TAP

Listening to: Jackie Greene
“I don’t live inside a land forgotten.”

Chicks.

We hyperanalyse, it’s the way we are.

We can sit down and meticulously tear apart every scenario, sentence and word down to the possible meaning of every syllable. With several alternatives.

That’s what chicks do, we think our thoughts out loud and we need female counterparts who will help us to do that.

Such a connection that develops over such venting and analysis can be more intimate than that shared in a shrink’s office. Hence it follows that we can only bond with those whom we trust and feel most comfortable doing it with.

The Analysis Partner (TAP) will therefore need to fulfill the following criteria:

1. Be completely honest with you i.e. If you look fat in that skirt, she will tell you without mincing her words. Better to face humiliation in front of her than from, say, a snickering date.

2. Take your side when you’re in the middle of a venomous rage. Nothing is worse than someone who tries to be the voice of reason while you’re having a bitchfest. Once it’s out and we’re feeling much better, then she comes in with her rationale. It’s much better accepted then. TAPs know this and have consummate timing.

3. Is able to say exactly what you need to hear at the moment that you need to hear it. If you’re feeling low and fat and psychotic, she will sit you down and say, You are completely beautiful and sane in every way and you know it, you’re just going through a phase and I will be here for you until you’re over it. And you know she means it, and that makes everything much more handle-able.

4. Is completely supportive. TAPs will stand by you and listen to your dreams and say, Yes you will be able to marry Wentworth Miller one day, unless I get to him first in which case, all bets are off.

5. She laughs and cries with you. In that sense, you always have someone who feels with you and that makes you feel less alone, and that can be a problem solver all on its own. When you go to TAP with a problem, she buffers you through the entire process by holding your hand and wiping your tears, supporting and validating you until you are ready to throw out the tissues and stand up again, with her right there beside you. The buffering may be either physical or emotion but, whatever form it may take, having it in either capacity is just as effective.

6. Whenever you need a shoulder, she is there, no questions asked.

7. She validates you. There is nothing like a friend who tells you everything that you are and that you can be. Friendships are meant to be healthy and life giving; in that way both parties can grow and mature with one another rather than one stunting the growth of the other by putdowns or emotional invalidation.

8. She keeps confidences. Self-explanatory enough I suppose. The whole point of hyperanalysing with a specific someone is only because you trust them enough to do it with, else you’ll be spilling all to some Jane in the street. Such venting can be very passionate, in the moment and emotional; it needs to be in order for it to be cathartic. The last thing we need is as a result of the venting, is a backblow that comes from an unreliable TAP blabbing all to someone else. And the product of a wagging tongue does come back around.

9. Rational. In analysis situations, the person in the midst of the calamity tends to be most affected by it. This can lead to a case of Blowing Things Wildly Out Of Proportion. TAPs are very important because they have to remain neutral and rational. She is the one who will pull the plug and divert any thoughts you may have of revenge and/or suicide towards more positive and assertive courses of action.

10. Has a sense of humor (optional but preferred). After all, who needs two Sulky Susans in an apparently depressive situation. Approaching it with someone who does it with humor tends to defuse the situation thus making things seem a whole lot less glum.

I know I’ve listed a few things and it’s not in order of importance or preference, they are just things that I’ve learnt from some very valued TAPs of my own. And I know, I’ve tended to use ’she’ and ‘her’ while writing because females tend to fulfill this TAP criteria best. There are however exceptions to the rule and I know a couple of male TAPs who have proven to be wonderfully effective.

However I think it has to be said that the best way to find a good TAP, is to be a good one ourselves.

Do unto others, and all that.

Order up

Hello all.

First off, my internet connection is BEYOND SUCKY and it will be a wonder if I remain on long enough to publish this post so TAD, if you’re reading this, you’ll know why I can’t come online. Please email me the details and I’ll try to find WiFi somewhere and get back to you. Sorry for the delay.

Secondly, I’m alive.

I’ve been reading Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus in an effort to understood more about the male psyche  but instead found out more about my own psyche and already halfway into the book, it has explained three quarters of our previous fights and it wasn’t as complex as I thought it was. It is simply because men and women are so completely different in thought, emotion and processing faculties.

On other news, Cranium is awesomeawesome. If you haven’t played it, you should. A bunch of us got together on the public holiday and played three rounds plus a Taboo session and by dinner I had a headache, it was quite mentally challenging, but awesomeawesome.

