Marketing for Panhandlers

As my time in Tallahassee draws to a close (for now?), I have paused to reflect on the city and the ways in which it has contributed to my growth as a person. Or, if it has at all. This year has not been what I would call fun. Quite the opposite. In fact, if my years were measured in laughter, this year would rank on the bottom. That said, times of quiet difficulty generally allow for self-examination. I think we all have some ingrained reactions to stimuli that perhaps we’re not particularly proud of. One that I’ve noticed in myself is how I assess those less fortunate than me. Tallahassee has no shortage of individuals pleading for your spare change. For such a small city, it surprised me how frequently I was confronted for money. Since these individuals became a regular fixture in my intra-Tally travels, I started to measure their ability to garner actual donations. I’ve had to face the uncomfortable reality of my proclivity to judge in the process.

To digress for a moment, I’ve always been slightly fascinated and mildly disturbed by the concept of marketing. Frankly, I always found the venture to be a way in which we condone outright deception. I suppose the intent is to find a suitable market for your product. In its most high-minded form, you are simply presenting something that you believe your targeted audience either needs, or could derive benefit from. However, marketing more often seems like a socially acceptable form of manipulation.

Take my daughter for instance. We don’t have cable at home. Whenever we visit a home that does have cable, it isn’t the television programming that catches her eye – it is the commercials that are designed to lure her attention and ensnare her little desires. She sits transfixed by commercials and only breaks her attention to turn and squeal some semi-indecipherable plea for me to buy the product. The commercials employ pretty little girls, lots of sparkles, and the color pink. I’m pretty sure that if she saw a commercial in which two girls with curly pigtails and giant smiles were playing with a semi-automatic weapon that had been painted pink while glitter fell from the sky, she’d want that too.

So, point is – you have to know your audience and use psychology against them. The panhandlers of Tallahassee have taught me a thing or two about my own ingrained, admittedly selfish, psychology and by extension – what I can assume those around me must be thinking. In coming to this realization, I think I have devised some suggestions for more effective homeless marketing.

First, most people believe you only want to purchase liquor and cigarettes. Maybe even a little crack. While asking for funds, it is advisable that you not smoke or drink from a paper bag. Next, make sure you reach out to a market that is not already oversaturated. Diversify. When you are seen on the same street corner, day after sweltering Florida day, I will unwittingly make the assumption that if you can pound that pavement all day long, day after day, you can pound the pavement for employment. Also, put your best face forward. Many of us think you believe you’re entitled to a handout. Don’t look at us with disgust. Sure, you’re down and out. But express some good cheer and gratitude for those quarters we’ve got in the ashtray! Moreover, try a little refreshing honesty. Do I really believe you’re a veteran? Maybe. Hungry? I don’t know. Pull out that cardboard and marker and try this: “Honestly, a beer sounds good. Got a dollar?” or “If you don’t have any money, can I at least bum a smoke?”

I suppose I’m not completely serious about those. (Although, they may prove useful.) But they all stem from judgments I’ve made about these people, often without even really putting that much thought into it. Adults don’t respond to marketing tactics that involve sparkles and talking cartoon animals. Most of us need a message that resonates on a deeper level; that involves some core value or experience that we all share. I think adversity is something that most people understand. Clearly, these panhandlers are experiencing it. The thing is my knee-jerk reaction is to believe that their adversity is different because it is self-inflicted or the product of a weakness in character. Then again, how many of my own personal difficulties are the result of a similar dynamic? I wish I knew how best to help these people. I really don’t know the answer to that. I do know that as the intended audience of these pleas for compassion, it may not resonate with me because I lack that quality more than I’d like to admit.

Honestly, I'm Lying . . .

It has been a while since I’ve written something that did not require meticulous citation. Hence, why I sit at my kitchen table at 4:30 a.m. reeling from citing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opinions (you cite these beasts by the paragraph) - taking shelter in free-form prose. Being awake at this ungodly hour allows for incredible silence and reflection as well. It is certainly needed. This has been a trying week, to put it very mildly.

Unlike my usual posts, I don’t have a theme for this one. This is more of a catharsis from the onslaught of the last several days. I guess this begins with Sunday. It came to my attention then that I am not quite as honest as I thought I was. It’s not that I am being overtly or intentionally deceiving. My lies are more subconscious. I have never considered myself to be a very emotional person. In fact, I have often taken pride in the fact that very few people can say they’ve seen me cry. (I did, however, cry at Toy Story 3. I was alone, though.) Now, I am a passionate person. For instance, engage me in a discussion on Newt Gingrich’s view of the environment and just wait for the verbal onslaught and decibel-level ascent. I lack the same zeal in describing the state of my personal affairs.

