In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger gives a lackluster, uninspired performance that will tragically tarnish his artistic legacy. Hopefully, we will all be able to clutch onto our copies of Casanova, and remember the talent of this young actor.

All this and more in my new book: “Completely Untrue Statements, and the Blogs that Followed!”

At this point it seems cliched to talk about how fucking brilliant Heath Ledger is in that movie, or how he created a dark, terrifying interpretation of the Joker that frightened me even as I was watching the movie, or how fantastic it is that he could surprise everyone who initially thought “Really? Heath Ledger? As the Joker? REALLY, Christopher Nolan?” when they heard he’d been cast (which was everyone, until they thought for a second and realized the casting choice was so unexpected that Ledger had to have had an awesome take on the character, and then got really really fucking excited for the movie and couldn’t believe they’d have to wait a year and a half to see it — or was that just me?). Or to discuss how Ledger should at least get a posthumous Oscar Nomination, if not that actual Naked Gold Man statuette.

And it seems really futile for me to tell you that I thought the movie was bad-fucking-ass with a capital “HOLY SHIT, BATMAN, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!”

Because if you saw the movie, you already know that Heath Ledger was totes awes (that means “totally awesome” in bastardized English) and you already have your opinion of the movie as a whole, which you’ve probably proudly displayed in your Facebook status. And really, the idea of using a blog to try to sway a Facebook status makes me want to bake a cake out of my own vomit. And I would really like to be able to write a blog about something else besides The Dark Knight, but well… I was sick this weekend, and it was the only thing I did, ok?

So instead of a full-fledged movie review, I instead present:

9 Random Thoughts Somewhat Related to The Dark Knight

1. I am so glad that the producers low-balled Katie Holmes into making Mad Money instead this movie. If Christopher Nolan could actually go back into Batman Begins and digitally insert Maggie Gyllenhaal into the movie, that’d be perfect. That way we could all forget Katie Holmes and how she tries to use that stupid half-smile of hers to convey that she’s: angry, uncomfortable, happy, overwhelmed, scared, constipated. Seriously, I couldn’t sleep Saturday night, and ended up watching a re-run of Dawson’s Creek at 5 in the morning. Let me tell you, the girl acts exactly the same when she’s preaching to Bruce Wayne about the inaction of good-hearted people as when she’s mad at Pacey for not letting her talk to Dawson at the end-of-summer clambake.

2. I love how Morgan Freeman makes any character seem ten times more trustworthy. If I were a director with an upcoming thriller about a serial killer, and wanted to surprise the audience with the killer’s true identity, I’d cast Morgan Freeman in the role. It would make the audience shit their pants. NO ONE EVER SUSPECTS MORGAN FREEMAN!

3. Ya know, I didn’t think Ledger would ever be able to top his performance in 10 Things I Hate About You, but I think he might have done it with this picture!

4. I saw the movie on a girl-date with my friend Amy, and whenever Freeman came on screen, she’d turn to me and say, “Hey, is that Samuel L. Jackson?” This got me imagining what Lucius Fox would be like if portrayed by Samuel, Mr. Jackson if you’re nasty. I think it would go something like this:

“What do you mean, you want me to hook up every muthafucking cellphone in muthafucking Gotham?! That ain’t muthafucking right! Consider this my muthafucking resignation!”

Then he’d shoot Alfred’s head off, and hilarity would ensue.

5. I really want to watch 10 Things I Hate About You.

6. I definitely agree with the criticism that the movie was a bit too long. However, this seems to be symptomatic of pretty much every film that has been made in the last 5 years. Especially if Judd Apatow had any involvement in it. I love The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but he could have cut at least 20 minutes off that movie. These days, filmmakers aren’t as interested as presenting streamlined product, but rather, showing you everything they can do, even if it makes things cluttered. They have a lot of ideas, and instead of editing them, they just want to throw them all at you and hope you like the smörgåsbord. I don’t really mind it too much, especially as this is the exact concept that this entire blog entry is centered around.

7. Okay, I REALLY want to watch 10 Things I Hate About You.

8. Since I was sick this weekend, I watched an obscene amount of television, including 3 Batman movies, the first season of Mad Men on AMC, and far too many episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. After seeing The Dark Knight, I really wanted to watch another movie with Ledger in it, to completely bask in his talent and of course, look at how pretty he was. I was going to rent 10 Things I Hate About You, but just my luck, Brokeback Mountain was on TV, so I watched that instead. I had seen the movie once before, about two years back when I was visiting With Tongue in Berlin. I thought it was a good movie at the time, but the hype surrounding it kind of spoiled the film for me. It was very refreshing to see it again, removed from the hype, and finally be able to appreciate it for what it is — a beautiful, haunting, depressing film. And it doesn’t hurt that Heath and Jake are two cute boys making out. Yowza! Ledger gives a performance so completely different from the Joker, one that is more quiet and restrained, that I suddenly appreciated the breadth and variety inherent in his talent and couldn’t believe that the same actor could do both roles justice. It made me a little sad that I wouldn’t get to see what else he would have done.

