Saturday, April 23, 2005
Food wars
I'll preface this post by explaining that 95% of the food in my house is for my husband's consumption, as he eats the equivalent of a dozen meals a day; because *I* have just one small meal and one tiny snack per day, and because there are only a few foods I eat, the 5% that was purchased for MY consumption is officially "sacred," NOT to be touched by my husband other than when he's preparing dinner for me... and he's agreed to this willingly, by the way, because he knows that if he just ate indiscriminately we'd have daily problems with my not having the makings for meals or snacks despite having enough food overall to feed 50 people, and it's not fair for me to live my life such that, no matter how much food I have, it'd never be enough for me to still have any of it by my next mealtime.
There's never any reason, or any EXCUSE, for my husband to eat any of my food... NEVER. He agrees-how could he not? Nevertheless:
He eats a wide variety of foods, but the things he likes best are MINE; foods that he has NEVER, in all the years I've know him, bought for himself suddenly become life or death for him to consume once *I* get them. Not being overly troubled by ethical considerations, he takes great joy in sneaking around and stealing my food, telling himself that he'll replace it before I notice (as if that somehow made it ok), or that he'll take so little that I won't be able to tell. He claims to have gotten away with this many times, but the man who sucks up half a container of Cool Whip in the middle of the night, and then replaces it with a full one with the tamper-proof seal still on it, not grasping that this would be a dead giveaway, or leaves the wrappers from my food on the counter, when *I* NEVER do that, or puts the food back in a different place, or fails to pack it back up properly, or, most commonly, simply fails to follow through with replacing what he took before I want that food item, has had no luck convincing me that he's EVER gotten away with it.
His main problem in his quest to be a successful food thief is that, because HE doesn't notice or remember anything, he can't judge what *I* might or might not notice or remember; almost as good as the Cool Whip example (and he's tried that one SEVERAL times, because he just doesn't learn, lol) was when I had a big box of granola that I'd opened one day just to get a few pieces to round out a snack, and the next day I opened the box and all there was in it was a little bit of dust at the bottom of the bag... at which point he tried, repeatedly and vehemently, to convince me that I just didn't remember what I'd eaten, because he hadn't had ANY granola... then he admitted he "might have had a few little pieces"... and then eventually admitted that maybe he'd grabbed a handful... and then a few handfuls... and never did admit to having wiped out the entire box in one night, although he had no explanation for how the large amount of granola he tried to claim was still there once he stopped eating it vanished before I woke up.
He seems to be utterly incapable of grasping that, if he takes even ONE mouthful of any food of mine, he'll be unable to stop himself from taking more and more until it's totally impossible for me to NOT notice that he's helped himself; this goes double when he eats ALL of a given thing, of course, and, although he's always promising himself that he'll get up early, go to the store, and replace the item before I have a chance to look for it, he rarely keeps those promises... and can't seem to REMEMBER that there's almost no chance of him keeping such a promise when the moment comes that he's reaching for my food and having fantasies of how he'll get away with. A recent example was a 2 lb container of fruit salad purchased for me to have as the bulk of my dinner the next day; he started off allegedly planning to have "just one forkful," but when I went to the kitchen the next day it was ALL gone, and, although he'd been up for a couple of hours at that point, and the empty container was sitting out in plain view on the counter where he was seeing it every time he went to get food, he had NOT replaced it... although I made him do so in time for my dinner, of course.
The fruit salad debacle was an example of one of his most wrong-headed ideas; he thinks that he possesses the mystical ability to know in advance how much of a given perishable food item I'm going to want to eat, and thus can calculate before I've had a single bite how much is eventually going to be left over... and thus, in his mind, when he's scarfing down something set aside for one of my meals, by his twisted logic he's actually eating LEFTOVERS, which is a perfectly acceptable thing in general for him to do, and thus he's doing nothing wrong by spurning all of his HUNDREDS of food options to vacuum up MY dinner.
Sometimes, he'll use a different ploy to handle his desire for my food; he'll get some of whatever food of mine he's unable to keep his hands off of for himself, so that he can, in theory, have some without depleting MY food stores. The reality is that this always results in one of 2 undesirable outcomes:
1) Once he has some that he's officially allowed to eat, he loses all interest in it, and it sits around until it goes bad and has to be thrown out (the flip side of the forbidden fruit effect).
2) He'll eat his portion in a nonstop frenzy until all that's left is MINE... and then he eats it.
The most extreme example of the 2nd option was with a kind of microwave noodle dish that I liked; he'd literally buy TWENTY packages of it, and then, when I wanted some a few days later, guess what... it was ALL gone, including the ones set aside for me. When asked why he was eating such an insane amount of one thing, and why, when he finished off his, he went right to mine, and didn't replace it or even mention that he'd done it so that I could make sure that more was bought BEFORE I needed it for a meal, he gave his standard reply; "I don't know."
He often tries to excuse his behavior by petulantly pointing out that there's more of whatever he polished off in the stores, and so it's not like I won't ever have any of that item again, as if the replaceability of the food made it ok to take it; sadly, in the case of those tasty noodles, after one particular huge batch was bought and consumed without me getting a single package, it turned out that it had vanished from the stores, because, astoundingly, they'd stopped making it... and he was stuck going to every grocery store in the city looking for any final boxes of it, and then having to face me and admit that he'd cheated me out of my last chance to EVER eat it.
Another ploy of his is to get a different version of whatever I'm eating, such as veggie eggrolls when mine are pork, so that he's sort of having my food but not risking wiping it out because what he's actually eating isn't mine. The grim possible results of this procedure are:
1) When he's out of his version, he switches seamlessly to mine, and then "forgets" he did so, and thus doesn't replace either his or mine.
2) He eats mine rather than his, so that he allegedly thinks I still have mine, and we don't find out to the contrary until dinnertime, when he says, "Gee, I was SURE we still had some of YOURS, but this is MINE, so... uh..."
3) He eats mine, fails to notice, and then prepares some of his for me, thinking it's mine, despite the fact that it's generally glaringly obvious that what he's making can't POSSIBLY be something I'd eat... and there I am, ready for dinner, with part of my meal being something I can't consume.
