the complexity of the tax structure. We’ll save that for another entry, but moving permit fees? Really? I need to pay to leave one area and pay again to enter another? That’s almost as bad as the per capita tax. I still can’t figure out how the government has the right to charge me for existing. I didn’t choose to be here. Charge my parents. That’s on them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">And never make the mistake of inspecting your HUD sheet at a house closing. Forget it being a hard pill to swallow. That freakin’ pill will lodge itself in your throat until you choke and collapse right on top of those fancy tea cups. You may get ill when you see you have to pay $35 so the bank can fax a two page document to the title company. Did you know you’re charged to clear your mortgage from the title and then charged another fee to super-duper double check that your mortgage was cleared from the title? Even our realtor seemed baffled by that one. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Whatever. The point is, it’s a good thing our society has also invented Super Walmarts and online shopping. We need the other 22 hours of the day to fill out forms and make sense of our phone bills.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-67501453940848700252012-02-05T11:48:00.002-05:002012-02-05T11:48:45.778-05:00Primer in Ideological Discourse<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">After witnessing a series of embarrassing attempts at ideological discourse by “experts” and talking heads who should know better, it’s become clear that it’s time for me to come out of the closet. The rumors are true. I was debate team president in high school. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I wasn’t always the dark, indie rocker chick who’s piqued your morbid curiosity. I used to be intelligent and well-informed. Although I no longer dress in power suits and begin sentences with words like “Resolved:,” I still love to discuss anything and everything with anyone and everyone. Whether it’s religion, politics, social policy, or the merits of scented candles, I’m open to sharing my opinion and respectfully considering yours. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I’ve learned over the years, however, that there’s an art to ideological discourse and it’s become clear we’re losing it. Maybe it’s ignorance, maybe it’s laziness, I don’t know, but it’s time to put a hold on the discussions of ideas and discuss discussing instead. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Here are some tips that could benefit anyone interested in sounding intelligent.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><ol style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">If you’re not smart enough to articulate an opinion, you’re not smart enough to have an opinion.</span></b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I’m going to say something that may create enemies. Brace yourself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s ok not to have an opinion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">That’s right. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re not well-versed enough in a subject to discuss it. In fact, it takes a great deal of intelligence to grasp your own understanding of the world. That includes acknowledging what you don’t know as much as what you do. You can’t be an expert on everything. To pretend you are is just going to make you sound stupid when you try.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Knowledge and understanding is organic. It’s always growing, changing, and adapting to your experience and environment. The problem is, we’ve been taught to fear ignorance and hide it at all costs. But, disguising a hole is not going to fill it. Ignorance is not an enemy when you embrace it, only when you deny it. If you don’t know something, shut your mouth and listen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When someone asks how our government can possibly condone the destruction of the long-haired warpit beetle, it’s perfectly fine to say, “oh? I’m not aware of that debate.” Clearly this person has more information than you do. Clearly warpit beetles have a prominent place in her life. Now’s your chance to learn something. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">You nod. You listen. You nod some more. You ask a couple clarifying questions. You smile and thank her. If you’re bored out of your mind, you eventually change the subject, but you tuck away that valuable info about the warpit beetle. Because here’s the thing, one day you may encounter the subject of warpit beetles again and this time you can actually open your mouth for a brief moment. See, you’ve listened and learned, and now you get to say, “oh? I’ve heard that …” and then you shut your mouth and listen some more and learn something else about warpit beetles. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">That’s how knowledge works. Eventually, you will have enough information and consideration to actually have an opinion on the government’s destruction of long-haired warpit beetles. Then you get to be the bore at the party preaching about insects.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The quickest way to prove you’re clueless is to insult your opponent.</span></b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">This one is obvious in theory, yet, in practice seems to stump even the most noted public figures.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Here’s a story about something that will never happen:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Sally and Stanley disagree about the current tax code. Sally calls <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Stanley</place></city> a greedy crook. <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Stanley</place></city> determines he is in fact a greedy crook and therefore Sally’s stance is correct.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">That sounds stupid because it is. Discussion Tip #2 tends to blend closely with Discussion Tip #1. When you try to take on a subject that’s out of your league, you’re going to run out of material. That’s when it becomes tempting to use your only weapon: insult grenades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Now, I understand there are other reasons people resort to name-calling. Maybe you’re just mean. Maybe you hate people. Maybe you’re late and don’t have the heart to say you can’t chat so you call them a dirty racist instead. Whatever the reason may be, it’s never going to strengthen your position in the eyes of the masses.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When someone presents a well-thought out stance on a subject and you respond with “dumb commie,” guess which one of your arguments gains traction with observers. You certainly didn’t win any points with your opponent. You don’t sound passionate. You won’t make people nod in agreement. You sound like someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I recently read a blog entry discussing a popular athlete who took a strong, thoughtful stance on a political topic. I haven’t researched the incident so I can’t verify the facts, but for the sake of the illustration we’ll assume they’re accurate. In response to this athlete’s stance, a public figure made a crack linking the athlete’s children to the KKK. Yes, that’s right. A famous, supposedly educated adult thought the best way to demonstrate his exception to someone’s belief was to publicly attack children. I’m not sure how he thought that would further his cause unless there are actually Klan members subscribing to his twitter account. In which case…oh never mind.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The point is, you look stupid. You look mean. You look like someone no one wants to listen to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Stereotyping is a coping mechanism, not a science. Don’t believe everything your brain tells you.</span></b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Here’s a bonus tip. I’m not just a former debate team president, I also have a degree in psychology. So let’s thrill my parents and put it to use.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Humans take shortcuts. We have to in order to survive the massive amount of stimuli we encounter each day. We process it all by classifying objects, situations, and people into groups. It’s too hard to consider every nuance of everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell so our brains bump them into classes and assign the appropriate characteristics we’ve come to associate with those groups. It’s not a bad process, and it’s right a lot of the time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The problem is, it’s wrong some of the time too, and ignorance only increases the likelihood. That’s what stereotypes are. We make assumptions about people based on the group in which we place them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The opposite is true as well which poses a problem. We apply characteristics to a group based on our experience with one of its members.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Both scenarios can be disastrous when we allow that instinct to creep into our ideological discussions. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">This subject is a blog entry itself and probably will be at a later point in time. For now, know this, when discussing a topic with someone, you will have to fight against that instinct to make assumptions. You may think you know where someone is going with a thought, you may think you know what’s in their head that they haven’t said, you may think a lot of things that are completely wrong. If you don’t obey rule #3, you will both be breaking rule #2 in no time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">You’re full of nuances and don’t always fit whatever stereotype other people want to dump on you, so don’t do it to them. Otherwise, you will inevitably hear arguments that aren’t there and alienate the speaker before you even get to present your own points.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The opposite is true too. We all mess up all the time and aren’t always shining examples of the groups we’re supposed to represent. We hope people don’t apply our mistakes to our peers, so we have to resist the urge to do that to others.