"Difficult People" Too Difficult For Me.

I super love Amy Poehler, and she is an Executive Producer of a new Hulu original series "Difficult People," so I gave it a shot. I couldn't even get through the first episode. The main characters aren't remotely likable, there isn't anything to make you want to root for them in the slightest, and they aren't quite cool enough to get to that feeling of "love to hate them."

No, they don't.

It’s like when you have a villain. You have The Joker, Hydra, Regina George. These people are so terrible, you hate them. You’re meant to hate them, even when you are meant to empathize with their beginnings (like Two Face!). They come in and they accept and embrace their terribleness and then they unleash it on people. Some are specific, like Hydra mostly targeting SHIELD, and some hate and terrorize everyone (*ahem* Regina George).

But these two main characters are just very stereotypically narcissistic. They are rude, they hate everyone, they have zero accountability or sense of decorum in any situation. The male character just up and leaves in the middle of his shift as a waiter because he doesn’t feel like being there. It’s not even funny, unfortunately.

And funny would have saved it. Maybe it’s like Parks & Rec, which started off kind of boring and not funny for the first few episodes, and then season 2 picked up and it just kept getting better and funnier as the characters figured out who they were. Unfortunately for "Difficult People," I will never know if this is true, because I couldn’t even get through the entirety of the very first one. My friend Desiree (check out her business here!) told me she watched all 4 episodes currently available, and it didn't get better after the first 2. Her exact words are "They are unbearable. Not funny, not interesting. Nothing is really going on. I'm so disappointed."

Here’s the thing. I understand that the show is about narcissists and trying to show what the world is like to people who truly believe it revolves around them. The LA Times discusses this theme, and says, “The charm of "Difficult People" is that it refuses to deal in charm.” But unlike the author of that article, Mary McNamara, I don’t really see how “self-centeredness has become not just predictable, but synonymous with adorable.” I do not agree that the abusive and painful nature of real narcissism is worth watching. As the title states, the show is about Difficult People. But why should I spend my time cringing from the main characters and feeling bad for their victims? Isn't the whole point of TV to be entertaining, sometimes thought-provoking, but mostly a story in which we can escape the unrelenting realness of being a responsible adult in the real world?

In what way is it entertaining to watch people bully their way through life expecting everything to go their way and then getting mad at the world when it doesn’t? If that was what I wanted to watch, I’d go get a toddler. At least in a toddler it is an understandable and somewhat acceptable way to learn how life works. A toddler doesn’t get what they want, and that kid cries. But it learns that they don’t always get what they want. Instead of watching a funny show meant for entertainment value, we’re left with an example of what happens when you never tell your child ‘no’ and allow them to believe that the world owes them something just for being in it.

As someone who is often lumped into the "millenial generation" and all of which that entails, I can understand the hate somewhat. Not that I believe most of what people assume about Millenials to be true, anyway. After all, I'm considered one and I manage to be an upstanding contributing member of society without narcissistic tendencies and I hate "participation trophies." Why would we watch a world in which these characters were always told they were a special snowflake, that they deserve all the best in life without working for it, and at best, never taught empathy or how to be polite?

Variety author Brian Lowry likens it to a Seinfeld vibe in some ways, with “the hardened shells that New Yorkers develop to navigate their way through such a densely packed city.” And he claims “watching [sic] was no chore at all.”  I do not agree with this, and it feels like more of a fluffy review than McNamara’s more intense and detailed explanation and review delving into the reasons why these people are the way they are, and discussing why this show makes sense the way it is, along with her reasons why the narcissism is displayed this way.

In the end, I watch TV to relax, and be entertained, and unfortunately, this show allowed neither.

Has anyone else seen this show? Am I simply missing something (perhaps the needed acerbic sense of humor)? What did you think?

Passwords Are Hard.

I read somewhere recently that becoming an adult is basically like becoming a manager, when you weren’t sure you wanted a management position. I find this perfect and hilarious. Slowly, almost so slowly you don’t realize it’s happening, you expand your responsibilities and learn to take control of situations and your finances and your life.

