I spent a lot of time in my early teen years trying to figure out why I am not cool. Then, I gave up on trying to figure it out when I went away to college. Now I have a daughter who is starting to become very conscious of the need to be cool and I'm reminded of my complete bafflement at the fact that I am not cool. I mean, I think I'm cool as a northern wind blowing in off Faxafl�i. But I've never fit into the crowd that is known as the Cool Crowd. More to the point, I don't understand why it seems that most of the things that other find to be cool are things that I cannot understand. I do admit to a certain tendency I've had (especially in my younger years) to rebel against something just because it is said to be cool but it's something that I think is stupid. I've noticed a few things recently, however, who's reason for coolness I just don't understand.

1) Secrets. Many people I know-coincidentally all female-greatly enjoy holding secrets from others around them. I don't understand the desire to shut some people out and have a whispered conversation between two people in a larger group. Now, I know that the secrets are often useless little things about bodily processes or something or boys or whatever. But I just don't understand why people don't just wait until they are alone to have conversations that they don't want everyone to hear.

2) New cool words. From time to time, the Cool (I refer to them as that because I don't belong to their society), get bored with slang the way it's been for years and invent new slang terms or bastardize existing words so they have a new meaning. This is actually a form of number 1. New cool words are used to exclude all those who do not receive the Cool People's Journal and serve only to make me think that I must have missed something and wonder what it is. Herein lies the problem: I don't care about learning how to be cool. I just want to live my life without having to keep up with others. I'm not inventing new words so that only my closest friends can understand me.
The whole rap scene is an example of a culture rife with this sort of thing and it spreads from there into the rest of society.

3) Prank Calls. Today I was asked if I know how to hide a phone number so that it's possible to call someone without the number appearing on their caller id. This was asked so that the girl in question could prank call a boy. I've never understood this prank call thing. I've known lots of people who think it's terribly funny. But what's the point?!
I guess you get the idea: I'm not just a Grinch about Christmas, it's really most things that others find fun.


Is this too bitchy? Well, if it is, TOO BAD because this is my page and I'll write what I want!

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