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><ol start="4" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Don’t be afraid to be wrong. </span></b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">You used to think unicorns danced on rainbows and a little fairy flew around collecting severed human teeth. You used to think being an astronaut was a viable career path and it was ok to run through a sprinkler naked. You were wrong. It’s ok, we all thought that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">But guess what, we’re still wrong a lot. We aren’t magically cured of being wrong as we get older, we just cling harder to our delusions. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Look, I’m not saying it’s not ok to believe strongly in something. Of course it is. This whole practice of exchanging ideas becomes boring and falls apart if we don’t have convictions and opinions. I’m just saying, stay open. Believe what you’ve considered, what you can support. And if over the course of time and research and discussions, you begin to see validity in other views, don’t fear them. Don’t see it as failure, see it as refining your own understanding, polishing your own arguments and foundation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">For some reason we tend to fear knowledge and ideas that are different, even though a lot of time understanding divergent views may actually strengthen your own position. Studying a subject or a view doesn’t mean you agree with it, just that you’re not afraid of it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">In debate, it’s critical that you understand the other side as well as your own. You can’t argue and evaluate something you don’t comprehend. Your opponent won’t take you seriously if you can’t prove you have a global grasp of a subject. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Think about it this way. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Maybe you hate warpit beetles. They ate through your tomato plants and scare the crap out of your children. Neither of those will win the government destruction debate. But when Suzy steps up on her soapbox at your picnic and cries about the government’s approval to drill in their native breeding ground, you may gain steam when you point out that their “native” breeding ground is actually in Africa and they were artificially transplanted here where they have no natural predators and have destroyed several ecosystems throughout the pacific northwest. Now Suzy has to shut up and listen too if she doesn’t want to sound stupid. Understanding the opposition got you a lot more traction than, “well, whatever. Those dang things is ugly.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">There are plenty of other tips that can help in any discussion, but let’s summarize them with one word: respect. Respect the speaker, respect the subject, respect the audience. By doing that, your own ideas and opinions are going to gain the respect of those around you. Friends and acquaintances will learn that they can trust you’ve been fair and thoughtful with your stance. That you’re the one people need to shut up and listen to. And who knows, maybe one day it’ll be you that inspires the historic national debate on warpit beetles. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">(Editor’s note: Allison currently has no set opinion on the destruction of warpit beetles if they do in fact exist.)</span>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-16396411681914741502012-01-30T15:24:00.000-05:002012-01-30T15:24:35.915-05:00Hurry Now for the Earth Day Sale!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Maybe someone can explain something to me. When did we as a society decide that every italicized date on the calendar needed a corresponding retail sale? It dawned on me a couple weeks ago as one of the most absurd sentences I’ve heard in a while belted from my TV during a commercial break:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Hurry now for 20% off our entire stock of bed linens during our Martin Luther King Day sale.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, now I’m no historian. And I wasn’t alive during the Civil Rights Movement, but I feel like I can say with confidence that Dr. King’s big dream wasn’t for future generations to save 20% on bed linens. I’m fairly confident those college students who risked everything to sit at a lunch counter in a Woolworths weren’t discussing how great it was going to be that one day their children could get 0.9% financing on an SUV.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">A Martin Luther King Day sale? Really? And then it occurred to me that we also hear things like “Veteran’s Day sale” and “Memorial Day Sale” and “Labor Day Sale.” Personally, I’m pumped for the Arbor Day sale. You already know from my Mother’s Day post how I feel about trees. I can’t wait to honor them with a new set of towels.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Look, I get it. We’re a capitalist society. Capitalism functions a lot better when its citizens buy into consumerism (slight pun intended). For consumerism to work, you need materialism. For materialism to stay viable retailers have to convince us we need things we don’t by bombarding us with percentage signs. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">But still, Martin Luther King Day? A great, brave man gave his life for a cause that reshaped our entire culture, and we’re asked to honor his memory by shopping. You really want to impress me Mr. Car Dealership and Ms. Retail Outlet? Show me how you better your community by sending your employees on a service project. Spend your MLK Day advertising budget explaining what you’re doing to fight for justice, equality, and doing what’s right as an example for your customers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">And no, extending store hours until midnight doesn’t count.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-5508314439247497502012-01-14T22:52:00.003-05:002012-01-15T10:09:11.207-05:00So You’re Old, Now What?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">When did you first figure out you were old? I used to have this theory that age is relative. Maybe I still do. I’m not talking about “you’re as young as you feel.” I’m talking about life transforming each of us in different ways at different times. Call it maturity, call it circumstance, but I don’t think anyone would argue that two 20-year-olds aren’t really the same age. We all know a 30-year-old second cousin who makes our neighbor’s teenager look like a responsible adult. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">So who’s older? The kid who raised herself, has a house, child, husband, and full-time job at age 23, or the sheltered 30-year-old scanning temp agencies for beer money? How much does a date on a driver’s license really compare to the transforming experiences a person collects from birth on?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Sometimes I feel like I’ve been an adult all my life. I’ve been middle-aged since I was 22. At 29, I’m checking my mailbox for the inevitable AARP propaganda. By 40, who knows. I’ll probably be checking out retirement communities I can’t enter for another quarter of a century.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">So what makes us feel old? If age is relative than the progression of age is more of a comparative venture than an inherent one. Age is an evaluation of lost opportunities, an observation of the younger (and older) generation’s milestones. It’s the collection of our own milestones. It’s a game of subtraction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">You didn’t feel old until the toddler you babysat got married. You didn’t feel old until you realized there are a host of infant dreams you will never be able to achieve. Friends and family boast about their 19-year-old who’s making gas money touring the country with his sub-label rock band. Try that at 39 and see what they think. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Ironically, the physical flags of aging generally come much later than the comparative ones. I just started paying attention to the Sensodyne commercials and wondering if I should switch to the more expensive line of under-eye cream. Yet, I realized four years ago I’d never be a rock star and could no longer pull off the denim mini-skirt. I’m still clinging to my cute tees and street chic hoodies, but honestly, as a mother of two, I’m flirting dangerously close with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Not to Wear</i>. Ten years from now I can see my then fourteen-year-old son explaining to Stacie and Clinton how embarrassed he is that his mom attends his hockey games in her faux fur cardigan and tiny Decepticon graphic tee. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Like I said, it’s a game of subtraction. You reference college like you graduated a month ago. You feel old when you do the math and realize it’s been 7 years. You check your files for a receipt for something you bought recently. You feel old when you realize it’s been 3 years. You schedule events far in advance. You feel old when they actually come to pass.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Technology is a sneaky culprit as well. As if it’s not hard enough keeping track of the constant streams of upgrades that quickly become necessities, try looking back even just a few years and see how old you feel. I was recently re-watching a popular TV series from my high school and college years. The actors and actresses still looked modern by today’s standards. Their hair was right. Their cars were sleek enough. The girls even wore their knee-high boots over their skinny jeans. Everything was fine, until they pulled out their cell phones the size of my forearm. Until they answered them without caller ID. Until they needed to contact one another and didn’t use texting. It would have been a totally different show if even one character had access to a smart phone. Another show featured a character desperately trying to find a phone line to hook up her laptop modem. And now, I’m old. I forgot about the dial-up modem. I had a dial-up modem. My pre-schooler navigates an iPhone. At age 4 I was hanging on my brother’s crib pretending to be a garbage man.