I believe that the sacrifices we make for other people will most often be much more rewarding than simply abiding by the dictates of our own desires. That said, constant dedication to other people and ideals can leave your own soul and body in a state of sad neglect. I am somewhat unwilling to admit that this may be my status quo. Sunday, as I was leaving church, my tightly reined-in emotions decided to rear their too long-ignored head. My daughter took off running at the last “amen” despite being told to sit still for a moment, and I had to weave through a crowd to pull her back to my side. A woman approached me to ask about my moving plans and I tried to pull the words together as I held a defiant and surprisingly strong five year-old at bay. I was then asked by the bishop of our church “How are you doing?” My typical response to this question is broad smile, a nod, and “just fine!” But that day, before I could even release one full syllable, my voice cracked and the tears came. I answered him honestly: “You know, I’m having a pretty rough time right now.” That was the truth. Why did I feel so guilty telling it?

Do we all do that? Lie. Almost all the time. I realize none of us want the full state of affairs when we ask a simple “How are you?” to most people. That said, I think a lot of us – like me – have a hard time discerning when it might be acceptable, healthy even, to honestly answer that question. I’ve become so used to lying about it that I do it instinctively. My surroundings do not really encourage shows of emotion, and doing so would likely be viewed as a sign of weakness. (Although I did work for a plaintiff’s attorney at one time who expounded on the virtues of strategic crying. Unfortunately, I don’t have a sympathetic jury at the moment.) I certainly don’t have any definitive thoughts on this. It’s going to take some contemplation and practice on striking a balance between strength and honesty.

Then, there was Osama bin Laden. I have no hesitancy in admitting that my initial reaction was a totally exuberant “hell yeah” fist-pumping, giving the finger to a nonexistent adversary, display of jingoistic patriotism. Had I been in D.C. or New York, I would have been one of the much maligned revelers. After the festivities, came the hangover – as always. The reactions the next day were beyond discouraging. They were deflating. I think by the end of the day I had deduced only that people were idiots. Thank God we captured and killed public enemy number one so this great nation could continue on in unbridled stupidity. I was most bothered by the sudden, and questionably sincere, displays of pseudo-Ghandi-ism; and by that I mean – the comparisons of our impromptu jubilation to that of the terrorist reactions splayed across Fox News ad nauseam throughout the past decade. I won’t get into it here, but I think that comparison is utter absurdity. Moreover, I wonder where this extreme deference for human life, even a deplorable monstrosity of a human, has been all this time? It certainly was not without merit. Those arguments invoked some real internal debate for me. But some of it, in my opinion, was the typical self-righteousness of a reliably condescending segment of American politics. This is something I’ve been alluding to in a few of my posts. Take a moment of potential national unification, a collective sigh of relief, and turn it into an opportunity for a high-minded “Shame on you.” The question left from all of that was –do we still believe in anything so wholeheartedly that we’re willing to sacrifice lives in order to preserve it? Should we?

I’ve received several suggestions on what to write on, and I love that. I’m flattered to think that anyone wants my slightly neurotic opinion on anything. Please continue to do it. I’ll soon be out of the woods – hopefully - and back to posting frequently. Until then, seriously – If anyone asks, I’m doing just fine.

The Picture of Perfection

The world’s human population is now estimated near seven billion souls. Despite this, I assume that many people are like me and often feel hopelessly isolated, despite near constant interaction with other people. I used to joke about this in the context of folding my fitted bed sheets. Billions of people on this stupid planet and I can’t find an extra set of hands to help me flatten this awkward thing into something even close to resembling a nice stackable square. This feeling is even stranger given the constant connectedness of the internet. But if anything, this magnifies the isolation.

In the past week, I have had two different people tell me – you know, I think I want to delete my internet presence. The reason? Because they thought it would make them happier. Sadly, I fully empathized with the rationale behind these initiatives. I tend to flippantly and sarcastically dismiss irritating facebook patterns; most commonly, the social networking braggart. Everyone knows at least one of them. Frequently employed adjectives included in this person’s postings include “amazing” and “best-ever.” These words typically modify the person’s spouse or children. I wonder if these people know they are helping to spread unhappiness at epidemic proportions. There are a great many of us who are situated in this awkward phase of life – between youth and full-scale adulthood – when many of the traditional comforts of home aren’t available to us. Expressions of gratitude are wonderful. When they are genuine, it makes both the person expressing them and the listener (or reader) feel uplifted. The reason these more boastful internet expressions make others feel sad or increase the acuity of their loneliness, is because – in my opinion – they are insincere, and thus greatly exaggerated. It is insecurity in a gratitude costume.

