Oh yeah, wedding blogging

This is my millionth pathetic attempt to revive my blog. In the many, many months since last I posted (which didn't even count), oh so much has happened. The boy and I adjusted to cohabitation, bought a house (hello, suburbia) and got engaged. I'm hoping that by forcing myself to compose the occasional wedding-related post, I'll start writing for real (?) again.

I wrote a guest post for The Plunge Project, the wedding blog of a Knoxvillian, Nicole (who has ties to Jacksonville...tiny world), and it was fun to write and share and talk about all this bullshit like it really matters. Which it does. But no one takes you seriously when you are fretting about flowers. They just don't. But by god, I can put it in a blog and I will feel better.

That said, I need to bring up a very important issue: the Serious Face wedding portrait. A handful of my high school acquaintances have gotten married recently, and after seeing their pictures, it seems like this is the big trend.

I speak only for myself here, but really, I can’t say I’m a fan. I don’t want to offend anyone because everyone wants to remember their wedding in their own way, but I just can’t get behind the Serious Face. I’ve only seen a few shots where the people don’t look kind of angry or where they’re gunning to be Male Model of the year.

Weddings are fun and exciting; I can’t imagine not having a big ridiculous smile on my face in all my pictures. I want to look back and think how happy I was all day and now how I had to force myself into a Serious Face look — or, worse, that making a not-happy face was easy.

I think there is definitely a place for pictures in which everyone isn't all smiley, but it's about looking thoughtful, not like you're throwing eye daggers at your photographer. However, I wonder if the Serious Face is a trend that photogs are latching onto and encouraging of their subjects. We have fabulous photogs, and I've seen lots of their work, so I can't imagine them suggesting it, but I really doubt I'd be enthused to go along with it if they did.

Of course, it's your wedding blah blah blah, but I just don't understand why anyone would at any point just not want to look totally happy.

It's a missed connection, a canceled show

Something I do when I have unfettered Internet access and plenty of free time is read Craigslist. I know, that makes me slightly uncool, but the "best of" makes me laugh more often than not, and sometimes I like to shop real estate or look for jobs in more politically progressive cities. But one of my favorite things is reading the "missed connections" section.

I didn't think lots of others did it, but my friend admitted to doing it so I don't feel so alone anymore. Now, I don't read them because I hope against hope that some strapping young man missed a connection with me. They're thoroughly entertaining, though, because someone is always a "vision," particularly if she is the leggy blonde with whom Mr. Connectionless made eye contact as she brushed past him in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. Mr. Connectionless wants to know what color her T-shirt was and what kind of cereal she was reaching for when The Moment happened, you know, just so he can make sure it's actually Ms. Wheaties and not some wacko who thinks he's actually her man.

I also get a chuckle when they're asking for a specific person. The headline is often something to the tune of "Looking for KELLY SMITH. where are you? i miss you?" and the poor girl is, like, the customer service specialist he spoke to when calling to inquire about one of his credit cards. Her voice was angelic. There was something, but he was afraid to act on it.

Actually though, I think it's all in vain. What are the odds that Ms. Wheaties will actually think, "Oh, who was that stunning single man who was trying to decide between name brand and generic raisin bran? Why didn't I talk to him? [Pause as she brightens, realizing there is hope.] Maybe he went looking for me on Craigslist! WHERE IS A COMPUTER?"

I think Mr. Connectionless creates this post in a desperate hope that some lame, single female (do not judge) reads these for giggles, sees his ad and instantly wants to have his children. That seems like greater motivation than actually finding Ms. Wheaties or KELLY SMITH.

I would like to find some statistics on the success of missed connections with the people who actually missed the connection, not the people who wished someone would a miss a connection with them. To be totally honest, it is kind of precious that Mr. Connectionless does this. Maybe he just didn't have the nerve to make a move when it would have mattered, you know? But really, I can't say I would be inspired to go get coffee or have dinner (or any other number of "dates" they suggest) with someone who used Craigslist's missed connections as the way to find me. I think I'd be really creeped out if some stranger tried to find me, period, but that's a different story.

Maybe I would sing a different tune if that actually did happen, but I'm just going to hope and assume it's not.

The great wall of ... idiocy

This weekend I stopped by Publix to get some cat food and other sundries, and while I waited in the line to check out, I noticed that the new issue of Time was out, so I picked up a copy. The main headline was "The Great Wall of America," and the story was about the wall going up between Mexico and the U.S., something I've been following for a while.

I put all my stuff, including the magazine, down to be scanned, and the check-out was doing her thing, when she picked up the magazine and exclaims, "America has a great wall? What?!" At first I thought she was kidding — people joke about things like this, I suppose. But she kept going with it, and then the girl who was bagging pulls the magazine out of the bag she just put it in and goes, "I thought only China had a great wall! What are they talking about?"

