Of all my "DC Moments," my most favorite is when I watched the 2004 State of the Union from the House press gallery. It was my first week as an intern at a DC paper and I'd already thought that I'd died and gone to Nerd Heaven when I got my press pass. The SOTU invite, which was tossed off to us interns at the last minute as a afterthought, was like getting in the gates of Nerd Heaven and being greeted by a horde of angels who looked like Jake Gyllenhaal holding platters of delicious candy-coated orgasms.
I had absolutely no business being there. I brought my handy-dandy little reporter notebook, but they told me just to enjoy the show, that we didn't need to bother reporting on it. I did make the rookie mistake of clapping when Bush came in-- because, um, he's the President, and think what you will about the man who holds the office but you clap when the President enters-- but a second later learned that if you are in the press gallery, you do not clap, you do not react to anything that is being said, you just scribble. Or, if you're an intern who scammed her way in there, you stand tree-like at the back.
I did feel a mite ticked off as the speech progressed and I realized that I was attending the most ridiculous SOTU ever. My big chance to witness history as it was being made, and I got the SOTU where Bush used the podium to lecture professional athletes on steroid use. It's fantastic to re-read the speech itself three years later, since it's basically a half-hour of "stay the course, stay the course, stay the course" followed by twenty minutes of a deliciously random grab-bag of election year wedge social issues. Bush has never been particularly statesmanlike, but that night he basically just shouted nouns from the Culture Wars ("Abstinence! Defense of marriage! Patriot Act!").
Watching SOTU tonight, though, I felt better about the speech that I'd seen. After all, at least I wasn't there to witness this gem live:
“We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”
I really think that if I had been in the press gallery to hear George W. Bush talk about cars running on wood chips, I would not have been able to contain my snort of derision. And if clapping is frowned upon by reporters, you know that snorting is not exactly encouraged.
It will be interesting to watch the reaction to this speech, since Bush displayed an uncharacteristic humility in talking about Iraq. He's finally moving beginning to inch toward an approach that may revive support for the war, though at huge expense to his legacy. He can never convince people like me that we had any business getting into Iraq in the first place, but he could convince me to support our continued presence there if he accepted responsibility and framed it as a moral or humanitarian issue, not a political one. Of course, Bush admitting that he was wrong to lead us into Iraq has approximately the same likelihood of Dick Cheney assfucking Al Gore while burning American flags in an abortion clinic.
We created the circumstances that allowed the current chaos in Iraq to start and flourish, and I happen to think that we have a moral obligation to try and fix the mess we made. We're still in Germany and Japan today because of the democracies that we imparted onto them following World War II, and those followed a war that we didn't exactly start (yes, that master's in history is coming along very well, thank you for asking). Did we really once think that America can enter a sovereign nation with no history of democratic political traditions, depose its leader, start a democratically elected government and peace out within six months? I don't remember the entire nation being stoned in the spring of 2003, but that's the only explanation I can think of now. But what the hell do I know? I'm just an ex-cub reporter who snorts when the President talks.
This is really a whole other post, but my points are that Bush is the exact opposite of a statesman and is that I'm not as partisan as you might think; that yes, I could agree with a Republican on Iraq if we could clarify exactly what the mission would be. They'll never get me on gay marriage, though. After all, if Bush ever does apologize for Iraq then Cheney would need to do that assfucking within the sanctity of marriage.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
glitter and hand-me-downs
The sky here today reminds me of one of my favorites lines from one of my favorite books, The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter.
"Because it's the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more a dull shine, like frequently used silverware. We were all presentable enough, but almost no one was making any kind of statement. Out here in Michigan, real style is too difficult to maintain; the styles are all convenient and secondhand. We're all hand-me-down personalities. But that's liberating; it frees you up for other matters of great importance; the great themes, the sordid passions."
Driving to Panera for lunch today, my father all giddy from the dual thrills of wearing pants and leaving the house, commented that it was a beautiful Michigan day. I smiled and agreed with him as I steered the Crown Vic into the slushy parking lot. It's not a beautiful Michigan day, but it is typical. As I write this now, the sky and ground are the same shade of smudged white and the sun, what little of it is lighting the scene, will probably begin to set around 3:00. The sky is as unobtrustive as a sky can be, hanging low over the train tracks and Ag College fields like a watchful parent.
