My Summer To-Do List

Coll-EGE!

In the past year and a half, I’ve started watching and enjoying How I Met Your Mother. That deserves a whole post in itself, but one of the many things I appreciate about the show is its ability to coin terms that sum up common experiences of yuppiehood—like “graduation goggles” = the nostalgic feeling you suddenly get when something you didn’t like, i.e. high school or a bad relationship, is ending, and “couples coma” = inability of long-term couples to leave their house to go out like single people.

Two weeks ago, I attended my five-year college graduation, and two terms from HIMYM kept coming to mind. One, my personal favorite, was “woo girl.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NIAYG0-a7M]

Not going to lie—sometimes I am a woo girl, and I definitely was for all of reunion weekend.

The other was “revertigo.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BTr0evZSis]

Because that’s what the whole weekend was—revertigo to when we were back in college.

Now, if you haven’t figured this out yet, I loved college. LOVED. To the point where I sometimes worry about coming across as one of those obnoxious people who’s obsessed with her alma mater. It took me years to stop regretting that it was over. I loved the classes, I loved the dorms, I loved the parties, I loved having all my friends in one place.

And you know what? So did everyone else in my class. I was once asked to sum up BC students in one word, and what I came up with was “enthusiastic.” Whether it’s sports, music, academic research, political activism, religion, volunteer work, or just having a good time, everyone at BC is excited about something. And everyone is excited about being there. Whenever I started telling people from work how excited I was about my college reunion, they would look at me like I was nuts. Most colleges do not have three-day reunion weekends that involve large nighttime parties and staying in dorms. But most colleges are not Boston College.

Things started for me the Wednesday before, when Christina flew in from California to stay with me for a couple of days. I had not physically seen her in almost two years, so being able to hang out with her again was amazing.

I took a day off work on Friday, and Christina and I grabbed our suitcases and hopped on the T to Chestnut Hill. We checked into the dorm, which happened to be Edmond’s Hall (the apostrophe usage is correct there—the hall is named after a guy named Edmond Walsh), where I’d lived both my sophomore and junior years. These dorms fit four people in two bedrooms and have common rooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. We had a large group going—thirteen people in all—so while we weren’t all close together, most of us were on the same floor. Christina got lunch at Flat Bread’s, a place she went to so many times when she lived here that the owner immediately said upon seeing her, “Hey! Where’ve you been?”

Then we went to an official BC event, the lobsterbake, and caught up with some old friends who had lived on our floor in Loyola Hall freshman year. After the lobsterbake, we headed to Cleveland Circle to buy some booze and snacks for an unofficial event that night—our friend Carr’s birthday party in the dorms.

I saw people at that party whom I hadn’t seen in years. There was all kinds of what we called “nostalgic alcohol”—all the crappy stuff we used to drink. Beer like Keystone and Natty Light, and Smirnoff Ices, which was what my junior year roommates, who hadn’t yet developed a taste for most alcohol, spent the whole year drinking. We started the party with a Power Hour to a nostalgic playlist—songs from the 90s to 2006—and we reminisced about when life revolved around AIM and everyone used to put up R. Kelly as an away message: “It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby, I’m about to have me some fun.”

Around eleven, we headed down to the Edmond’s lobby, where the residential life staff (current BC students working there for the summer) was making us soak-up-the-alcohol pancakes. Yes, really—I love that they even thought of that. Later that night, I went to hang out in another room where there was a game of Kings going on and caught up with Bridget, in from DC.

And although I wasn’t there for this, Erin and Lindsey tell me that as they had just stopped talking and laid down to go to sleep that night, they suddenly heard a voice outside the window yell, “CLASS OF 06, BITCHES!” Which, along with the numerous shouts of, “Coll-EGE!” I heard over the weekend, became our catchphrase.

The next morning, I’d signed up for an alumni 5k, but, as I expected, I didn’t get up in time. So later, my friends and I headed over to another official event, a barbeque for the 5-year and 10-year reunion crowds. I saw my friends Nico and April, who were married last fall and now live on Long Island, for the first time in a long time. The food was good but I ended up with a bit of a necklace tan—awesome.