The latest and greatest food battle is over the stupidest possible food item; Pop Tarts. His first angle was to try to claim that I just wasn't remembering how many packets I'd had left, but with only 4 per box that's hard to sell even if I wasn't 100% sure what I had, so he gave it up. Next, he started buying secret boxes and hiding them in his study, from which he extracted packets to put back in MY boxes, as he knew I'd notice either a depleted box or a new box where there'd been an open one; if you're wondering why he didn't just buy boxes for himself in advance and eat THEM, you're not grasping the mindset involved. Finally, I demanded that he buy his own boxes, and we've had a repeat of the noodle game ever since then-no matter how many he gets for himself, he rips through them and then turns to mine. He tried eating from boxes of mine that I hadn't gotten to yet, but of course I noticed that more boxes were open than should be, and he was caught instantly. Then, he started opening the boxes from underneath and helping himself, with the idea being that old one of how he's going to bring in new boxes to replace them before I finish my current box and reach for one of the "compromised" ones; I've begun lifting and checking every box of mine every day, though, so he can no longer have days of leeway before he gets caught. And last but far from least, his most extreme trick ever; he GLUED the flaps back together on a box he'd violated, assuming, correctly as it turned out, that I wouldn't notice that the box was too light right away, giving him more time before he was caught... as you might imagine, I'm paying careful attention to the weights of the boxes now.
This man who managed to eat breakfast for nearly 4 decades without Pop Tarts now claims that nothing else exists in the world that he can eat before work; when asked what he used to eat BEFORE he started in with the Pop Tarts, he replies, "I don't know." He managed to stuff his face while I'm asleep all the previous years of our marriage without having Pop Tarts, but now he insists there's nothing else in the world he CAN eat without waking me; when asked what he USED to eat while I was asleep, he says... do I even need to say it, lol?
I don't know how many Pop Tarts he's eating per day now; he buys more several times a week, and that's just the ones I'm seeing. When he got sick recently, he announced that the ONLY thing he could eat was Pop Tarts. He got to the point where he'd eaten so many that he bought some blueberry ones for variety; that's actually by far his favorite flavor, but because *I* don't eat those, they don't have the same appeal to him as the "red flavors" that I get, so normally he doesn't eat them. And finally; twice recently, when I discovered that he'd wiped out my backup boxes and it'd be a couple of days before a grocery store trip was feasible, I had to HIDE the remaining Pop Tarts to make sure that *I* had them until the replacements were purchased.
His absolute worst transgression, though, would have to be with the big can of nuts that had been purchased to provide us with something to eat other than carb junk foods for a day of travel: The night before, I happened to look into the kitchen with the right timing to see him taking some little bits of food from an unseen package in the cupboard; although it didn't seem POSSIBLE that he'd have picked the one thing that was between us and a very hungry day to snack on, I checked out of habit, and, yes, he WAS eating the nuts. When accused, he snippily replied that all he'd had were a couple of nuts; a check of the package revealed that he'd eaten HALF of that big can... and, if he hadn't been caught, I'd have found an EMPTY can when I got up the next morning to do the final frenzied packing for the trip, although of course he tried to claim, despite having been caught in a lie as to how much he'd already eaten, that what I'd seen him take was, by magical coincidence, the very last nuts he intended to eat, and that, despite obviously acting compulsively, since he'd eaten FAR past the point where I could be fooled into thinking he hadn't taken any, or had only had a few, he was suddenly going to gain self-control and stop BEFORE he got to the bottom of the jar. Yeah, right. Absolutely LIVID that he'd pulled this stunt under circumstances when I'd have REALLY been screwed by his greediness, I informed him that, since he'd already eaten his half of the nuts, there would be none for him the next day, and that none of the other snacks I was packing would be shared with him either... and yes, I stuck to that.
Why do I let him live? Because I know that I could go right down the hall this very minute, when it's nearly 4AM and he's sound asleep, wake him up and announce that I HAD to have a milk shake (or whatever), and he'd get up, get dressed, and drive all over town until he found an all-night fast food place where he could get me one. For all that I believe that he could, and should, make more of an effort to fight his weaknesses and compulsions, his willingness to "serve" me in ways that few men would ever contemplate doing for any woman balances it out.
Most of the time.
There's never any reason, or any EXCUSE, for my husband to eat any of my food... NEVER. He agrees-how could he not? Nevertheless:
He eats a wide variety of foods, but the things he likes best are MINE; foods that he has NEVER, in all the years I've know him, bought for himself suddenly become life or death for him to consume once *I* get them. Not being overly troubled by ethical considerations, he takes great joy in sneaking around and stealing my food, telling himself that he'll replace it before I notice (as if that somehow made it ok), or that he'll take so little that I won't be able to tell. He claims to have gotten away with this many times, but the man who sucks up half a container of Cool Whip in the middle of the night, and then replaces it with a full one with the tamper-proof seal still on it, not grasping that this would be a dead giveaway, or leaves the wrappers from my food on the counter, when *I* NEVER do that, or puts the food back in a different place, or fails to pack it back up properly, or, most commonly, simply fails to follow through with replacing what he took before I want that food item, has had no luck convincing me that he's EVER gotten away with it.
His main problem in his quest to be a successful food thief is that, because HE doesn't notice or remember anything, he can't judge what *I* might or might not notice or remember; almost as good as the Cool Whip example (and he's tried that one SEVERAL times, because he just doesn't learn, lol) was when I had a big box of granola that I'd opened one day just to get a few pieces to round out a snack, and the next day I opened the box and all there was in it was a little bit of dust at the bottom of the bag... at which point he tried, repeatedly and vehemently, to convince me that I just didn't remember what I'd eaten, because he hadn't had ANY granola... then he admitted he "might have had a few little pieces"... and then eventually admitted that maybe he'd grabbed a handful... and then a few handfuls... and never did admit to having wiped out the entire box in one night, although he had no explanation for how the large amount of granola he tried to claim was still there once he stopped eating it vanished before I woke up.
He seems to be utterly incapable of grasping that, if he takes even ONE mouthful of any food of mine, he'll be unable to stop himself from taking more and more until it's totally impossible for me to NOT notice that he's helped himself; this goes double when he eats ALL of a given thing, of course, and, although he's always promising himself that he'll get up early, go to the store, and replace the item before I have a chance to look for it, he rarely keeps those promises... and can't seem to REMEMBER that there's almost no chance of him keeping such a promise when the moment comes that he's reaching for my food and having fantasies of how he'll get away with. A recent example was a 2 lb container of fruit salad purchased for me to have as the bulk of my dinner the next day; he started off allegedly planning to have "just one forkful," but when I went to the kitchen the next day it was ALL gone, and, although he'd been up for a couple of hours at that point, and the empty container was sitting out in plain view on the counter where he was seeing it every time he went to get food, he had NOT replaced it... although I made him do so in time for my dinner, of course.