9. Seriously, why don’t I own 10 Things I Hate About You?

“Well maybe you’re not afraid of me, but I’m sure you’ve pictured me naked!” - 10 Things I Hate About You.

After seeing The Dark Knight, I can honestly say that both statements are true.

Every year, the I-book contains a list of things you should do before you graduate. I’m all for making bucket lists, but this one is rather unadventurous and prepares U of I students for four, fun, fulfilling years of living in Hendrick House and playing World of Warcraft every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night (no offense to anyone who matches these characteristics — I’ve met some lovely chemical engineers who lived there that could actually carry on a conversation, though I have yet to determine if they could write anything other than a lab report).

Here are some of the gems from the I-book list:

“Take a trip to Meijer at 2 am.”

Wait a minute, is the I-book encouraging me to buy economy-sized containers of Kraft Mac and Cheese after the bars get out? Or, are they suggesting that this could be the highlight of my weekend? Clearly, if you are doing college correctly, you should not be at the legal level of sobriety to drive to Meijer at this time. No thanks, I-book. I’ll be at Murphy’s.

“Attend a lecture of a class you are not in.”

What the fuck?! This has got to be the stupidest suggestion on the whole list. It’s a perpetual struggle for students to make it to their 1 pm lecture (probably because they were at Murphy’s the night before), so why would they dare go to a class that they ain’t getting credit for?

Take it from a recent college grad currently stuck in C-U summer limbo — make it a point to leave college having taken advantage of this campus and what it has to offer. More importantly, take advantage of being a college student. Make sure to revel in the things that you can really only do as a college student. Let’s face it. Celebrating Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day in a non-college town would be provocation for an intervention. There are truly some things that you can only get away with while attaining The New High School Diploma (aka, your Bachelor’s Degree). I’ve thought about my own personal College Bucket List, and gathered a few pearls of college revelry from my friends, and compiled it into (drum roll, please)…

Triple Entendre Presents: Shit Ya Gotta Do in C-U

1. Streak the Quad. This was the number one thing I had to cross off my own personal list, and I’m proud to say that I did, right before finals started. Granted, it’s very stereotypical and cliched, but so is binge-drinking when you’re in college, stop pretending you’re original and take your pants off, drunky. Plus, with the creation of the Quad Cam, this quintessential college tradition has an extra edge of taboo when you know that Ground South of Allen Hall might be gathered around a computer watching you and your friends’ naughty bits bob on the Quad (which I’m also pretty sure happened the night I did it).

2. Study Abroad. Your college career is the only time in your life that you will be able to get loan money from the government to make friends from the Czech Republic. It’s awesome. In addition to making you a more worldly, independent individual, studying abroad gives you amusing anecdotes that entertain attractive members of the opposite sex (or same sex). If you can’t fit a study abroad program into your academic career (which you probably can, if you aren’t lazy and plan ahead), be sure to at least travel abroad. We all love Champaign-Urbana, but there are wonderful things beyond these cornfields.

3. Have a hangover. It’s simply a rite of passage, according to my friend Dave, and makes you truly understand the drinking process. It will also make you a more sympathetic friend. I never used to understand what my friends were talking about until the day after my 21st birthday, and boy howdy, now I don’t tease them for drinking an economy-sized jug of Gatorade the morning after. I tell them to pass it.

4. Have your heart broken. This one comes from my friend Alison, who says you’ll become a wiser, stronger person as a result. Very true.

5. Don’t have regrets. But do, however, do something that will make you cringe in retrospect. Trust me, there’s a difference. If you haven’t done something that your friends will mercilessly tease you about until the end of time, start your undergrad again.

6. Stay in C-U for a summer. Ya gotta see the world, but sometimes you just gotta stay put. Spending a summer on campus is a unique experience that makes you appreciate this town. The town slows down a lot, but in a good way. You will get incredibly close to your fellow campus-dwellers at a break-neck speed. Bonus: You actually get to have sober conversations with your friends.

7. Kiss everyone in the room at a party. New Year’s Eve doesn’t count. This one could also be rephrased as “Get mono by doing something funny.”

8. Go see a student theater show. Then go to the after-party. Penny Dreadful Players, New Revels, What You Will, Armory Free, Fishing with Dynamite, Potted Meat, Debono, Spicy Clamato, Other Other Guys. There is an amazing creative culture on this campus of young people trying to make a little art. Explore it. This also allows you to go to their after-parties, as going to the parties without seeing the show is considered a big d-bag move. And let me tell you, there are no crazier parties than a group of people coming off a performance high while suddenly realizing that they won’t get to see each other at rehearsal every day. This will help you achieve number 7. Also, take this a step further and audition for one of these groups.

9. Have a truly epic adventure. Not involving alcohol. Everyone has hilarious drunk stories, and we all love to hear them, but ya gotta do something outside the college box. For instance, my friend Dave went on a bike ride…to Bloomington. Completing number 2 on the list will also help you achieve this. One of my personal favorite stories to tell is how I accidentally ended up in Hamburg, Germany.