And has anybody else noticed that Lent is just soooooo long? 45 days including Sundays makes it about 6 weeks plus change. And it’s only now that they’ve happily changed the McDonalds’ value meal lunch time specials from weekdays to Now Every Day! And that special reminder is displayed on every TV ad, bus, billboard and magazine. Satan must be working on overtime. The bastard.

I was going through my old photos on Picassa today and it’s like, Who WAS I and had I not heard of a groomer or a fashion statement or HEELS? Then again, I think it’s one of those things where in five years I’m sure I’ll look back at my current pictures and think OMG, WHO WAS I AND DID I ACTUALLY THINK THAT DRESS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

As long as the wrinkles stay away. I think I’ll only welcome wrinkles when I’m 59.

By the way, if America is a good nation and vote appropriately for Idol, I’m pretty sure Adam Lambert has a good shot of making it. Plus with the new Judge’s Save card, even if he is booted off, I’m sure he’ll be okay. Also, I hope Paula Abdul stops orgasming/crying/stammering/predicting winners every time Adam Lambert performs or it’s gonna be a long 10 weeks.

I think it might be a toss up between Adam Lambert, Lil Rounds and Danny Gokey. In that order.
And forgive me for being totally biased but I love Anoop and he’s oh so cute, I hope he picks good songs at least for awhile because let’s face it, they made it a Top 13 for him so he better appreciate the heck out of it and DELIVER.

Anyway here’s to Easter and a return of my meat and alcohol and french fries and Coke.

My roses come free

Listening to: Jackie Wilson
“Everyday that you’ve been gone away you’ll know why my heart does nothing but burn, crying.”

Ah, Valentines.

The above is part of a series of anti-Valentine statement tees from StyleList Fashion Blog and if you’ve heard me dribble mindlessly about its current commercial value and how it has been become a money making propaganda for a lot of companies causing me to firmly believe in not subscribing to it, it’s okay, I just woke up from a two hour afternoon nap and I’m not feeling alert enough for commercial bashing.

(Actually I’m feeling very guilty because I had a heavy late breakfast and this is a cardinal rule if you’re planning to have an afternoon nap – nevernevernever on a full stomach, ESPECIALLY not after rice! and I’m eating a fruit salad now in an attempt to ease the guilt.)

Hence we took all these things into account (economic downturn, roses you can practically buy with the downpayment of a house, expensive Hallmark cards) and made an informed (albeit lazy) decision as a couple and brought a whole lot of take out and frappucinos back to the house and pigged out in front of Rush Hour 1 & 2 in ratty shorts and uncombed hair.

(Because can you believe it I’ve never seen any of the trilogy until this year when Rush Hour 3 aired on cable and it freaked me out – it was hilarious!)

So yes, it was lazily planned and executed but as the boyfriend said, I mean I don’t care how or where we celebrate it, I just want to spend time with you.

Aih, I don’t ask for Shakesperean sonnets but these are like Barathian haikus or whatever that he spouts every once in a while when I’m not nagging him to assure me that he’s listening to me go on and on about whatever political issue is festering.

Because as much as I nag and act all nonchalant (it’s a huge character flaw I know), I do love him intensely.

So yes, Happy Valentine’s Day you guys. Remember it’s all about the love and if you couldn’t be with your loved ones for some reason, love shouldn’t just be a one day celebration. We have 364 other days in which to show the ones we love the way we really feel. And money should not be the only way to do it.

And as my friend Cheryl so eloquently put it once, there’s so much hatred and suffering in the world that any day to celebrate love is greatly welcomed!

77 times 7

Listening to: The Perishers
“I choose to be my own.”
Currently Reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I wrote an entire post filled with pretentious bullshit, published it and then deleted it.

I was watching Ugly Betty and girlfriend can sure be feisty!

She is so honest sometimes that it makes me a little jealous. I mean, to be self-assured enough to open your mouth and tell someone exactly when they’re stepping over your toes without worrying about how it would make them feel. I mean if you think about it logically, why should we be concerned about how they feel when we’re just telling them oi, get off my foot, I’m in pain!

Versus the silent, oh shit, should I tell them they’re standing on my toes? Maybe he’ll notice in time. Oh wait never mind, I don’t want to offend them, I’ll just bear the pain, oh fuck it hurts.

