Your Special Snowflake Sucks

This week there was a whole spiel on the radio devoted to whether a parent should let their kids know when they suck at something. The debate was whether it was better to be honest with a child and crush their hopes and dreams early on, or to give them an inflated sense of self but avoid breaking their tiny hearts. I missed the end decision, but lordy do I hope we decided to be dream crushers.

Personally, I realized very early on in life that my mother was completely biased and I could not trust her on anything. Heck, until recently I was convinced she had invented the compliment “doe eyes” and bribed relatives/friends to say it to me. It’s only been the past few months that I realized it’s actually a real phrase. To be fair, this is the same mother that claims I’m a fast runner (I’m not), that both her children are beautiful (and she maintained this through our super awkward phases, which were super awkward and unfortunate), and that I’m a good singer (she’s tone deaf, how would she even know?).

I didn’t think my mother was purposely lying to me, but rather that she was blinded by love. I looked to my father to be a little more realistic but didn’t entirely trust him either. I started relying on friends until I realized that unless they’re pretty much your best friend in the world, they too will lie to your face about how awesome you are and you’ll end up with no real sense of your limitations.

It’s a very interesting time of life where on the one hand we’re plagued by unrealistic images and expectations, and on the other we’re told to cherish and recognize our uniqueness as being something to celebrate. But is it really?

Now some of the messaging I can agree with and in fact super love. It is fabulous to be reminded that no, I’m never going to look like Megan Fox in a bikini, but that’s okay. It’s good to know no one expects me to sing like Christina. It’s extra wonderful to find out about problems that great people had. Not that I want anyone to be depressed or an alcoholic or anything, but it helps keep their greatness in perspective (#HemingwayWasADrunk).

But I also think we go too far sometimes. We’re told that because we’re unique, everything we say/do is meaningful. I FINALLY joined the Twitter world today. I did it mostly so I can keep up on my favorite celebrity boyfriends, but I’ll probably tweet too. Why not. The whole idea of Twitter though kind of boggles my mind. From the brief amount of time I’ve spent scrolling on it, it seems like people took the most superficial parts of Facebook (selfies, posts about every little thing they do) and just constantly send that out. I suppose deep life revelations are not always simpatico with 140 character limit. But do people really want to know I’m drinking yet another frappuccino? Do they want to see my new mani every week? Do they really care about my thoughts on the #Hercules movie? Is it really meaningful just because I’m unique and I said it?

If this seems a little hypocritical from a girl that writes a blog and has totally added frappuccino pictures on Facebook… that’s because it is. I engage in this exact same behavior all the time. Even before the days of Twitter, people were doing this to a small extent with texts, and phone calls, and letter writing way back in the day. We feel the need to share the details of our life. We feel like people should care. I guess what has changed is that before, we only made that assumption of our family and close friends. Now, you use a hashtag and expect the rest of the world to retweet and follow.

What our generation has the most trouble accepting is the value of uniqueness. Yes, you are unique and that’s all well and good, but what does it really mean? Does it make your thoughts any more important than mine? No. The thing is, you’re unique because of the sum of your parts. Someone else in the world totally has your same mani. Somebody can write better than you. Someone came up with that inside joke with their friends like a decade earlier. SOMEONE WAS ALREADY ON THE MOON. There is very little you can do that is well and truly original against all the people in the world, all the spans of time. That especially goes for your little 140 character tweets. There are a finite number of unique tweets. I mean it’s a freaking huge number and we’ll probably (possibly? Most likely?) never hit it, but nonetheless it exists.

So yeah, celebrate you. Because you are awesome. Just keep in mind: you’re NO MORE AWESOME THAN ANYBODY ELSE. It is wonderful that some people find you clever/amusing/super sexy and want to follow you, but don’t expect everybody to do so, and don’t build your happiness around whether or not people care about your unique snowflakeness. They’re probably too busy with their own unique snowflakeness of being awesome.

Now I’m going to go tweet this.  

3 Real Perks to Being Friends With (My) Boys

So as you may or may not know, sometimes I get a little obsessed with Buzzfeed. It comes and goes, so I’m not really worried about it. However, as I was jumping through page after page a few weeks ago I found this article on the 27 Perks of Being a Girl with Guy Friends. As a girl who has always had a lot of guy friends, I was super excited to read it.

But for the most part, I found it infuriating. Sure, some of it rang true (my guy friends have been some super awesome wedding dates, and man pockets are the best), but a lot of it seemed just like stereotypical nonsense. I would NEVER dream of having my boys beat up a guy on my behalf. Their “love” advice just frankly sucks half the time. Plus I am perfectly capable of overindulging in delicious junk food with my female friends, thank you very much.

