You will surely regret this
Sam Brown--explodingdog.com
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Note to Last Night Self
You're a jerk. Why'd you go and get all drunk like that? Cause ouch. That made this morning's yogurt not that awesome.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Dread Pirate Roberts
Our staff had an important meeting today with K. We've never met this man but suffice to say that he's several levels above the rest of us in terms of money, stature, and influence. I was expecting an older man in a gray suit with cold hands.
But K's hand was warm when I shook it and he looked to be about 30. And cute. Blonde hair that he had slicked back for no real reason. It made him look like his head was wearing armor. Thinning armor that, under different circumstances, would be the here-then-gone color of straw in the sun. His suit was blue pinstriped and his wedding ring was silver. His features were narrow, slender...like Cary Elwes if he had gone into agriculture. (And I'm a total sucker for Cary Elwes.) His background is in molecular biology with a focus on agrarian molecular biology (biotech stuff) and his graduate degree is in public policy. Whatever. Who cares. The point is, he looks like a version of Cary Elwes and he has an advanced degree in things I don't understand. Swoon!
I was asked to lead K to our WAR room. I chatted. Asked how long he had been with the department. Asked if he liked it. I tried to make my face beautiful. I tried to look at him in such a way that he'd say, "I don't love my wife. I want to put on the Dread Pirate Roberts outfit and makeout with you, right now!" You know, the usual stuff.
When the meeting started, we were missing Candy Girl and the boss. No big surprise. One supervisor had a rough morning and joined us late. No big deal. But then her phone went off and the ringer must have been at its maximum volume. She excused herself to take the call.
I was asking K about his involvement with our work when the other supervisor began dispersing bagels. She was shaking them out of bags, onto a tray and the bags were making those terrible loud bag noises. It was all very unnecessary. K was clearly annoyed. He was trying to talk. I was trying to listen. The bag rustling and the bagel movements went on long enough that I become uncomfortable and then extra uncomfortable.
Finally, we all sat down and began chatting as a group. In the middle of the conversation, someone phoned in. Another writer. He was working at home and needed to phone in for the meeting. We brought him up to speed and proceeded. Then the supervisor that had taken a phone call returned. We brought her up to speed and proceeded. Then someone asked me where Candy Girl was. I said I didn't know but that she always comes in late. They asked me to see if she was at her desk. She wasn't. We proceeded. Then the boss came in. We brought her up to speed and proceeded. Then Candy Girl came in. We brought her up to speed and proceeded. Then the phone call supervisor got another phone call and left. Then she came back. We brought her up to speed and proceeded. Then there were phone problems with the guy that called in so we hung up. He called back. So we brought him up to speed and then proceeded to tell him that the meeting was about over.
And in the midst of it all, someone asked a stupid question, Candy Girl ate 2 bagels like they were going out of style, and the boss seemed less than interested. I feel certain that we made a bad impression. We always do. As a staff, we're very unorganized.
I wonder if I could have done something so that we made a better impression. Maybe I should have told him that he looks like Cary Elwes. Maybe I should have said, "Agrarian molecular biology? HOT!" But I didn't. When the official meeting commenced, I sat there and tried to be small and distance myself from my coworkers. But I bet it didn't work.
Monday, October 29, 2007
I wish I could.
My prose style is not conducive to a great many things. I tend to invert sentence order and I use a lot of dashes and parenthetical phrases. I often have to re-read and edit several times before I achieve an economy of phrasing. It sounds good in my head, and it's exactly what I mean, but I sacrifice clarity for precision. I like to elaborate and elucidate but that just creates a convoluted sentence structure that defeates my intention of making things clear.
I wonder why they hired me for this job. When they asked for writing samples they said it could be anything of a certain length. So I submitted an article I wrote on the future of Shakespeare studies (as predicted by the current course of the field) and a paper on pre-vatic feminist utopian novels. And from that, they knew that I could write. Sure. I can. And when it comes to argument, I'm your girl. Argument benefits from complex sentences. Complex sentences allow you to draw out what you mean and what you don't. They give you room to breathe and expand and-- at the same time--they're confining because the longer your sentence goes, the more precise its meaning.
And I can also do simple. See. Looky there. Look at these short simple sentences. And fragments. I understand the benefit of using fragments in prose. I'm the artist that knows how to do beautiful portraits but can also choose to paint people as stick figures. Or something like that. You get the idea.
The point is, I have a few modes. And I can adapt reasonably well. So long as the writing project has a clear aim--winning an argument, defending mistakes the government made, or convincing you that you should makeout with me, etc.--I can do it.
But I cannot write the way I talk and I cannot find a voice that allows me to indulge in more creative projects. How can I be missing that?
Aaron has been telling me for about 7 years now that I need to write down some of the stories I've told him. (Especially the one about the cussing shed. He loves that story.) But I can't. I mean, I can. I probably have. But it doesn't sound the same.
When you read David Sedaris, you can hear David Sedaris. He has a cadence and an intonation that is implied by the text. He manages to write what he actually sounds like and he makes it sound like that to you too. He's remarkably present in everything he writes. The words are thick with him and you feel like you could scoop them up and sculpt them into a spoken statue of him.
I can't do that. Isn't that a ripoff?
I also forget things. Like, lots of things. While I'm a smart person, I can never remember the proper noun associated with a particular theory or idea or when so and so came up with the whatchamacallit. And when I can rememeber things, I have a hard time placing them in their proper context. For instance, let's say that Science Event A happened in 1746 and within a few months of that, Cultural Event A took place. I will forever think of them as two distinct things. It becomes difficult for me to see them as part of the same period or movement or whatever. Even if they are clearly related.
It's unfortunate. And it's annoying. Particularly when you get around someone like Charlie or Aaron who happen to always remember the dates for everything. I have a hard time remembering which countries are the Baltic countries and which are part of the Balkans. I have to constantly remind myself of stuff like that. (I remember the Baltic countries because I work with a woman that's from Estonia and the Baltic countries are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.) But these guys just know. It's just the sort of thing that sticks in their head.
Maybe it's not such a big deal because people wouldn't expect me to know that much about science or history or geography. At least, they wouldn't expect me to remember more than the average person. After all, my degrees are in philosophy and English. But I also can't remember words sometimes.
For example, I was recently having trouble recalling a synonym for pugnacious. It was a word that I liked the sound of and I had repeated it over and over in my head to make it stick. But it just wouldn't come to me. I had to search the thesaurus to remember that it was bellicose.
And I sometimes have trouble keeping the existentialists from bleeding together. (But then, doesn't everyone?) Is that excusable? Since my degree in philosophy is just an undergrad degree, can I be excused from remembering everything and knowing its proper name? Probably not. A while back--when I was still teaching and getting all the free textbooks I wanted--I ordered a dictionary of philosophy. It's handy. When people start referring to various schools of thought you can look it up to remind yourself. These things often sound incredibly complex, but they're not. You look it up and find out that it's all pretty common and you were already very familiar with it...it's just that you never refer to it or think of it by its proper noun. And that's frustrating too. If it's such a simple thing, then I should be able to recall it's stupid proper noun.
I recently made a deal with myself (a sort of pre-New Year's resolution) that I have to read X amount of smart stuff per week or month or whatever. (X has yet to be determined...I'm winging it until New Year's.) When you get out of school you think you're going to finally have all this time to indulge in all the stuff you've been wanting to read. I figured I'd finally read Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason. (It's supposed to be highly readable and pretty amusing.) But of course, what happens is that you get out of school and just enjoy not having to do anything. You don't become the sexy autodidact you envisioned becoming. Instead, you begin the slow and torturous process of forgetting. And I'm trying to buy myself some time. Trying to prevent losing my smarts. But if I succeed, will it matter? Even when I'm smart, I forget things. So if I manage to learn something new, won't I just forget again?
I wonder why they hired me for this job. When they asked for writing samples they said it could be anything of a certain length. So I submitted an article I wrote on the future of Shakespeare studies (as predicted by the current course of the field) and a paper on pre-vatic feminist utopian novels. And from that, they knew that I could write. Sure. I can. And when it comes to argument, I'm your girl. Argument benefits from complex sentences. Complex sentences allow you to draw out what you mean and what you don't. They give you room to breathe and expand and-- at the same time--they're confining because the longer your sentence goes, the more precise its meaning.
And I can also do simple. See. Looky there. Look at these short simple sentences. And fragments. I understand the benefit of using fragments in prose. I'm the artist that knows how to do beautiful portraits but can also choose to paint people as stick figures. Or something like that. You get the idea.
The point is, I have a few modes. And I can adapt reasonably well. So long as the writing project has a clear aim--winning an argument, defending mistakes the government made, or convincing you that you should makeout with me, etc.--I can do it.
But I cannot write the way I talk and I cannot find a voice that allows me to indulge in more creative projects. How can I be missing that?
Aaron has been telling me for about 7 years now that I need to write down some of the stories I've told him. (Especially the one about the cussing shed. He loves that story.) But I can't. I mean, I can. I probably have. But it doesn't sound the same.
When you read David Sedaris, you can hear David Sedaris. He has a cadence and an intonation that is implied by the text. He manages to write what he actually sounds like and he makes it sound like that to you too. He's remarkably present in everything he writes. The words are thick with him and you feel like you could scoop them up and sculpt them into a spoken statue of him.
I can't do that. Isn't that a ripoff?