After the barbeque, Jackie and Lindsey and I decided to take a spin around campus. The dustbowl, where we used to sit under trees and read like the kids on the brochures, is sadly a thing of the past as the college starts its latest construction project.

Gasson Tower, our signature building, is looking good, though.

I bought some BC sweatpants, went to the Saturday night alumni Mass, and then headed back to Edmond’s, where Christina, Lindsey, Erin, Jackie, Bridget, and I had decided to settle the Presto’s/Pino’s debate once and for all. Presto’s and Pino’s are two New York-style pizza places a few doors down from each other in Cleveland Circle. Their pizzas are very similar, and people have been debating which one is better pretty much since they’ve existed. So we ordered one from Pino’s and one from Presto’s and decided to taste test.

Pino’s came first, although we’d ordered from them second. Considering one notorious incident in college when Jon (absent from the reunion due to his upcoming wedding) bitched them out for taking ninety minutes and delivering the wrong order, that was pretty impressive. Presto’s also came on time, and rather than making us go to the lobby, they delivered it right to the dorm room.

In the end, Lindsey, Erin and I voted for Pino’s, Christina and Bridget voted for Presto’s, and Jackie remained undecided. So Pino’s was the narrow winner.

I don’t know what I was laughing about in that picture, but I look really happy. Even though everyone thinks of crazy parties when they think of college, some of my favorite moments involved my friends and I hanging around the dorms with takeout (freshman year, we used to discuss the meaning of life while eating Chinese), so I’m glad I got to experience that again.

Then came the weekend’s main event: the class of 2006 party in the Mods. The Mods are two-story townhouse dorms for seniors notorious for being the party dorms. (They were originally constructed as temporary housing—that was back in 1970.) If people were going to only one official event, this was it. There was a cash bar and a DJ in the Mod lot, and despite the lack of some favorites played, lots of dancing and picture-taking and having a good time.

After that, we all headed back into Edmond’s to continue the partying. Not only was Res Life serving pancakes again, but this time the BC police were helping them.

We played some Beirut like old times, and then everyone on the ninth floor dragged their kitchen tables out to the hallway so we could start a massive flip-cup game.

Yeah. Revertigo. And it was awesome.

I talked with people I hadn’t seen in a long time until four in the morning. The next day, we got up and headed to another official event, a jazz brunch. Most of the rest of the class of 2006 had decided to sleep in, so it was largely us with a bunch of people at their 30-year and 40-year reunion.

The last event, after we checked out of the dorms, was a Red Sox game against Oakland. This event had sold out quickly, so it ended up being a date for me and Erin.

Sox won!

Christina stayed with me for another night, headed down to Fall River for a few days to visit some of her friends there, and then came back up for a night to have dinner with Julie and me and then catch her flight home.

It was seriously one of the best weekends of my life, and even with all these details, I feel like it’s hard for me to convey just how awesome it was. And the thing is, it was an entirely mutual feeling—EVERYONE had a great time. EVERYONE was smiling and getting into everything. EVERYONE came away wishing they could go back to college, as we’d just squeezed all of the best parts of it into one weekend. I guess that’s just the enthusiasm that BC students are known for.

Song of the Moment: “Fly Like an Eagle”

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There is a LOT going on with me lately. I bought a new laptop (yea!), decided I’m not renewing my lease but will hopefully be staying in Davis Square(currently debating the pros and cons of getting a studio apartment vs. living with a roommate), will be leaving for Las Vegas on Thursday morning to attend Jon and Steph’s wedding, have run a couple of road races and am thinking about doing more later this year, and bought two gorgeous dresses on sale at Lord & Taylor (seriously, I was really happy about that!).

The most awesome thing of the last couple of weeks, though, was my five-year college reunion. That deserves a proper post of its own, which I’ll get to soon. For now, though, I’m just going to dedicate my Song of the Moment to it.

At BC orientation before freshman year, everyone is given a yellow “Superfan” shirt to wear to sporting events. This helps create a noticeable student section at games, and on the back, each shirt has a phrase that reflects your year of graduation. They’re things like “Go Eagles,” “Eagles on the Warpath,” “Always Believe in BC,” “Take It to the Heights,” etc. Our class had the best one, though—“Fly Like an Eagle.”

