Honestly: series 9.

-I keep thinking about this, so I will finally write it out: the only two places to feel absolute solidarity and peace must be in 1) the bathroom and 2) an elevator (assuming you are alone in both places). I never thought of the bathroom as a place to seek solidarity, until Cliff and I visited California last year and my sister, who admittedly stated that she questioned her boyfriend's length of time in the bathroom, proved to have disrespected the utter most need for privacy, implicitly kept sacred by males(?). This made me reconsider the idea of privacy and space. For reference, I do not spend a lot of time in the bathroom, but I do frequent it, and at work, the restroom used to be one of the only places to feel like I can let out a big sigh, in addition to the elevator. The elevator (when alone), albeit likely less than a minute-long ride, was my second place of refuge when I sought out solidarity at work (or before/after an interview!). It gave me just enough time to mentally prepare myself for what was to come, or to wind down at the end of the day, only to be greeted by the doorman, who looks exactly like a teddy bear in a suit.

-I think it's kind of crazy the lengths that women go through to look presentable. Who am I to say this as I love getting ready (although I admit after college, when there are such things as "appropriate attire" or even "age appropriate attire," I don't try as hard). The spectators of our presentation are mostly voyeuristic in nature, save for the other 90 percent of time when women are checking each other out. Even if women claim they are getting ready for themselves (while I personally find this to be only half true), it's not their fault they catch unwanted attention and I think all women know that it happens regardless of it being their intention. This makes me think of the requirement of the thong or shaving. But it has become so normalized that to not wear or do these things is indecent. Many granola women, in a kind of blase manner, just wear hair under their armpits, which is a very big difference from embracing the hair. Just as you don't really embrace wearing a pair of shoes. You just wear them. And to be honest, I'm a little envious of their nonchalance. 

-Upon finishing Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, I concluded, well, a few things. 1) Nora's narcissism has really made her successful. This is both inspiring and disappointing, as a majority of her film making and writing career was based on her brilliant personal one-liners, zingers, and thoughts (like Joe Fox's Starbucks "defining sense of self" theory from You've Got Mail, or Harry's monologue on "suppose nothing happens to you" from When Harry Met Sally). This just proves that her life is merely ingenious! 2) (This, about to slightly contradict the above bullet point) Your twenties and even thirties are to be taken advantage of. "...go wear a bikini and don't take it off until you're 34," she advised her young readers. I have all these shoes I don't wear because they're either too painful or too tall, but this made me think, why not? I think I'm pretty happy about the way I love life in my twenties, so I should go all out. The secret, I think, is to keep feeling this way every decade.