I opened the car door and stepped into a pile of melted snow, soaking my left foot. When I packed I knew that these heeled boots would be all wrong and when I put them on this morning I knew I'd be lucky if I didn't fall and break my neck on a patch of black ice. But I wore them anyway. Usually, whenever I come back to Michigan I do things like this; wear three-inch heels in the dead of snowy winter or wear unnecessarily attractive outfits to run to Meijer's when we're out of flour as if to communicate to any passerby "Okay, I am sort of from here but I am certainly not from here now." My snobbery glares brighter in Michigan than it ever does in DC.
Of course, today was the first time I've worn the boots all week. The rest of the time I've been in hiking socks and sweatpants as I cook and clean and generally act like I'm the parent. I say things like "Time for your nap," and "no animal crackers until you finish your vegetables" without a trace of irony. The situation that brought me here, much like the place itself, has a way of killing my usual twisted sense of smartassness.
My mind is always quieter in Michigan. It's as if that low-hanging pewter sky blocks out all the chatter and noise that decorates normal life, both the good and the bad. This week, my mind has been even quieter than usual. It's numbed by daytime television and then sharpened into focus every time he coughs, slowly stands up and winces from the effort.
There is no glitter to distract me this week. Just hand-me-down pain and gray skies.
"Because it's the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more a dull shine, like frequently used silverware. We were all presentable enough, but almost no one was making any kind of statement. Out here in Michigan, real style is too difficult to maintain; the styles are all convenient and secondhand. We're all hand-me-down personalities. But that's liberating; it frees you up for other matters of great importance; the great themes, the sordid passions."
Driving to Panera for lunch today, my father all giddy from the dual thrills of wearing pants and leaving the house, commented that it was a beautiful Michigan day. I smiled and agreed with him as I steered the Crown Vic into the slushy parking lot. It's not a beautiful Michigan day, but it is typical. As I write this now, the sky and ground are the same shade of smudged white and the sun, what little of it is lighting the scene, will probably begin to set around 3:00. The sky is as unobtrustive as a sky can be, hanging low over the train tracks and Ag College fields like a watchful parent.
I opened the car door and stepped into a pile of melted snow, soaking my left foot. When I packed I knew that these heeled boots would be all wrong and when I put them on this morning I knew I'd be lucky if I didn't fall and break my neck on a patch of black ice. But I wore them anyway. Usually, whenever I come back to Michigan I do things like this; wear three-inch heels in the dead of snowy winter or wear unnecessarily attractive outfits to run to Meijer's when we're out of flour as if to communicate to any passerby "Okay, I am sort of from here but I am certainly not from here now." My snobbery glares brighter in Michigan than it ever does in DC.
Of course, today was the first time I've worn the boots all week. The rest of the time I've been in hiking socks and sweatpants as I cook and clean and generally act like I'm the parent. I say things like "Time for your nap," and "no animal crackers until you finish your vegetables" without a trace of irony. The situation that brought me here, much like the place itself, has a way of killing my usual twisted sense of smartassness.
My mind is always quieter in Michigan. It's as if that low-hanging pewter sky blocks out all the chatter and noise that decorates normal life, both the good and the bad. This week, my mind has been even quieter than usual. It's numbed by daytime television and then sharpened into focus every time he coughs, slowly stands up and winces from the effort.
There is no glitter to distract me this week. Just hand-me-down pain and gray skies.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
putting the "ok"
To those of you who have emailed, called, IMed, whatevered, thank you for your kind words for me and for my dad. I wish that I was capable of focusing only on the good that comes from people like you; people who take time from their day to wish someone well even if the recipient of those good wishes is a stranger. It is a lovely thing you do, and I am so thankful for it.
Other things I am thankful for since I arrived in central Michigan earlier this week:
That Dad seems to be doing okayish, and that he agreed to be brutally honest with me the second he is not feeling okayish because after the events of last week he maybe has finally realized that he does not have to be the valedictorian of gallbladder surgery as well as heart surgery, because, well, at this point it would just be bragging. Right?
