Pride month isn’t even half way over and we already have a plethora of news items to discuss. For me, none has been as irritating as Ann Coulter. Now, generally, I just ignore what she who must not be named says. She’s one of those rare creatures who is incredibly easy to ignore because everything that comes out of her mouth is complete shit. Piers Morgan asked Coulter on Tuesday “If you had a son or daughter who came to you and told you they were gay, how would you feel?” She repeatedly dodged the question, blabbering something about not imagining being married (despite her three engagements) and how getting married was the first step towards having a baby. Fast forward three days and she finally tells Sean Hannity how she would feel:
“I mean, obviously, I’d tell him he’s adopted…How’s asking him for help redecorating the dining room?”
Now, there is nothing in this statement like Tracy Morgan saying he would stab his son for being gay, or equating gay marriage to sex with ducks (thank you Pat Robertson). But Coulter spreads not only hatred for the gay community, but for those families who turn to adoption to create a family. The slight about the gay community being great decorators- not harmless, but expected from a person who thinks women shouldn’t have the right to vote. But adoption, Coulter? Really? Thousands of children around the world need good, loving homes. People who adopt love their children, no matter who they are. Families choose adoption for a number of reasons, but the common theme between them is the desire to raise a child. It’s a choice people make, not a random occurrence.

Thank you, Ann Coulter for being a bigot during pride month. It reminds us all how far we still have to go and who we are fighting against for equality. Pride month is a celebration of being who you are, but also remembering what lengths it takes to be able to be that person. It’s not a short or easy road, but things are moving forward- despite the efforts of the small-minded and hateful.

Ann Coulter is the devil

I thought about my Quarterlife Crisis. It was a time where I really couldn’t see that things were going to get better. I was lost and depressed and didn’t see how anyone else could understand what I was going through. It wasn’t until I found a few friends who were in the same situation that we realized that we weren’t alone. The bullying I felt during that time was all internal. I told myself I was worthless, and lazy, and unmotivated. I told myself I was never going to achieve anything and that my life to that point had been a waste.

Meeting the people I have through this website and others like it, I was able to build a support system. I didn’t have people who had gone through it telling me it gets better, but I found people who were able to help me believe that one day it would get better for all of us. And one day, it happened. It wasn’t as though there was some miracle change that made it all better. Making your Quarterlife Crisis go away is a matter of many baby steps.

One of the symptoms of the Crisis is finding out that the path you’ve been on may not be the right one for you. It leads to a feeling of confusion and an inability to move forward. I stayed in that place for two years. I tried a lot of things in those two years to attempt happiness, but it wasn’t until I enrolled in business school that I really started to get better. It wasn’t that I was even particularly interested in business or wanted an MBA, but I wanted to be working on something, anything, that could feel like bettering myself.

It starts with one step: A part time job in a bookstore or a volunteer opportunity on the weekends or joining a choral group on Tuesday nights. It means failing at more and more things until one thing fits what you’re looking for. It takes redefining yourself and realizing that just because this first path didn’t work out doesn’t mean you’re a failure. In fact, it means you may know yourself better than most people out there.

For those in the Quarterlife Crisis, it does get better. But you have to be responsible for making it better. And that isn’t a task that comes easily when you’re gripped with fear. And even when it gets better, there are still hurdles to overcome. Some days I feel that same feeling of dread and failure creeping into the back of my brain. Maybe I’m not doing things the way I should. Maybe I chose the wrong path. Maybe I’ll never amount to anything. But then I do something that reminds me how far I’ve come. I’ll go back to that volunteer opportunity, or read a book on economics, or dig through the recycled craft supplies at Goodwill in order to make art. You have to remember who you are and what makes you so amazing.

I realize that when it feels like everything you do is wrong it’s hard to take the advice to just do something. One of my favorite themes in the It Gets Better book is that it doesn’t actually get better. What happens is you get better. You become better able to handle the bad times, you have greater resources to use during those bad times, and you have the ability to change your life so that those things and people that were making you so miserable no longer have a grip on your life.

It does get better. We all have the ability to make it better. It’s not easy and it’s not pretty, but you’re also not alone. And in the end, not only does it get better, but WE get better.

Okay I get it. I did not need and will not need the next two cinematic installments of James Cameron’s “Avatar” money machine to remind once more, that I am a horrible human being, a white male to boot, who baby rapes mother earth every day and is responsible for every evil which has every occurred.

I get it.

It just took a little longer for Orwell and “1984” to come about. But, I get it. The constant bombardment on the QL generations by all forms of corporate, social & government media marketing about how they can live better with less, put up with more crap for more money, sticks & stones still hurt, words will get you sued, all can be excused with the term “lifestyle choice”, hope is better than action and that everything is going to get either better or soon the earth will resemble the surface of Venus. It all worked. I get it.

