Drunk jokes

Just got back home from the bar. Here are some of the jokes I heard AND remember.

1:
Q: What do you call a blonde behind a steering wheel?
A: An airbag.

2:
Patient: Doctor, I have 5 penises.
Doctor: Wow! How do your pants fit you?!
Patient: Like a glove!

3:
It is the year 2056 and for the first time almost the entire class of the University of Alabama is about to graduate. Only one guy will not be able to because he failed one class. At the graduation ceremony, the entire class of 2056 starts chanting, Give him another change, give him another chance. So, the president says, ok. I'll ask you one question and if you get it right, we'll allow you to graduate. Tell me what is 2+3? The guy thinks for a minute, chewing on his lip and finally answers, '7'. The entire class of 2056 starts chanting, Give him another chance, give him another chance. The president says, o.k. Tell me what is 2+3? The guy thinks for a while and finally mutters, '5.' The entire graduating class of the University of Alabama starts chanting, Give him another chance, give him another chance.

That's all for tonight folks. Time to go pass out.

Moving makes me lose my mind

Moving mania is in full swing. Boxes, suitcases and plastic bags as far as the eye can see. Why in the world do I own more than twenty pairs of shoes? How many little boxes does one actually need? I know it's good to be organized, but did I really need to organize all my philosophy notes by author and then arrange them in alphabetical order? Don't worry, you don't need to answer any of these questions.

In the midst of all this, I zoom in on my penny-jar. I've been collecting all my pennies for the past two years for the sole purpose of taking them to the bank at some point and finding myself with an obscene amount of cash. Dude! Why didn't anyone stop me? Anyway. Today was THE DAY in which I took my penny-jar to the bank. I went up to the cashier, big smiles and all, to become a part of the following conversation:

Me: Hello, I have a lot of pennies. I would like to exchange them for dollar bills.
Cashier: That's great.
Me (placing my penny-jar on the counter while still grinning like a mad-woman): Here they are.
Cashier: Oh! I can't accept them like this.
Me: What's wrong with my pennies?
Cashier: We only take them if they are in paper rolls.
Me: Paper what?!
Cashier: Paper rolls. Here, I'll give you some and you can sit at that table over there and put your pennies in the rolls.
Me: You've got to be kidding me. Do you see how many I've got?
Cashier: Do you want the paper rolls or not?
Me: Aaaaahlright.

I proceed to the table where I spend the next 45 minutes placing pennies in paper rolls. They have little machines for that, you know? And do you know why? Because it's FUCKING BORING!!! And takes FOR-EVER!!! And when you do it by hand, people in the bank stare at you like you've lost your mind. And they are probably right, because by the time you've put all your pennies in the fucking paper rolls, you realize that in the past two years you've saved the banging amount of 4 dollars and fifty cents. God damn! How am I going to spend all this money?!

Me: Here are all my pennies, in their rolls.
Cashier: Let me take this to the scales.
Me: Scales? What scales?
Cashier: I have to weigh them to make sure that you have the exact number of pennies in each roll. You need to have 50 pennies in each roll.
Me: But you didn't tell me that!
Cashier: Everybody knows that a roll of pennies contains 50 coins.
Me: I DIDN'T know that. I'm not American.

I admit that the whole "I'm not American" thing was totally below the belt. My being a foreigner stopped being a legitimate excuse at the end of my sophomore year in college, back in 2001. You can't claim ignorance if you've lived in the country for close to 7 years, you know. But it's my go-to line when I feel stuck and can sense that I'm about to lose it. It helped me get away with an overdrawn check to IRS once! Not this time though.

Cashier (weighs my rolls of pennies): I'm sorry, I can't take them.
Me: Why?
Cashier: They're too heavy. You've got more than 50 cents in each roll.
Me: That's ok, I don't care. Take it! That would count as profit for your bank, wouldn't it!
Cashier: I'm sorry.

***

Do I even need to try and dissect what just happened?! I am a fucking moron.

I don't love you anymore

I was thinking about my friends Sergey and Doriana today. They are a generally funny, adorable couple that have made my life so much better in so many ways that I can't even begin to tell you. They are the kind of people that make everybody around them feel special and loved. They love to entertain and have us over for yummy dinners that usually go into the wee hours. Did I mention they are funny? When they get into a silly argument, Doriana always tells Sergey, "You're sleeping out on the balcony tonight". Which, of course, cracks everyone up and has spurred many plans about the kinds of supplies and amenities Sergey would need to take with himself to the balcony, in case Doriana decided to go through with the plan. Every one of our friends loves this line so much that we use it every time somebody somehow gets in trouble.