Being an adult is so weird. You don’t learn so many things in college, like balancing your monthly budget, how to write a good resume, what you need in a job to be happy. How the ‘dream job’ doesn’t really exist, it’s more about a job where the good outweighs the bad. Such as being fulfilling, but it still has annoying paperwork!

Ohhhh, the paperwork of life. Insurance forms, tax forms, job forms, ahhh forms! Seriously, my life is basically paperwork and passwords. I have passwords to EVERYTHING. At work alone I have to have like 7 different passwords, some of which I'm required to change every 90 days. For my computer access, email, the insurance network online, the payroll/HR access, the internal database systems, the VPN access, the list goes on.

And non-work stuff like emails, bank accounts, Words With Friends, Pinterest, Linkedin, Reddit, GEEZ. My whole life is wrapped up in about 632754 different ways to have the same 2 basic passwords. Ugh.

They say technology is amazing, and for the most part I agree. But the passwords are insane! They say you should have different passwords for everything, and I actually agree that that is safest, but I can barely remember my grandma’s phone number without looking it up (I used to have dozens of phone numbers memorized), and now the world expects me to remember (because you aren’t allowed to write them down! That’s superduper unsecure!) all these different and unique passwords for every little thing in my life. Technology has ruined my memory. I used to know how to get everywhere (and now GPS remembers for me), and I used to remember phone numbers (thanks, contacts list!), and basic math (hi there, calculator!). Yet they expect me to just remember all these different codes and passwords to get into everything!

Life is hard. Remembering your passwords to every single website in the history of the internet is harder.

Rant Time! Things I Dislike.

Time for an annual (or more often? I don't know yet!) rant on things I do not like. I always find it entertaining to see what drives people up a wall, so perhaps others will think this is entertaining as well! If not, too bad. Suck it up, buttercup, you CHOSE to come to this blog! :)

I don’t understand why some girls put up pictures of engagement rings with the caption “I said yes!” I mean, I get why they are excited and taking pictures, of course!

But shouldn’t it really be:

“Duh. Of course I said yes. Why else would I be wearing the ring, silly? No, no, you misunderstand, I said no, but then asked if he’d mind if I played dress up for awhile. Shiny!”

Other things I hate:

-Being in Times Square for any length of time. Unless I'm on my way to a Broadway show, in which case I can stomach the crowds because the reward is so worth it. Listen closely, tourists: Times Square is for you. If you visit NYC, and all you do is go to Times Square and Central Park, you cannot at all accurately state that you "did New York" or that you're a "real New Yorker now!" Just noooooo!

-People my own age calling me "dear" or "hun" or "sweetie," especially if we've just met. Or if they are younger than me. Or for any reason at all.

-I HATE horror movies. I don’t even like to watch the trailers. But, I can watch Dexter and Criminal Minds and Bones all the live-long day. I had this sudden realization, when a horror trailer came on TV and I ignored it as hard as I could, when a thought popped into my mind: “I wish this was for Criminal Minds, because I’d totally watch it.”

-Misspelled tattoos or ones with incorrect grammar. Especially if they say “No, it’s MEANT to be like that…” Of course it is. Of course you meant to misspell “mom” on the indelible ink on your body. I’m sure it has a crazy deep meaning. Or perhaps that apostrophe is just adding SYMBOLISM, dude.

-Intentional ignorance.

-That the key pad on my work desk phone is right side up and the number key pad on my computer keyboard is upside down. One or the other, people!

-My reliance on caffeine!!

-Random whistling or tuneless humming. It's just so intermittent and annoying! Whistling especially. I cannot adequately express how I feel when I hear random whistling. It feels like I have developed a twitch and and some sort of brain-stutter, and then I can't focus on ANYTHING else until I locate and eradicate the sound. Same with random dings and bells from people's computers at work, haha!

-Oh! I just thought of another thing. I strongly dislike those "like and share this for our troops/world peace/little kid's surgery/jesus" posts. Is there ANY recorded time in the history of facebook where a bunch of people "like and share" something and then something positive comes out of it? 
"Oh, hey a ton of people liked the US troops on Facebook. I shall give them more funding and proper equipment and full pay pensions. I am the President, let it be so!" 
Or "Awesome, 4 bajillion people shared that picture of the 5 year of with a cleft palate, time for me to scrub up and fix that! If only 3 bajillion had shared it, I would've just moved on to the next kid, you know." 
Or maybe God is like "Rad, half the world's population just liked a picture of Jesus. Time for me to show myself!" (That last one....that would really answer a lot of questions for a lot of people....)