Snow. I had not seen snow until today. The SHAME, people. The SHAME. I used to wake a half hour early from October to March so that I could scrape off my windshield before going to first period, slogging out into the driveway in the dark because of course the parents' cars got the garage slots. And now I am not seeing snow until the middle of January? What of my roots? Have I become a wimpy Mid-Atlantic urban soul so quickly that I seriously have to ask which is better, to salt a driveway before or after the nighttime freeze? I am one missed snowball fight away from no longer being able to lay claim to a Michigan heritage here, friends.
24. Yes, I know 24 is awesome. I will watch 24. I said, I will watch it. I said, soon. Look, I work a full-time job and go to school and my Netflix queue is very full already, mkay? I will get on it, when I get the time. But yes, that premiere was excellent. Especially the last ten minutes of Hour 4. Yes, yes, very good. What, you want me to watch The Wire, too? Okay. No, not right now. Look, I will watch it when I watch it.
Playing gin with my Daddy, only to later realize I'd accidentally been cheating the entire time. Well, look, he didn't remind me that the runs have to be in the same suit, okay? I mean come on, I haven't played a card game that didn't involve waterfalls of Miller Lite since like 1999.
Other things I am thankful for since I arrived in central Michigan earlier this week:
That Dad seems to be doing okayish, and that he agreed to be brutally honest with me the second he is not feeling okayish because after the events of last week he maybe has finally realized that he does not have to be the valedictorian of gallbladder surgery as well as heart surgery, because, well, at this point it would just be bragging. Right?
Snow. I had not seen snow until today. The SHAME, people. The SHAME. I used to wake a half hour early from October to March so that I could scrape off my windshield before going to first period, slogging out into the driveway in the dark because of course the parents' cars got the garage slots. And now I am not seeing snow until the middle of January? What of my roots? Have I become a wimpy Mid-Atlantic urban soul so quickly that I seriously have to ask which is better, to salt a driveway before or after the nighttime freeze? I am one missed snowball fight away from no longer being able to lay claim to a Michigan heritage here, friends.
24. Yes, I know 24 is awesome. I will watch 24. I said, I will watch it. I said, soon. Look, I work a full-time job and go to school and my Netflix queue is very full already, mkay? I will get on it, when I get the time. But yes, that premiere was excellent. Especially the last ten minutes of Hour 4. Yes, yes, very good. What, you want me to watch The Wire, too? Okay. No, not right now. Look, I will watch it when I watch it.
Playing gin with my Daddy, only to later realize I'd accidentally been cheating the entire time. Well, look, he didn't remind me that the runs have to be in the same suit, okay? I mean come on, I haven't played a card game that didn't involve waterfalls of Miller Lite since like 1999.
Friday, January 12, 2007
breakdown on the blue line
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be stopped at the station while the train in front of us holds for a sick passenger. Thank you for your patience."
Everyone else around the Metro car wears the resigned, vacant expressions of rush hour commuters at the end of a long day, but at this our faces fall just a little bit more. It's 6:30 and we're all tired and not feeling particularly charitable, even towards a person so sick that s/he is halting Metro with ill health.
I know I'm in a mood. Because all of my comfortable work shoes are at the cobbler I'm wearing six-year-old boots with a broken inner sole on the right shoe and am walking on a blister roughly the size of Ted Kennedy. Tomorrow is the big biannual work event I'm in charge of and maintenance couldn't be bothered to set up the space on time, so I will just have to cross my fingers that there are tables waiting for me at 7 AM.
Oh, and my father is back in the hospital and today underwent his second major surgery in less than a month and I'm taking indefinite family medical leave to go to Michigan and take care of him and am kind of incredibly scared and for the last three days have started to cry at the slightest provocation, such as when a song by Nizlopi or John Gorka pops up on my iPod or when I see a tall white man with silver hair on the street or, y'know, the act of being awake.
I am not to be trifled with today. Even by people who aren't trying to trifle with me.