"Oh, I forgot to pay my mom's cell-phone bill"
"You're sleeping out on the balcony tonight."

"I think I lost the CD that so-and-so gave me."
"You're sleeping out on the balcony tonight."

You get the idea. Earlier today I was visiting Peio's cosy little place where I happened to see a similar one-liner at the top right corner of his front page. "You're sleeping alone tonight," it said. That, I assumed, was yet another way of shaking your finger at a loved one but at the same time telling them...I love you anyway.

When my sister and I were little, we had a line of our own. Every time we would get upset with each other, we'd yell at the top of our voice: I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMOOOORE!!! In our small sisterly world not loving your sister was the ultimate way to punish her for getting on your nerves. I was usually the one being punished, given how I wanted to be a choreographer and made Ena dance for hours at a time. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to do to a three year old. I swear, I still tear up when I remember her lips turn downwards, big big tears running down her cheeks as she would say, I don't love you anymore. We still say that to each other sometimes. This time around it's just our inside joke.

What are your lines, guys? How do you express disapproval at someone by the same time telling them that you love them more than anything in the world? Where do YOU send them?

Good things recently

1. Catching up on sleep; feeling rested and awake.
2. The Laughing Cow cheese.
3. Listening to old (i.e. pre-disco) Bee Gees records.
4. Having things to look forward to: personally and professionally.
5. Being really, truly happy. For the first time in months.

P.S. And watching the O.C, of course!

Soaking up the sun

Greetings from State fucking College.

Books

I'm selling some books on amazon and thought I'd let you know, in case you're interested. I will be adding more titles to the list in the next day or so. If you're in State College and you're interested in purchasing a book, send me an email and we'll figure something out so that you wouldn't have to pay shipping charges. Thanks in advance! :)

Me media

There was a very interesting article in last week's New Yorker, titled Me Media. It's taken me a while to write about it but then again, that seems to be a recurring theme in the last several posts, so bare with me. I will catch up eventually.

Anyway, the article was about social networking sites such as Facebook, Friendster and MySpace. The piece was mostly about Facebook and how it is different from those other ones. Blah blah blah blah. Social networking sites have never been that interesting to me so that's not what impressed me about the article. I was, however, rather intrigued by something that Facebook's 21-year-old founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said, "People on the internet are not doing anything they are not doing offline. They are just doing it more efficiently." He was talking mostly about social network sites and, yes, I am paraphrasing. Now, clearly, I have no reasons to think that I have a better grasp of online communication patterns than little big CEO Mr. Zuckerberg (whose business card, by the way, reads "I'm CEO...Bitch"). However, I do disagree with his understanding of how people's social behavior is being affected by the internet.

True, information technologies have made it easier for people to communicate. The internet does lower the cost of obtaining and disseminating information. It saves both time and effort. However, saying that the internet is no different from other media of communication sounds way too simple to me. By the same logic, you could say that driving is more efficient than walking because it saves you time and effort. But does that make any sense? There are qualitative differences between socializing online and offline. These differences have consequences that go way beyond "doing things more efficiently." Does the ease of access to social networking sites make people more likely to talk more to people they already know? Does it make them talk to a larger number of people? How are these interactions different from what they could have been offline? If people are interacting online with people they already know offline, is the online-offline distinction as meaningful as it used to be? Come to think of it, was it EVER meaningful? It seems to me that Mr. Zuckerberg is giving himself a little less credit than he deserves.

I am sorry I am kind of just ranting about this, it's obvious that I have no actual point to make. I guess I am just getting a bit tired of hearing people compare social network sites and such to hanging out and checking people out in the mall. I am particularly annoyed when a smart magazine such as the New Yorker takes such explanations seriously.

What do you guys think? What do YOU think of your online existence? Is it an extension of your life offline or is it an entirely separate thing? Is doing stuff on internet another way of doing the same ole thing, but more efficiently?

***

I wasn't able to find a permanent link to the article. Please let me know if you do so that I could add it to the text above. Thanks, peeps!

