Laurie gently comment-mocked me for my Shopgirl dilemma:
“This is possibly the toughest ethical dilemma of our time.”
Later on the phone she tried to backpedal and explain why it really really! totally! IS the toughest ethical dilemma facing us today. “Um, it’s really hard, these choices we make in this modern age of media, and moral filters and um….”
Laurie was more articulate than that but no more credible. Still, it was a nice try and made me laugh. It’s a sign of a good friend that she’ll make statements totally unfounded in any form of known logic or social theory to make you feel better about a stupid post you wrote because you were TOTALLY DESPERATE FOR MATERIAL because your life is otherwise vacant of noteworthy events.
So anyway, just so you don’t think I’m not dealing with the Real Important Issues Facing The World Today, here are a few of the other dilemmas I am wrestling with:
- Should I post this? Will Laurie think I am exposing her as the cruel, cold-hearted commenting hubris-stomper we all know she is? Or will she know I am poking fun and laughed when I read her comment?
- What level of sagginess in jean bottoms renders them no longer cutely schlumpy and instead an abomination of ass?
- Related question: how long can you wait between jean washings before sanitation issues arise?
- Can I work for the government if I disapprove of its policies?
- Should I approach this girl who I suspect asked to be reassigned from my team because she hates me and try for some sort of mea culpa, or just let it go?
- There are too many problems in this world! Which one do you tackle? Lack of potable water? FGM? Conditions on death row? Smog? Just figuring out where to spend my energies makes me confused and tired.
- Do I have to give Christmas presents this year?
- Is it wrong to tell your cat to “give it a f*cking rest already” when he scratches and bites your toes AT 5 AM so you’ll feed him? If so, do you get a hellfire discount if you’re not 100% awake when you say it?
- Related question: will I be a horrible mother?
See! Serious questions! Serious, world-rocking, sock-knocking-offing, gobsmacking questions. My mind is like a laboratory of the cosmos’ eternal wonderings. A steel-trap laboratory! No sieves here! Really! I am the posterchild for navel-gazing as a higher art form. I am the Archdiocese of Introspection.
I am a little punchy.
And I am going to bed.
Before I further embarrass myself.
42.
Sunday Undies 
October 24, 2005 at 11:50 pm
jen you like kids you’re not going to be a horrible mother. i,on the other hand, do not like kids and therefore would be a terrible mother. hence the reason, i will not be participating in reproduction. so calm down and stop asking that stupid question that you actually know the answer to, but you’re just too paranoid to stop asking.
October 25, 2005 at 8:45 am
Jen, if I say something mean in this post will you call me on the phone tonight? I found your Shopgirl post much more interesting (I just read both for the first time). Since I am a big cheater hater, you know I’m disappointed in Danes. But it’s Crudup that gets the brunt of my wrath. Women are trained to steal each other’s men. Men are trained to protect their women and children. Technically, society would tolerate Crudup cheating, but leaving his pregnant wife? He’s the monster in that triangle. Besides, what about Danes in Romeo + Juliet? I may have seen that movie through Leo-tinted glasses, but I can’t help liking her a little.
By the way, after publicly announcing on your website that I would never see Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I saw it. It was pretty good, even if the sexy scenes made my stomach turn.
You know, all those things you list above, that’s why we focus on questions like will we see a movie with Claire Danes the homewrecker. Much easier to think about. Did you know Helena Bonham Carter is a “homewrecker”? Sometimes you just have to draw the line (or, rather, not draw it).
October 25, 2005 at 9:03 am
I’m totally offended! Not that you you wrote this, but that you thought my backpedaling was so transparent! Let me have my illusions! Please!
Also, I used the word schlumpy today too, which makes us related somehow. So even if I am a transparent, shallow, sarcastic meanie, you are stuck with me. Forever. Because we’re related! In my mind!
Love you. Wash your jeans.