The fruit salad debacle was an example of one of his most wrong-headed ideas; he thinks that he possesses the mystical ability to know in advance how much of a given perishable food item I'm going to want to eat, and thus can calculate before I've had a single bite how much is eventually going to be left over... and thus, in his mind, when he's scarfing down something set aside for one of my meals, by his twisted logic he's actually eating LEFTOVERS, which is a perfectly acceptable thing in general for him to do, and thus he's doing nothing wrong by spurning all of his HUNDREDS of food options to vacuum up MY dinner.
Sometimes, he'll use a different ploy to handle his desire for my food; he'll get some of whatever food of mine he's unable to keep his hands off of for himself, so that he can, in theory, have some without depleting MY food stores. The reality is that this always results in one of 2 undesirable outcomes:
1) Once he has some that he's officially allowed to eat, he loses all interest in it, and it sits around until it goes bad and has to be thrown out (the flip side of the forbidden fruit effect).
2) He'll eat his portion in a nonstop frenzy until all that's left is MINE... and then he eats it.
The most extreme example of the 2nd option was with a kind of microwave noodle dish that I liked; he'd literally buy TWENTY packages of it, and then, when I wanted some a few days later, guess what... it was ALL gone, including the ones set aside for me. When asked why he was eating such an insane amount of one thing, and why, when he finished off his, he went right to mine, and didn't replace it or even mention that he'd done it so that I could make sure that more was bought BEFORE I needed it for a meal, he gave his standard reply; "I don't know."
He often tries to excuse his behavior by petulantly pointing out that there's more of whatever he polished off in the stores, and so it's not like I won't ever have any of that item again, as if the replaceability of the food made it ok to take it; sadly, in the case of those tasty noodles, after one particular huge batch was bought and consumed without me getting a single package, it turned out that it had vanished from the stores, because, astoundingly, they'd stopped making it... and he was stuck going to every grocery store in the city looking for any final boxes of it, and then having to face me and admit that he'd cheated me out of my last chance to EVER eat it.
Another ploy of his is to get a different version of whatever I'm eating, such as veggie eggrolls when mine are pork, so that he's sort of having my food but not risking wiping it out because what he's actually eating isn't mine. The grim possible results of this procedure are:
1) When he's out of his version, he switches seamlessly to mine, and then "forgets" he did so, and thus doesn't replace either his or mine.
2) He eats mine rather than his, so that he allegedly thinks I still have mine, and we don't find out to the contrary until dinnertime, when he says, "Gee, I was SURE we still had some of YOURS, but this is MINE, so... uh..."
3) He eats mine, fails to notice, and then prepares some of his for me, thinking it's mine, despite the fact that it's generally glaringly obvious that what he's making can't POSSIBLY be something I'd eat... and there I am, ready for dinner, with part of my meal being something I can't consume.
The latest and greatest food battle is over the stupidest possible food item; Pop Tarts. His first angle was to try to claim that I just wasn't remembering how many packets I'd had left, but with only 4 per box that's hard to sell even if I wasn't 100% sure what I had, so he gave it up. Next, he started buying secret boxes and hiding them in his study, from which he extracted packets to put back in MY boxes, as he knew I'd notice either a depleted box or a new box where there'd been an open one; if you're wondering why he didn't just buy boxes for himself in advance and eat THEM, you're not grasping the mindset involved. Finally, I demanded that he buy his own boxes, and we've had a repeat of the noodle game ever since then-no matter how many he gets for himself, he rips through them and then turns to mine. He tried eating from boxes of mine that I hadn't gotten to yet, but of course I noticed that more boxes were open than should be, and he was caught instantly. Then, he started opening the boxes from underneath and helping himself, with the idea being that old one of how he's going to bring in new boxes to replace them before I finish my current box and reach for one of the "compromised" ones; I've begun lifting and checking every box of mine every day, though, so he can no longer have days of leeway before he gets caught. And last but far from least, his most extreme trick ever; he GLUED the flaps back together on a box he'd violated, assuming, correctly as it turned out, that I wouldn't notice that the box was too light right away, giving him more time before he was caught... as you might imagine, I'm paying careful attention to the weights of the boxes now.
This man who managed to eat breakfast for nearly 4 decades without Pop Tarts now claims that nothing else exists in the world that he can eat before work; when asked what he used to eat BEFORE he started in with the Pop Tarts, he replies, "I don't know." He managed to stuff his face while I'm asleep all the previous years of our marriage without having Pop Tarts, but now he insists there's nothing else in the world he CAN eat without waking me; when asked what he USED to eat while I was asleep, he says... do I even need to say it, lol?
I don't know how many Pop Tarts he's eating per day now; he buys more several times a week, and that's just the ones I'm seeing. When he got sick recently, he announced that the ONLY thing he could eat was Pop Tarts. He got to the point where he'd eaten so many that he bought some blueberry ones for variety; that's actually by far his favorite flavor, but because *I* don't eat those, they don't have the same appeal to him as the "red flavors" that I get, so normally he doesn't eat them. And finally; twice recently, when I discovered that he'd wiped out my backup boxes and it'd be a couple of days before a grocery store trip was feasible, I had to HIDE the remaining Pop Tarts to make sure that *I* had them until the replacements were purchased.
His absolute worst transgression, though, would have to be with the big can of nuts that had been purchased to provide us with something to eat other than carb junk foods for a day of travel: The night before, I happened to look into the kitchen with the right timing to see him taking some little bits of food from an unseen package in the cupboard; although it didn't seem POSSIBLE that he'd have picked the one thing that was between us and a very hungry day to snack on, I checked out of habit, and, yes, he WAS eating the nuts. When accused, he snippily replied that all he'd had were a couple of nuts; a check of the package revealed that he'd eaten HALF of that big can... and, if he hadn't been caught, I'd have found an EMPTY can when I got up the next morning to do the final frenzied packing for the trip, although of course he tried to claim, despite having been caught in a lie as to how much he'd already eaten, that what I'd seen him take was, by magical coincidence, the very last nuts he intended to eat, and that, despite obviously acting compulsively, since he'd eaten FAR past the point where I could be fooled into thinking he hadn't taken any, or had only had a few, he was suddenly going to gain self-control and stop BEFORE he got to the bottom of the jar. Yeah, right. Absolutely LIVID that he'd pulled this stunt under circumstances when I'd have REALLY been screwed by his greediness, I informed him that, since he'd already eaten his half of the nuts, there would be none for him the next day, and that none of the other snacks I was packing would be shared with him either... and yes, I stuck to that.