Yet, we only have ourselves to blame. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been with us for over 13 years and they warned us. They have books out on South Park philosophy, they teach courses on it at Cornell…and of course Berkley. All we needed to know came over the broadcast, basic cable annals of South Park every Wednesday night. You know…the place where our generation decided its largest ethical issues. They foretold this us. They predicted this world would come to be.

Why did we not listen? I doubt they care…they are worth like something maybe on the order of a Google dollars now!

Top ten things South Park taught me about going green, dealing with social networking, phantom economics, human biology and living a Quarter Life with meaning and…maybe…maybe a little more dignity:

10. Driving a Prius does indeed make you pretentious.
9. Not eating meat will turn you into a pussy.
8. Wal-Mart is not evil. If you don’t like to shop there, don’t.
7. Farting is natural, but do so in moderation. It is a greenhouse gas after all.
6. People like the famous Cartman; most of the time out number us and usually get away with being who they are. Assholes.
5. Everything in the rainforest is either trying to eat you, sting, poison you or shoot you and thus we should chop that whole f’ing thing down.
4. All crimes are hate crimes.
3. Respect “authority!”
2. Getting an anal probe is natural and very probable these days. Alien or otherwise.
1. That cartoons make more sense than real life any day.

If we went by timelines, the South Park boys, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny would all be in the Quarter Life. Just graduating this May in fact. I also imagine they would be more socially and mentally adjusted than their predecessors. Sadly, a lot more ready for the real world than most of us, other ¼ lifers.

And I am not sure how I am even going to finish the point of this article because it tends to circle back on itself. Is it a better or worse world or is there hope for tomorrow that we put our faith more in a cartoon? Or because we have a significant number of wandering twenty-somethings, who wander a lot more and for a lot longer these days because cartoons were there.

Why did some of us get our social commentary news from Yahoo and E! and not listen to the wisdom of the Seth MacFarlane’s and Matt Groening‘s?

I know how to drive the point home and end this piece. South Park’s Chef would make things always better with a song. “I going to make love to you baby, take you down by the fire, and caress your tender body with wild and desireee…”

Did not help much, but it makes for a nice wrap up.

It’s award season. It’s Chinese New Year. And I am still also having trouble writing 2011 instead of 2010 on all documents. And Yes…I actually do still write a check or two.

But outside of my antiqued fiscal dealings and dyslexia, all of that other stuff just points to the special time of the year when the layers of self-indulgent BS reaches epic proportions. Especially cumulating with the Oscars.

My money is on “The King’s Speech” for Best Pic. Colin Firth for Best Actor. And Natalie Portman for her lovely lesbo scene as Best Actress. Always pays to be British or have a little girl on girl to get the Academy all hot and bothered.

I also predict Health Care reform to be repealed by the Supreme Court, a North Korean regime change, Iran will go nuclear and Snuggies will come out with its own form of an 80’s reboot of the Thigh Master.

But this is such stuff as to be below my Quarter Life expectations of existence and this special time of year.

More than just being a political think tank or entertainment expert, I have year in and year out enjoyed the enlightening experiences of other, less well known award ceremonies. Such as the Darwin Awards where they award those who have died in horrible humorously stupid ways and thus eliminated themselves from the human gene pool and the Darwin evolutionary process. More on the movie side of things, right after the Golden Globes, the Sundance Film Festival and the SAG…come the Razzies.

Much, much more to my liking. They give out awards to the worst of the worst in the film industry. No favoritism. No political games. No agendas. Just if you make bad movies or star in them…you will be bitched slap for the artistic offense.

Thus there are a lot of nominations for Vampire style flicks and actors this year.

So no red carpet makes me feel better. It is the Razzies which give me an overall better feeling about my QL experience in 21st society. That there is some sort of honesty still out there. That if you do truly suck (no vampire reference intended), we QL’s are not just going to blog about it…we are literally going to fashion a statue out of gold and give it to you for being a POS in your newest cinematic career move.

Quite Refreshing.

Plus I love Razzieberry Pie. The one where they put all the different kinds of berries in the same delicious baked yummy. Oh, so good a la mode.

Seriously I did. But antibiotics cleared it right up.

And thanks to my fifth senior year at twenty-three, with whom I thought was an innocent freshman gave me mono to boot.

Ergo, the cliché slogans of “No glove – no love,” “She smokes – she pokes” or “Wrap the rascal” have more importance than ever for healthy quarter life sexuality.

Whether straight, gay, lesbian, bi, curious, trans, furries, pre-op, monogamous, player and whatever they come up next during Queer Eskimo Awareness Week…we have all got to take a responsible role with our bodies.

