Like most citizens of the state of southern California, I spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with ways to extricate myself from awkward silences. This reality I’ve come to terms with, is the result of being a semi-functional member of a society that relies too heavily not only on popular culture, but on your own personal experience with said culture. In a world where everyone is watching the same television shows, diluting an already concise situational comedy into twenty-two minutes, specific sound bites have become the new language of twenty-something communication. Our sometimes, or perhaps my sometimes, lack of eidetic memory of these sound bites has made me a conversational clod. Any dialogue that begins with: did you see the part where…? and I know that my own personal hell has manifest itself as a somewhat intoxicated form of The View regurgitating all of the previous nights’ news. Compound this information with the fact that I haven’t had reliable cable access since high school and it’s almost forgivable that all of my television references date back to the time when people still cared whether or not Rachel and Ross would ever get together, or what Cramer’s real name was.
I have spent enough time stuck in traffic to know there are far less constructive things to be contemplating than insurance against future social faux pas. I often find myself sitting at a stoplight, having spent the better half of a Mariah Carey chorus belting out the tart solipsism louder than my poor car can insulate, only to find myself amidst my own choreographed group of school children with doe-eyed looks that would put the Von-Trapps to shame. To avoid these upsetting displays, I have taken to making lists. Because no one wants to Touch my Body.
Who has loved us most recently