Why do I let him live? Because I know that I could go right down the hall this very minute, when it's nearly 4AM and he's sound asleep, wake him up and announce that I HAD to have a milk shake (or whatever), and he'd get up, get dressed, and drive all over town until he found an all-night fast food place where he could get me one. For all that I believe that he could, and should, make more of an effort to fight his weaknesses and compulsions, his willingness to "serve" me in ways that few men would ever contemplate doing for any woman balances it out.
Most of the time.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Whatever happened to safe sex?
Do you remember when you couldn't read an article or watch a TV show without hearing about safe sex? Actually, towards the end of that era, it was being referred to, more correctly, as "safER sex," because condoms slip and break and are therefore NOT total protection... when's the last time you heard THAT term? AIDS is still very much with us, particularly threatening young people and minority women, and there are still diseases like herpes and genital warts that have no cure, a laundry-list of forms of hepatitis, some of which are brutal, and plenty of traditional STD's that can mess with you in a variety of ways if left untreated... so why don't we hear anything about the need to be safe any more? Are we out of our MINDS?
When surveys show that as high as 65%-75% of people are cheaters, why is it always said that you can stop using condoms in an established, allegedly monogamous relationship?
When's the last time you saw any reference to using condoms and dental dams during oral sex? You CAN still transmit the full spectrum of diseases, including AIDS, during oral sex... and we're hearing more and more about teens, who are at increasingly high risk of contracting AIDS, having oral sex parties, a common theme of which is to have the girls put on different colors of lipstick and leave lipstick prints of all the colors on every boy's penis, which presupposes that they are NOT wearing condoms (that the girls are willing to give serial blowjobs when they're getting nothing in return is a whole other rant).
There was a time when you could get flavored condoms, which are meant to facilitate safer fellatio, everywhere; now, you'll probably have to go to an adult bookstore to find them, and I don't know where you could find a dental dam outside of stores that cater to the gay community.
Condom ads used to be common; when's the last time you saw one?
You see sex scenes in nearly every movie and TV show; what % of them show condom use, much less adherence to any of the other safe sex guidelines? The only one I can think of is "Queer as Folk," which is fanatical about showing condoms being used for every act of intercourse, but, sadly, NOT for oral sex of the various kinds portrayed... some of which would require dental dams, which to the best of my memory have never even been mentioned on the show, even though some of the oral sex is of the risky anal variety.
Every trivial detail of celebrities' lives are shoved in our faces in every newscast and periodical, but the fact that a long list of grim sexually transmitted diseases are spreading by leaps and bounds isn't seen as worthy of a mention anywhere. How many kids who are too young to have been paying attention when the necessary info was readily available, or who weren't even born then, are going to DIE because the American people got tired of hearing about safe sex?
When surveys show that as high as 65%-75% of people are cheaters, why is it always said that you can stop using condoms in an established, allegedly monogamous relationship?
When's the last time you saw any reference to using condoms and dental dams during oral sex? You CAN still transmit the full spectrum of diseases, including AIDS, during oral sex... and we're hearing more and more about teens, who are at increasingly high risk of contracting AIDS, having oral sex parties, a common theme of which is to have the girls put on different colors of lipstick and leave lipstick prints of all the colors on every boy's penis, which presupposes that they are NOT wearing condoms (that the girls are willing to give serial blowjobs when they're getting nothing in return is a whole other rant).
There was a time when you could get flavored condoms, which are meant to facilitate safer fellatio, everywhere; now, you'll probably have to go to an adult bookstore to find them, and I don't know where you could find a dental dam outside of stores that cater to the gay community.
Condom ads used to be common; when's the last time you saw one?
You see sex scenes in nearly every movie and TV show; what % of them show condom use, much less adherence to any of the other safe sex guidelines? The only one I can think of is "Queer as Folk," which is fanatical about showing condoms being used for every act of intercourse, but, sadly, NOT for oral sex of the various kinds portrayed... some of which would require dental dams, which to the best of my memory have never even been mentioned on the show, even though some of the oral sex is of the risky anal variety.
Every trivial detail of celebrities' lives are shoved in our faces in every newscast and periodical, but the fact that a long list of grim sexually transmitted diseases are spreading by leaps and bounds isn't seen as worthy of a mention anywhere. How many kids who are too young to have been paying attention when the necessary info was readily available, or who weren't even born then, are going to DIE because the American people got tired of hearing about safe sex?
Thursday, April 21, 2005
An insight into men
We hear that men like to pursue women in the dating arena, and are put off by women usurping that role. We hear that men are tired of doing all the pursuing, and taking all the rejection risk, and want women to take the initiative. These things can't BOTH be true of men in general, so we're left with a confusing and contradictory situation with different "experts" giving women advice based on opposing concepts of male preferences, with each side giving logical and persuasive arguments for why men supposedly feel whichever way they think men feel, with neither side ever admitting that there's GOT to be something to what the other side says based on what men are saying and people's real-life experiences. Last month's Cosmo has provided me with another eye-opener, from a question answered in their "Ask Him Anything" column, located online here:
http://magazines.ivillage.com/cosmopolitan/experts/askhim/qas/0,,666475_668392,00.html
To save you having to bring up another window, I've copied it all here:
Q: "Be honest: How do guys really feel about being asked out by a girl?"
A: "Ask any guy if he likes a woman to make the first move, and he'll tell you, "Hell, yeah!" That's not entirely true though. Something happens in the male mind when this sort of hypothetical is posed: We all assume the girl in question is a scorchingly sexy centerfold type who's never done anything like this...until now. But when this scenario plays out in the real world, most men can't help feeling slightly uncomfortable.
Don't get me wrong: We're flattered that you asked. But at the same time, we question why you had to. A guy would like to think you're the hottest thing on the market since Jennifer Aniston became single again. In other words, you should be so desirable that you don't have to ask for a date, because your waiting list is already too long.