10. Drink a good beer. Yes, yes, at the rate and volume at which college students drink, we must normally subside on an alcoholic diet of Keystone Light. However, from time to time, remember that in the real world, alcohol is meant to be enjoyed, not binged. Take a night where you buy a pricier beer, or according to my friend Dave, spend a night where money is no option. For those of you who don’t drink beer, interpret this number as “Learn to appreciate beer, you wussy.”

11. Memorize a bar special. The point is not the drinking of the bar special. The point is that you create a tradition with a group of usual suspects (aka, your friends). For the past two years, I’ve been going to Murphy’s on Wednesdays with my friends for our weekly “Logo Lunch,” which consists of bacon cheeseburgers and a Logo Glass beer. When our schedules got messed up, we changed it to Logo Dinner so everyone could still partake. And you bet yer britches I’m going there today.

12. Wake up in a bed that is not yours. And remember: It’s not the “walk of shame.” It’s the “stride of pride.” You just woke up in some one else’s bed, have a little self-respect!

13. Go on a barcrawl. People never do this in the real world, which means you must do it before you graduate. I only recently when on my first barcrawl, The Jessica Barcrawl Birthday Barcrawl (not a typo). It’s a very different experience from spending a long night sitting around at Murphy’s. Not only is it fun to run around campustown with your friends, but you also get to tour and experience the many fine (and janky) campus bars. You get to develop a finer appreciation for Murphy’s, lemme tell ya.

14. Spend an afternoon on the Quad. It is essential to one’s mental health to sit on the Quad, doing nothing and shooting the breeze. If that gets tiresome, break out the frisbee and hackysack for some more cliched college behavior. The Quad is the living, breathing microcosm of our college society.

15. Spend a night not drinking with your drinking buddies. I know, I know, we are college students, and we love to get schwasted, I know. But friendships based on seeing one another only when sauced is a superficial friendship indeed. These people are called “acquaintances.” Your true friends are the ones you can tolerate while sober. So hang up your drinking hat every so often, head over to Perkins, and spend an evening catching up. To paraphrase something my friend Carl once told me, it’s not the crazy drunken times you’ll remember forever, but the quiet sober ones that will last with you forever.

At least remember this: College is all about becoming a more interesting “Never Have I Ever” player.

What would you add to this list?

My graduation party was this weekend. My closest friends and family gathered in my tiny ranch-style house in the forgettable suburb of Oak Forest, IL, to celebrate my unemployment with sangria and Italian sausage. Overall, the party was a success — My mother told me before the party that she bought the most beer she’d ever bought for a family party. The next day there wasn’t a single bottle left. Obviously, my mother had never been to a party with my alky friends before. I also took my friends on a field trip to Oak Fest, our town’s annual carnival and collection of the best in suburban white trash. As we waited in line for the Tilt-a-whirl, a future burn-out (aka, a 12-year-old boy from Oak Forest) made lewd gestures at my friends as he spun towards us.

Then he threw up. It’s times like this when I think God might exist.

In the midst of all this good, semi-clean fun, a small bit of drama arose, as it tends to in my circle of friends. My friend Alyssa was taking a train to Oak Forest from Chicago, and she called me for directions to my house. Luckily my friends Trendy and Paul had just arrived, so they willingly accepted my request that they go pick up Alyssa at the station.

“Do you guys need her number, in case you can’t find her?”

“Naaaaw, she’ll be easy to spot.”

Ten minutes later, Trendy calls me.

“Ok, I need her number, we can’t find her.”

A second glass of strong sangria later, I get a call from Alyssa.

“So, I’m in Oak…Park.” Which happens to be on the completely opposite side of Chicago. Which happens to be a town that just a few days earlier I was telling Alyssa that people always confuse Oak Forest with.

After a bit of discussion amongst my friends (and laughing…a lot of laughing…and teasing…so much teasing…), Alyssa decided to take the El to the city, hop over to the LaSalle Street Station and catch the 6:45 train to Oak Forest. She took the Green Line, survived a crazy cab drive, and ran as fast as her cigarette-smoke filled lungs would allow her to without exploding, and got to the train station. Just as the train was pulling away.

And she was holding sunflowers the entire time. Her graduation present to me. Throughout that entire debacle, she didn’t let go of those damn sunflowers. A girl sitting all her lonesome on a curb in Oak Park. A girl riding the El, and nervously checking her watch. A girl sprinting towards the Metra. All while carrying giant, bright flowers to delightfully contrast with her current situation. My friend Ryan, who also happens to be one of the most helpful and selfless people I know, volunteered to pick her up so she wouldn’t have to wait 2 hours for the next train. When they pulled into my driveway at 9 pm, Alyssa jumped out of the car, and sure enough, she was still holding onto those sunflowers.

I reciprocated by giving her a Bud Light.

