When do I get my senior discount?

I’m turning 26 in about 2 weeks now, and it’s strange to consider myself an actual adult. No longer am I in the “early to mid 20’s” group, I’m now “mid to late 20’s”. I don’t have much of an opinion on the number itself, I didn’t start really blossoming (aw) until I was about 20, and things have only gone uphill from there. I’m sure I’ll peak at some point, and then things will sag and crash and burn. But since it hasn’t happened yet I greet every birthday with the excitement of another year in which I didn’t fuck everything up. Or die. Hooray!

The concept of being an adult is still strange. What does that mean? Is there some kind of manual I’m going to get from the census bureau? Will I need to put away my Easy-Bake oven and bubble machine and action figures (all purchased at or after age 20)? Where does the AARP come in? I have an apartment and a real job, a grown-up relationship and grown-up friends, but I don’t get that “Grown Up” feeling from it. I guess I expected it to be like a switch being flipped. All of a sudden I’m done with those more childish things and am all about my 401k and getting mammograms or something. Fiber and osteoporosis. The future is grim and seems full of invasive doctor visits and commercials where Sally Field calls me weak or where bladder control issues make your kids fucking hate your old ass.

I still play video games (too much some would say), collect toys, and consider enjoying myself to be a high priority. I have a science meter on my door and get my boyfriend to smuggle sparklers into MA from ME for me and my equally awesome friends. I was able to name my Xbox “Time for Explosions!!!” and have ongoing arguments about whether a bear could beat a gorilla in a fight. (Gorillas have thumbs, but bears are BEARS!) I’m slowly building towards all that grown up stuff like a family and a house and career and junk, but I don’t see any reason to rush when there’s so much fun stuff to do.

Redefining adulthood based on what we want it to be and not what we think it should be is a little scary. I want the house with the yard, but I want a ball pit for 1 room and a slide attached to the stairs. I want a tree fort. I want kids, mostly to teach them how to be awesome and share (read: steal) their toys (OMG LEGOS!). I want a career, most likely in publishing, but I like the easy job I have now that allows me to leave work at work and really enjoy my leisure time.

So with that in mind, I’ve decided what to do to celebrate this momentous occasion indicating the end of the first quarter of my life. Water fight. Balloons, buckets, water guns, hoses. Whatever we can get our hands on to use to soak each other and most of my neighborhood. And a keg. Because we’re adults now.

Can I Just Get My Drugs and Leave?

I have a CVS Extra Care Card (do not get me started on those receipts), and when paying for 2 prescriptions, my receipt prints out and has a customer survey number on it. So the pharmacy tech tells me I won a prize! Yay! So the head pharmacist comes by to give me a little gift bag, and attached is a cheat sheet for the best answers to the survey. Holding on to both of my prescriptions, she asks me if there's any reason I'd give a bad review. I told her the truth, that they need a line on the floor to keep the next person in line back from the counter when picking up or dropping off medications. (I had a hoverer when discussing a rather sensitive medication) She said she'd bring it up to the managers, district managers, and corporate. Then she asked a few more times if there was anything else she could address before I called in. ("Is there anything else that would cause you to give us a bad review?" was her phrasing) I said no, that everything's usually fine, and she finally handed me my prescriptions, reminding me to read the handout and call in.

I've never had a single complaint, and I know the hoverer wasn't their fault, but the YOU WON A PRIZE thing is shady. I do not like being bullied or bribed for my opinion, and I especially resent her keeping my medication back until she was able to give the whole spiel.

If anything, I would have ignored the survey entirely, but now I want to let them know how distasteful this practice is and how little I appreciate being pandered to.

Oh, and the gift bag? Travel tissues, travel cotton swab pack, and CVS brand chapstick. Just in case anyone was wondering. It takes a lot more than that to bribe me. Next time they should toss in some Vicodin and then they'll get the best review I can imagine.

Tingles!

Done by the amazingly talented and not to mention gorgeous Kristin McCall.