At the second night of the reunion, we had a big class party in the Mods (senior townhouse dorms) with a DJ, and Erin wanted the DJ to play “Fly Like an Eagle.” Unfortunately, he didn’t, so here it is as the Song of the Moment.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1f7eZ8cHpM]

Runner-up: “Living On a Prayer,” which they did play. I have never been to a BC party where “Living On a Prayer” wasn’t playing.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk]

Katie Recommends: The Killing

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With Mad Men not coming back until next March, I had a hole to fill in my TV schedule. So I started watching AMC’s newest show, The Killing, which is apparently based on a Danish show called Forbrydelsen.

And boy, am I glad I did. There are only three episodes left this season, so it’s a bit too late for you to start watching, but I definitely recommend DVR-ing the reruns or watching the whole season when it comes out on DVD.

Each episode documents one day in the investigation into the murder of seventeen-year-old Rosie Larsen, who, after a high school dance, was found dead the trunk of a car in a lake. The car belonged to the campaign of Darren Richmond, a city councilor running for mayor of Seattle. The detective investigating the case, Sarah Linden, was about to leave Seattle for California to get married, but as she gets further into her investigation, her departure looks less and less likely.

The story is told with no flashbacks and has three main storylines: Linden and her replacement, Stephen Holder, investigating the murder; the Richmond campaign’s struggles in the aftermath of the killing; and the grieving of Rosie’s parents, Mitch (for Michelle) and Stan.

I won’t go into detail about the suspects or motives for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s very suspenseful and well-acted and I never want an episode to end. If you’re an X-Files fan, Linden, played by Mireille Enos, reminds me so much of Dana Scully—a petite, VERY SERIOUS redhead who’s consumed with her work.

The show isn’t perfect—there’s a lot of implausibility, including there only being two detectives on the case, leads they didn’t follow up on sooner, and the fact that it is constantly pouring out (I’m told it doesn’t rain that much in Seattle). But it’s very, very good and easy to get addicted to.

Other shows I’ve been watching:

Glee
When this show premiered, everyone loved it because it was so different from anything else on TV. But the tide has turned and now no one can speak about Glee without complaining about it. Everyone, it seems, has a problem with something about this show. Obviously conservatives don’t like the gay characters. Other people complain that a character is reinforcing a stereotype, or that a character needs a love interest, or that Character X isn’t getting enough screen time while Character Y is getting too much and there’s not enough focus on Ship A and too much on Ship B. Oh, and Rachel is an annoying diva, Finn’s voice isn’t good enough, the characters are inconsistently written, and Will is unprofessional. Plus, it’s gotten too episodic and preachy. Did I miss anything?

I’ll give you that the episodes are a bit preachier and more episodic (“The Religion Episode,” “The Britney Spears Episode” “The Prom Episode”) than they used to be. But everything else is just complaints about things that have been there from the beginning.

This is the thing. Glee is not a show meant to be taken too seriously. It’s a farce. It’s not, and has never been, in any way realistic. I mean, the first episode had Will planting pot on Finn to blackmail him into joining the glee club, for God’s sake. And personally, I don’t watch it because I want something to relate to or because I ship any characters. I watch it because it’s funny and sweet and has good music.

Also, keep in mind—this is the only show on TV that has characters with such diversity of races, religions, sexual orientations, sizes, and abilities. It does its best to show each character positively, and it cannot please everyone. With all the whining about various Issues on sites like the rapidly-getting-on-my-nerves Jezebel, I’m not surprised that so many other shows are less diverse. Showrunners figure they’ll never be able to satisfy everyone and just stick with casts of white heterosexual characters.

Modern Family
This summer I’m going to be catching up with the Season 1 DVDs. I just started watching this season and I love it. But who doesn’t? It’s gotten all kinds of critical acclaim and awards and isn’t doing too badly in the ratings, either. This is one show that manages to hit all the right notes—it’s often laugh-out-loud funny, every single character is likeable, and it’s often very touching without being sappy. The characters could so easily be clichés—trophy wife, doofy dad, ditzy teenager, flamboyant gay guy—but instead they manage to come across as real and full of personality as well as funny. The acting is excellent, and basically, if you’re not already watching this show, you should be.

