All Bran Shame

   Lets take a minute to mature the humble All Bran brand like mature adults. Bran makes you poop, and I don't get why people act like thats a bad thing. I would wager that these people are constipated and therefore there is a knowledge block taking place.
   Going to the grocery store, and buying Bran Flakes (or buds, or sticks, or wedges, or whatever) somehow still feels like an embarrassing thing though. And it's impossible to reshuffle your grocery basket to fit the cereal box at the bottom because it's so. darned. big. Its like the grocery gods have been like, "you can't have great value and your pride". Fair enough I say, because I can't eat my pride for breakfast anyway. I prefer to chew my pride apart at four in the morning.
   Bottom line: there is no subtle way to buy All Bran cereal. Especially not when you slam it down on the conveyor belt and it monopolizes like 40% of the entire thing. Then you put it in your thin plastic bag and everyone can see the text on the box through the bag and you're like, "may as well just scream to the pedestrians that I really like to poop".
   But why should you not? Why should the world not know that you buy All Bran because you respect the value of regularity? I don't like struggle. I don't particularly like hard work. I don't like to keep people waiting, and thats why I buy All Bran.

What Is The World????

   Some guy my flatmate was texting told her that she was stupid and that it made her sexy. I like to think that if it had been me, I would have punched him in the face but I might just have self-destructed lets be real.

The Integrity of Tupperware Salesfolk

   On a scale of identity thief to volunteer soup kitchen worker, how much occupational integrity does an online tupperware salesperson have? And before you take issue with my scale, know that the scale itself has a lot of academic integrity because to the Elizabethans, thieves were the absolute worse, and credit card fraud seriously sucks.
   I know a girl who has been plugging Tupperware girl-guide style for the past couple of weeks. I used to do sports with this girl (the one time I did a sport) so she is somewhere within the same socio-economic sphere as I am. First of all, Tupperware is a good product, but doesn't quite satisfy the why. Also, how many of your Facebook friends are actually signing up for an eleven piece Tupperware set for 150$. This is the age of the Dollar Store, people!
   You do what you gotta do to put food in mouths and I do what I gotta do to maintain a habit or mundane writing SO where does the Tupperware salesperson fall on the integrity scale? Salespeople are a little bit worse than canvassers, because canvassers are trying to sell charities. However canvassers fall considerably lower than volunteer soup kitchen workers because they are pesky and don't give soup to the toothless.
   Despite blatantly working for the man and often being annoying and promoting capitalism I'll give salespeople points for dealing with the public because the public is the worst. Salespeople in general can sit comfortably below Bar Staff, and above School Bus Drivers with Religious Agendas/ Truckers With Obscene Bumper Stickers. Okay, thats settled; now we should consider the Tupperware subcategory of salespersonry.
   First of all, if you're paying 150$ for 11 Tupperwares you deserve to be committed. Thats all there is to it. But putting this Tupperware in the hands of the mad is dishonourable behaviour. Therefore the Tupperware salesperson is within the parameters of the "Selling People Shit They Can Get for Way Cheaper Elsewhere" category, however useful Tupperware may be as a product in and of itself. Conclusion: Urban Outfitters Employee < Tupperware Salesperson < Pop-Up Halloween Store Salesperson
   The Urban Outfitters employee sells you low-grade wares at ghastly prices (staff are unseasonably useless too). The Halloween Store employee does not necessarily sell anything you couldn't live without but they are jovial and costumes make people happy, and the shops themselves are only in support of the man for one out of twelve months.

"We're Textually Intimate"

   This is where I write a post about technology's influence on relationships that is going to sound like it's coming out of my mother's mouth. And if it were to be said by my mother, all of this would put me in a rage, because neither of my parents understand anything about technology, and they would be the first ones to admit it.
   Here we go. Lately I've been spending some time having an internal debate about the significance of texting and online platforms of communication in relation to meeting new people. I would like to preface everything by saying that when I like someone, I am a psychopath.
   If you message someone everyday (text, Facebook chat, email) and then go a day without, what does that mean? Does it mean anything? Those were the questions that were my appetizers today.
   I then proceed to ask myself, if being textually close and in "touch" frequently is really important. I think I realized that for me, it is less about what is being said in the messages, and more that the messages are being sent at all. Surely receiving a message from someone indicates that the sender is thinking of you. But since communication is so fast and simple, does it really matter? Where is the bar graph that indicates someone's interest level alongside their frequency of messaging? This is the scientific thing that I want, forget Google Glasses!
   I don't know how things were back in the day. In terms of human feelings, very similar, I imagine. When I like someone, I spend about six hours premeditating what to say to them. I can't imagine this was particularly different ever in history. Except that you either had to pick up an actual telephone in your family living room to get in touch. Or hop on a steed, but I don't think I want to go back that far in history.
   Since you can send a message from anywhere, really, does it make a difference to the quality of what you're saying? I know that people are capable of growing more attached, and feeling more intimate if they are in communication over a longer period of time, even if they talk much less face to face. I think that is legitimate. But if you have nothing to say, is it still important to maintain a stable frequency of messaging to show someone that you "care"? And if I'm sending someone a message just before last call, while I'm in the middle of peeing, do I really still "care"?
   I don't feel like its something that there should be a "conversation" about. You have "conversations" about things like being in a monogamous relationship, moving in together, breaking up and (most importantly) whats for dinner. Thats all pretty exhausting, and what with all the text communication, I would rather not riddle my face-to-face conversations with the relatively trivial texting schedule "conversation".
   I suppose that the significance of text communication within human relationships still seems relatively petty, but I know a lot of people and relationships that have been seriously impacted by topics along these lines. Is it just that its too soon for texting/messaging to be regarded as important? Or is it an unimportant thing that doesn't deserve to be thought about as much as I just have (and will continue to for the rest of the week)?

