She’s totally a Canadian.

Dan, you know I can’t resist! Esp since I am having rural-cred war w/ JW.

Well what’s she supposed to do, make her U.P. thumb point backwards?

(Note: “Use opposite hands for the two parts” is not an acceptable answer. So far as I can tell, it’s actually a violation of state law to use the back of your left hand as a Michigan-pointing device.)

I suppose you can get both palms facing forward in Michigan-configuration, but it looks a little too squinched and awkward to try in a photo shoot.

I wonder if, when you ask people where stuff is in the U.P., they point at their left palms with their right index fingers?

The way I always do it:

left hand, palm out, thumb up = UP

right hand, palm out thumb to the right = Troll Land

And WTF about the rest of her family? Are they all amputees? My self-righteous indignation at this image knows no bounds.

xpost: yup!

I’ve never used my hand as a visual impression of the U.P.

But that’s because south of Traverse City nobody actually cares about the U.P.

LP: Left hand, palm in

UP: Right hand, palm in, fingers 4 and 5 curled up to make silhouette skinnier, thump pointing up for the Keweenaw

XP: Controversy!

XXP: JAYMC PREPARE TO DIE

HAHAHAH You suck at trolling John, especially when it’s just for me!

But Danno I’m finding it’s impossible to realistically do both parts of Michigan at once — with palms facing forward — without contorting or pretzeling up your arms. Hence the forgivenness.

Laurel I already said you will be shot for using the back of your left hand as the lower peninsula! It’s just not done!!!

My favorite thing about the U.P. is how people always say “We love the winters, because ... well, we have no choice.” They’re honest about that. I appreciate it. It’s either learn to love the winter, kill yourself, or move.

fudge.jpg

trillium.jpg

Who’s going to shoot me? You, city boy?

Haha, I love how when I come home I turn country-proud in about two days. It’s so insane, I hated every gun owner in this township when I actually lived here.

It’s either learn to love the winter, kill yourself, or move.

Or drink. A lot.

And my mother made fudge for Christmas: chocolate-walnut, chocolate-pecan-cherry, and something else I forget.

I kid, I’m friends with several Yoopers — but I seriously have never seen anyone use more than one hand for Michigan. If both hands are in use, how would you ever indicate anything? I mean, when I wanted to tell people where Kalamazoo was, I used my left hand as the state and my right index finger to point. More to the point, why would you ever need to show the whole state at once?

Of course, I may still be bitter: the only thing that stopped me from getting a perfect score on my “label the U.S. states” quiz in 4th grade was writing “Michigan” on the lower peninsula only instead of stretching it across both parts.

I would say both hands for reference, then use one for pointing at your location on a specific peninsula.

J, you should have written “Cloverland” on the UP (one of the names that the craziod secessionists wanted to give it as the 51st state), just to see what would happen.

when I wanted to tell people where Kalamazoo was, I used my left hand as the state and my right index finger to point

OMG, you too? I can’t believe so many people are backhanding the state like that.

(P.S. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but one of the things that tempers my distasted for the White Stripes — distaste partly built on the fact that they are so visibly, obviously from Michigan — is the one video where Jack sings “I’m going to Michigan” and does a hand-indication. In the proper style.) (I think I lived at the big knuckle on the ring finger? I’ll have to scale and measure.)

Big Rapids, yeah?

Yeah. None of those overblown pretentious “Grand” Rapids for us.

What is that, Mt. Pleasant? I’m sorry.

xpost: Oh, not quite as bad.

Bad Axe is a great name.

I am so not going to defend Grand Rapids. I hate that place and ALL THIS COLLEGES.

xpost Shit, I missed “ring” finger...

2x on Grand Rapids hate. Let’s not forget the DeVos empire in that, either.

my sis went to Grand Valley!

Yeah, I think Mt. Pleasant would be more middle finger.

WAIT what’s wrong with Grand Rapids??

I saw julien donkey-boy there and did karaoke for the first time ever at a cute coffee shop called Discussions. It was a great get-away during senior year when Kalamazoo started to get boring.

You guys are just anti-Dutch, right?

Jaymc: I AM Dutch. Don’t talk to me about Dutch, I went to CALVIN.

holy shit calvin

I’m not anti-Dutch, I’m anti-Republican-fundamentalist/born again-AMWAY SALESMEN.

(so much so that I’ll happily accept our current governor, be she manuo-geographically challenged and from Canada)

THANK YOU DAN BUT YOU FORGOT JOHN CALVIN.

...I don’t know who that is :)

Keep it that way.

Laurel, I did not know you were Dutch. Your surname does not end in -enga.

Yeah, teenage years in Big Rapids are totally preferable to Grand Rapids — not much happening in either, but at least in a small town you know everything, have your run of the whole space. But it’s a little creepy to find yourself sneaking 45 minutes down to the “city” so you can, I dunno, see Pulp Fiction, or buy better records. (Although Big Rapids had four different record stores during my couple years living there!)

Do straight people in Kalamazoo avoid dating as much as possible just so no one has an excuse to sing that “I’ve got a girl in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo” song?

I’m Dutch on my mother’s side, J. Father’s side is English & Scottish. Why yes, I am the whitest girl in the world!

did you look at other colleges or were you predestined to go to Calvin?

Oh that’s high-larious. No, I was orig bio-chem and they had excellent funding/class sizes/etc for hard sciences. (NO THANKS TO AMWAY COS OLD COLLEGE PRES REFUSED TO ACCEPT THEIR $$$.) Of course I promptly switched to English.

have any of you been to the Maya Lin skating rink in Grand Rapids? It looks so beautiful.

How many COOL CITIES have you lived in?

I have lived in THREE.

This is the COOL CITIES yak. I have never seen it IRL, despite having lived in three COOL CITIES:

Oh shit.

yak is hueg

lol