galloblog

How to be a snowflake, for realz.

“Snowflake” has become a derogatory term to mock the delicate nature of millennials, but it’s rooted in a desire I think most of us have – to stand apart, to be unique, to not be a lemming. The problem is that globalism, the interwebs, and Applebee’s …

But please don’t shed a tear, my dear. I have three very simple ways – whether you’re male or female* – that you can set yourself apart like the glistening, beautific, feathery ice crystal you always knew you were.

If you’re a man:

Initiate a plan
Actually follow through with said plan
Do this more than one time

You will be a man among men! Women will fall at your feet! You will get a promotion at work! If you already do this, pm me. 😉 😉 😉

If you’re a woman:

Respond to text messages
Actually respect the time of your squad and don’t cancel on them willy-nilly when you and I both know if *he* hit you up you’d be up and at ’em like jumpin jack flash
Be honest with men about your feels or lack thereof and stop ghosting like a selfish little girl

Your social life will EXPLODE! Your number of confusedly spurned stalkers will DWINDLE!

There you go. If you didn’t have a New Year’s resolution already, I just gave you three! And if you’re an overachiever and resent gender dichotomies, I gave you SIX!!!!

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*I unabashedly dichotomize men and women, and I WILL use stereotypes as much as I want!! Get over it. Shoo!

**The quotation marks are indicating you’re LYING! I literally canceled last night because I wasn’t feeling well, but this was legit. LEGIT I TELL YOU!

How to survive the worst weeks of your life (aka the Gallobreak)

Facebook just prompted me to write a post, because apparently my last post was too long ago. Well, never mind that I’m trying to write a frickin’ dissertation. This is so much more important. *eye roll*

Yet,I’m afraid the ol’ Galloswag may be out of commission for a while*, as she writes, eat egregious amounts of greek yogurt, and weeps over each chapter. So here are a few things to do in the meantime –

Facebook just prompted me to write a post, because apparently my last post was too long ago. Well, never mind that I’m trying to write a frickin’ dissertation. This is so much more important. *eye roll*

Yet,I’m afraid the ol’ Galloswag may be out of commission for a while*, as she writes, eats egregious amounts of greek yogurt, and weeps over each chapter. So here are a few things to do in the meantime –

Start a rival blog so we can up each other’s numbers with zingy posts… my dream is for this to culminate in a late night dance-off that we go Facebook live with
Write me a message testifying how much Galloblog has meant to you
Paint with all the colors of the wind to express your pain with my silence
Send me a gift basket of greek yogurt
Pray for me to finish well and find joy in the process!

I shall return, with plenty of nothing to pollute your mind with. *smoochies*

Merci, merci. I ❤ ** you all.

— Editorial Notes —

*I won’t put a date, because I don’t want y’all naggin’ me. I do what I want!!

**I don’t LOVE you all. I heart you all. Big difference. Don’t be weird.

Alsoooo if you read this, don’t be a social media sneak but instead, visit my Facebook page and like/comment/share/print-out-and-laminate below!!

7 headlines to watch out for in 2017

Which one do you think will come true?? 1) Massive protest against massive protests sparks massive protest 2) Coconut oil may cure conservatism 3) Chloe Kardashian comes out as necrophilial, blasts social conservatives for being “carbonormative.” 4) ‘Nutella for Guns’ program reduces Detroit homicides by 97% 5) Trump appoints Kanye West as Press Secretary; KKK in crisis … Continue reading “7 headlines to watch out for in 2017”

Which one do you think will come true??

1) Massive protest against massive protests sparks massive protest

2) Coconut oil may cure conservatism

3) Chloe Kardashian comes out as necrophilial, blasts social conservatives for being “carbonormative.”

4) ‘Nutella for Guns’ program reduces Detroit homicides by 97%

gunsnutella — CDC emergency obesity task-force deployed

5) Trump appoints Kanye West as Press Secretary; KKK in crisis

trumpkanye — “Kanye is amazing and this will be a tremendous opportunity that will be terrific. The blacks will love me.” – President Trump

6) Indianan Drug cartel outraged to find traces of pre-workout supplement in meth

buffhomeless2 — “What kind of country we livin’ in, when a man can’t trust the quality of his crank no more?” – Jo-Jo Bobby Raybanz

7) Author of Galloblog interviewed by Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show.

Don’t be a social media sneak

…one of the gravest of all social media faux pas is to consume the lives, words, and pictures of a friend’s page without even offering a cursory thumbs up as a sort of interweb up-nod.