Now this doesn't mean you have to sit back, painting your toenails and hoping for a text message from him. Use a more subtly suggestive approach to make it seem as if it were his brilliant idea. Try something like, "So, what are you up to this weekend?" or "We should grab a drink one of these days." If he's the least bit into you and not a freakin' moron, he'll most likely take the bait."
Finally, an explanation that ties the conflicting claims together; men are saying they want one thing while in fact wanting another, or at least believing they want another... just as they're always accusing women of doing, lol. So, both genders are human-imagine that.
The bottom line is that men are biologically programmed to be the pursuers (they're bigger and stronger, so it wouldn't work too well the other way), and, although they might get frustrated if they've been rejected alot recently, and so complain that women aren't taking equal risks, and although they might mouth the PC idea of women doing 50% of the initiation in dating (and sex), and although there might be some shy or badly "burned" guys who want and need women to do the work, men in general LIKE to do things the "biological" way, LIKE to see themselves as the intrepid hunters, seeking out and "conquering" the most desirable women, because it makes them feel virile and studly... and because it gives them the ILLUSION of control. ;-)
Ladies, few men will admit to this, but normally they consider EVERY woman they encounter who isn't freakishly ugly in a sexual light; if a guy you know hasn't asked you out, it's because his sexual perusal of you didn't float his boat enough (or he's too scared to, in which case he's not necessarily a good bet for you to get involved with). You can often circumvent that problem by contriving to be around him alot, as we're all biologically programmed to focus sexually on people around us, for the obvious reason; this is why people so often cheat with someone they know well rather than an attractive stranger. If being around him more isn't feasible, or doesn't work, and you STILL want him, be aware that he's probably not stupid enough to not notice that you're trying to maneuver him into a dating situation if you "casually" ask about his weekend plans, but if you're sure he's single, and seems to not actively dislike you, AND isn't insanely busy, it's ok to mention having football tickets or whatever; he may well go along with it for lack of anything better to do, and if he doesn't at least you'll be through with him and can move on to a man who actually wants you. If you know him well enough to be questioning him about his social schedule, though, there's a better trick to use; ask him if he might be able to come over and help you change your oil, put up shelves, or any other suitably "manly" task... and tell him you'll have beer for him and will order a pizza. Once you've got him alone in your home, and having demonstrated his prowess to you and feeling like your hero... I'm sure you can take it from there.
http://magazines.ivillage.com/cosmopolitan/experts/askhim/qas/0,,666475_668392,00.html
To save you having to bring up another window, I've copied it all here:
Q: "Be honest: How do guys really feel about being asked out by a girl?"
A: "Ask any guy if he likes a woman to make the first move, and he'll tell you, "Hell, yeah!" That's not entirely true though. Something happens in the male mind when this sort of hypothetical is posed: We all assume the girl in question is a scorchingly sexy centerfold type who's never done anything like this...until now. But when this scenario plays out in the real world, most men can't help feeling slightly uncomfortable.
Don't get me wrong: We're flattered that you asked. But at the same time, we question why you had to. A guy would like to think you're the hottest thing on the market since Jennifer Aniston became single again. In other words, you should be so desirable that you don't have to ask for a date, because your waiting list is already too long.
Now this doesn't mean you have to sit back, painting your toenails and hoping for a text message from him. Use a more subtly suggestive approach to make it seem as if it were his brilliant idea. Try something like, "So, what are you up to this weekend?" or "We should grab a drink one of these days." If he's the least bit into you and not a freakin' moron, he'll most likely take the bait."
Finally, an explanation that ties the conflicting claims together; men are saying they want one thing while in fact wanting another, or at least believing they want another... just as they're always accusing women of doing, lol. So, both genders are human-imagine that.
The bottom line is that men are biologically programmed to be the pursuers (they're bigger and stronger, so it wouldn't work too well the other way), and, although they might get frustrated if they've been rejected alot recently, and so complain that women aren't taking equal risks, and although they might mouth the PC idea of women doing 50% of the initiation in dating (and sex), and although there might be some shy or badly "burned" guys who want and need women to do the work, men in general LIKE to do things the "biological" way, LIKE to see themselves as the intrepid hunters, seeking out and "conquering" the most desirable women, because it makes them feel virile and studly... and because it gives them the ILLUSION of control. ;-)
Ladies, few men will admit to this, but normally they consider EVERY woman they encounter who isn't freakishly ugly in a sexual light; if a guy you know hasn't asked you out, it's because his sexual perusal of you didn't float his boat enough (or he's too scared to, in which case he's not necessarily a good bet for you to get involved with). You can often circumvent that problem by contriving to be around him alot, as we're all biologically programmed to focus sexually on people around us, for the obvious reason; this is why people so often cheat with someone they know well rather than an attractive stranger. If being around him more isn't feasible, or doesn't work, and you STILL want him, be aware that he's probably not stupid enough to not notice that you're trying to maneuver him into a dating situation if you "casually" ask about his weekend plans, but if you're sure he's single, and seems to not actively dislike you, AND isn't insanely busy, it's ok to mention having football tickets or whatever; he may well go along with it for lack of anything better to do, and if he doesn't at least you'll be through with him and can move on to a man who actually wants you. If you know him well enough to be questioning him about his social schedule, though, there's a better trick to use; ask him if he might be able to come over and help you change your oil, put up shelves, or any other suitably "manly" task... and tell him you'll have beer for him and will order a pizza. Once you've got him alone in your home, and having demonstrated his prowess to you and feeling like your hero... I'm sure you can take it from there.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Revlon embraces non-standard beauty
I'm belatedly reading last month's Cosmo, and I saw this ad, for Revlon's new mascara, "Fabulash":
http://www.revlon.com/flash/dr/main.asp?ad=fabulash
Can you see what's unusual about the model, actress Kate Bosworth (don't feel bad if you don't know who she is, I didn't either)? It's not as obvious in this small pic as it is in the magazine ad, but if you're looking for it you can't miss it; her eyes are different colors. Would you have imagined that any company would EVER use a woman with such an atypical feature to advertise ANYTHING, much less a variety of eye makeup?
