Brain-Dead Morons

I'm not sure if I picked up the habit from Tina Fey in "30 Rock" or the character Schmidt in "New Girl," but now I really enjoy summing up the problem with kids these days by shaking my head and saying, "ugh, youths."

I find myself saying that all the time as a high school teacher.

As much as I like to pretend I wasn't exactly like them though, I know it's a lie.  I was often irresponsible, forgetful, disrespectful, stubborn, and sometimes just downright stupid.  See, youths can't help but be youths.  Their brains are re-developing.

When we're babies we make all these connections in our brains, then we prune them down to the useful connections.  Once puberty hits our brains decide to go for round two.  So teenagers are re-developing their thought processes, their understanding, and their schema for the world around them.  They can't help but be - as my mentor during student teaching so lovingly put it - brain-dead morons.

Watching my little brain-dead morons struggle with what seems like the simplest of problems for me has made me realize something: I don't want my children to go to college right after high school.

When I went to college I wasted the first two years staying up late, ditching class, and caring more about social aspects than the incredible learning I could have been doing.  It wasn't until I got engaged to The Man that I realized real life was coming fast and I needed to shape up.  When The Man went to college for the first time he slacked off too; we didn't realize the importance of what we were doing, and we didn't realize the great opportunity we had in our hands.

And it wasn't just us.  So many college freshmen and sophomores just do not get it.  Yes, there are a select few that work hard and really do succeed, but they are few and far between in my experience.  Our teenage brains weren't ready for it.

In my child psychology classes we talked a lot about the importance of factoring development into academic success.  Many young boys become frustrated in kindergarten because male brains develop in a different order than female brains, and for 5-year-old males fine motor skills (writing letters, drawing, cutting with scissors) are generally quite difficult.  Many teachers advise parents of young boys to hold them back from kindergarten a year if they're struggling; that way when they come back the next year they are more developmentally ready and they can enjoy the activities more.

Why can't we do this with our teenagers and college?

I'm not saying I'm going to let my child lounge about the house for a year and pamper them until they're developmentally ready, but I can see some merit in international journeys, backpacking trips, or even just working for a year or so, saving up for college.

When students are developmentally ready for college, they work so much harder, and they see much more success.  It's been interesting watching The Man return to college after a several-year hiatus.  Instead of returning to his B, C-student standing, he started off his first semester back with straight A's and hasn't dropped below an A in the last two years.  It's not just The Man though; I knew many adults who came back to college (or were coming for the first time) in their 20's and 30's, and all of them worked harder and succeeded more than any of the freshman coming straight from academia.  They were developmentally ready.

Now maybe I'm way off, and maybe I'll change my mind in twenty-or-so years when I'm actually crossing this bridge, but it's something to think on.

Sexidorable

Yesterday I was a total downer, and I apologize.  Let's talk about something more fun today.  Well, I'll write at you, and you'll eye the page.  That's kind of like a conversation, yeah?

Little sister came over the other night, and we watched a great video in which older, respected (some not as much anymore...sorry DeNiro) actors read the words to popular songs.  And while watching this, we were both overcome with the same thought: Kevin Kline is still a fox!  Beard and all.

How does that happen?  How do you improve on this?

So, turns out I'm kind of into hairy guys, I guess...

Well, just keep your hair, let it turn grey, and apparently grow a beard.  Instant sexidorable (trademark pending).  You know what, Kevin?  You could probably even lose the beard.  I'm not picky.

Sexidorable is the only word I can use to describe him now.

Is this a thing?  Like...ruggedly attractive young men becoming sexidorable older men?  Let's test this theory.

Harrison Ford:

Who apparently has an earring now...

Sean Connery:

Do I have a thing for men with guns too?  Hm...

Robert Downey Jr. (ok, he wasn't a rugged young man):

Maybe it's the hair...Then again, how would that explain Connery?

Steve Martin:

Looks WAY too much like my dad.  This just got weird.

Well, excepting the last one due to the weird Electra Complex vibe, sexidorableness with age seems to be a thing.  Let's try it one last time with my favorite Python*, Michael Palin:

Sexi-freakin'-dorable, ladies and gentlemen.

It's a thing.  Tell your friends.