-People who claim that the world is infringing on their right to freedom of speech if others disagree with them. The whole point of free speech is that you have the RIGHT to say anything you want to anyone. You DO NOT have the right to be free of the consequences of your actions and words. If you say something super racist and your employer hears you and fires you, that is NOT infringing on your rights. You are free to say whatever you want, just as your employer is free to have rules and codes of conduct in place in the workplace (and they are paying you to be there and follow these rules). If you do not follow these rules, which may include not being racist or sexist in the workplace, you can be fired. Because you have a right to free speech, not a right to employment with that particular company. This is just a single example.

-Random lights or blinking lights in a dark room. I need my bedroom dark, silent, and cold for me to get optimal sleep. A random blinking light or like those old flashing lights on VCRs and stuff, I cannot handle it. I have to face away, or unplug the offending thing. It's so weird. Once I realize there is a light there, I still think about it even when my eyes are closed. I'm a weirdo, I know.
(In answer to your question: My mother. My mother still owns a VCR.)

I can't really think of any more. This actually took a lot of thinking to come up with a bunch of things I dislike! I tend to genuinely like people and things, and find most of life pretty delightful.

So there it is, a list of things that a happy-go-lucky person doesn't like. What do you hate?

Word Facts & Words That Amuse Me

I am a reader. I love reading, I love books, and I love words. I write songs, poems, and stories, as well, so I actually spend a fairly significant amount of time thinking about words and phrasing and waxing poetic about analogies and metaphors and the like.

Here is a cool list of fun word facts about the English language, and just some words I love. Do you have favorite words, the way some people have favorite or ‘lucky’ numbers?

Here are some interesting word facts!

-A fact I’ve found to be fairly common is that “dreamt” is the only word in the English language that ends in “mt.”

-The word "triskaidekaphobia" means "extreme fear of the number 13". This superstition is related to "paraskevidekatriaphobia", which means "fear of Friday the 13th". Try saying that 3 times fast!

-The longest English word that can be spelled without repeating any letters is 'uncopyrightable’.

-Due to a printing error, there was a word in the English dictionary from 1932 to 1940 which didn’t have a meaning.  The word was ‘Dord’ and it became known as ‘ghost word’. (I'd never heard this one before!)

-Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pajamas (though clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").

-The word 'checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat,' meaning "the king is helpless."

-We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

-Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year.

-This symbol: # is called an octothorpe. Also known as hash, pound sign, and number sign.

-Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."

-The word 'testify' was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement, made by swearing on their testicles. (I'm not 100% sure on this one. Some sites say yes, some say no, but they seem to agree that the root word for testify is the Latin word testis, which is the Latin word for 'witness' and also was a figurative way of referring to their testicles.)

-According to Oxford English Dictionary research, an ‘x’ was first used to represent a kiss in a 1763 letter written by naturalist Gilbert White.

-‘Sarcasm’ comes from the Greek word ‘sarkazien,’ meaning ‘to tear flesh.’

Words I like because they sound funny:

Flapdoodle - nonsense, a fool (Can be pluralized as flapdoodles!)

Flapjack - more fun of a word than “pancake,” though of course “pancake” does explain what it is a little better. A small cake made of batter in a pan. Life would be easier is more things were named in a way that actually explained what they were. Instead of “shoe," we might say "foot insulator" or something!

Cattywampus - not straight or centered.

Crapulence - when you get sick because you eat or drink too much (is it a real word!)

Gobsmacked - surprised or astonished.

Skullduggery - deception or trickery.

Flabbergasted - to be overcome with surprise or bewilderment

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a disease you get from inhaling volcanic dust -- they probably could have simply used the word “disease” here...

Brouhaha - excited public interest, sensation, or discussion; HULLABALOO. (or a really hilarious coffee!)

Kerfuffle - a fuss or commotion.

Onomatopoeia  - the formation of a word by imitation of a sound (buzz, cuckoo, meow…).