Jersey Shore
What can I say? I love this show and I can’t wait for the new season. I know a lot of people think this show is a sign of the apocalypse. It’s true that the people on it are ridiculous and not people you’d ever want to know in real life, but…well, sometimes they’re funny and entertaining, too. And no one on the show is all bad. Okay, I’m done trying to justify it. Let me have my guilty pleasure!

Bone Marrow Registry

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A couple of weeks ago, I got a package in the mail containing four cotton swaps. I took each one, brushed them against the inside of my cheek, put them in an envelope, and mailed them off.

I am now officially a member of the Be the Match Bone Marrow Registry.

Sorry to get serious, but it’s time for me to step up on the soap box. Hey, don’t roll your eyes- I haven’t done this for awhile, and last time I did, it was about something similar—platelet donation.

Last year, I read this wonderful article in the Globe about a teenage cancer patient meeting the woman from England whose bone marrow had saved her life. I had thought about joining the registry before, but this was what convinced me that I had to do it.

There are a lot of people and organizations out there that need help, and there are plenty of ways to volunteer—donating money, donating time, raising awareness. But it’s sometimes hard to quantify exactly how what you’re doing is helping.

But joining the bone marrow registry doesn’t just make you feel good about yourself for volunteering– it literally saves lives. Bone marrow transplants are often the last chance for people with certain types of cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. If you are identified as a match, you undergo a minor surgical procedure to extract some marrow from your pelvic bones and might feel some discomfort afterwards. You are more likely to be a match with someone whose ethnic background is similar to yours. I’m white, and noted on the donation form that I have both Western European and Eastern European ancestry. Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and multiracial donors are especially needed, though. Those of you who fall into any of those categories might particularly want to consider joining the registry.

Here is the site for the Be the Match registry, where you can learn more about becoming a bone marrow donor. You might never be called to donate for anyone, or you might save someone’s life. Just in case the latter turns out to be true, I think it’s worth it.

Weddings, Royal and Otherwise

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So, have you heard there was a wedding in London last Friday?

There was the endless reporting leading up to the wedding, which inevitably led to backlash, which led to backlash to the backlash. But I admit that I set my DVR and watched the wedding coverage when I got home on Friday.

I am completely single. According to all the stereotypes, I should be complaining about how miserable weddings make me, mocking every bride who dares to let her wedding day stress her out, railing against the wedding industry and ranting about couples who spend a fortune on one day.

It’s almost un-PC to want a big wedding these days. I can’t tell you how many people I know who have said some variation of, “I was never the kind of girl who grew up dreaming of her wedding,” or “I don’t want a big wedding.”

But the truth is, I love weddings, and if I have ever have one, I want it to be awesome. Not necessarily fancy, mind you, but not just a cookout in the backyard, either. I want to enjoy having all my friends and family together in one place. I want to be somewhere beautiful and for me to look better than I’ve ever looked in my life. I want to have more fun than I’ve ever had at any party. I want to be so happy that no changes of plans or problems along the way can get me down. And most of all, I want it to be something that reminds me continuously why I want to spend the rest of my life with (hypothetical future husband).

This article touches on a lot of the feelings I have about my hypothetical future wedding—I know, and to some extent agree with, many of the major criticisms about weddings (many traditions are outdated and sexist, too much focus on materialism, people get so caught up in the wedding that they lose sight of the marriage, etc.), but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to plan mine. I have thought about the venue (somewhere by the ocean in New England would be nice), the menu (food I LIKE! I don’t want to hate the food at my own wedding!), the cake (Party Favors in Brookline), the music (our own wedding playlist), the bridesmaids’ gowns (lilac-colored, in whatever style they’d like), and my dress (long and white with sleeves—I’m not a fan of the strapless wedding dress trend). I do not, however, have any idea who the groom will be. (At least Katy Kelleher, the author of that article, had a boyfriend!)