Addictions, obsessions and the like

Have you noticed how most addictions, obsessions and the like seem to take control over you at the most inappropriate times? My shoe obsession, for example, always seems to kick in at the end of the month when I'm already practically broke. Rather than doing what any sensible person should do in that kind of situation: eat pasta and drink tap-water, I go out and buy pumps because...you know. I've got a thing for shoes. When I do get paid, though, I am already too tired of the wait so I choose to lounge around the house and don't feel like shopping at all. Go figure.

The most current addiction is The O.C. Ha-ha. I love it and I'm proud. I don't even think it counts as a guilty pleasure. It's a great show. I know I'm only about 12 years behind...but better late than ever. Yet, why NOW?!!!! I've got revisions to make. I've got to pack. I've got vodka to drink. Why the hell do I need to watch eight episodes of the show in a row. Eight, people! Eight! Do you now how many suitcases I could have packed instead?!

Oh, oh...and how about blogging at 2. 30 in the morning?! Meeting at 9 in the morning?! Who cares! Blog on, girl. No. Not this time. I'm taking control of (some of) my addictions. No more blogging after midnight.

Red lipstick is a must

A few weeks ago when the ladies and I were having our 'best-lipstick-ever' conversation, a couple of my male readers remarked how interesting that conversation was. In response to Pete's comment I mentioned something along the lines of how important lipstick is to a girl's life. I got reminded of that conversation earlier tonight. It's that time of the month, you know, and I was curled up in bed wiping tears off my eyes and trying to figure out what could I possibly do to make the pain go away. When my PMS-pills finally started to kick in, I somehow managed to peel myself off the bed, smacked on some red lipstick and took pictures. I have no idea why, but glamming things up always seems to take away at least some of the pain. Can you tell that about 30 minutes before this picture was taken, I couldn't even talk?!



I have no logical explanation why putting on a little bit of make-up always makes me feel a little better. I know that other girls do that too. I've been present at way too many conversations that go something like:

"How are you?"
"Not so well."
"Well. That's ok, because you look fabulous!"

I don't think it always helps, but it's definitely one of those little tricks that your mom teaches you when you're little. Do guys do that?! And, regardless of whether you're male or female, do the women you know do that? Does looking "pretty", whatever that means in your book, make you feel better?

Improv everywhere

My friend Eric's brother is in a comedy group called Improv Everywhere. They do all kinds of pranks and practical jokes around New York City, their mission being to cause "scenes of chaos and joy in public places."

My favorite prank of theirs is their U2 rooftop concert. As many of you probably remember, back in January U2 finished their Vertigo tour in Madison Square Garden in NYC. Turns out that one of the guys from Improv Everywhere happened to live in a building across the street from the venue. He also had access to the roof of the building. Given U2's prior record of playing on rooftops, the pranksters decided to play a little trick on the crowd that had started lining up the street for the actual concert. They get up on the rooftop, pretending to be U2, and start playing "Where the streets have no names". As you can see in this video, the crowd goes insane. So much so, that when the cops show up to charge them with noise violations, everybody on the street starts screaming "Let them play! Let them play!"

***

You can see a complete list of their missions here.

I'm a Master now!

Thank you all for your nice words. It turned out that I was way more stressed out about the defense than I actually had thought and reading all of your notes this morning felt really really nice.

The defense went well, for a defense. It's a pretty rough experience in general, though. I'd been working on the paper for a long time now and was pretty happy with how far I had taken it. I knew they would ask me tough questions...but they asked me VERY TOUGH questions. VERY TOUGH questions. A couple of times, I almost interrupted myself mid-sentence to say, But...but...we TALKED about this, SEVERAL months ago...and we AGREED that this is how it had to be done... But it was a defense and that's how it goes. You defend your project. And I was lucky to have very nice people on my committee, which is not always the case, you know.

When they asked me to come back into the room so that they would inform me about their decision, my heart was racing and there was this weird buzzing noise in my ears. Two of my committee members swear that each one of them said congratulations. But I have no memory of hearing anyone congratulating me. All I heard was the name of the professor who would be in charge of reading through my paper after I made the revisions. God knows why, I assumed that I failed. Said thank you and walked over to my office. And started to cry. One of my committee members came by, about ten minutes after, to congratulate me in person. When he saw me there, crying my eyes out, he got this really confused look on his face and asked: But why are you crying?! That was a great defense. You answered all the questions so well...And I said, well, yeah, but I didn't pass. His reaction: ?!?!?!!!! But you did!!!