From the time we are little tots, we crave interaction with other humans. We want people to acknowledge us, react to us, show us that we are individual agents whose actions are influencing the world and those around us.* That’s why social media is so addicting – all of these people are acknowledging you! Hooray! – you exist!

Therefore, one of the gravest of all social media faux pas is to consume the lives, words, and pictures of a friend’s page without even offering a cursory thumbs up as a sort of interweb up-nod. For serious! Fb has now given you the option of sad face or angry face if you don’t like the post, so… you are all without excuse. If your thoughts are so unique and special that you are offended by the constraining choices of pre-manufactured reactions that fb and other social media accounts offer, I’ve heard about this option called “comment.” The only downside is that you have to form words and put them together in a coherent** string called a “sentence.” Even if you’re “blah” about someone’s entire page, 1) why are you looking at their stuff anyway 2) the least you can do is comment below at least one of their posts with a “pfffft.”

I implore you – don’t be that person, who, as I’m telling you about my weekend says, “Oh yeah, I saw those hiking pics. I loved them.” As my closest confidante expressed recently, “Oh did you?? Well I didn’t see a little ‘ ❤ ’ from you, buddy!” I think we’d all rather log into our accounts and see 57 notifications from you going through our profile pics dating back to 2007 than for you to nod your head knowingly when we tell you our weight fluctuated a lot through college.

creepin_aunt — Galloswag sez, “Don’t be this meme”

So now for a moment of Galloswag honest vulnerability – this post is 100% motivated by my own vain curiosity. With any given blog post, my blog views are ~5x, even up to 20x more than I get in likes, reactions, or comments on fb. Were those views from people who read the first sentence of my post and said, “Oh Lort, ain’t nobody got time for that!” Did their clicker finger have a muscle spasm and they opened my page by accident? Did they read every single one of my posts, and were so moved by the beauty of my words they sat frozen for hours with graceful tears streaming down their face???

I guess there’s no way I’ll ever know. Oh wait, I would totally know, if 90% of you weren’t being social media sneaks! >8-O ***

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*This is all loosely based off of an undergrad class in Developmental Psychology I took 10 years ago. If you have information to the contrary, call me out on it yo.

**Although I think we can all testify that there are social media friends who don’t find the ‘coherent’ part necessary… but I digress.

***For those of you who were born after 1992, tilt your head to the left and you will see an angry face!! Isn’t that neat-o?? This is how people in primitive times expressed their emotions.

Women, does this picture make you feel effeminated?

The term “emasculate” is plum strange. It’s often used in the context of a woman outmanning the man in question. Like if Danielle pays for Daniel’s chipotle, Daniel may feel emasculated. If Betty Joe changes Billy Jim’s tires – emasculated. If Claire Bear benches more than T-Gainz – emasculated. But.. why? How? Shouldn’t masculinity be something within a man, that external forces cannot change?

This is especially confusing because there’s no equivalent term for women …

The term “emasculate” is plum strange. It’s often used in the context of a woman outmanning the man in question. Like if Danielle pays for Daniel’s Chipotle, Daniel may feel emasculated. If Betty Joe changes Billy Jim’s tires – emasculated. If Claire Bear benches more than T-Gainz – emasculated. But.. why? How? Shouldn’t masculinity be something within a man, that external forces cannot change?

This is especially confusing because there’s no equivalent term for women (is there?). If Daniel can change a diaper more efficiently than Danielle, she won’t feel “effeminated.” No lady I know gets resentful when any Jo-Jo can style hair, cook well, talk a lot, dress fashionably – or whatever other qualities are stereotypically female. Au contraire, most women I know praise those sort of qualities in the men they know and love.

How can anyone’s degree of any one trait change how much someone else characterizes that trait? If a man just happened to be as good or better at all the “womanly” things I’m good at, I would probably not marry him — for the sake of symmetry and balance, of course – but I really doubt I would resent him. And if he generally tried to downplay my womanliness.. he might be a d-bag*, but my femininity would escape unscathed. Yes? Yes?!

So why does a woman doing stereotypically manly things subtract manliness from a man, but a man doing stereotypically womanly things does nothing to change the womanliness of a woman?

Galloswag wants to know.

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*I mean doo-doo bag. Simmer down.

FYI: one of my next few posts will also be about manliness because I’m strangely obsessed with the topic rn. But this is more of a ramble than an actual statement. STATEMENT TO COME.

To the one I love

I love going places with you. Things haven’t been perfect – I’ve beat up on you a little bit, and you’ve let me down a few times. But we always keep moving. We drive on.

Before I found you, I was helpless, frustrated, and a bit desperate. I walked the streets alone.