If life is for the living, shouldn’t we just live instead of always doing it enshrouded in a cloak of fear and uncertainty?

Christ said, love your neighbours unconditionally. Forgive them, He said. How many times must I forgive them, his disciples asked, seven times? And He said, Seventy times seven times.

In Israel, the number seven means totality. In essence this means, we must forgive, totally and without condition, no matter what it takes and how many times it is required of us. If forgiveness is sincerely sought, we should not keep that request ungranted, lest we ourselves do not receive pardon from God for our own sins.

So the term forgiveness I understand but does that include taking a back seat to everything? Keeping silent no matter the cost? What if our dignity was at stake? What about our faith? Jesus always stood up for injustice, He spoke both boldly and righteously against the many sins of humanity.

I admit, I find it easier to gossip about a person’s faults rather than face them head on but clearly I should be taking a page of out the Bible and either stand up and say something or choose not to say anything at all. It’s easy to be a coward and suffer in self-misery, it takes pure guts to tell the truth and face the consequences.

For Jesus, the consequence was, well the cross.
And even on that cross He didn’t hold back, Father forgive them for they know not what they do, He said.

Jesus never held back, He gave freely and completely of his love and forgiveness and courage. And we, how petty we can be with what matters, our love and compliments and truth. Such misers, when all is given to us in abundance. And indeed, we should give and give all the more.

Luke 6:38 (New International Version)

38 Give, and it will be given to you. In good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I don’t quite know how to end after that.

Humanoid (updated)

Listeningto: Jimi Hendrix
“There’s nothing left to greet me here but the velvet moon.”

I didn’t know I would enjoy Theory of a Deadman as much as I have.

I wish this wasn’t as random as it is but I just needed to write something and I figure, this is my domain so who cares right?

Ever since the rapid fraying of my Levi’s in the most indiscrete of places (I.E. IN BETWEEN MY LEGS) I have spoken to some people and found out that I am not the only person that happens to own Levi’s with this deteriorating pattern. Apparently they meet their demise in the most embarassing of places, not even like way down in the kneecap areas but like, thighs, hips and butts.

You would think that spending RM300+ on jeans would ensure that that is exactly what would not happen. You would think.

Oh and I watched two movies in two days – Underworld : Rise of the Lycans and Bride Wars.

Much to my amazement, not being an Underworld fan, since I only watched the first one to watch Wentworth Miller cameo in a very small role (he played a Doctor Adam Lockwood, omg so cute) that lasted for like ten minutes, I am not very well versed in the Underworld history.

Before watching the third installment, which was actually a prequel, the only thing I knew about the Underworld series was that there were vampires constantly battling werewolves and that Kate Beckinsale looks pretty hot in leather suits. ROTL was a tale of the the first Lycan, Lucien and his forbidden relationship with Sonya, the daughter of the head vampire baddie, Viktor and the ensuing rebellion of the Lycans against the vampires.

The story I thought tied in well with the first and second Underworld movies so it was way better than I expected considering my boyfriend and brother dragged me to it.

Bride Wars was another great movie about two best friends who have always dreamed of having June weddings at the Plaza and being each other’s maid of honors until by a stroke of bad luck, their weddings are scheduled on the same day and then it’s an all out battle to sabotage each other. In the hands of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, the roles were handled very well and no one can doubt their comedic talent. Kate Hudson’s, Liv, had me howling in my seat and barring the fact that you can totally tell what’s going to happen, I enjoyed it. True, it’s a chick flick and a lot of people are gonna hate it on that account but can I say, that that Vera Wang wedding dress (courtesy of the photo gallery from the Bride Wars Facebook account)

was BEAUTIFUL.

Sigh. Now which girl wouldn’t want to get married JUST to wear THAT dress?

Stupid girl

Listening to: Ben Harper
“You can sell your soul but you can’t buy it back.”

Let it never be said that Felicia doesn’t do her homework.

I was half-watching an E! True Hollywood Story on TV the other day (half watching because there was really nothing better on, seriously with like 800+ channels and nothing good to watch, Astro should step it up) and this time it featured the rise, fall and erm comeback of a certain New Kids on the Block boy band which later came back as NKOTB (because it was cooler I guess, I dunno). Anyway a particular part of their world tour included a trip to an Asian country and one of the barricades gave way resulting in a stampede with many injuries and the fatal injury of a young girl.