I have been mulling it over for a week or two, becoming more and more offended by these so-called “perks,” and finally I decided the only way to combat the lies is to share some perks of my own. Now granted, these still won’t be universally true, because while you can always try and break things down as “girl” versus “guy” behavior, a lot of things just depend on personalities. With that being said though, here are the top 3 benefits I’ve found from being friends with guys.

1.     The Drinking.

I said I am capable of eating junk food with my girl friends, and I’m certainly capable of drinking with my girl friends (and trust me, I do), but without a doubt I drink more when I’m with my boys. This is twofold.

For whatever reason when I’m hanging out with the guys we are far more likely to just have a casual beer or two with whatever we’re doing. Getting dinner? Better have a beer. Playing Settlers of Cataan? Clearly need a beer. Watching anime? Definitely should turn it into a drinking game.

This may partly be because of my own drinking preferences. It’s rare for me to drink wine, so a glass with the ladies just doesn’t happen as often as a beer with the boys. It may partly be because the boys tend to have alcohol around, and they tend to start drinking it. I know when I visit my brother the fridge will always be well stocked with beer. Heck, I just helped some of my friends build a kegerator for their house a few weeks ago (and by helped, I mean in my normal manner of assisting wherein I mostly watched and occasionally handed over a tool or held something when asked).

Besides drinking more often, when I’m with the boys I also tend to drink larger amounts. It’s tough to try and keep up with them. I should really know better. I run around trying to remind them “but I’m tiny!” with the appropriate hand gesture to indicate my smallness, but they encourage the drinking anyway.

Now in their defense, if I really didn’t want to drink I wouldn’t. I do have some self-control, thank you. I think I give in more frequently with the boys because I know first of all that they are going to drink excessively, so at least I’m not the only super drunk person. And second, I feel utterly safe with them. Not only will they not let anything bad happen to me, if I’m ridiculously hung over the next day they’ll take care of me without judging. I think they half expect it at this point.

2.     Shit Gets DONE.

Maybe this explains it...

Call me sexist if you want, but one of my favorite things about my boys is that they handle things. If a problem comes up, they fix it. I’m not saying I can’t handle things myself, but I tend to ignore problems until the point where you absolutely need to do something. Same with my female friends. We talk and discuss and complain and only eventually do we actually do something about the issue.

For instance, when my amazing brother sent me a Wii I was having an issue where I had to keep switching cords between it and my Playstation, which I found super annoying. My friend Pietro was over and when I started complaining about it he looked through all my cords and my tv, and figured out how I could solve the problem by getting a HDMI cord. A simple fix, but I guarantee if he hadn’t gotten involved I would still be switching out my game consoles whenever I wanted to use one.

Last night they managed to get a swimsuit stuck in the washing machine. My approach after a few attempts to fix a broken washer would probably be to go to bed and ignore it until I was out of clothes (which I’ve discovered recently would take a LONG time. I own 29 pairs of black underwear alone). But Kevin and Pietro poked it, and turned it upside down, and attempted various strategies until finally they fixed it (my contribution was to get my hand briefly stuck in the machine. FTW as always).

Again it’s not that I think girls can’t accomplish things. But I do think we tend to delay and deliberate over a problem before we look at actually fixing it. The boys just try to handle it immediately. It’s awesome.

3.     The Partial Nudity.

Again this breaks down into 2 benefits. The first one was definitely more of a big deal back in high school. The guys always want someone to be naked-ish. You cannot even imagine how many different things they can turn into a strip game. Strip poker is for the squares. Once you’ve played a game of strip pool, or strip Magic, then we can talk.

That might seem odd as a benefit (unless you’re an exhibitionist), but the truth is that hanging out with the guys has made me far more comfortable with nudity. With girls, even when you’re friends there’s a bit of awkwardness when someone has to strip. You say things like “we’re all girls here,” “well we all got ‘em,” or my favorite “it’s nothing you haven’t seen before” in order to make it feel acceptable to take off our clothes. Sure, eventually good friends can just wander around in whatever state of dress, but you’re always aware of it on some level.

With the guys, it’s like their own nudity doesn’t mean anything. They’ll play strip games all night long because they don’t seem to care what you see on them. That attitude rubs off. Thank goodness, because inadvertently I end up ruining/losing clothes. A few months ago I happened to be wearing an adorable red dress and then attempted to hop a fence to recover a Frisbee, which was a poor choice as it completed tore open the whole side of the dress. Did I freak out? Nah, I just hung out the rest of the night with my side exposed. Whatevs.

Who needs strippers when you have male friends?

Besides strip games, since nudity doesn’t seem to matter to guys, they spend a lot of time taking off their clothes. They wander around in towels, and on hot summer nights strip down to boxers when they’re playing Starcraft. Which means when you’re a girl hanging out with a bunch of guys, you get to spend a lot of time admiring their half-naked bodies. Hey, we can be platonic, and I can still admire your pecs! They’re not mutually exclusive!