My Mom “Hates” Cats

This is a text I received from my cat-hating mom: “Post more pictures of your cat on Facebook.”

When my mom married my stepdad, we had a large black Labrador and a small tabby cat. I had just gotten the kitten for Hanukkah 3 months prior to their wedding, and I was 12. I’d wanted a cat forever! My mom claimed she didn't like cats, so never let me get one. When she and my stepdad got engaged, he convinced her to let me get a rescue kitten for Hanukkah, and simply said “Don’t worry, the cat can live at my house.”

Mom readily agreed, since she wouldn't have to live with it. 3 months later, Mom and Bill got married and we moved into Bill’s house. Mom had NOT connected the dots, and suddenly found herself living with a furry little kitty who loved belly rubs and sitting on people’s shoulders.

About 4 years later, we added a second black Labrador to our house. At that point another of my brothers had moved out. In case you were wondering, dogs are better than big brothers!

To this day, we still laugh about how Mom got suckered into living with a cat. It’s not our fault she didn't realize she’d be living with it!

In the end, Mom loved that little furball. He was really easygoing, loved to be pet and cuddled and was very sweet. Mom insisted on calling him “Dog” (his name was Chance).

To be fair, Mom had an issue with names. I am the only daughter and the youngest sibling, with 4 brothers above me. Every time Mom needed one of us, she would cycle through a few names before getting to the one she needed. I grew up thinking my name was “Dane-Charlie-Jyss-dammit, YOU!”

Chance is unfortunately gone from our lives, and Mom had a few cat-free years. Now my brother Charlie has a cat, Toothless, whose main characteristic is, unsurprisingly, a mouth completely free of teeth. Toothless is a sweet and loving cat, and my mom now has a new cat friend.

Fiance and I got a kitten almost 3 months ago. This little dude is named Dexter, and he is an incredibly fluffy ball of kitten-energy. Mom came to NYC to help me pick a wedding dress, and despite her claim of lifelong cat-hatred, not only allowed the cat to SLEEP with her at night while she was there, but then she was so cute about it. The next morning, she tells me “He just came and sat by my head, and I just pet him for a really long time! He didn’t even move!”

I’m sure you can really feel the underlying simmering hatred of kitties.

Even though it has only been a couple of months, this cat has doubled in size since we got him. Again, he is incredibly fluffy. He’s a Siberian! Rawr!

Though Fiance and I have undoubtedly become Cat People, with kitty toys strewn across the living room, and talking to him as if he understands us, I have not been a nutbar about posting never-ending cat pictures on facebook. I’ve posted a few, like on his 4-months-from-birthday day, to show how much he’s grown, but I have not been ‘crazy cat lady” posting.

SIDE NOTE: The phrases “4 month birthday” or “3 month anniversary” drive me insane! I’m sure I’ve made the mistake of saying it before, and then probably hated myself in a corner for awhile after. It’s just...it doesn’t make sense! Anniversary denotes one time ANNUALLY. Birthday is the ONE TIME EACH YEAR on which it is the anniversary of your birth. “6-month birthday” is not actually a thing. It does not exist. Think about that for awhile.

Anyway, this whole post is to tell you how my mom texted me that I should post more cat pictures online for her to look at. Weirdly, she didn’t even ask for me to text or email them directly to her. She wants me to post them on facebook so that EVERYONE can enjoy my glorious, majestic, not-so-graceful kitty. Why would she want to hoard cat pictures when she can make everyone she knows admire them? After all, Dexter is her grandkitty.

Look at this fluffy belly! Irresistible!

I agree, Mom. I should totally post more cat pictures. Dexter is frickin’ ADORABLE and deserves the world’s admiration.

Awwww, my fluffy little buddy :)

I Love Sleep Like A Fat Puppy Loves Bacon

I wonder what life is like for those who love and live with insomniacs? I assume it’s mostly hearing complaints of how tired the other person is, and detailed accounts of how they slept from night to night. There is also the inevitable waking up from the other person’s tossing and turning, and of course occasionally being punched awake because it is just SO UNFAIR that you get to sleep comfortably and easily while the other person has been struggling with only a couple hours of sleep per night for a week now!