I also forget things. Like, lots of things. While I'm a smart person, I can never remember the proper noun associated with a particular theory or idea or when so and so came up with the whatchamacallit. And when I can rememeber things, I have a hard time placing them in their proper context. For instance, let's say that Science Event A happened in 1746 and within a few months of that, Cultural Event A took place. I will forever think of them as two distinct things. It becomes difficult for me to see them as part of the same period or movement or whatever. Even if they are clearly related.
It's unfortunate. And it's annoying. Particularly when you get around someone like Charlie or Aaron who happen to always remember the dates for everything. I have a hard time remembering which countries are the Baltic countries and which are part of the Balkans. I have to constantly remind myself of stuff like that. (I remember the Baltic countries because I work with a woman that's from Estonia and the Baltic countries are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.) But these guys just know. It's just the sort of thing that sticks in their head.
Maybe it's not such a big deal because people wouldn't expect me to know that much about science or history or geography. At least, they wouldn't expect me to remember more than the average person. After all, my degrees are in philosophy and English. But I also can't remember words sometimes.
For example, I was recently having trouble recalling a synonym for pugnacious. It was a word that I liked the sound of and I had repeated it over and over in my head to make it stick. But it just wouldn't come to me. I had to search the thesaurus to remember that it was bellicose.
And I sometimes have trouble keeping the existentialists from bleeding together. (But then, doesn't everyone?) Is that excusable? Since my degree in philosophy is just an undergrad degree, can I be excused from remembering everything and knowing its proper name? Probably not. A while back--when I was still teaching and getting all the free textbooks I wanted--I ordered a dictionary of philosophy. It's handy. When people start referring to various schools of thought you can look it up to remind yourself. These things often sound incredibly complex, but they're not. You look it up and find out that it's all pretty common and you were already very familiar with it...it's just that you never refer to it or think of it by its proper noun. And that's frustrating too. If it's such a simple thing, then I should be able to recall it's stupid proper noun.
I recently made a deal with myself (a sort of pre-New Year's resolution) that I have to read X amount of smart stuff per week or month or whatever. (X has yet to be determined...I'm winging it until New Year's.) When you get out of school you think you're going to finally have all this time to indulge in all the stuff you've been wanting to read. I figured I'd finally read Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason. (It's supposed to be highly readable and pretty amusing.) But of course, what happens is that you get out of school and just enjoy not having to do anything. You don't become the sexy autodidact you envisioned becoming. Instead, you begin the slow and torturous process of forgetting. And I'm trying to buy myself some time. Trying to prevent losing my smarts. But if I succeed, will it matter? Even when I'm smart, I forget things. So if I manage to learn something new, won't I just forget again?
Friday, October 26, 2007
Meet Oscar
Oscar has been cracking Ben and I up for a few days now. Please, pay special attention to the bowed front legs, the blank and surprised look reminiscent of Milo, and the barrel chest that I associate with Ben's enormous cat, Fang. Oh man...I love this cat and would like to invite its owner to give him to me.
That's me.
These should be clickable but they're still all grainy from scanning them. But still...look at me! All small. And I have no clear memory of many of these events! Life is crazy.
I still make this face when I'm sleepy.
Woo! That outfit is totally awesome. And--much as I did when I was 2--I still stand on drawers to see the countertop.
YES! Thank you to my dad for always doing seriously awesome shit to me. In addition to making me wear disguises for amusing pictures, he used to cut a hole in an empty diaper box and plop me inside. Then he'd put a motorcycle helmet on my head and push me around in the box. So effing good.
That's Clowny. Not a terribly inventive name, I know. I used to love dancing with Clowny because he was just about my size. Then I saw Poltergeist and my relationship with Clowny was forever damaged. In case you haven't seen it, I looked A LOT like the girl from Poltergeist. And in that movie a clown that was under the bed comes to life and attacks her and her brother. So yeah, I told my mom that Clowny was probably possessed and she was going to have to lock him up somewhere where he couldn't get me. He's still in may parents' attic.
Jay at the top, Fred to the left, and me to the right. A million hipsters are crying right now because they wish they had those shirts.
I tried doing cheerleading in 3rd grade. It sucked. Some girl's crazy mom yelled at me for forgetting the right socks. I threw off the whole squad because we were supposed to be wearing our red socks, not our white socks. I got upset [as a child, I hated nothing more than being yelled at...it terrified me] and told my mom that I was in trouble. My mom put that other crazy mom in her place and reminded her that we were all 8 or 9 years old and it wasn't the end of the world. That's when I decided that my mom ruled and that I would never be a cheerleader again.
I still make this face when I'm sleepy.
Woo! That outfit is totally awesome. And--much as I did when I was 2--I still stand on drawers to see the countertop.
YES! Thank you to my dad for always doing seriously awesome shit to me. In addition to making me wear disguises for amusing pictures, he used to cut a hole in an empty diaper box and plop me inside. Then he'd put a motorcycle helmet on my head and push me around in the box. So effing good.
That's Clowny. Not a terribly inventive name, I know. I used to love dancing with Clowny because he was just about my size. Then I saw Poltergeist and my relationship with Clowny was forever damaged. In case you haven't seen it, I looked A LOT like the girl from Poltergeist. And in that movie a clown that was under the bed comes to life and attacks her and her brother. So yeah, I told my mom that Clowny was probably possessed and she was going to have to lock him up somewhere where he couldn't get me. He's still in may parents' attic.
Jay at the top, Fred to the left, and me to the right. A million hipsters are crying right now because they wish they had those shirts.
I tried doing cheerleading in 3rd grade. It sucked. Some girl's crazy mom yelled at me for forgetting the right socks. I threw off the whole squad because we were supposed to be wearing our red socks, not our white socks. I got upset [as a child, I hated nothing more than being yelled at...it terrified me] and told my mom that I was in trouble. My mom put that other crazy mom in her place and reminded her that we were all 8 or 9 years old and it wasn't the end of the world. That's when I decided that my mom ruled and that I would never be a cheerleader again.
A nerd in wolf's clothing.
I wonder if I'd think it was hot if a guy I was dating got dressed up as Harry Potter and waited in line for the book to be released. The answer is...I'm not sure. Maybe.
I find lots of super nerdy things hot.
"Oh, you want to tell me a little story about what's wrong with Newtonian physics. Cool. I'll just sit here thinking about how I want to lay my face on your stomach in a way that would be creepy were I not a reasonably cute girl."
"We're going to a comic book store where you can explain the minutiae of the Marvel universe. Sweet, will you tell me about how no one ever made out with you in high school and then take me somewhere so we can makeout?"
I've been thinking about this proclivity since I first became aware of the hotness of smart dudes--which was pretty much simultaneous with me becoming aware of hotness in general. What I've decided is that it isn't so much the nerdness that I like as it is the smartness and the thoroughness. However, when smartness combines with thoroughness, the result is often a nerd.
If I could find a smart and thorough guy that also happened to be well shaped, handsome, and socially suave, I'd be all about it. Case in point: I dated Aaron for almost 4 years. And whatever else Aaron is, he's a smart, hot, thorough dude that knows too goddamn much about comic books, Magic: The Gathering, and RPGs. At any time he might roll a 20 sided die to tell you what your "about to makeout with him" points are. He's a nerd in wolf's clothing. And that's a rare thing.
[Is makeout a compound word or two separate words or a hyphenate?]
In addition to the smart and thorough thing, there's also the special knowledge thing. I like people that know something I don't know. That doesn't necessarily mean that they need to teach me what they know. They just need to talk about it when I'm around. In this way, I get to see them as being apart from me and apart from others. They have a unique knowledge from a unique perspective. Other people may have similar knowledge but--because it's something that I don't know a lot about--I can convince myself that the guy I'm interested in has a more complete and special understanding of X.
And that helps with autonomy too. Oooh...autonomy. Apart from smartness, autonomy is the hottest characteristic. Now, you're probably thinking that all people are autonomous. And to some extent, you might be right. But what I'm interested in is hot, smart dudes whose autonomy seems to be a palpable force around them. Guys that force me to think about how they were alive before I ever knew them.
Most of the time, the story of a person begins when I enter the narrative. I get some exposition on what came before, but overall, it doesn't seem terribly relevant or interesting. But some people have this ability to seem as if they're always interesting. They did interesting things before they met you and--for once--you actually give a fuck about that. They likely do interesting things when you're not around. They don't need you there to exercise their will or to have fun. It's frustrating and annoying and so incredibly sexy.
It's like this, when I'm driving in my car and look behind me in the rearview mirror, I can often feel a real kinship with my fellow drivers. There we are, on the road together. Me and them. Simpatico. When I stop looking in the rearview, they don't exist [or at least, not in any relevant sense]. They're not back there being endearing or cool or smart or anything. There's no "them" for them to have attributes. There's the idea of "cars behind me" but that's all. No more simpatico. Just automata.
And that's how it is with most people. It sounds harsh but you have to keep in mind that the people that are closest to me are largely exempt from this rule. After all, the reason I'm close with them and continue to be interested in their company is that they've managed to convince me that they're not just a car behind me. They're a person with internal states and desires driving one particular car behind me. And it's always back there whether or not I look to see it.
This decreases in proportion to how far away from me you live. If you're only 30 miles away, then I can reasonably envision you being an autonomous individual and using that autonomy in ways that make me envious of all the time you're not spending with me. If you live 200 or more miles away, I pretty much think of you as sitting in a waiting room or blank space until I call you or see you. [Sorry Bryn and Hess and everyone else.]