Of course there are many more benefits to having guy friends. Sometimes I worry that there might also be come cons, such as hanging out with the guys all the time makes me less like a girl, but my boys are definitely worth it.   

Define "Nutritious," and Make It Include Bacon

Basically how I understand nutrition

This year, one of my goals is to eat healthier. Sounds easy, right? Especially since I never set the parameters, so it’s not like I have to eat a certain number of calories per day or cut out all fatty foods.

But I am finding it EXTREMELY challenging. To really get the depth of my struggle, you need to understand two things.

First, you need to know my typical eating habits. I believe I’ve mentioned before that I don’t actually believe in calories, and I do not follow any sort of healthy eating habits. I fully enjoy the eating process (again, Taurus here) so I eat things I like. What do I like? Bacon, cheese, meat, bread, and sweets.

When I like something, I want to eat it over and over and over and over again. And that’s all I want to eat. So a typical day of eating?

What I consider a balanced meal (balanced in deliciousness!)

Let’s see, if it’s a weekend I normally like to have bacon for breakfast. There was an unfortunate year where I was eating a full pound every time, but now I’ve been doing much better by limiting myself to only a half pound of bacon at once, and instead of eating it twice a weekend I’ll only have it one day (baby steps). So that’s breakfast. If I’m still hungry I’ll normally have some fried potatoes, or maybe eggs.

Later for lunch, I’ll go with one of my typical favorites of beef ramen. Now, prior to the ramen I won’t be very hungry because of all the bacon. There’s one thing you should really know in life though: food is a gateway food. Eating the ramen will make me want more food, so I’ll then have a snack of about 1/3 bag of buffalo pretzel bites.

Finally for dinner I’ll go with something simple such as boneless buffalo chicken, bacon cheese fries, chicken pot pie, or bacon quiche. Delicious. If I get hungry again later (which is very likely), I’ll eat a giant bowl of whatever ice cream I’m craving at the time.

So you may have already realized this, but EVERYTHING I eat is unhealthy. How have I managed to survive for years? Well as I’ve said before my metabolism is fabulous and still not dead. Plus, I have completely ignored all facts related to healthy eating. I’m sure I’ve heard things over the years like what one should eat and avoid, but I am super good at not wasting memory space with what I consider “irrelevant” information.

When I made one of my goals this year to eat healthier, I knew I would need to actually investigate and find out what that meant. I’m still not concerned about calories (I still don’t think they’re real). What I’m concerned about is not giving myself a heart attack at age 30 like everyone in my family has always expected.

But I’m busy, and lazy. Thus I haven’t done the research yet. Which means I’m just guessing what I think is or is not healthy.

You’d think I’d know, right? Well you’ve never heard me justify how the freaking delicious large white cheddar mac & cheese at Panera hits all my nutrition needs.

My first issue was at a pub in the Denver airport, trying to find dinner. I was searching the menu for something healthy, having recently been told that cheese is apparently not ideal for cholesterol or arteries or something (since when?!) I felt like fish is supposed to be good for you, so I went with that. Did I mention though it was fish & chips? Apparently once something is fried it loses all nutritional value.

Since it was now clear my own judgment was useless in this arena, I started bugging friends. We had almost a 10 minute discussion ordering lunch this week as I kept asking about the healthiness of various options like garlic bread and Italian fries. This process was so discouraging to me that for dinner I gave up and had potato skins, buffalo chicken, and boneless honey-chipotle wings.

Then at lunch two awesome friends tried to talk me through what type of food I might want to start including in my diet. This was a great discussion. We determined I could start making smoothies as a way to eat fruit. Brilliant! I need to go get a blender now, but I think this will really work.

Even better, at dinner Thursday night two other friends explained step by step things like “avoiding transfat” and “reading food labels.” They gave tons more suggestions on what to eat, and how to make the food more delicious.

This is especially helpful, because honestly most of the time I don’t eat because I’m hungry, I eat because I like the food. So when I have something in front of me that I don’t love, I struggle to eat it even when I’m legitimately hungry.

Like cheerios, but cuter

I’m very lucky that everyone else in the world paid attention to the health rules of life. Hopefully they stay patient with me until I get motivated enough to do my own research.

In the meantime, I did FABULOUS yesterday. I had whole hearts cereal for breakfast, a monkey bar, a frozen veggie pack thing for lunch, peanut butter crackers, and strawberry yogurt. Look at all that healthy food! All in one day! It’s a miracle.

One is the Loneliest Number

Don't we look snazzy!

My company just had our big awards-party-awesomeness called the H’Oscars, which was fabulous as usual. I managed to get sick but enjoyed myself despite this. It’s so great to see everyone from the different offices and get a chance to meet the new employees.

