Ten Reasons I Think Female Masturbation is A-OK

1. Can help women discover/figure out how to orgasm
2. Learning about own body
3. Clearly carnal, helps associate a more personal experience with actual sex
4. Being comfortable with body makes sex less of an awkward or scary experience.
5. Can help teens stay abstinent...
6. ...Or at least decrease sexual promiscuity.
7. Sexual independence abets social independence!
8. Helps understand the male orgasm, since they're so psychologically similar.
9. Releases tension, stress.
10. Why should men get all the fun (and none of the stigma)?

Ten Things About Starbucks That I Like Despite My Best Efforts To Fight The Man

1. Recycled napkins
2. The music they sell is actually pretty amazing
3. Tazo Tea
4. The barista at the one next to the CVS (heartbreakingly friendly)
5. After-coffee mints
6. So easy to find one nearby, no matter where you are
7. Wonderful around Christmastime (also open on Christmas Day)
8. The chocolate cupcakes. Ohmygoodnessheavenly.
9. Helped me pass AP Chem.
10. Well, I can appreciate a colorfully painted hanging light shade.

They're just so, easy easy easy. I mean, I prefer Snug Mug's futon/ Calvin and Hobbes books/ lattes and Java Monkey's hot chocolate/ general ambience and Panera's food/ quiet back corner for studying...but Starbucks is a good place to meet in the middle. I mean, you know it's going to be loud and overpriced and that you'll have to say silly words like "grande" and "venti," but at least you know the formula and can consciously settle for it instead of walking in blindly somewhere. I guess it's nice just to have that confidence and stability and assurance, at least in this one place. No matter how chaotic and everywhere the rest of your life is, you at least know you can drive five minutes to a Starbucks and find without fail that same old selloutselloutsameoldsameold.

(I do wish they had: mugs; softer lattes; more couches; a quieter cappuccino machine; a later closing time.)

an ammendment (1/15): Brought this up with Greg and learned of a-- rumor? possibility?-- that Starbucks employs some very inhumane practices to grow its coffee. How much truth there is to this claim I don't know. Will update as soon as I find new information.

Ten Things I Wish My Mother Wouldn't Say

1. "How do you know Northwestern is a good school?"
2. "You're going out AGAIN? But you went out three days ago!"
3. "Well, fine, just go. Leave."
4. "That shirt is too SHOWY."
5. "Yale! Yale! Yale!" (not a direct quote)
6. "Do you WANT to go to UGA?"
7. "Instead of checking your email, why don't you clean your room?"
8. "Asians are smart."
9. "You have to use your weekends to do work."
10. "Don't try to teach me. I'm your mother."

She makes me...so angry sometimes. We can, I guess, partly attribute her worst moments to being in a bad mood after work. But she just doesn't realize that those moments actually matter to us-- in fact, they're the most distinct-- the times she comes home and picks a fight with anyone who dares speak to her. I hate that she brings up my old offenses in our new arguments. I hate that she thinks the only schools worth going to are the six that she's heard of. I hate that she never, never, never admits to being wrong. I hate that any opinion of mine that contradicts some flimsy wisdom she picked up twenty years ago is automatically not only wrong, but stupid and offensive, disrespectful to her status as Mother.

Ten Smells That Make Me Feel Wonderful

1. Clothes fresh out of the dryer
2. Bookstores, esp. Barnes and Noble
3. Old Spice
4. Camp fires
5. Maya's house, Stewart's house
6. Green bean casserole waiting for me in the oven
7. Greg
8. Cinammon
9. Winter mornings
10. Stewart's eucalyptus soap


Why is it that I cite my best friends' houses as some of my favorite smells? I guess because I have always felt welcomed in these homes. Maya and Mrs. Bohan always took/take me in eagerly, with open arms (most literally, so you'll excuse the blatant cliche). Even more remarkable: they never seem to be simply tolerating my presence; rather they say to me, "Having you sprawled across my couch to watch 'Saturday Night Live' with us makes me happy."