But back to hot dudes with powerful autonomy...the point is, those kinds of hot guys are like my friends with respect to their ability to make me be interested in their lives both before and after me...only more so. Where my friends are my friends, this is a hot guy. And he's got a will of his own. And maybe he'll direct it at me. Better yet, maybe he can talk about that sort of thing. Not like narrating it...but maybe he's a guy that's good at philosophy and understands the importance of argument. And he better be because why the hell else am I hanging out with him?
I didn't mean for this to get so long. I meant to just pose the Harry Potter question and see what you guys thought. But clearly, I didn't.
Also, I read James Gleick's biography of Isaac Newton in undergrad. It was pretty good and Newton was a crazy dude so I recommend it.
I find lots of super nerdy things hot.
"Oh, you want to tell me a little story about what's wrong with Newtonian physics. Cool. I'll just sit here thinking about how I want to lay my face on your stomach in a way that would be creepy were I not a reasonably cute girl."
"We're going to a comic book store where you can explain the minutiae of the Marvel universe. Sweet, will you tell me about how no one ever made out with you in high school and then take me somewhere so we can makeout?"
I've been thinking about this proclivity since I first became aware of the hotness of smart dudes--which was pretty much simultaneous with me becoming aware of hotness in general. What I've decided is that it isn't so much the nerdness that I like as it is the smartness and the thoroughness. However, when smartness combines with thoroughness, the result is often a nerd.
If I could find a smart and thorough guy that also happened to be well shaped, handsome, and socially suave, I'd be all about it. Case in point: I dated Aaron for almost 4 years. And whatever else Aaron is, he's a smart, hot, thorough dude that knows too goddamn much about comic books, Magic: The Gathering, and RPGs. At any time he might roll a 20 sided die to tell you what your "about to makeout with him" points are. He's a nerd in wolf's clothing. And that's a rare thing.
[Is makeout a compound word or two separate words or a hyphenate?]
In addition to the smart and thorough thing, there's also the special knowledge thing. I like people that know something I don't know. That doesn't necessarily mean that they need to teach me what they know. They just need to talk about it when I'm around. In this way, I get to see them as being apart from me and apart from others. They have a unique knowledge from a unique perspective. Other people may have similar knowledge but--because it's something that I don't know a lot about--I can convince myself that the guy I'm interested in has a more complete and special understanding of X.
And that helps with autonomy too. Oooh...autonomy. Apart from smartness, autonomy is the hottest characteristic. Now, you're probably thinking that all people are autonomous. And to some extent, you might be right. But what I'm interested in is hot, smart dudes whose autonomy seems to be a palpable force around them. Guys that force me to think about how they were alive before I ever knew them.
Most of the time, the story of a person begins when I enter the narrative. I get some exposition on what came before, but overall, it doesn't seem terribly relevant or interesting. But some people have this ability to seem as if they're always interesting. They did interesting things before they met you and--for once--you actually give a fuck about that. They likely do interesting things when you're not around. They don't need you there to exercise their will or to have fun. It's frustrating and annoying and so incredibly sexy.
It's like this, when I'm driving in my car and look behind me in the rearview mirror, I can often feel a real kinship with my fellow drivers. There we are, on the road together. Me and them. Simpatico. When I stop looking in the rearview, they don't exist [or at least, not in any relevant sense]. They're not back there being endearing or cool or smart or anything. There's no "them" for them to have attributes. There's the idea of "cars behind me" but that's all. No more simpatico. Just automata.
And that's how it is with most people. It sounds harsh but you have to keep in mind that the people that are closest to me are largely exempt from this rule. After all, the reason I'm close with them and continue to be interested in their company is that they've managed to convince me that they're not just a car behind me. They're a person with internal states and desires driving one particular car behind me. And it's always back there whether or not I look to see it.
This decreases in proportion to how far away from me you live. If you're only 30 miles away, then I can reasonably envision you being an autonomous individual and using that autonomy in ways that make me envious of all the time you're not spending with me. If you live 200 or more miles away, I pretty much think of you as sitting in a waiting room or blank space until I call you or see you. [Sorry Bryn and Hess and everyone else.]
But back to hot dudes with powerful autonomy...the point is, those kinds of hot guys are like my friends with respect to their ability to make me be interested in their lives both before and after me...only more so. Where my friends are my friends, this is a hot guy. And he's got a will of his own. And maybe he'll direct it at me. Better yet, maybe he can talk about that sort of thing. Not like narrating it...but maybe he's a guy that's good at philosophy and understands the importance of argument. And he better be because why the hell else am I hanging out with him?
I didn't mean for this to get so long. I meant to just pose the Harry Potter question and see what you guys thought. But clearly, I didn't.
Also, I read James Gleick's biography of Isaac Newton in undergrad. It was pretty good and Newton was a crazy dude so I recommend it.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
How did this become about you?
I don't know when it happened but at some point Fred, my brother, learned about reincarnation. Right around that time, he also learned that he was born 6 days after Elvis died. Fred did the math and figured that 6 days was the right amount of time for a soul to pick the new body it wanted to live in. (Fred's idea--though childish--has some interesting ramifications regarding the status of souls for those that are in utero.)Elvis had looked at all the tiny babies inside their snuggly little wombs to find the one he most desired.
Babies with the Down's had to go. My friend Adraine used to say that people with Down's Syndrome are the closest we could ever come to meeting a real angel. They're beautiful in a strikingly placid and sweet way and you're not likely to ever meet a person with Down's that isn't kind in every way in which it's possible to be kind. A lot of Down's babies are born with an imperforate anus. Sometimes it joins the recutm, vagina, and colon all into one channel, sometimes there are abnormal passageways between the rectum and the bladder and the urethra or vagina, and sometimes there's just no anus present at all. They do surgery so that the baby can excrete waste. Adriane said that an imperforate anus was evidence of the angelic nature of Down's. No angel woul
d ever defecate. It's sad. Witness what happens when man confronts the angelic. We cut a hole in it. We give it a way to be more like us, to excrete what it's consumed. Maybe these angel babies would be better off if we left them without the ability to rid themselves of waste. They would certainly die but they'd still be angels. But enough with angel baby digressions.Think of what Elvis did as the fetal version of America's Next Top Model meets American Idol. Many contestants had to be cut. This one was too short, that one had funny hair, some were bound to be ugly, some would be unable to play the guitar, and more than a few lacked the right kind of hips for the trademark swagger. My brother had the hips. And the ass. Actually, he has a bubble butt (a weird looking trait on a dude). But Elvis didn't realize this at the time since Fred was still just a baby, living on the nutrients his mother passed to him and thriving in a sort of existence limbo.
You can see where I'm going, right?
Elvis chose Fred's to be the body that he would inhabit. My brother, the county cop with a bubble butt and a penchant for something he calls "cheesy green beans" [honestly, they're more like canned green beans in a yellow bath that tastes nothing like cheese and a lot like powdery], is the reincarnation of The King of Rock 'n' Roll.
To alert our family and friends, Fred asked my grandfather to make him a medallion necklace emblazoned with the moniker "Elvis II." He told us over and over again that he could feel the Elvis-ness inside of him and when he turned 18 he would change his name to forever be "Elvis II." The world would release a collective gasp and fans would fall to their knees, grateful that their King--their messiah--had returned...much as Weekly World News had prophesied.
It didn't last. That's the shame of it all. Fred somehow just forgot that he was Elvis II, that his soul had been reborn and that he was destined to make teenage girls swoon. He's never really had much follow through. I wonder if Elvis was the same way?
Later, Fred wanted to be Evel Knievel. We had a barbed wire fence around part of our yard that separated it from Aunt Babe's field. Fred figured that more impressive than jumping the fence would be racing towards it on his bicycle and then--right before hitting the barbed wire--laying the bike down on the ground and doing a controlled slide under the lowest strand of wire. He'd pop out on the other side and immediately be able to get the bike back up and pedal away. It's barbed wire limbo except for even bigger idiots. To this day, Fred swears he almost made it. And he's sort of right. I mean, once he put the bike on the ground it went under the fence and came out the other side. It's just that he didn't come out on the other side with it. The barbed wire caught him on the left side of his chest...right below his clavicle. He bled a lot and it left a nasty scar but when it was over with he just kept saying, "Did you guys see me? I almost did it!"
Years later, when he was old enough to have his own dirtbike, Fred tried to jump our pond. It's not a small pond by any means. But the hopes of a 13 or 14 year old boy are enormous and cannot be defeated by logic or sense or the distance across a pond.
It was September and it was pretty cold already. My dad was at the pond fishing and then, seemingly out of nowhere, he heard my brother's bike approaching really quickly. Before he knew it, Fred was cresting the small but steep hill leading up to the pond and taking to the air. He was in the air for all of 3 seconds before gravity did its duty and landed him in 4 feet of pond water. Fred came up with his teeth chattering imploring my dad, "Dad, we have to get it out! Dad, we have to do something to get my bike out. Dad!" And they did. But that was the end of Fred Knievel.
I really don't think Elvis or Evel would approve of that.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
This still makes me mad.
When we were in third grade, my friend Seth's mom got him that mad scientist kit for Christmas. It was just a small skeleton dude that you cover in some gelatin goo and then you stick him in this tower of stuff that dissolves the gelatin from him. So you get to watch him sort of melt and return to his pre-goo skeleton self.