I look around me and for the first time see a twentysomething guy in a suit and leather jacket sitting two seats behind where I stand. He's poking at his Blackberry, which he then sets on the empty seat next to him as he rummages in his pocket, extracting a cell phone. Yes. He is using two electronic communication devices on the Metro while taking up two seats, surrounded by fellow commuters packed into the car and almost falling on top of him as he stretches his lower half into the leg space for the window seat.
Oh NO he did not.
I start polite. I turn around and look at him smiling, almost simpering "Excuse me, is someone sitting there?" as I point to the empty seat next to him. Obviously no one is sitting there, except maybe his imaginary childhood best friend.
He stares at me for the briefest of seconds, then lowers his head and begins to poke at his cell phone keypad. It's as if I spoke in Klingon. Maybe he's deaf, I too-generously think to myself. It's my better side trying to stem the tide of my growing anger. Oh, this is going to be so fun.
"EXCUSE ME." I am loud enough that the people sitting behind him (facing the other direction) and the several passengers in the aisle space between us look at me, all probably hoping that the angry girl isn't speaking to them. "CAN YOU PLEASE MOVE OVER? THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE IN HERE WHO COULD USE A SEAT."
There is absolutely no way that a hearing person in his seat could not hear me. How do I know he can hear, you ask? Because he lifts the phone to his ear and begins to speak into it. "Dude, the Metro is stuck. I'm running late."
I'm pretty sure that by this point there is steam coming out of my ears, nose and pores. I've been feeling utterly helpless and alone and impotent for days, asking myself what kind of universe allows terrible things to happen to a man like my father and a family like mine. It's not this guy's fault that Dad can't catch a break with his health or that the four people in my family now live in four different states or that I don't have someone I feel close enough to to fall apart in front of like I need to, because if I don't get the inevitable breakdown out of my system at least once during this whole mess than I run the risk of doing it in front of my family and they shouldn't have to deal with it on top of everything else. Technically, yes, he is a jerk, but an innocent bystander/jerk.
But he is going to pay for it all anyways.
"Who the HELL do you think you ARE?!" I yell at him. Oh, he's heard me now. He's resolutely staring straight ahead still talking on the phone, but the color rises in his face from his dress shirt collar. The train jolts to life and lurches into the tunnel, right on cue as I start to really get into a groove. "No, really?!" I cry. "You think you're so damn important that you get two seats while everyone has to smash into each other in the aisle? Are you really that much of a self-important asshole that your fucking Blackberry gets its own seat at rush hour? Ooh, look at the big important man with his big important toys! There are PEOPLE STANDING RIGHT OVER YOU, you shit. What the hell kind of person thinks he's soooooo special that everyone else has to stand while he gets two whole seats to himself?!"
I'm so worked up that I barely notice we've reached the next station. He gets up, still staring straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge me or my tirade as he parts the sea of passengers and squeezes his way to the door, leaving the two seats in contention wide open. The older woman who had been between me and the seats looks at me like she's asking for my permission to sit down, like if she does so without my consent I might bite her. Oh God. What the hell did I just do?
"Ma'am, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you all had to hear that. That is not me... he... people like that."
She nods silently and slides into the window seat, then pats the aisle seat next to her with her purple-gloved hand. I plop myself down and stare ahead just like the guy had moments before. I'm afraid to try and explain or say anything at all, so I take the yuppie way out and shove my iPod buds into my ears. And... and I swear I'm not making any of this up... my sister's voice suddenly fills my head.
I met a man without a dollar to his name
Who has no traits of any value but his smile...
I grit my teeth. I will not lose it any more than I already have, I will not lose it any more than I already have.
Everyone else around the Metro car wears the resigned, vacant expressions of rush hour commuters at the end of a long day, but at this our faces fall just a little bit more. It's 6:30 and we're all tired and not feeling particularly charitable, even towards a person so sick that s/he is halting Metro with ill health.