At this point I felt like it was only fair for me to intervene, so I told them the story was about the wall between Mexico and the U.S., and they looked at me in utter disbelief. They didn't seem to know that, yes, a wall/fence/barrier of some sort is being constructed in order to "reduce" illegal immigration. 

Check-out girl laughed a puzzled little laugh, and bagger girl says, "Can't they just hop the fence? They think nobody's going to climb that wall? People's crazy and they'll climb anything!"

At that point I'd paid and attempted to gather up my stuff, but they were STILL carrying on, so I just stood there for a minute then said I had to go and walked away.

This is just so blatantly idiotic I don't even need to make fun of it. It takes care of itself.

Nice guys don't get paid.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day (everyone's favorite day!), I'd just like to say something that I've thought for a very long time: Nice guys don't finish last.

They don't. Contrary to the Green Day song, nice guys are actually highly sought after and rather nice to keep around. The problem is, guys who classify themselves as "nice guys" often are not. Per my observations, I've found them to be whiny saps.

The guys who all say "nice guys finish last, girls want a guy who's going to treat her like crap, girls need a chase and I just can't do that" blah blah blah tend to be wimps. Wimps are bad. Nice guys are good.

And if anyone is going be whining in a relationship, it's going to be me, capiche?

I've been whining a considerable amount in recent days since The Day of My Noose was Thursday, so I've tried to find people who will share in my misery. I can count on a few fellows I know to at least hate the day with me, but a couple really boo-hooed (not literally; there were no actual tears) about how they're great and they wanted a Valentine and they know girls who didn't get anything from the guys they're dating and that's not OK and they would treat a girl so well but they're too nice and they can never get anywhere, etc etc.

Please.

You think you're too nice? No such thing. Too whiny? Ding! I can't speak for all the other girls I know, but I don't want somebody to fall all over themselves for me. It's nice that the potential is there, believe me, but please don't actually do it.

And that whole "girls just want a guy who makes them work for attention" thing is a load of crap as well. I'll admit, a little hard-to-get is OK, but there's a line between "hard to get" and "please don't get me at all." Sometimes that line is hard to recognize, especially when a girl doesn't want to see it. But it's there and if a girl willingly ignores it, well, that's just something you handle on a case-by-case basis. But girls generally don't go seeking out guys who will run away from them unless they have issues (points at self).

But a chase is preferable to having everything you could ever want dropped in your lap (although there's a point where that starts to shift; I think I'm reaching it).

I don't guess I know how exactly to define a "nice" guy, but he's not whiny. And he's not a pushover. It varies per person, those characteristics are not positive attributes.

Let's shift subjects, shall we? Onto the stream-of-consciousness part of the post you might actually read:

Spring break is in two weeks. Everything for ASB is in order. I am beyond excited for my site and my girls.

Today there was a guy sitting outside Starbucks asking people for money, etc. One guy brought him inside, bought him coffee and a pastry, then sat with him for a while outside and talked to him. I stared half the time because I was so happy that people like that really do exist and also because I couldn't help but wonder if I'm big enough to do the same thing. I'm not. He came back in later and asked for a refill on his coffee, and whoever was working said they didn't do free refills, even though the barista that had left not long ago said she'd refill it for him. So he went back outside, where he stayed for about 15 minutes before leaving. I could have bought him coffee or said that Jami told him she'd refill for him, but I didn't. I thought about it. I don't know why I didn't, and I'm really mad at myself for not doing anything. I feel like a hypocrite sometimes because I'm in all these service organizations and I'll volunteer my life away, but I can't just buy some guy more coffee? Rarely am I disappointed in myself, but this time I am.

I wrote a story today. It was short and not my best, but I haven't written fiction in a few months. Before you ask, no, you may not read it. I feel better about my writing than I did a year ago, but that doesn't mean I want to share it. If I ever let someone read my stories, I'll probably marry them.

Speaking of getting married, WE is showing marathons of all my favorite bridal shows. I just watched "My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding," and some girl spent ... wait for it ... wait for it ... $775,000 OF HER NEW HUSBAND'S (who is about 50; she's like 20 I think) MONEY on the wedding. Her dress was $6,500. Holy god. For one day.

I'm going to the $99 David's Bridal sale and will be happy to have a cotton candy machine at the reception.

It's skank-tastic.

I have said at least once before that MySpace bothers me just a wee bit because it's a beautiful forum for skankiness. People can do or say whatever they please because, hey, everyone else is doing it.

