I AM EMBEDDED, BUT NOT BIASED - FRIDAY NIGHT RAMBLE #600000001 Apr 26 '03    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line I do not have zits on my @$$! Well *$&#^# and hello people. I can’t believe this shxt. You know, I wait two years to make my glorious reappearance at Epinions, planning, primping, going on a diet, and even ordering me some Proactiv solution from the TV so I would be ready to do this Friday night ramble thing, only to find out that the gloryseeking young man who started this thing, the fella who let loose with a mighty whine when mr.eyore was late with his ramble, has suddenly dropped the ball when it comes to pimping my shot at this puppy. Well, young whippersnapper, who needs you any way. This isn’t a Friday Night Ramble anyway, it’s a Friday night rant. So what’s up first? Uh, where have I been for two years? Let’s see, it goes like this: pain, suffering, anguish, anxiety, guilt, pain, suffering, crazy, guilt, love, anger, love, pain, guilt, suffering, love. If you want details, then bless you for caring. Of course, they are none of your freakin’ business. What’s up second? Booze. I was wondering when I would get a chance to buy some booze for this occasion. I usually go to the grocery store with my 5 year old daughter and for some reason I feel like it is not cool to buy liquor when I have a little kid in tow. I mean, seriously, I am always looking in people’s carts and making judgements about the kind of people they are based on what they are buying. I know that the guy who is buying a gallon of mouthwash and a jug of some crappyass vodka is the on the job closet drinker who thinks he is fooling his boss with that Listerine. I know other people will be judging me the same way. And that’s not so good because these days I look pretty trashy (it is a look I have carefully cultivated) and I don’t have a ring, and I got me a kid, and I know that at least a few people are waiting for me to pull out my foodstamps (which I don’t have, but even if I did, don’t you freaking be begrudging me my treats, douchebag!), so if they see me buying booze with a kid, they will start thinking I am some kind of evil bad mother, and if I ever disappear, I will be Chandra Levied and they will check my purchases at the grocery store (that you Mr. Ashcroft for keeping all that info handy) and look on my computer and see that I have traded smutty emails with mr.eyore and they will publish this stuff in the paper, and I will look like I deserved to die or something. So, in short, I didn’t want to go buy booze. Instead, I got lucky and snagged an invite to a little dinner party in a fancy neighborhood with a bunch of scholar types, got snockered in an acceptable fashion (drinking fine wine), got a ride home from a non-imbiber, and sat down to write this thing. And speaking of dinner parties. I had a good time with some great friends. It means a lot to me because I have not so many friends anymore who live close at hand. Many have moved away in the last few years. That’s the sad thing about graduate school. You spend years bonding with these really great, smart people and then, in order to get a piddlyass academic job that pays jack you have to be willing to move your sorry butt to Blowhole, Minnesota or something. I decided I am not gonna do this. Very liberating decision on my part (however I may still insist that people address me as Dr. or Professor). Speaking of friends, I have a former one, who damned me with faint praise, calling me “an attractive older woman with great skin” (never mind that this person is only a few years younger than me). Anyway, pretty much since the time that statement was made, my “great skin” had taken a turn for the worse. And I cannot stand it. So yeah, I really did order some of that Proactiv stuff off the TV. It arrived yesterday. The postman left it on my doorstep in a big box that said “I HAVE ZITS” on it. It didn’t really say that, but it did have the name PROACTIV in big letters on it, and you know, I think this is kind of bad, because I think I would rather have my mailman leave a stack of hardcore porn on my doorstep than a package that says “I HAVE ZITS.” But you know the humiliation doesn’t end there. The next morning as I am getting out of the shower, the kid comes in (“I can’t wait mommy, I have to go NOW!”) and plops herself on the toilet so that she can take care of business and get some good looks at mommy while she is naked. So I start doing the new zit routine and the kid points out to me that I probably ought to put some of the zitcream on my butt as well. Thankfully, this struck me as more funny than anything else (and I do not have zits on my @$$!). Back to the topic of friends. I have made some really good friends at Epinions. It is weird because the internet, and Epinions, is so full of phonies and poseurs and liars and creeps, yet I have managed to become REAL friends with 7 people from this site. At first I used to marvel at the incredible luck there was in finding 7 people who turned out to be what they said they were, but I’ve thought about it more and it doesn’t really seem so surprising any more. People reveal themselves when they write these epinions reviews. It isn’t the short bio, the listing of degrees, the profile picture, the claims of hotness or brilliance, or importance. It’s the actual writing. What they write about, how they write about it and how they talk about themselves. The guy who writes with such humane humor about train traveling to godforsaken cities in California is someone I want to know. The girl who writes about time travel with a wacky seriousness, the one who writes about books with such a passion (while also showing her love for People magazine), the searingly funny armslength one, the youthful and inspiring gonna be somebody someday soon one, the deceptively deep music one, the one who can discourse on anything from Buffy to Chomsky. I love these people yes, I do. But wait, I digress. I mean from my rant. I can’t end this happy. I am cranky, dammit. Despite the fact that epinions has made me some good friends, I am still embarrassed as all get out by my association with this place. I think you all are a bunch of freaks with your online clubs and friends. And you people who feel the need to tell me over and over again how hott you are, how smart you are, how many degrees you have, how many languages you speak, what a great freakin’ mom you are—just shut the hell up. If it’s true, be happy and revel in it, but stop trying to sell me on that pile of hoohaw. The harder you sell, the less I am buying. And why do you need me to buy it anyway? HUH? What up with that? Okay that’s it. I am passing this torch on now because I just deleted a bunch of really kind of not very nice stuff (though it was funny—I think I am mostly only funny if I am being mean). Jennifernorth, glossy bling bling princess of the progressive American Youth Movement—a guarantee of your particiaption in this thing was secured when mr.eyore sent you the coveted People’s Court tape. You be the next writer.

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