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">So, I’m old, now what? The problem with aging isn’t just retrospective, but prospective as well. What do you do when you realize you’re aging before you’re actually old? It’s scary enough to look back on what’s already passed. It’s completely paralyzing to stand at the very edge of youth and realize you’re still young enough to pursue most opportunities if you act now. If only you knew how. It’s terrifying to face the prospect of looking back from the future and realizing you lost time you knew you had. They say youth is wasted on the young. I’m fine with that. It’s a lot scarier to be young and completely aware you’re wasting it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">My guitar instructor once gave me a chord progression to work on for the week. Of course the music-loving over-achiever in me had to arrange them into a song and add lyrics. As you can see, this anxious crossroads has been haunting me for a while.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I’m waiting for the train. I missed my bus and plane already.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I’m an hour early but I fear I’m still too late</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I need to get there.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s too late to go back, but I’m paralyzed with fear that I’ll get stuck here.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">So I wait, I wait to find forever</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I wait, I long to be a believer</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I will, I will ride into the future</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">If it takes me</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">So when did you realize you were old? Maybe you’re not. Maybe none of us are. Maybe we all are.</span>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-51568990698430780822012-01-13T19:29:00.000-05:002012-01-13T19:29:11.634-05:00Excerpt: Roman Totally Promised Not to Eat Us<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Although this blog tends to veer off on every tangent imaginable, its roots will always be in writing and following the journey of an aspiring writer. Having said that, we haven’t ventured into that world in quite a while so it’s time to pop back for a quick peek. Here’s an exclusive glimpse at my latest project (working title: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roman Totally Promised Not to Eat Us</i>). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The premise: Nathan Hatfield’s roommates had the brilliant idea of adopting a lonely vampire zombie-wolf they met in the alley outside their apartment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The problem: His roommates are idiots.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Chapter 1: The Set-up</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan Hatfield was average. Well, he considered himself average. Women would probably say he was above average in the looks department, although not an inaccessible heart-throb like his roommate Travis. His professors would say he was definitely above average in the intelligence department. Maybe one day his grades would even reflect it if he’d stop over-thinking those stupid standardized tests. He was definitely below average in the finances department, but money wasn’t everything. Or so his single-mom tried to explain as she contributed her good will and periodic laundry services to his college education. Maybe all that balanced out to average.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan was more self-aware than most. A global thinker. Cerebral, but relatable. He could philosophize with the best of them, yet was still grounded enough to charm the average bar patron. He was well-rounded, well-groomed, athletic, and personable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blessed with an easy smile that was hard to forget. He even played lead guitar for a semi-professional rock band. A few shows a month. Nothing to get excited about. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">He was what others would describe as “a good guy.” Maybe even a guy you should seek out if you didn’t already know him. Sure, no girlfriend, but not for lack of offers. After all, he had a lot going for him. Just enough to admire him, but not enough to hate him for it. Nathan Hatfield had a solid foot in reality, a driven spirit, a decent future, and a sharp intellect. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">His roommates did not.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan dropped his books on the counter of the kitchenette and sauntered toward his room with a weary sigh. It had been a long day and that was before the four classes that capped it off. Shower, food, and bed. In that order. Maybe just shower and bed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He turned the knob on the bathroom door and shuffled inside. The fluorescent light flickered to life and he stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He should have shaved that morning. The scruffy facial shadow worked for a few days, but was veering dangerously close to shaggy mess at this point. If only he hadn’t pulled the zombie shift at the diner. But his manager hated him for some reason and …</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan froze and stared to the left of his reflection. He wanted to turn around. No, not really. He had to turn around, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to sneak back out of the bathroom and pretend he didn’t see the intruder lounging in their tub with eerie nonchalance. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hey,” it offered, lifting its hand in a casual greeting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan blinked and stared. It just waved. It…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">After a deep breath, his paralysis eased and he managed to slip back into the hallway. He pulled the door shut behind him and closed his eyes. His heavy breathing echoed through the silence as he leaned against the chipping paint. There wasn’t a strange being in his bathroom. It didn’t have fangs. It didn’t just say hello. It definitely wasn’t wearing his Nirvana shirt. The one he got from that guy in Seattle who claimed to have had breakfast with Kurt Cobain the day before his death. Finally, he found his voice again. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Travis! Chris! Sam!” He marched toward the kitchen and waited for the inevitable creak of bedroom doors and rustling of footsteps. Just as he approached the main living space, Sam returned through the front door and noticed Nathan’s white face. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What’s going on? You don’t look good,” Sam observed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan shook his head and was about to respond when the other two joined them in the kitchen. “Oh, hey, Nate. Sam. You’re back. What’s up? How was that econ exam you were worried about?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan stared at them with an incredulous expression. “What’s up? What the heck is in our bathroom?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There’s something in our bathroom?” Sam asked, entirely too enthusiastic about what should have been a horrifying concept.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yes! Tonight was supposed to be a relaxing night in my room, and then all the sudden, there’s this, this thing in the bathroom!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh, you met Roman,” Chris explained. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Roman? You named it?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chris and Travis exchanged a glance and Travis cleared his throat. “No, of course not. He already had a name. We picked him up in the alley outside our building. He’s a vampire zombie-wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan could only stare. He should say something. Like “huh” or “what” or “I’m sorry, that didn’t register. Please, repeat that.” But he could only stare. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“A vampire zombie-wolf?” Sam offered instead. “Wow. What does it even eat?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The spell broke. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan turned to Sam in disbelief. “I’m sorry. ‘What does it eat?’ That’s your question?” He spun back to the others. “What in the world is a vampire zombie-wolf and why is there one in our bathroom?” he cried.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And that’s when Nathan realized they’d all lost their minds. He was in Hell. Or a medieval prison. Or some generally accepted place of relentless mental and physical torture. They stared back at him like he was the slow one. “What do you think it would be? It’s part zombie, part vampire, and part werewolf. A vampire zombie-wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah, it’s like the most amazing girl magnet miracle ever.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’m sorry, what?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“A girl magnet,” Travis explained. “Did you see it? It looks like a combination of all those girly book covers. The thing is built too. You should see its abs.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan couldn’t speak again. It had abs. His eyes shot back down the hall and he swallowed. Hard. Finally, he clenched them shut and drew in a deep breath. “You mean, the monster locked in our bathroom is dating currency?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Exactly. My baby sister is into all that crap. Girls can’t resist those things. Don’t ask me why, but they go nuts.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Breathe. If only he could. “And how exactly is their attraction to that thing in our bathroom going to help you get dates?” It was way too rational of a question for this highly irrational situation. There couldn’t possibly be an answer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There wasn’t. The two idiots exchanged another look and Nathan shook his head in defeat. They hadn’t even thought that far out. They were all screwed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“This is crazy. And awesome!” Sam interjected. “But you never answered my question. What does it eat?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chris and Travis shrugged. “Brains and blood, obviously.