My hypothesis is not 100% proven, and as always, there is a margin for error. However, I believe that were these people so truly consumed with the perfection of their lives, there would hardly ever be a facebook declaration on anyone’s “best hubby ever.” I am convinced that when I reach a period in my life where it doesn’t just completely suck at least 50% of the time, my internet presence will decrease sharply. I am not afraid to admit that I’m only on here as frequently as I am because it is an escape mechanism. Yes, I love my daughter more than I can put into words. But sometimes she makes me feel totally insane to the point where I feel like going all “Girl, Interrupted” and starting a chicken carcass collection under my bed. And then there’s my educational/professional life that is intellectually stimulating, but about as warm and fuzzy as a spool of rusted barbed wire. So, I turn to the internet in my time of need. At least there, I can see that I’m not the only person wide awake at 2:00 a.m.

Thinking about the actual sequence of events that lead to some of these show-off posts can be kind of tragically hilarious. Ok, so you’re having the time of your life with your husband. I’m picturing you at this restaurant, he’s staring deep into your eyes, and you stop him – “Honey, wait . . . just one second.” You pick up your phone and fire off a quick status update on your good fortune. Then you resume making eye-babies. Awkward? Or, your child just used the potty. So you alert the internet. Meanwhile, your child sits teetering on the toilet waiting for you to finish pecking in this celebratory declaration, so you can wipe his/her little cherubic behind. Yes, I’m certain that all 625 of your friends, family, and casual acquaintances are dying to know the status of your child’s gastrointestinal occurrences. You are so completely justified in being happy about these things. But you and I both know it isn’t the proper medium for some of this expression, which leads me to question your ultimate motive here. I believe that you, like me, are looking for some kind of external validation for your existence, despite the fact that you are doing it by acting like that’s not what you’re doing.

I hope that someday, when I’ve obtained the kind of stability in my life that I deeply want, that I don’t feel compelled to tell anyone about it. To me, that is the true mark of fulfillment – when you are so completely satisfied by something or someone that it is enough just for you to express that gratitude quietly, or at least without a large audience. Again, I enjoy seeing the occasional exuberant status. It’s hard to keep loving pride under wraps at times. But, it’s being overdone. When I know what kind of workout you did and at what time, when I see a picture of what you ate for dinner and I know the name of the restaurant as well, when I am privy to the details of your honeymoon, and when I have as much familiarity with your child’s bodily processes as your pediatrician – you need to stop and question your own motives. More importantly, you need to ask yourself if you are really as happy as the image you are trying to project.

The Head and the Heart

I am equally amused and disgusted by how intelligent, well-read, educated people can consider their opinions to be so innovatively unique, while being so unfailingly predictable. I always enjoy reading articles written about religion in the New York Times or Washington Post. Whether the article itself is good or bad, the comments that follow will take the same trajectory, time and time again. First, it will begin with a lengthy comment on how religion is antithetical to reason. The comments will begin harmlessly and with a civil tone, and will slowly acquire an air of condescension. How can these simple-minded fools believe there is something beyond what we now know? Finally, this will devolve into full-scale assault. To have any faith in the unseen is to perpetuate atrocities; religion is war, it is racism, it is everything that is wrong now and ever has been wrong with human existence.

I am not totally unsympathetic to these screeds. Believe it or not, there are some of us out there who can examine religion with a critical eye, while still falling under the umbrella of the religious. To say that religion has been the underlying cause of war is not incorrect. However, wherever a group of people share a system of beliefs and hold them in high esteem - when they are threatened, conflict arises. Is fighting a war for the security of a country more justifiable? Just because the cause being defended is American instead of godly, does it make it less deadly? To say that religion leads to war because prior wars have been fought over religious ideals is a fallacy of composition – war is fought over religion only when a religion (or anything else) is elevated to a national ethos.

Hence, the importance of the separation of church and state. I value both church and state. Many believe this exists in our Constitution for the protection of the state. It absolutely does. I also believe it exists for the protection of worship. I fully realize that there are some in this country who want to imbue the laws with their extremist brand of “Christianity,” which when examined, is often opposed to many tenets of Christianity. (Another topic altogether.) I cringe when I hear, for instance, about a Texas Republican who denies the existence of rapid climate change and instead asks constituents to only pray for rain. But believing that we are all just easily pacified idiots is being short-sighted.

