Nnekay.com

I am deep in the tough thicket of 27- yesterday was my half birthday…

so yes, I’m hella 27.

Why am I making a big deal out of this boring, non-milestone age? Because something seeps into the consciousness at 27- especially for us, “adulthood what?” types. For those who have kids or experienced some out of the norm hard living- this is a moot point, but for the rest of us- run of the mill, working to stay afloat, drinking to have fun types, 27 is a wake up call.

THIS IS WHAT IT IS TO BE AN ADULT.

To which most of us reply with a deeply mystified, “What?! No way…”

Yes way, my dear late twenties, yes way… The shiny gleam of “when I grow up” wears off and starts to sound stupid, because as a kid , you never wanted to work in a cubicle. You never wanted to loose childhood buddies. You never wanted to struggle with dating. Yet, this is reality- being a adult involves disappointment- a lot of it, and this time around Mommy can’t fix it with a hug. When you’re in your early 20s- adulthood is fresh and wonderful, but by the time you’re 27- it hits you- this is the time you’ve been preparing for, going to school, working jobs, and getting all your social norms ready. You’ve jumped from the nest, now you’re flying… but where do you go?

Well you gotta go somewhere… hopefully somewhere important… or at least valuable to oneself.

Oh… it doesn’t help that a handful of famous people kick the bucket at this age either….

Like the thousands of high school and colleges students released to the wilds of summer, I had to find a seasonal job. Unlike the aforementioned pimpled group, I am an adult (sort of) and well, needed a job that would help support my adult expenses. Adult expenses sounds extravagant… unfortunately my ‘adult expenses’ are not golden lacquered tennis shoes, but instead car insurance and other drab money sucks. So I put on a smile, turned up the charm and managed to score a very adult-y (which sounds like porn, but not… I promise or this entry would be ten times more interesting) summer gig as a librarian-type person in an ultra tre cool science museum. I was stoked… then I realized getting to the joint would be a hassle. During my normal librarian job, I had a hefty commute, so driving wouldn’t be much of an issue- but ugggggh across the bridge?! And uggghhhh through downtown San Franciso?! AND ugggggggggh the TRAFFIC going home?!?! Holy crap this was going to be a drag- especially during the poorly timed Van Ness Ave.

Green Light Red Light Green Light Red Light.

I wanted to pull my hair out and and bang my face against the steering wheel in sheer desperation. Then slowly day by day, I started to notice things:

A bedraggled tranny casually talking to a dude in a dirty suit- what the hell was the story behind that?! Were they remnants from the night before or were they getting ready for a lovely day of costumes?

A man with frosted tips riding a pink fuzzy bike. Did he make this bike or did his crazy ass girlfriend make it, and force him to ride it to work as a testament to her love?

A lonely woman sitting forlorn in a bunny costume.  Was she sad or high?

An ex-boyfriend- FUCK! Drive faster!

A few days ago, I sat mindlessly waiting at a light at Van Ness and California… I noticed something twitch in the corner of my vision, normally I wouldn’t look for fear of seeing a bum urinating, but I could sense it was blue and exotic, so I decided to turn my head. Wafting across the intersection was a lone vibrant indigo feather boa, delicately rolling like some psychedelic tumbleweed. My mouth hung agape as I watched it snake and roll against itself in the street. I imagined some bawdy drag queen hurling it at rude cab driver, but resolved that a wayward bachelorette party probably lost it from the limo ride home.

At this point I realized: Van Ness is probably the best fucking street to be stopped at a light, a never ending source of morning entertainment for which I will always be grateful for

I like movies.

In fact, I like movies so much, I watch trailers.

Sometimes when life is a complete drag and I need a little pick me up- I’ll take a quickie visit to the good ole Apple trailer website to watch some of the exciting  flicks that will be coming to a theater near me.

This time around I noticed that diversity in American movies are drastically absent, true this is have been a horrible problem since movies have been invented. I mean, when one of the great celebrated grandfathers of film is about the KKK, surely the film industry is going to have some racial problem, but come on people…. it’s 2010!!!!!