The True Spirit of the Games

I love the Olympics. Every two years, the best of the best suit up and battle it out for bragging rights until the next group of super-human athletes congregate a few years later. Winter, summer, that one summer one that was in winter somehow I think. I loved that figure skater from France who did illegal back-flips on the ice, Keri Strug who rocked that shit on 1 foot, and currently love the fact that 4 horses got thrown out for doping. The Chinese gymnasts are fetuses, but horses are getting tossed for being on the juice. Nice.

Side note: Learning about China = Conclusion that China is scary

I love my arbitrary selection of whom to cheer for. Will their outfit charm me? A haircut? Perhaps that fascinating thing those swimmers do with their hips when coming out from a turn? Their gold shoes? Or that British gymnast, Beth Tweedle, who has the best name ever and thus deserves my momentary support in the short time I'll be aware of her existence?

And I love track and field. People running and jumping over stuff and throwing things at other things will always be fascinating.

There's just so much to enjoy!

Except for the announcers. While watching synchronized diving (and totally into it) I heard the female announcer mention that one girl had moved from California to Indiana to train. She concluded that "it's much easier to train for this event when you're in the same place, at the same time, with your partner". (reproduced emphasis hers) While I don't doubt this at all, it just seems kinda obvious.

While watching the relay race tonight (again, totally into it, I'll be beside myself at rhythmic gymnastics, and I'm not kidding), the announcers noted that it was raining, and pontificating on its impact on the race. As they debate slickness of the road and visibility, they pause and note that three of the teams have dropped their batons. At the same hand off in the race. During the heavy rain. They start talking about it like it's a training issue. As if the teams skipped passing the baton class at relay race school. "It's really a shame, so many reasons that could have gone wrong." I just thought a metal bar could get slippery in the rain, thus leading to more droppability when wet and passed from one guy running in the rain to another guy, also running in the rain.

But I'm not an expert like those guys.

Alternatives to "And They Lived Happily Ever After"

"And sometimes she wondered whether a kiss that reanimated her from the dead was really grounds for a lifelong romance."

Think hard, Snow White.

A Moment With A Character In The Book I'm Currently Reading

"According to Jack, all of Rebecca's boyfriends were black, which seemed, if not racist, race-ish, and I wondered, Why the black guys, Becky? just as I'd wondered in the case of my friend Alex, Why the Asian women? Or in my own case, Why the pirates?"


The Wonder Spot
Melissa Bank

With All Due Respect to Mr. Bender B. Rodriguez

I've been reading about this guy for a few days now. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Don't get me wrong, I love robots. Maybe a little too much. I love the idea of perfect logic unclouded by the human trappings of emotions, or that pesky free will. I love the dedication to perfecting a specific task. I love that Asimov created the laws for robots long before they were needed, or possibly just when they were needed.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Simple and effective. Why don't people work like that?
(In the short story "Evidence" Asimov puts it this way: "if such an individual obeys the Laws, he may be a robot or simply a very good man.")

But when you factor in a robot designed to respond to cuddling and touching in a positive way, does that open the door to more sinister things? I'm not talking about electric gonorrhea, the noisy killer. More like, a robot that grows attached to people, develops a preference to certain human touches and an aversion to others. Learns to seek companionship but only of certain sorts. How does that play out? A negative reaction to some people? A too-enthusiastic reaction to others? Could the robot develop attachment to a single person, and therefore possibly suffer if that attachment is broken? And then crush someone with their giant metal claws?

Doesn't that all defeat the purpose of being a robot? (except the metal claws part, that's 100% awesome robot)

If my fantasies of not having feelings and being totally logical and rational in all events in my life are to stay strong, scientists can't be doing this to me. I need cold, unfeeling, task oriented mechanical men in my life to look up to. Data, ASIMO, Roombas and the like. Sure, they can play soccer with me and vacuum my floor, but I don't want one that needs a hugs. Maybe one that just needs an oil change and some searing-hot resin every so often.

I Wish I Was a Robot

Then this would be my biggest problem:

It's like tiny stilts! For your feet!