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Wait, what?” Nathan cried. What else did he expect? Of course their monster would require a steady supply of brains and blood.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Relax. We already found out it’s fine with animal brains and blood.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I don’t even want to know how you discovered that,” Nathan muttered.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They ignored him. “Look, we know it’s a lot to absorb, but he’s not a threat. I mean, maybe, we can’t be sure, but probably not.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We don’t think so.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Probably.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“There’s a part zombie, part vampire, part werewolf monster who feeds on blood and brains living in our apartment. How is that not a problem?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We understand your concern, Nate, really, but he’s actually pretty dumb.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He’s not smart.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I know what you meant by ‘dumb.’ I mean…never mind.” When his roommates could note missing light bulbs in someone else, that meant something.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Just try to get to know him. You might like him.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan stared in disbelief for one more moment, certain he must be sleeping. He’d probably wake-up in a booth at the diner with the manager spitting in his ear. He needed coffee. No, he needed whiskey, then coffee. “I have to go. I…” He grabbed his keys off the counter and bolted for the door.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Chapter 2: Roman Becomes One of the Guys.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan did eventually return the apartment. He probably shouldn’t have. In fact, he probably should have contacted some local law-enforcement agency. But no matter how many times he practiced that conversation in his head, it never went in his favor. In fact, it usually ended up with him in some kind of permanent facility eating applesauce which he hated. Plus, his name was on the lease and all his stuff was here. And his books. And they only had a few weeks left in the semester. Too late to start uprooting his life because of one incredibly stupid monster living in his bathroom. He’d managed to survive two years with the other three in the neighboring rooms.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Travis and Chris took care of the monster better than he expected. They made sure it had its steady fill of animal brains and even outfitted it with a very modern, yet flattering wardrobe. And they were right. The thing had amazing abs. Even Travis whose schedule revolved around maintaining his physique had to envy the perfection. One morning Nathan even caught Travis glaring through a crack in the open door as it changed its shirt. To date, that might have been the most disturbing moment of Nathan’s life. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As time passed, they began to grow accustomed to its lurking presence in the bathroom. Sometimes it tried to make conversation. It seemed to possess an irritating need for acceptance, and Nathan started dreading his morning routine. Based on the animated voices accompanying the others’ bathroom visits, however, it seemed to have more success with his roommates. See, Nathan considered the bathroom a refuge. A place where a person should have complete privacy to indulge grooming habits that would be inappropriate anywhere else on the planet. The bathroom was a haven of solitude. It wasn’t the place to make small-talk with vampire zombie-wolves. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But Roman seemed particularly chatty that morning, and Nathan sighed as he squeezed toothpaste on the brush. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Look, you’re cool with this, right? I mean, I know it’s weird having another dude living in your bathroom.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan studied the thing in the mirror, not sure how to respond. “You have a reflection.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh. Yeah. That’s a myth, thankfully. How the heck are you supposed to do your hair without a reflection?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Good point. And admire your devastatingly good looks.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roman nodded in agreement. Nathan rolled his eyes. “I guess what I mean is, I get it. I mean, all the brains, and blood, and everything. Most people don’t even give me a chance. They’re all judge-y and scared and what-have-you before we even get to exchange names. You guys are my first friends, like, ever.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Lucky us.” Nathan tried to focus on his own tired reflection and not the earnest sincerity of his companion’s. Too awkward. But the dam was already opened, so now he had to say something. “So what’s the deal with the bathtub? I mean, you’re not chained up or anything.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh yeah, that.” Roman pointed toward the ceiling, and Nathan nearly fell into the sink. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Is that…is that some kind of hex?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah, kinda. It’s like a spell to keep me in this spot. I mean, I’m not mad about it or anything. Your friends weren’t entirely sure I wasn’t going to eat them, so they decided to lock me up for a while until I could prove myself.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sadly, Nathan was more startled by his roommates’ foresight and successful execution of a plan than the fact that their plan involved confining a vampire zombie-wolf to their bathtub. “Well, I’m glad you seem understanding about it all.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hey, it’s paradise, man. Really. I mean, brains, blood. It’s a constant chore trying to secure that stuff all the time. Serve me on a silver platter and I’ll chill out in a bathtub as long as you want.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You know this royal treatment doesn’t come without a price.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roman shrugged, but didn’t seem concerned. “Yeah, I know. I can hear what you guys talk about. They want help with women.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And you’re ok with that?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The only thing I love more than brains is women.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan couldn’t believe he just listened to that sentence. And understood it. And found it strangely comforting. “You don’t…you don’t eat them do you?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roman laughed. “Eat them? Of course not! I told you, I love women. Why would I eat them? Geez. No, I eat disgraced politicians mostly. And the occasional pharmaceutical rep.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan couldn’t tell if the guy was joking. He feared he wasn’t. “Ok, so you really are on board with helping them out?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hey, like I said. They’re decent guys. They gave a vampire zombie-wolf a break when most people would just reach for a stake or silver bullets or whatever. The least I can do is get them a few dates.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I don’t really know how to respond to that,” Nathan replied. He clasped his hands and offered an awkward attempt at a smile. “Well, I’ve got to get going. But um…good luck with everything…and…yeah.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Sure. Thanks, man. Nice chat. You know, you should give yourself more credit, though. You’re actually a pretty good-looking guy. I never really noticed until your shower this morning.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan could only stare. “Oh. Um… Thanks.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“No problem. I didn’t mean that in a weird way.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Oh... Well…that’s... I should go. I’m just gonna…ok.”<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Yep.” Roman settled back into the tub and closed his eyes. Nathan escaped through the door.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He moved toward the kitchen, still reeling from their guest’s uncomfortable compliment. For once he was grateful for the hectic day ahead if only to distract his mind from that alarming revelation and how he should possibly process it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He sifted through the contents of the refrigerator and his anticipation quickly turned to disgust. He always considered himself a tolerant person, sympathetic even, but somehow the shelves of brains tested the limits of his understanding nature. He’d watched enough celebrity chef shows to know the culinary world referred to them as “sweet breads.” A deceptive euphemism if there ever was one. Sweet breads. That was a cinnamon raisin bagel, not cow guts. He reached around the stacks of butcher paper for the milk and cursed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You have to be kidding me,” he mumbled, shaking the empty container in disbelief. His roommates could manage a shelf of cow brains but not a gallon of milk. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hey, Nate. Morning.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan turned to Chris and dropped the empty jug on the island between them. “Really?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oops. Sorry about that. Travis finished it last night. It’s on our list.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And yet you returned it to the refrigerator.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yeah, we should have tossed it. Travis put it back to remind us.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I thought you had a list.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What about Travis?” Travis asked as he entered and pulled a shirt over his head.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The milk,” Chris explained.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I didn’t want to forget.