I know I'm in a mood. Because all of my comfortable work shoes are at the cobbler I'm wearing six-year-old boots with a broken inner sole on the right shoe and am walking on a blister roughly the size of Ted Kennedy. Tomorrow is the big biannual work event I'm in charge of and maintenance couldn't be bothered to set up the space on time, so I will just have to cross my fingers that there are tables waiting for me at 7 AM.
Oh, and my father is back in the hospital and today underwent his second major surgery in less than a month and I'm taking indefinite family medical leave to go to Michigan and take care of him and am kind of incredibly scared and for the last three days have started to cry at the slightest provocation, such as when a song by Nizlopi or John Gorka pops up on my iPod or when I see a tall white man with silver hair on the street or, y'know, the act of being awake.
I am not to be trifled with today. Even by people who aren't trying to trifle with me.
I look around me and for the first time see a twentysomething guy in a suit and leather jacket sitting two seats behind where I stand. He's poking at his Blackberry, which he then sets on the empty seat next to him as he rummages in his pocket, extracting a cell phone. Yes. He is using two electronic communication devices on the Metro while taking up two seats, surrounded by fellow commuters packed into the car and almost falling on top of him as he stretches his lower half into the leg space for the window seat.
Oh NO he did not.
I start polite. I turn around and look at him smiling, almost simpering "Excuse me, is someone sitting there?" as I point to the empty seat next to him. Obviously no one is sitting there, except maybe his imaginary childhood best friend.
He stares at me for the briefest of seconds, then lowers his head and begins to poke at his cell phone keypad. It's as if I spoke in Klingon. Maybe he's deaf, I too-generously think to myself. It's my better side trying to stem the tide of my growing anger. Oh, this is going to be so fun.
"EXCUSE ME." I am loud enough that the people sitting behind him (facing the other direction) and the several passengers in the aisle space between us look at me, all probably hoping that the angry girl isn't speaking to them. "CAN YOU PLEASE MOVE OVER? THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE IN HERE WHO COULD USE A SEAT."
There is absolutely no way that a hearing person in his seat could not hear me. How do I know he can hear, you ask? Because he lifts the phone to his ear and begins to speak into it. "Dude, the Metro is stuck. I'm running late."
I'm pretty sure that by this point there is steam coming out of my ears, nose and pores. I've been feeling utterly helpless and alone and impotent for days, asking myself what kind of universe allows terrible things to happen to a man like my father and a family like mine. It's not this guy's fault that Dad can't catch a break with his health or that the four people in my family now live in four different states or that I don't have someone I feel close enough to to fall apart in front of like I need to, because if I don't get the inevitable breakdown out of my system at least once during this whole mess than I run the risk of doing it in front of my family and they shouldn't have to deal with it on top of everything else. Technically, yes, he is a jerk, but an innocent bystander/jerk.
But he is going to pay for it all anyways.
"Who the HELL do you think you ARE?!" I yell at him. Oh, he's heard me now. He's resolutely staring straight ahead still talking on the phone, but the color rises in his face from his dress shirt collar. The train jolts to life and lurches into the tunnel, right on cue as I start to really get into a groove. "No, really?!" I cry. "You think you're so damn important that you get two seats while everyone has to smash into each other in the aisle? Are you really that much of a self-important asshole that your fucking Blackberry gets its own seat at rush hour? Ooh, look at the big important man with his big important toys! There are PEOPLE STANDING RIGHT OVER YOU, you shit. What the hell kind of person thinks he's soooooo special that everyone else has to stand while he gets two whole seats to himself?!"
I'm so worked up that I barely notice we've reached the next station. He gets up, still staring straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge me or my tirade as he parts the sea of passengers and squeezes his way to the door, leaving the two seats in contention wide open. The older woman who had been between me and the seats looks at me like she's asking for my permission to sit down, like if she does so without my consent I might bite her. Oh God. What the hell did I just do?
"Ma'am, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you all had to hear that. That is not me... he... people like that."
She nods silently and slides into the window seat, then pats the aisle seat next to her with her purple-gloved hand. I plop myself down and stare ahead just like the guy had moments before. I'm afraid to try and explain or say anything at all, so I take the yuppie way out and shove my iPod buds into my ears. And... and I swear I'm not making any of this up... my sister's voice suddenly fills my head.