2010 is future time!!!!! Shouldn’t we try to aim for some harmony and shit? Okay I know, I’m coming from the hippie ass bay area where all races are pretty much represented and even here there is a lot of self segregation- but maybe if we started to show everyone getting along together in “FANTASY MOVIE LAND” we could start to imply to the audience that- hey it’s okay to have a splash of color during your party scene. Movies are cast within an inch of itself… each person is carefully picked and dressed to the director’s desire- so the fact that the majority of the movies that are out and representing AMERICA are so … well… WHITE, it leaves one to believe that the movie biz is PURPOSELY forgetting to acknowledge that other people live here and sometimes we like to hang out with each other without weird racial drama popping up.

ps- I am so sick of these 1950s everything was awesome coming of age smuck messes

I really wanted to write a blog about Lady Gaga, and how annoying she’s become- but every time I start (which has been exactly four times over the past two days) I end up repeating the same formula: I write a witty title, stop, sigh, and realize that I’m just too bored to continue. You see- her antics don’t challenge or even upset me, because she has essentially become that crappy drama kid from high school. The one that is STARVED for attention… always performing, has to be the lead in every play, and would upstage anyone no matter the moment. Trying desperately to be so unique that it’s no longer cute, artsy, or intelligent- it’s obnoxious.  I understand, that Gaga is celebrating pop culture and the insanity that is FAME, but really- if she’s making a commentary on it- she needs to have a little fun or actually (shock) have a point… because being an artist doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole.

Hey Gaga-

I have an idea, how about dousing your body with petroleum oil in the middle of Times Square (since you love NY so damn much), then take a hair bath to wash it off. It’s edgy, weird, and demonstrates the need for hair donations for the Gulf Coast clean up. You’re in a position to really utilize your comet like rise to celebrity in quirky awesome ways that could potentially change the face of pop music and teenage culture.

Or you can continue to be a douche who plays crappy music…

 Let’s take a look at the classic Bossa Nova Love diddy, The Girl From Ipanema

Tall and tan and young and lovely,
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes, “Aaah”

When she walks, she’s like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gently
That when she passes, each one she passes goes, “Aaah”

Oh, but he watches so sadly -
How can he tell her he loves her?
Yes, he would give his heart gladly,
But each day when she walks to the sea,
She looks straight ahead, not at he

Ever thought that this girl might be trying to avoid eye contact with this weirdo beach bum who stares at her every day when she’s walking to her job selling crap at the beach?

Just Sayn’….

Recently, I was having a little chat-a-roo via instant message with my very awesome feminist partner in crime Stephanie. Usually we talk about normal water cooler fluff, but sometimes we dive a little bit deeper (mostly inspired by the various article links we send to each other) into the complex world of gender inequality, politics, and other wonderful topics which reminds me- that I do have a brain, and yes, I like to use it from time to time. She’s been around to listen to my various rants on dating, and the trial and tribulations that I, and many of the other women in our circle, have experienced with a particular dating site:

OkCupid.

A free dating site mainly devoted to people in the 20ish/30ish age bracket looking for some hipster love or whatever other kinky crap ya’ll are interested in. What I’ve always liked about the site were the statistics. Every once in a while they produce little blogs about how their members interact towards each other- giving an interesting little sociological break down of the dating world. This particular article about race really spiked my interest. Since I knew these blogs existed, I kinda figured that I was being tracked- who I looked at… how often I replied to dudes…who I found interesting, yet this didn’t bother me, because:

1. The notion of “big brother” doesn’t weird me out.

&

2. I felt like I was apart of something bigger by helping to contribute to little social experiments to better understand how we humans interact.

Cool, right? Well, maybe not… during the aforementioned chat sesh with Stephanie, she sent me this link. For those of you lazy non link readers here’s a breakdown:

Bitch Magazine is hella mad, because they’ve been tipped that OkCupid uses it’s stats to determine hotness, then grants these hot users special privileges like, the chance to meet other hot people. Basically, they section off all the sexy OkCupid folks in their own sexy section in the dating site.

I read the article and immediately thought, “oh shit,” not in a ‘oh shit, this is some biased jacked up shit from a dating site that claims to be equal.’

Nope.

It was an ‘oh shit… I got that e-mail.’

I only told two people- my roommate, Heather, and my friend Chris, who thinks dating is retarded and would be amused by how insane this e-mail was. After that, I sealed my lips… but why?

I was embarrassed.

The majority of my friends were or have been on OkCupid- so bringing it up would be a 50/50 gamble which scared the crap out of me. Yes, there is the chance that said friend would have received this nugget of information- resulting in a high-5 and talks about how silly the whole notion is or it could go like this:

“Heeeeeeeey, you get this e-mail about being hot? No? Oh. Okay.”

Like the dicks that they are, OkCupid, even insisted that you “go ask an ugly friend” to prove that they don’t send this out to everyone.