I know I don't smell my own house because I've grown both into and out of it; though how quickly it all happens! It's certainly not as if I've grown up in this place-- good lord, we've only been here three years. The one time I did smell the house was as follows: this past summer, we, the five of us, were gone for two weeks, meeting (for my siblings and me) about 78 relatives over the course of two weeks. When we got back, for about three hours (in betweenn wiping honey off of every souvenier we brought back, but that's another story), I could smell the house, smell it as I assume a stranger-- Aly comes to mind-- must. For some reason I was proud that I'd discovered--or finally noticed-- it, I guess because it meant that our house wasn't lacking in some magic that the Polans or the Bohans had unlocked; that it was just as warm, just as real; that we could perhaps create just as much of a haven as those I found in Maya's kitchen (dog food, perogies, candles, clay, laundry) or Stewart's living room (afghan blankets, eucalyptus, fajitas, Old Spice).

"The Spine," and subsequent musings

During yet another uniquely enlightening shower this morning, I decided it would be a good idea to start off every post with a list. Not necessarily a top-ten list, not ever in any particular order. Just, you know. A list. Por ejemplo:

Ten Things I Wish I Knew How To Do:

1. Canter on a horse
2. Throw a football
3. Play Texas Hold'em (and enjoy it)
4. Waltz
5. Return library books on time
6. Make my own salad dressing
7. Speak French
8. Do a handstand
9. Play the guitar; play the piano; play any instrument other than the increasingly useless violin
10. Eat very, very spicy foods

I bought my first They Might Be Giants CD today, partly because, rollin' with Jordan and Greg last night, I realized how little music I have/know, at least in comparison. I half thought I had the half-upper hand on Gregdear in terms of music (though that was based almost completely on his math-majorness (majority?)), but it appears I have no upper hand to speak of. I'm not even sure if we have even hands, though I don't think he'd persecute me or condescend, as some people do, for having the lower hand. I'm happy to say all signs point to Greg's being a good enough, a genuine enough, of a guy to ignore how culturally aware or unaware I am.

But what does this say about me?: I'm not sure I believe that. That, maybe because he's relatively quiet (relative to me, that is), I still, after six months, suspect his adorations/affections/compliments/declarations-of-love are exaggerations or even! completely invented for the sake of keeping me in his car. (I mean it's certainly working...) Why can't I trust that he's being honest?

Seriously, I think part of it is because I know he's quiet but a thinker, which, as I see it, would/could give him plenty of time to think one thing and tell me another. But I know it's also because of that stupid ninth grade relationship that we will never speak of, when in the span of one month I received more (and more outrageous) adorations/affections/compliments/declarations-of-love than I've ever gotten in six-- though Greg and I are starting to come close. And then, out of the blue, SURPRISE!, "Let's break up." Which of course says loud and clear: "None of this was real." And that scares me, because I really, really want it to be real this time...

I am out-of-my-mind terrified of college.

Not that I've gotten any acceptance letters besides UGA (honors program, so nothing to snicker at, thank you), but talking to Greg (my beautiful Jewish boyfriend) tonight, I started to realize how incredibly, wordlessly scared I am at the prospect of leaving home forever. It feels like an exaggeration to even describe it that way, but it's exactly the truth. So it's my responsibility to begin learning how to recreate that feeling of home in-- immediately speaking, a cramped dorm room with a stranger-- and eventually, in my own apartment-- and more eventually, with a spouse, or so I hope. I've always been one part of a bigger tree, as if family exists undeniably, unshakably, and I was simply-- comfortably-- born into this already existing community. And now, here I am, not quite Realizing It's All A Sham, but certainly shaken by the discovery that...it's just people like me who start families, that the comfort and stability won't be mine to take for granted anymore. Sobering? More than anything I realize I have to be strong, and this makes me feel very, very alone.

...Anyway, college: Greg and I decided that in some ways we felt ready to leave and Become Our Own Persons, but that in other ways (see tangent, abv.) we were-- are-- absolutely terrified. We also have no idea (collectively, that is; I'm sure we each have plenty of ideas we haven't shared yet) how our relationship stands post-graduation. I will say that every time he drops me off at home, I can't can't can't can't bear to leave him, and the thought of never ever kissing him again is an awful one.

And that is the best I have come up with so far. Will update as soon as other very resolute decisions strike me.