The one about hickeys...

Conversation that may or may not have occurred in the near or distant past...

Coworker: What's that on your neck? Is that a bruise or a hickey?
Me: Uh...
Coworker: It's a hickey, isn't it?
Me: Uh...
Coworker: It is!
Me: Uh...yes?
Coworker: (erupts into mannish giggles)
Me: I shoulda said it was a bruise.
Coworker: Yeah, then I would have said to everyone in the office, 'Hey, come look at this bruise! Doesn't it kind of look like a hickey?'


Remember, in college, when hickeys used to be kind of fun?

War wounds. Prizes. Battlescars. Marks. Tags. Notches in a bedpost. They could shock or bewilder and cause all kinds of gossip.

I had a friend who would end up with these huge, angry looking hickeys on her neck, randomly at parties, courtesy of a friend she used to date. They wouldn't be making out or anything: he would just grab her and hickefy. And we'd laugh about it- ha, ha, look at those big, vicious welts of passion. Hickeys were viewed in a similar light as the walk of shame: funny and generally harmless. A crowd of your friends would hoot n' holler at you in amused and semi-jealous tones, "Ooh, look who got some last night!" A hickey could make you a hero and sometimes a bit of a loser, but either way, you were the kid with the best story to tell.

Entra the Real World.

And you made a mistake or you had a great time and now you have a hickey. It isn't evil and bright red, like my friend's used to be, but it's there all the same: a smudge of a bruise on the curve of your neck, a leftover from the weekend.

And, it's summer. Which makes your options on hiding it extremely limited. You'd look a little foolish coming into work in a turtleneck in late May. Plus, as one of the youngest, hippest members of the office (if you do say so yourself), you're pretty sure you wouldn't be fooling anyone. They probably all wonder if you get around anyway.

Because not only do you have a hickey- you're a single girl with a hickey. Which makes you a slut with an ugly neck.

Hickeys do not belong in the workplace. They do not help with memos. They cause co-workers to stare. The best a hickey can provide in the workplace is a distraction from the general mind-numbing work: "Gah, I think my make-up is wearing off" or "Ah, I'd better try and fluff my hair over my neck again" or "Mmm...remember how I got that hickey?".

Hickeys: yet another indication of how much more fun life was in college. In college, hickeys could be proclaimed or hidden, depending on your mood. Here, there's option B or disgrace.

Not that I have a hickey or anything. I'm not a slut with an ugly neck. I just thought it would be an interesting topic to write about...


On an unrelated note: I watch way too much television. And I'm totally buying a tivo for my move to the big city.

Happy Mardi Gras, Carnival, Lift-Your-Shirt-For-Beads Day!

On the drive into work this morning, my neck ensconced in beads, I tried to remember if I had ever flashed anyone for beads. If I did, it certainly wasn’t out of necessity. I have boxes of beads. I started collecting them as a little kid, when I used to go to the annual church pancake supper and there would be piles of beads on the tables. The beads I am currently wearing were legally purchased at The Factory Card Outlet before a keg party I threw this summer. They are pink and sparkly.

Still, I have a vague and fuzzy memory of negotiating for a set of beads. The problem with having so much fun when you’re drunk is that a lot of your best memories end up in fuzzy little pieces.

I remember the setting- the garden apartments at my college- and I remember the argument. I do not remember the guy. It was the ordinary situation: I coveted the Mardi Gras beads he wore, and he required the traditional fee.

I thought about it and said, “Alright, but I’m pulling my shirt down, not up, and you only get to see one.”

I think after that, the guy must have decided that any girl who set those sorts of terms on flashing just wasn’t worth it. But I’m pretty sure I got the beads.

Still, this is another fine example of why I’m single.

In other news, Grey’s Anatomy continues to be the center of the universe. I considered writing ‘the center of my television universe’ here instead, but really: who would I be kidding? If you are not interested in Grey’s Anatomy, please skip the next five paragraphs.

Because of a delayed flight back from Minnesota this weekend (and almost five, lovely hours stuck in an airport in Atlanta), I saw this week’s episode fifteen whole hours late. There was a plus to this delay, however. I viewed the episode all alone, in an empty house, and was able to make as much noise (and sob as loudly) as I wanted.

The men in my life who have admitted to watching this show- namely, my cousin and Cuba- both thought nothing important happened in this episode. My cousin keeps saying, “Nothing blew up”, which a shrug. The women in my life were reeling. I spent the beginning of the episode tense and worried for George. Then sad for George. Then sobbing for George and, a bit, for Meredith, who you have to pity simply because she has somehow ended up so screwed up.