My mind is blown that Alyssa would go to all of this trouble just to eat microwaved rigatoni at my house. Especially when I think of how our friendship started. A few years ago, I hated Alyssa, for no rational or logical reason besides the fact that I’m a douche bag deluxe sandwich with a side of lame fries. She was in a class with me, and I thought she was overbearing and talked too much. She just rubbed me the wrong way. She later tried out for a play festival that my theater troupe was producing, which included a play I had written. She walked into the audition and I thought “Oh great, that bitch from my Women’s Studies class.” Then, in another moment that makes me consider God’s existence, she gave a fantastic-i-dare-you-not-to-cast-me audition, and I thought “Oh, fuck, she’s a great actress. Goddamit, I’m gonna have to hang out with her now. GAH!” For the next few months, we would interact at cast parties and happy hours, with her completely unaware that I disliked her. She thought I didn’t talk much because I was shy. In reality, I didn’t talk much because I thought she was going to be a manipulative bitch who would hurt my friends. Potato, patata.

Then a miraculous thing happened. I began to realize that my first impression was completely wrong. Behind that studded leather jacket of hers beats a heart made of marshmallows and sleepy puppies. Over time, I saw her for what she is was: An honest, open, loving gal (who talks a lot in her discussion sections).

We’re close … VERY … close.

Isn’t it wonderful when people smash your negative expectations of them and prove you wrong? Realizing that Alyssa was actually pretty cool felt like when you discover your new favorite band and can’t believe you haven’t listened to them before. I’d say it was the equivalent of when I saw Regina Spektor in concert and realized she was more than just a weird Russian with a piano. I’m glad I was so irrationally judgmental of her, because I honestly don’t think we’d appreciate each other as much as we do now. Our friendship seems like an accomplishment, having overcome my douchebaggery. And she has made me a better person. After completely misjudging her, I’ve noticed that I’m more likely to give other people I meet a chance for a second impression. And I think people in general should do this more often. Granted, some might turn out to be, in fact, manipulative bitches, but I think it’s worth it to find the true surprises.

From now on, true friendship will always make me think of a girl running frantically towards a train with wilting sunflowers.

damn straight.

In my freshman year health class, we had a visit from the local “Keep Your Legs Closed Til Marriage” organization. Their abstinence presentation made up the bulk of our sexual education unit, the other part consisting of an hour where our teacher told us to silently read the chapter about reproduction in class and fill out the vocab questions at the end. The abstinence organization, therefore, was the main point of discourse. They talked about how abstinence is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and crotch rot (which is true), but their arguments for abstinence were based upon the idea that sex is a special bond that is best shared with one person (your heterosexual husband or wife) and boinking with more than one person cheapens the act.

They did this one scenario exercise to make their point. They gave everyone in the class a paper heart, which was supposed to represent our love, or our capacity to love, or our soul, or purity, or something warm and fuzzy like that . They asked for a female volunteer to be the main character in the scenario. They would then have her go up to various guys in the classrooms and describe her “relationships” with these men. Their point was that every time you engage in sexual activity, you are giving a little piece of your heart away. So when the girl kissed a guy she dated for a year in the scenario, they exchanged tiny bits of paper heart love. And when she had sex with a guy on the first date who never called her back, she gave away a huge chunk of her heart and got nothing in return. The end of the scenario has her marrying a guy in the class who decided to stay a virgin until marriage. And his heart has a few nips and nibbles, but is mostly whole. Hers, meanwhile, looks like a crackwhore had a baby with Lincoln Hall. The presenters then asked, what kind of heart do you want to give to your future husband or wife?

For me, their whole abstinence spiel was preaching to the chaste choir. As some one who had already made the decision to not bump uglies until marriage, I had already bought what they were selling.

But even I knew that the paper heart metaphor was complete and utter bullshit.

I find it really disturbing that the main message I got from my sexual education in high school was that you can’t have a full heart if you’ve had pre-marital sex. What is even more disturbing is that this is pretty common experience. My friend Alyssa told me her high school had a similar presentation, but everyone had a piece of tape instead of paper heart. And the more you “stuck your tape” the less sticky it got, and the more worn out it got. Why do they keep comparing our naughty bits to office supplies?

“Your penis is like this stapler. The more you use it, the less staples you’ll have. And no one will ever be able to love an empty stapler.”

I’ve decided I’m going to start using that as a euphemism. “Wanna make my tape less sticky, big boy?” Let me tell you, if you find a guy who wears your tape out, he’s a keeper.

Alyssa also described an exercise where everyone had to pass around a flower, and after a few minutes of everyone handling the flower, it began to wilt. Obviously, that flower did not do Kegels as a preventative measure.

Well, ya know what? My heart is not made out of paper, and my vagina is not a piece of tape, so keep your metaphors away from me. And seriously, if your genitalia is sticky to begin with, you need to get your ass to McKinley post haste. Or try washing for a change.

If you want to practice abstinence, I fully support your decision, and there are many many valid reasons to do so (not getting knocked up being a very important one among them, along with not feeling emotionally ready, and wanting to wear white on your wedding without a sense of irony). However, I have huge issues with abstinence-only sexual education. Actually, I have huge issues with sexual education in this country in general, and I think so-called “comprehensive” sex ed could use a few reforms. My school district was not strictly abstinence-only focused, but abstinence was the only option that was vocally discussed with us, and the other options were shrouded in silence and vocab words. I support informing students about abstinence, but not as the only option. I think it is possible to inform students about other forms of birth control or sexuality in general without saying “go do it now! make babies! Might I suggest reverse cowgirl?” For some odd reason, people are afraid that if kids know about sex they are gonna run out and do the nasty. Well, I’ve got news for you: They are going to have sex anyways! Our Puritanical country assumes that a lack of knowledge will prevent the act. Why do we think that ignorance is a form of birth control?