The online commentors frequently attempt to argue the value of atheism and the failures of religion with the same, or greater, enthusiasm as a preacher in a tent revival. This, I cannot understand. First of all, many of the religious adhere to science and reason as much as the atheists or agnostics. The two do not have to be in opposition. (In my opinion, they aren’t.) In addition to a temporal knowledge, religion provides spiritual knowledge. (Or, it should) We cannot, and should not, argue about the validity or invalidity of faith. I hear repeatedly that this faith in the unseen is illogical. As if I don’t realize that. While I would encourage anyone to employ reason in evaluating religion, you won’t be able to attest to the truth of any of it by that alone. I know I can’t prove anything to you; neither can you definitively disprove me. We lack the same frame of reference from which to even engage in a valid argument on the subject.

I try not to support my positions on personal experience, but in the realm of spirituality – it may be the only way. After not practicing any kind of religion or spirituality for the better part of ten years, I threw up a Hail Mary kind of prayer during a particularly dark time. More or less like, if you’re there – I’d like to know. Well, I knew. That desperate little prayer was answered pretty directly. (Happy to share the details on a more personal level.) If you would have given me some anecdotal quip like this five or six years ago , I would have said – “Oh, bless your heart. Would you like some more Kool-Aid? Perhaps a purple shroud and a pair of Nikes?” But I knew this was more than coincidence because of the way I felt - a really powerful feeling that I can’t explain to you, and I can’t prove its existence to you in any tangible way. I think we all might have had a similar feeling in different ways and through different mediums. For instance, when I was in college – I got the same feeling in my choir when we performed Gabriel Faure’s Requiem. It can’t be explained, it has to be felt – and it certainly can’t be argued because words are inadequate. It’s just some kind of internal gauge of what is enduringly beautiful and true, rather than fleeting excitement.

There’s the head and the heart. You can govern your actions with one or the other. When you learn to use both, then you’re really on to something. Believe Me. Or don’t. But let’s not argue about it.

In Vino Et Veritas?

The last year has been a painful transition. I’ve spent the last several years experiencing moments of happiness, or what I thought was happiness, only to come quickly crashing back down to reality. This only led me to try to recreate the tiny spurts of feeling good, which created more confusion. So, I had to boil this all down to the basic. What is happiness? It seems like a very simple question. It’s anything but. My life has been like an attempt to sustain the human body on high-fructose corn syrup. Initially, you feel full and giddy. Then, that sugar-rush wears off and you realize that continued attempts to feed yourself this way will leave you malnourished. One part of the problem is solved; I know I’ve been doing it wrong.

We’re all different, but for me – I had to accept that alcohol was either driving my social life, or it was sitting in the passenger seat giving me directions. I am not going to attempt to turn this into a tirade against alcohol, but I do think it’s a slippery-slope for everyone. Right now, I’m not drinking at all. I don’t have any current plans to do it again. I have the urge, and analyzing this urge has taught me some difficult things about myself. For the past several years, there has been nary an event attended or friend’s house visited, where alcohol was not present. I’ve asked myself this: at some point, did I start going places for the chance to do something, to experience something – or did I go there to drink and feel anesthetized? If I’m honest, it was the latter more than I’d like to admit.

I think initially when I started drinking all those years ago, I thought it would augment my sensory perception. It did, sometimes. It prevented me from censoring my emotions. Sometimes I don’t allow myself to get angry, upset, or excited when it may be necessary and healthy. The alcohol strips that repression away. However, it also peels restraint away where you need it. Instead of thoughtfully evaluating actions before they are taken, life becomes ex post facto justification. You don’t learn from mistakes; you adopt them into your behaviors. To do otherwise, would be to admit that you’ve lost control.

Control is a funny thing. You’ll think because you make it to work on time everyday and your bills get paid, you’ve got it. You set the course. I always did. I worked, went to school, and made sure my daughter’s needs were met. But emotionally, I may as well have been the homeless man on the corner asking for a few bucks so he could get his next fix. I suppose some of us wear our inadequacies on the outside. My unseen emotional well-being has been almost totally dependent on artificially-created, temporary pleasure.