Now that I’ve had some emotional distance, I understand and accept everything that went down, especially in regards to George, being that I see George as a strange, fictional male version of myself.

In the last episode, Izzie told George that Meredith would hear him if he made her. Then this episode, Cristina told George that if he wanted bad things to stop happening to him, he had to make them stop happening. The whole horribly painful Meredith incident was about teaching George to be a do-er (which was mentioned in the bombing episodes). Yeah, Karma!

Yes, Grey’s Anatomy, continues to teach us all about our lives and the world. Seriously, it is Yoda/Buddha/The Oracle at Delphi/Every decent self-help book I ever read all rolled into one.

Back to my original topic (we interrupt this Grey’s Anatomy musing to bring you a brief reappearance of the Real World), today is Mardi Gras. I don’t get to celebrate because I have to go study Camus’ The Plague instead, but that doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow is the start of Lent. I’m supposed to give something up.

I’m not particularly religious, but I’ve enjoyed the trappings of religion throughout my life. Church. Youth Group. Hymns. Candles. Falling Asleep During Sermons. Giving Things Up for Lent.

In the past I’ve given up chocolate but not candy and candy but not chocolate. I’ve given up soda and, one less than successful college Lent, beer. I’m thinking about trying for chocolate again this year, but I might just go psychotic without the wonder drug. Seriously.

So, maybe now that I’ve left church behind, I’d better just leave Lent behind, too. Or I might end up beating children, puppies and co-workers in the streets.

And, seriously: could I really watch Grey’s Anatomy without the healing powers of chocolate?

Camus Wants Me to be a Slut

Really, I'm just putting off my take home midterm with a little reflection and wishing I had more Battlestar Galactica to watch on DVD.

Yes, I've become hooked on Battlestar Galactica. Don't judge- you do geeky things, too. Also, they canceled Firefly a long, long time ago, so what's a girl to do for her 'we-are-flawed-people-hurtling-through-space' fix?

Anyway, last night in grad class was Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus. And I have to say, now that we've temporarily taken a break from the uber-depressing views of Sartre (who I loved, don't get me wrong) and Kafka, there's really something to this Absurd (capital A) stuff. Our professor keeps saying "obviously we all don't feel like this, or we couldn't be here debating these ideas", which doesn't make any sense to me. Most of the philosophical pieces we're reading are nothing but debate. Kierkegaard and Sartre admit they don't know what they're talking about- I'm pretty sure with the Absurd you can't KNOW anything- they're just tossing ideas out there.

But Camus put the Absurd into exactly the words I was looking for:
"This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world."

So how can my professor dismiss the Absurd as something his students cannot possibly feel? Doesn't everyone feel this? Not constantly. That's what drives people to despair and suicide (two very uplifting class topics). And I'm full of things the Absurd isn't so about, like: hope, a desire for romance, a longing for wealth and material possessions. But we all feel the world doesn't make sense and have a strong desire to make it make sense. Almost everything we do in life- jobs, taxes, marriage- is an attempt to put order into our world. And then something happens- 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami- to let us know that we have no control and there's no such thing as order.

Boo-yah, Professor Donaldson.

Anyway, what I really wanted to focus on in this blog was Camus' thoughts on Don Juan as an ideal man. Don Juan is a do-er, in all senses of the word. Heehee. Yes, he'll do you, too. The geeky students of the Absurd got a big kick out of that one. Don Juan loved a woman. Then he loved another woman. He didn't collect them. He never thought of the past women when he was with a new one. He lived in the moment and he constantly acted. This is the way to thrive in an Absurd universe. So says Camus.

Yup, lots of sex for all of us, as long as we aren't bogged down by regret or longing for the past or a desire for a deeper connection. And we can't lie to our partners. We can't make promises or say we love them or that they're the only one for us. This is what Sartre would call 'acting in bad faith'.

According to Camus, Don Juan is in the right, because "he loves [each woman] with the same passion and each time with his whole self that he must repeat his gift and his profound quest". The women are foolish because "each [one] hopes to give him what no one has ever given him. Each time they are utterly wrong." They want to teach him to love, but he does love. Everyone. One at a time.

"Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?"

Also, I suspect Don Juan may have attended McDaniel College and been in the theater department.