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nathan only shook his head in frustration and tossed the jug in the recycling bin. “Look, guys. We have to talk. This needs to stop.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I know, man. Really, we’re sorry. We already talked about keeping a list on the fridge…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Not the milk, the zombie,” Nathan interjected, even more annoyed. “He took notes on my shower this morning.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He watched you shower?” Travis asked in surprise.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yes, exactly. He said I was attractive. But not in a weird way.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His roommate looked hurt. “Really?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I know. Disturbing.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Travis didn’t even hear him. “He’s never commented on my showers.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Wait, what?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Travis shrugged. “I don’t know, I would have thought he’d say something to me. I mean, I work out ten times more than you do.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan stared at him.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Ok, yeah, it’s creepy,” Travis clarified. “But still…just a small acknowledgement would be nice.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You’ve lost your mind. All of you,” Nathan cried, grabbing his jacket and books. “I want him out of here! This is ridiculous. He cannot live in our bathroom anymore. I want my bathroom back!” He didn’t even care if Roman’s vampire ears heard him say it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan knew he made a mistake obeying the message from Chris the moment he entered the restaurant. His three roommates looked up from their table as he approached and their solemn expression frightened him more than the vampire zombie-wolf in their tub. They had conspired. They were united in something and poised for an intervention. They’d made a plan. Without him. That never ended well.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Glad you could make it, Nate.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What’s this about?” Nathan asked, not interested in the menu they handed him.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The three exchanged uncomfortable looks and finally Travis cleared his throat. “We’ve been thinking…” He stopped and studied his napkin.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“And…?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The silence was deafening. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Look, I’ve got class in twenty minutes. The last time you guys ‘thought’ we ended up with a monster in our apartment. The suspense is killing me.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Chris gripped his fork and glanced up at Nathan. “We think it’s time to free Roman.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally! That’s great. Please, free him and we can go back to normal.” He didn’t like the way they looked at each other again. They shouldn’t be looking at each other. They should be nodding and smiling, happy for Nathan’s approval.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“No, that’s not what we mean. We mean, he seems really cool and he totally promises not to eat us. We think we should let him out of the tub and live like a normal person.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan blinked. “I’m sorry, you want him to live with us? Like a normal person?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">They nodded. “Like we said, he wouldn’t eat us and he swore he’d pull his weight. The brains are getting really expensive and he said he has a good relationship with a supplier so he could get them himself again.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“He’s a zombie! And a vampire, and werewolf or whatever!” Nathan lowered his voice when the other restaurant guests stared over at them. “He can’t just live with us!”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“We don’t think you’re being fair. How’s he going to prove himself if you don’t give him a chance?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I don’t even know what to say. I don’t…” he stopped and clenched his eyes shut. He drew in a deep breath and tried to calm the fury in his head. “He can’t live with us. Monsters kill people. They don’t live with them.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“He’s not a monster,” Chris defended. “Well, technically, maybe, but not in a way that matters. He just wants to be friends and so far he’s been really great.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"> Nathan shook his head and rose. “I’m not talking about this. You guys got us into this mess. Now get us out,” he commanded, storming from the restaurant.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">But of course, his roommates completely misunderstood his rant. Somehow they interpreted his unwillingness to discuss Roman’s freedom as permission to act as they saw fit. It took every ounce of Nathan’s resolve not to turn around and flee from the apartment when Roman’s pale face greeted him as he moved through the door.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I know we got off on the wrong foot,” Roman began.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You’re a vampire zombie-wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Yeah, and you’re a communications major.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You eat cow brains.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You eat cow bellies, legs, ribs, and muscles.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You could kill me.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“But I won’t.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“How do I know that?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Because you’re my boy. All of you are. Seriously, I could cry just thinking about it.” He quieted and adopted the same glazed expression his roommates had when they struggled beyond their mental capacity. “Know what?” he continued, giving up. “We should have a secret handshake. Oh man, that would be sweet. A roommate handshake.” Roman got out a notepad and scribbled furiously. “Chris will love that. We could do this…and this…and then…” He furrowed his brow.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman was right. Chris would love it, but Nathan wasn’t about to encourage him. He watched the thing choreograph his hands for a moment and quickly lost interest.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;"> Suddenly, Roman shook his head and rekindled the conversation. “You’re probably wondering how I came to be a vampire, zombie, and werewolf all at once.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Not really.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I should warn you first that it’s not a pretty story.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Really, I have to…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“It’s an unfortunate chain of events, but I guess it all worked out for the best if it brought us together.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Please, don’t…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“It all started about eighty years ago. See, I was a werewolf first.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Just then, the main door interrupted them as Sam, Chris and Travis returned from their grocery trip. They seemed surprised but pleased that Nathan and their new friend were bonding. “Hey, guys! You’re hanging out. That’s great.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I was just about to explain to Nathan how I came to be a vampire zombie-wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Actually, no. He wasn’t. I was about to go get ready for work.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The other four were clearly disappointed and Nathan couldn’t believe he even felt remotely guilty. It was absurd. Absolutely ridiculous. He sighed. “Fine. Tell your story.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“As I was saying, it all started eighty years ago. I was a werewolf living in the secluded woods of upstate <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">New York</state></place>.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Wait, how’d you become a werewolf?” Chris asked.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I don’t know. How’d you become an upper-middleclass suburban college student?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You weren’t bitten or anything?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Bitten?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Yeah, in the woods. By another werewolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah. Like we have nothing better to do than run around the woods turning hikers into werewolves.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“What else do you do then?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Do your hotdogs turn into humans when you bite them?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Chris quieted for a moment. “Well, no.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Anyway, it doesn’t work that way. Biting a human only gets us a ton of annoying shrieking and unwanted news coverage.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“So you don’t eat people.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Too much risk, not enough payoff. We prefer squirrels.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Squirrels?” Chris looked disappointed. “But big squirrels, right? I mean, only the most ferocious ones.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“No, just squirrels.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Ferocious squirrels?” Nathan asked in irritation, quickly regretting his decision to stay. They were actually having this discussion. And they were serious.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Ok. So, I’m in the woods…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Wait, sorry, quick question,” Travis interrupted again. “The werewolf thing…is that, you know, how you…well…I guess…the thing is…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“He wants to know about your muscles,” Nathan smirked.