I had a bit of a moment though. I was talking to somebody, can’t remember who, and realized they didn’t know I’m no longer in the Arlington office but now working remote from Texas. I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know. With my job, I’d be in and out of the office a lot anyway. Once they realized this though THEY were shocked. “I can’t imagine you being remote!” they said, “you’re such a people person. I can’t picture you not being in the office.”

When I first decided to go remote I heard this a lot, and figured it was just some platitude people felt the need to say when they heard you had the good fortune to work from home and they didn’t. This is partially because I don’t really think of myself as a people person. My brother is a people person. He can’t even play video games by himself anymore without either calling me or talking to one of his other friends through Skype. I like being alone.  Don’t get me wrong, I like people, but I like my alone time more.

However, I really do miss being in the office.

Not enough to want to move back. And I do adore working from home. There are a lot of benefits, the least of which is the ability to work everyday in my “work” pajamas. I no longer have to deal with a hellacious commute. I have more hours in the day, which is fabulous. When I have a weird schedule it’s easier for me to adjust and work a few hours, stop working, and then work again later. Plus I can have delicious things cooking all day for a super wonderful dinner at night after jazzercise.

It’s also less distracting, oddly enough. Nobody’s here to talk to me. I can play my music and just sit and work with nothing to steal my focus.

But I miss that! I miss distracting coworkers that stop and talk for 5 minutes that turns into 10 minutes that becomes 20… I miss the office gossip. I miss the random games and decorations.

I even miss just walking around the office when I went to refill my tea. I like to picture myself as a little office happiness fairy – flitting about spreading smiles and sunshine. Now I’m the house troll that emerges only every few months for big company events. Le sigh. 

Overall though I’d say if I had to make a pro/con list (which I’m trying hard not to do as often), the work from home pros totally win. I just need to be able to function on less sleep, so when I do get the chance to hang out with all my awesome work colleagues I can party all night. Work hard, play hard, baby!

The Original Heat Vampire

I promise I didn’t come back from a few week hiatus just to write about more vampires. And while we’re at it, let me apologize for not posting. My bad, guys. I was totally too busy for you, but I mean that in the nicest way possible.

It’s fall! Woot! I do rather like the fall. I’d be hard pressed to say which is my favorite season, but fall does have a bit of a magical quality to it. Plus it promises things like pumpkin pie, Halloween, and boot season.

Of course with the fall comes the cold. That’s the part I’m not looking forward to. I hate the cold. I can stand it long enough to run out in the snow and play around for a bit, but I damn well better come back into someplace warm with hot chocolate waiting for me.

This really is one of those big life questions you debate with your friends in the middle of the night. Would you rather be hot or cold? I’d go hot every time. My brother argues endlessly with me over this one. Because when you’re hot, all you can do is take clothes off, and eventually you run out of clothes. Whereas when you’re cold, you can always put more clothing/blankets on.

That may be true, but the thing about clothes/blankets is they work by holding in your heat. I, somehow, have no heat. At least the majority of the time. I overheat in the middle of the night constantly, which is why I sleep with an assortment of fans and very tiny pajamas.

 You see, I am The Original Heat Vampire. If you are not familiar with the term, it is on urban dictionary but personally I think it was invented for me, thus why I always refer to myself as The Original Heat Vampire. Do not forget The Original part of my title. My wrath knows no bounds. Do not listen to those of my friends that compare my angry face to a pouty teddy bear. It’s a lie. Really. I totally can look angry when I want.

I was reminded of my heat vampire status yesterday at brunch (side note, I think brunch may be my favorite thing ever… both breakfast & lunch food available, but you don’t have to eat it early in the morning. Score!). It had been drizzling outside so I was wearing jeans, but it was so cold in the restaurant that the longer we sat there the more I froze. It didn’t help once I ate all my food and was just drinking ice water. Lacking external heat, and unable to produce my own, I could tell my The Original Heat Vampire side was starting to show.

Sadly, as The Original Heat Vampire I am morally bound to not prey upon the unwilling. Well not too much anyway. So I refused to steal heat from the others at the table. This was probably for the best, as they looked a little cold as well. Of course, as The Original Heat Vampire there’s a huge difference between them looking cold, and me looking cold. I could see my nails had already turned that lovely shade of purple. I was willing to bet my lips were becoming blueish. I had goosebumps and was very close to compulsive shivering. All this just from being in a slightly chilled restaurant!

You can imagine how much worse this gets in the winter. This is when I can’t resist using my The Original Heat Vampire powers. I shiver and look helpless until someone approaches me, and then strike out. My hands grab any available skin surface, and the heat leeching begins.

