2001-03-22 - 12:11 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Get Back", Beatles

See, there, I added a Bio page, although if you've been reading for a while there's nothing on there you don't know already, in great detail.

I got the idea because I happened upon a journal that didn't have a bio sheet, and I really, really needed one to get a frame of reference. I figured people could probably use a frame of reference on me, especially when they drop in for the first time onto a gun-centric entry or the infamous leg-waxing entries. That must be a little frightening.

I got my Girl Scout cookies -- Thin Mints -- and I am STUFFING MY FACE with these things. I can't stop eating them. This is going to be a problem. The thing is, I don't feel good eating this many cookies -- I get a very odd feeling, actually -- but they're so good I don't want to stop.

So last night, in my "demanding" way, I requested that instead of Poindexter and Justin disappearing downstairs to kill people all night (on the computer, folks; "Unreal Tournament"), they had to sit at the table with me for two hours and chat.

They gave me a hard time for making the request, but they like chatting too, and we had fun. And they did get in another couple hours of carnage afterwards.

Justin was raised by permissive hippie parents in the liberal stronghold of Santa Cruz county, and always assumed he was a Democrat because that's what people in Santa Cruz did, plus, you know, Republicans are evil. Once he actually started to think about politics and the role of government, he found out, much to his surprise, that his political views are conservative.

He started going on rants when he saw the news, and his wife was completely freaked out. She said, "Are you going to turn into a fundamentalist Christian?"

I heard that, and started to laugh. I assumed he was making a joke.

But no, she really asked him that, and fairly seriously. I was flabbergasted. I can't believe how deeply ingrained it is for people to believe that Republicans Are Evil, Racist, Religion-Imposing, Barely-Humans. They are genuinely surprised when they meet a regular person (as opposed to an actual politician, which is a different thing entirely) who confesses to voting Republican, and they find that the person is actually NICE, and isn't racist after all, and might even be an atheist.

But I digress. Justin tends to throw himself quite wholeheartedly into things that interest him, and his big interests right now are political philosophy and guns, so we talked a lot about that.

We also talked about middle school and bullies for a while. Justin and Poindexter are both of the opinion that the whole bully phenomenon is part of growing up, of learning how to conduct oneself socially, of overcoming basic instincts and learning to be civilized. They don't think there is a whole lot you can really do about it except, as a PARENT, try to teach your kid that what other people say or think doesn't matter. Beating up other kids is already illegal, so that takes care of that. Eventually most of us learn to stop caring what other people say, and life gets better. The Santee kid certainly didn't have much in the way of parenting from what we've seen. A dad who was clueless about his unhappiness and a mother who says things like "I talked to him last month and he was fine." And I'm not being unfair to the female here -- if he lived with his mother and his dad said that, I'd be appalled too.

For another excellent perspective on this whole thing, check out what a fellow native New Jerseyan and Diarylander has to say. A lot of the focus has been on the people who snap and commit murders. I'm more interested in what it is that keeps people from snapping -- people who have experienced the same or worse.

Oh, the "demanding" way I have.

Have you ever heard the expression "Girls marry their father", or "Boys marry their mother"? The implication being that you tend to marry someone who has characteristics reminiscent of the opposite-sex parent? (If you're gay, I presume it's the same-sex parent.)

So I pestered Poindexter on IM yesterday:

E: Do you think you married your mother?
P: What?!
E: We are both skinny, loud, shrieky, opinionated, but mushy.
P: Yeah, but in other ways you're not alike at all.
E: Tell me two characteristics your mom has that I don't
E: And two characteristics that I have and she doesn't.
P: She's a clean freak. She's demanding.
E: I'm not demanding?
P: In a different way.

The "different way" is that Poindexter's mom would have be ALL OVER her husband to install the whole-house humidifier the DAY it arrived. Whereas Poindexter let ours sit for a month collecting dust before he installed it and I didn't give a shit.

I do, however, make odd demands, usually, when he is about to fall asleep, like:

"Tell me two Remember-Whens!"
"Tell me three things that initially attracted you to me, and my butt can't be one of them."
"Tell me your favorite moment today."

He rolls his eyes and complains that I'm demanding, but the truth is he likes doing this sort of thing. So apparently my kind of demanding is not particularly grating.

This was part of our dinner-table discussion last night. I was explaining the whole thing to Justin and he started yelling, "WHY do women always have to know that? You can't just say that you love them, you have to say WHY, and HOW MUCH" with Poindexter laughing and nodding in agreement, and me shrieking, "You LIKE IT! You KNOW you LIKE IT! You want to hear remember-whens too!"

As for the marry-your-mother part, we agreed that since your opposite-sex parent is the member of the opposite-sex that you see the most, you probably tend to look for their positive characteristics as characteristics in a mate.

The fact that my husband and my father are both skinny men with hairy legs must just be a coincidence.

So I was flipping through the Post's Style section, and there's a little family advice column involving toilet training. The advisor said that sometimes children are afraid to use toilets because they have no good concept of size, and are worried that they will be -- hee hee -- swept right down the toilet with the poop.

Gotta love those kiddie perceptions.

I believe it, though. When I was a kid, five years or younger, I used to hide under my towel on the floor after a bath. I think I honestly, truly believed that if I was quiet enough and didn't move, my mother would think I had gone down the drain.

She never did, dammit. Can't put anything past her.

Conversation by the sink, while getting ready for bed:

E: So Megan says she's going to teach me, Renee, and Sherry how to play bridge at lunchtimes starting in May.
P: [Looking skeptical] Hm.
E: What, is it boring?
P: I don't know.
E: People retire, and all they do is play bridge. It has to be at least mildly interesting.*
P: Well, even if it is boring, we'll probably like it, 'cause we're boring.
E: Who do you think has more fun, people who are bragging about their exciting life going to bars and drinking, or us?
P: We do.
E: I think so too. I think those people are out LOOKING for fun, and here we are, having it.

Da Jersey Boy, again, has a funny entry dealing with this whole idea, saving me the trouble of having to write it myself.

*On the other hand, they also play a lot of bingo... so I dunno. I'll let you know once I learn how to play.

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