I never thought that I would end up with someone like you. No one expected for us to really work. “Don’t expect it to last more than a few months,” they told me grimly.

But as soon as I saw you, something clicked. I knew we had to belong to each other.
You were so much more masculine than I expected, but now I wouldn’t have it any other way. We both had pasts – painful, destructive pasts. But where others see imperfections, I see unique history and character that makes you even more perfect to me.

I love going places with you. Things haven’t been perfect – I’ve beat up on you a little bit, and you’ve let me down a few times. But we always keep moving. We drive on.

Every day I fall a little bit more in love with you. You’re fun. Being with you has satisfied a deep longing in my heart I’ve had since middle school. But you’re also reliable, and just comfortable to be around.

I know people don’t understand why we’re together, but I’m in for this ride as long as you are. I can’t wait to find out what adventures we’ll go through next.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SWEET BABY CAKES!!!

DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME! Just kidding 😉

I will not not judge you

I would like to declare, loudly and proudly, that if the new definition of “judging” is “evaluating stuff, sometimes negatively,” then I fully embrace the title of judgmental.

We’ve all experienced it. At just the wrong moment, you accidentally make eye contact with your coworker as they slyly reach for their third piece of almond pie* and they guiltily exclaim, “Don’t judge me!” And although you truly don’t care about their pie consumption and even confide in them that you were just diving into your fourth piece, the coworker proceeds to spend the next ten minutes rambling about how clean they’ve eaten all week, that they plan to go on the Stonewall Ab Diet** as soon as the holidays are over, the first two pieces were small, etc. But let’s get real. They don’t actually want you to NOT judge them. They actually want you to say, “No prob, Bob,” or better yet, “Girl, you should be proud of eating that pie. You do you!”

Why am I rambling about this? Well, people get huffy when you express disapproval about – anything – they do, from eating too much pie to sleeping with your best friend’s wife. They then become angry because you pointed out their shame, and then try to shame you – by branding you as “judge-y.”

I declare, loudly and proudly, that if the new definition of “judging” is “evaluating stuff, sometimes negatively,” then I fully embrace the title of judgmental. I can’t believe that this has become a revolutionary statement, but it is okay to tell someone that their actions are wrong, and it is okay to tell someone that their opinions are wrong.Let’s face it, a lot of people are doing and thinking a lot of stupid shoot these days. And no, we are not compelled to respect all opinions equally. Some opinions are very well informed and logical, but too many are not. We are also not compelled to have the exact same level of respect for all people, regardless of their opinions and actions.

Granted, I try to have a baseline respect for people, if only for their great accomplishment of being a part of the human race. But let’s imagine a man who insists that Robin Williams is coming back to earth as a rainbow colored snail to lead a few devoted followers down into the core of the earth to live in toasty harmony. I am absolutely not obligated to respect snail-man as much as I respect Tim Keller ❤ , for example. It’s not that I think snail-man needs to die, or that I’m a fundamentally more valuable person than him… but I’m not going to read 8 of his books, recommend them to all my friends with wild abandon, or creepily namedrop him in 37% of my blog posts. If you really think about it, I’d wager you probably wouldn’t respect snail-man either. Please note, I don’t think that everyone who disagrees with me is this ridiculous – there are scales of absurdity, and there is a strong, inverse correlation between your absurdity and my respect for you.

In all seriousness, I hope you judge me too. I don’t want to think or do things that are dumb, wrong, or downright evil. I need people to challenge my foolishness. I especially need kind, smart people to challenge me. And yes, the degree to which I respect you will scale how much I value your challenge. Even if it makes me a little butt-hurt, “better a butt-hurt from a friend than a butt-squeeze from an enemy,” as they say.

So let’s all get over ourselves a bit and stop being self-righteously indignant about other people’s (we think) self-righteous indignation. I judge you, do you judge me? Check yes or no.

—- EDITORIAL NOTES —-

*I WILL MAKE ALMOND PIE A THING

**This should also be a thing. STONEWALL!

Okay, if you’re not a Christian you can stop here. If you are, please huddle in for a little family chat. [WARNING: about to drop some serious J-bombs!]