There is something like a new hepatitis being reported every week by the CDC. I think we are up to something like Q-4 on the alphabet. Roll into the Petri dish, super-bug staph, bizarre genital warts, good old HIV and about a 100 other mood killers and it is a wonder we can shake hands without a Level IV bio HAZMAT suit.

Heck, the outbreak of bed bugs on college campuses and Disney resorts tells you something is amiss.

So what is a Q-lifer to do? The old school days of condoms are just a memory. The Ring, dental damns and blood testing are fast becoming norms. Not being gross here…that is just the reality we live in. Your fist kiss these days might land you with a mouth full of acne.

And yep it is scary. But there are ways to deal with it and keep a normal, again, healthy libido, romantic and maturing QL lifestyle.

Here are some hints from my former Human Sexuality 102-304 course. She was a TA in the class. And yes, I dated her. She taught be so, so many things. But I ended up with a B-. Go figure on that. Well, now she is a MD of internal medicine in Baltimore. Dr. Tracy Connick helped me out with some good advice.

Condoms are still the best choice.

Float around the idea of what sex is really about before you actually do it. Ergo, think with your brain and not your nethers.

If committed to taking the next step in your relationship, get a STD blood panel. You owe it to yourself and others to get tested. It also makes a deep statement about your care and concern for you partner.

If you have a condition or not, you are accountable. And these days that means more than morally. In some cases, if you transmit a disease, you can be prosecuted in a court of law or have your pants sued off this time.

In your twenties you still feel bullet proof. You are not. It does not just happen to someone else. Odds are one in three of your friends have some sort of venereal disease.

Never put yourself or others in a pressure situation. Just say no is still a staple, but even in more innocent circumstances; never push sex on yourself or a partner.

It is okay to take your time. It is alright to ask about past partners or the health of another. It is fun to let loose. It is up to you about how cool it might be to hook up or wear a chastity ring. It is NOT, ever cool to take yours or others’ emotional and physical well beings at risk.

Be smart. Practice safe sex. But don’t freak out that a peck goodnight or some club rave mug down is going to give you Ebola. Use good judgment.

Get informed. Again, don’t go all hypochondriac or OCD. Relationships, random or committed are stressful enough. But knowledge is power.

Stay healthy. See your doctor regularly. Have good hygiene. Prevention is key. And for heaven’s sake wash your hands.

I liked the last one best. Mom’s advice about soap and water was right. And thank goodness that was the only thing she ever spoke about doing the nasty.

I also thought the whole knowledge, be informed was kinda cool. Sort of like those cartoon G.I. Joe public service advice segments. “And knowing is half the battle. GO JOE !”

So there it is in a nutshell. No pun intended. Weird times we live and love in, but we can get through the QL and further on with just a little caution and a whole lot of care for ourselves and others.

Tron: Legacy

Well it is not 1982. And Jeff Bridges is a lot older. Sort of. With the help of some serious CGI he is also back to form at a young 28 years old. Don’t ask. No one ever saw the original Tron in our generation. A good portion of you were not even born or if you were, no parent was taking your crying, diaper stench ass to the movies. Back then, they had unlicensed babysitters called the teenage girl next door who charged $1 an hour, use of the phone and fridge privileges.

But I digress, and so does this movie. I mean it is an okay ride. I did not go into the theater believing this was a flick movie with Oscar glory potential. However I did walk the sticky floors and plant myself in the stale seat of my local mega-plex 40 movie complex. By the way, it is complete is a Mickey D’s and a Cinnabon. I knew this updated form of the classic sci-fi was going to be a special effects montage designed for 3-D addicted audiences. On that, it delivers and then some.

And I loved the reworked soundtrack combining the 80’s overuse of synthesizers with 2010 club rave mixes.

So with a cool $100 million guaranteed profit, I predict a roller coaster ride within a couple of years at Disney Studios in Orlando. This, by the way, would be pretty damn cool. I always wanted to be one of the neon green speed bikers. Yes, I did see the original on laser disk. And for those less in the know, a laser disk it what they used to call DVDs, which were VHS’s, which in turn were called 35 mm film, then flash tray photo negatives, radio, music halls, jug blowing and then pretty much rocks and sticks would clarify the entertainment evolutionary scale.

Tron: Legacy. Jeff Bridges is hot. No I am not gay, though he is a handsome man at any age. He is America’s Sean Connery. And he is also hot Hollywood wise. What he touches is gold or Oscar. From Iron Man to this month’s Christmas release of True Grit. But not Tron. This movie will make a crap load of money, probably go into sequels and Mickey Mouse will continue his plans of global domination.

And you know I am okay with all three. Tron delivers what it promises. Bridges is a delight in anything. And Disney taking over the Holy Land and charging admission would probably bring about peace in the Middle East.

