freckles make me strong.
Month
gaywrites:
You know how people joke that gay weddings will save the economy? That’s becoming less of a joke every day.
The Williams Institute released a report Friday showing that legalizing marriage equality in Washington would add $88 million to the state’s economy in the first three years. The numbers are based on calculations of average wedding expenditures and consider the amount of money that would potentially be spent on wedding arrangements and tourism.
Why aren’t more people paying attention to this? For those who don’t see equality as a good enough reason, doesn’t this kind of seal the deal?
soupsoup:
Etta James : At Last
(Original 2009 intro)
“Hi, I’m a fifteen year old girl named Katie.” No you’re not, you’re John Green sitting slightly farther away from the camera. Right, no, I realize that, but I’m quoting a fifteen year old girl who wrote us an email. Oh, alright. “I’m not very popular. How do I get boys to like me?”
Thank you for your question, Katie. Let me begin by acknowledging that I am not an expert in the field of fifteen year old boys. In fact, Katie, putting aside the question of how to get boys to like you, I don’t know how to get boys to like me. Katie, I don’t know if you know this, but all of our videos, except for the ones that feature giraffe sex as the center screenshot are watched by nearly three times more women than men. So Katie, my first piece of advice to you is that if you want to get boys to like you, you should become a giraffe. And then have yourself videotaped getting your giraffe freak on.
So Katie, from what I can tell, there are about six ways to get fifteen year old boys to like you. The first way is, of course, to become a giraffe. The second way is to become World of Warcraft.
The third way is to be something called “hot”. Now Katie, I would argue that there are at least two distinct definitions of hot. There is the, like, normal human definition which is “that individual seems suitable for mating,“ and then there’s the weird culturally-constructed definition of hot, which means “that individual is malnourished, and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts.” Now, boys may find that hot now but I don’t think there’s anything inherently hot about it; like I think if you went back to the eighteenth century and you asked a fifteen year old boy, “Would you like to marry a woman who has had plastic bags needlessly inserted into her breasts?”, that fifteen year old boy would probably be like “What’s plastic?”
The fourth way to get a boy to like you is to be yourself. Now, I’m contractually obligated as an adult to give that advice, even though it doesn’t work. But yeah, be yourself even though no one has any idea what it means to “be yourself”. Like, whose self would I otherwise be being?
The fifth way to get boys to like you is to meet their expectations by acting like you’re an idiot. There’s this famous poem by e.e. cummings that partly goes “the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids’ flutter which says we are for each other.” And like nothing against the quality of that lady’s eyelid flutter, but why is it that women’s eyelids are always fluttering while men’s brains are always working? So yeah, you can buy into the cultural constructions that young women are supposed to be stupid and awkward and eyelid fluttery, which of course, Katie, is totally easy to do because sometimes you feel stupid and sometimes you feel awkward and sometimes you wanna get all eyelid fluttery. But the great secret of boys which they are right now denying in the comments of this very Youtube video is that sometimes they feel stupid and sometimes they feel awkward and sometimes they feel all eyelid fluttery! When you realize that all brains gesture and all eyelids flutter and everybody feels awkward, boys will like you because we will be scared of your knowledge!
The sixth way to get boys to like you: consider different boys. Katie, I have two words for you: nerd boys. Katie, I know that nerd boys don’t sparkle in the sunshine but they’re sensitive, they’re caring, they’re sweet, they’ll do nice stuff for you. They’re a little bit needy, I will grant you that they’re a little bid needy.
Oh, and lastly, let me explain something briefly to boys: Gentlemen, nerd girls are the world’s greatest under-utilized romantic resource. And guys, do not tell me that nerd girls aren’t hot because that shows a Paris Hilton-esque failure to understand hotness.
I pledge allegiance to this whole thing. Thank you, Mr. Green
After receiving pledges totaling more than its goal of $100 million by a year-end deadline, the Ecuadorian government last week announced that it would move forward with the so-called Yasuni ITT Initiative, an innovative plan to leave untapped more than 900 million barrels of crude oil beneath a pristine Amazonian nature reserve, in exchange for annual international donations.
An interesting approach to preserving the rain forest and its tribes by getting international monetary support. Too often the arguments against deforestation are over simplified, not taking into account the dependency on oil revenue. Finally there is a proposal that offers the developing country something in return for the very real economic sacrifice they are making.
“I have been on my own journey. I will admit that. It has been a battle for me with my religion,” said Gregoire, who is Catholic. “I have always been uncomfortable with the position that I have taken publicly. And then I came to realize the religions can decide what they want to do but it is not OK for the state to discriminate.”
Ms. Gregoire, it is lovely to have you fully on board at last.
Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
I love this passage so much. Anyone who travels or moves with frequency knows all too well, our center is constantly shifting. Of course, so is everyone else’s. But at some point you pause, and in that pause you realize that you no longer have a singular home. There is no one place the come back to because the people and things you care about stretch across the map like a web. Your happiness is fractured. To varying degrees, everywhere you go something or someone is always missing.
Here is hoping in 2012 the missing is outweighed by the end of missing and the lions share of that particular impatience can be laid to rest.
Eva and I returned from Ecuador, where I spent a week explaining to everyone who tried to talk to her that she only spoke taco (ie, pollo, carne asada, dos, etc). On the day before we were leaving she decided to ponerse las pilas (literally put her batteries in) and learn some spanish. My goddaughter and I taught her to say the following, which will almost certainly never be relevent.
Permiso. Permiso. Emergencia. Es una fiesta de corbata negra? Tengo que traer me caballo negro? Si lo es, tengo que hacer una llamada. [pausa] Es una fiesta de caballo negro? Tengo que traer mi corbata negra? Tengo que hacer dos llamadas.
Excuse me. Excuse me. Emergency. Is a black tie party? Should I bring my black horse? If so, I have tomake a call. [pause] Is this party a black horse party?Should I bring myblack tie? I have to make two calls.
Eva can make it all the way through this after extensive practice. Though she pauses in all the wrong places, it is still a charming effort. Bien hecho, friend, well done!
sweetupndown:
you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you. Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE. The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items. That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your gonna hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.