I met a man without a dollar to his name
Who has no traits of any value but his smile...
I grit my teeth. I will not lose it any more than I already have, I will not lose it any more than I already have.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
but he said mission accomplished
"There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship."
- George W. Bush, 10 January 2007
Um...
...
...
George. Honey. I don't know how to put this.
Somewhere deep in space, the universe is now collapsing into a gigantic black hole of irony.
- George W. Bush, 10 January 2007
Um...
...
...
George. Honey. I don't know how to put this.
Somewhere deep in space, the universe is now collapsing into a gigantic black hole of irony.
Monday, January 08, 2007
thicker than water, but not champagne
Lordy.
I promised I wouldn't write about my family on my blog. But this weekend was apparently designed to test that promise in every way possible.
Look, it's not my fault if most of my extended family is wonderful and the remaining people are completely, one hundred percent without the ability to function in society.
The people who are wonderful are really, really wonderful. The kind of wonderful that family members only occasionally achieve, when you would want to be their friends even if you weren't related to them. They are the ones who are goofy and warm and start conversations with "So this one time in Kuala Lampur, when were on top of an elephant..." and not, for example, with pursed lips, raised eyebrows and "Wow, EJ, that sure is an interesting dress. Be careful you don't fall out there."
THANKS. Because when I've been on a plane for the last ten hours, I LOVE being greeted by you telling me that I look like a slut.
Flying to a family wedding this weekend, my flights were ridiculously messed up, and I enjoyed an unscheduled three-hour visit to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina that caused me to miss the actual ceremony. My mother's cousin picked me up at the airport, I threw on my ("interesting") dress and we booked it to the church in time for photos, the first and hopefully only time I will be in pictures for a wedding that I did not actually attend.
I went into this weekend prepared to judge. I mean, it was a wedding that basically joined their frat and their sorority. There were something like ten attendants on each side. I hadn't seen that relative getting married in five years, and the wedding was in Wichita, which, while it is home to both excellent steaks and Kirstie Alley, is not known for being a huge party town. Once we got to the reception, my judgmental predictions seemed to be coming true. Guests were drinking Bud from plastic cups and the DJ interrupted a Hootie and the Blowfish song to announce "John Smith, please come to the bar, John Smith, your shots are ready."
I also went in with clear expectations about how some of my family members would treat me. As my mother put it when we dissected the weekend later on, "Sweetie, it's not that they don't like you, it's that you represent all the choices that they prayed their children wouldn't make." You'd think I'd be offended by this, but it's so true. I don't want to get married and have lots of babies, I don't live a 15-minute drive from home and I vastly prefer the easy delights of indie pop to the coolie labor of Gilbert and Sullivan. My entire life, I've played the role of the loud bitchy single city girl who has an opinion about everything. They'll never see me as anything else and I can never make them accept me or care about me because they're too busy judging my every move.
But something strange happened this weekend. For the first time ever at a family gathering, I decided I didn't give a crap what those people thought of me. Somewhere in between the bacon-wrapped cheese cubes and my aunt wandering around with her fingers stuck in her ears to display her displeasure with the music, I stopped caring and I stopped judging my surroundings. Okay, so, if I ever get married, I strongly doubt that my husband and our bridal party will enter the reception to the dulcet strains of "In da Club," but the couple seemed to like it. So who gives a crap? What, only the people behaving like petulant children in the throes of a temper tantrum? Well, I'm not going to be associated with them, that's for damn sure.
The wedding definitely took a turn for the ridiculous after that epiphany, made all the more so because my mother was at my side about eighty percent of the time. It's one thing to acknowledge to your mother that you are human, that yes, you smoke and drink and make out with inappropriate people. I've only become comfortable admitting these activities in the last year. It's entirely another to perform them all in front of her, particularly when she is in the kitchen of the hotel room holding the afterparty, watching your uncle shotgun a Bud Lite at 4 AM. After the events of that night, there are not a whole lot of boundaries left between my mom and me. Not that there were a whole ton before.
