First of all, I'd like to address something that has bugged me for a very long time. There is a popular bumper sticker that says "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels." Which seems pretty cool until you think about it for longer than two seconds.
1) Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire did not always dance together. In fact, I bet if you added up all the times each of them danced alone or with other people, it would far outnumber the amount of times they danced together. So there's no way she did even close to "everything Fred Astaire did."
2) None of what Ginger Rogers did seemed backwards to her. She didn't dance by watching her dance partner and then trying to mirror it, she just learned her part.
So basically what the sticker is saying is: "Ginger Rogers knew how to dance in high heels." Which is impressive in its own right. It's certainly more than I can do. But it isn't a feminist statement. It's really just praising Ginger Rogers. Which is fine, I'm all for that. Ginger Rogers is (was?) a talented lady. I like her a lot.
You know what I don't like? Bullshit made up words like guesstimate, prettyful, al deska, brainfreeze, swapportunity, irregardless, meltilicious, staycation and bromance. Most (possibly all) of those words come from advertisements.
Today I'd like to talk to you about brainfreeze. ... Actually, no, I guess this is more about school. But it stems from brainfreeze.
You see, few people realize it now, but the term "brainfreeze" was invented by 7-Eleven to sell Slurpees. It first appeared in the 1990s, in a commercial where a guy sips a Slurpee, screams loudly for thirty second and then says. "Huh. Brainfreeze."
I've always fucking hated that ad.
It came out when I was in fifth grade, I think (so I was probably about ten) and I have vivid memories of yelling at fellow students who said "brainfreeze." I'd correct them, telling them the proper term is "ice cream headache" and I'd add that they were idiots for drawing their vocabulary from television commercials. (I realize now that's a pretty hypocritical argument coming from a chick who says "d'oh" but at least The Simpsons has artistic integrity.)
The point is, I'm kind of a bitch. Less so now, I guess, because I try to keep my mouth shut about these things more often than I did when I was a kid, but I do hit that boiling point sometimes and have to fire off an angry internet post.
Another example of my bitchitude happened when I was in third grade:
CLASSMATE: (setting up a joke) What does Batman's mom say when she calls him for dinner?
ME: (being an eight year old bitch) Nothing. She's dead. That's why he's Batman.
Junior high school was the place where I realized some people are far bitchier than me, and they hated me because ... I don't know. They just did. I hated them back, so I guess it was okay. But I wouldn't have hated them (or known they even existed) if they hadn't hated me first.
I don't wear makeup very often. I'll put on a little bit if I'm going somewhere fancy, but I feel like it's a waste of time to put it on every damn day, especially if I'm not leaving the house or only going to hang out with friends or run errands or something. Makeup is for nights out on the town (comedy shows, plays, some concerts, and probably dates but I've never been on one of those).
Back in junior high, the girls who thought I was fun to pick on seemed to think the fact that I didn't wear makeup was a huge goddamn deal. They gave me a hard time about it every day. So one day I came to school with huge streaks of green eyeshadow on my eyelids, trying to show them how ridiculous I thought wearing makeup to school was. They just made fun of me for putting it on badly. I guess I should have used the eyelinier to spell "IT'S UGLY ON PURPOSE" across my face.
I think that was the same year one of the many teachers to give me the "You're So Smart, Why Don't You Apply Yourself?" speech (answer: because I don't care) tacked on a "Why Do You Try To Alienate Your Peers?" addendum (answer: because they suck and I hate them).
The point is ... I don't know what the point is. Yesterday I was thinking about commercials I really hated, which reminded me of these stories of being in school. There's no point to any of it.
Except that my train of thought has an odd route and inconvenient loading stations. But I suspect that's true of everybody.
Be seeing you.
-Sally
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