It’s not hard to see why that is. Creating some kind of lasting happiness seems out of my reach, as I’m sure that it does for many people. If you don’t already have it, the patience required in waiting or preparing for it is almost impossible to practice. Then again, maybe life is truly so terrible that we all need to self-medicate. Or maybe, it’s bad sometimes – and other times it is incredible. If I’m going to continue the practice of numbing myself, I’ll stay in the middle. I’ll never get to the incredible. And frankly, we should all be offended by each other. Do we really need to drink to tolerate company? Why do we do it? Listen, I’m not downing it. I’m really trying to evaluate the practice. I realize that some people are very aware of what they’re drinking and why; after one or two, they’re done. But in what I’ve observed, that’s not generally the case. Not by a long shot. Why does alcohol accompany almost every instance of human socialization?

I know what I want, more or less. The getting there has always been the problem. In the meantime, I want to go to dinner because of the food and the company, not because of the wine. I want to go to the beach because I love the smell, the breeze, and the sand – not because of a bottomless solo cup full of beer. I want to sit on the porch and talk with my friends because I love them and value what they say – not because we’re killing a bottle of vodka together.

So, that’s what I want and it’s definitely a work in progress. Strangely, I can’t say this decision has been met with overwhelming support. In fact, only just recently have I been asked if something is wrong – because of the choice not to drink. That to me is a real testament of how alcohol-supplemented socialization doesn’t actually promote any kind of valid communication. That question should have been asked long ago.

Complexities

Not so long ago I read a discussion on the “fetishizing” of our culture. Essentially, this is when something very basic is arbitrarily made very complex. Typically when this happens, a whole subset of followers emerge around this fetish and also somewhat arbitrarily appoint themselves as experts on it. The example used in this particular instance was salt. The author was ranting about a store in New York City that sold only variations of salt – different textures, colors, and salts from various geographic locales. The author railed against an article written on this salt purveyor in the New York Times. Here, the NYTimes author waxed eloquent – almost poetic - on the slight gradations in flavor evident in these salts. With respect to those with heightened culinary sensitivity, this sounds like a grandiose display of self-importance. (Hello, I’m a writer for the New York Times. I also have an extraordinarily refined palate. Perhaps you have read my latest expose on all things salty.) The original author agreed with me. His point was essentially – where are we going with all of this? The complexities we’re imbuing on such elemental aspects of life are unnecessary. I agree. However, I see it everywhere and it’s as if some people are jockeying for a predominant position in the race to know, or to seem to know, a lot about very little.

I consider myself somewhat of a quasi-expert on this phenomenon. After completely burning out in a full-time position during law school, I took a part-time gig at a local Starbucks. It looked like fun, and the baristas were always preternaturally happy. Figuring I could use a dose of irrational caffeine-induced enthusiasm, I embarked on what would become a study on the human capacity for being a dick. Perhaps not coincidentally, I no longer drink coffee – so forgive me if I am unsympathetic to all the ways the world worships this wicked brew. I grew to love and respect the customers who came in and unceremoniously ordered their Venti, Bold, no fuss, no frills. But for each of them, there were three who ordered a cup of coffee with ten different specifications. I’m not talking cream and sugar specifications. I’m talking about requiring a certain amount of room left in the cup with exacting specificity, heating soy milk to precisely 160 degrees, pouring the shots of espresso immediately after they were brewed, coating the cup with syrup instead of simply pumping it in the bottom – the list is endless.

This certainly isn’t the only place where this is evident. Not so long ago, I was at a bar with my cousin. He went to the bathroom and asked that I get him a Bud Light. Pretty standard fare. I ordered my drink (a Diet Coke) and the Bud Light. It was as if I asked the barkeep to urinate into a glass. “We don’t serve Bud Light here.” He spit the words “Bud Light” out as if it were blasphemous. My cousin opted for the Yuengling, but clearly the bar man had us pegged for classless swine. It was the kind of place where people put a lot of thought into looking like they don’t put any thought into how they look – just to give you a sense of the place. I sat and analyzed the menu. As expected, they had a diverse selection of beer - and a fairly unappetizing selection of fried foods. (Methinks your palate is selectively refined.) I looked around the room and no one appeared to be swirling their glasses and rolling the beer around the tongue, so as to parse apart the complexity of the flavor. (Ah, this one has a floral nose . . . ) It really looked like your run-of-the-mill bar full of dispossessed brooding young adults. They just happened to be getting shiesse-faced off of a Hefeweizen instead of domestic swill.