October 25, 2005 at 11:09 am
Ah. My frined Sean and I debate the same thing. ABout jeanas that is. Why is that once they are icky and have been worn for one too many days – they are their most comfortable?
I love jeans.
October 25, 2005 at 12:48 pm
P.S. Sobakowa also hates Claire Danes.
October 25, 2005 at 3:15 pm
1) jeans can be worn until they can stand on their own. denim is self cleaning.
2) the only way to change a government is from within, no? thus to be a subversive worker for them is better than just bitching about them and doing nothing about it.
3) fuck that stupid girl. who does that IN LAW SCHOOL? in third grade, maybe. write her off. fuhgeddabout it.
4) i think you fight poverty and injustice. if you follow the cause and effect, almost all of the others come down to those two in the end. the other problem is ignorance and selfishness on the part of the rich (hello do they not realize their grandchildren will have to live in this world they are ruining the environment of?), but there’s nothing you can do about those rat bastards.
5) cats are annoying in a way babies can never be. because cats never grow up! babies eventually stop demanding food at 5 a.m. and just walk into the kitchen themselves and get it. only people who don’t worry about being bad at things can ever truly be bad at them.
6) i’m sure you already have more than enough ammunition on laurie to pay her back for any injustices. 🙂
7) will i see you this weekend? and maybe laurie?
October 25, 2005 at 4:04 pm
ammunition? on moi? sweet, innocent, teetotaler moi?
October 25, 2005 at 8:00 pm
I have that problem with jeans. Why can they not retain the fit they had when one first puts them on? Isn’t that what spandex is for, to retain shape? It is so annoying when my jeans, after one wearing, stretch to the point where they can fall off.
Ignore the stupid girl, and by the time you get done with law school and working in the firm-world a couple of years, we’ll have a new president and hopefully a decent one for whom you will feel okay working.
And I agree with Carolyn’s baby/kitten comment. Children grow up, and then you can make them do stuff for you. That is why I plan on having offspring. So I never have to clean again. (I am joking, obviously, But I’m a teensy bit serious.)
October 25, 2005 at 10:34 pm
There’s no reason to worry about a lot of these things. Poverty? Never going away! Environment? Mother Nature’s resilient! Clean water? Check this out: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/urine.html
Re: the jeans. I’ve been told by several people that jeans are supposed to be washed at about the same frequency that you’d wash a winter coat. (once a year, maybe…) I don’t believe them.
October 25, 2005 at 11:46 pm
OK, jeans have to be washed more than once a year. I own several pairs of identical jeans just so I won’t have to worry about laundry too too often. Now I must change the subject though because my laundry is mocking me.
Way too many issues to choose from and too little time. Then again, I think Gloria’s got it right. Also about the subversive government employee thing.
How you treat your cats does not mean that you will be a bad mother. A good mother sets boundaries.
October 26, 2005 at 9:35 am
Billy Crudup is a homewrecker, too — Claire Danes was practically engaged to Ben Lee, and even converting to Judaism for him. But at least he made a great breakup album out of it.
October 27, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Yeah, I’m a couple of days late with my comment.
Regarding workng for the government. As someone who works for the federal gov’t, most of us aren’t appointees and, therefore, aren’t all that political and don’t have political agendas. We just want fulfilling work, like most people (believe it or not, there are good, satisfying jobs in gov’t). It’s the career civil servants who can keep things sane and functional. The appointees and administrations get in the way.
Sorry this sounds so serious, it didn’t start out that way in my head, I swear.
October 27, 2005 at 4:26 pm
I used to think I would be a horrible mother, but then found out I don’t have a womb and can’t have babies. =(
October 28, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Can’t comment on your motherhood qualities, but feel very qualified to comment on when saggy pants pass the point of being cute and into the realm of “hmph, maybe she hates men” territory. If I ever get off my ass and blog again, I’ll post about it–it seems related to my post about “spill.”
But my main question is, what’s the “42” at the bottom of this post?