I was flipping rapidly through the advertising pages, but this pic brought me to a halt and just floored me; I was so entranced that I looked Ms. Bosworth up to try to find more pics of her, to see if those were her real eyes and not some sort of printing error... and they ARE real:
http://www.tccandler.com/images/actresses/Kate_Bosworth_Perfect_Face.jpg
http://www.tccandler.com/images/actresses/kate_bosworth_face.jpg
Aren't her eyes utterly GORGEOUS? I'm sure she got teased as a child, despite her overall beauty, because this is such a rare variation, but I'm glad she doesn't wear colored contacts to create matching eyes and look "normal" because of that; I think this unexpected element makes her into a rare beauty.
The various articles about her describe the anomalous eye as "hazel," but in fact the full-page ad shows that the upper half of the iris is the same grayish blue as her other eye, and the bottom half is what can only be described as orange, close to the color of rust; this means that she has heterochromia iridis (multiple colors within a single iris) as well as heterochromia iridium (eyes that are 2 different colors)... you can read about those 2 things on the Scientific American website, here:
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=00015D35-7293-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3&topicID=12
Revlon was VERY shrewd in their choice of model; I'm sure that many other women do the rapid flip-through of the ads in magazines, but this ad really grabs the attention and virtually guarantees that you'll sit there looking at it... and, more than likely, at the facing page, which shows the product. You'll remember the ad, and thus the product, maybe you'll mention it to other people, as I'm doing, and, most importantly, if you're a mascara wearer, the next time you need to buy some, the Revlon version may very likely pop into your mind, greatly increasing the chances that you'll buy their product rather than one of the other brands.
Bravo Revlon!! :-)
http://www.revlon.com/flash/dr/main.asp?ad=fabulash
Can you see what's unusual about the model, actress Kate Bosworth (don't feel bad if you don't know who she is, I didn't either)? It's not as obvious in this small pic as it is in the magazine ad, but if you're looking for it you can't miss it; her eyes are different colors. Would you have imagined that any company would EVER use a woman with such an atypical feature to advertise ANYTHING, much less a variety of eye makeup?
I was flipping rapidly through the advertising pages, but this pic brought me to a halt and just floored me; I was so entranced that I looked Ms. Bosworth up to try to find more pics of her, to see if those were her real eyes and not some sort of printing error... and they ARE real:
http://www.tccandler.com/images/actresses/Kate_Bosworth_Perfect_Face.jpg
http://www.tccandler.com/images/actresses/kate_bosworth_face.jpg
Aren't her eyes utterly GORGEOUS? I'm sure she got teased as a child, despite her overall beauty, because this is such a rare variation, but I'm glad she doesn't wear colored contacts to create matching eyes and look "normal" because of that; I think this unexpected element makes her into a rare beauty.
The various articles about her describe the anomalous eye as "hazel," but in fact the full-page ad shows that the upper half of the iris is the same grayish blue as her other eye, and the bottom half is what can only be described as orange, close to the color of rust; this means that she has heterochromia iridis (multiple colors within a single iris) as well as heterochromia iridium (eyes that are 2 different colors)... you can read about those 2 things on the Scientific American website, here:
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=00015D35-7293-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3&topicID=12
Revlon was VERY shrewd in their choice of model; I'm sure that many other women do the rapid flip-through of the ads in magazines, but this ad really grabs the attention and virtually guarantees that you'll sit there looking at it... and, more than likely, at the facing page, which shows the product. You'll remember the ad, and thus the product, maybe you'll mention it to other people, as I'm doing, and, most importantly, if you're a mascara wearer, the next time you need to buy some, the Revlon version may very likely pop into your mind, greatly increasing the chances that you'll buy their product rather than one of the other brands.
Bravo Revlon!! :-)
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
How to bid on eBay
It seems simple enough, but I see even established eBayers (as indicated by their feedback #'s) doing the stupidest things, so here are a few basic hints:
1) Decide how much the item is worth to you, the absolute MOST you'd be willing to pay, and bid that amount and ONLY that amount; don't sit there making bid after bid, a dollar at a time, until you're ahead or the auction ends on you... when eBay says they'll only bid you up to the amount you need to win, NOT to the upper limit of your bid unless other bids around that high make it necessary, they're NOT joking, honest.
2) Don't bid on an item as soon as you decide you want it; do it as close to the end of the auction as you possibly can, because other eBayers take the # of existing bids, and the current bid amount, into account when deciding how much THEY want to offer, and, if their bid doesn't put them in the lead, will often increase it until they until they ARE winning... which translates to higher prices paid at best, and auctions lost at worst, for YOU. Bid far enough in advance that if your computer crashes right as you're doing it you have enough time to bring it back up and return to the auction page before it's over, but no earlier; unless you're on really slow dialup, a few minutes should be plenty.
3) People almost always bid in round dollar amounts, so:
a) Don't be a wise guy and bid $19.95 on something, or you'll lose to someone who bids $20... why get stuck having to try for an item again just because you might save 5¢?
b) Here's the one that seems so obvious, but that few people do; instead of bidding the exact dollar amount, bid a penny more. I've had some very satisfying wins by 1¢... not just from getting something cool, but from imagining their faces when they saw how they lost, hehehehehe.
4) This one's almost too pitiful to say, but... if there's any chance that what you're thinking of bidding on is available in stores or for direct sale on websites, do a search and find out what the silly thing is worth BEFORE you bid on it, and make sure that you'd be getting a better deal via the auction than at anywhere else you could obtain it; there's nothing sadder than seeing something you could buy at Wal-Mart being auctioned off for twice what it's worth.
Why have I put so much thought into all of this, you ask? I'm approaching my 3 year "anniversary" on eBay, and in that time I've won well over a THOUSAND auctions; whoever said that $ can't buy happiness should come and see me blissfully enjoying the toys and collectibles I've gotten on "The World's Online Marketplace."
1) Decide how much the item is worth to you, the absolute MOST you'd be willing to pay, and bid that amount and ONLY that amount; don't sit there making bid after bid, a dollar at a time, until you're ahead or the auction ends on you... when eBay says they'll only bid you up to the amount you need to win, NOT to the upper limit of your bid unless other bids around that high make it necessary, they're NOT joking, honest.
2) Don't bid on an item as soon as you decide you want it; do it as close to the end of the auction as you possibly can, because other eBayers take the # of existing bids, and the current bid amount, into account when deciding how much THEY want to offer, and, if their bid doesn't put them in the lead, will often increase it until they until they ARE winning... which translates to higher prices paid at best, and auctions lost at worst, for YOU. Bid far enough in advance that if your computer crashes right as you're doing it you have enough time to bring it back up and return to the auction page before it's over, but no earlier; unless you're on really slow dialup, a few minutes should be plenty.
