"This just proves what my boyfriend always says - that I am dumber than a French whore." -Tina Fey

When I play games with Hill, I am pathetic. I think it's a combination of her having very, very good game karma and me having very bad karma. I'm not a believer in karma usually, but I swear, Object Karma has to exist somewhere. (What else could explain how well I do with cars or cameras or games?)

For example, there is this card game called Phase 10 that the kids at her work play and that Hill has now picked up for home use. It's fun. The card deck is akin to Uno (four colors, numbered cards) and you're given a list of 10 phases. The first phase is to get two sets of three cards of the same number, the second is to get a run of three cards in a row plus one set of three cards of the same number, and it goes on and on for 10 levels. During the game, you draw a card from discard or the draw pile and discard one per turn, hoping to achieve that required set of cards. After you've achieved that, you hope to get rid of your extra cards, which you can throw into someone else's or your own already-set cards. Whoever is cardless first ends that phase. So you may or may not be done achieving your phase by the time that round's over. Whoever gets the tenth phase done first wins. Get the picture?

Anyway, I have beat Hill ONCE at this game. (And that was a close one.) Normally she totally kicks my ass. Part of it is, as I said, total game karma. When cards are dealt to her, most of the time she magically is dealt almost all or all of the cards she needs for that round and thus she's done in 5 seconds. (When you play Monopoly with her, she also tends to land on the best properties first and make more money than you will too.) But the rest of the time� it is my own damn fault. There's something about gaming these days- and this is only when Hill's around, somehow, that makes my brain short. out. Seriously, I keep forgetting what phase I'm in and then collecting cards for another one, or discarding a card that I could have thrown into one of the piles of the table, or discarding the one card Hill needs to phase out. This is like, every other turn that I pull these things. It's gotten to the point where she now has to ask me at every turn what phase I'm on so I don't forget. How sad am I? It's especially embarrassing when you know your roommate's thinking "Oh my god, she is SUCH A DITZ." And you really have to agree with that assessment.

So anyway, during yet another brain fart moment on my part, she's all (teasing) "You're such a dork," and starts singing that to the tune of the Smurfs theme song, which we both had stuck in our heads. And after she does a verse of that, I chime in with (also to the same tune) something akin to "Yes, I'm the queen of dorks, nobody's worse than me," etc. And that kinda freaked her out.

"You're making fun of yourself. That is so� bizarre. Why on earth do you do that?"

I kinda shrugged. "Well, um, everybody does it, and I'm such an easy target, I can't resist. I might as well get there first."

"That's sick."

Is it sick? Really?

Part of it is family culture- Dad's side (the jerky side) is all about ragging on people like that. I brought a little ukulele I'd gotten for Christmas when I was about six over to their house and heard "So, Jennie, how's your punk rock band?" jokes for the next TEN YEARS. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you, that kind of thing. Which is why I tend to just hide in a corner and keep my mouth shut around them. Part of it is, let's face it, being a nerdgirl. I've been dogged on since kindergarten. At any rate, I'm used to people making lame jokes about me, and this being an inevitable and unpreventable thing. It happens, and it happens often. That's my life.

At some point during the years, I decided to join in wit the rest of them. Honestly, that makes the whole thing more fun. See if I can outinsult them, plus I don't mind if it's me doing the dirty work. Besides, let's face it, I am SUCH the easy target for this kind of thing. Back at the Northern CA journallers gathering awhile back, Jan and Sunshyn came up with the idea of a parody site for me being something like foolmoon.dairyland.com, and you know what? I could so parody myself.

"Dear Diary, all these men are chasing me and I can't stand them! Whatever shall I do? Why, nothing, of course, because I'm not allowed to say no to a man! Ever! Thus, I must writhe in agony forever and then marry them! Aiee!"

"Dear Diary, job hunting sucks, my mommy hates my hair, and my clothes are ugly. Whine whine whine mooch off Mommy for money!"

"Dear Diary, my astrology chart told me that I should expect yet MORE mondo shit happening to me in the future, yet my tarot card readings said things would go well! Which should I believe?"

