the importance of being cut

So sidebar, to give context to this story i have to first tell you guys that i have a part time job at a preschool/day care center. I needed extra money and i figured i'd worked at the stanford preschool so i was definitely qualified. yes, on top of being a top tier grad student (ranked number 3 this year, bitches!! learn about it!) i also moonlight as a child care provider. '

So anyways my story to you all is really a parable or sorts to teach you all a lesson. not really a parable but you get the message so just listen. I usually work in the 1 1/2 to 2 year old room with really mildly obnoxious toddlers. Seriously terrible 2's are not a lie. Anyways aside from making me realize that i will indeed make a good mother someday in the future (i think all women have this fear that we will fuck up our children because we won't be able to physiclaly care for them), it has also made me realize that i do'nt know if i ever want children. Something about taking care of 10 crying, pooping, snotty kids just really makes the whole "cute little baby" thing extremely unappealing. That being said i really actually do have genuine affection for these kids, some might even call it love. It must be that whole vagina/maternal instinct thing, because when they cry i just want to make them feel better, and when their shit smells really bad it's kind of special and sometimes when i've had a really bad day and the kids that i actually like smile and give me a hug it gives me the fuzzies all over and makes me think "i can do this!!" so i mean i guess i literally see the future in a baby's smile, or whatever that saying is. Oh and i can change a diaper in 15 seconds flat!

so anyways today one of the teachers from the baby room was sick so i got moved to that room since i'm technically a floater who gives assistance whenever needed. So they had this new little 9 month old boy, let's call him guiseppe, who was having his first day of childcare today. And guiseppe was SOOO CUTE!! i mean he wasn't a particularly good looking child but he was petite and had charisma and didn't cry and smiles alot and hadn't gotten that 2 year old baby stink yet. he still smelled liek powder and baby vomit, you know how baby vomit can smell nice? anyways we all talked about how much we liked him. So then one of te teachers went to change his diapers for the first time and she yells over "oooh we've got an uncircumcized one." All the teachers then joined in about how gross uncircumcized pensises were, because seriously they are. And then the teachers started listed off the boys in the preschool who were uncut and i said, "well his name is giuseppe, maybe his dad is european, italian or something. I mean they don't do it to their kids." everyone agreed that this was probably the reason in which case we cannot blame his parents for their cultural beliefs. But then later his dad came and picked him up and was in fact NOT foreign. He looked really young too, possibly a grad student. How grad students have babies and functioning marraiges and mortgages i do not understand.

so my point to you all readers is....if and when you decide to have children, please please please circumcize them. do you want your son to be ridiculed from day care until the end of his life???? Woudl you do that to a child just for the sake of whatever reasons people give for not cutting their children????? I mean i knwo it's sensitive issue but it's one that reaches far beyond their sexual partners. it's "ruuuuulll deep," if you will.

Now onto lighter topics. My flowers finally made it today, and they are actually quite pretty. I actually don't liek flowers that much (shh don't tell david) not because i think flowers are ugly but more because i think they are really really overpriced and in the end i say "if you're gonna buy me $50 flowers just buy me a nice belt or some cool earings or kiehl's hand cream or anything that won't die in a week." but in the end men don't listen and when i say that ,instead of buying the latter things they end up getting me nothign so the flowers will suffice. And i think tulips are my favorite flowers in theory. i like bulb plants. So my cousin told me this trick, because she used to live on top of a florist in berkeley who told her. apparenlty if you drop a penny into the vase where you have tulips, or any bulb plant i believe, the copper somehow gets into the water and the stems soke it up and something about that chemical mixture makes the stems stand up faster and longer. and actually one of the stems was wilting and it's now standing up straight (you cannot see in the pic). so there, that is your lesson for the day. pay it forward people.
Also note the disgusting mess i am living in, scarves, coats, knitting projects i have yet to start, books, articles...projects left unfinished all piled on my tacky hand me down table that was in my room when i moved in.

vday massacre

oh valentimmmmes day, how you perpetually suck. I feel like this day is a constant let down. either you have no one to be with or the person you are with disppoints you by not getting you what you want, and really what can you legitimately want on a fake holiday? i hate this day, and yet i still have expectations of the men i'm with, which makes me hate the day even more. Let us take a journey through v-days past....