***********************************************************************

Yes, Jesus did indeed say “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7). But He also goes on to say that you will be judged with the same measure that you judge other people with. The only measure I use to judge someone in the most serious sense of the word is whether the person 1) confesses their own imperfection and 2) realizes that Christ’s perfection in life makes his death the only and perfect way for them to be restored back to right relationship with God. And truly, I’m okay being judged by that measure. But even beyond eschatological concerns, the bible actively encourages Christians to evaluate people, especially other Christians. We are told to evaluate whether someone is full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to determine if they are truly Christian (Galations 5:22-23; Matthew 7:16). We are also told to exhort (definition: strongly encourage / urge someone to do something) each other so we won’t be hardened by sin (Hebrews 3:13), and to confront each other when we do something wrong (Matthew 18:15-20). The Apostle Paul also strongly chastised Peter (Galations 2:11) and entire churches in his various letters (e.g. 1 Corinthians). So, it would seem evaluating other people’s actions and confronting people who are doing or thinking wrongly isn’t going against Christian teachings, it’s actually a crucial part of it. I’m assuming, however, that this is done out of love for the confrontee(s), and that the confronter(s) is perfectly aware that their *ONLY* merit is through Christ and approaches the entire issue in complete humility. But I don’t have no Doctor of Divinity, so please look into this yourself and seek out other sources.

Ladies, your femalolz are a big turn off (apparently)

..a smart, funny woman’s best bet to snag a man may be for her to limit her vocabulary to disyllabic words and giggle vapidly at his jokes.

I recently read two articles that explained my singlehood to me so beautifully. I’m not single in spite, but because, I’m so frickin’ funny* and smart**. According to this article in The Atlantic, men want women to laugh at their jokes, not to laugh at women’s jokes. The article further explained that humor correlates to intelligence, so gauging someone’s humor is a fast proxy of their intelligence. A Huffington Post article I found corroborated the first one – men find smart women – particularly women who are smarter than them – less appealing to date.

I have to say, this is the most ego-boosting reason I’ve heard lately for being single. It has nothing to do with my fashion, weird eating habits, or random quirks – men just don’t want to jump funny bones (aha, see what I did there? Whoops probably just lost a few more romantic prospects… Can’t stop this Lolz Train).

I’m torn by this news. I’ve never been so appreciative of not being appreciated, but it’s also annoying that a smart, funny woman’s best bet to snag a man may be for her to limit her vocabulary to disyllabic words and giggle vapidly at his jokes. Yes, I take this a little bit personally, but it’s also the principle of the matter.

But before we women commit ourselves to indignantly blowing the Shofar of Shame and call out men for being insecure pricks, let’s consider several alternative explanations.

Maybe men don’t actually think “funny women” are funny

This is hard to handle, but it’s possible that the same jokes that split your girlfriends’ sides are just lamé to the Monsieur Averagé.

Maybe self-deprecating humor from females makes men uncomfortable

Men could be horrified that if they laugh too loudly, the woman will suddenly burst into tears or judo chop him for not protesting that her thighs in those tight pants don’t actually remind him of a partially busted can of crescent rolls. This whole scenario might make men so tense they rather just make fun of themselves instead and let the women laugh at their expense.

Maybe funny women seem more likely to mock men mercilessly

Waxing poetic and being romantical is already putting men into a position of emotional, sometimes physical, vulnerability. Perhaps the thought of a woman mocking him in her own thoughts, to her girlfriends, or on a public blog post (teehee) makes the potential cost/benefit ratio too unfavorable to even consider.

Maybe intelligent women are more likely to be get offended at something random

This is kind of a stretch, but especially women in academia – even if they do have a good sense of humor – seem more likely to go off on a rant about male privilege, act insulted when he tries to hold the door for her… or you know, get riled up by a documentary about bra burners and start refusing to shave her legs.

..I don’t know, really. I’m just trying to be gracious here, and think more creatively. Why don’t you speak for yourselves, men?

Do you consciously find funny/smart females less attractive? If a woman gets too funny do you think to yourself “Oh snapz, she’s funnier than me. Gotta go find someone who is so dull that she’ll find my lamé jokes hilarious.”? Or is it more implicit, and you just happen to think that women who are really smart are also arrogant, nerdy, or annoying? Or is this research just dealing in averages, but YOU’RE no Monsieur Averagé, and actually actively seek out smart and funny women? I mean, I know funny smart married women, so obviously it’s not a huge turn off for all men. But.. did currently married women tone down this part of themselves while they were dating?

I’m genuinely curious – I promise I want to know the truth of the matter and I won’t publicly accuse you of being a jerk-face. Although privately I may make a little voodoo doll and tell it jokes all day just to be spiteful.

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*Mama sez I’m funny.

**Mama sez I’m smart, too.

How to avoid a Shanksgiving

Usually I prefer to keep my posts as irrelevant as possible, but I cannot blithely ignore the great need that has spread across the US of A this Thanksgiving season. There is clearly a lot of anticipated angst among many millennials at the prospect of going back home to share a meal with their po-dunk relatives. Please don’t be anxious, sweet little plaided one.