3) People almost always bid in round dollar amounts, so:
a) Don't be a wise guy and bid $19.95 on something, or you'll lose to someone who bids $20... why get stuck having to try for an item again just because you might save 5¢?
b) Here's the one that seems so obvious, but that few people do; instead of bidding the exact dollar amount, bid a penny more. I've had some very satisfying wins by 1¢... not just from getting something cool, but from imagining their faces when they saw how they lost, hehehehehe.
4) This one's almost too pitiful to say, but... if there's any chance that what you're thinking of bidding on is available in stores or for direct sale on websites, do a search and find out what the silly thing is worth BEFORE you bid on it, and make sure that you'd be getting a better deal via the auction than at anywhere else you could obtain it; there's nothing sadder than seeing something you could buy at Wal-Mart being auctioned off for twice what it's worth.
Why have I put so much thought into all of this, you ask? I'm approaching my 3 year "anniversary" on eBay, and in that time I've won well over a THOUSAND auctions; whoever said that $ can't buy happiness should come and see me blissfully enjoying the toys and collectibles I've gotten on "The World's Online Marketplace."
Monday, April 18, 2005
Forbidden fruit
Why is it that when something is forbidden, it's wildly more desirable than the same thing would be if it were NOT forbidden? Why is it that if something becomes forbidden, its value to a person skyrockets, often even if it had no perceived value to them to begin with?
The 1st time I heard of this concept was when a high school English teacher said, "If John and Jane are dating, and their parents don't like it, the worst thing they can do is forbid them from seeing each other, because the moment they do, John and Jane will feel far more interest in each other than they did before, and their relationship will become more serious, and last longer, than it would have if the parents had just stayed out of it." I was STUNNED to hear that, since nothing on Earth could have ever induced ME to pursue anything forbidden, because of the near-certainty of being caught out and punished; in MY world, anything, or anyONE, that became forbidden would have been dropped like the proverbial hot potato, NOT pursued more ardently... and I don't mean that I'd drop it but pine after it, I mean I'd drop it and lose all interest instantly and forever, because it'd never occur to me to focus on things that I knew I could never have.
Even as an adult, with no threat of parental doom hanging over my head, I have no shred of interest whatsoever in anything that's forbidden to me, and, if something becomes forbidden, my interest dies at that exact moment. I might have an instinctive surge of desire for a new forbidden thing before my brain kicks in, but once the awareness of the forbidden nature of it penetrates my conscious mind, the desire vanishes... which to me seems right and normal, as it should be-why waste time and energy on the counterproductive desire for something you're not allowed to have, much less try to get it?
Yeah, I know, people find the risk of being caught exciting... but WHY? Why would the chance of bad, or even horrible, consequences befalling you if you pursue the forbidden be exciting rather than frightening? To ME, the thought of a bad thing happening DOES cause fear, as it does for everyone else under normal circumstances, because to me there's nothing magical about something being forbidden that would suppress my urge for self-preservation... and thus there's no possible level of desire that could overcome the fear of what would happen if the forbidder caught me out with the forbidden thing.
Risk, to me, is something to be avoided at all costs, NOT something exciting, fun, cool, sexy, etc, and pursuing the forbidden means taking a risk... a totally unnecessary risk... and to me that's CRAZY. Why would anyone pursue a forbidden thing, with that risk of being caught and suffering the consequences, when there are so many risk-FREE options available? Why doesn't awareness of a thing being forbidden KILL desire rather than escalating it? Why not objectively weigh all the options and choose one that's NOT forbidden? Why fling yourself at the forbidden as if it were objectively in your best interest to do so when it's NOT?
Why? Because... it's normal human nature, along with valuing something with limited and/or sporadic availability more highly, wanting what other people have just to stay "even" with them, wanting to win at meaningless competitions just for the sake of winning, and all the other things that don't apply to me and thus don't make sense.
The lure of the forbidden is so powerful that no one questions the concept from the Bible that Eve would risk losing Eden and God's favor just to eat a stupid piece of FRUIT; gargantuan possible loss, near-zero potential gain (what good would the knowledge do them in Eden?), and whether or not you believe the stories from the Bible, it probably never occurred to you to think, "But that doesn't make sense-no one would do what she did." Because most people WOULD do exactly what she did, given the chance... just not ME.
If a mothership arrived one day and beamed me up, it wouldn't surprise me all that much... ;-)
The 1st time I heard of this concept was when a high school English teacher said, "If John and Jane are dating, and their parents don't like it, the worst thing they can do is forbid them from seeing each other, because the moment they do, John and Jane will feel far more interest in each other than they did before, and their relationship will become more serious, and last longer, than it would have if the parents had just stayed out of it." I was STUNNED to hear that, since nothing on Earth could have ever induced ME to pursue anything forbidden, because of the near-certainty of being caught out and punished; in MY world, anything, or anyONE, that became forbidden would have been dropped like the proverbial hot potato, NOT pursued more ardently... and I don't mean that I'd drop it but pine after it, I mean I'd drop it and lose all interest instantly and forever, because it'd never occur to me to focus on things that I knew I could never have.
Even as an adult, with no threat of parental doom hanging over my head, I have no shred of interest whatsoever in anything that's forbidden to me, and, if something becomes forbidden, my interest dies at that exact moment. I might have an instinctive surge of desire for a new forbidden thing before my brain kicks in, but once the awareness of the forbidden nature of it penetrates my conscious mind, the desire vanishes... which to me seems right and normal, as it should be-why waste time and energy on the counterproductive desire for something you're not allowed to have, much less try to get it?
Yeah, I know, people find the risk of being caught exciting... but WHY? Why would the chance of bad, or even horrible, consequences befalling you if you pursue the forbidden be exciting rather than frightening? To ME, the thought of a bad thing happening DOES cause fear, as it does for everyone else under normal circumstances, because to me there's nothing magical about something being forbidden that would suppress my urge for self-preservation... and thus there's no possible level of desire that could overcome the fear of what would happen if the forbidder caught me out with the forbidden thing.