I think for me, what the perfect wedding would come down to is love. I want the celebration of my marriage with the man I love to be something that takes place in a space I love with the food and music I love and, of course, all the people I love. No wedding will ever be perfect, and maybe I wouldn’t want mine to be, but I do enjoy thinking of all the ways that I could make one day as special as possible. Romantic love is a pretty amazing thing, from what I hear, and I think that if two people’s love is real, their wedding should reflect that amazing-ness in whatever way is the most amazing for them.

As for William and Kate, well, I don’t know them, but I do know that they’ve been together for a long time and seem to have prepared themselves well for their married lives. I hope they’re as happy as they looked last Friday.

And thank you, Kate, for wearing a beautiful dress that will inevitably make sleeved wedding dresses popular again. I hope that’s still the style when my hypothetical future wedding day arrives.

Song of the Moment: “First of May”

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I’ve decided to start a new feature on SSTS called “Song of the Moment.” I’ve written before about how I listen to music and how songs are more important to me than albums or artists. The point of this is to provide some commentary on how and why I’m listening to a certain song at the moment, for reasons serious or silly.

This first one is the latter. The song is “First of May” by Jonathan Coulton, which my friend Jenny introduced me to. A couple of years ago in my chorus, we split into groups to sing madrigals, and my group sang “Now Is the Month of Maying,” which is basically a sixteenth-century pop song. At first it just seems like a song about the spring, but as Wikipedia reveals, there are some double entendres going on.

“First of May” is almost like an update of that song, only with fewer double entendres and more, uh, unexpected profanity. Have a listen, but lyrics are NSFW. Be warned: like Cee Lo Green’s “Fuck You,” this is a song that has an unfortunate tendency to get stuck in your head at times when singing it out loud would be inappropriate.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCbD8nsxcd8]

That Don’t Impress Me Much

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I’ve been doing a lot of looking around Match.com and OKCupid lately, and I have to say—a lot of the people on there could use some profile lessons.

Now, of course, some of them are just laughably bad. Rebekah recently shared some of the ones she’d come across. I recall one guy on Match.com who said he wasn’t looking for anything serious because he was about to move to New York–really, dude? You can’t just place a Craigslist ad or pick up a girl in a bar? There was another guy on Match whose profile seemed totally normal until the last line, which read, “Some turnoffs: prissy princesses, women who drink beer or drink too much.” … I see how the first and last ones could be turnoffs, but women who drink beer? WTF?

And, of course, this gem of a confession from OKCupid: “I once called my college roommates parents cause he was such a slob, and it worked! he cleaned up!”

Wow. I have so much more respect for you because you have the balls to admit to being a passive-aggressive tattletale.

So there are those. And there are the people who simply don’t seem like my type. But there are also the profiles that aren’t bad so much as trying too hard- like they’re only writing what they think people want to hear. Here’s what a typical straight male online dating profile sounds like:

“I never thought I’d be doing online dating, but I’m really getting tired of the bar scene. I’m a down-to-earth, easygoing guy with a sarcastic sense of humor. I’m very career-driven but also like to relax with a beer watching a Boston sports game with friends on the weekends. I enjoy spending time hiking and experiencing the outdoors and also try to go to the gym as much as I can. Traveling is my passion. My family is wonderful and we’re very close. I’m looking for a girl who is always up for anything and can get dressed up for a night on the town or relax in sweats with me and a movie. If this sounds good to you, drop me a line!”

Now, there’s nothing blatantly wrong with profiles like these. And if you’re genuinely a down-to-earth, sarcastic, career-driven, outdoors-loving, world-traveling, family-worshipping gym rat, well, go ahead and post a profile like that. But girls are going to have a hard time telling you apart from the millions of other down-to-earth, sarcastic, career-driven, outdoors-loving, world-traveling, family-worshipping gym rats attempting to find dates online. And maybe the majority of guys out there (or at least the majority of guys who come up in my searches) really are like that, but I think it’s more likely that they’re just saying what they think we want to hear. So let’s break it down:

-First of all, none of us ever thought we were going to do online dating. We all dreamed of meeting our soul mates in high school, then in college, then at work, then in a meet-cute incident at a bar. (Or at least I did.) So that disclaimer is unnecessary.