Girls can take the MySpace-mirror picture of themselves in their underwear or shorts that say "Bootylicious" (or something else equally dumb) on the ass; boys can ... well, they can do exactly the same thing. BECAUSE THEY DO. I HAVE SEEN THIS AND I DO NOT LIKE IT. Then they can write a clever, obviously original little caption that says something along the lines of "lOoK bUtT dOn'T tOuCh!!!!!!1111!1!1!!!!!" Again, I have seen it with mine own eyes.

However, there's a line between being a dumb ho and being a Dumb Ho. Perhaps that is harsh. Hm. Good.

Yesterday when I logged in, I looked at the bulletins section because I'm a sucker for some quality time-wasting surveys. What I saw was not something that appeals to me at all.


Yep, you read that right. Subject: Fuck Buddies (and ::Fuck Buddies:: — I would hate to not give credit for that clever use of a PUNCTUATION MARK). Twice. This particular bulletin was posted by two different people. I hope to Jesus in Heaven that the second was not in response to the first. Oh please oh please no.

The full text of said bulletin is as follows:

For a laugh...or serious up to you!
Statistically speaking, unless you are a total hermit, social retard, or ugly as a bag of spoiled ass... There's at least one person on your myspace that wants to date you or sleep with you. So..... lets play "FUCK BUDDIES"
The rules are simple... if you want to date the person who posted this, send them a message to their inbox saying "Im yours".
If you just want to sleep with them and stay friends, send them a message that says "I'd hit it".
SCARED? You pussy, just do it!
THE TWIST IS YOU HAVE TO REPOST THIS, EVEN IF YOU'RE TAKEN
& see who replies. There is at least 1 person on your myspace that wants to date you, and maybe more that want to sleep with you.
SO... re-post as "FUCK BUDDIES", as it doesn't matter if your married, in a relationship,single, gay or straight! You opened it so you HAVE to repost

Uh ... well, I opened it, obviously, but I only wanted to make fun of it. But I mean, if there are any takers...

NOT REALLY.

But seriously? Isn't this what one might call "solicitation"? I think so, but then again I suppose my take on this is a tad skewed since I'm marginally disturbed by the whole thing.

Part of me badly wants these people to read my blog and be offended, but then the smart side of me comes in and reminds the mean, funny part of me that they aren't going to read my blog. If those bulletins were successful, they're going to be pretty busy for a while.

I won't get too specific with any other complaints other than the creative punctuator (::::::::) posts no less than seven bulletins daily (what? I get on MySpace a lot! I have to avoid homework somehow.), and most of them say something like "OMG im so bored. someone post something to give me something to do. why arent any of you on line?"

Snack on that for a minute. I don't even need to make fun of it because it pretty much takes care of itself.

I think the question is: WHY ARE YOU SO LAME? I sort of feel bad because I was pretty good friends with this person in high school, but hey we're not in high school anymore, are we?

There are days when I utterly loathe my life and can safely say in some moments I am the lamest person alive, but in terms of overall lameness, I've got nothing on some of the people I know. Oh well. I can't be the first at everything.

I also forgot to mention that I have hives again. I have run out of medicine and don't have time to drive to Kroger. My life sucks right now.

During a conversation with a friend not long ago, I made a few realizations about the opposite sex, musicians in particular. I then wrote some of this down (I've elaborated a bit more here) because I personally think it's dead-on accurate. Some of you might disagree, and I understand that. Regardless, at the request of a one Chris Milam, I've blogged this for the world. I have some very specific examples to back up my claims, but I won't include them, as I do respect anonymity. However, if you know me (or you are one of these people), then you can probably guess them easily.

Based on my EXTENSIVE experience, I have determined there exists three basic types of male musicians. This does apply to the non-musical to some degree, but I don't have enough specifics for that. Moving along. The three types are as follows: the wannabe emo, the wannabe douchebag and the wannabe badass.

WANNBE EMO
Boo hoo. The girl you were dating broke your heart. Okay, that gives you some material. Prior to that? Nothing. This kind of musician plays the martyr, the poor sad boy, the good guy who just can't win. Garbage. This musician actually tends to be a jerk. A marginally talented jerk, but a jerk none the less. This poor fellow is just SO tortured and sad and broken that he can't maintain a functioning relationship with any girl because he has too many scars. He's very very busy feeling sorry his poor self. His goal in life is to be totally awesome and rad like Chris Carrabba/Dashboard Confessional. Oh man. However, emo is sort of over as a genre (except maybe with 17-year-old girls with black MySpace pages, but that's a whole other point), so the poor lad doesn't have anywhere to channel his sensitive and broken feelings. He decides to give up his craft. Whatever, but is that the smartest choice? Absolutely not, but it IS melodramatic and he needs sympathy; this way, people will tell him how great he is and how "hott" he is with that guitar. He'll write a song about it — a song about how no one listens to his songs. Hm.

