I Prefer "Watch Your Step."
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Satisfaction
The great-grandparents are visiting this weekend to meet the bambina. One of the things they wanted to do was check out the website www.realagetest.com to see what it was about. The site asks you questions about your health and lifestyle and then tells you what your *real* age is compared with your chronological age. So, good doobie that I am, I offered to pull it up and let them take a look on my laptop. I was ready to hand over my laptop to let them take the test when they said, “No, you go ahead and do it.” I figured I had nothing to lose and so got started.
I was feeling all smug about getting through the vitamins/non-smoking/seat-belt wearing questions and finding out that I was 1.2 years younger than my chronological age. Yippee Skippy for me. Until we reached the next section. Any idea where this is heading? Questions about “lifestyle” and “habits”? Yeah.
“Are you satisfied with your current sex life?”
“What type of contraception, if any, do you currently use?”
“Do you feel fulfilled sexually by your partner?”
Oh Dear G-d. What do I write? How do I answer? Should I skip it? But by skipping it do I make it obvious that I’m embarrassed? If I make a joke do I look too flippant? And in making that joke, how do I ride that line between Finding It Funny and Pretending Not to Know Too Much About the Subject Matter? Oh Dear God Help Me! What do I do?!!!
I ended up blurting something like, “What?! Does good sex keep you young or something?! Those are some pretty personal questions!” and skipping them entirely, but not before just cringing mightily at the totally heinous embarrassment of it all. Luckily I clicked through it so quickly that they were probably unaware of the full weight of the questions. But they definitely saw the “are you satisfied” question. CRINGE!!!
As I thought about it later, I realized that my entire career as a development (as in fundraising, not tech) professional was predicated on my ability described above to laugh at dirty jokes, but not so hard that I gave any indication of knowing what at all they were talking about. I used to deal with so many 60-something men with vast financial resources who liked nothing more than to be piggish frat boys in front of a young-ish woman who was about to ask them for money. I think it was a power thing. Or maybe more of a d**khead thing. Either way, I was walking out of there with a $50,000 check and my pride intact. And all it took was a strategically-modulated laugh that said, “wow, you are so funny even if I have no idea what you are talking about, you big, virile, attractive older man!” BLEAAAH.
In case you're wondering, my "real age" was 28.5. Until answering questions about my sexual fulfillment in front of respected elders added about a decade in stress!
I was feeling all smug about getting through the vitamins/non-smoking/seat-belt wearing questions and finding out that I was 1.2 years younger than my chronological age. Yippee Skippy for me. Until we reached the next section. Any idea where this is heading? Questions about “lifestyle” and “habits”? Yeah.
“Are you satisfied with your current sex life?”
“What type of contraception, if any, do you currently use?”
“Do you feel fulfilled sexually by your partner?”
Oh Dear G-d. What do I write? How do I answer? Should I skip it? But by skipping it do I make it obvious that I’m embarrassed? If I make a joke do I look too flippant? And in making that joke, how do I ride that line between Finding It Funny and Pretending Not to Know Too Much About the Subject Matter? Oh Dear God Help Me! What do I do?!!!
I ended up blurting something like, “What?! Does good sex keep you young or something?! Those are some pretty personal questions!” and skipping them entirely, but not before just cringing mightily at the totally heinous embarrassment of it all. Luckily I clicked through it so quickly that they were probably unaware of the full weight of the questions. But they definitely saw the “are you satisfied” question. CRINGE!!!
As I thought about it later, I realized that my entire career as a development (as in fundraising, not tech) professional was predicated on my ability described above to laugh at dirty jokes, but not so hard that I gave any indication of knowing what at all they were talking about. I used to deal with so many 60-something men with vast financial resources who liked nothing more than to be piggish frat boys in front of a young-ish woman who was about to ask them for money. I think it was a power thing. Or maybe more of a d**khead thing. Either way, I was walking out of there with a $50,000 check and my pride intact. And all it took was a strategically-modulated laugh that said, “wow, you are so funny even if I have no idea what you are talking about, you big, virile, attractive older man!” BLEAAAH.
In case you're wondering, my "real age" was 28.5. Until answering questions about my sexual fulfillment in front of respected elders added about a decade in stress!