So, yeah, adding tears to an event makes it all the more special, didn't you know.

Being (almost) finished doesn't feel nearly as special as I thought. But I am adding extra letters to my name. I'm a Master now! :D

I passed.

Yeah.

I am pre-defense...

...and way past the point where I actually care...

I've been thinking about this, on and off, for the past five months. If I get asked a difficult question tomorrow...I should be able to answer. Or fake an intelligent response, no?

So, like any self-respecting person in my position, I spent my day drinking illegal amounts of coffee, prepping for my presentation, crying a healthy bit but mostly focusing on how wonderful it is to see a project go from an idea scribbled down on a post-it to a full-blown argument...with statistical evidence and all.

You know, sometimes, all you can do is just calm the fuck down. You bust your ass working, do your best, and then sit back and watch what happens. It's just a Master's thesis...the future of the civilized world does not depend on it.

Or so I tell myself.

Pray for me. Or whatever.

Food for thought

Is it OK that I am more worried about Britney losing her abs forever after giving birth for the second time, than I am about my own inadequate workout habits?...

MA, baby

MA defense on May 17.

Research question: Does the effect of internet usage vary across different types of political participation?

Between now and Monday I need to:

- recode dependent variables to reflect large number of missing values
- run descriptive statistics on participation variables
- scan National Election Survey codebook for more political knowledge questions
- construct a political knowledge additive scale
- run logit models in order to rank political activities based on amount of information required prior to engagement
- run logit models for internet use and political participation
- write up data and methodology section by Saturday
- write up complete draft by Monday morning
- get stress level under control
- try not to throw up during defense

All of a sudden I'm having flashbacks to my first stats-intensive semester of gradschool. Butterflies in my stomach all over again. Who knew that statistical analyses could be that exciting!!!

Get drunk or...

I love 50 cent. 'In da club' was basically the soundtrack to my senior year in college. I loved him even after he made a movie called Get Rich or Die Tryin'. I was ok with the fact that they made a video-game inspired by the movie. I love him THAT much.

Earlier this morning, as I was rushing to make it to my 10 o'clock meeting, I ran into a couple of sorority girls headed to the nearby bar. See, Penn State kids engage in this weird activity called bar-crawling, where they leave the house at 8 in the morning and spend the whole day going from one bar to the next. They are obviously drunk by the time the bar-tour's over. Also, they are very insistent that everybody else is aware of the fact that they are crawling so they make event-specific t-shirts that say ingenious things like: The four P's of drinking: Pong, Power hour, Puke and rally, Pass out. .

The girls from this morning were no exception from the rule. If anything, Penn State students hate to be exceptions to any stupid rule by which their life is run. They are all exceptional at rule-following. But this time they had completely outdone themselves in their stupidity. They were wearing shirts that said: Get Drunk or Die Tryin'.

Now, I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination. I like to drink and am serious believer in the therapeutic power of getting drunk out of your mind every once in a while. But wearing a shirt that professes your willingness to kill yourself in the quest of being drunk screams stupid to me. In a place where many kids actually do end up dying or getting hurt because of their ridiculous drinking habits, wearing such a shirt is not even remotely funny. What their shirts should have said, I think, is Act Stupid or Die Tryin'. Fuckin' idiots.

He Said, She Said: Porn

I've had very little exposure to porn. However, it's all been well worth it. First, it's taught me all the German that I know: Schneller weiter (i.e. Faster!) and Ja, ja. Das ist fantastisch (Yeah, yeah! This is fantastic!). Both very good things to know, no doubt about it. Second, it wass in a porn video that I saw the biggest dick in my life, which was definitely a sight I will never forget. Also, it's a sight I hope I will never get to experience in my real life. The thing was simply horrifying. In general, however, I think that my limited exposure to porn is purely coincidental. Given my generally positive opinion of it, I should have seen a lot more. Go figure.