Abstinence-only education has failed many of us.

Abstinence-only education doesn’t even work. Study after study has shown that abstinence-only education makes no long-term impact on a person’s attitudes, intentions, or sexual behavior. However, people are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, like sex without a condom. The concept of teaching abstinence until marriage is also incredibly heteronormative, to use that lovely Women’s Studies buzzword. How do you teach abstinence until marriage where, statistically speaking, 10 percent of your students are unable by law to get married? Sounds like a job for the degayification camps!

Perhaps we need to remember to not just teach our youth to not do it or do it, but talk about valuing themselves. Instead of making them fill out the vocab at the end of the chapter, get them into an actual discussion. Make it something they can talk about.

Then again, maybe I’m just a girl with a dream and some random object as a far-fetched metaphor for my heart.

You really can’t argue with this.

The other weekend, I was sitting around with my gal pals, chugging back keystones and talking about uncircumcised penises — ya know, the usual. After we touched on other hard-hitting issues like sex and people who annoy the shit out of us, we started talking about what we were like in high school.

I entertained my friends with stories of my God Squad days (in particular my now infamous “Brother-in-Christ” story). My friend Veronica asked with bemused wonderment, “Mary, how did you go from being who you were then … to who you are now?”

I took a swig of my warmed Keystone and deadpanned, “We’re going to need some more beer.”

I gave ‘em the cliff notes version, which is that during my senior year of high school, I started doubting the existence of God and through reflection realized that many of my true opinions on social issues did not jive with the Church’s (they tend to frown upon abortion, gay rights, and feminism, which did not juxapose well with the bleeding-heart-liberal that was growing inside of me). Then over time, the power of the ideology wore off on me, and I became … me, I suppose. I did what I wanted without the influence of religious dogma or the fear of damnation. An individual’s struggle with faith is intangible, mystical, and complicated, and it is very much based on thought processes and personal realizations, which makes it pretty much impossible to adequately explain. Just as I can not convey to people the importance of when I got saved, I can not truly express how I lost my faith. And we really didn’t have enough beer.

Veronica’s question has haunted me. And though I can’t convey in words the internal ups and downs of my spiritual status, I do remember one moment in particular.

I lost my faith on a zip line.

Yes, a zip line. As in, that thing that Macaulay Culkin swung down in Home Alone. A fucking zip line.

My senior year of high school, after the seeds of doubt had already been planted in my head, I went on another retreat with my youth group (a year after the Brother-in-Christ retreat). We all got black hoodies that had a funky design on them that stood for “Live Life by Loving God.” I wore this hoodie a lot. I still wear from time to time, although now with a sense of irony and kitsch. The theme of the retreat was “Free Falling.” But this was no Tom Petty concert. The lesson was that we should trust God completely with our lives and “free fall” into faith. And the pastor used the concept of falling from heights to make his point. We started the weekend with “trust falls” from a table with our youth group. I almost hyperventilated when we had to do the table trust fall, but I did it. My pastor then told us that the culminating event would be a ride on a 4-story zip line, where we were supposed to fall backward with our eyes closed and arms reached out to the sky.

Heights. It had to be heights.

In addition to dying alone, failure, and driving, I am terrified of heights. Not necessarily heights, but the possibility of crunching my body on the earth below me. I was not looking forward to the zip line.

I almost started crying when I was climbing up those four stories. And when I reached the top, I did, in fact, start crying. I clutched the pole of the crow’s nest while my youth pastor tried to calm me down and give me the courage to take the plunge. He assured me, “Mary, God is not going to let you fall.”

And I couldn’t help but think “How the hell would you know?” For all I knew, God could have had it ordained in his Grand Plan that I was to die that day. Having faith in God doesn’t mean that wonderful things are going to happen to you. He was just telling me this because it fit with his metaphor. He didn’t really know. As I tiptoed my way to the edge with tears in my eyes, I remember realizing for the first time that dogma was being used to manipulate me into believing something.

“You can do it, Mary! All you have to do is let go,” I heard him yell.

This is not when I lost my faith in God. This was when I lost faith in religion. But it’s a challenge to keep faith in one and not the other.

I was at the edge of losing my faith in God. And all I had to do was

let

go.

I jumped off the zip line.

Now with 50 percent more life-changing personal realizations!!!

This past weekend I went to a wedding for my good friends Darwin and Jess. You could tell it was a wedding for two people fresh out of college because when the Best Man gave his toast, my table of college friends lifted up our glasses of champagne and yelled “SOCIAL!” I wish I were joking. I also realized that I’m at the age where being single legitimately makes me feel awkward during slow dances. But all in all, the wedding was a gay affair (I mean happy, not the unholy, illegal union of homosexuals) with lots of dancing and way too much delicious food. The groom also led us in a rousing rendition of The Safety Dance.