But Seth's mom would never let us play with it. She was worried that it'd make a mess. And as an authority on messes, I can tell you with confidence that it would have. But if you don't want messes made, then you shouldn't have kids. And if you do have kids and you don't want messes made, then you shouldn't get them the mad scientist kit. And if you have a kid and you get him the mad scientist kit, then--for fuck's sake-- let him and his best buddy play with the damn thing.
Seth and I also used to play Star Trek. He had one of those beds that has several drawers down below...to keep your jammies in, I suppose. We'd take the drawers out and crawl in the hole that remained. We had just enough room for the two of us to lie on our backs with our legs close to our chests. Just enough room to pretend that we were in the cockpit of the Enterprise. Okay...the Enterprise didn't have a cockpit. But we didn't have an entire starship so we had to improvise. We often stayed in that little space for hours. Imaginations are awesome.
But Seth's mom would never let us play with it. She was worried that it'd make a mess. And as an authority on messes, I can tell you with confidence that it would have. But if you don't want messes made, then you shouldn't have kids. And if you do have kids and you don't want messes made, then you shouldn't get them the mad scientist kit. And if you have a kid and you get him the mad scientist kit, then--for fuck's sake-- let him and his best buddy play with the damn thing.
Seth and I also used to play Star Trek. He had one of those beds that has several drawers down below...to keep your jammies in, I suppose. We'd take the drawers out and crawl in the hole that remained. We had just enough room for the two of us to lie on our backs with our legs close to our chests. Just enough room to pretend that we were in the cockpit of the Enterprise. Okay...the Enterprise didn't have a cockpit. But we didn't have an entire starship so we had to improvise. We often stayed in that little space for hours. Imaginations are awesome.
A pretty good Savage Love letter
This was in the October 3rd issue of Savage Love and sums up my feelings about a lot of sexual relationships...not just the poly ones. It makes me think of Kirsten (some of you will know who I'm talking about). Kirsten was alwasy busy being sexy. And she was successful. I mean, she was pretty damn hot. But according to the dudes, not actually interested in having sex. So yes, people invest a lot of time in being perceived as sexually interesting but not much time in actually being sexual or interesting or both at once.
[And let me note that I realize that I've left myself open to someone I used to sleep with writing a comment that's all "You don't know what you're talking about. You were rubbish in bed." But...you know...they won't. Right? I mean, I was a dynamo. A real champion...right?]
I am a bisexual female in a polyamorous relationship with a bisexual male. We are each other’s primary. We are friends with a lesbian couple. The older member, to whom I am attracted, lets the younger member, to whom I am not attracted, have other partners. The older member is not interested in outside contacts herself. The younger member is definitely interested in me, but I spend my social time with this couple thinking about banging the older member.
I am very conflicted about how to proceed. I also have a hunch that the older member is attracted to me but doesn’t have the nerve to make a move. I am open to the possibility of a three-way. What is my best course of action here?
—Pretty Older Ladies, Yessir!
You probably like to think of yourself as a brave sexual adventurer, POLY, seeing as you’re all bi and poly and shit. And there you are socializing with intergenerational lesbian couples—man, you are living life on the edge! Pushing the antelope! Creating dynamic new relationship structures! You are bi poly woman—hear you rawr!
Sorry, POLY, but I’ve fried oysters with more spine. You write that the older member of the lesbian couple doesn’t have the “nerve to make a move.” Where’s your nerve? Attracted to the older member? Tell her. Not into the younger member? Tell her. Open to the possibility of a three-way with both members? Tell ’em. The last thing the world needs is another all-talk-no-action polyamorous braggart. You’re doing poly wrong, POLY, when you spend more time diagramming your sexual relationships than you do having sexual relationships.—Dan
[And let me note that I realize that I've left myself open to someone I used to sleep with writing a comment that's all "You don't know what you're talking about. You were rubbish in bed." But...you know...they won't. Right? I mean, I was a dynamo. A real champion...right?]
I am a bisexual female in a polyamorous relationship with a bisexual male. We are each other’s primary. We are friends with a lesbian couple. The older member, to whom I am attracted, lets the younger member, to whom I am not attracted, have other partners. The older member is not interested in outside contacts herself. The younger member is definitely interested in me, but I spend my social time with this couple thinking about banging the older member.
I am very conflicted about how to proceed. I also have a hunch that the older member is attracted to me but doesn’t have the nerve to make a move. I am open to the possibility of a three-way. What is my best course of action here?
—Pretty Older Ladies, Yessir!
You probably like to think of yourself as a brave sexual adventurer, POLY, seeing as you’re all bi and poly and shit. And there you are socializing with intergenerational lesbian couples—man, you are living life on the edge! Pushing the antelope! Creating dynamic new relationship structures! You are bi poly woman—hear you rawr!
Sorry, POLY, but I’ve fried oysters with more spine. You write that the older member of the lesbian couple doesn’t have the “nerve to make a move.” Where’s your nerve? Attracted to the older member? Tell her. Not into the younger member? Tell her. Open to the possibility of a three-way with both members? Tell ’em. The last thing the world needs is another all-talk-no-action polyamorous braggart. You’re doing poly wrong, POLY, when you spend more time diagramming your sexual relationships than you do having sexual relationships.—Dan
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Ok Cupid Stories
Some 44 year old man in Jacksonville, Florida that has long hair and wears a lot of leather sent me a message saying that he's going as a LOL cat for halloween because of me. Of course, he said, he won't be as cute as me. He said he thought it'd be pretty good to be as cute as me though because then you could walk around knowing that total strangers wanted to mush you. MUSH...as a euphemism...for sex! So effing good. This dude is one of my all time favorite dudes in the Jacksonville, FL area.
______________________________________
Some 25 year old guy in MD sent me a message that just read "I can has cheezburger?"
I sent him back an inane response.
He messaged back, "Do you know how canned that response sounds?"
I messaged back:
"Actually, I do. But I didn't think it mattered since it was going to a dude that claims he'll 'go to extremes to have fun' but still knows 'how to enjoy a nice quiet night under the stars.' You get that from Maxim?
And let's be frank, your's was not the most provocative conversation starter."
Seriously..."a nice quiet night under the stars" and he's accusing me of being canned? Lame.
_________________________________________________
Got a message from a dude that lives about 30 miles away. He was all, "Too bad you don't live closer." And I was all, "Yeah, like you, I only date people that live around the corner." What. Ever. Why would you message someone to say that?
______________________________________
Some 25 year old guy in MD sent me a message that just read "I can has cheezburger?"
I sent him back an inane response.
He messaged back, "Do you know how canned that response sounds?"
I messaged back:
"Actually, I do. But I didn't think it mattered since it was going to a dude that claims he'll 'go to extremes to have fun' but still knows 'how to enjoy a nice quiet night under the stars.' You get that from Maxim?
And let's be frank, your's was not the most provocative conversation starter."
Seriously..."a nice quiet night under the stars" and he's accusing me of being canned? Lame.
_________________________________________________
Got a message from a dude that lives about 30 miles away. He was all, "Too bad you don't live closer." And I was all, "Yeah, like you, I only date people that live around the corner." What. Ever. Why would you message someone to say that?
A few things.
The light outside was orange this morning and the leaves on my sidewalk were like haphazard carpet.
A firefighter in Illinois performed mouth-to-mouth on a kitten that wasn't breathing after being caught in a house fire. The kitten lived and jumped in the man's lap and started purring. It was on NPR and Yahoo! News today.
I ordered a David Sedaris book, 2 Dwight Yoakam albums, and a Ryan Adams album. Mostly because fall gets the better of me and all I can think about is honky tonk sad bastard music and apple cider and reading good books under a red tartan blanket and scarves and cute boys with nice smiles. I already have a red tartan blanket, some apple cider, and a scarf but trust me, I would have ordered a cute boy if I could.
We have someone doing a detail on our staff for the next two months. I don't mind answering some of her questions because I remember being new myself but a lot of the problem is that she isn't a writer. She came to my cube today to ask me to sort of pre-edit something before she took it to the editor. I looked at one sentence that made absolutely no sense and asked, "What does that mean?" She said, "It's accurate." And I said, "Yeah, but you're not answering my question. What does it mean?" And she said, "I don't know." I explained to her that if she didn't know what it meant then the recepient wouldn't know what it meant either.
The paragraph ended with something that seemed to have no relation to the rest of the paragraph. I asked what the connection was between the two ideas and she said "Well, I just threw that in. But it's accurate." I didn't know how to explain to a grown woman that you write for a purpose and you can't just throw unrelated stuff in because it's factually true. It was like being a teacher again only this time I was robbed of the power of sarcasm.
A firefighter in Illinois performed mouth-to-mouth on a kitten that wasn't breathing after being caught in a house fire. The kitten lived and jumped in the man's lap and started purring. It was on NPR and Yahoo! News today.
I ordered a David Sedaris book, 2 Dwight Yoakam albums, and a Ryan Adams album. Mostly because fall gets the better of me and all I can think about is honky tonk sad bastard music and apple cider and reading good books under a red tartan blanket and scarves and cute boys with nice smiles. I already have a red tartan blanket, some apple cider, and a scarf but trust me, I would have ordered a cute boy if I could.
We have someone doing a detail on our staff for the next two months. I don't mind answering some of her questions because I remember being new myself but a lot of the problem is that she isn't a writer. She came to my cube today to ask me to sort of pre-edit something before she took it to the editor. I looked at one sentence that made absolutely no sense and asked, "What does that mean?" She said, "It's accurate." And I said, "Yeah, but you're not answering my question. What does it mean?" And she said, "I don't know." I explained to her that if she didn't know what it meant then the recepient wouldn't know what it meant either.
