Amanda on Being on the Team: It's "Them," Not "We"

“Fan” comes from “fanatic,” defined as “a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.” Not all fans are fanatics; it’s possible to enjoy something without it overcoming you. But one indicator that you’ve crossed the line from fan to fanatic is if you begin to believe you are a member of your favorite team. If you have reached this point, you have contracted this “excessive and single-minded zeal” like a virus. And when you are focused so intently on a team that you begin to think you’re on it, life becomes sad for you if you realize that you aren’t.

Friends, let’s come to reality slowly and together. You are not a member of the team, and life is still not sad. You have so many good qualities. I’m sure you are an excellent singer. Or you’re really good with kids. Your mom probably thinks you’re great. You might be a math genius or a really fast runner. Whatever the case is, just be you, which is a truthful role you can inhabit, not some delusion that you are a member of a multimillion dollar franchise that doesn’t even know your name.

I’m not a big fan of sports, but I am a big fan of lots of other things that I know have nothing to do with me. I don’t think I am a part of my favorite band. I know my favorite book was not written about me. I don’t try to wait tables when I’m at my favorite restaurant. I know there are boundaries between me and the things that I like, and that this is OK, and that happiness can be found in other ways rather than insisting that I am included in something that I am not included in.

The beautiful thing that you are a part of as a fan is a fan base: a group of like-minded people who enjoy the same thing as you do. This is great! This is coming together in a good, healthy way! In the case of sports, this is watching football or baseball or whatever and appreciating it, and identifying with the struggle of it, and maybe even getting a rush or two out of it. Making some friends because of it, and maybe having a disagreement or two with a fan of another team, but not declaring him your mortal enemy. Because you don’t need to hate any more people than you already do, and you especially don’t need to hate people because they like different guys who throw or kick or hit balls on TV than you like.

This is not taking anything too personally, and this does not lead to the maniacal burning of cars and drunken riots in city streets.

So let’s just let our favorite teams be our favorite teams, and us be ourselves. And in case I’ve left anything unclear, feel free to utilize the flow chart I’ve created to determine whether or not you are a member of the team.







Football Field by Dan X. O'Neil is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Amanda on Buffets: This is Not the Pride Lands

The attraction to buffets is a magnetic, dangerous force. Those who love them are laboring under some delusion that buffets are the promise land, a Mecca of chicken wings and soggy pound cake. It’s a sick trick that buffets are pulling on us, and I’m here to put a stop to it.

And when I talk about buffets here, I am not talking about your rich uncle’s buffet-style wedding. I am talking about the shopping center buffet with the $5 all-you-can-eat lunch special. I am talking about Sizzler before Sizzler vanished with the rising prices of green Jell-O and grade D meat.

There are two fiscally sound ways to approach buffets. The first is like a rowdy frat boy spending all his summer job earnings on a weekend in Vegas: take whatever comes your way, whether you like it or not, and get your money’s worth. But with this mentality, terrible things start happening. I find myself eating French fries dipped in hot fudge, just because I have the option of doing so. Dave starts eating fried frog legs. The crusts of horrible, microwavable pizzas with sour cheese litter plate upon plate across the table. It’s not a pretty scene. It’s one you might see in a bad symbolist film about the deterioration of pride.

The other is what I like to call the “Jane Doe Method,” named after someone close to me and Dave who asked not to be identified in this blog post:

• Choose a target. In this case, Dave and I were in college and a chain buffet had just opened up a few miles away from campus.
• Prepare materials. Jane came down to our school one Sunday equipped with a large purse and multiple one-gallon Ziploc freezer bags.
• Identify desirable items. While most of the food was too vile to think about ever reheating, Jane scoped out the one passable dish, grilled steak made to order.
• Acquire substance. Jane slyly dumped multiple platefuls of steak into the plastic bags in her purse.

While I am a vegetarian and am revolted by the idea of eating the flesh of a dead animal, from a buffet or otherwise, Dave ate some pretty decent steak for dinner every night for the next week.

But there’s a problem with these two methods. One is unhealthy, disgusting, and soul crushing. You do not leave a place where you ate four pounds of mashed potatoes mixed with what looked like cheese whiz but tasted like crayons without sustaining some physical and mental damage. The other is in a moral gray area and could be considered illegal. So what is the best way to approach buffets?

The answer is don’t. Avoid them at all costs. Take your money and buy a modest amount of quality food anywhere else.

Everything in moderation, except puppies.
And Office reruns.

At buffets, you are not really paying for food. You are paying for the joy of your inner-Mufasa telling you that everything the light touches is yours. But ladies and gentleman, this is not the Pride Lands you are being offered here. This is a shadowy place akin to the elephant graveyard. This is where food comes to die.

Don’t be deceived. Save yourself from the possible food poisoning, the calories, and the potential embarrassment of being stopped and questioned for carrying a sizeable amount of dead cow in your purse. If you don’t want to cook, for the love of God, just order a pizza instead.









Suki has the purple collar by Ingo Di Bella is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Amanda on the Coin Flip: Just Use Your Brain

This adorable baby knows how ridiculous it is to live life by the coin.

When I first started dating Dave, I thought the coin flip was a quirky thing he did to pick his order at restaurants in a way that would make the server laugh. I soon learned it was more than that. The moment I fully realized how important the coin flip was to him was when I walked into his apartment to hear him chanting, “flip the coin! Flip the coin!” to our friend who was deciding where to go to grad school. Any decision that leaves Dave even marginally unsure of what to do, he will immediately try to solve with the coin. And he will follow the coin’s decision blindly.