*I tried to make this not sound dirty, but he was a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, guys.  They were called Pythons.  Get over it.

Not Wanting to Want

It's just one of those days.  Weeks.  Months.  Years.

Isn't it funny how you can be supremely happy with life, and at the same time depressed?  Well, maybe you can't, but my hormones are just impressive that way.  That's how I've been for the last year and a half.

I AM happy with life.  I got my dream job, which also happened to be the first job I interviewed with.  I live in a rather roomy apartment.  I can sleep in on Saturdays.  I'm married to my best friend, who is just killing it at school and work.  My family is happy and healthy and some of them are even nearby.  We have a reliable car.  We have enough money to buy groceries.  We even have enough money now to do things we're interested in, like buying furniture, going out to eat, and having a Netflix account.

We totally have enough money to buy frivolous things like this chicken.
We just don't have the class.

And yet I still have times where I shut down and can't seem to feel happy about where we're at.  Stupid Maslow and your hierarchy of needs.

If you're a regular you know that The Man and I tried to get pregnant for a year straight a while ago.  My body wouldn't cooperate.  It wouldn't even have a period for seven straight months of that time.  It got to the point where once a month I was buying a test and once a month I was becoming super depressed, and I just couldn't handle it anymore.  I went to a couple doctors to figure out why my body was acting so weird and all they had for me was, "hm.  Well, you're healthy, you're young, your hormone levels are great, and you're not stressed out about anything.  By all accounts you should be having a period.  Weird.  Oh well.  Now please pay us."

Hey there, Spotalotamus!  Have a terrible day!

Don't get me wrong; I loved not having to deal with that.  Except for the part where I was trying to get pregnant.  It's kinda necessary to have a working uterus/endocrine system.

So now we're at the part where I'm on birth control, we're not trying to have a baby, and I STILL get depressed once a month and think about babies constantly.  We're not trying for a couple reasons.
1. I am kind of scared that I'm sterile, and if we don't try then I won't have to face that.
2. The Man is still in school, and he is super stressed about it all the time; I don't want to add to that stress.
3. I have a full-time job that I actually enjoy, and it brings in a decent paycheck for a family of two.  I'd have to quit if I had a newborn.

And even though I keep coming back to those logistically-sound, totally reasonable answers, I still want a baby.  Beyond any logic, beyond any reasoning, beyond any soundness of mind.

If I could just not want to want a baby, that would be great.

Man Flowers

The other night The Man mentioned that he hadn't bought me flowers in quite some time, and he needed to get on that.  I heartily agreed.  Then I realized something: I've never really bought him man flowers.

Now, I'm not talking about those bacon bouquets or anything; I'm talking about the female version of buying flowers to tell her man, "hey, I appreciate you and I think you're pretty rad.  Here's something you can look at daily to remind you of my feelings."  Growing up I always heard that the men need to continue courting the women past marriage; what about the other way around?

I mean sure, I try to look nice and smell nice, but that's also because I need to be professional at work.  I also clean up the house from time to time, but that's because when things get too messy I just shut down totally and I can't get any work done at all.  I tell The Man he's handsome and I allow him to pay on dates, but gosh dangit I wanna get my man some flowers.

In my quest for man flowers (wow, this is sounding a little racy...) I tried to think about the times when I make The Man happiest.  Besides the obvious (making cookies - get your mind out of the gutter), he always gets really happy when I clean up the house.  I had my goal.

Well, I got home from school around 5:45 and got started.  I was tired from teaching and grading and planning and next-to-no sleep, but I pushed through.  By 8 I had the oven cleaned, the microwave spotless, the kitchen looking awesome, the living room re-organized the way he wanted it, the bedroom re-organized the way he wanted it (we were kind of on a re-organizing roll this weekend), the bathroom deep-cleaned (the landlords decided to not install ventilation so we get mold ALL THE TIME), and the apartment just looking all-around great.  We'll ignore the fact that I shoved everything I didn't want to deal with into the second bedroom.  And you know what?  It felt great.  Kinda like how flowers brighten up the house for anyone living there, the cleaning made our house feel all the better.

Man Flowers for the win.

I did leave an empty vase in the middle of the kitchen table.  I mean, I'm not a saint.