To be honest, I don't find porn immediately erotic or stimulating. I kind of remember someone telling me that men are more easily visually stimulated than women...but that could be a myth, I don't know. However, I think porn does people good in that it can be very educational and could spare us a lot of potentially embarrassing situations. To be a good sexual partner, one needs to know their partner's and their own anatomy pretty well. There's only so much one can learn from printed material or from masturbating. Porn takes care of that problem like nothing else. Seriously, I think that a lot of guys out there have no idea where a woman's clit is. That's understandable. A lot of women don't know where their clit is either. Yet, whoever told you that's not a big deal was trying to be polite. So, if you don't know or you are not sure, you should promptly get yourself a tape and take notice. Same thing for all kinds of anatomical issues: where things are and what feels good, and the like.

Another way in which porn is super-useful is to allow you to explore some of your sexual fantasies and get the basics down before you talk to your partner about it. I, for example, have always wondered about role-playing. I simply don't understand what the appeal is. You dress up. Your partner dresses up. You pretend you're somebody else. What?! Seriously, I don't get it at all. But, maybe, if I see a role-play video, I might change my mind. I might decide that it is actually pretty exciting. And who knows, at some point I might even try it out because having seen it once would have me somewhat prepared for it and I wouldn't feel as weird or awkward as I would otherwise. Also, I really have no clue how creative porn actually gets, but I can imagine it being a how-to manual of sorts. You know...new positions, new ideas, novel ways of doing things, all kinds of good stuff.

All that being said, I think that there is one thing that porn does plain wrong and hurts everyone who might be watching: the pace of it. Things just happen too damn fast. I know it's fiction and people are not supposed to take it all literally. But many people do, you know. In the great world of porn, everybody is permanently horny and women come on demand, every single time, 3 minutes into it. Well, it just doesn't happen THAT fast. Lots of people have even argued that sex in porn is not the kind of sex that women enjoy, but I don't think I want to get into this here and now...Maybe another time.

What do you people think?

P.S. Hope no under-age kids are reading this. I thought I'd soften things up a little bit, but I think sex is a serious thing and therefore, sex-related stuff need to be called with their real names. So...please accept my sincere apologies if this entry has offended you in any way. It's only one very small side of a multi-sided story.

***

Peio's take on the subject, which concludes the He Said, She Said experiment. Let us know what you thought.

He Said, She Said: Exercising

When Peio and I started brainstorming possible topics for this now almost over series, exercising was the first to come up. It's also been the topic that has increasingly terrified me throughout the week. Because, honestly, I don't think I have that much to say.

For me exercising is one of many things that I know are good for me but never do. As a result, thinking about it mostly puts me in a situation where I have to face up to my own inadequacies and, as you all know, that's not a good place to be. I am young, educated and have all the information in the world at my google-addicted fingertips. I should be working out. It's that simple.

But I don't. My brief stints with exercise have been mostly unsuccessful. When I was 14, I started running track. I got recruited during PE class because I was fast. My real incentive for going to the stadium, however, was to keep company to a friend of mine who was boy-crazy and thought training was a great opportunity to meet boys. I didn't disagree. Not because I wanted to meet guys but because I was so unfortunate looking at the time that would do anything that would push me up a notch up the cool-scale. In my pre-teenage mind, being friends with the popular girls automatically made me somewhat more popular than I would be if left to my own devices. Needless to say, my running career was over before it even started.

Since then, I have made it to the gym several times. Tried running a couple of times. And did tae-bo with my friend Cristi twice. My last gym experience dates back to last summer. I kind of liked it at first but then realized that all the floor-exercises were giving me rug-burn. Plus, I realized that if being able to have a cigarette after I was done exercising was the only reason I went to the gym, I probably should not do it anyway. As far as tae-bo is concerned...it was fun, I must admit. It had a strange empowering effect on both Cristi and I. We figured, however, that we did not need to sweat our butts off to feel empowered and quickly went back to mixing sangria on the porch, talking about boys, and laughing till we felt our faces would fall off. Empowering indeed.

HOWEVER, I do not think that people should follow my lead on this one. To the contrary. I absolutely admire people who do work out regularly and command them on being smart enough to keep it up. If you are one of these people, more power to you!!! Actually, I would like to take advantage of having captured your attention and ask you a question. I know that there are many people out there who were not always physically active as you are now. There must be a person reading this who used to prefer the good ole couch to the gym any time but now works out regularly. If you are one of these people, would you mind sharing how you got started on the work-out thing? And also, would you share some tips on sticking to it once you start?