Really, guys?!

Now, I’m sure this whole sexy OkCupid underbelly- has a completely different effect on dudes. I could be wrong, but I imagine is goes a little something like this:

In the Male Head: “Awesome… now I get to bone hot chicks.”

When Telling Male Friend: “Dude… I get to bone hot chicks.”

In the Male Friend’s Head: “My friend gets to bone hot chicks… maybe she will have hot friends I can bone.”

Now let’s check out what’s going on in LadyLand:

In the Female Head: “Yes! I’m hot… oh and the potential for hot guys, too! Nice! Hmm… should I tell Beth? She might think I’m a bitch for telling her, but she’s cute- I bet she got it too… I mean she gets letters on OkCupid a lot, and last night at the bar, that random guy was totally hitting on her… yea, I bet she got it too.”

When Telling Female Friend: “I got this really weird letter saying I’m hot on OkCupid, I bet you got one too, because you’re so cute- and your profile picture is super sexy.”

In Female Friend’s Head: “WHAT THE FUCK, I’m so much hotter than Jane… well, I mean she’s cute, but the lighting is super good in her profile picture… I should have put that picture up of me from Halloween- the sexy nurse costume is totally hot… whatever…”

Lame, right.

Since birth, images have been blasted in our face about how valuable female beauty is, sure appearance for guys can go a long way- but if you’re funny or have money, you can fill in the gaps of your attractive quotient. Look at all the sitcoms out there where the dad figure is a fat slobby gross man, while the wives are ever patient fashion plates with rockn’ bods:

Still Standing, King of Queens, According to Jim, The Honeymooners… etc.

Women on the other hand, are threatening when funny or rich:

Funny
Did you hear that?
Funny
Yeah, the guy said
“honey, you’re a funny girl.”
That’s me
I just keep them in stitches
Doubled in half,
And though I may be all wrong for a guy,
I’m good for a laugh,
I guess it’s not funny,
Life is far from sunny,
When the laugh is over
And the joke’s on you,
A girl oughta have a sense of humor
That’s one thing you really need for sure
When you’re a funny girl
The fella said “a funny girl”
Funny
How it ain’t so funny,
Funny girl
Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, got the fame, fortune, and laughs- but did she get the guy?

NO.

For women, our looks mean so much… because men, media, and other women give appearance so much weight- it’s gotten out of control. There have been different ad campaigns and TV Shows which have tried to call attention to the gross amount of energy spent on the perfect image of women.  A light flip through the rolodex of my head I can think up two examples: Jessica Simpson’s ridiculous romp through different cultures in The Price of Beauty and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign which pictured normal ladies in their chonies and slapped that image on billboards across America.

Nice try guys, but you still only focused on image.

The only way to stop this is, is to highlight aspects that have NOTHING to do with appearance. Say for instance calling attention to the fact that Michelle Obama is a Princeton and Harvard Law Alumna, instead of how awesome her arms looked in that Calvin Kline Metallic Strapless Dress.

The perception of the female body is embedded in to mainframe of most world cultures- changing it would probably need some apocalyptic event- but even then I have a sneaking suspicion we ladies would be jockeying over who was able to pull off the tattered coat look… all I ask is that we try to shift a tiny little percentage of value over to intellect or talent.

You listening OkCupid? If you can track how many times a person’s pictures are viewed, I’m sure it’s easy to see how often a profile essay is visited. Sure a pretty sea shell is fun for a quick glance, but it takes some content to make it interesting.

It was the second day… already completely pickled from two days worth of beverage consumption, I found myself standing in the direct center of one of the top talked about night clubs of Las Vegas. Heather, my roommate and pickled partner in crime, and I-  had just gotten in for free, purchased a ridiculously expensive drink, and now stood rather dumbstruck next to some vacant stripper poles. Trying to soak in the scene and avoid gyrating co-eds, I turned to Heather and slurred, “This… is intense.” Just as I spoke, a woman- who was severely inebriated dragged herself up onto the empty stripper pole platform and began to wobble around the pole a beat too slow. With the slack jawed look of drunken confidence she worked it… slowly, and I couldn’t stop staring like some incredibly sloppy-sex car crash. Then like moths swarming to a heated lamp, a gaggle of teetering women began to claw for attention at the poles. Hair, High Heels, and glitter rained down on me, as they slowly bumped around each other, one trying to out sexy the next. Reality crashed down as I nearly avoided getting my eye punctured by a rogue spike heel. Heather and I backed up to watch from a safer area, she turned to me and excitedly said,

“Pretty cool how we didn’t pay, right?”