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman looked surprised and glanced down at his chest. “My muscles? Oh, you mean this.” He pulled up his shirt and Travis nodded in wonder.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“He’s jealous.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I’m not jealous,” Travis protested. “It’s purely research. If it’s something other than the werewolf thing, I want to know.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman sighed. “Sorry, man. It’s the werewolf thing, and a little of the vampire thing. I can do about two hundred crunches a minute.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Travis deflated. “Two hundred?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“On a bad day. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, you’d probably look even better than I do if you were a vampire zombie-wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman’s consolation drew a relieved smile from Travis, and Nathan rolled his eyes. “Ok, can we get on with this please? So you’re a werewolf in the woods. Then what?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Oh, right. Ok. So yeah, one night I’m chillin’ in the woods, hunting squirrels and the next thing I know there’s this girl. I mean, gorgeous. She’s real rebellious, you know? Long dark hair. Black eyes.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“She’s a vampire,” Sam guessed, and Roman seemed annoyed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Yes, she’s a vampire. We start talking and I find out she’s pissed at her gang and wants to turn a werewolf to get back at them. I’m like, what the heck, she’s hot, so we get down to business and she turns me.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“So a werewolf bite can’t turn you into a werewolf, but a vampire bite can?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman grinned. “Oh, it wasn’t a bite, my man. It was definitely not a bite.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“No biting at all?” Once again, Chris seemed on the verge of pouting.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Well, maybe a little biting if you know what I mean, but nothing that had to do with the process. Anyway, I can’t tell you all the details, but here’s the important part: I’m already a werewolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“And you’re immortal,” Travis concluded.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman furrowed his brow and shook his head. “No. Werewolves aren’t immortal. But we aren’t human either. So when she turns me, I don’t turn all the way. My werewolf side stops the process somehow so I only partially die before the vampire thing kicks in.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“And that’s the zombie part,” Nathan concluded, hurrying this along. “That’s very interesting, Roman. Ok, well, I have to go, but thanks for the back-story.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman seemed hurt, and Nathan couldn’t believe he actually felt bad. “Well, yeah. Wow. I never really figured out the zombie thing because I never met one, but yeah, I guess that makes sense. Maybe it had nothing to do with zombies at all, just bad luck. All I knew is that when I woke up with Krista the next day I not only craved blood, but also brains.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Krista is the vampire?” Travis clarified.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman nodded. “Yeah. She dumped me though when she realized I wasn’t a true a vampire and was now part zombie too. She said we weren’t intellectual equals.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Bitch!” Chris cried. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Well, she’s wrong about you, man,” Travis offered. “You’re the smartest zombie I’ve ever met. Heck, I wouldn’t have even known you were a zombie if you hadn’t told us.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“And you didn’t eat brains,” Sam added.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Aw, thanks guys. Anyway, so I’ve been wandering on my own ever since. The vamps hate me because of my zombie and werewolf side. The wolves hate me because of my vamp side. So I’ve got no one.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“What about the zombies?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman sighed. “They’d let me join their horde, I guess, but have you ever seen a zombie horde? Not exactly a rewarding relationship.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“A lot of staggering around, huh.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Nothing but staggering around. I need more than that.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Travis slapped Roman’s back and grinned. “Well, you’ve got us now.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Yeah, you guys are the best. Thanks for taking me in and all. I know it’s been weird.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“So do you still turn on the full-moon? What should we expect?” Nathan asked, not sure why they were avoiding the most important question besides whether or not he’d eat them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman cleared his throat and looked away with a sheepish expression. “Yes.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You do?” Nathan was now very concerned. “When’s the next full-moon?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Three days.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan cursed. He knew it. Dangerous monster. The others would have no choice but to see his side of the argument. “Ok, so what do we do? How do we control you when it happens? Do we need to find a cave or mine shaft or something to lock you in?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman bit his lip and stared at the kitchen counter. “Not exactly.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“No? Then, what?” Nathan cried, frustrated that the open book in front of them suddenly became hesitant when they hit the practical parts of his story. “You said you still turn. That means you’re probably dangerous and I think we need to…”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I’m not dangerous.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I’d say a giant vampire wolf running around the city is pretty dangerous,” Nathan charged.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman quieted and looked at them. “I don’t become a giant wolf.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You don’t?” Chris asked. “Just a regular wolf?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Not exactly.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“A vicious monster dog, then.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“More like…” he stopped and his eyes shifted. “More like a beagle... With bat wings.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Chris nearly choked on his beer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You become a flying beagle?” Nathan asked in disbelief. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“But at least you fly. That’s something,” Sam offered, but Roman shook his head.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“Well, I can’t exactly fly. I mean, bat wings don’t support the weight of a dog.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“So you don’t fly,” Nathan clarified. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“I can hover.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">“You hover,” Chris repeated quietly in defeat.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Nathan clenched his fist to keep a straight face. “So on the next full moon you will transform into a hovering bat beagle.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Roman coughed. “More or less.”</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> “Ok... Well, that’s... Yeah. Now I really have to go before I’m late. Have a great night guys.” Nathan moved to his room, still trying not to laugh. He didn’t know whether he should celebrate or cry about the fact that his roommates had adopted the most disappointing monster on the planet.</span>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-42213408454286227902012-01-05T20:11:00.003-05:002012-01-05T20:16:19.093-05:004th Quarter Movie Reviews<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">It’s been a while since we’ve done movie reviews here at the blog, so here’s a recap of the 4<sup>th</sup> quarter. We usually do this monthly, but this time we’ll do the best and worst of the movies I’ve seen since November. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Best Movie Since November: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Exam</i> (2009)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">I’m a sucker for these problem-solving puzzle psychological thrillers. From a pure production and critical standpoint, some of the other films I’ve seen were probably better (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunshine</i>, 2007; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Adjustment Bureau, </i>2011), but in terms of the most memorable that kept my interest from beginning to end, this one did the job.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">This is a challenging genre for a writer. Whether it’s a novel or a film script, the payoff at the end of these types of enigmatic thrillers almost never lives up to the build-up that gets us there. One of the few exceptions in my opinion was the fantastic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fermat’s Room (La habitacion de Fermat)</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fermat’s Room </i>is sleek, engaging, and actually does the impossible of pulling itself together tightly in the end. It’s a pretty film to watch and even the string of challenges for the characters are interesting. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Exam </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">is a distant second, but still worth the ride. Basically, several job candidates are vying for a prestigious position and must answer a single question while locked in a room. There are only a few rules and, as you can guess, psychology intervenes leading to tension and chaos. