It's a Guest Post By Elaine!!!

Hey--Gloria here. I met Elaine through John Scalzi's Whatever blog. He had one of those things where you could plug your stuff in the comments--blog, book, product, whatever. So I read through the comments and came across Elaine's blog. I liked it, so I asked if we could guest post on each other's blogs. She graciously accepted, and here's her first effort.

Stuff I Just Don't Get

The other day over on the knitting forum where I hang out quite a bit, someone started a thread titled "Hype I Simply Don't Understand". It's been entertaining, seeing all the "disagree" clicks some of the posts have been getting as people get upset when someone doesn't "get" something the disagreeer loves.

I don't get that, to be honest. I love some stuff that a lot of other people really, really don't like. "Doctor Who", for example. I was raised to be a geek, and science fiction is one of the things I geek out over most. "Doctor Who" is my favorite science fiction, at least on television. Sometimes, when I say something about the show, or the Who convention I go to in Los Angeles some years, people will tell me emphatically that they do not like the show, do not approve of the show, and that they think it is a waste of time.

And then they get all astonished when I don't get upset about that. "But, but...," they sometimes say, "You love that. Why don't you get mad when people tell you they don't like it?" They aren't any less confused when I explain that I think it would be a really boring world if everyone liked all the same things.

Some of them don't get that at all.

And I kind of get that they don't get that, because there are things I just don't get, too.

Elvis Presley, for example.

I've never understood the big deal about Elvis. I don't think he was that great a singer. I really don't think he was very attractive. Not even young, thin Elvis. He wasn't much of an actor, either, really, although he got better at that. I do like the last film he made, "A Change of Habit." But that's probably because I've always kind of liked nun movies. Which is kind of weird, since I'm not Catholic.  But, yeah. I don't get Elvis.

As long as we're on the subject of popular singers, I supposed I should admit that I don't get Mick Jagger, either. I generally like the Rolling Stones' music. And I get Keith Richards. Have you read his autobiography, by the way? It's a good book, even if I'm not sure I completely believe all of it. He's an interesting guy. But Mick...well, I find Mick kind of pretentious and boring.

Although, I'll be honest. There is one performance of Mick's that I really love. It was one of the times the Stones were on the old Ed Sullivan Show. The band sang "Let's Spend the Night Together." Only, Sullivan felt that the title of the song, and that line in the song, were just too risqué for his show. Well, it was 1967, after all, and there were quite a few more things you couldn't say on TV then than now. So, Sullivan told Mick that he had to sing "let's spend some time together" instead. And Mick did what he was told. However, if you go to YouTube and find the clip of that song from the show, you'll see Mick rolling his eyes so hard as he sang that line that he had to have hurt himself. It's really kind of funny to watch.

Something else I don't get..."Seinfeld".

I tried to watch that show. I really tried, if only so that I would know what everybody was talking about every week while it was on the air. People kept talking about how funny it was, and how unique, and on and on. I think I only ever made it through one complete episode. As it has been described, it really was a show about nothing. And I know that different people have different senses of humor. I have to admit that I never saw anything funny about it.

There are some other things in the realm of popular entertainment that I just don't get, but in the interest of diversity, I'll to on to some things from other areas that I don't understand.

High heels.

I really, really don't get high heels. A lot of it is probably that I've been known to fall off flat shoes. And I've heard all the excuses - everything from "they make your calves look better" to "they're sexy" to "they'll make you taller." I probably hear that last one so much because I'm short, and apparently being tall is more valued socially and culturally, something else I don't get. But that's another topic for another time.

I don't care if heels make me look like the most beautiful woman who ever walked the face of the earth. High heels hurt, even when you don't fall off of them. They keep your feet in a completely unnatural position for hours on end. That can't be good for the feet. Personally, they give me cramps in my arches. They make my toes ache, especially the ones that are all pointy. They make too much noise when I walk.

Honestly? I can see no good reason for the existence of high heels, except to separate women from their money. My prime example of that? "Sex and the City". I like that show a lot. Except for when the four women the show revolves around start drooling over high heels and how much they cost. I don't get that part at all.

There's something else that the female portion of the species, especially when they are young girls, are expected to "get".

Horses.

I sometimes suspect that I'm the only female in the entire United States who didn't go though a "horse phase" in late pre-adolescence or early adolescence. Don't get me wrong. Horses are beautiful creatures. But I have never, ever wanted to be around them. Never wanted to ride them. I did ride one once, when I was about five years old and one of those little pony-ride things where the ponies go around and around in a circle came to town. When that ride was over, even at that age, I wondered what the big deal was.

Now, I did ride an elephant one time. That was amazing. I liked that. I like elephants. Not horses, though. I just don't understand what the big deal is about.

This is getting kind of long, isn't it? Sorry. I've got one more, though, that is probably really going to rile some people up. But the point here is to be honest, isn't it? So I will be honest.

I don't get coffee and tea.

Yeah. I heard you gasp in horror. I see you grasping your Starbucks cup to your chest and covering its ears so it won't hear my blasphemy. Sorry about that.

But it's true. I have never liked coffee or tea. And, in the case of coffee especially, it isn't for lack of trying. My father started trying to turn me into a coffee drinker when I was about ten years old. My mother didn't drink coffee, and my dad wanted someone to drink coffee with in the mornings. He really tried hard to convert me to it. Doctored it up all sorts of ways. Cream, sugar, honey. I don't know what all. None of it helped. It all tasted the same, like the bottom of a very old shoe.

The same with tea, whether its hot tea or iced tea. I suspect that I know why I don't like tea or coffee hot, though. In my universe, thing you drink are supposed to be cold. I can't even drink room-temperature water or I get nauseated. It has to be icy cold. That does not explain, however, iced tea and why I don't like it either. But I've given up trying to analyze it. I just don't like it.

So, what things do you not "get"? I know there's something, probably a lot of somethings, that it seems like everybody you know loves, but you just...well, don't. Let me know, either in the comments here or over where I usually blog, at http://littlemissattitude.blogspot.com/ . Or, just come by and visit. There's a fresh post there almost every day.

I want to thank Gloria for the opportunity to write this guest post. I appreciate it a lot.