Trekkychick

Dear Loyal Blog Reader,

We temporarily suspend the planned topic for tonight, “Shiny Hair: The Little-Known Consequences of Conditioner,” to ponder love. Is love simply a word that exists in our lexicon to be utilized to demonstrate a feeling of enthusiasm?

After all, I love my conditioner. And I tell it that every day. But I demonstrate love to my conditioner by using it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that using somebody exhibits love. In fact, it tends to do quite the opposite, I’ve found. But I show my conditioner that I value it by choosing it above all other conditioners and spending time with it daily. (Please note, loyal blog reader, I don’t actually use conditioner. And I only use shampoo on weekends and holidays. But for the sake of metaphor, explore with me here.) My conditioner reciprocates that love by giving of its chemical goodness to provide me with shiny hair.

Without action to back it up, Love is just another four-letter word. Like “hair” and “shiny” without the “y.” Was it Michael W. Smith who said Love isn’t Love until you give it away? I may not listen to your music anymore, Michael W. Smith, but you’re absolutely right on this one. Don’t just say Love; show Love.

–Troi out

It’s not anonymous.

Everybody is doing it. So expect everybody to find you. Old college friends, your coworkers, your local starbucks barista, your grandma, and the homeless guy holding the sign on the street across from your house are all online too. Don’t worry, you don’t have to date them. In fact I believe it’s illegal to date your grandma. But if she winks at you, wink back. It’s the polite thing to do.

There’s no reason to be ashamed. But if you are, here are five simple tips for fielding the questions you get once you’re ‘outed.’

“That’s not my profile, that’s my evil twin, Roy. He never could get a girl.”
“My sister/brother/best friend/pet hamster created the profile for me. I’ve never actually looked at it.”
“I was looking for a date for my evil twin, Joy. She never could get a guy.”
“I’m an online predator. Are you interested in going out?”
“It’s a shame you found my profile. Now I’m going to have to kill you.” (This is ONLY a threat meant to intimidate! Do not under any circumstances follow with the actual act of killing.)

This concludes our online dating series. I’m sure I have allayed all of your possible fears and made you eager for the adventure that will ensue once you put your romantic future in the hands of the internet. Please refer any questions to my male counterpart, e. lucas. I am all out of answers.

–Troi out

Dear e. lucas,

I validate you. (Reader, please see Both Sides Now before reading this response.) It is true that some women, myself included, have a knack for sniffing out the one male in a room of hundreds who will treat us poorly, and we then proceed to inexplicably devote ourselves fully to him. Yet you are absolutely right, we women can be just as vindictive towards our male conquests. Watch any bad, poorly-written, poorly-acted, unrealistic, and predictable teen film and you will find that the male protagonist often pines for the classic “bitchy” beautiful woman before he falls for the kind-hearted, less attractive* girl next door. (Please see “She’s All That” for an example of this formula.)

*In fact, she is usually MORE attractive than the other character. However, since the characters in the film all believe her to be of average physical beauty, we in the audience are supposed to believe it too. A stupid audience is a happy audience.

However, e. lucas, while I acknowledge that men and women both can fall for the wrong partner, it seems to me that women have what is commonly referred to as a conscience* when we are worried we are not treating somebody the way he deserves.

*Conscience: (Noun) (pronounced CON’ SHUNS) That which women have and men don’t. It begins with the prefix “con” which means “with” and ends with the word “science.” It therefore must mean that, with the help of science, one can artificially generate a conscience. What a relief to those born without. (Ref:TheDictionaryofTroi)

In other words, I feel considerable distress if I have even the slightest suspicion I might be hurting a member of the opposite sex. On the other hand, it was my experience with the Ex that the pain and suffering caused to me was quite deliberate:

“No, I absolutely will not email/call/come over/take you on a date, listen to you, validate your feelings, and/or respond favorably to any other need you may ever express in the entirety of our relationship.”**

**This is not a direct quote. The word “listen” was not in the vocabulary of The Ex, nor was the word “relationship.” The word “No,” however, was.

Maybe it’s just me, but that statement certainly seems to represent a willful choice not to accommodate my feelings. I may have inadvertently hurt people in my past, but it was never a conscious decision.

e. lucas, do I have any grounds beyond my own experience to support my claims? Or do you believe that the conscience is an individual entity bearing no correlation to gender?

–Troi out

An addict often wonders about the origins of the substance or drug of addiction. An addict thinks to oneself, “When I learn to time travel, if I go back in time and abolish the creation of my addictive substance, and then travel back to the future, also known as the present, I will not have to worry about my addiction.”** (**Not all addicts are created equal; not all addicts believe in time travel or attempted it as a child in their garage while playing with their dad’s circuits and wires. Um….neither did I, I never did that either. That would be ridiculous. Everyone knows that in order to successfully time travel they must enlist the help of a responsible knowledgeable assistant, like Michael J. Fox.)

So as a responsible addict, I decided today to research the history of my addiction. It is called coffee. You may not have heard of coffee, and if you haven’t, don’t worry, it probably just means you’re dead. It turns out that it was a shepherd who discovered coffee. This shepherd was attending to his daily recreational activity of watching goats, and he noticed that after eating some red berries from a nearby bush, the goats perked up considerably. The goats suddenly became more productive, even going so far as to milk themselves and shear their own wool for the shepherd’s use. Upon witnessing the ultra-awake goats, the shepherd also attempted to consume the raw berries, but as they were difficult to chew, he took them back into his village and roasted them. As he shared the beans with the other village people, the shepherd had never felt so popular and desired, and he was invited to so many social events (Digging Dirt Night, etc.) that he eventually had to cut back on his favorite recreational activity of watching goats. People eventually tried grinding the roasted beans and adding them to water to make a drink, and were pleased with the results.

Of course, no history would be complete without the influence of the Catholic Church. Coffee was first brought to Italy, and Pope Clementine VIII was so delighted by the beverage that he baptized coffee and pronounced it a Christian beverage. Coffee was much relieved after its baptism, as it was very pleased to know that it would be safely entering the pearly gates of Heaven. Coffee houses soon began to crop up in various areas, including Venice, London, and Paris, and coffee became a staple beverage around which many social and political discussions and activities were arranged.

We finally celebrated the arrival of coffee in America around the early 1600’s (and by “we” I mean the collective “we,” the Borg “we,” which doesn’t include “me” as I wasn’t yet alive). By the mid- to late- 1600s coffee had replaced beer as New York’s most popular breakfast drink, a fact that many of my fellow college students bemoan to this day. I, however, am thankful for coffee’s arrival, and I now also thank the shepherd (and the goat) who discovered it.

(Please, be smart about your coffee buying habits.)
www.oxfamamerica.org/advocacy/art1582.html

–Troi out

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