QUOTE OF THE DAY

I'm not usually the "quote" type of person (I also don't forward "hilarious" chain emails. It is one of my best qualities), but I ran across this today while cleaning out my overstuffed Ideas folder ... and I thought it was pretty dead on. I'm not sure why exactly human beings expect to feel identically about their friends & lovers at every single moment, but perhaps the first step to combating this (and thus, the disappointment that arises when we're surprised by the natural ups and downs of our emotions, and those of our companions) is to simply realize it and accept it, and see how we feel the next day.

"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet, this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of time and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity in freedom. The only real security is not owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now. For relationships, too, must be like islands. One must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits islands surrounded and interrupted by the sea, continuously visited and abandoned by the tides. Once must accept the serenity of the winged life, ebb and flow, of intermittency."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I've always thought that you would ruin the life of at least one very important person."
-My favourite ex-boyfriend, Derek, on the phone with me today.-


Oh c'mon....! One???! Talk about aiming low. I bet if i really work at it, i can ruin THREE or FOUR VIP's lives..! LOL

So You Wanna Be ... A Condom Tester?

Name: Mike Harrison
Age: Old with a British Accent
School: Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK – degree in Chemistry, Phd in Polymer Chemistry
Official Title: Senior Principal Scientist for Trojan
Cool Title: Condom Tester
How, exactly, does one test condoms? Just put ‘em on and see what happens?
No. The main stability test involves unrolling the condom onto a specialized post and forcing air into it until it expands to 40 liters in size. Then you measure the pressure when the condom bursts.

So basically you make condom balloons?
Yeah.

What happens after that?
We give the condoms to live consumers in a market research test – they use them four times and then report back. The fit, the feel, was it a pleasurable experience, was it a negative experience?

What if the guy was just bad in bed? Would you still blame the condom?
Umm …

How long does it take to develop a condom?
For a simple condom at least 12 months. For the more complicated it can take 4-5 years. We have a lot of brainstorming sessions.

Those must be fun. What’s the best part of your job?
It’s great to help the consumer get the protection and pleasure they need – we’re really providing a public service. It’s quite serious business; condoms are a class two medical device.

Uh-huh, right, right. But do you get free condoms?
Er, yes. More than I could ever use.

What do people say when you first tell them what you do?
They don’t believe me.

Do they ask for free condoms?
They never think to ask that straight away – they’re more in shock. They ask later!

What’s the most popular Trojan condom?
The number one seller in the states is Trojan ENZ – in the light blue box – it sold 46 million last year.

That’s a lot of safe sex. Or hopeful men. How many different kinds of Trojan condoms are there? Do you have them memorized?
Not really … I know them by color. Trojan’s been around for over 90 years, and there are over 30 types, I think.

What’s your favorite?
Warm sensations.

Not Magnum? Are the magnum condoms really bigger or is that just to make guys feel more manly?
Only the Magnum XL is actually bigger. Regular Magnum condoms can be worn my any man as the base is the same size as any condom.

Busted! What’s the smallest condom?
I’m not sure that we have a small condom.

You should. Do you guys take into account the average penis size?
We have a company that runs large clinical trials – they have a condom measuring kit – which measures the length of the erect penis and the girth of the midpoint.

If a guy says “oh this condom doesn’t fit me, it’s too small,” is he lying?
Well … latex is pretty stretchable.

I knew it.