The whole evening got me thinking about marriage in general. I think with all the debate in recent years about the meaning of marriage, gay marriage, sanctity, etc, I have to get a very important opinion off my chest.

I want to have wedding pie.

No wait! Even better: wedding pie. With the option of a wedding make-your-own-sundae bar.

I feel cakes are an inferior food to pie. Nay, an inferior food to all desserts. I cannot recall a single time I have eaten cake and thought “Oh yeah boy, that hit the spot. Oh man, was that a satisfying sweet treat, and I would never have wanted to eat anything else at this point in history.” The frosting is always too much and too sweet. And the actual cake part is like eating a decomposing sponge. And don’t even get me started on ice cream cake! It’s as if scientists gathered around one day and thought “Hey, what would happen if we took one really awesome food, and one really terrible one, and combined them and served them at kids’ birthday parties?! We could ruin both foods! Brilliant! Now let’s go invent AIDS!”

Does anyone ever even look forward to eating wedding cake? No. You look forward to steak and an open bar (tragically, an open steak bar has not been developed yet).

I don’t even know if I ever want to get married. If I do, I’d much rather hurry off to city hall, and then have a big blow-out with my friends and family (I hate the muss and fuss of planning big events, but this way, I still get presents). Regardless, I still strongly believe that pie is a much more appropriate and symbolic wedding desert. It’s warm. Sweet, yet fulfilling. Something substantial that will keep you going. It is culinary love for your belly. You pair pie with a make-your-own-sundae bar, well you are setting yourself up for an exciting lifetime of loving and delicious commitment. I have no idea why people continue to serve cake at their wedding receptions. Wedding cake is a superficial, fussy, ornate dessert that is mainly for show and people do it just because they think they should, but when you get down to it, it is an unnecessary, outdated tradition that just leaves your stomach feeling empty.

Ohhhhh. THAT’S why they serve it at weddings!

If my husband really wanted to have a cake, I would compromise and choose this one. And let’s face it, if I’m getting married, it’s to a guy that wants a Nintendo cake. Girl’s gotta have her standards.

I was looking at Facebook the other day because, well, I live in the year 2008. It sort of happens. Facebook’s great in the way that it has completely revolutionized our activities and social interaction. It blows my mind to seriously think of how different my life would be without Facebook. I mean, HOW ELSE WOULD I INVITE PEOPLE TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY?! Dude, calling them takes waaaay too long. I’d rather click their names on a list. Because that way, I can also update my g-calendar at the same time. Multi-tasking, baby.

So, I was browsing my mini-feed. You know, the front page of Facebook that everyone was up in arms about last year, until they realized it’s really awesome. Anyways. Checking my mini-feed. Mackin posted a comment on Amy’s wall. Charlie posted on Sarah’s wall. Meredith posted new pics from her study abroad trip. Apparently Katie Blair and I have mutual friends and she’s PEOPLE I MAY KNOW. I have 5 friends signed on Facebookchat.

Then I looked at the Upcoming Birthdays section and realized that Facebook was telling me that it was my dead cousin’s birthday.

Wow. Thanks Facebook.

Earlier this semester, my cousin Sarah was killed in a brutal store shooting at a Lane Bryant in Tinley Park, IL. A robbery gone wrong. 5 women taken into the back room, bound and gagged, beaten, and shot execution-style in the back of the head. Sarah was one of them. She was 22. She just wanted to buy some clothes.

I won’t pretend that I was close with Sarah. We went to the same high school. Her brother was my age and in many of my classes. She did tech for most of the plays I was in in high school. We had many mutual friends and saw each other around school frequently. We saw each other at family functions and always got along pleasantly. We weren’t close. But dammit, she was family. And she was so young. Her death profoundly affected me, and completely changed the course of my final semester at college.

The week after she died was the worst I’ve felt in a long time. I spent Super Bowl Sunday crying alone in my pajamas and eating alfredo I’d ordered from Geovanti’s. Skipped most of my classes. Then I went home and discovered that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church scheduled a protest at her funeral, and the rest of the victims’ funerals, and I almost lost it. At the funeral the pallbearers lifted her casket out of St. Damian’s Church, and the choir started singing “You Are My Sunshine,” and I definitely lost it. My friend Carl has a tendency to burst out into that song, and I knew I was going to hear it a lot, and it would never mean the same to me anymore. I went back to school later that night to see my theater troupe’s production of Oleanna. This was a great idea because I couldn’t handle being around any more sorrow, I needed to be with my friends. This was a bad idea because I didn’t want to deal with drunk freshmen at the cast party asking me “How ARE you?” and not have any idea how to respond to them truthfully without making things socially awkward (”Uh. Shitty. How the fuck are you?”). Like clockwork, Carl started singing “You Are My Sunshine” in his kitchen, and I knew I had to get the fuck out of there. I hurried home to cry alone in my room, and wonder if this would ever stop hurting. But I moved on, as we humans tend to do in these circumstances. I learned many things from this horrific experience, as we humans also have to do in order to make sense of such cruel nonsense.