It’s not fatal to the victim, but they sure don’t enjoy it either. For one, my hands are usually comparable to ice blocks. I refuse to touch myself when in full The Original Heat Vampire mode. For another, as I steal more and more heat, reverting from The Original Heat Vampire into a normal person, they become the cold one. Maybe it’s not the nicest thing to do, but on the other hand their heat regenerates. Mine apparently does not.

I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for upcoming trips this month back north. I have been ridiculously enjoying the Texas heat, but I worry this means I no longer can function at normal fall temperatures. I’m thinking I need to pack my knee high socks. In case that’s not enough, this is warning to the friends I’ll be seeing in Pittsburgh. The Original Heat Vampire may soon be among you.

TVD: A Few of My Favorite Things

Sorry to get any hopes up but this is a re-post as a few valued readers were getting some serious errors with this one. 

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

I totally ended up watching Sound of Music this weekend, and while I just missed the "Favorite Things" song by a hair, it’s been in my head ever since. Thus it seemed an appropriate post title since we are concluding our week of The Vampire Diaries posts with random favorite things/moments from the show.

This list is a compilation of my favorites, and my friend Jenn’s favorites. Because sometimes we’re basically the same person, especially when it comes to TVD.

·      The fact that they get rid of the whole “diary” premise. Thank goodness. It gets old. In fact, for anyone that watches the first episode and can’t believe anyone likes the show – give it a few. It’s MUCH better when they’re not doing the diary thing.

·      Damon – enough said.

·      One thing that’s really brilliant is that eventually, they explain inconsistencies. It was driving me insane how vampires kept wandering freely into the Salvatore house. I thought they were just being lazy, but they explain why near the end of season 3.

·      The voiceover at the beginning. Every episode (after the first one) starts by saying “previously on the Vampire Diaries.” Well, being me, I didn’t realize they have a different character saying this every time. In fact the only reason I eventually caught it was because Rose says it in season 2, and I was like wait a minute, since when was that voice British?? I should point out, they literally do switch between like every character. It had been male, it had been female, it had been Damon, it had been Elena. And yet I never realized this until it became British. I feel like this says something about my mind and observation skills, but I’m just going to ignore that.

·      Elijah – he’s adorable!! He’s so honorable and sweet. He’s like a puppy, and how often do you find vampires that remind you of puppies? I would totally hug him in a dark alley.

·      Just the plain old fact that this show can get you so emotionally invested. I end up literally screaming at the tv. Not in fear (normally) but I get so worried about these characters, and angry when they act like flaming retards!

·      Anna – in the words of Jenn, “she's so damn cute... you know after how initially creepy she was.” Anna is like the only one of Jeremy’s gfs I’ve actually liked him being with. That’s saying something. Plus did anyone else’s heart break when she realized he was using her?? Poor girl.

·      Oh plus one thing I haven’t discussed yet (there’s a lot to talk about with TVD) is how they handle villains. The big villains aren’t just randomly evil in TVD. Eventually, we get to see the softer side. I really love this about the show. It’s actually something I think differentiates it from True Blood, as opposed to all their similarities. I mean seriously, who liked Marnie?? What about freaking Maryann??? On the other hand, when Klaus gave Caroline that bracelet I melted. Sadly Caroline actually has a bit more willpower than me.

·      The Damon/Alaric bromance. I know, I know, I already had a whole post about this. But it’s sooooo good I can’t do a list of my favorites without putting it on here again.

·      And then there’s the video below. One of the best moments of the series. Because it won’t make as much sense to non-viewers, some background – Stefan is actually the one walking in the room, in this episode the brothers keep acting like they’re each other. Make sure to watch the video full screen, and watch Stefan’s eyes. Totally a good mock imitation of Damon’s crazy eye thing. 

 

And this concludes TVD week! Season 3 is officially out on DVD, although I will wait a bit before buying. ONLY because I already have season 3 on Amazon video... don't think I have self restraint or anything crazy.

TVD Meets Honest & True Time

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

Today I wanted to talk about my favorite character from The Vampire Diaries, Caroline Forbes. Not only because she’s awesome (although she is totally BAMF in her own way) but because as I grew to like Caroline in the series and figured out why I liked her, I realized some more stuff about myself.

My friend Jenn (who is rewatching season 1 already, which I probably won’t do until next week due to my reawakened Starcraft II addiction) was texting me this evening, and mentioned Caroline because she had forgotten some key plot points from the beginning of the series. I thought this fit in with this post fantastically, because the thing with Caroline is, there’s a huge difference between her at the beginning of the series and her at the end of season 3.

As I’ve mentioned already, when first watching TVD I hated Caroline. She is incredibly shallow. She constantly says the wrong thing. Heck, the first time we see her, she acts like a complete idiot. Elena is recovering from her parents dying tragically a few months ago. Elena is back to school, trying to act normal, and up walks Caroline! Caroline means well, asking how she's doing and whatnot, but then she turns to Bonnie and asks about Elena while she's not there. I mean it's funny, but not the best thing to help your friend recover either.

