"You want to know the trouble with women?"

There I was. Enjoying a delightful breakfast with my soon-to-be married sister and my little grandma at a diner in South Plainfield.We sat in a booth near the counter where several elderly people enjoyed their cream-filled pastries and cups of coffee. To out surprise, an older man wearing a newsboy cap and a plaid button down spun around and invaded our conversation about the wedding.

"Would you like to see my new postcards?" He asked, with a hopeful smile on his wrinkled face.

When my sister nor my grandmother answered, I burst out with a friendly "sure!" and the ship was launched. Why did I burst? I have the tendency of being over-friendly in uncomfortable situations which is the complete opposite of how I want to appear when an invasive old man interrupts my cozy breakfast.

"I just got these in the mail yesterday," the old man said, as he handed the postcards to my sister who reluctantly took them. "Don't get anything on them," he added.

"Wow," my sister sighed. She flipped through the small stack of obviously new postcards. I watched over her shoulder as scenes from 1950s TV shows flashed before us then disappeared behind the stack. I only recognized a few: The Honeymooners, Perry Mason, Bonanza, and then we came to I Love Lucy. It was my favorite show when I was younger. It was often played during a segment of Nickelodeon called "Nick at Nite" before the segment became flooded with unrealistic 90s sitcoms. I would snuggle up in my bed and watch I Love Lucy for hours, or until I fell asleep. I collected memorabilia and even dressed up as Lucy for one, now embarrassing, Halloween.

"I Love Lucy," I said, "that was my favorite show." I took the card in my hand and admired it.

The old man rambled on about all the postcards and stamps he collected. He even had us guess how much postcards cost in the 1950s.

"Two cents," I guessed.

The old man boasted, "one cent."

Trying to sound surprised I said, "wow, that is inexpensive."

My sister pretended to get a phone call from her fiancé, handed the postcards back to the man, and rushed off to the ladies room and I was left with an old man stuck in the 1950s and my poor grandmother who was not too sure what was going on.

And then he said it: "You want to know the trouble with women?"

Had this not been an older gentlemen who clearly lost his marbles long ago, I would have said in response, "Do you want to know the trouble with misogynists?" But seeing as the old man was much older than I, I  simply laughed and asked, "what?"

And so he started.

"A buddy of mine back in the 50s was a stamp collector too. One day, his wife was mailing some bills and was one stamp short. While my buddy was in the bathroom, she took one of the stamps out of his books and used it."

I hoped this was the end of the story.

"The police were called later because he had beat her up pretty bad. But you know what I would have done  if a woman had done that to me?"

Oh, Jesus.

"I would have took her in the bedroom and made her watch as I urinated all over her shoes."

I stared as this man for a long while, trying to decide what to say. Thankfully, my sister returned and I looked away from the man. I would not usually have done this because I was obviously being rude but I could not take anymore of this old man's nonsense. He finally got the idea and turned to the couple sitting next to him. "You want to see my new postcards?" He asked.

For the rest of the breakfast, we tried to look at the window as much as possible.

The future hangs over our heads...

Upon completion of my undergraduate studies, I will be tossed into the chaotic world of being a real adult, in which a salary is demanded to live. This presents several problems for those of us who will have trouble finding a  job after graduation, which will be most people. So to keep my mind at rest, I have come up with a systematic approach involving three possible options.

Option 1 (probably the most realistic, but least exciting of the three): The sensible thing after graduating college with a certification in teaching high school, a BA in English and a minor in Writing Arts would be to find a teaching job. However, there are hundreds of individuals also joining the educational frontier and that may make it quite difficult for me to find a job. Chances are, if I find a high school to teach at in Somerset or Hunterdon county, I will live at my parent's house. I would like to avoid this at all costs. But if the opportunity arises, I am sure I will continue to live in their house until I can gather enough funds to move the hell out.

Option 2: I can get my MA in English at either Rutgers-Newark or TCNJ. This would not be cost efficent, but in the long run (which may be quite long), it will help me find a job much easier and also perpetuate my life-long dream of learning everything I can. The downside of this option would again be the fact I would most certainly have to live at my parent's house, unless I can get some kind of student housing on campus. But personally, I do not want to live in Newark but, I suppose living in Ewing Township would not be quite that bad.

Option 3 (this option is the most exciting): To join either the Peace Corps or Americore. If I joined the Peace Corps, I would be sent somewhere in the world to teach English for two years. The Peace Corps would insure me for the entirety of my time spent abroad and pay me $6,000 upon my return to the states to help me readjust to American life. The Peace Corps would also provide housing and food for me as well. This sounds amazing. I would get to travel and teach at the same time, while not having to pay for anything. Sounds magnificent. Downside: I will miss my lovers and, I may enjoy the country so much, I might just stay there. On the other hand, I could join Americore, which is basically the same thing except I would be placed domestically and the time in the program is shorter. Both of these ideas are risky, especially if I am placed in the South for Americore or placed in South America.

What to do?

I technically need to decide within the year so I can schedule my GREs or apply for the Corps.

I suppose I will just think about...

Not so promising...

As it seems, I am an unreliable blogger. I will try to participate more in my own projects.

This year, I am making a vow to myself not to celebrate Thanksgiving. True, I will enjoy the smoked turkey, the buttery and sugared sweet potatoes and probably even a slice of spicy pumpkin pie. But, I will not be thinking of  pilgrims or cornucopias. I will not be "giving thanks" for the food I have received. I will not be tracing my hand to make turkeys. If I think about anything other than the enormous amount of calories I will be enjoying, it will be the Native Americans who are forgotten about on that day. The ones who never went to the first Thanksgiving wearing feathers on their heads and dancing around fires. As it turns out, there were not Native Americans at Thanksgiving; at least none that were alive. Perhaps laying off in the wilderness somewhere, there were Native Americans. But they were not comfortably enjoying the feast from a far; they were hiding in fear for their lives. I find it disgusting and immoral that children are taught the myth of the first Thanksgiving in school. The first pilgrims were Puritans: hypocritical savages masquerading as Christians.They hated anyone who was not a Puritan, including the barbaric Native Americans. Yes, those barbaric Native Americans who purposefully gave the newcomers small pox and stole their land, in the process, murdering hundreds of people--oh, wait, that was the Puritans. I refuse to further perpetuate the fabled first Thanksgiving with the pilgrims in their little black hats passing a bowl of steaming, hot corn to their brotherly Native American friend. Nor, when I have children one day (perhaps), will I allow their minds to be filled with such nonsense. So how did this mythological tales of friendship and kindness make their way into the history books? Consider who has been writing down history since the Puritans; hm, could it be the wealthy, landowning white man? I think it could. They would never speak badly about the moral and Christian men who discovered and settled this great country. So rather, they fill the pages of history books with lies and hypocrisies because they are too afraid of anyone really knowing the truth about where this country came from.

See Monsters of Folk's Baby Boomer.


Now, on to more exciting and less depressing matters. Lately I have been sending in numerous PostSecrets. In the past, I usually sent one in once a month. But these past couple of months, I have sent maybe 10 or 15. What does this mean? Am I developing more secrets? Or am I feeling more comfortable revealing old secrets? Either way, none of them have been published on the site and I think that is okay.

Okay, until next time. But I will do my best to write again within the week.