Author Archives: Christene

A Letter to Taylor Swift

Dear Taylor,
This morning I heard one of your songs on the radio. I have to tell you, you are starting to creep me out. Don’t take this the wrong way, let me explain. I think you are great. I have to admit, your music is not my style, but that doesn’t mean you are not talented. You are an extremely talented young lady, and I urge you to make the most use of your talent. Somewhere else. You have a very lovely voice, but your lyrics are starting to concern me.
When you first made it big you were in your teens and singing about fairy tales and first crushes which was not just acceptable but expected. And actually rather refreshing. I saw your performance on some award show back then (honestly I don’t remember which one), and I thought “Awwww…. She is adorable!” And your remained adorable for several more years.
Then this morning I heard this:
We hadn’t seen each other in a month
When you said you need space… What?
When you come around again and say
“Baby, I miss you and I swear I’m gonna change.
Trust me.”
Remember how that lasted for a day?
I say “I hate you,” we break up, you call me…
I love you.
Ooh, we called it off again last night but
Ooh, this time I’m telling you, I’m telling you…
Chorus:
We are never ever ever… getting back together
Like, ever.
Ughhh… So he calls me up, and he’s like, “I still love you,
and I’m like, I mean this is exhausting. You know, like
we are never getting back together. Like, ever.
 
Um…. I vaguely remember talking like that when I was about ten. In fact I remember the exact incident. This cute boy in my class kept borrowing my crayons, but would forget to return them. Each time he would promise he will bring it right back. Then one day, as I was running in short supply and I absolutely needed that periwinkle to complete my drawing, I marched over to his desk, took my crayon back and yelled “you can’t borrow my crayons anymore. LIKE EVER!” I broke off our crayon based relationship forever. I am sure he was devastated.
The problem is, you are not ten anymore. Please stop singing as if you were. This is the equivalent of those fifty year old women who still dress like they are fifteen. It doesn’t work for them, and it is not really going to work for you. I understand your current demographic is a hoard of twelve year old girls that share the above sentiments, in those words precisely, but again, you have some talent going for you. From what I have heard you say in interviews, you are a pretty smart cookie. I am going to tell you right now, you are going to get tired of this. Really tired. And when you do, you are going to get depressed. So save yourself the wrist slashing, alcohol induced stupor, and celebrity rehab bookings.
Also, I am the last person who should be giving anyone relationship advice, but really? Are the above lyrics what your relationships have amounted to? You might want to think about that.
I know you have been at this for a while, and habits are sometimes hard to break. In lieu of advice, I am going to offer an example. Maybe not the best example, but let’s focus on baby steps. Let’s look at Katy Perry. Her music isn’t really my style either, but I love her lyrics (with some exceptions).
Her newest song came out not too long ago. Katy seems to know what is going on:
I’m wide awake
Yeah, I was in the dark
I was falling hard
With an open heart
I’m wide awake
How did I read the stars so wrong
I’m wide awake
And now it’s clear to me
That everything you see
Ain’t always what it seems
I’m wide awake
Yeah, I was dreaming for so long
(Pre-Chorus)
I wish I knew then
What I know now
Wouldn’t dive in
Wouldn’t bow down
Gravity hurts
You made it so sweet
Till I woke up
On the concrete
 
Katy just got out of a relationship too, and granted hers was a rather interesting divorce and not some coloring book drama, she is looking at it from a different perspective. Honestly, I feel as though your sentiments are the same. Both of you learned something. But, Taylor, maybe you should learn a little bit more. So next time you are writing your lyrics, let’s try channeling Katy. Once you have mastered that, we will move on to something a bit more difficult, like Tina Dico. Because if you can write lyrics like Tina, with your voice and reputation, you will become a classic. People will be listening to your music forty years from now. But again, baby steps one at a time. No one expects you to become Tina over night.
Oh, and I know you love wearing those red dresses. Great choice. You look fabulous!

Fun With Geography!

I am not one for internet games. I have a handheld gaming device that I use on a regular basis. But I am not sure that would be considered so much a game as a logic puzzle, or my sudoku which most people would not consider very much fun. I also have a video game with word definitions and anagrams. Well, today I found another game, and I have been playing it for over an hour. Geoguesser is geography game powered by Google.