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ending isn’t terrible, but was a little weak compared to the journey toward it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The last time I saw Luke Mably was as Julia Stiles prince charming in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Prince & Me</i>. I’m sure he’s been in many other things, but I didn’t see them so I when I saw his name in the credits I immediately had flashes of a pleasant, dapper lad in formal military attire. I enjoyed seeing him as anything but a prince charming in this film. He can play a jerk with the best of them which is a credit to the actor in my opinion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Honorable Mention: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gnomeo & Juliet, 2011 </i>(I can’t not mention a film that has James McAvoy in the credits.); <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunshine</i>, 2007</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Worst Movie Since November: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Roommate </i>(2011)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">To be fair, this actually isn’t the worst movie I saw, but some are just impossible to review. (e.g. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Deaths of Ian Stone </i>left me scratching my head, but not in confusion. I got it I guess, but …what was the point of even making it?) So we’ll go with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Roommate </i>because it was the worst major film that was trying to be good.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">First of all, there was a huge, glaring problem right from the opening credits: Minka Kelly as a sweet, nurturing girl next door. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Now, I don’t know Ms. Kelly. She could be the nicest person in the world, but she’s doomed as an actress by her own physical perfection. I have trouble believing she’d be the type to take a needy outcast under her wing. She just has that crippling flawless beauty that makes her unbelievable as anything BUT the snobby head cheerleader. As you know, I was a huge Friday Night Lights fan where she managed to transition from cheerleader to damaged girl next door, but it took several seasons, multiple in-depth storylines, and plenty of help from other characters to get there. I didn’t believe her character for one second. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Having said all that, glaring problem number two was believing Leighton Meester as a social misfit psycho-stalker. The movie tried hard to explain her character, but again, she was just too pretty. I also had trouble believing she would get away with all the horrifying acts she committed without repercussions. If I were the blond, curly haired girl who was repeatedly terrorized, I’d go to the police no questions asked. I don’t care what kinds of threats the crazy girl made or what dirt she had on me. She just tortured me in the shower. She’s getting arrested. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">One plus was Cam Gigandet. I’ll admit I find him fascinating as an actor. He may not be my favorite (I’m on record for the James McAvoy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt camp), but he’s unique in a very obvious way. Actors are frequently typecast, but rarely as two opposite character-types. I’ve seen him in several films and he’s either a very believable villain or a very believable supportive boyfriend to the female lead. It’s not often you see an actor who’s typically cast as the bad guy also pull off the supportive boyfriend. He was the only character I believed, which is ironic considering how many times I’ve seen him scowling and sneering at heroes. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Honorable Mention: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Deaths of Ian Stone; Vanishing on <street w:st="on"></i></span><br />
<address w:st="on">7<sup>th</sup> Street; La Belle Personne</address>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-60026234508163114362011-12-31T14:29:00.000-05:002011-12-31T14:29:16.698-05:00Winter Classic: Expounding on the Merits of Ice Hockey<div class="entry-content">I’m sure you already have Monday, January 2 starred, circled, and highlighted on your calendar. I know I have ever since the announcement that this season’s Winter Classic NHL game would feature the Flyers and be held in Philadelphia.<br />
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In case you’re not up on all things NHL, the Winter Classic is a relatively new annual event where two NHL teams play their scheduled New Year’s game at an outdoor venue. The day is long, cold, expensive… and incredibly popular. HBO even covers the participating teams in a short miniseries which is a fascinating behind the scenes documentary even if you don’t follow hockey.<br />
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Having said all that, it’s no secret that I’m an avid fan of many sports, not just hockey. After some careful analysis and unbiased contemplation, I’ve come to the conclusion that hockey may not be the most popular sport in the USA, but objectively speaking, it’s the most impressive.<br />
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1. The Athletes:<br />
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Hockey players get a bad rap for their missing teeth and stitched faces, but the reality is, they are probably the best conditioned athletes of any sport as a whole. Hockey players require the cardio training of basketball and soccer players, the strength and toughness of football players, and the agility and coordination of baseball, tennis, and most other sports.<br />
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In most other sports, you can compensate for missing pieces of the puzzle with other skills. Not the greatest runner? That’s ok, you can play first base. Not the strongest guy on the team? That’s ok, you can play wide receiver. A little overweight? No problem, you’re a pitcher, or a lineman, or an outfielder.<br />
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Not in hockey. You better be tough, strong, well-conditioned, and agile. That’s a minimum. Specific skills and positions are the icing, not the cake like in other sports. Oh, and you have to do it all on skates at break neck speeds.<br />
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Have you ever seen the inside of a hockey locker room? From the neck down it’s like a waiting room for a Calvin Klein casting. Perfectly muscular, Greek warrior physiques isn’t a plus, but a requirement. Check out a baseball or football locker room. With several exceptions, it’s more of a casting for a Hardees commercial.<br />
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2. Watchability/Pacing:<br />
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I love baseball. I love baseball because I love numbers, stats, and white noise. There’s something comforting about having the TV on even if you’re not watching it. It’s a reminder that there’s a bigger world outside of your own little microcosm which helps put the stress of everyday life in perspective. The baseball season is great for that. For several months out of the year there is something to glow on my TV every night while I do laundry, clean up from dinner, take care of the kids, prepare for work the next day, eventually doze off on the couch… Baseball: the sport you can watch without watching.<br />
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From a pure watchability and pacing standpoint, however, hockey is the opposite and superior to other sports. Intense from buzzer to buzzer. Rife with momentums shifts, physical confrontation, sleek scoring plays, impressive skill and stick handling. It’s the perfect mix of team effort and individual expertise compacted into nonstop action.<br />
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Football is 45 minutes of movement and 3 hours of standing around. Baseball is 3 hours of standing around. Soccer is 1.5 hours of movement and 38 seconds of excitement.<br />
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Hockey is the only sport that combines nearly constant action with constant excitement. Sure there are whistles, but they’re not built into the game like football. I guess a similar argument could be made for basketball, although there are many more stoppages than in hockey. Plus, a basketball game is meaningless until the last two minutes, unlike hockey where every play matters. More importantly, I don’t like basketball.<br />
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Love it or hate it, it’s hard to argue that hockey isn’t the most fast-paced, intense, and action-packed of all the major sports.<br />
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3. Atmosphere/Fans:<br />
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There are several other arguments we could make about the superiority of hockey, but I will leave you with just one more point to keep the magic number to three.<br />
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I don’t care if you hate hockey and swore you’d never go to a game. It’s true they’re expensive, and if your local team is beloved like ours, they’re crowded and difficult to attend. But I promise you, there is nothing, NOTHING, like seeing a home team score a goal live.<br />
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I’ve been to many sporting events and my favorite experience of all is the eruption of a hockey stadium when your team scores. There is no word other than eruption to describe it. The air horn blares, every fan jumps to his or her feet in one collective, unanimous scream that echoes throughout the indoor stadium. I get chills just thinking about it. Watching on TV can’t replicate that feeling of elation, that roar, that instant connection with twenty thousand other fans who are now your best friends for two hours.<br />
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Hockey fans are hardcore. You don’t spend $80 for two tickets, $15 for parking, $125 for a jersey, and $75 for food because it’s a fun thing to do with the guys after work (baseball). You don’t tag along with your neighbors because there’s going to be a kickin’ tailgate party beforehand and you always said you wanted to try a game at least once in your lifetime (football). You go because you love hockey and you know you’ll be surrounded by several thousand other people who love hockey.<br />