-As is the line about “the bar scene.” I’m sure some people do get long-term relationships out of people they meet at bars, but the odds are against you. Frankly, if that was the method you depended upon to meet girls, I have to say that I think a little less of you.

-Career-driven is great. Career-driven is fabulous. But you’ve got to give me more than that. If you just say “career-driven,” you just sound like someone who worships money. You need to tell me why you’re career-driven. Did you start in an entry-level position, enjoyed it, wanted more of a challenge, and worked your way up to manager? Did you decide to go into medicine/education/social work because you’re passionate about curing diseases/teaching the children/righting the wrongs of the world? Do you have goals for the work you do because you love it so much? Is it a career you only sort of like but you can live with it because you know it will finance your future and your children’s future? All of these reasons are great and things I want to know about, but most people just end up settling for “career-driven.” Give me something I can work with!

-“Hiking and exploring the outdoors.” Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. The thing that amazes me is the sheer number of guys who put this in their profile. In real life, I only rarely hear people talk about going hiking or fishing or camping over the weekends, but a ridiculous number of guys on online dating sites seem to like these things. Are that many guys really into it and I don’t realize it? Or do they just put it in their profile because they think it makes them seem “rugged” and “manly”?

-“I try to go to the gym as much as I can.” Now, here’s one instance where something comes off exactly the opposite of how the guy intended it. If you’re training for a race, fabulous! If you’re raising money for cancer/the dolphins/the Human Fund, even better! If you participate in your office softball team or Social Boston Sports, if you enjoy yoga or spin class so much you can’t miss it, or if you just genuinely get some kind of high off of using a treadmill or pumping iron, that’s all great and you should say so. But if you just make a point of saying how you always go to the gym and how important fitness is to you, I’m going to think that you’re really vain and appearance-focused. You know who else goes to the gym a lot? The Situation and Pauly D. Do you also tan and do laundry after your trips to the gym?

-Same with “I love to travel.” Good Lord. This is a pet peeve of mine not just with online dating, but with life in general. Traveling is not some kind of badge of honor. I am not impressed with your list of countries that you’ve visited. You are not morally superior because you’ve seen the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China. All that means is that you’ve had the money and the opportunity to travel to those places. Not all of us have! I do love to travel, as do most people, but I do not give a shit where you’ve been.

-You’re down-to-earth and easygoing, you love your family, you like both going out and staying in. All good things, and I even have some variation on those things in my own profile. But, really, done to death. If you really want to stand out, tell me some story about yourself, or at least get more specific. Is there some occasion where you look forward to seeing your family because you have some kind of yearly ritual? Do you like to make popcorn, drink a PBR, and watch DVR’ed episodes of Modern Family on Friday nights, followed by a Boylston Street pub crawl with your college friends on Saturday, during which you make sure to order a big plate of nachos? THESE are the things I want to know about.

But who knows? Maybe there aren’t really that many guys out there with profiles like these, and this is just my type. Maybe my destiny is to end up with a guy who hikes and loves traveling and going to the gym. If that’s true, at least I know that there are plenty of them.

These Are My Confessions

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We are now nearing the end of Lent, and I’ve heard that there’s an initiative in the Boston Archdiocese to encourage people to go to confession. I’ve written before here about my religious habits, but I haven’t been to confession since my confirmation retreat when I was fifteen. I was sharing a room with a girl I went to school with, and I confessed that I’d snuck a look at her retreat notebook while she was in the bathroom.

So while I might not be headed for ten Our Fathers or whatever they give you for penance nowadays, but there are plenty of things about myself that I’m not proud of. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell you guys some of the more unfortunate facts about me.

Without further ado, here’s what I have to confess to my readers:

-When I was a teenager, my sister and I both went to the optometrist. I was sitting near this table and had my hand under it, and I felt a button. When I pushed it, it made a noise like a doorbell. The optometrist apparently didn’t know the bell was there, because she was all confused and tried to figure out where it was coming from. I pressed it one more time to make sure, and it sounded again. I was too embarrassed to say that it had been me, and my sister didn’t even believe me when I told her.