“Yea…” I muttered as I watched a woman in a dark fedora hump the stripper pole stage.

“We’ve been getting perks, and free stuff this whole trip, I think Vegas really caters to women,” Heather continued. It was true, we had benefited from various Vegas perks in the containment of just under 24 hours- which was insane. I felt a little drunk with power and started to dance with mimicked sexy confidence. Then I noticed it: Men… looking… everywhere…and it all came flooding back to me: the leering looks, forced conversation, being hit on by old men… my drunken anger washed over my being, turning my happy buzz into rage.

“No, you know what?! Vegas doesn’t cater to women! WE ARE JUST OBJECTS! LOOK AROUND YOU! IT’S A MALE WONDERLAND!!!” I hiked up my pink strapless dress and wildly waved my arms around the club, while the look of concern increased in poor Heather’s eyes.”THEY pay the money- but we’ve been strategically placed here for their DELIGHT!!!” For emphasis, I pulled a long hard sip from my gin and tonic.

“Well… I guess you’re right,” Heather muttered, clearly she was not as appalled as I was, because clearly she was not as drunk.

“AND another thing! MY FEET HURT!” I huffed, and leaned against the wall angrily staring down the glaring patriarch of the club.

Then a popular song came on, and I was magically distracted for a few more hours…

Hobbling out the club… my temporary musical distraction had worn off, “These shoes BLOW!!” Heather nodded, a lot more on my level of intoxication… she seemed almost ready for my on-coming rant.We continued to a waiting cab- as I simmered with growing feminist anxiety. My strapless bra was digging into my right breast, my pink dress was too short, my bun pulled too tight, the make-up of the night was bleeding into my eyes causing a horrid sting on the outside corners.

And the dagger death traps that were strapped to my feet… they were the worst. Sitting in the cab- I looked deep at my purple toes throbbing in the reflective light of the passing casinos, only one word came to mind:

WHY?!?!

“These are hateful contraptions of evil…” I thought to myself as heather and I tumbled out of the taxi. Standing in the elevator, leaning against a wall it slipped out, “evil…”

“What…didyousay?” fell out of Heather’s mouth as she wafted back and forth on the ride to our room.

“These are evil constructs of Evil!” My anger picking up pace as Heather nodded. “Created for women to supposedly look good!! EVIL!!!”

“Youknow….. … you can… takethem off.” Heather continued, eyes shut. With that, I promptly took them off, and gripped each shoe with ferocious white knuckled passion. Shaking the shoes in Heather’s semi disinterested face I continued my rant.

“How DARE MEN encourage these HATEFUL SHOOOOEES!!!!! THESE EVIL MISOGYNIST SHOESSSS!” After three tries Heather opened the hotel room, I screamed, “EVIL!!!” and threw them on the ground, then fell face first into a pillow. Heather calmly sat down on the edge of her bed, removed each shoe, waited a beat and said, “so… I’m gonna put on my flats… wanna go see what’s going on at that other club we keep hearing about?”

I rolled over, blinked at the ceiling, and muttered, “okay.”

Welp…  like the various Americanos and Internationals before me, I will be making the holy journey to Vegas.

Ahhh, Vegas - so hip it’s dropped the “Las” from it’s moniker. An adult play ground, land of debauchery, and all around crazy glut of sin.

Honestly, this is all hearsay- because the last time I was in Vegas it was still “Las Vegas”, the MGM was the new hot shit, and I was 14. What I can piece together from my fractured memory and minimal pictorial documentation is:

1. It was hot.

2. I wore a lot of Sanrio.

3. Luxor was cool, because Ancient Egypt was the “it” country in the 90: “Do You Remember the Time” Michael Jackson Video, “The Mummy Franchise, StarGate Movie and TV weirdness, not to mention they were digging around in those tombs at that time.

4. Buffets were everywhere…

5. My parents didn’t seem to mind that I wore Tevas… sigh…

6. Cesar’s Palace had singing statues which not only freaked the shit out of me, but also entranced me.

Lastly… 7. The hotel we stayed at, The Fitzgerald, smelled like a butt hole puffing on a menthol cigarette.

And that’s about that… I thought the trip was pretty awesome- but then again- I was 14, so I’m expecting a drastically different time. Needless to say, What Happens in Vegas… will NOT stay in Vegas- because well… I’m a writer, sorta.