Friday, April 01, 2005
Men Are From Mars/Women Are From Venus
Friends, this is total nonsense. Men are NOT from Mars, and women are NOT from Venus. Rather, men are from the planet "Huh?!" and women are from the planet, "How can you NOT KNOW THIS?!"
I've been banging my head against a wall lately with a man or two in my life. You know how you have those conversations that just seem to go around and around, always ending up back at the point where the guy says, "I don't get why you are mad" and the woman says, "I CANNOT believe you don't get why this is wrong/stupid/mean/inconsiderate/embarrassing/ludicrous..."? Much has been made by men of the inscrutability of women, but I have recently spent a considerable amount of my own--and my girl friends' time--trying to unlock the mystery that is the male brain.
I ask the following questions about men (in the spirit of loving bafflement), for input from men and women alike:
1) If you KNOW they are fake, why do you still like them? Doesn’t knowing they aren’t real ruin the whole point of looking at them? If I had a computer full of photos of men with glaringly obvious penile implants, wouldn’t you wonder why I found that enjoyable? Wouldn’t you say, “why not just look at a smaller, functioning real one than one you know isn’t entirely real?” This is all I’m asking.
2) Why do some men not make the connection between the importance (as Chris Rock says) of “keeping your daughter ‘off the pole’” and the obvious fact that you are looking at someone else’s daughter on the pole? Why does it feel like women see the larger picture, the wider ramifications of things, while men see…well, boobies? This is all I’m asking.
3) If you love a girl, why do you find it so hard to just make the leap and say so publicly? Not one of my married friends ended up married without telling the guy, “your window is closing; and when it’s closing I’m gone.” Why does it take a friendly ultimatum to get you to do what you know you want to/ought to/need to do anyway? This is all I’m asking.
4) Why is it, when you fall for a girl who dislikes your female friends, that you don’t see the massive, waving red flag? Corollary: why are you so afraid to admit you have female friends to your girlfriend? If they are just friends like you say they are, what’s the big deal? This is all I’m asking.
5) Why is it “obsessive” to remember people’s birthdays and anniversaries and to send them greeting cards? This is all I’m asking.
6) Why the belief that you can overuse the phrase “I love you” with your female partner? Why the total lack of knowledge that you simply cannot tell a woman too many times that she is beautiful and she rocks your world? Especially when she is naked. This is all I’m asking.
7) Why the insistence on the drinking of OJ out of the carton?
8) Why—why—why the attraction to Angelina Jolie? Why?
9) Why the encyclopedic knowledge of sports with the concomitant cluelessness on important dates such as “our 6 month anniversary,” “the 6 month anniversary of the first time we were ‘together’,” “the 7th anniversary of our 6th week together since Arbor Day?”
10) Why the insistence on “dutch ovens”?
This is all I’m asking.
I've been banging my head against a wall lately with a man or two in my life. You know how you have those conversations that just seem to go around and around, always ending up back at the point where the guy says, "I don't get why you are mad" and the woman says, "I CANNOT believe you don't get why this is wrong/stupid/mean/inconsiderate/embarrassing/ludicrous..."? Much has been made by men of the inscrutability of women, but I have recently spent a considerable amount of my own--and my girl friends' time--trying to unlock the mystery that is the male brain.
I ask the following questions about men (in the spirit of loving bafflement), for input from men and women alike:
1) If you KNOW they are fake, why do you still like them? Doesn’t knowing they aren’t real ruin the whole point of looking at them? If I had a computer full of photos of men with glaringly obvious penile implants, wouldn’t you wonder why I found that enjoyable? Wouldn’t you say, “why not just look at a smaller, functioning real one than one you know isn’t entirely real?” This is all I’m asking.
2) Why do some men not make the connection between the importance (as Chris Rock says) of “keeping your daughter ‘off the pole’” and the obvious fact that you are looking at someone else’s daughter on the pole? Why does it feel like women see the larger picture, the wider ramifications of things, while men see…well, boobies? This is all I’m asking.
3) If you love a girl, why do you find it so hard to just make the leap and say so publicly? Not one of my married friends ended up married without telling the guy, “your window is closing; and when it’s closing I’m gone.” Why does it take a friendly ultimatum to get you to do what you know you want to/ought to/need to do anyway? This is all I’m asking.