"Dear Diary, my roommate thinks I'm a moron and most of my friends hate me. And I agree with them!"

See? Wasn't that easy? Took me like, a minute to come up with those. But is it like, WRONG to know exactly what my flaws are and dis on them too? Am I like, totally twisted? (Well, yes, obviously�) But let's face it: I'm a big old dork. I was a big old dork on the day of my birth and have been ever since. I have no anything cool about me whatsoever. The evidence:

* I have no inner knowledge as to what's regarded as cool or uncool in life. I was reading Metafilter and there's a thread on "Why Creed Sucks So Hard" or something like that, and was all "Creed's who? That band with the guy with the hair going on about sacrifice? They're okay, I guess, but whatever." Hell, I used to like Celine Dion (and went to a concert of hers. Voluntarily. And I don't like going to concerts!) until that goddamn Titanic song came out. On chat they were discussing the genius that is Bruce Campbell and I had no idea who that was- turns out he's in (a) Xena/Hercules shows that I don't watch and (b) B-movie horror flicks, which I also don't watch. And I won't even get into how my dad was Not Into British Humor and thus I never saw a Monty Python anything until I was 20. (Ditto cable and anything ever shown on that. Music videos? What are those? They only exist at Aunt Susie's house.) I'm quite out of the loop about many things. Hell, I hang out with geeks and I know practically nothing about geek culture. I've only sporadically seen any seasons of Star Trek. I was the secretary of a LUG, and yet my Linux knowledge is pretty spotty. I have web sites, and yet am baffled by the whole hosting thing. I have been known to hang around Vampire: The Masquerade folks, and yet felt weirded out by the actual game. I hung around poly crowds, yet felt like I was somehow "too square" for them. I have always wanted to be a club kid, and yet the club kids didn't want me around. Pretty soon my youth will be gone, and I'll have NEVER gotten to go clubbing in a real club (I do not count Davis's one dance club/restaurant/sports bar as one). It's like I can never win, I swear. The only time I ever feel all cool and in the know is on chat and on 3WA because I'm a posting ho. (Yup, no life here.)

* I have improved in the clothing realm since I was a child, but MAN, no wonder everyone made fun of me, even beyond my glasses. I wore lots of pink. I wore leggings. I wore odd legwarmer-y pants. I was known to end up wearing different colored socks and/or shoes to school (nope, not even on purpose- I didn't notice). My bangs were always doing something heinous. I crimped my hair. If you thought Wing looked scary in her 8th grade photo with her hair going in two different directions, picture the same squinched-eye girl, only with one random braid hanging off the side of her head all by itself because the cameraguy insisted on tilting my head at exactly the wrong angle for the hairdo and bangs welded together. Gawd, I was heinous. It took me YEARS to figure out what other people were wearing and to copy them so I wouldn't get made fun of as bad. I pegged my pants for years after people had stopped doing that, so obviously I wasn't too swift on the changing times.

* Social skills: Most of the time I tried to hide in the back so nobody would notice me to pick on me. That doesn't work.

Really, I am just the uber-dork of dorkettedom. I can't even remotely pretend to fit in with those of my generation as one of the cool ones, ain't no way I could get into a sorority, I don't have any "cool points" among my particular subset of geeks�.man, no wonder people make fun of me! I might as well join the crowd!

(And now, moving on to a completely different topic altogether, because I hate waiting around to post one subject per entry...)

So over at The Usual Suspects forum, all kinds of feminism-esque topics have been coming up lately, which has been pretty damn interesting to read about. It all started, as far as I can tell, with one of those threads about whether or not a woman getting married can/will/should/whatever change her given last name to her husband's, keep hers, or come up with some other alternative altogether. Those always peak my interest, so I read along.