The paragraph ended with something that seemed to have no relation to the rest of the paragraph. I asked what the connection was between the two ideas and she said "Well, I just threw that in. But it's accurate." I didn't know how to explain to a grown woman that you write for a purpose and you can't just throw unrelated stuff in because it's factually true. It was like being a teacher again only this time I was robbed of the power of sarcasm.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Rewind
I've been feeling sort of scrubbed and hopeful lately. Maybe because it's fall and there's all that color and all those smells. Maybe because I had a really good, really long weekend. Free time and scarf wearing weather always makes me feel calm and sweet and more engaged.
Sean and I went to Markoff's Haunted Forest in Dickerson Thursday night. We listened to Ryan Adams in the car. Sean argued that pretty much all of his albums sound the same and I disagreed. (Sure, there's always some sad bastard songs, some country songs, and some more rock oriented songs...but I can't shake the feeling that Easy Tiger is dramatically different from Cold Roses or Love is Hell.) We drank hot tea on the way there and I thought about the sounds leaves make...on the tree and then off the tree and--eventually--under my feet.
We stood around commenting on the various people partaking in various events and being scared in various ways. We kissed and speculated about the potential for both or either of us to become truly scared.
When our number was called, I made Sean lead the way and, according to him, shoved him towards anything that jumped out at us. We each clutched the other's arm or waist and moved like a lumbering set of poorly conjoined twins.
There were several men with chainsaws, a giant robot horse (the most terrifying element of the entire evening), a dude that I felt sure was gonna trap us in the tikihut of doom and yell "faggot" at us until we cried, and numerous fire hazards. Overall, a successful event.
Later that night I fell asleep but couldn't remember falling asleep. When I woke up, life was remarkably pleasant and I was pleased.
Spent Friday getting an oil change, reading dino comics, running to the grocery store, making pepperoni rolls, and re-watching Season 3 of Buffy. And somewhere in there I found the time to pet some cats and nap with them.
Ben came down Saturday to help me make food for the party. My vegan recipe for spinach artichoke dip turned out to be crummy and we wondered if it might have been because the soymilk was too sweet. Pretty disapponting.
The party itself was pretty much awesome. Lauren was super nice and made me a hulahoop and several people brought me good vodka. Always a great gift. Matt got the hiccups and Ben convinced him to do that thing where you lean over and put your head between your legs and grunt. It didn't cure his hiccups but it was funny for the rest of us. Sean and Chad sat on the couch and whisper-mumbled conspiratorially...sometimes exchanging knowing looks. (It was charming to me that they seem to have their own brand of insideness--something that I lack with my own siblings.) Jimmy curled up on Rob's lap and stayed there for at least a half an hour. Jamie passed out while watching an episode of Buffy that Ben and I insisted on watching. And there's enough Yuengling left to satisfy any Yuengling needs I'll have for the next month or more.
Sunday was meandering. Laundry, Buffy, cats. Talked to Sean for a while about imagined scenarios. Would he be my friend if I was the size of Thumbalina? Would I be his friend if he was that size? I said I would, provided that I was allowed to carry him around in my shirt pocket. I'd even get him a pet but only if he was responsible for feeding it and watering it and such. He said he'd want a caterpillar. I said he could have an inchworm.
Would he be my friend if my entire body was covered in coarse spider hairs? He said yeah. But he'd probably make fun of me. But what if I could spit poison? Would he let his friends make fun of me if I spit poison? He thought it was a pretty moot point once the poison spitting entered the conversation. I guess he's right. You don't need anyone to stand up for you when you're capable of spitting poison.
How about if he was undead? I asked which kind of undead...vampire or zombie. He said both. I asked, "Like a vampire zombie?" He said no...like in the first instance he's a vampire and in the second he's a zombie. I said I'd probably kill him if he was a zombie. After all, all the things that I enjoy about him would no longer be present and instead he'd just be a foul smelling jerk that wanted to kill me. He seemed to think it was rude of me to kill him. But you know, I can't be expected to pledge my friendship to the reanimated corpse of a former buddy. But if he was a vampire, that could be hot. I'd ask him to turn me into one. He'd say that he would and then just drain me of blood. Jerk. There was a pun in there too but it isn't worth repeating.
Spent the rest of the day waching Hot Fuzz (kinda crappy) and The Last King of Scotland (pretty good).
Sean and I went to Markoff's Haunted Forest in Dickerson Thursday night. We listened to Ryan Adams in the car. Sean argued that pretty much all of his albums sound the same and I disagreed. (Sure, there's always some sad bastard songs, some country songs, and some more rock oriented songs...but I can't shake the feeling that Easy Tiger is dramatically different from Cold Roses or Love is Hell.) We drank hot tea on the way there and I thought about the sounds leaves make...on the tree and then off the tree and--eventually--under my feet.
We stood around commenting on the various people partaking in various events and being scared in various ways. We kissed and speculated about the potential for both or either of us to become truly scared.
When our number was called, I made Sean lead the way and, according to him, shoved him towards anything that jumped out at us. We each clutched the other's arm or waist and moved like a lumbering set of poorly conjoined twins.
There were several men with chainsaws, a giant robot horse (the most terrifying element of the entire evening), a dude that I felt sure was gonna trap us in the tikihut of doom and yell "faggot" at us until we cried, and numerous fire hazards. Overall, a successful event.
Later that night I fell asleep but couldn't remember falling asleep. When I woke up, life was remarkably pleasant and I was pleased.
Spent Friday getting an oil change, reading dino comics, running to the grocery store, making pepperoni rolls, and re-watching Season 3 of Buffy. And somewhere in there I found the time to pet some cats and nap with them.
Ben came down Saturday to help me make food for the party. My vegan recipe for spinach artichoke dip turned out to be crummy and we wondered if it might have been because the soymilk was too sweet. Pretty disapponting.
The party itself was pretty much awesome. Lauren was super nice and made me a hulahoop and several people brought me good vodka. Always a great gift. Matt got the hiccups and Ben convinced him to do that thing where you lean over and put your head between your legs and grunt. It didn't cure his hiccups but it was funny for the rest of us. Sean and Chad sat on the couch and whisper-mumbled conspiratorially...sometimes exchanging knowing looks. (It was charming to me that they seem to have their own brand of insideness--something that I lack with my own siblings.) Jimmy curled up on Rob's lap and stayed there for at least a half an hour. Jamie passed out while watching an episode of Buffy that Ben and I insisted on watching. And there's enough Yuengling left to satisfy any Yuengling needs I'll have for the next month or more.
Sunday was meandering. Laundry, Buffy, cats. Talked to Sean for a while about imagined scenarios. Would he be my friend if I was the size of Thumbalina? Would I be his friend if he was that size? I said I would, provided that I was allowed to carry him around in my shirt pocket. I'd even get him a pet but only if he was responsible for feeding it and watering it and such. He said he'd want a caterpillar. I said he could have an inchworm.
Would he be my friend if my entire body was covered in coarse spider hairs? He said yeah. But he'd probably make fun of me. But what if I could spit poison? Would he let his friends make fun of me if I spit poison? He thought it was a pretty moot point once the poison spitting entered the conversation. I guess he's right. You don't need anyone to stand up for you when you're capable of spitting poison.
How about if he was undead? I asked which kind of undead...vampire or zombie. He said both. I asked, "Like a vampire zombie?" He said no...like in the first instance he's a vampire and in the second he's a zombie. I said I'd probably kill him if he was a zombie. After all, all the things that I enjoy about him would no longer be present and instead he'd just be a foul smelling jerk that wanted to kill me. He seemed to think it was rude of me to kill him. But you know, I can't be expected to pledge my friendship to the reanimated corpse of a former buddy. But if he was a vampire, that could be hot. I'd ask him to turn me into one. He'd say that he would and then just drain me of blood. Jerk. There was a pun in there too but it isn't worth repeating.
Spent the rest of the day waching Hot Fuzz (kinda crappy) and The Last King of Scotland (pretty good).
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
How did the primatives do it?
Unshelled Peanuts: A Fucking Hassle to Eat
Since: For Fucking Ever
I got shells all over my cubicle.
But think how easy this would be if I had tiny machines at the end of my fingers whose job it was to deshell peanuts.
Since: For Fucking Ever
I got shells all over my cubicle.
But think how easy this would be if I had tiny machines at the end of my fingers whose job it was to deshell peanuts.
The Universe Smiled on Me (AKA...I Smiled All Over a Girl's Face Once)
Today's dino comic revealed that T-Rex's birthday is this Friday, October 19th. THAT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!! I totally share a birthday with T-Rex. So good.
Because I was feeling so happy, I sent an email to Ryan North and thanked him for letting me share a birthday with T-Rex. You know, cause it made me feel good. And he replied!
He said:
"It's my birthday too! I'm a lazy writer like that. Happy upcoming birthday, Mandi!"
- Ryan
So totally awesome. That means that we're only like 300 steps away from me and Ryan North being best buds. That and the distance between here and Canada. The only thing standing between me and an infinite friendship with the funniest webcomic alive is the sincere creepiness of my own desire. I'm always hoisted on my own petard.
I know you can't see this well enough to read it, but if you go to qwantz.com it's today's comic and if you check it out later than today then you can find it in the archives for October 17, 2007.
