I Can't Decide

The hardest thing about being a grown-up is decisions. I have decided that this is the hardest thing. This is the last decision I am capable of making today.

One of my coworkers tells me that his fantasy job is to have a hot dog cart on the beach where the only decisions are ketchup or mustard. I'm a vegetarian and that sounds amazing.

Sometimes my husband and I will be trying to decide what to have for dinner and he'll say "Whatever you want, baby" and that's about the only time when I want to divorce him.

I might ask my daughter what she wants to do on a Saturday and she'll give me a teenage shrug and so I'll make a decision which is then invariably disappointing and that's about the only time I want to run away (That's a lie. I'm living in Trump's America and want to run away literally all of the time).

Throughout my average working day, I'm met with "what do you think about..." or "what should we do about" roughly every 13 seconds. Of late, when I hear that, all I think is "mustard." I prefer mustard to ketchup. Of this I am abidingly certain. I may waffle, though, between spicy brown and yellow. I never say "mustard" aloud, but I am always thinking it.

I was getting a pedicure on Saturday (this is the most first world problems post ever, isn't it?) and the dude poking aggressively at my toe cuticles told me I was too sensitive when I flinched (I should find a better pedicure place but then that's just another decision and also they have a parking lot which makes it so easy) and then he asked if the pedicure was all I wanted.

"Yep," I said.

"Are you sure?" he said. "Something about your eyebrows, maybe?"

(I really should find a better pedicure place.)

Do I have to make decisions about my eyebrows now? I never thought about my eyebrows in the 80s, 90s or 00s. For some reason this decade I'm asked to start paying attention to them and my head is too full and if I agree to do "something about my eyebrows" all I'll be able to think is "mustard" and no one, no matter how gentle they are with toenail cuticles, will know how to translate "mustard" into some eyebrow shape.

I think I'll make one more decision and decide not to give a shit about my eyebrows. I wear spectacles (that's right, I said "spectacles" because I am classy) every day so who can even see my dumb eyebrows?

Mustard is superior to ketchup, tho. And your eyebrows are probably fine.

Internet-ish

A few days ago, I shared this silly internet meme about how to find your British royal name. It was goofy and I mostly shared it because both my grandmothers were named Mary and that is a thing that Irish Americans probably all have in common so that's fun. Three separate people jumped on the comments thread to tell me how I was sharing a thing that gives people the answers to your various security questions (name of your first pet, street where you grew up, etc).

Tip: don't "actually" someone until you've read up the thread, guys! I can only be scolded for the same thing so many times before I get huffy!

Anyhoo, I told all these guys that I felt like those questions were easy enough to find out from anyone and besides, who the hell is asking for a grandparent's first name on a security question?

And then a couple of days later I was signing up for some dumb account and that was the security question they asked.

So, I felt dumb. And I felt dumb in the way that I really hate to feel dumb, because I like to think my Internet IQ is pretty high (unlike my Marvel IQ because I still don't know if Paul Bettany is a mutant or a person or a robot or what) and falling for some dumb phishing thing like that makes me feel old and stupid and out of touch.

I come from a generation that's not particular exercised about privacy. I still remember going full Navin Johnson when I got my first apartment in Chicago - excitedly cracking open the white pages and staring all starry-eyed at my name, address and phone number and feeling like a Real Girl Now! And now I live in a world where I alternately feel like I'm way too worried about privacy and not nearly worried enough and I can feel both of these things at the same time especially since it means I don't have to answer the phone if I don't know who's calling (Seriously! Remember when you had to pick up the phone to find out who was on the other end? That was the worst!)

I don't know. I have no answers. Do you? And, while I'm asking, did we know about those infinity stones the whole time and can't Dr. Strange just send us back in time or something? If you have any questions about rotary phones or dating in the 1990s, send them this way. I would like to feel expert on something again.

How's Your Rage?

I was on a conference call Friday, waiting for a customer to join, chatting with colleagues when I referred to the film Mean Girls as a classic. The guys on the other end of the call (really lovely guys, all of them) gently scoffed at this and referenced Citizen Kane and The Birds as real classics.

You guys, I am not proud of myself about this, but I let the simmering low-level rage that's been my constant companion these last two years get the better of me. I sputtered and fumed and then the customer joined and we started talking about less interesting things like technology and workflows.

For men (well, straight white men) a smart comedy, that remains culturally relevant fourteen years later, written by a woman and about girls doesn't deserve to be called a classic. But those hoary old films by a narcissist and a straight up monster will always, no matter what we learn about the people they were, rest undisturbed atop their pedestals.

I have a theory about why I get so mad these days so easily: I think for the first 45ish years of my life I lived in that go along to get along space; I just kind of went with it that the women will bear the responsibility for making the men feel good, that what the women do will never be taken as seriously as what the men do, and that men will just always be the ones in charge.

And then, of course, Donald J Trump happened and I think I, along with most of the American female population, and thought:

...unsealed the rage spigot, and let it loose. This has left me with a rather large surfeit of rage.

Another thing happened: Jake Tapper was interviewed by America's boyfriends on Pod Save America post SmokeyEyegate (tm me) and he said that while he hadn't seen The Handmaid's Tale, come on, it's obvious Michelle Wolfe was making a joke about Sarah Huckabee Sanders' looks. I'm still mad about that. I can't stop being mad about that. 

Ann Dowd is a brilliant character actress who is doing incredible work playing a character who is not just complicit in a deeply misogynist government, but also a true believer who is among its most effective enforcers. The analogy is clear to anyone with even a passing interest in the show. But to Jake Tapper, the only material fact about Ann Dowd is that he himself would not care to have sex with her. I am so offended on Ann Dowd's behalf!

You guys, this interview was a couple of weeks ago. I mean way too long and way too in passing for me to still be mad. But I'm still mad! I'm still so angry at how he pleased he was with himself, how confident he'd earned a brave boy cookie for his whole "I'm just being honest" shtick. And I'm angry that the Pod Save guys, who all knew it was crap, just let it pass without commenting.

And that may be who I'm maddest at, now that I think about it: the nice guys, the good guys, the guys who aren't horrible to women, and who even actually like women, are friends with women, but are also so deep in their own privilege (I'm sorry - I'm starting to hate that word too) that they fail to notice so much.

I'm sorry, I'm ranting.

I think I may start greeting my lady friends with "Hi! How's your rage these days?" I think I may start greeting my male friends with "Hi! You questioned any deep-seated assumptions yet today?" 

And I write all this knowing that as a white, straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, middle-class woman, I'm operating at a pretty low difficulty setting. But so long as Donald Fucking Trump, who is the Platonic ideal of the terrible American male, is our president, I can't stop being mad.