-My first-ever concert was Backstreet Boys.

-It takes me over an hour to get out of bed on a normal day, regardless of how much sleep I get. My bed is just so soft and comfy that I don’t want to get out, so I can never get anything done before work.

-I don’t do laundry until I run out of underwear, and underwear and socks are about the only thing I wash. As long as my clothes don’t smell and don’t have any big stains on them, I just put them away.

-Although, I only own about three sports bras, so I very often take a sports bra out of the hamper, put it on, and hope that I run fast enough that people walking by me don’t have to smell me.

-While I love the Red Sox, I can’t claim to be a lifelong fan. I’m a lousy athlete and a bit of a girly-girl, so when I was a kid I was all, “Ew, I hate sports.” By high school I’d changed my mind, and I’ve been a die-hard Sox fan for the last ten years or so.

-I still have the keys from my summer job in 2001. Oops.

-At said summer job (lifeguard at a condo complex), I once accidentally left those keys, and all my other stuff, in the pool building and locked myself out in the pouring rain. I managed to climb over the fence and get myself back in through an unlocked door, but not before getting soaked by the rain. I don’t want to think about how many people in the condos must have seen this all happen.

-I watch Toddlers and Tiaras. It’s a horrifying, ridiculous show, but I just can’t look away! I’m too embarrassed to put it on my DVR, but I watched almost every episode of the most recent season. This one little girl, Makenzie, cracks me up. Sometimes I’ll randomly start laughing thinking of her saying, “I think waitresses are really cool…they bring food.” (That’s at about 11:47 of this video, but watch the whole thing!)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_vQ3kIXVNE&w=480&h=390]

-At chorus a couple of weeks ago, while having a conversation about Disney princesses, I told this girl how Hans Christian Andersen’s version of “The Little Mermaid” ends. (Don’t look it up if you don’t know and don’t want to be disappointed.) Uh, that was a mistake- I think I ruined her day.

-When I went to see Wicked last fall, my friend Amy and I walked over a sidewalk vent on our way there. Um, bad idea when you’re on a major street and wearing dresses.

-If you have ever been a competitive swimmer, at some point you have peed in a pool.

-I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. Make of that what you will.

Why Cinderella Rules

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You might have noticed in my previous post that my bib says “Cinderella” right above “Princess Katherine.” That’s because when we registered, we had to choose which of seven princesses was our favorite: Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty), Ariel (from The Little Mermaid), Belle (from Beauty and the Beast), Jasmine (from Aladdin), or Tiana (from The Princess and the Frog).

The Disney princesses have gotten a lot of bad press, which has been amplified recently with the publication of Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Although I would argue that the Princess Half-Marathon itself is an entirely positive thing (it aims to empower women, promote a healthy lifestyle, and encourage women to run in teams together), there have been critiques of the princess marketing campaign that I understand and largely agree with. It prioritizes beauty, it puts too much emphasis on finding a prince, it gives the impression that you have to be a beautiful princess to find love. After re-watching all of the Disney princess movies, I realize as an adult that there are some problematic messages that I didn’t pick up on as a kid.

However.

LEAVE. CINDERELLA. ALONE.

After watching all the movies, I have to confirm my choice of Cinderella, who is clearly the best of the Disney princesses. And here’s why.

I have to say, first of all, that I’ve always loved Cinderella. It was one of the first movies I owned on VHS as a kid, if not the first. It’s got Jaq and Gus-Gus (“Lucifee not funny! Lucifee mean!”), who are just as cute all these years later. When I was in sixth grade, I played Cinderella in a class play where I wore high-heeled, clear jelly sandals for glass slippers. My senior year of high school, I was in the chorus for a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. And I think there’s something about the overcoming adversity aspect of the Cinderella story that just resonates with people more than any other fairy tale. No one calls an underdog who wins a “Snow White” story, after all.