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This is a not a casual Sunday afternoon at the ballpark. When I go to games, I don’t leave my seat. At the end of regulation you stand and stretch, your rear sore from balancing on the edge of that hard plastic seat for two and a half hours. Your voice is hoarse from screaming. You’ve exchanged smiles, high fives, and conversation with at least a dozen strangers around you. And you don’t even care that you’re going to sit in the parking lot for an hour trying to get out of your space.<br />
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You don’t care, because you just watched some of the best athletes in the world compete in one of the most intense, exciting games on the planet.<br />
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Monday is the Winter Classic. Go Flyers.</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-56857060073612160412011-12-28T17:59:00.000-05:002011-12-28T17:59:39.886-05:00Adventures in Zoology: A Wildlife Observation of the Simon Property<div class="entry-content">When you live on a farm, you expect to be surrounded by animals. When you live in a remote mountainside cabin, you expect to be surrounded by animals. When you live on a large tropical estate, you expect to be surrounded by animals. When you live on a third of an acre in a populated eastern Pennsylvanian suburban development, you expect to be surrounded by shrubs and nosy neighbors.<br />
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Not us.<br />
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How we ended up somewhere between a Hitchcock movie and Snow White’s fairyland forest is beyond me, but our little piece of the pie must break some kind of record for wild fauna per square foot. We have an entire woodland ecosystem coexisting in our fifteen trees lining the edge of our backyard. This is the story of what lies behind the sliding glass patio door that serves as a portal into this strange, unexpected world.<br />
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1. The Squirrels<br />
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It could have been cute. We actually have frolicking squirrels. They don’t run, they don’t work, they actually frolic. One of these days they WILL burst into song and my poor tortured cat will be even more frantic locked behind the glass door as they taunt her from the safety of our yard.<br />
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I remember one day in spring when a handful of young ones darted past the window. Then another. Then this terrifying flood of squirrel nation tore by, frolicking gaily with their little evil squirrel grins because somehow they know we don’t have a BB gun and we wouldn’t have the guts to use it if we did.<br />
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Even on Christmas day with temperatures hovering in the 30’s and 40’s we watched them parade around the patio, daring us to protest their presence. Daring us to face them like men. Of course, we cowered behind the glass as usual. My father seemed to think squirrels were supposed to hibernate. Not our squirrels. They never rest. Score one for Hitchcock.<br />
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2. The Groundhog<br />
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This is not your neighborhood groundhog. This is a suburban walrus. I still remember the day it first waddled up to the infamous sliding glass door, taking its turn at approaching the entrance to the human world. I don’t know what it was trying to do, or where it was trying to go, or why it chose our door of all places, but my first instinct was to marvel at the otter. I took some pictures, my cat went nuts, and yes, I thought about rabies. But then again, for four years I’ve lived with a door that attracts everything from frogs to stray cats to snakes to yes, squirrel hordes, so having strange animals hovering around outside is par for the course.<br />
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Upon later reflection, my superior reasoning skills determined it was probably not an otter. Or a beaver (my second choice). I also ruled out land-dwelling manatee and trunkless elephant. To be fair, I’d forgotten about the existence of groundhogs. When I remembered, groundhog seemed more responsible. Thirty pounds of groundhog.<br />
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I’ve since discovered its home by our neighbor’s fence. It does kind of resemble a beached sea creature when it lounges in the sun. Lazy thing. Snow White would have no use for it. Score two for Hitchcock.<br />
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3. The Fox<br />
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As if it’s not strange enough to have a fox roaming around your small yard, ours only has three legs. I’m sure there’s a story there. I’m sure I don’t care.<br />
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Have you ever heard a fox bark? We were terrified the first time we heard a blood-curdling screaming child in our driveway. We sped to the window only to see this scraggly rat of a thing chatting with the neighbor’s dogs. It was not the sleek, fuzzy animal you’ve seen in cartoons and on National Geographic. It was more of large matted cat. With a pointy nose and three legs. It’s hard to imagine it seducing another animal into conforming to its will a la the classic fables. (Except maybe out of pity.)<br />
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I can’t see Hitchcock doing much with such an unappetizing, pathetic villain. I can’t see Snow White including it in her circle of dancing forest friends. No, the fox is just another of the woodland abnormalities unique to our yard.<br />
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Listed above are just a few of the highlights of what you can expect from our small urban wonderland. We also have deer, snakes, birds of every variety, chipmunks, a mole, a frog, and a giant toad. And all of these (except the mole) have been observed from behind the sliding glass door. I hate to imagine what we’d find if we actually lived in the woods.</div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1984082698878311940.post-37372811847593770172011-12-24T16:35:00.002-05:002011-12-25T17:56:34.605-05:00Call Me Scrooge<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">Ok, I’ll admit it. I may need a visit from the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Actually, that’s not true if their main purpose is to turn a raisin of a weasel into a legitimate human being. But if they’re also supposed to make people like Christmas movies, then they should fly in and take the guest room. They’ve got their work cut out for them.<br />
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Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the Christmas holiday. It’s a time for family, celebration, and for us, has strong religious implications. In fact, we just had a Christmas baby. Our very own Christmas angel, Gabriel.<br />
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But Christmas movies. And they’re on an endless loop not for a couple days. Not even a week. Now it’s like two months. Soon we’ll be counting down to Christmas on ABC Family starting in September.<br />
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I was going to review some movies in the spirit of the season, but it’s impossible. I don’t know enough adjectives to write multiple reviews of the exact same movie with different actors and slightly different plot points.<br />
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There’s only been one good Christmas movie in the past twenty years – <em>Elf</em>. Everything else is straight up cheese and a complete waste of time. Don’t try to convince me otherwise. I unknowingly married the president of Santa’s fan club. I’ve been tortured with pieces of all of them for several years now. I lose complete control of the TV and DVR for the entire month of December.<br />
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That may be harsh. Maybe it’s my scrooginess whining in generalities. Maybe it’s from too much cable guide scrolling on the upstairs TV looking for ANYTHING other than titles like <em>Christmas in Handcuffs, 25 Dates for Christmas, A Career Woman Thinks She Has It All Until It’s Christmas And She’s Alone And Realizes There’s So Much More To Life (Oh, And The Humble Plumber Is Totally Hot And Shows Her The Real Meaning Of Christmas).</em><br />
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Ok, so those may not be actual titles, but you’re nodding because you know exactly what I’m talking about and they very well could be. Those are the ones that ruin the genre for jaded skeptics like me. There may still be good ones out there, but I will miss them because I’ll be darned if I spend two hours of my precious little free time watching a waitress plot with her friends to trick the cute bartender into posing under the mistletoe only to find out in the end that she only had to ask. See, he liked her too.<br />
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Wait… no! No! Scrooge would have fired her butt in the opening scene for sexual harassment, lack of productivity, and creating a disruptive work environment. As he should have. I can’t argue with that.<br />
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My equally skeptical college roommate and I had a phrase for this phenomenon of Hollywood and cable assuming the laws of physics and the universe no longer apply from December 1 to December 25 (and that their audience suddenly loses 20 IQ points). We called it “Christmas Magic” and wryly applied the label to every unlikely event that occurred during the season. From an unexpected good grade on an exam to a flirty glance from the crush of the week, we would toss “Christmas Magic” as loosely as the season seemed to demand.<br />
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So here’s my review of every Christmas movie except <em>Elf:</em> Don’t. Watch <em>Elf </em>instead. After that, go buy Switchfoot’s latest album “Vice Verses.” It’s a better use of your time and money. Oh, and it’s a gift that will keep on giving long after December 25. Now that’s Christmas magic.</span></div>Allison M Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00334054975389566276noreply@blogger.com0