Because I was feeling so happy, I sent an email to Ryan North and thanked him for letting me share a birthday with T-Rex. You know, cause it made me feel good. And he replied!
He said:
"It's my birthday too! I'm a lazy writer like that. Happy upcoming birthday, Mandi!"
- Ryan
So totally awesome. That means that we're only like 300 steps away from me and Ryan North being best buds. That and the distance between here and Canada. The only thing standing between me and an infinite friendship with the funniest webcomic alive is the sincere creepiness of my own desire. I'm always hoisted on my own petard.
I know you can't see this well enough to read it, but if you go to qwantz.com it's today's comic and if you check it out later than today then you can find it in the archives for October 17, 2007.
Pay to Work
The government doesn't like to pay for parties. Consequently, we have to pay to attend any kind of holiday event we have and we have to plan it ourselves. I just got the invitation to this year's Christmas party.
A. It's on a Saturday night
B. It cost between $30 and $35 (plus drinks...there's a cash bar)
C. I work with these people. Hanging out with them leads to talking about work and that's just like work except I'm paying to do it...and on a Saturday.
Clearly, anything is better than paying to attend a company Christmas party. Sitting at home in my PJs petting cats and watching Buffy is better. Actually, sitting at home in itchy PJs with a busted TV and the torture of not being able to watch Buffy is better.
No. I won't be attending your stupid bash, you dumb Oldies. Let all the Oldies go and have a good time doing old people stuff. I plan on staying home and being Youngie with or without Buffy.
A. It's on a Saturday night
B. It cost between $30 and $35 (plus drinks...there's a cash bar)
C. I work with these people. Hanging out with them leads to talking about work and that's just like work except I'm paying to do it...and on a Saturday.
Clearly, anything is better than paying to attend a company Christmas party. Sitting at home in my PJs petting cats and watching Buffy is better. Actually, sitting at home in itchy PJs with a busted TV and the torture of not being able to watch Buffy is better.
No. I won't be attending your stupid bash, you dumb Oldies. Let all the Oldies go and have a good time doing old people stuff. I plan on staying home and being Youngie with or without Buffy.
One time, I got someone a barrel of monkeys and tied sweet notes about the recipient to the foot of each monkey. It was endearing.
I've received flowers a few times in my life and--while it's nice--I mostly just wish that the sender had spent their money on something I could enjoy longer. A DVD, a book, or even a good dinner. My friend Alicia used to tell me that the gesture of flowers doesn't say "I love you" or "I really care about you" so much as it says "I'm willing to throw away $50 on you." And that's pretty relevant, right?
Still, I'd prefer a card with $47.50 in it ($50 minus the cost of the card).
I don't like trite gestures of this vague idea called "romance." It's embarrassing for everyone involved. I feel as if the other person expects me to radiate pleasure or compose a lengthy panegyric re: their ability to make all my dreams come true. It's all very uncomfortable.
Give me an old fashioned gesture of sentiment or affection any day. They imply that a kind of thorough care was taken. Someone thought about you when they weren't required to do so and in that thinking they composed this gesture that they knew would bring you happiness.
The sweetest and most under-appreciated thing that a boyfriend has ever done for me was when Jay brought me some sushi and served it to me inside of a bowler hat. Doesn't sound that great until you realize how appealing those aesthetics are when placed together.
Aaron did several endearing things during our relationship. Despite his rampant womanizing, he had a firm grasp on how to make me happy and evoke seniment, nostalgia, and love. If Aaron manages to never do another charming thing in his life, I'll still smile knowing that my lips are tattooed on his left shoulder.
Still, I'd prefer a card with $47.50 in it ($50 minus the cost of the card).
I don't like trite gestures of this vague idea called "romance." It's embarrassing for everyone involved. I feel as if the other person expects me to radiate pleasure or compose a lengthy panegyric re: their ability to make all my dreams come true. It's all very uncomfortable.
Give me an old fashioned gesture of sentiment or affection any day. They imply that a kind of thorough care was taken. Someone thought about you when they weren't required to do so and in that thinking they composed this gesture that they knew would bring you happiness.
The sweetest and most under-appreciated thing that a boyfriend has ever done for me was when Jay brought me some sushi and served it to me inside of a bowler hat. Doesn't sound that great until you realize how appealing those aesthetics are when placed together.
Aaron did several endearing things during our relationship. Despite his rampant womanizing, he had a firm grasp on how to make me happy and evoke seniment, nostalgia, and love. If Aaron manages to never do another charming thing in his life, I'll still smile knowing that my lips are tattooed on his left shoulder.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
LOL Cat
Even if you hate LOL cats, you sort of have to admit that it's a good costume idea. Now, pair a LOL cat with a sharp tie and what you clearly have is a cat that needs a job.Okay...the ears are a little lame. I wanted just some regular black cat ears but it turns out that the whole movement to be a sexy cat for halloween has made this damn near impossible. Sure, I could have gotten black ears but they were faux leather. Or they had sparkly things coming out of them. Lame and double lame. I settled on these.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Aren't the odds in my favor?
A dentist that fondled his patients' breasts is claiming that it was part of a medically necessary chest massage. The patients disagree.
A homeless man was set on fire and subsequently died of his injuries.
A young boy in PA killed his best friend and his best friend's parents.
A woman accused of faking a pregnancy and then cutting a fetus from a friend's womb (killing the friend) to claim the child as her own had sex with her step-father in 1984. The mother told an AP reporter all about it.
A guy that drove drunk and killed 3 college students fled the country and has been working as a security guard in a lingere store in Ireland for the past 6 years. He was recently brought back to the U.S. to face trial. The father of one of the girls killed is relieved now.
I don't know anyone that has fondled a patient, set a homeless person on fire, killed a friend or a friend's parents, cut a baby from a woman's womb, or killed someone in a car accident and fled the country.
Why not?
I know some crazy people. Many of them legitimately crazy as opposed to fashionably crazy. This should improve the odds of me being close to a catastrophe, a calamity, a disaster, a debacle, a travesty, a mishap, a cataclysm, a run of bad luck, or a clutch. Maybe even the apocalypse?
But it isn't. Or at least, not in any readily perceivable fashion.
I do know a guy that killed his drug dealer and then put the body in a closet and tried to eliminate the stench by pouring bleach on it. The rot and bleach leaked through to the apartment of the neighbors downstairs. The neighbors asked if he had a leaky faucet. So the guy took the body and tried to dispose of it in the river. He asked Aaron if he could use his car to do so.
(an approximation of that conversation as it was recounted to me)
The guy: Hey, Aaron. Is that your car?
A: No. It's my parents.
G: Do you think I could borrow it? I need to move a body.
A: (laughs a little) Uhhh...no. You can't do that with this car.
G: Dang. Okay. Thanks anyway, man.
The night he killed the guy he showed up at a friend's party that I was at. But he showed up late. (Lesson learned: killing your drug dealer will make you miss the beginning of a party.) When he got there everyone was all, "Hey dude, where you been all night?" And he was all, "I just killed a dude." And we were all, "HAHA. You're so crazy."
He did that all over the place. He told everyone he knew. But no one believed him. Who would? It was close to Halloween. That made it seem more like a prank.
While it's kind of cool that I vaguely know this dude (not a close friend, just someone I saw at parties), I also feel like it lacks the sort of glamour that I'm looking for in a tragic event. I'm not hurt or awed or stunned or even really involved. It's a ripoff.
The universe probably imagines that it's fulfilled its duty to secondarily involve me in a tragedy but I'd have to disagree. This is tertiary at best. How do I demand that my desire to witness atrocity be more thoroughly met? Who do I appeal to? Please, send me their address.
A homeless man was set on fire and subsequently died of his injuries.
A young boy in PA killed his best friend and his best friend's parents.
A woman accused of faking a pregnancy and then cutting a fetus from a friend's womb (killing the friend) to claim the child as her own had sex with her step-father in 1984. The mother told an AP reporter all about it.
A guy that drove drunk and killed 3 college students fled the country and has been working as a security guard in a lingere store in Ireland for the past 6 years. He was recently brought back to the U.S. to face trial. The father of one of the girls killed is relieved now.
I don't know anyone that has fondled a patient, set a homeless person on fire, killed a friend or a friend's parents, cut a baby from a woman's womb, or killed someone in a car accident and fled the country.
Why not?
I know some crazy people. Many of them legitimately crazy as opposed to fashionably crazy. This should improve the odds of me being close to a catastrophe, a calamity, a disaster, a debacle, a travesty, a mishap, a cataclysm, a run of bad luck, or a clutch. Maybe even the apocalypse?
But it isn't. Or at least, not in any readily perceivable fashion.
I do know a guy that killed his drug dealer and then put the body in a closet and tried to eliminate the stench by pouring bleach on it. The rot and bleach leaked through to the apartment of the neighbors downstairs. The neighbors asked if he had a leaky faucet. So the guy took the body and tried to dispose of it in the river. He asked Aaron if he could use his car to do so.
(an approximation of that conversation as it was recounted to me)
The guy: Hey, Aaron. Is that your car?
A: No. It's my parents.
G: Do you think I could borrow it? I need to move a body.
A: (laughs a little) Uhhh...no. You can't do that with this car.
G: Dang. Okay. Thanks anyway, man.