Then later in the episode she becomes incredibly jealous of Stefan being more interested in Elena than her. She ends up drunk and whining “why not me??” I was immediately turned off. In fact, when Damon ends up using her as a little blood bank/sex buddy/spy combo I almost felt like she deserved it.

As season 1 continued though I actually started to feel sorry for Caroline. Especially when Damon calls her shallow. She has a little mental break realizing yes, she is in fact shallow. In her own words, “I’m worse than shallow, I’m a kiddie pool.” She perseveres though, because she starts to realize her good qualities. She’s a good friend. She cares about other people. She works hard to make sure everyone else is having a good time.

This was when I finally started to appreciate Caroline. This was also the beginning of her adorable romance with Matt, which seriously was ridiculously adorable. 

Caroline does become stronger and more confident as the series progresses. But I realized that what initially turned me off about her are actually all the things I hate in myself. I’m a bit insecure. I CONSTANTLY say the most retarded things ever, and then later obsess over it for hours. I too ask, why not me? Not so much about boys, but why did my brother get all the good genes? Why is my mother the best cook ever? Why can my daddy make everyone like him? Why not me? Why can’t I?

See, totally me.

I started to realize this when I recognized that the traits I LIKED in Caroline were also ones I prided myself on. Her deep caring, her (mainly) optimistic attitude, her psychotic habit to plan everything.

Honest and true time: even though I would never think of myself this way (not a cheerleader, not quite as obsessive thankfully), out of all the female characters in TVD I’m totally a Caroline. A Caroline Forbes lite if you will. Half the crazy, half the blond, same refreshing taste.

But I also think that Caroline is the most relatable of the main female characters. Bonnie? We’ve already talked about that one. A little too stuck on her own morals to relate to. Elena? Just a bit too selfless to be relatable. But dear Caroline deals with her insecurities. She improves on her faults. At the end of the day, she’s just seems real. Even when she becomes a vampire! 

TVD: The Best Bromance Ever. Period.

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

When Alaric first appeared on the scene in The Vampire Diaries, I actually thought he was a vampire. My friend Jenn & I were both watching the show for the first time in the same few weeks, so I texted her how it was totally obvious that he was a vampire. It should have been a big clue when she didn’t respond (she was further in the series than me). This was a case of clever misdirection. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised I fell for it. I’m the girl that falls for almost every single trick play ever in football.

But it seemed like Alaric HAD to be a vampire. He was uber concerned about making sure he was wearing his ugly, giant ring. He was all broody and mysterious, and yet charming. I believe he even made it a point to get invited in once? Maybe? Or maybe that’s all in my mind (clearly I need to re-watch season 1).

Turns out Alaric was actually a self-made vampire hunter. Even better! Every good vampire series needs a hunter. Alaric was decent enough at it. I still liked him, and as long as he killed the bad vampires it was fine with me.

Of course there was some tension between Damon and Alaric, as Damon had killed Alaric’s wife and was in fact the whole reason Alaric was a vampire hunter. But you know what’s awesome? They got past that to become a regular pair of bros.

The bromance of Damon and Alaric is possibly my favorite thing about the show. After multiple attempts to kill each other they end up reluctantly on the same side. At first the tension is still there. They’re snarky to each other, and you can tell all they really want is to bash the other’s head in.

Somehow this evolves into camaraderie. See both men are tormented. They’re far darker than the other happy-go-lucky citizens of Mystic Falls, and they’re more willing to accept collateral damage in order to meet their goals.

These two are frankly adorable together. They drink, they kill, and they plot behind Elena’s back for her own good. Sure in season 3 there was some trouble in paradise, but overall their friendship stays strong.

So in honor of this bromance, I thought I’d include my top five favorite Damon-Alaric moments.

5. Drunken Conversations.

Damon: I was drunk when I told you that.

Ric: Yeah and I told you I’d use it against you.

This scene occurs near the end of season 3 and has such major spoilers going on that I don’t want to go into detail, but not only did I find it incredibly touching, I loved that it referenced Damon & Alaric drinking and sharing offscreen, because this information transfer certainly never occurs when we’re watching.

4. Trust Issues

In season 3, episode 2, Elena persuades Alaric to help her behind Damon’s back. But SURPRISE! It’s Damon!

3. Team Awesome

Midway through season 2, Alaric and Damon team up to try and figure out whether or not the new girl in town is a werewolf. Alaric acts like a drunken creep and then Damon smoothly comes in to save her. Then, in a totally obvious manner, they both watch her obsessively to see if she drinks the wolfsbane and reacts.