Party Face

   "All that grace/ All that body/ All that face/ Makes me wanna party." Is a line from the bridge of Lana Del Ray's Young and Beautiful. I'm not on the massive Tumblr Lana fan train. I don't think sadness is particularly beautiful, and flower crowns are straight up impractical. Some of her songs are catchy, and being perpetually behind every trend by at least several weeks, I just started listening to Young and Beautiful and it has raised some important questions for me.

   The aforementioned line is particularly interesting for me. Like... I have had some suitors, but I don't know that my face has ever made anyone want to party. There are so many things that I strive for; elegance, cleverness, beauty, intelligence, dinner party etiquette, mystery, practical knowledge of the anatomy of basic household plumbing, fitness, coordination, sass etc. Am I now supposed to add "face that makes dudes want to party" to that list? 

   I don't know how I would respond to someone telling me that my face makes them want to party, even. I guess it would be a cool compliment, but where do you go from there? Is that before, or after you buy someone a drink? Or is that enough to launch right into a first date? Or is it a literal thing, like, festivities don't start until party face walks in? Thats a lot of pressure on one face.

    Also, lets dig right into a close reading, I mean, we've come this far! "All that face"... as opposed to only part of face. Like I've said, nobody has ever said that my face makes them want to party. So maybe I don't have a complete party face. Maybe I just have party cheeks, or party brows. My eyebrows deeeffffinitely have their own party sometimes, that much is certain. 

   I guess you've got to have the total face package to really make someone walk into a room, lay eyes upon you, and immediately begin to bust a move. It would be a super power. You'd be like the reverse Medusa.

Super Saving Money Tip #7

   Okay, so maybe some of my money saving tips are less than super but this one... This one is MINT. I totally crafted it in the craftiest of my most desperate moments!

   So. I asked my flatmate to borrow some nail polish remover because my nails were looking like trolls; my flatmates are the best, so of course she lent me some. I feel bad taking advantage of my flatmates' kindness and always borrowing their stuff, so it was much to my chagrin that I realized I had no means of applying the varnish remover to my nails. I didn't have cotton pads or Kleenex or anything like that. It was a pickle in the truest non-fruit sense of the word. 

   This is a relatively common situation; having one thing but not the other. And usually when I set out to remove my nail polish, it's because the situation is dire. I was too proud to ask my flatmate for cotton pads (and as it would later be revealed, she didn't have any to begin with). Here's what I did:

    I MacGyvered a tampon into a casual cotton pad for my nail polish. I don't know if this actually saves money... Without doing any research, I'm going to say yes, yes it does save money. Tampons range in absorbency and come in packs of like 24. Cotton pads pale in comparison on all fronts. 

    For the most effective results you have to get real up close and personal with the tampon. Dissection is necessary for maximum benefit. You can get at least 3 uses out of these bad boys, there's no telling what could be achieve if you are working with the ultra super variety. Just sayin'. Just floating it out there. Never have to spend money on cotton pads again...

x's and o's

   Why does everyone in Britain sign off their texts with varying amounts of kisses. I interpret "x" to be a kiss, but maybe its just a weird signature that every British person was taught from a young age. The max I've ever gotten was three: xxx. That could also be an adult content rating, although the content of the text would indicate otherwise.
   Sometimes its combined with an emoticon, which really throws me off because I just picture someone going in for three friendly kisses with either a large grin or grimace. I do not understand the custom. Nobody wants to kiss me that much. And there are never any o's. Its never, "xoxo", only ever "x". Is a hug too intimate??? Perhaps. But then that raises all sorts of other questions.

8 a.m Flautist

   Okay, but for real, what kind of hellion do you have to be to play the flute at 8 a.m. Someone call the exorcist, because this is the work of a demon. It's eerie as it is to hear a disembodied rendition of Hot Crossed Buns but it's especially strange to hear it as the sun comes up.
   Once you get over the eeriness, the next phase is when you charge through your flat, sticking your head out every window trying to pinpoint where its coming from. The next phase involves water balloons and/or hate mail.
   Our 8 a.m flautist played for a solid two hours. How much flute is there even to practice? It's not like you ever hear the flute in a band, so how much practice is required, reaaaally? Nobody ever said, "Thank god Jerome was on top of his flute game tonight because he really carried that concerto" or, "The whole orchestra was off save for that one flute who we could all totally hear and was definitely shredding it".
   Know who was shredding it? The 8 a.m flautist. I guess there's a time and a place for the flute, and in the eye of the flute-holder, that time is 8 a.m; the only time the flute can actually be heard.