This boy is (and I sort of hate to say it) a waste of talent. He has a great deal of potential, but he refuses to get truly deep and write about more than just the pretty girl who broke his heart. Why? Who knows. Maybe he doesn't go that deep. Or he thinks he IS going deep. He's exposing his vulnerable soul. Pardon me while I gag. Whatever the reason, he's not going in any new direction. This musician has tied himself to the ideal (is it really an ideal?) and his acoustic guitar and then gets very sad when things don't go as planned. Marginal talent is better than none at all, but, again, he's too busy tending to his perpetually broken heart to realize that maybe he ought to try something different. After all, this boy probably doesn't have TONS else going for him (at least my example doesn't). Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but this just seems to be the trend in my case studies.

MORAL: This guy is awfully whiny. Occasionally he has a complex thought, but he's often too busy "missing her soooooooo much is hurts" to pay attention to that lonely thought. Doesn't know himself very well, but thinks he does. Very puzzling.

WANNABE DOUCHEBAG
This guy appears to be the polar opposite of poor Mr. Emo. But he's not — after all, they're both musicians, right? This guy is a closet nice guy. He just needs to give off the I'm-a-jerk-I-fuck-all-the-girls-I-want-because-I-play-the-guitar-pretty-damn-well attitude, but that's not necessarily who he is on the whole. Maybe he is a little bit. This guy is actually very nice and pays attention. Emo guy will break a heart and then write a song whining about how much he misses her. The douchebag will have his heart broken, then write a song about how he's glad the dumb ho is gone, even though he's pretty sad inside. Then he'll go get laid to make himself feel a little better, though he may regret it a bit (A BIT) in hindsight. This guy's best material is inspired by the ladies but not all of it is necessarily about them. Some big issues get disguised as girl issues, but metaphors (or similies or whatever the hell they are) are sneaky things. Oh metaphors — this guy loves them. However, he's pretty smart and has quite the way with words, so sometimes it's tough to tell if he's being literal or not. That works nicely because it helps him justify the jerk-itude.

Alas, he's a bad faker. He does possess the ability to be nice and sympathetic, and he's the farthest thing from flaky. The list can go on. So why the front/alter ego? I'd say that differs for everyone, but part of it is that the nice-guy image doesn't really mesh with the stereotypical musician image. It would ruin his credibility as a purveyor of she-did-me-wrong songs. But, unlike Mr. Emo only wishes he were, this musician isn't pushover-nice. He's just nice. How frustrating that must be. He's choosy about to whom he's genuinely nice and to whome he's nice because he's wants to get some. The rest of the time he's busy giving himself how-to-be-an-asshole pep talks so he doesn't ruin the persona.

MORAL: He's nice but fronts ass. Great potential for dishonesty, but also great potential for the opposite. Maybe doesn't know himself very well. Very puzzling as well.

WANNABE BADASS
This musician is nearly legit but not quite. He's a regular guy most of the time, but he's in musician mode, he is too cool for school. This one is also a musical elitist, and if there's something he doesn't like very much then OBVIOUSLY it sucks and no one should waste their time on it. His music sounds really similar to that which he listens to, but it's not all the same. Just almost. It's not bad or anything, just sort of indistinguishable from some of the other lyric-less songs. Instrumentals work better than songs with lyrics for this dude because it's pretty difficult to write about being a douchebag and MEANING it.

Besides, some of the things he has for writing about just seem too shallow for his ideas. To the average person, they' re probably pretty good, but he thinks nothing of them. Rarely does he say what he means in his songs — like Douchebag, he speaks (sings) in metaphors — but in real life he does. Sometimes. But he's mostly just a jerk. In musician-mode, he's an aloof ass and plays what he thinks is the proper role of a musician. He's sort of like Douchebag, except he's quite nearly the same person in both instances.

MORAL: He's a jerk who fronts to be a bigger jerk but is occasionally kind-hearted. Maybe doesn't know himself all that well either.

-----

Common thread? The way people perceive these dudes is somewhat different than they way they want to be perceived or the way they think they're being perceived. Indeed, exceptions to the rule do exist, and sometimes there are people who legitimately fit into each of these categories because they are truly whiny or jerks. Of course, there are people who span the categories and people who don't fit neatly into any of them. I don't know if either of those are preferable, but if that's who you are then that's who you are.

What I can't quite put my finger on is why this applies so well to musicians but not quite non-musicians. I've considered it at some length (hey, I have to think about something when I'm in class), but I just haven't been able to nail it down. I can't say with certainty that all these are true, but I feel rather confident in the them. I welcome your thoughts, and if you recognize yourself in any of these, um, I'm sorry? They are but my opinions.