WHAT MARY HAS LEARNED:

1) Life is short. Do what makes you happy, instead of what you feel obligated to do. Sarah’s death prompted me to drop out of a musical that I was mainly performing in because my close friend was the director, and to try out for a play that ended up truly being the best fit for me. It pissed some people off, including my close friend. Though I truly am sorry to have stressed out my friends, I saw that I couldn’t pass up an opportunity, particularly in my last semester of college.

2) Life is still short. Kiss cute boys! The realization of your own mortality is the strongest aphrodisiac. Give in to passion while you’re alive, because after you’re dead, it’s called “necrophilia.” The whole ordeal made me a bit more passionate, and I never regretted a single, hormone-driven moment. (”Don’t make out with your Brother-in-Christ“? Well guess what? I don’t have any brothers. You lose, Purity Retreat!)

3) I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Life is short. Spend it with people who matter. I had been going through a little bout of depression and social anxiety earlier in the semester, which I don’t really want to get into, but basically I had been paranoid that my friends didn’t care about me anymore. Sarah’s death jet propelled me out of my hole. I realized that my friends were people who care about me and love me and make this tragic world worth living in. I’d rather sit around shooting the breeze with the few people I truly love, rather than make small talk with drunk people at a party any day.

To sum up, nothing makes people want to live more than the presence of death.

I’d forgotten that I’d learned all of this until Facebook reminded me of Sarah’s death. I won’t lie, I clicked on her profile, because I was morbidly curious if anyone had been foolish enough to write a birthday message on her wall. You know, people who maybe hadn’t heard she’d died (but really, who hadn’t? it crushed our hometown). Instead I saw the last few posts of remembrance that people posted on her wall around the time she’d died. And then I scrolled down and read the ones people had written before she died. When things were … normal. When everyone I knew was immortal and our town was completely safe and everything made sense. And I burst into tears. It didn’t help that I happened to be listening to Sarah McLachlan’s “I will remember you” on my Pandora.

I still remember you Sarah. And I still hold those lessons close to my heart. I will continue to do what makes me happy, kiss cute boys without shame, and spend my life with the people I love the most. You still didn’t deserve to go the way you did, but at least this helps me to deal with that.

Thanks for the reminder of mortality, Facebook. It’s only a matter of time before you turn that into a new application.

In high school, I was a bona fide member of The God Squad. For real — I kept a signed “ATM card” in my purse (”Abstinence Til Marriage” card, for all you heathens out there). I told my friends that they shouldn’t swear, and sang warm, fuzzy songs while lifting my hands up to the Lord.

And I went to Bible Camp.

FOR TWO YEARS IN A ROW.

AND LOVED IT.

I was, my friends, a Jesus Freak.

A brief history of Mary’s experience with religion

I spent 8 years going to religious education at my local church until I was confirmed Catholic in the 8th grade, which to my family meant you never had to go to church again. Sophomore year of high school, I was comfortable in my status as Retired Catholic (which means you still get to go to heaven because you were confirmed, you just don’t do any special work like going to church or reading the bible or praying). One day a few of my friends casually invited me to a talent show at their non-denominational, evangelical youth group. It didn’t take long for this casual visit to become an important part of my lifestyle. Went every Sunday, got saved, and used this new group of people to develop my spiritual relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And now, I’m agnostic.

So yeah, a lot of shit went down in between now and then.

I have a lot of things to say when it comes to religion in general, and my experiences in particular, and they won’t possibly fit into one blog post. In future entries to come, I hope to enlighten you with further details of how I was then, who I am now, and the steps that took place in between. Until then, I’ll entertain you with one of my tried and true youth group stories — a favorite among my friends.

In the fall of my junior year of high school, my youth group went to a purity retreat at Bair Lake Bible Camp (these retreats were in addition to the summer camp I attended). The whole point was to teach us kids to stay physically and mentally pure before God until we were married. And this includes bjs and hjs too. And thinking about bjs and hjs. But when you get married, your relationship with your heterosexual Christian significant other is transformed before God, and you can do whatever the heck ya want. Except anal. There’s stories in the bible about how that’s bad. And I think 69s too. It’s mentioned in Leviticus, I think. During this retreat, there were seriously girls bursting into tears because they had already had sex and the pastors had been telling us we could never be whole before God if we’d porked before marriage.

At one point, the pastor brought up all the siblings that were on the retreat (there were actually quite a few). The brothers went to one side of the room, and the sisters went to the other side.

The pastor pulled one pair of siblings to the middle of the room, and asked the girl, “Do you love your brother?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied.

“Do you love your sister?” he asked the boy.

“Yes of course.”

He turned back to the girl.

“Would you make out with your brother?”

The whole room went ape shit. “EWWWWWWW, THAT’S FUCKING SICK!” (No one actually said it because we were all Christians, but I guarantee you that’s what we were all thinking).

The pastor turned to the rest of the crowd and said:

“If you wouldn’t make out with your brother…then you shouldn’t make out with your Brother-In-Christ.”

Go back and re-read the previous sentence.

Now read it again. Soak it up. The psychological damage, my dear readers, took years to fix.

