It Gets Better (Okay Not Really)

My friend and I have decided to swear off articles about twentysomethings. This is another 2013 declaration, my second of the year. There's been an uptick in the articles about twentysomethings department, nicely rounded up in this one, "The Mysteriously Memorable 20s," and we'd been sending them back and forth.

I told her that I was in the process of trying to think of things that I did/thought in my twenties that should no longer be applicable now that I'm squarely in my thirties. I mean, whenever I used to see a book about twentysomethings, I'd knee jerk buy it. If it was a book of essays or memoirs, even better. This book was my diamond: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. I'm going to find it and burn it. Also, I used to be part of this 20 Something Bloggers ring... when I wasn't technically in my twenties. Ugh, the shame. It feels good to come clean.

After reading "The Intellectual Situation," I now suspect all articles of being simply link bait. If it were not for the fact that I'm trying to finally get on the ball with this relationship book, I'd vow to give up all the "you're single and…" articles too. I mean, who needs to know about the high price of being single? Plus the points tend to remain the same. Being single sucks and this is how you should fix it, blah blah blah.

My friend suggested that we turn our attention to the London Review of Books and now we are waiting to talk about the ethics of Minority Report style treatment of pedophiles and famine during the Cultural Revolution in China.

• Semi-Charmed Life
• The It-Sucks-To-Be-Me Generation (2006)
• Why Twentysomethings Love Rookie (2012)
• Emma Koenig's So Called Redacted Life (2012) and her Fuck I'm In My Twenties tumblr/book
• What Is It About 20-Somethings? (2010)
• Marry Him! (2008)
• The End of Courtship (2013)
• A Million First Dates and rebuttal

So I'm back in New York, and it was balmy the first week. As soon as I landed I dropped my stuff off and then headed out for fun. The first weekend, our recently married friends dropped into the city, giving us a chance to gather and hang out. It was just what I needed and the FOMO I suffered from not being to attend Amit's birthday party was slightly mitigated.

Last weekend, I saw this hip hop dance conservatory version of Little Red Riding Hood. We sat in the front row, a few feet away from the performers, and for the most part they were quite good. What I had trouble shaking was the racialized casting and costumes. Literally, all the white characters wore normal clothes while the ethnic characters were either the wolves, dressed in servant's clothing, or in the case of the two Asians, duking it out in chipaos. For a dance company featuring mostly minorities, I wondered if anyone there had taken any Race 101 classes, or maybe they were trying to transcend the stereotypes by stereotyping. I hoped the Q&A would reveal some answers.

Unfortunately, the answers the cast gave for the binary gendering of the roles was less than eloquent. But they can't be faulted, I guess. Okay, maybe they can. In one of the descriptions of the show, there is this sentence: "In this classical piece... explores gender, rape, sexuality, morality, violence, regret, patriarchy and female empowerment through this enigmatic rendition of a classic fairy-tale." I don't even want to talk about the chains and the slavery theme.

"The D is silent."

Also, we went on a day trip to Philadelphia! I got up at five for our seven thirty bus and then stayed awake and peppy throughout the entire day -- much to the chagrin of my travel mates. It's hard to get a feel for a city from just wandering around downtown, but I feel like we got a decent sense of the place. I had wanted to see Benjamin Franklin's birthplace, 1 Milk Street, but discovered that he was actually born in Boston. Fifth grade me would have been so disappointed I messed up that fact.

"Early to bed and early to rise..." I used to try to memorize all of BF's sayings and imagined that one day I would live up to them. Ha, boy I was hopeful. I think Big Ben's most useful aphorism is probably "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But my absolute favorite is, of course: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

I just referred to Poor Richard's Almanack as "Little Richard's Alamanac." Geezes, I'm losing it.