Risk, to me, is something to be avoided at all costs, NOT something exciting, fun, cool, sexy, etc, and pursuing the forbidden means taking a risk... a totally unnecessary risk... and to me that's CRAZY. Why would anyone pursue a forbidden thing, with that risk of being caught and suffering the consequences, when there are so many risk-FREE options available? Why doesn't awareness of a thing being forbidden KILL desire rather than escalating it? Why not objectively weigh all the options and choose one that's NOT forbidden? Why fling yourself at the forbidden as if it were objectively in your best interest to do so when it's NOT?
Why? Because... it's normal human nature, along with valuing something with limited and/or sporadic availability more highly, wanting what other people have just to stay "even" with them, wanting to win at meaningless competitions just for the sake of winning, and all the other things that don't apply to me and thus don't make sense.
The lure of the forbidden is so powerful that no one questions the concept from the Bible that Eve would risk losing Eden and God's favor just to eat a stupid piece of FRUIT; gargantuan possible loss, near-zero potential gain (what good would the knowledge do them in Eden?), and whether or not you believe the stories from the Bible, it probably never occurred to you to think, "But that doesn't make sense-no one would do what she did." Because most people WOULD do exactly what she did, given the chance... just not ME.
If a mothership arrived one day and beamed me up, it wouldn't surprise me all that much... ;-)
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Can a house be evil?
I've been thinking about "The Amityville Horror"... can you tell?
Do spirits exist? Yes; I've seen them. Can spirits be evil? The worst I've personally encountered would be more like mischievous, but since people can be evil I don't see why spirits couldn't be. Could evil spirits pick a house as their "base," or be "stuck" there because that's where they died? Sure, why not?
A trickier question, though, is whether evil can exist separate from a human being, whether an inanimate object can be evil; it doesn't matter if it's a house or a rock, really, except that an evil rock wouldn't be very threatening, or be able to do any harm unless it could defy gravity and throw itself at you, or have a chance to scare you, whereas a house, which surrounds you, and where you expect to feel safest, could really make your life into a nightmare if it had any degree of evil and any power to act on it.
I've come to accept that animism exists, that each bit of matter contains a minute fraction of the energy of sentience, of feeling, of soul... but does that mean that all matter can EMIT energy, positive and/or negative, in the way that people do? It's often seemed to me that some animals, all the way down to bugs, "feel" as if they're "good" or "evil," and plenty of people say the same thing, but that could absolutely be anthropomorphization, emotional attachment, personal preference, all sorts of things. I frequently get a feeling of warmth and "welcome" from large trees, and, odd as it seems, I know other people who've felt it too, but that could just be our love for trees, or having read too much bad poetry that talks about the "welcoming embrace" of branches. Although there's clearly some gray area, there's no reason to believe that anything other than a human being can be innately evil... certainly not a rock or a bunch of boards and shingles.
BUT; what if psychometry is real, and objects can absorb all sorts of energy from the people around them, energy that stays in those objects and can be perceived later? Heck, even if no one can actually perceive the stored energy, it could, in theory, still be there... and violence, pain, fear, rage and evil generate powerful energy, which does, after all, have to go somewhere-energy can change locations and forms, but never "vanish." Let's say, for the sake of argument, that some of this energy DOES get stored in objects, such as, say, the walls of a house where a crazy, evil person brutally murdered his entire family; could that energy radiate back out? More to the point, for the fans of evil-house horror movies; could the evil coalesce into something capable of a degree of thought, such that it would focus its energy on doing specific, scary things, rather than just producing a vague feeling that there's something evil there? It seems farfetched, but these sorts of movies wouldn't scare us if we didn't believe on some level that evil can and does do something very like that; does that mean that this is some bit of truth that we instinctively perceive, or just that we heard too many ghost stories as kids?
The only way to know for sure would be to experience it personally, and nothing on Earth could get me to voluntarily put myself somewhere that people claim has evil spirits, evil in the walls, or anything else; this one will have to remain unknown for now.
Do spirits exist? Yes; I've seen them. Can spirits be evil? The worst I've personally encountered would be more like mischievous, but since people can be evil I don't see why spirits couldn't be. Could evil spirits pick a house as their "base," or be "stuck" there because that's where they died? Sure, why not?
A trickier question, though, is whether evil can exist separate from a human being, whether an inanimate object can be evil; it doesn't matter if it's a house or a rock, really, except that an evil rock wouldn't be very threatening, or be able to do any harm unless it could defy gravity and throw itself at you, or have a chance to scare you, whereas a house, which surrounds you, and where you expect to feel safest, could really make your life into a nightmare if it had any degree of evil and any power to act on it.
I've come to accept that animism exists, that each bit of matter contains a minute fraction of the energy of sentience, of feeling, of soul... but does that mean that all matter can EMIT energy, positive and/or negative, in the way that people do? It's often seemed to me that some animals, all the way down to bugs, "feel" as if they're "good" or "evil," and plenty of people say the same thing, but that could absolutely be anthropomorphization, emotional attachment, personal preference, all sorts of things. I frequently get a feeling of warmth and "welcome" from large trees, and, odd as it seems, I know other people who've felt it too, but that could just be our love for trees, or having read too much bad poetry that talks about the "welcoming embrace" of branches. Although there's clearly some gray area, there's no reason to believe that anything other than a human being can be innately evil... certainly not a rock or a bunch of boards and shingles.
BUT; what if psychometry is real, and objects can absorb all sorts of energy from the people around them, energy that stays in those objects and can be perceived later? Heck, even if no one can actually perceive the stored energy, it could, in theory, still be there... and violence, pain, fear, rage and evil generate powerful energy, which does, after all, have to go somewhere-energy can change locations and forms, but never "vanish." Let's say, for the sake of argument, that some of this energy DOES get stored in objects, such as, say, the walls of a house where a crazy, evil person brutally murdered his entire family; could that energy radiate back out? More to the point, for the fans of evil-house horror movies; could the evil coalesce into something capable of a degree of thought, such that it would focus its energy on doing specific, scary things, rather than just producing a vague feeling that there's something evil there? It seems farfetched, but these sorts of movies wouldn't scare us if we didn't believe on some level that evil can and does do something very like that; does that mean that this is some bit of truth that we instinctively perceive, or just that we heard too many ghost stories as kids?
The only way to know for sure would be to experience it personally, and nothing on Earth could get me to voluntarily put myself somewhere that people claim has evil spirits, evil in the walls, or anything else; this one will have to remain unknown for now.