Basically you get placed somewhere on Earth, and you get to move around, down the street, left right, as if you were navigating Google maps (because you are). You continue moving about until you figure out what part of the world you are in. I am actually surprised how good I am at this. I mean, it would be easy to identify places I have actually been, but apparently all those detective games I have been playing on my Nintendo DS that has me find clues to piece together some sort of puzzle has paid off because I am coming within a mere few hundred miles of the actual location each time. Keep in mind I have the whole world to work with, so getting within a few hundred miles is pretty darn accurate. At first I was just aiming to be within the same continent and/or country. But now I am angling for actual cities. So far I have come close, but have only hit the city a couple of times (and only on the completely obvious ones).

I found the easiest way is to look for street signs of any kind. While actual street names or even town names aren’t very helpful, it gives away the language. Also, any other type of signs are helpful (establishment names, sides of a bus, etc). If you can find a well known company, then you can pretty much guess the city if you know where it is, or come in extremely close.  From there you can narrow it down by architecture and type of city. Rural? Suburb? Urban? Any water? Foliage? What kind of cars, if any? After a few rounds I started picking up on the more subtle things I should be looking for.

For the last two rounds I have been within a hundred miles of the destination. If I ever get kidnapped and transported to a different part of the world, I should be able to figure out where I am by walking around on the street. Or I could just ask somebody.

P.S. Shortly after I originally posted this a friend of mine messaged me to remind me I have no sense of direction. She is right, I don’t. I am not saying that I could ever find my way home from any of these places, but simply that I would be able to identify where I am. In fact, I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag. *But* I would know that I am *in* a paper bag. And I think that is half the battle. So should I find myself in a strange land, I would simply find accommodations. What? I am in Tijuana? Well then I will just make myself at home.

Room

I just finished reading Room. The beginning was a little slow, but by page fifty I could not put it down and finished it before the end of the day. This is when my awesome parenting skills kicked in and I let the kids watch Dinosaur Planet all day so I could finish reading. Ironically the book is about being a good mother. So basically I am neglecting my kids to read about being a good mother. Logic at its best.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, it centers around a mother and her son. She was kidnapped at 19, and locked up in an 11 by 11 room where she would spend the next seven years. During this time period she gave birth to her son (and obviously also the son of her captor). She does an excellent job taking care of him, and upon their release/escape (which is a story onto itself), despite some unavoidable psychological trauma, it becomes apparent that her son turned out very well. I am doing a terrible job conveying the story. It is unbelievably moving (evidenced by the number of times I broke out into tears), but I also think the author was making a few commentaries on society and parenting as a whole. However, she was not being pejorative to any one type of parenting, but rather looking at the pros and cons to different approaches.

During the first half of the book it is clear that Jack, who is only five, is far advanced for his age. Anyone who has children or spends a lot of time around children would note this immediately. Once Jack and his mom are out of their confinement Jack’s cognitive advancement is apparent to everyone, whether you have children or not. Through comparison with children his own age in the story, along with some adults and their perceptions of childhood, Jack stands out. His Ma attributes this to the numerous hours she spent every single day teaching him, and the attention he received (after all, what else would they do all day locked up?) I saw this as a positive depiction (although highly exaggerated) of the benefits of homeschooling. Yet, the author does not condone homeschooling entirely either. As Jack emerges from his cell he is unable to socialize properly, and has great difficulty integrating himself among other people. I personally would chose cognitive skills over social skills. But that probably has more to do with the fact that I have plenty of the former, and not too many of the latter. Other people may disagree with which is more important.

Room also highlighted basic human behaviors. The book is written from Jack’s perspective, and he has spent his life, since birth, locked up. As he emerges into what he calls the Outside, he notices things to which the rest of us are desensitized. One of the most striking remarks, that he makes over and over, is about how we rush through everything. We are always too busy to enjoy anything, and even when we assert we are enjoying ourselves, we are rushing through that. We are too busy doing seemingly unimportant things and ignore those things that have true meaning. And we are always working.

I think that Jack’s perspective gave the book the necessary angle and push of emotion to enlist the type of reaction I (and several million other people) had. Not only was his view fresh due to his young age where thoughts were not mediated through agendas, but also by the fact his youth was coupled with the experience of confinement to the point where he was conscious of his surroundings, and able to articulate his thoughts, but also acting like a newborn, exposed to our world for the first time.

And yet, even someone who is not young, or new, can understand what he means, and realize the truth of his words.