Even at Bible Camp, I couldn’t stop making love to the camera…

I did it! I drove a car! It had a steering wheel and everything!

After 5 years of living in fear, I decided it was time to become a big girl. I had my first driving lesson with my friend Jacqui. Jacqui is a generally awesome human being and your life is worse off for not knowing her. I’ve known her since my second day of classes freshman year, and over the past four years, I continuously am in awe of her many wonderful qualities. She’s patient, has a magical ability to make others feel completely at ease around her, is one of the least non-judgmental people I’ve ever known, and she used to be an Education major — in other words, she’s the best person in the world to teach this skittish chicken how to drive.

As the old proverb goes, give a girl a fish, and she’ll eat for the day. Teach a girl to drive, and she can go to the McDonald’s drive-thru whenever she’s hungry. It was in the empty parking lot of Rhodes Furniture Store where Jacqui would teach me how to fish a car.

Jacqui gave me the keys, and I climbed into the driver’s seat. What an odd view that I hadn’t seen in so long. Did you know that there’s a mirror attached to the roof of the car?! Yeah, it helps you see behind the car! Weird!

“Are you scared, Mary?” she asked me.

“Completely. But I’m ready.”

I told Jacqui to approach me as though I had absolutely no knowledge of driving a car…which after 5 years, wasn’t too far off. She slowly took me through the process of starting the car, and made me explain it out loud as I was doing it. Buckle up. Adjust the seat. Check your mirrors. Key in the ignition. Foot on brake. Put car into drive. Take my foot off the brake.

Take my foot off the brake.

Take my foot off the brake.

I took my foot off the brake.

And it was awesome.

As I inched my way through the deserted parking lot like a snail doing the electric slide, my foot hovering over the brake, I couldn’t believe I was finally doing this. I was driving a car. Later on, Jacqui even let me use the accelerator! And we went to another parking lot, where there were real live cars! Oh, and I learned how to park! And I did a good job too! I didn’t kill anyone!

Looking back, I think it took me this long because I was afraid of failing. Besides dying alone, failure is one of my greatest fears. You see, when I failed my Behind the Wheel test years ago, I was able to blame it on other things: My parents’ car was wrecked so I couldn’t practice, my instructor was the douche-bag wrestling coach, blahblahcrymeariverjustintimberlakeblahblah. But with this, I would have no one to blame but myself if I failed again. And that’s scary.

But to quote the cinematic classic House Arrest starring Jamie Lee Curtis, sometimes ya gotta “feel the fear and go for it.” In conquering every irrational phobia (driving, snakes, the dark, clowns with knives), you just gotta buckle down because getting over the initial fear is the true obstacle. Once you allow yourself to participate in your phobia, you realize that the whole phobia was silly and that you have nothing to fear but fear itself.

And car crashes.

FDR obviously never saw a clown with a knife before.

I don’t have a driver’s license.

How’s that? I thought long and hard about how I could open this post to have correct level of pizazz and ska-doosh in introducing today’s topic. I thought I could maybe ease into it. Something like “Hey, how’s your day going, reader? Oh, awesome, I think I might chill on the quad and play acoustic guitar with my friends and watch people do that weird slack-lining thing in between trees. Oh, by the way, I’m going to start to learn how to drive today and I’m more frightened than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

But I figured the direct approach would be best.

It’s true. This is my deep, dark secret. The one thing that I’m truly ashamed of in my life. The only people that know this terrible truth are my close circle of friends. Normally, I wait until people have grown fond of me before I reveal that I’m a total loser, but I wanted to start our blogger/reader relationship with some honesty and cripplingly embarrassing secrets. That’s normal for a third date, right?

Right?

RIGHT?

When my friends randomly bring it up in conversation, I get really angry and defensive. There is nothing more embarrassing for a 21-year-old woah-man than to have it revealed that she doesn’t have a driver’s license. It’s even more embarrassing for a 21-year-old feminist to admit that she follows certain stereotypes concerning women and driving. It’s kind of like coming out of the closet. The Pedestrian Closet. Except, when you come out of it, there’s none of the fun minority-oppression-street-cred. Just incredulity.

At one point, I got so sick of explaining this to people, that I started lying about why I didn’t have my license.

“Um…you might not believe this because I’ve changed a lot…but when my friends and I were 14…we stole a car.”

“REALLY?!”

“No, you ass. I failed the driving portion of Behind the Wheel in school. Now shut the fuck up and get me a whiskey and diet coke — they’re on special tonight.”

Failing this test, as puss-tastic as this may sound, was pretty traumatizing. Especially since it happened on my birthday. Ouch. As a result, I’ve never driven a car since. EVER. That was 5 years ago. Because I was scared, plain and simple. And instead of woah-manning up and getting my license, I chose to be a loser who had to constantly bum rides from friends and family.

That all ends today.

I am going to drive a car. I am determined to get my license this summer.

Because I’m not afraid anymore.

Wait. Yes, I am. Completely terrified.

But for once in my life, I’m not going to let that stop me.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

What can I say? She shouldn’t have made fun of me.