Even though I joked about my brief stint at the running track, I do remember how great it felt to get to a point where you actually need to work out every day.

P.S. Does wearing heels on a regular basis count as exercising? It makes my legs and my butt kind of sore, which is exactly the effect that working out had on me...back in the day. :)

P.P.S. Yes. The butt too. Pressure goes all the way up. I knew you'd ask. ;)

***

Peio on excercising. In Bulgarian.

Diversions

Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity? Steve Polyak

via Georgi

He Said, She Said: Toilet paper

There are some things in life that usually get a lot less credit than they deserve. Toilet paper is definitely one of them.

See, because you use it all the time and it usually works...it somehow remains unnoticed. But whether or not it's there and whether or not it actually works, does indeed make a HUGE difference. A few years ago, I got a chance to spend a day on a little island just off the coast of Jamaica. It was a pretty heavenly experience until I got my period and realized that I had forgotten to bring toilet paper and tampons. No need to get all technical, but dealing with the situation involved a series of broken-phone conversations at the pinnacle of which a four-year-old Jamaican kid pulled my skirt and started crying. So, yeah.

Toilet paper is not alone in this category. Other similarly unappreciated items include:

- staplers
- key-chains
- good office secretaries
- sharp enough pencil-sharpeners
- bags

It's not like you couldn't live without any of the above items. But they make your life so much easier, if they are just right. If they are, you go about your business as usual. If not, you simply want to kill yourself. I'm sure you know someone who buys the cheap, generic, one-layer kind of toilet paper. You go into their bathroom to do your thing, reach for your ass and , DAMN, is this poo on my hand?! Same thing with secretaries. If they are good, you do your job and inevitably end up wondering what in the world they are getting paid for. If they're bad, however, you can never find anything, you're always out of SOMETHING and you couldn't get anything done even if you tried.

So...I guess the moral of the story is that one should think about and appreciate those little things in life that make things easy and comfortable. Things like toilet paper, and good secretaries, and key chains.

P.S. By the way, ladies, did you know that guys do not wipe their thing when they go pee-pee?!!!!

***

And, of course, the HE-version of the story: Peio on toilet paper. In Bulgarian.

Surprise surprise

The truth is that I actually KNOW they are a bit strange...and I have no idea how to wear them. But they are green. And sparkly. And have pink bows.



I simply couldn't help myself.

He Said, She Said: Moments of Solitude

Today we are talking about moments of solitude. You know, those moments when you say enough is enough, turn the volume down, and pretend that your life does not exist. Or hope that somehow the world forgets about it...even for a second.

I suspect that the reason why I cherish these moments as much as I do has a lot to do with some of the professional choices I have made. Being in academia, weds you not only to a substantive area of interest but also to a way of being that requires continuous interactions of the argumentative kind. We read each other's work to learn from it but mostly to critique it. We buy each other's arguments, but mostly after modifying them ever so slightly. We appreciate each other's texts, especially when YOUR reasoning helps me make MY point. That, to quote my mom, is exhausting. There's only so much talking one can do in a day. There's only so many arguments one can unpack. There's a limited number of questions one can answer. There's only so much self-righteousness one can tolerate.

What do I do to remove myself from all that? I read teenage blogs of silly girls who worry about their thigh-to-butt transition area. I look at celebrity gossip sites and place judgment on Nicole Richie's newest nail-polish color (on a totally unrelated note, Nicole has totally replaced Paris Hilton from the top of my favorite female celebrities list). I seek out cool illustration portfolios of undiscovered artists struggling to pay rent in Brooklyn.

In other words, I reminisce about the kind of life I've never had; the kind of life I'll never have; the kind of life I would never want. I look for fluff that's otherwise missing from my overly articulate kind of life where everything is subject to questioning and unless specified otherwise, open to interpretation. I love being in academia, but I surely enjoy those moments of my day, when Paris Hilton's saying "That's hot!" is a good enough reason to believe that it is. Hot.

***

Peio on Moments of Solitude. In Bulgarian.

He Said, She Said: Accessories

Here are our girls: Angelina Jolie (who's gorgeous, but definitely not my type) and Kate Beckinsale (holy fucking shit so hot!).


I don't know how to cite this source.