2. All Apologies

At the beginning of season 3 Damon and Alaric have hit a rough patch, mostly due to my favorite moment ever below. Eventually Damon apologizes and they make up. Why this is awesome? It is not a sappy scene. Damon offers a crap apology that he JUST used on someone else while Ric was there, Ric calls him on it, but accepts it anyway.

Just how bad is the apology? Here it is: “Well… sometimes… I do things I don’t have to do.”

1. Wake Up

So if there’s one thing we know about Damon it’s that he doesn’t always think through his actions, which is made abundantly clear when he kills Ric near the beginning of season 3. Knowing Alaric will be reviving shortly, Damon brings him back home and wakes him with some special morning drinks (not entirely sure what they are. Looks like vodka and lemonade perhaps?).

Unsurprisingly Alaric gets mad and calls him a dick. Just that fact that Damon waited for him with drinks though made me cackle.

While those are my top 5 moments, everyone has their own. I wanted to also include my friend Jenn’s favorite moment, since it just barely missed out on my top five list.

Special Guest Moment!
Checking In

Near the end of season 3 Alaric is having some issues and can’t be left on his own. Elena shows up at his apartment in the morning to check on him. Damon, who was there during the night, answers the door and is very cagey with her. Of course we’re left wondering what’s wrong, but as soon as Elena walks away it’s apparent they were just working on some man projects together. Too cute.

TVD: Friends Forever

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

One of the major themes in The Vampire Diaries is friendship, which we already know is also an important theme to me as I’ve dedicated my spare time to defining friendship. TVD has some great examples of good friends, so-so friends, and friends that seem wonderful but maybe aren’t so swell. Tomorrow we’ll look at my favorite friendship ever, but first I want to explore the Elena-Caroline-Bonnie triangle.

Sadly there’s a common perception in the world that girls are catty. Girls are cruel. While girls are okay when they have a single “bestie,” it’s thought that once you get a bunch of girls in a group there’s going to be tension and backstabbing. While the main girls in The Vampire Diaries have many faults, the one thing they have going for them is a strong friendship.

In TVD, Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena have been friends since they were kids. When the series first started I have to say I felt like it was more Bonnie & Elena as besties with Caroline as the tag-along friend. Of course, that’s because when we first meet Caroline she seems insensitive and shallow, while Bonnie seems far more caring and supportive.

As the season progressed through, I started to shift my views. Caroline has actually become one of my favorite characters. She does have a bit of a shallow focus in the world, and she definitely isn’t known for her tact, but she cares deeply. In her own way she is just trying to help everyone stay happy despite the circumstances.

While with Bonnie, the longer the show is on the more I hate her. Not because she’s a bad person. She truly does love Elena and Caroline. But being a bit more “deep” than the others she often gets caught up in moral judgments that cause her to go abandon her friends.

Don’t just take my word on it! Let’s look at some specific situations.

In season one after it’s finally revealed that Stefan is a vampire (yeah cuz that was a huuuuuge shock) Bonnie stops hanging out with Elena. She doesn’t approve of Elena’s relationship with Stefan, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with his kind. Well okay, that’s fine and dandy, if she feels that strongly about vampires then Elena just has to accept that. What I condemn Bonnie for is that fact that I don’t think she even made an effort. She could continue to hang out with Elena when Stefan is not around. She just doesn’t try. She only hangs out with Caroline. Then, she does things like say she’s going to help out while lying and doing the complete opposite of what she’s promised, resulting in multiple deaths. Thanks, Bonnie.

Of course Elena forgives her, and they move on.  For a while.

Then, Caroline gets turned into a vampire. This is totally Bonnie’s fault for multiple reasons. Caroline was in the hospital, not doing well but not definitely dying either. To be on the safe side Bonnie tells Damon to give Caroline some vampire blood, while Elena is against the idea. Then Carolina ends up dying and becoming a vampire. Of course everyone is upset, but they try to help Caroline transition to the life so she doesn’t hurt anyone. While what does Bonnie do? Refuse to see Caroline, and only hang out with Elena. Eventually she gets over it, but this was really the point that pissed me off as it was her decision in the first place to give Caroline the vampire blood that caused the transition.

Now Caroline on the other hand is far more forgiving. She could easily hold her transformation into a vampire against Bonnie, but she never does. While she is plagued by the feeling that she will never measure up to Elena (this is what happens when you date people that are attracted to your bestie) she always apologizes when she acts inappropriately and moves on. In fact, she almost dies multiple times as people use her to get to Elena and Bonnie, but she never holds it against either of her friends.

Later, she demonstrates even more remarkable strength when befriending someone that could easily kill her. When a member of her family is brutally murdered, she forgives the murderer knowing that it was a situation beyond their control. And she does this in the very next episode! No weeks of judgment and abandonment in the meantime.