Insomnia is an insidious ailment. If you don’t have it, then you definitely don’t understand how it feels. It can be minimized so easily, which is incredibly frustrating. “Oh, you have insomnia? Yeah, me too, One time it took me forever to fall asleep!” or “Yeah, I get it man, last night I stayed up late with friends and only got 4 hours of sleep.”

REALLY? I have cycles where now and again I get to go about 2-3 weeks without sleeping more than 2-4 hours per night, and most of those hours are interspersed with waking up and not being able to fall back asleep. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, it takes me a long time to fall asleep. I try to circumvent this by knowing and using my optimal sleeping conditions (dark, silent, cold: I call it my Crypt), and going to bed a little early, and not drinking caffeine after 12 pm, and even then sometimes my brain just screws me over and won’t shut up for no reason!

I am careful about what medications I take, in case they have side effects involving messing with sleep patterns. I have to start trying to relax and not think too much long before bedtime. If I have an argument with Fiance, BAM, NO SLEEP. If I am anxious, nervous, excited about something, or upset, then I know I have an uphill battle to fall asleep that night. Doesn’t matter if it is excitement over something good or anxiety about something negative. I never sleep the night before the first day of school or a new job. Ever. When I’m traveling, sometimes just being in a weird bed in a different country keeps me from sleeping.

Insomnia is terrible. It is a sneaky bastard of a disease, that people who don’t have it do not understand or really sympathize with. If I had a broken leg or a really bad cold, those are things that people can see and understand and empathize with. But simply being “tired” is just not seen as an illness. It’s not seen as a "disease" at all to most people.

I go through cycles. Sometimes I sleep fine, sometimes I have a longer-than-normal falling asleep period, and sometimes I just plain don’t sleep through the night. It’s incredibly frustrating, and there isn’t THAT much you can do for it.

There are medications like Ambien. I LOVE AMBIEN. I take it when I get to a point where I KNOW I am in a bad cycle, and I just need to get some sleep, for my health and well being. But because I have a high tolerance for meds, I can only take Ambien occasionally. If I take it too often, it will not work the second or third time. Sometimes I try Zzzquil or Nyquil. Sometimes I try over the counter sleep aids or other remedies. Ambien for sure works the best to actually put me to sleep, but I just don’t have the option of taking it every night, and sometimes I don’t know until it is too late that I am having a bad night, and then it’s simply too late at night to take an Ambien, as I wouldn’t get up for work (I need to have a full 8 hours of time between when the ambien kicks in and when I wake up in the morning in order not to feel drugged or groggy the next day).

There are suggestions like not looking at phone/computer/TV screens in the last hour before bed, as this will help your brain be less stimulated. There are a lot of suggestions, but outside of Ambien, few have actually worked for me. Sometimes I fall asleep well simply because of exhaustion, so that can work, too.

The worst is the end of a bad cycle. Usually I can take an Ambien or something and finally have a really good night of sleep, which helps to end the cycle of bad nights, putting me back on a good path for awhile. But now and then, that won’t work, and I just end up having to let my body basically get to the point of exhaustion, then I get some sleep and am able to bounce back.

Here’s my truth: I have gotten physically sick from having a compromised immune system from lack of sleep. I have literally gotten colds, or bronchitis, or really bad headaches simply from lack of sleep. I've had regular illnesses that have nothing to do with sleep be exacerbated by lack of adequate rest.

My quest for sleep is one of the most important things in my life. I happily go out of my way to do things or avoid things that may mess with my ability to sleep that night. I make sure to always take a couple of ambien with me when I travel...just in case. I am careful not to eat or drink anything with too much sugar later in the day. I stop with coffee by midday. I start to psyche myself into sleep. I have routines that I religiously stick to, as they seem to help.

One way that I try to help turn my brain off is counting. At night, in the dark, I get into my comfiest position and I count my breaths. I try to breathe in and out deeply and count them, trying to focus on one at a time. Sometimes I literally get up to 500 before I give up on counting.

I know this seems trivial, trying to raise awareness in a small way about the trials and tribulations of an insomniac. But I have to tell you: my search for a good night's sleep is often at the top of my mind on a regular basis. No matter how tired I am during the day, I try never to nap, as napping screws up my chances of a regular sleep cycle that night. 