Which got me to remembering the millions of Michael Jackson fans who (during his Bad era) would be screaming bloody murder, fainting, crying, you name it. And he’s not the only one. Throw in anyone who’s a major pop icon and you’re left with some weird hysteria that sweeps the nation leaving hordes of females fainting, crying and frothing at the mouth.

Now I’m not about to deny that I have had my own fair share of erm…teenybopping humiliation, believe me, there are unsent drafts of ‘Love, Your #1 fan’ letters addressed to AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys that I would rather remain undiscovered and I would be lying if I said that everytime I saw Wentworth Miller on TV, I didn’t slightly die inside.

Anyway, that’s besides the point. It intrigued me to discover exactly why mostly women and not men, experience this curious obsession with celebrities. I mean we know the age old saying, that men mostly think with their erm, little brain when faced with a beautiful woman. Now before you bring out your pitchforks, I must say I have no idea if this is true as I am neither a man nor a little brain, so I’m venturing with an assumption here.

So if men experience this with regular non-celebrity women, then why don’t we see them throwing their underwear on Janet Jackson or falling in fits of screaming ecstasy when say, Keira Knightley announces that she isn’t seeing anybody (and again I don’t know if she is or isn’t, this is purely hypothetical)?

Which brings us to the question, why, WHY WHY do we, women do these terribly humiliating things?

As with all good researchers, the first thing I did was google various key words and believe me there were many.

why do women get celebrity crushes
why do girls get celebrity crushes
why girls act stupid around celebrities
science of tween craze
teenyboppers
why girls act stupid around hot men
celebrity crazy women

Anyway, I found basically nothing that could help me until I found a link to answerology.com that asked the perfect question: Why do only women get stupid over celebrity crushes?

Fantastic read. The forum basically discusses that men and women react differently for a reason, we’re programmed differently is all. The same way men the world over believe that they have all personally won a sports match although in actual fact, only eleven guys, five continents over were doing the playing, and we women don’t really care, is one example.

Another person discussed that there are men that behave like crazed beasts, just that they tend to be on female celebrity fan sites, which is an important distinction. The most interesting discussions revolved around the fact that women look for occupation first in men , because evolutionarily, the male with the most resources would have the greatest caretaking advantage. I.e. the famous men are in effect, wealthier, and would consequently be better providers. Of course this doesn’t explain why, female hysteria isn’t so much of an issue with males that are wealthy but are not famous.

This is where I think the role that the media plays is of paramount importance. The person in front of your screen is rarely placed there raw and untarnished by MAC or Maybelline. Glamourising a (good looking) man to the point where He is God is enough for females to believe that he is the alpha male, and one that the female is willing to fight for because it is one that is “unique” when compared to the “regular” men of the society. And fairly so, males that are not on TV do not normally walk around topless and show off their well oiled muscles.

It’s a farce and we buy into it because it’s so well commercialised that we feel the need to be a part of that “reality”. It’s good to escape reality once in a while because let’s be honest, the world has more than its share of shit. And maybe for a lot of us, that’s what it is, the one hour a week escape into a world where everything is perfect so you can forget temporarily about the world, where it isn’t.

There are many for whom the lines between reality and TV blur and then it becomes an unhealthy obsession and though that’s a whole other discussion for another day, it is a very real issue, and once again it is open for us to decide whether our media is society’s boon or bane.

I found a more scientific article which discussed the emergence of this histrionics with the rising of the first popular boy band – a phenomenon known as Beatlemania.

There are many theories discussed, the most interesting one of which is a Freudian one, which typically enough, involves sexual repression, a matter which is still threaded lightly. Anyway the gist of the theory is, adolescence (the period where teeny bopper histrionics is at its peek) is a time of “emotional, strenuous growth” which requires an expression outlet.

Boys apparently express these tensions via sports, girls however apparently release said “sexual energy” via the swooning and screaming associated with Beatlemania. I mean after all, who hasn’t associated the word ’sexy’ with these hysteria inducing males?

So coming back to the question at hand – why do only women get stupid over celebrity crushes? Blame it on the hormones and the fact that men and women are programmed to look for different things before tripping over themselves.

And to end this all can I just say:

WENTWORTH MILLER IS SO HOT I COULD DIE I CANNOT BELIEVE PRISON BREAK IS ONLY SET TO AIR IN SPRING.

Danke.