Some might argue that Bonnie is the stronger character and that she is just sticking to her morals. I argue that Caroline is stronger. She certainly doesn’t agree with everything her friends do. In fact by season three she has realized that Elena is starting to be attracted to Damon, and constantly nags Elena to do the right thing (not Damon). But she never once turns her back on Elena like Bonnie normally does. She never once stops hanging around the two of them, because Caroline is strong enough to be around Elena without feeling like her own morals are compromised. This is where I think Bonnie falls short. 

Bonnie still comes around eventually though. No matter what their failings, these girls do stick together through it all.

Yet if I had to choose to be one of the three girls, I’d be a Caroline every time. Flaky, controlling, insecure, but one of the best friends you can ever have.

Captain Subtext

 

I’ve been in a Coupling kind of mood recently, so I decided to rewatch season 2. Oh how I love Coupling. If you’ve never watched Coupling, it’s a British comedy show revolving around 6 friends and sex. I’ve never watched Friends much, but I think it’s the same idea with just a whole lot more dirty jokes. 

I was particularly enjoying the episode Her Best Friend’s Bottom as there was frequent bottom-mentioning and we know I am currently on a kick about my possibly expanding behind. Plus, this is the episode with Captain Subtext.

See there’s this one character Jeff who is just a bit insane. He’s very awkward and neurotic, and is always revealing the fascinating and scary ways in which his mind works. He introduces wonderful things like the giggle loop, the sock gap, and Captain Subtext.

Captain Subtext is an imaginary hero that lived in Jeff’s attic. He had secret conferences with Jeff’s mother, telling her whenever Jeff lied and punishing him by removing “segments” of Jeff’s privates. He could pick up the subtext of any conversation, and by the end of the episode his magic truth helmet is used to show what everyone is really saying.

Turns out this was a doubly appropriate episode, as I was just talking to my friend Jenn the other day about how I think I can’t pick up on conversational subtext.

Initially, I thought I just couldn’t pick up on guys hitting on me. Actually to be honest, I didn’t even pick up on it initially, friends had to point it out. In my defense I think it’s much easier to notice these types of things when you’re observing, instead of it actually happening to you. It seemed totally natural to me to assume that the guy at KFC asking about where I lived probably just needed directions.

Then I started to suspect that maybe I just don’t know all the proper “codes.” Like when I guy asks if I want a drink, and I say “no” because I already have a drink or I’m not thirsty, apparently that actually means “no” as in I’m not interested. Or if you tell a guy friend they can stay at your place, apparently some guys think it’s code that you’re coming on to them even when you’re not.

Now I’m thinking maybe it’s not that I don’t know all these codes, but that I’m just constantly missing the subtext in conversations. I’ve had it come up recently with female friends as well where I realize (or someone tells me later) that I missed the focus of what we were really discussing.

There’s a moment in You’ve Got Mail where Meg Ryan’s character, Kathleen, complains about how she always thinks of the perfect comeback after a conversation is over. I don’t have this problem with comebacks. I do, however, have this problem with almost every other type of conversation. Hours later, I realize that my friend was hinting they also wanted an invitation to go out that night. Or, the next day, I realize that a guy gave me a perfect lead in to suggest a date that I just completely overlooked. My problem is I take everything at face value. Like Patrick from Coupling, I think you’ll find that “not everybody has a subconscious” and I don’t really believe that “people say one thing and mean another.”  

I’m hoping that now that I’ve realized this problem, maybe it’ll get better. Maybe I’ll be more attentive to people and start hearing what they’re really saying.

Sadly, I doubt this. I’m pretty sure it’s tied in with my general lack of observational skills. Keep in mind, I’m the person that has hit my head twice this week because I didn’t notice how close I was to a wall.

Maybe I should start issuing warnings to all my friends. Maybe I should make a shirt or something. Instead of a medical bracelet, have a social skills bracelet alerting anyone that interacts with me that they need to be far more literal.

Oh well, I’ll figure it out eventually. Plenty of time to learn the social conventions everyone else apparently gets at birth. At least I own the complete box set of Coupling! I’m going to end with some of my favorite dialogue from the episode, because if you haven’t watched Coupling yet, you really need to get on that.

Jeff: Do you know what she’ll really be asking? Do you know what Captain Subtext would say?

Steve: …Captain Subtext?

Jeff: She’ll be saying, do you fancy my best friend?

Steve: And who is… Captain Subtext?

Jeff: So what will you tell her when she asks you that?

Steve: The truth!

Jeff: But you do fancy her, everybody fancies Sally.

Steve: Ok… I’ll tell her a lie.

Jeff: She’ll know.

Steve [sarcastically]: What, will Captain Subtext tell her?

Jeff: Heh, Captain Subtext isn’t a real person, Steve.