Back to the ‘bux - Over time, something started to happen to the way I viewed the most demanding customers. Instead of being frustrating, it started to become sad. Most of them were regulars, and the pieces of who these people were outside of their beverage-bitchiness would slowly come together. The picture was often not very pretty. Everbody’s got this need to feel special, and it seemed like that for some of these people – making hyper-specific demands on their coffee was as much individual attention as they would get all day. For five minutes each day, they were unique.

I suppose creating fetish areas gives people some comfort. Whether its knowledge on some obscure style of music, a salt preference, beer, literature, Star Wars – you name it – everyone needs to feel like they’ve mastered something that isn’t as readily understood by the population at large. I understand the need to feel like you’ve deviated from the norm. But when does trying to be different, or more complex, just make you a jerk? And where's the similar devotion to the beauty in simplicity?

Face Value

My family is defined by strong women. From my 100 year-old great-grandmother to my five year old bossypants, we’ve learned how to adapt and flourish in most any given situation. That said, we are far from perfect. I am fairly convinced that I could solve the nation’s budget crisis and/or avert a global disaster, and they would still look at me and say – “That’s nice, but you look like you’re carrying a little extra weight.” They’ll probably temper that by saying something like, “It’s not a big deal. It’s really only at your hips. Oh, you’ll lose that in no time.” My response to this kind of thing is typically, “Look in the mirror, fatty. It’s your genetics I’m dealing with. Thanks a bunch.” (Ah, we ‘re kidders.) This kind of criticism doesn’t come from a spiteful place, and I’m sure they think this is beneficial to some degree. However, I know the male members of my family never have to endure it, and it is endlessly frustrating that my aesthetic qualities trump all else.

One benefit of the family is that the criticism will be given to you outright. As for female friends, it will likely be discussed at length after you’ve departed. I hate this about women. This mentality creates an unspoken competition between friends that I’ve observed in my own experience and seen through watching other people - mainly my three sisters. You almost can’t avoid being involved, despite the fact that you hate it. (Although, there are some truly base characters out there who thrive on this.) The fascinating, or diabolical, offshoot of this dynamic is the evolution of a market based entirely on female insecurity. The level of intricacy involved in beauty treatments now is overwhelming. You can be sugared, waxed, threaded, plucked, steamed . . . the list is endless and ever-growing. (And often obscenely painful.) Grab any fashion magazine and open to the section on beauty products. If you’re like me, you’ll feel lost. I actually recall reading a short how-to on applying self-tanner and bronzing your fingers – you know, so it blends in with the rest of your body. Every miniscule aspect of the female body is criticized, and a whole industry is capitalizing on this criticism and the behaviors that stem from it. For a hilariously perfect encapsulation of this, I suggest you watch the below:

Not so long ago, I read an interview with Angelina Jolie in which she talked about the time she felt most beautiful in her life. She described being in Africa. She had to shave her head for a film, and so fussing with her hair was of no concern. Her time there was spent with no makeup, clothes worn only because they were comfortable in the heat, and with no one to impress. Perhaps similarly, I remember sitting in the bus on the way home from soccer games in high school - dripping with sweat, hair pulled back haphazardly, dirty, and often a little bruised. (I took great pride in my bigger bruises.) It was such a great feeling. I knew that no one on that bus gave a damn how I looked and I didn’t care that they looked equally as disheveled. That’s probably the last time in my life I felt like that. Now, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

I recently had to give a presentation and this involved getting all prettied up – I even blow-dried my hair. (If your hair is as thick as mine, you can understand why this is such a feat.) I knew this probably wouldn’t happen again for the next two months. If all goes as planned, I’ll walk away from here graduating (with honors, likely) and hopefully in time, a published paper or two. I know I should feel pleased having done this and taken care of my daughter and her various needs. And I will feel pleased. But I’d be lying if I said that the female sniping that will surely come my way when I come back a little worse for the wear as far as my outward appearance goes – won’t diminish that slightly.

I’ve never eavesdropped on a male conversation. If I had to guess what the guys talk about, I would venture to guess it involved sports, hot women, and . . . yeah, I’ve got nothing else there. I can’t imagine one man walking away from a table, while the other parties start talking like, “Hey, is it just me or is he looking a little rough? Like, what’s up with those bags under his eyes? And somebody’s totally been skipping the gym.” Further, I’m pretty sure the discussion of hot girls doesn’t involve “That girl has the best eyebrows I’ve ever seen.” Or, “she looks like she exfoliates.”

I’m not planning to Jolie-out and shave my head anytime soon, but I really need a break from this. Criticize me at your own risk.