I also have to say that when I re-watched these movies, I was taking with me some of the things I’d learned in the class I took in college on Disney literature. In that class, we read the literature that a Disney movie was based on, then watched the movie and talked about both differences between the literature and the film and issues in the movie itself. It was a fun class, although I do think sometimes the professor went a bit too far—i.e., she thought that Sebastian having a Caribbean accent in The Little Mermaid was racist and thought that The Lion King being about a lion monarchy in Africa was somehow a comment on African nations establishing independence (because, you know, The Lion President has such a nice ring to it). But I definitely could see some issues in The Little Mermaid, like the significance of Eric falling in love with Ariel when she had no voice. And in Beauty and the Beast, I can see how the Beast has a lot of the qualities of an abusive lover.

But let’s just talk about my own observations. First, Snow White, the oldest of the Disney princesses, has the world’s most annoying voice. She also has very little personality—it’s like once they gave the dwarves their name-reflected personalities, there was none left for her. And while I cringe at her offering to cook and clean for the dwarves if they just let her stay with them, I can’t criticize that too much—it was 1937, after all.

Then came Cinderella, whom I’ll get back to, but after her was Aurora, and Disney decided to go the personality-less, woodland-animals-love-me route again with her. But Aurora is just really boring. She’s barely even in the movie, for one thing—she’s asleep for most of it, but even when she’s awake, the focus is more on the three fairies who take care of her. Her parents love her, too, and she was born into royalty. Bor-ing! Although everything ends up happily-ever-after, she has no agency in her own fate at all.

We all have fond memories of The Little Mermaid (even my sister, who as a three-year-old cried in the theater and indignantly told my mom that her favorite part was “when the witch died!”). We’ve all sung “Part of Your World” and shivered inside our Little Mermaid beach towels. Ariel can sing and swim, has cool friends, and ends up with hottie Prince Eric. (What? He’s a good-looking cartoon!) And I have to say that Belle is a close second to Cinderella. She’s the smart, bookworm princess and is outspoken and stubborn as well as kind. But the issues I mentioned keep both of them from being my favorite.

The less said about Jasmine, the better—Aladdin‘s not even about her, and her brains and personality take a backseat to her sexuality throughout the movie.

I had never seen The Princess and the Frog until last month. It was disappointing—kind of dull with unmemorable music. Tiana, a poor waitress in New Orleans, is determined to open her own restaurant. At first I thought that was pretty awesome—a princess who wants to do things on her own and not just wait for a prince! Unfortunately, Tiana extols the virtues of hard work so many times throughout the movie that she just ends up sounding self-righteous and annoying. She ends up marrying a spoiled prince from some made-up country—after she’s beaten him over the head with how important hard work is—but she does get her restaurant, too.

Which brings me to Cindy. Unlike her contemporaries Snow White and Aurora, Cinderella does have a personality—she’s friendly and motherly to the animals, positive and hopeful, and doesn’t just robotically accept her stepmother treating her like dirt. She mutters to herself about having to wait on them and complains to the animals. I guess theoretically, she could say, “Fuck you,” and turn and leave them, but this is, after all, Long Ago and Far Away, and I’m guessing young women’s career options were a bit limited then.

Now, in the original fairy tale, Cinderella just kind of sighs and mopes about not being able to go to the ball, but the Disney version is somewhat different. She does everything she can to try to go to the ball and has every intention of making her own dress. When her stepfamily prevents her from doing it on time, it’s her mice friends who come through for her by making her a dress themselves, and it’s only after the stepsister literally tear the dress off her that the fairy godmother shows up and saves the day. Similarly, when the stepmother locks her in the tower to keep her from trying on the slipper, her mice friends help her out, and Cinderella is the one who has the idea to get the dog to scare the cat away. So the lessons here are: try to do things on your own instead of waiting for someone to show up, and make friends and help those who need you—they’ll help you back when you need them.

Yes, the prince falls in love with her based on her looks, not her personality. And yes, the prince himself is quite dull (although his father is batshit crazy, so his gene pool is a bit tainted on top of that). But hey, the movie was made in 1950. And unlike Snow White and Aurora, Cinderella seems like a real enough person that we don’t just want the generic happy ending; we want her, personally, to be happy.

So bash the other princesses, and the whole idea of princess culture in general, all you want. But wanting to be Cinderella is not a bad thing at all. Among princesses, Cinderella is a queen. She rules.

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