In Which We Become MySpace

One consequence of having been an English major is you tend to over-classify and search for themes. I was mentally reviewing my list of current friends and noticed they have one common trait: they are all unclassifiable.

Friend 1: Studies the bible weekly. Tries to live a purpose-driven, God-based life. Drinks everyone under the table. "Hell yeah I drink," she will say, "What's your problem?" Then she wrestles your ass to the ground like a bulldog.

Friend 2: Young mother of twins. Monitors a parenting board. Children's photos, children's books, all about the children. Ask her how her babies are. "Evil heathens," she will answer.

Friend 3: You would think it would be so easy to stereotype a single Jewish liberal. But just put her in front of the UPS man or her baby niece  (recently adopted from Columbia) and you get these responses:
"OOooooo! Brown baby, brown baby. Do something for me, brown baby." (Just to clarify, that's the UPS man.)
"OOOOOoooo! Oooz swo cwute! Ooz a widda bidda beebee?! You awe! Yes you awe!"
Like the rest, she always find a way to surprise me. She has strong opinions about the Catholic church controversies in Saint Louis, for example. She also has a fish named after David Duke.

Friend 4: Has only recently taken up cursing. So young and pure. So sweet. So full of belief in humanity. So unaware she is next in line for a Girl's Night Out mocking her codger-like heartlessly conservative political beliefs. Bwahahaha!

Friend 5: She is in-tense, up-tight, over-worked. She gets up every day at four am to list her tasks for the day on post-it notes. I think she folds her socks. And she stares at you deadpan when you express surprise that she is a groupie for String Cheese Incident. She flies off to see the band in Costa Rica WHERE THEY DO NOT HAVE CLEAN BATHROOMS. Or post-it notes.

Friend 6: She is African-American and her family has more money than mine. She speaks better than I do. And yet she can switch from "Oreo" to "Sistah" at the drop of a hat, while I still can't do the head-roll as much as I am feeling the 'tude in my heart.

Friend 7: I know Mormons can't tell off-color jokes, but if you told this one an off-color joke, I think she'd laugh. She's also divorced. Oh, and I have heard she drinks caffeinated soda like a regular person.

Friend 8: This one breaks the mold, because we are psychic soulmates and I usually can anticipate what she'll do because it was what I'd do. Well, except this one time, when she complained about a co-worker's really poor deliverables. "It's like she just squats and poops it out and e-mails it to me." About half an hour later she turned and with a remorseful look sighed, "Remember what I said about her before?" Followed by this snarl: "I really meant that."

I suppose what this says about me is I believe in stereotypes, and people who don't follow the stereotype delight me. No, that can't be right, because then everyone on earth would be my friend. Perhaps MySpace and LiveSpaces are right.

Comments

[Libby]

Really? I'm young? THANKS ELLEN!
Ahhh. Who'd've ever thunk that just by being honest about the evil twins I could end up in your blog.
You're so sweet.

[Marcia]

I'm Jewish??

Oh. My. God.

I have strong opinions about the Catholic church controversies in Saint Louis?

I do not.

I do need to get some homeys for Benson. David is enjoying the white supremecy thing too much.

[Caroline]

I figured that was coming eventually.

[Marcia]

Caroline: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Catherine (redheaded one)]

I love you to....now, which way to the beer garden?