4) Why is it, when you fall for a girl who dislikes your female friends, that you don’t see the massive, waving red flag? Corollary: why are you so afraid to admit you have female friends to your girlfriend? If they are just friends like you say they are, what’s the big deal? This is all I’m asking.
5) Why is it “obsessive” to remember people’s birthdays and anniversaries and to send them greeting cards? This is all I’m asking.
6) Why the belief that you can overuse the phrase “I love you” with your female partner? Why the total lack of knowledge that you simply cannot tell a woman too many times that she is beautiful and she rocks your world? Especially when she is naked. This is all I’m asking.
7) Why the insistence on the drinking of OJ out of the carton?
8) Why—why—why the attraction to Angelina Jolie? Why?
9) Why the encyclopedic knowledge of sports with the concomitant cluelessness on important dates such as “our 6 month anniversary,” “the 6 month anniversary of the first time we were ‘together’,” “the 7th anniversary of our 6th week together since Arbor Day?”
10) Why the insistence on “dutch ovens”?
This is all I’m asking.
Things To Do Today: Get a Living Will
I have avoided talking about the Terri Schiavo situation simply because everyone else was, and because I just kind of considered it to be none of my business. Even the truly opportunistic and outrageous posturing by such POTUS hopefuls as Bill Frist was not enough to get me to comment online. Even the ongoing posturing by morons like Tom DeLay (how is this man still employed and on the public radar screen?! He's a total joke, but that is another post entirely) was not enough to make me comment. But as I've been thinking about it, and as I just received the copy of my own advance directive that I had drawn up before leaving for China, I suppose it might be valuable to discuss it only to say the following:
Create an advance directive. Put it in writing. Share it with everyone who matters.
If God Forbid something should happen to me, no one will be "pulling the plug" on me; no one will be deciding to let me die. They will be carrying out MY wishes, and acting in the manner I have legally requested that they act.
See the difference?
I can absolutely identify the members of my family who would, through nothing but kindness and love, keep me in a persistent vegetative state for decades. I can also identify the members of my family who, in carrying out my wishes to be allowed to die with dignity, might be seen to be trying to end my life unnecessarily. But for my advanced directive clearly detailing my wishes, and but for my selection of a particular family member who will be legally tasked with making those end-of-life decisions for me, I could easily see my family devolving into the same tragic downward spiral of grief and litigiousness that has befallen the Schiavos.
Do your loved ones a favor. Don't make them have to decide what to do should you not be able to decide for yourself in the moment. The resources are generally free on various internet sites or are not tremendously expensive through a local, hang-your-shingle-out lawyer's office. Check out the following link to a WSJ article that takes you through many questions and ideas about living wills, and then DO IT. Seriously. It is not part of the normal course of life to end life support for your parents or kids. It is too great a burden to place on someone who loves you. Make it simply one more way that they can honor you and your wishes, rather than one more deeply painful element of what will already be a heartbreaking situation.
AgingWithDignity
Create an advance directive. Put it in writing. Share it with everyone who matters.
If God Forbid something should happen to me, no one will be "pulling the plug" on me; no one will be deciding to let me die. They will be carrying out MY wishes, and acting in the manner I have legally requested that they act.
See the difference?
I can absolutely identify the members of my family who would, through nothing but kindness and love, keep me in a persistent vegetative state for decades. I can also identify the members of my family who, in carrying out my wishes to be allowed to die with dignity, might be seen to be trying to end my life unnecessarily. But for my advanced directive clearly detailing my wishes, and but for my selection of a particular family member who will be legally tasked with making those end-of-life decisions for me, I could easily see my family devolving into the same tragic downward spiral of grief and litigiousness that has befallen the Schiavos.
Do your loved ones a favor. Don't make them have to decide what to do should you not be able to decide for yourself in the moment. The resources are generally free on various internet sites or are not tremendously expensive through a local, hang-your-shingle-out lawyer's office. Check out the following link to a WSJ article that takes you through many questions and ideas about living wills, and then DO IT. Seriously. It is not part of the normal course of life to end life support for your parents or kids. It is too great a burden to place on someone who loves you. Make it simply one more way that they can honor you and your wishes, rather than one more deeply painful element of what will already be a heartbreaking situation.
AgingWithDignity
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