CONDOM QUICK FACTS
- Total condoms sold (all brands) last year: 317 million
- Total Trojan condoms sold last year: 217 million
- Earliest known condoms were linen sheathes fashioned by the ancient Egyptians
- Some of the odder innovations include condoms made from tortoise shell
- Latex condoms were first introduced in the 1800's, thanks to Charles Goodyear's invention of rubber vulcanization

CHECK THIS OUT

There’s a nickname generator online that asks you to type in your first and last name, and it will generate creative terms of endearment for you. When I typed in my name, it came up with: “Puppie pot chocolate kisses bon bon.” Not sure how they derived that from Eva Marie Oyola, but ...um ... I suppose at least it’s imaginative. Although when I typed in the name of a friend, it came up with “Butter Hot Pooh Peepers.” I might just use that one instead.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

I once had a friend in college who shunned the usual terms of endearment – the babys, the sweeties, even the pumpkins – and instead affectionately dubbed her boyfriend “Pooper.” He, (because really, how does one top that?), also called her Pooper. Did I mention they said it in baby voices? They did.
Ew?
Yeah, yeah, a rose by any other name and all that. I get it. But really ... POOPER??
Actually, despite my aversion to romantic monikers involving bodily functions, I’m a big fan of personalized (if perplexing) pet names, myself. They’re unique! They can’t be reused, like the all-purpose “BABY”! They speak of a connection deeper and more intimate than the one-size-fits-all “darling”! And yeah, sometimes only you and your partner understand them. My friend bella and her ex called each other Bidden #1 and Bidden #2 for years. Which might have been cuter if the term hadn’t started out as a nickname for her shih-tzu puppies. Or maybe their furry origin is what makes them cute in the first place.
Pet names that began as actual pet names are more common than you’d think. Rachel, 34, a lawyer, explains that she called her ex “Schnoogie,” a nickname for her dog. “He would be like, ‘I’m not a fucking dog,’ and then laugh.’” Jeff, 30, an editor, and his wife, Carina, 30, a doctor, call each other “Chicken,” originally their cat’s name.
“First of all, we started doing it because that's what old man Karamazov calls his little prostitute in The Brother Karamazov, so it has major highbrow bona fides,” he says. “Except that we didn't actually start doing it to each other. It was what we called our cat. But then we had to give the cat back to my sister, and we had this great nickname and no cat to use it on.”
Or sometimes the epithets just sound like what you’d name your animal.

“I like to call my man Spot and he calls me Killer,” says Natalie, 25, an artist. Aww. “And if you think that’s cute, my dad calls my mom ‘The dead vessel.’ I think it means that they are done having children. Whatever. ‘Is the dead vessel speaking again?’ he'll say with this grin on his face. My mom calls my dad ‘sperm donor.’ Yup. The love runs pretty deep in our household.”
Some couples use pet names to the exclusion of all else. “Nicole only ever calls me ‘Nate’ if she’s angry, and likewise, it freaks her out if I call her ‘Nicole,’” says Nate, 32, a reporter, of his girlfriend of almost two years. “My main pet name for her is ‘biscuit.’ Sometimes I call her ‘pickle,’ which she doesn’t like as much. When she’s PMSing I call her Crazylove, which she doesn’t like at all.”
Pickle? How ... romantic? Although, that wasn’t the weirdest I heard over the course of researching couples’ nicknames. Try: “Llama,” “Blanket,” “Colt,” “Tiger Twinkies,” and “Moo.”
“I had a French beau who called me PETIT CHOU and MA PUCE - which means my little cabbage and my flea – and I wondered – are these COMPLIMENTS???” says Karen Salmanson, host of the Sirius radio show Be Happy Damnit. She got off easy. “Had he been from el Salvador I would have been called MI GORDITA -- which means MY FATTY!”
“My sister dated a guy she called ‘Fish Boy,’” says Brent, 25, writer. “And a guy I used to work with called his girlfriend ‘Dead Tooth Crack Ho’ (which is a surprisingly descriptive pet name).”
Wow. Pooper’s starting to sound pretty good.
Still, some people aren’t big fans of odd, overly gushy love handles. “Pet names are for little dogs that fit in handbags, not the person you love,” says Jeremy, 33, a lawyer. “Why? Because it’s cutesie, juvenile crap, people are people, not pets. Pet names belong in high school relationships not between adults.”
“I once knew a guy who called his girlfriend ‘Honey,’” says Jane, 32, a writer. “which we all thought was so sweet until he admitted (not to her) that he did it when he couldn't remember her name. She married someone else. He’s still single.”
See? Use terms of endearment blasphemously and you’ll be smote.