And besides my dreams of global resolutions over religious conflict. If you like action and having your senses overloaded, do yourself a favor, check it out and thank whatever religious head honcho you pray to that Will Smith was not cast for the part to jiggy things up a bit diversity wise.

I am seeking new employment. However, whenever I see a position that looks exciting, for which I have the proper skill set and associated experience, and one that I would ultimately want to apply for, I face something called the “employer’s application.”

The gauntlet begins: I am thrown into a round of mindless input of information readily available on my resume: including contact information, previous work experience, job descriptions, and much more. What’s the point of the resume if I need to fill out these blank boxes? Or better phrased, why do I need to put in information that’s already available on my resume? If I get through this level (gulp), I see what awaits me on the next round: a 30 minute survey of behavioral interview questions to quantify my interpersonal, organizational, and leadership qualities. Apparently, they want to know if I “agree, disagree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or not applicable.” (double gulp)

The unemployment rate recently dropped to 9%. Unfortunately, that’s not because more companies are hiring. In fact, in January, the private sector only added 36,000 jobs. The number has gone down because people have given up looking for work. The government doesn’t consider you “unemployed,” if you’re aren’t looking for work. To be unemployed, involves two requirements 1) not have a job and 2) be looking for a job. You don’t count if you’ve given up.

Over 15 million people lost their jobs during the recession, and many have been out of work for longer than 6 months. Some have been unemployed for a year, some even two years. Not only do these people face a challenging job market, where there are simply not enough jobs to go around and too many qualified people to fill them, but the insult to injury, is the ‘dark abyss’ of the employer job application.

Each of these generic applications can take upwards of 20-30 minutes. Factor in another 30 minute assessment, fine-tuning cover letters, and the actual original job search, and you get an unwieldy amount of time spent on applying to even ONE job. My question is: why? Why do companies; large, global, goliath, major institutions of profit, partake in something that is so inefficient, wasteful, annoying, and frustrating?

My first possible explanation is they consider it a “barrier to entry.” In other words, if you really want this job, you’ll sit through the mindless input, possibly followed by a 30 minute round of behavioral questions, just to be considered. That’s the shocker. You could spend all of this time and energy, to submit an application, when the employer knows very well they would never hire you based off a 10 second glance of your resume. So is their goal to reduce the number of applications?

I’ve attempted to send my resume to real people, using various networking and research vehicles online: LinkedIn, google searches, etc. My hope is to circumvent the wasteful time suck that is the employer job website application. The response is typical, “thank you for forwarding your resume to me, however, we can not consider applicants without ……”

At that moment, I hear a shrill scream from inside my mind. The job application on the company website is UNAVOIDABLE. It seems the lengthy application may have something to do with documenting equal opportunity employment screening.

It can not go on like this. Very capable workers have given up hope of finding a job and I can promise you that this senseless application process is a major part of it. We need to innovate here and change the status quo. Attention Entrepreneurs: the market has a need and you can fill it. If companies insist on having information in piecemeal format, we can set up a main online company that provides this format to companies. Consider what Careerbuilder or Monster do, and make it the standard.

So, if they insist on knowing the dates I worked at TPT, or how much I got paid, they can have it in its own little box for perusal. In other words, when I apply and send my resume, I can also send a form that gives them their desired knowledge of my work past, but without the manual input required for EACH website. Now, I can apply to 100 jobs a day, versus 10. Life is a game of numbers and this would increase the chances of garnering employment, of reducing stress and aggravation, and simply be more efficient and simple.

Personally, in the interlude, I have decided NOT to apply to any job that requires a job application. If a company doesn’t value my time and energy, I can not take the time or energy to apply.

I went to college. I can input information into a box if asked and if needed. And I can promise that the information will be accurate. But doing it 10x a day, 7x a day, for an unclear amount of time, I will not. I repeat I went to college. I know how to think and make choices for myself. I know that problems are often complex and unemployment is a major problem now. We can talk about stimulus, tax cuts, work programs, entitlements, unemployment benefits, aggregate demand, consumer confidence, and much more. But, because I went to college, I also know sometimes the simplest solution is often the right one. At this point, I can only ask, “what if there were no asterisks?”

Thank you-
Job Seeker

Now, three years later, there has been a vast increase in the resources for those of us experiencing the crisis. Many of those resources written by people who have actually gone through it and come out the better. Our goal was to let people know, you aren’t alone.

Now, one of our favorite bloggers has written a book! Jenny Blake works at Google in career development and is a life coach to boot. She’s a lovely person who obsesses about cupcakes- so that makes her an ideal person to take advice from. She has a blog that inspired her upcoming book.

We suggest reserving your copy now. Congrats to Jenny!