Both lovely ladies are wearing equally lovely black tailored coats and sleek leather boots. Yet, somehow, they appear different. They are both pretty alright. But somehow Angelina looks a bit more laid back and elegant whilst my girl Kate looks just smoking H-O-T. Well, let me break it down for you: the difference is in the accessories. Angelina is wearing nothing but a very delicate understated necklace, while Kate has gone all out, wearing huge gold hoops (which I LOVE)and dark oversized glasses. She completes the outfit with a loud big-buckle belt. The point I am trying to make is (hopefully) obvious: accessories can transform a relatively plain look into a spectacular one. And vice versa. They can destroy a perfectly respectable selection of individual clothing items and turn it into one big accessorized mess. They tie things together, they make individual pieces form a whole. They set the tone of the statement you are trying to make through your selection of clothing. Oh! And please, please, please think twice before you tell me you don't think you're making a statement with the clothes you wear every day!

Also, accessories are not necessary the way clothing items are. You do not need to wear earrings, scarves, or belts the same way you are required to wear clothes. Wearing clothes is not optional. Accessorizing is. It is an add-on, it is something extra. Thus, accessories give away a lot more about the person wearing them than any other individual clothing item does. They convey more about the choices that an individual makes and, most specifically, how willing they are to draw attention to themselves and what type of attention they would want that to be. Think of all the shy women that you know. Does any single one of them wear large earrings? What about all the men in your life who like to wear brightly colored ties? Are any of them shy?

Finally, I think that accessories reveal the level of detail at which an individual operates. I have no empirical evidence in which to ground this, but I'm willing to bet that the number of accessories a person wears is a significant predictor of the extent to which their job requires them to be detail-oriented. Or something like that. Some people simply can't be bothered with details. They see big pictures, they make plans, they focus on strategy. Others, on the other hand, think micro. They know that the devil is in the details and that even the grandest project depends on the success of the smallest components. Those people accessorize.

If the devil's in the details, accessorizing is playing with the devil.

***

Peio on accessories. In Bulgarian.

He said, She said

Peio and I have decided to conduct a blog experiment. In the next five days, we'll each write an entry on a topic we have agreed upon in advance. We had been bouncing off ideas about doing a male/female take on a subject as the differences between men and women seem to occupy both of our minds recently. We then voted against it as neither of us was willing to take on the responsibility of speaking for men or women everywhere. Instead, we decided to pick relatively neutral topics and see where they would take us.

The topics for this week:

1. Accessories
2. Moments of solitude
3. Toilet paper
4. Exercising
5. Porn

He'll be blogging in Bulgarian...which puts most of my non-Bulgarian readers at a disadvantage but I'll try to translate. No promises though.

To accommodate major time-zone differences, we start later tonight.

Green tea update

Gala's recommendation:

Haute Couture green tea, i.e. only for pros: Tamaryokucha, Japanese green tea from Kyushu.

H&M green tea, i.e. for newbies like me: Gemaicha, Japanese green tea with rice and corn.

Yea, ma!

My mom read the green tea post and sent me an email to tell me that in addition to drinking lots of green tea, one should also make sure to eat:

"zehtin + maslini + soia + 3 oreha na den + chesyn"
i.e.
"olive oil + olives + soy + 3 (!!!) walnuts a day + garlic"


AND one should surround themselves with positive people


"da ne mrynkat, zashtoto tova te iztoshtava"
i.e.
"who do not complain, because that exhausts you"

With this, the green tea drinking plan is officially set in motion.

Green tea

Gala just posted a list of 15 reasons why one should drink green tea. Being an avid coffee drinker who gags at the very thought of tea, I was surprised how little I knew about its health benefits. I mean, I've always known that it is, you know...good for you. But I didn't know it was that great. I was most impressed by the following (I'm paraphrasing):

- Drinking green tea improves your mood and strengthens your memory.
- It prevents cavities.
- It slows down the aging process.
- Prevents cancers and strengthens the immune system.
- It helps overcome fatigue.

You know how good I am about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But adding green tea to my diet seems relatively non-invasive and effortless. I have a couple of questions for you: 1] Does drinking coffee (and smoking cigarettes, and drinking vodka, and not sleeping much, and eating lots of bad carbohydrates...) cancel out the benefits of drinking green tea? and 2] Would you recommend any particular kind of green tea for the uninitiated?

Off to a smoking break. He-he-he.