February 14th, 1991, 3rd grade, the infamous daniel ybarra gives me a card with an eskimo on it that says...shit i can't remember what it said. it was a knock knock joke about being cold and picking me or something. crap, i odnt know. anyways he gave these cards to everyone, so in reality i was reading a bit much into the gift, thinking it meant he literally chose me.

February 14th, 1996, 8th grade, i get 4 anonymous valentine candygrams all from my secret admirer. I think finally, this might be it, my first chance to know what it's liek to liek a boy and have a boy like me back. turns out my secret admirer was this very wierd kid, the screech of our school only not smart. I think he's gay now. yes, this was the only man who admitted openly to liking me up until i was 18, thus causing me to have major self esteem issues for most of my youth. adolescence can be so damanging!

February 14th, 2001, freshman year of college. my first boyfriend, i think finally valentines day will not suck since it is supposed to be awesome when you have someone to share it with. I spent the whole night before writing valentines with my friend and making a mixed tape (it was good too) of his favorite songs. He spends the night doing a problems set. Morning comes and the dorm has all the guys surprise the girls waking us up at 7:30 and surprising us with roses. very cute. Then all day i'm thinking "what is he planning! what is he planning!!" ends up that he tags along wiht his roommates vday plans and they take me and roommies girlfriend to indian restaurant. I don't really like indian food as it gives me heartburn, but he somehow seems to forget this fact. The owners of the restaurant are really rude and make us wake 45 minutes to be seated (even though we have reservations) and another 30 minutes at the table to actually eat. We all conclude it is because roommate is white guy dating an indian chick and owners of the fine establishment do not approve. after waiting we decide to peace out. we are all so starved at thsi point that we say fuck it, and spend vday dinner at denny's where i believe i ate a club sangwhich. gotta love that club. my first real valentines spent all dressed up at denny's with my boyfriend's roommate. disappointment? i think so

February 14th, 2002, sophomore year of college, same boyfriend...does nothing

February 14th, 2003, junior year of college, same boyfriend does nothing again...are we seeing a pattern here, i think so. disappoinment? for sure

February 14th, 2004, senior year, my bff of life, ryan comes into town and we all decide to do a junior high style vday party. Ryan and i play our first game of spin the bottle EVER since we grew up sheltered christian school kids. Ryan has his first male kissing experience, leads to him finally coming out later that year. v. exciting for us all. Turns out spin the bottle, not so cool when played with women and gay men. disappoinment....not so much, kind of fun

February 14th 2005, master's year, i'm sure i was huddled up in el centro analyzing data for my thesis. clearly i have blocked out the terrible memory from my head.

February 14th, 2006, year in SF, again i actually have a boyfriend but alas, he is busy studying for boards or doing a rotation or having a test, or any one of the other millions of things med students do. a bit of a disappoinment, yes, but understandeable, of course. I think he took me out to dinner that weekend and bought me a black onyx bracelet....or maybe that was for my birthday

and now here we are present day

February 14th, 2007, and what do i have to show for it. let's see, we are in the middle of a snow storm, my clothes and car are getting all fucked up from the salt everywhere. David did attempt to send me flowers, but alas they didn't deliver them on time. i ate a rushed meal at a quick italian place and proceeded to statify untl about 8, after which time i went for a girls night in as we drank and did our nails and gossiped about things, like how our exes all gained weight and look bad now, and how grad student's lives are really depressing and leave you with nothing to say and how we kind of secretly love and own ugg boots despite the fact that they are really ugly (mine are leather and water proof so i think that somehow makes them acceptable, but it's still bad). So again i am here, no flowers, no candies, no teddy bears, no diamonds, sleeping in the cold, to wake up early and attend another awful stats class. It kidn of just feels liek any other wednesday in michigan to be honest. Valentines day stands for everything that i hate. I hate contrived celebrations and lame excuses to give gifts that are either useless or will die in a week. and yet...the day comes and i still have expectations. why do you toy with me so, vday!????