The night he killed the guy he showed up at a friend's party that I was at. But he showed up late. (Lesson learned: killing your drug dealer will make you miss the beginning of a party.) When he got there everyone was all, "Hey dude, where you been all night?" And he was all, "I just killed a dude." And we were all, "HAHA. You're so crazy."
He did that all over the place. He told everyone he knew. But no one believed him. Who would? It was close to Halloween. That made it seem more like a prank.
While it's kind of cool that I vaguely know this dude (not a close friend, just someone I saw at parties), I also feel like it lacks the sort of glamour that I'm looking for in a tragic event. I'm not hurt or awed or stunned or even really involved. It's a ripoff.
The universe probably imagines that it's fulfilled its duty to secondarily involve me in a tragedy but I'd have to disagree. This is tertiary at best. How do I demand that my desire to witness atrocity be more thoroughly met? Who do I appeal to? Please, send me their address.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Oh, for serious.
Ben sent me this...not because it's amusing on its own merits but because we realized that this is literally how we talk. No joking. Such is our way. Reading it made me love myself more and I didn't even think that was possible.
The Wisdom of Children
by Simon Rich March 26, 2007
I. A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table
MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let’s talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won’t tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest!
(Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I’m crazy!
GRANDFATHER: Hey, do you guys know what God looks like?
ALL: Yes.
GRANDFATHER: Don’t tell the kids.
_________________________________________________________________
And this one is just damn funny.
Hey, Look
by Simon Rich July 23, 2007
W hat I imagined the people around me were saying when I was . . .
Eleven:
“Oh, man, I can’t believe that kid Simon missed that ground ball! How pathetic!”
“Wait. He’s staring at his baseball glove with a confused expression on his face. Maybe there’s something wrong with his glove and that’s why he messed up.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what happened.”
————
Twelve:
“Did that kid sitting behind us on the bus just get an erection?”
“I don’t know. For a while, I thought that was the case, but now that he’s holding a book on his lap it’s impossible to tell.”
“I guess we’ll never know what the situation was.”
————
Thirteen:
“Hey, look, that thirteen-year-old is walking around with his mom!”
“Where?”
“There—in front of the supermarket!”
“Oh, my God! That kid is way too old to be hanging out with his mom. Even though I’ve never met him, I can tell he’s a complete loser.”
“Wait a minute. He’s scowling at her and rolling his eyes.”
“Oh, yeah . . . and I think I just heard him curse at her, for no reason.”
“I guess he’s cool after all.”
————
Fourteen:
“Why does that kid have a black ‘X’ on the back of his right hand?”
“I bet it’s because he went to some kind of cool rock concert last night.”
“Wow. He must’ve stayed out pretty late if he didn’t have time to scrub it off.”
“Yeah, and that’s probably why his hair is so messy and dirty—because he cares more about rocking out than conforming to society.”
“Even though he isn’t popular in the traditional sense, I respect him from afar.”
————
Fifteen:
“Hey, look, that kid is reading ‘Howl,’ by Allen Ginsberg.”
“Wow. He must be some kind of rebel genius.”
“I’m impressed by the fact that he isn’t trying to call attention to himself.”
“Yeah, he’s just sitting silently in the corner, flipping the pages and nodding, with total comprehension.”
“It’s amazing. He’s so absorbed in his book that he isn’t even aware that a party is going on around him, with dancing and fun.”
“Why aren’t any girls going over and talking to him?”
“I guess they’re probably a little intimidated by his brilliance.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be?”
“I’m sure the girls will talk to him soon.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
————
Sixteen:
“Hey, look, it’s that kid Simon, who wrote that scathing poem for the literary magazine.”
“You mean the one about how people are phonies? Wow—I loved that poem!”
“Me, too. Reading it made me realize for the first time that everyone is a phony, including me.”
“The only person at this school who isn’t a phony is Simon.”
“Yeah. He sees right through us.”
The Wisdom of Children
by Simon Rich March 26, 2007
I. A Conversation at the Grownup Table, as Imagined at the Kids’ Table
MOM: Pass the wine, please. I want to become crazy.
DAD: O.K.
GRANDMOTHER: Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
DAD: Me, too. When it was over, I had sex.
UNCLE: I’m having sex right now.
DAD: We all are.
MOM: Let’s talk about which kid I like the best.
DAD: (laughing) You know, but you won’t tell.
MOM: If they ask me again, I might tell.
FRIEND FROM WORK: Hey, guess what! My voice is pretty loud!
DAD: (laughing) There are actual monsters in the world, but when my kids ask I pretend like there aren’t.
MOM: I’m angry! I’m angry all of a sudden!
DAD: I’m angry, too! We’re angry at each other!
MOM: Now everything is fine.
DAD: We just saw the PG-13 movie. It was so good.
MOM: There was a big sex.
FRIEND FROM WORK: I am the loudest! I am the loudest!
(Everybody laughs.)
MOM: I had a lot of wine, and now I’m crazy!
GRANDFATHER: Hey, do you guys know what God looks like?
ALL: Yes.
GRANDFATHER: Don’t tell the kids.
_________________________________________________________________
And this one is just damn funny.
Hey, Look
by Simon Rich July 23, 2007
W hat I imagined the people around me were saying when I was . . .
Eleven:
“Oh, man, I can’t believe that kid Simon missed that ground ball! How pathetic!”
“Wait. He’s staring at his baseball glove with a confused expression on his face. Maybe there’s something wrong with his glove and that’s why he messed up.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what happened.”
————
Twelve:
“Did that kid sitting behind us on the bus just get an erection?”
“I don’t know. For a while, I thought that was the case, but now that he’s holding a book on his lap it’s impossible to tell.”
“I guess we’ll never know what the situation was.”
————
Thirteen:
“Hey, look, that thirteen-year-old is walking around with his mom!”
“Where?”
“There—in front of the supermarket!”
“Oh, my God! That kid is way too old to be hanging out with his mom. Even though I’ve never met him, I can tell he’s a complete loser.”
“Wait a minute. He’s scowling at her and rolling his eyes.”
“Oh, yeah . . . and I think I just heard him curse at her, for no reason.”
“I guess he’s cool after all.”
————
Fourteen:
“Why does that kid have a black ‘X’ on the back of his right hand?”
“I bet it’s because he went to some kind of cool rock concert last night.”
“Wow. He must’ve stayed out pretty late if he didn’t have time to scrub it off.”
“Yeah, and that’s probably why his hair is so messy and dirty—because he cares more about rocking out than conforming to society.”
“Even though he isn’t popular in the traditional sense, I respect him from afar.”
————
Fifteen:
“Hey, look, that kid is reading ‘Howl,’ by Allen Ginsberg.”
“Wow. He must be some kind of rebel genius.”
“I’m impressed by the fact that he isn’t trying to call attention to himself.”
“Yeah, he’s just sitting silently in the corner, flipping the pages and nodding, with total comprehension.”
“It’s amazing. He’s so absorbed in his book that he isn’t even aware that a party is going on around him, with dancing and fun.”
“Why aren’t any girls going over and talking to him?”
“I guess they’re probably a little intimidated by his brilliance.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be?”
“I’m sure the girls will talk to him soon.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
————
Sixteen:
“Hey, look, it’s that kid Simon, who wrote that scathing poem for the literary magazine.”
“You mean the one about how people are phonies? Wow—I loved that poem!”
“Me, too. Reading it made me realize for the first time that everyone is a phony, including me.”
“The only person at this school who isn’t a phony is Simon.”
“Yeah. He sees right through us.”
A wish.
I wish I had known Emily Iafrate better when we lived in the same town. Or maybe not even that. I wish I knew Emily better now. Now that we both seem to miss home and have similar ideas on pleasure and good music. I wish I had a porch that I could invite her to sit on and we could sit there with drinks and listen to some of that good music and watch hummingbirds or watch the leaves fall or stare at big fluffy fall clouds and get excited about scarf wearing weather.
Emily's blog makes me think I missed out on something.
Emily's blog makes me think I missed out on something.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
But for serious.
This not blogging is tearing us apart.
Who has a synonym for "partner" that is formal and business like? But you can't use cooperator or associate or colleague or stakeholder. Go!
What's a way to say that we value the way that you help us solve problems without ever using the word "problem" or any other word that could imply that something is wrong? Also, you can't couch it as "opportunities for improvement"? Go!
How many different ways can you find to say when something started without using actual dates or numbers and without overusing words like "recently" or phrases like "not long ago"? Go!
That's what my job is like.
Who has a synonym for "partner" that is formal and business like? But you can't use cooperator or associate or colleague or stakeholder. Go!
What's a way to say that we value the way that you help us solve problems without ever using the word "problem" or any other word that could imply that something is wrong? Also, you can't couch it as "opportunities for improvement"? Go!
How many different ways can you find to say when something started without using actual dates or numbers and without overusing words like "recently" or phrases like "not long ago"? Go!
That's what my job is like.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Let's keep this short.
Had a dream that I was fat. I couldn't look down and see the fat but other people saw it when they looked at me. I just saw myself as normal. I found out b/c Jason Rohrbaugh told a friend of his that I wasn't just fat, I was REALLY fat. So fat that he was moving out of town. This dream combines two of my fears: being overweight and not knowing something that everyone else already knows.
I said a while ago that there was something in the mail. That wasn't just cute, there really is something in the mail. And it's still there. I hope. I mean, as far as I know. But it isn't here and here is where I need it to be to give it to you.