---****---

How many guys do we ever hit it off with? Very few, and even if we do, those relationships don’t last, and even if they did, men die first, so we’re right back where we started.

— oh, Carrie Bradshaw. Season 5, episode 3. Yes, I watched two more episodes tonight, because the damn insomnia’s back. Worth it, though. SATC, despite what every more-hipster-than-thou New Yorker now feels, is just straight up classic. And I certainly take something different from it now than when I first watched, oh-so-naive, at age 20. Go back and check out some old ‘sodes yourself. You’ll see.

You’re Special

I came across a post on John Mayer’s blog this morning. In it, he talks about the disease of self-consciousness, although what I think he’s really talking about is the over-reaching effects of ego identification.

We live in a culture that celebrates mediocrity and he’s right when he says that we’ve all grown up being told how special we are, how talented, beautiful, intelligent and how we really can do anything. John seems to believe that we’re all rather ordinary (”beautifully unspectacular,”) but I think he misses the point.

I don’t believe anyone is ordinary. To get metaphysical, we’re all divine beings here, we just don’t seem to recognize that. Instead, we’re trapped in an endless cycle of comparison and consumption and never feeling good enough but still striving for that golden ring of success, fame, wealth. As if that is the answer to not feeling special enough.

American culture especially dangles that carrot in front of us, alternately telling us that we deserve the best of everything while also letting us know that we just don’t measure up until we reach an Oprah-level of success. It’s really where all that self-help ideology (”You can do and be anything you dream”) originated from—trying to get people to start accepting and loving themselves. Unfortunately, the dream got twisted into everyone trying to get everyone else to recognize, admire and love them. Hence, you have 5-year-olds being paraded around in makeup and satin ballgowns, all on the rocky road to fame and fortune.

Along with reading John’s post, I came across a video of Paris Hilton attempting to bellydance at the televised Miss Turkey pageant, for which she was a celebrity judge. She was awkward and uncomfortable onstage and proved how mediocre she is. At the same time, she proved that even without great talent or beauty or intelligence, she can still have a stratospheric amount of recognition and money and a bonafide successful career.

After all, I (and millions of other people) took 3 minutes out of our day to marvel at her ridiculous dancing. I’ve also read enough about Paris to know that her grandmother repeatedly told her as she was growing up, “You’re going to be more famous than Marilyn Monroe. You’re going to become the most famous woman in the world.” Granny wasn’t wrong, but couldn’t she have just given Paris some hugs and cookies?

To complete my celebrity trifecta, I then read this quote from Madonna in Q Magazine. “What else is there for me to conquer? Hopefully my ego. How will I know when I’ve succeeded? When I stop caring what anyone thinks.”

She’s right. Of course, Madonna does have the luxury of her own enormous wealth and fame to not care anymore what anyone thinks and kick her ego’s ass. She’s certainly proven that she’s conquered the system. But considering she’s stumping for her latest album, Hard Candy, by showing off how fabulous she still looks at fifty, I’d say it only gets harder to not care what people think the more successful you get.

So how do you feel special if you’re not famous or gorgeous or rich or wearing the right clothes and carrying the “It” bag or having a successful career in the public eye? How can anyone really be happy with less than 100,000 MySpace friends? If no one’s talking about you or reading your blog or paparazzi-hounding you, how can you be a vital and important part of society? If you don’t have your own reality show or sex tape, then are you really real?

To anyone who buys into any of the above bullshit and that’s exactly what is it—bullshit—I send you all my love and caring because yes, you are so freaking special, every last one of you down to every last bit of you. You don’t have to do or be or prove anything for it. And next time I see you, I’ll happily give you a hug, and maybe even a cookie, if I could just figure how to work this damn oven out.