1) Do a rotating dinner, but stagger arrivals

Remember those dinners that were spread over several houses, and the entire group moved to one house for an appetizer, the next house for dinner, etc.? Re-create this theme, except stagger everyone’s arrival so that everyone is enjoying the wonderful Thanksgiving food without having to interact with people, that by some cruel trick of biology, they are related to. Bonus: if you’re first, you can leave passive-aggressive, condescending notes on napkins (“HAPPY NATIVE-AMERICAN OPPRESSION DAY, YOU COLONIAL MONSTER”) to burn into your relatives’ consciences as they try to enjoy their meal.

2) Fake a pregnancy

If you’re unfortunate enough to actually have to interact with family this year, as soon as you walk through the door yell loudly “I may be pregnant!” Keep it uncertain – don’t commit 100%. Just mention you’ve missed your last cycle and feel nauseated. The Halloween candy should have already started a nice little faux baby bump for you to work with. Men don’t feel left out – it’s 2016 and you can be pregnant, too. Pregnancy is a fluid social construct, really, that’s currently trapped into a rigid box that reeks of matriarchal oppression. If anyone calls you out, just accuse them of being a uterist and to check their “ovarian privilege.” In any case, all of this should be a good distraction from whatever arguments might be brewing. If anyone tries to start anything, just clutch your stomach, gasp, and run out of the room.

3) Bring an airhorn

Let’s say steps 1 and 2 didn’t work, and family members actually start talking to you. I suggest bringing an airhorn, although perhaps a rape whistle would be equally effective, to sound noisily whenever anyone you disagree with starts to speak. Just don’t stop until they leave. Respectful conversations are passé. It is your constitutional right to never hear anything that will ever challenge or upset you, especially from your backwoods relatives.

Best of luck, everyone! Let’s hope your holiday is completely stress free* and doesn’t challenge you in anyway!**

— EDITORIAL NOTES —

*aka human free

**I actually don’t wish this for you. See this brilliant blog post

If you actually want to read a really good article on interacting with people this Thanksgiving, I highly recommend this one

Men, your facial hair is beard-ening society

Brethren, I appeal to you as a sincere sistern who has your best interests in mind. Can we cool it with the beards?

When I was a youth, facial hair was for Amish men, Disney villains and drug dealers. Now …

Brethren, I appeal to you as a sincere sistern who has your best interests in mind. Can we cool it with the beards?

When I was a youth, facial hair was for Amish men, Disney villains and drug dealers. Now, we have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies looking like Willie Nelson.

It’s not that I think it always looks bad per se, I just don’t think it adds anything. At best, some men are attractive enough that their magnificent bone structure shoves its way through the bramble of face fuzz and still declares “I AM A STUD.” And I say back, “Yowza Yowz!” But mostly, it homogenizes the male population so they all kind of look like this –

(I literally just googled ‘average man’ and this is what popped up). Ladies and gents, I present to you Monsieur Averagé.

I know what’s happening here. All you bearded men watched Lord of the Rings 1,903 times at an impressionable age, and perhaps bromantic feels for Aragorn were stirred. As you grew into men, your facial hair – perhaps subconsciously – began to mimic the facial hair of your man crush. I get it – my shero-worship for Arwen has led me to ride around on a horse with a tiara and yell elvish sentences by streams in my neighborhood. But please, let’s consider a few things —

John McClane, Rambo, Batman, Tim Keller — all clean shaven. Just think about that for a while.

If you’re good looking, give the gift of your gorgeous, unique bone structure to the world. Or do you really just want to be Monsieur Averagé, numero mille-deux cent-quatre-vingt-sept???

If you’re not good looking, don’t hide behind the moustachio! What if you meet someone and everything is going great, and then a powerful czar issues a command that all men between the ages of 18-88 shave their face and when you do your lady is horrified and leaves you for Monsieur Averagé numero mille-deux cent-quatre-ving-huit???! Why are you leaving yourself open to these vulnerabilities? Come clean early.

Facial hair is itchy and can cause the ladies in your life great physical distress. I’m being serious. I was allergic to an ex-boyfriend’s facial hair and it made me look like I had leprosy on my face. Think about others. Do the right thing.

When you shave, that means you can have stubble. And stubble is wondrous, and tragically underused by the male population. Yowza-Yowz-Yowzy!

Hitler had facial hair. FDR did not. I don’t think any more explanation here is necessary.

You can do it, fellas. Be bold, be beautiful, be smooth! Shave yo’ face! 🙂