I keep having a memory of something that didn't happen. Actually, it's an amalgam of two distinct memories that did happen. Neither of them is exciting and together they're not anymore exciting. It's about a particular phone conversation that I had at my apartment. Only in my new memory I keep recalling it as having occurred in my car while driving away from my parents' house in WV. Why should that be the case? Does this signal something significant about my parents or my car or my phone or the person on the other end of it?
I said a while ago that there was something in the mail. That wasn't just cute, there really is something in the mail. And it's still there. I hope. I mean, as far as I know. But it isn't here and here is where I need it to be to give it to you.
I keep having a memory of something that didn't happen. Actually, it's an amalgam of two distinct memories that did happen. Neither of them is exciting and together they're not anymore exciting. It's about a particular phone conversation that I had at my apartment. Only in my new memory I keep recalling it as having occurred in my car while driving away from my parents' house in WV. Why should that be the case? Does this signal something significant about my parents or my car or my phone or the person on the other end of it?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Waste Time
While I'm sure you're all waiting on tenterhooks to read a new blog, I'm working on a rush speech assignment for our administrator. So zing to you...no blog yet.
But to waste time, I'd sugguest wikipedia.
But to waste time, I'd sugguest wikipedia.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
In the future...
bathroom stalls will be soundproofed so that when I hear someone fart really loudly and then an old lady comes out of the stall, I won't have to feel quite so weird knowing that a little piece of the inside of her anus just went up my nose and caused that smell. Gross but true.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
You are so frigging welcome.
Guys, I frigging love Michael Chabon. I've read A Model World and Other Stories, Wonder Boys, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. All are truly good books (especially Kavalier & Clay). But also, I love dino comics. Please, click on the comic below and read the amusing mixture of the two of them. Warning: this may not be so funny if you don't love Michael Chabon and T-Rex.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Dentist
On my way into the dentist's office there was an old lady running to catch the elevator. I held the door for her. She said (in a heavy accent), "Thank you. You're so strong. Those doors...those doors clamp down on you like the regime. But you're strong." I didn't tell her that they have sensors to prevent them from shutting on you and that I was in no danger and didn't have to use much force to stop them from closing. I was a tiny hero to her. I couldn't ruin that.
The other guy in the elevator was a mumbler. Once the lady got off, we had the following exchange.
G: You're a nice lady.
M: Uh, yeah. I do what I can.
G: I said, "it's a nice day."
M: Yeah, that too.
Whatever.
The hygenist used one of those spit suctioners on me. I wonder where all the spit goes. Do they have a bucket or a jug filled with it that they have to dump? How often do they dump it? Is it all viscious or does it just look like water? Is that their least favorite part of the job?
There was a pamphlet about gum disease with a guy on the cover wearing a suit. Nothing about him screamed "gum disease". But the way he was standing and smiling somehow called attention to the strangeness of ties. Little thin strips of decorated fabric that we tie in a knot. Weird.
The other guy in the elevator was a mumbler. Once the lady got off, we had the following exchange.
G: You're a nice lady.
M: Uh, yeah. I do what I can.
G: I said, "it's a nice day."
M: Yeah, that too.
Whatever.
The hygenist used one of those spit suctioners on me. I wonder where all the spit goes. Do they have a bucket or a jug filled with it that they have to dump? How often do they dump it? Is it all viscious or does it just look like water? Is that their least favorite part of the job?
There was a pamphlet about gum disease with a guy on the cover wearing a suit. Nothing about him screamed "gum disease". But the way he was standing and smiling somehow called attention to the strangeness of ties. Little thin strips of decorated fabric that we tie in a knot. Weird.
Vet
I made Jimmy an appointment with the vet for Monday morning at 8. I don't think he has earmites but there's for sure something going on and I need to figure out if it's going to affect Milo too. My vet has a cat practice. Actually, it's called A Cat Practice. No dogs. No birds. No snakes. No etcs.
While I like knowing that my vet is really good with cats, I hate how strict they are. They've been nagging me about Jimmy's shots for 6 months or more. Why? He's an indoor cat. The most dangerous thing he comes up against is a catnip stuffed lobster named Fidel.
Anyway, my new concern is that the vet will want to see Milo if, in fact, Jimmy has something that could affect Milo. Between the two of them going to the vet and getting an exam and shots and ear medicine, we'd be looking at an easy $200-$300. Plus...my cats try to kill themselves every time we get in the car. Jimmy whines, foams, vomits, and rips his claws out. Milo mews, lays low, and vacates everything from his body. It's stressful and awful.
But, overall, isn't it better to be sure that you have healthy pets than to sit and stew and wonder if there's something wrong?
While I like knowing that my vet is really good with cats, I hate how strict they are. They've been nagging me about Jimmy's shots for 6 months or more. Why? He's an indoor cat. The most dangerous thing he comes up against is a catnip stuffed lobster named Fidel.
Anyway, my new concern is that the vet will want to see Milo if, in fact, Jimmy has something that could affect Milo. Between the two of them going to the vet and getting an exam and shots and ear medicine, we'd be looking at an easy $200-$300. Plus...my cats try to kill themselves every time we get in the car. Jimmy whines, foams, vomits, and rips his claws out. Milo mews, lays low, and vacates everything from his body. It's stressful and awful.
But, overall, isn't it better to be sure that you have healthy pets than to sit and stew and wonder if there's something wrong?
Monday, October 1, 2007
You so crazy.
I just spoke to the craziest Sprint representative in Sprint representative history. I called because I was trying to upgrade to a new phone online but the site wants me to select the length of my service plan. I already have a 2 year contract (which is why they're giving me a free new phone) so I was confused because the way it was phrased sounded like they wanted me to sign a new 2 year contract. Yeah...so, I figured that I'd call a dude to see what the deal was and get him to explain whatever the hidden charges were.
M: So if I select "Upgrade/Replace" it won't cancel my service to my current phone, right?
Rep: Well, just make sure that you select "Upgrade".
M: That isn't an option. I can either select "New Phone Line" or "Upgrade/Replace" but it doesn't allow me to choose between "Upgrade" and "Replace".
R: Don't pay attention to that. Ignore it.
M: Uhh...are you sure?
R: Yeah, umm...so long as you didn't report your phone stolen it'll automatically upgrade.
M: Okay cool.
R: If you order it from me instead of online you can get it faster.
M: Oh, okay. What charges are there? Like for activation and stuff?
R: There's a $12 shipping charge and a $18 activation charge.
M: But it says here that if I order it online the shipping is free and they waive the activation charge.
R: Yeah, that's a web special.
M: So why wouldn't I do that?
R: (sounding panicky) But you can get it faster if you get it from me. I can ship it to you overnight. If you order online you could wait for up to 10 days.
M: So?
R: That's a longer waiting time.
M: Yeah. I get that. But I don't care. There's no hurry.
R: Okay. Yeah then...you can just get it online.
M: Great.
R: (sternly) I'm not laughing.
M: Uhhh....(wondering if he's talking to someone else in the room)
R: I'm not laughing, you know.
M: Ummm, okay. That's cool.
R: I'm just trying to say...I just said "yes" like 3 times in a row. I might sound nervous but I'm not nervous.
M: Oh. Okay. That's good.
R: I'm not nervous.
M: _____________
R: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Maybe you had to be on the other end of the phone to understand how truly crazy that dude sounded. 1. Who said you were laughing? 2. You didn't say "yes" 3 times in a row. 3. Even if you had said "yes" 3 times in a row, how would that indicate either laughter or nervousness?
I wonder if there was static on the line and he misheard my "Okay" as "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING??? ARE YOU NERVOUS???"
I don't know...but now I feel nervous myself.
M: So if I select "Upgrade/Replace" it won't cancel my service to my current phone, right?
Rep: Well, just make sure that you select "Upgrade".
M: That isn't an option. I can either select "New Phone Line" or "Upgrade/Replace" but it doesn't allow me to choose between "Upgrade" and "Replace".
R: Don't pay attention to that. Ignore it.
M: Uhh...are you sure?
R: Yeah, umm...so long as you didn't report your phone stolen it'll automatically upgrade.
M: Okay cool.
R: If you order it from me instead of online you can get it faster.
M: Oh, okay. What charges are there? Like for activation and stuff?
R: There's a $12 shipping charge and a $18 activation charge.
M: But it says here that if I order it online the shipping is free and they waive the activation charge.
R: Yeah, that's a web special.
M: So why wouldn't I do that?
R: (sounding panicky) But you can get it faster if you get it from me. I can ship it to you overnight. If you order online you could wait for up to 10 days.
M: So?
R: That's a longer waiting time.
M: Yeah. I get that. But I don't care. There's no hurry.
R: Okay. Yeah then...you can just get it online.
M: Great.
R: (sternly) I'm not laughing.
M: Uhhh....(wondering if he's talking to someone else in the room)
R: I'm not laughing, you know.
M: Ummm, okay. That's cool.
R: I'm just trying to say...I just said "yes" like 3 times in a row. I might sound nervous but I'm not nervous.
M: Oh. Okay. That's good.
R: I'm not nervous.
M: _____________
R: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Maybe you had to be on the other end of the phone to understand how truly crazy that dude sounded. 1. Who said you were laughing? 2. You didn't say "yes" 3 times in a row. 3. Even if you had said "yes" 3 times in a row, how would that indicate either laughter or nervousness?
I wonder if there was static on the line and he misheard my "Okay" as "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING??? ARE YOU NERVOUS???"
I don't know...but now I feel nervous myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