I crave sleep like some people crave chocolate cake.

Sleep, I love you, won't you come back to me?

How Much Is Too Much For A Wedding?

I am not necessarily talking about money (budget for event) here. I know some people are willing and able to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a wedding, and hey, if you can afford that easily and want to spend it, you do you. I am not willing to spend that much, and we do have a budget and are trying to stay within that, but still want to put on a nice event, of course!

I mean, how much is too much to expect from others? I have been invited to many weddings, and have attended many weddings. As for out of town ones that require flights and hotels, I am generally down to do that for very close friends and family, and not willing to spend that kind of money for people I don’t know as well or am not as close to.

But now that I am on the other side of this dilemma, it has become even more important to figure out how much is TOO much?

I live in NYC, but we’re getting married in Florida, and no matter where we have it, significant amounts of family members on both sides have to travel to be there. Is it unfair to expect travel and hotel stays? If so, how would people from 2 different places ever have their family together for a wedding?

We have figured out a way to partially mitigate the cost for travelers. Originally, the venue we really liked was out of the main part of town, in a suburb, and the closest hotel was 12 miles away. It was also about 40 minutes from the airport. In order for people to come, in addition to the flight and hotel, they really would have been required to rent a car. We were planning to pay for some sort of shuttle service from the hotel to the venue, but for the rest of the time, if you didn't rent a car, you’d basically be a prisoner at the hotel.

To mitigate this cost for travelers, we've decided to look at a different venue, a hotel IN the city, closer to the airport and to local stuff in town. The hotel would be the wedding venue and the guests could stay there, and the hotel offers free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel, as well as to a few parts of the city near the hotel. This immediately negates the need for guests to rent a car if they will only be there for the actual wedding weekend! We are willing to absorb slightly higher wedding costs for this venue, in order to make it easier for people to come.

Do other people planning a wedding consider this? Is this normal to include in our thought process, or do people just plan whatever they want and assume people can afford it? I know that guests tend to get fairly advanced notice for weddings, so there is time to plan and save. But I have declined to attend weddings before that were just too much hassle. A car rental in addition to a hotel and a flight is a lot of hassle! Especially if I don’t know anyone else in that city, or if the wedding is out in the middle of nowhere.

It’s tough to know where to draw the line. We want to be married with our family and friends in attendance, and to have that once in a lifetime wedding celebration. No matter where we have it, it will require travel by a lot of family, and the location we chose is significantly less expensive than the location where we live! We want to be able to have the people we love to celebrate with us, and not make it a huge pain for them to be there.

In addition, since many of my family doesn't live in NYC, we have not planned any big engagement party, and I wasn't planning to have a big shower, or have a travel-bachelorette-party. I don’t want to ask people to travel multiple times. I just want to have a big, fun, family wedding! Does this go against tradition? Somewhat. But I don’t care. I’d rather people be able to come to the main event over any extraneous thing they feel obligated to attend. My sister said that’s silly and if people want to throw me a shower, I should let them. But what if some of the attendees end up spending more than they anticipated to come to the shower and can no longer come to the wedding? This is a real concern for me. I can afford some trips, but not every trip every year. I do okay, but I don’t always have a lot extra at the end of the month. I just want people to be there to celebrate this big day in our lives. Gifts are not necessary, let your presence be your gift to us!

So, how much is too much for weddings? Is it too much when the bride wants to do Vegas for a weekend for a bachelorette? For me, it is. I don’t want to ask my bridesmaids (and bridesmen!) to spend that kind of money, when they are already obligated to the dress/tux/being at the wedding expenses. If I were asked to do that for a friend’s wedding, I’d love the Vegas trip, but may need to choose between the trip and the wedding, in terms of my budget.

Is it too much to expect people to travel the one time, for the actual celebration? I hope not! There will be open bar to compensate, I swear!!

What were your experiences with this? Did you feel obligated to do all the extraneous activities, or did you want them, or did you choose not to do those at all? How did you feel about mitigating costs for out-of-towners (if applicable)? I’d love any advice!