In a personal sense, I don't really care what people decide on the issue, as long as they've thought about it as opposed to it being a name change by default or because that's what wives do or the husband whined at her until she gave in. There's good reasons to change (an example being if your maiden name sucks- I know my friend Anna can't wait to ditch her 15-letter, always-misspelled last name) and there's good reasons to not change (I already published under my maiden) on the personal level. I have no intention of changing should I ever (HAH!) have the issue come up because (a) I'm the last of the family, (b) with a generic first name like I've got, nobody will ever know who I am again if I change it, plus (c) the publishing issue. Were I not into writing or hated my last name or had a more distinct first name, my opinions on this might be different. I'm not against the entire idea of taking someone's name- in some ways it's sweet- but for me, I choose not to.

And I'm glad I CAN make that choice, because a few decades ago I couldn't have. Thing is, I'm not sure that a whole lot of people are really choosing, as in, it's something they really want to do. I was looking around for statistics on how many women keep their names and how many change, and a whopping 90 percent change! NINETY! PERCENT! That blows me away that it is still such an established thing that women lose their given names. And reading boards about this, it shocks me that some people will outright IGNORE what some married women want to be called and just call them Mrs. Hisname. Ugh. I have to admit that Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname does give me the creeps, though. Hello, no longer an appendage! (And I always preferred Ms. If the guy doesn't have to specify that he's married, why do I? Plus it sounds cool when said in a Southern accent.)

What got interesting was when some people basically indicated that they look down on those who do change their names because they're kind of "letting down the side," as it were. On the one hand, it's not exactly right to say that, but on the other� I can so see that point of view. The more women that DO change their names (90 percent), for whatever reason, do kind of make it a lot harder for those who do not. I'm not saying that everyone should keep their name because of feminism (and no, you shouldn't if you really don't want to), but I can't deny that the vast majority of women who make that choice, for whatever reason, are affecting the few that don't. When most people are doing it, those who don't are the ones who are getting the crap dished out at them. It's not an accepted enough choice as yet for it to totally be regarded as a personal choice, if you get what I mean. It's not common enough for it not to be a big deal if you keep or change your name. And until that is a more accepted practice to think about name change� well, it's most likely gonna stay that way. But it probably won't be more accepted in my lifetime- betcha when I'm 90 the percent of women who change names will be at like, 80.

Conforming is a pretty big deal in society, even today. I know that I'm pretty much considered a 'failure' as a woman in my family because of my lack of caring about cooking and cleaning and babies of my very own, etc., plus being a feminist and all. This isn't such a huge deal as long as I'm single, but if I ever get married, the shit WILL hit the fan. And I have to admit that this is one of the reasons why I want to avoid getting married. I have enough fighting going on right now without having to constantly defend myself over my name, my house, my childlessness, etc. when being a wife (right now) tacitly says to the world that I have interest in these things. If I'm not marrying the guy, they can bitch at me for that, but it makes it harder for them to complain about my lack of expected womanhood that automatically comes with wifedom.

(And another segue...)

Well, I should (if I'm lucky) hear about the job tomorrow. I'm pretty calm about it, actually. You know, if I get it, it'll be nice to have some money in, work with nice people, short commute, make more bucks than before for a few months and add to the savings. But if I don't, then I can keep searching for a permanent job without feeling guilty, I can continue to sleep in and get my rest, I don't have to figure out what I do with regards to unemployment now, and maybe get even more money in the end. It won't kill me to miss out. Or so I'm telling myself now, anyway. No need to get the hopes up, even though I've generally felt pretty well about this. It won't be an enormous bummer to not get it. I will be fine. Though feeling like I didn't do my best in the interview's a good sign, so who knows? It won't kill me to not be someone's top pick for a temporary data entry position. Right?

Though I'm SO not looking forward to waiting around for the phone to ring tomorrow. I hate that. Nothing guarantees that you won't get a call like sitting around waiting for a call, and don't I know it!

I wasn't too thrilled that tonight's Buffy involved the extremely gory, bad-outfitted, catatonic world of fast food, though. Man, when I think about me maybe having to get a job like that, I could just die. I'd puke during the training video. But� as they indicated, when you're desperate, what else are you gonna do? (I SO wanted to run off with Spike when he came in, though. Between "You don't belong here" and "I can get you money," I was all "Take ME! I'll go for it!")

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