The coin flip is only useful in the way that any exercise that makes something definitive is useful. Let me explain. Let’s say you are twelve and your mom asks you if you want macaroni and cheese for dinner or if you’d like to order pizza. You say you don’t really care. But when you see your mom pull out the pot to boil water, one of two things will happen: either that pizza starts sounding really good and you rush to grab the phone before your mom puts the pasta in that pot and your shot at pizza is blown, or you become content with the prospect of macaroni and cheese for dinner and you wait calmly until she calls you to the table. The mom is the decision maker for indecisive twelve year olds. The coin flip is the decision maker for indecisive grown-ups. After the coin hits the surface, there’s a good chance you will know what you were actually hoping for.

The coin flip brings out your gut feelings when you didn’t know you had any. And I’m all for following your gut.

So if the coin helps you come to a decision, that’s great. But if you realize you aren’t happy with the decision the coin made, go against it. Do not let a little metal thing with some dead president’s face on it dictate what you will do with your life. Put it in its place and use it for some gumballs or an arcade game instead.

Dave might argue that it’s silly to waste all your brainpower making unimportant decisions. Fine. I will cede that you can thoughtlessly use the coin for some mundane things, if it’s helpful to you. Here I have included a brief list of example predicaments and divided them into those which can be safely decided by the coin and those which you should employ logic for.

OK to use the coin	Not OK to use the coin
What movie should I see?	Where should I invest my life savings?
What should I make for lunch?	C-section or natural birth?
What clothes should I wear today?	Should I wear clothes today?

There is, however, a perk to dating someone who believes so unwaveringly in the power of the coin and fears horrible repercussions should he disobey it. Things that I want to do that I have 0% chance of getting Dave to do with me suddenly become things that I have a 50% chance shot at if I involve the coin. In this way, I have gotten Dave to do a number of things including:
• Watch Rent.
• Eat at a vegetarian restaurant that plays strange music that scares the bajeezus out of him.
• Go to poetry readings.

I have also been given a free pass on ordering a super girly drink at the bar because I had Dave flip a coin on what I should order.

Thus, while I don’t believe in the power of the coin, I sometimes embrace Dave’s belief in it. But as for me, my decision maker is a spongy mass of cells and tissue. It’s called my brain.



Clara's New Laugh by Mitch Bennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Amanda on Competitive Bearding: A Manly Miss America

I got conned into watching Whisker Wars after losing a bet to Dave. He insisted that I would like it. I watched the first episode with bitter reluctance, and then pretended I was still bitterly reluctant while watching the second, third, and fourth episodes, partly because I didn’t want Dave to know he was right, and partly because I wanted to be able to hold it over his head as something that I did even though I didn’t want to, which could maybe win me a back rub or two.

Competitive bearding is, at its core, a form of pageantry. Hairy, manly, beer-drenched pageantry but pageantry nonetheless. Yes, the intricate patterns of curls in these beards are often made with beer cans instead of curlers. But if you take a cupcake and ice it with Jack Daniels steak sauce, it is still a cupcake.

But this contrast is what makes the show sort of awesome. Bearded manly men walking around drinking beer does not make good television. Bearded manly men walking around drinking beer and taking turns hair-spraying and primping each other makes good television.

My gut revulsion to the show came from one of its stars: Jack Passion. Passion, who says things such as “I’m going to beat everyone and then spit on them,” turns bearding into a cast for his bruised ego. Does that mean that the entire culture is like this? No. In fact, James Moody, the hilarious “spiritual advisor” to the Austin Facial Hair Club, emphasizes the importance of the ying and yang of beards: in order to be a respectable beardsman, your “inner beard,” or attitude and sportsmanship, must be just as impressive as your outer beard.

And even if I totally hated the show, I might still watch it because of this guy:

Aarne Bielefeldt is the founding member of the Terminal Length Beard Club whose philosophy is to just “Let it Grow.” When Aarne suffered a string of losses and switched categories from Full Beard Natural to Freestyle, I came close to swearing off Whisker Wars for good. But even with his switch to the showier category, Aarne maintains his down-to-earth attitude, still wears outfits sewn by his wife, and still dons his adorable old man grin. My favorite moment of the series is when Aarne produces a collection of sepia photographs that he has taken of beards that inspire him, including one of his fellow competitor holding his daughter who, head-to-toe, is only a bit longer than his beard. Aarne says that he collects these pictures because they resonate with him emotionally. And who am I to discredit the value of something as heartfelt and innocent as that?

Amanda's Opening Statement

Last night, upon finding his pillow much fluffier than usual, Dave turned to me and said, “Amanda, I am generally confused.” I knew he really meant “I am genuinely confused,” but I think there’s more truth in the first statement. He is generally confused. And so Blog You in the Schnoz was born out of necessity: the necessity to prove to Dave that he is wrong a lot more often than he thinks he is.

The man has a deadly combination of two traits: an overactive imagination and serious conviction. Thus, his thought process is usually as follows: imagine an idea, begin to believe in the idea despite its legitimacy, and then argue it until he is so convinced and the other person is so tired of arguing that he leaves every argument thinking he’s right.

Ladies and gentleman, it is time to prove Dave wrong for once and for all. This pattern of him walking away from every argument believing he is right is starting to get dangerous. His ideas began slowly and innocently. Things like “Lady Madonna” is the best Beatles song. That ketchup doesn’t go with everything salty and savory (which it absolutely does).

But I fear the progression of his condition. He has been toying with the idea of inventing “toilet pants.” And the other day I couldn’t even convince him that populating New Jersey with tumbleweeds was a bad idea. I had to distract him with ice cream.

It’s best just to nip this in the bud, and to do so in a public way. Dave, please prepare to be blogged in the schnoz.