I have to say, I only sort of understand why women wear heels. I'm a girl, I can appreciate the aesthetic created when the foot is pointed and wrapped up in cute strappy tethers. It makes you taller! It reduces the risk of the appearance of cankles! Look at how cute they are! As hard as it may be to believe, before I moved to Boston, I didn't even own flats, aside from a pair of sneakers.

Since moving to a place where I depend totally on my feet (and the T) to get me around, my shoe choices have become more practical, leading me to turn my back on my hight-enhancing footwear. I'm 5'8", at this point any more hight added just feels like I'm lording my ability to reach the top shelf over the short people.

But here's my actual argument: They're unwieldy and uncomfortable. I had thought that foot binding went out of style when they started allowing women to walk on their own, instead of being carried from the kitchen to the bedroom and back again. But here we are, toes pinched, straps digging into flesh, back and hips misaligned. Not to mention the blisters and calluses from breaking in a new pair. And in observing women walk in these shoes, I've noticed that one thing connects all of them: the little heel wobble. When the heel hits the ground, it shakes back and forth, just a little. Every time, every person. Being that I have the worst balance (thanks childhood ear infections!), that little wobble is just too much of a margin of error for me. With my luck I'll hit one of the cobblestones wrong and snap off a foot or something.

Why must we put ourselves through this? I get that pain is beauty or whatever cliche you wanna throw out there, but I gotta be able to walk on concrete and quickly. Having my feet throb because the shoes were just too cute to pass up doesn't make that much sense to me. Oh, and by the way, if I ever hear some girl in 4 inch strappy stilettos complaining about how her feet hurt after choosing them over something a little more reasonable, all she'll get from me is a look and maybe a sarcastic comment relating to her stupidity. It all depends on the person.

I do have to say, my friend Danielle is the exception to my arguments. Wears heels constantly, worked up her tolerance, brings backup shoes, doesn't whine about sore feet. I've got a lot of respect for that. If there was some kind of triathlon held where the participants had to do the whole thing in strappy, pointy heels, she'd win it. I'd just be at the start, wondering how the hell I'm supposed to get my feet into the damn shoes.

Pale And Proud Of It

Like it always does, Summer is coming again. Every year, about this time, flowers are in bloom, the trees are filled in, and the weather is finally not soul-crushingly depressing. Then there's this one major problem: The sun.

Don't get me wrong, I love it when it's sunny and warm out. I wake up happier in the morning and get home when it's still light out, both very good things.

But I'm pale. Really pale. Not albino, blinding pale, but still. I burn when it's cloudy if I stay outside too long. So when we hit this level of sunshine, I'm immediately on guard. I check for any potential SPF in any product I use. Nail polishes to hair products (I have to protect the part in my hair, because of the ease in which the sun will fry me). Every day I debate regular moisturizer or extra special SPF moisturizer, the latter of which causing an overall smattering of blemishes to appear. I search my lip products for a mere mention of sun protection, and hope that my regular lotion won't have be replaced with baby sunblock. The thing is, I kind of like being pale. My risk of sun-induced skin cancer is reduced, I never get sunburnt, and I get to be Snow White every year for Halloween.

150 years ago paleness denoted status: those who didn't have to work outside. Later, being tanned denoted status: those who could afford tropical vacations and also afford them often enough to keep their color. Now, with the popularity of self-tanners and tanning beds it's too easy to "tan". Anyone who has the will to pull together the cash can easily buy the fake stuff, or get a membership to a "Salon". I use the quotes ironically, because I can't figure out what font denotes sarcastic derision.

The look ends up being ghastly, leathery and wrinkled, or orange and totally unnatural. Of the two, I feel less strongly about tanning beds. At least it's honest about being a concentrated box of all that stuff that gives you a tan. And cancer, of course. The fake tans, on the other hand, are so obviously a lie. Bright freaking orange and streaky most of the time. It's alarmingly false, like they've been exposed to radiation and may grow an extra appendage at any moment.

I know I could get a tan if I really tried. Go tanning for a minute a day, then two, then three, and so on. Or buy the boxed stuff and feel like some overgrown Oompa-Loompa. But I'd rather look like the book-reading, video game-playing, knitter that I really am.