Looking back on the wedding and the entire weekend, I feel like a line has been crossed. In some ways, I regret that my mom has now witnessed me at my most ridiculous behavior. Just as it's nice to idealize your parents as infalliable creatures, it's nice to have them think of you as somehow being untainted by life. Plus, fair or not, it's different for daughters than for sons. My male cousins have no problem palling around with their dads, and I'm pretty sure that they aren't writing diary entries or blog posts about their conflicting emotions over substance consumption in front of former authority figures.
But the thing is, she doesn't care. Most of my family members didn't care that I was out all night partying. They were just glad that I eventually made it there and wound up having a good time. Empahsis on there-- most of the snotty people in the family were too busy being snotty to even both to attend the event, and the ones that did stayed only enough to criticize everything from the flowers to the band. I may have been a silly drunk, but I was a silly drunk there celebrating the choices of a family member, which is more than can be said for the people riding their high horses into bed at 9:30. It's certainly more than they've ever done for me.
They chose to remain on the fringes the entire weekend, looking on as the rest of us hugged and gossiped and talked travel and food and wine and film. They were concerned with "propriety" and "decency" and "appropriateness," but I can't resent them because they're too lonely and angry to resent. I finally stopped taking it personally.
No, I didn't like it when one of them marched into the kitchen and acidly announced "So, EJ, I hear you had a good time with one of the groomsmen last night," in front of the entire extended family at brunch the next day. But instead of getting mad and stumbling for words , I smiled a Cheshire Cat smile and beatifically answered "It was a terrific party, thanks for including me," turned on my heel and walked away. And got some Advil. Because Lordy, did I need it.
I promised I wouldn't write about my family on my blog. But this weekend was apparently designed to test that promise in every way possible.
Look, it's not my fault if most of my extended family is wonderful and the remaining people are completely, one hundred percent without the ability to function in society.
The people who are wonderful are really, really wonderful. The kind of wonderful that family members only occasionally achieve, when you would want to be their friends even if you weren't related to them. They are the ones who are goofy and warm and start conversations with "So this one time in Kuala Lampur, when were on top of an elephant..." and not, for example, with pursed lips, raised eyebrows and "Wow, EJ, that sure is an interesting dress. Be careful you don't fall out there."
THANKS. Because when I've been on a plane for the last ten hours, I LOVE being greeted by you telling me that I look like a slut.
Flying to a family wedding this weekend, my flights were ridiculously messed up, and I enjoyed an unscheduled three-hour visit to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina that caused me to miss the actual ceremony. My mother's cousin picked me up at the airport, I threw on my ("interesting") dress and we booked it to the church in time for photos, the first and hopefully only time I will be in pictures for a wedding that I did not actually attend.
I went into this weekend prepared to judge. I mean, it was a wedding that basically joined their frat and their sorority. There were something like ten attendants on each side. I hadn't seen that relative getting married in five years, and the wedding was in Wichita, which, while it is home to both excellent steaks and Kirstie Alley, is not known for being a huge party town. Once we got to the reception, my judgmental predictions seemed to be coming true. Guests were drinking Bud from plastic cups and the DJ interrupted a Hootie and the Blowfish song to announce "John Smith, please come to the bar, John Smith, your shots are ready."
I also went in with clear expectations about how some of my family members would treat me. As my mother put it when we dissected the weekend later on, "Sweetie, it's not that they don't like you, it's that you represent all the choices that they prayed their children wouldn't make." You'd think I'd be offended by this, but it's so true. I don't want to get married and have lots of babies, I don't live a 15-minute drive from home and I vastly prefer the easy delights of indie pop to the coolie labor of Gilbert and Sullivan. My entire life, I've played the role of the loud bitchy single city girl who has an opinion about everything. They'll never see me as anything else and I can never make them accept me or care about me because they're too busy judging my every move.
But something strange happened this weekend. For the first time ever at a family gathering, I decided I didn't give a crap what those people thought of me. Somewhere in between the bacon-wrapped cheese cubes and my aunt wandering around with her fingers stuck in her ears to display her displeasure with the music, I stopped caring and I stopped judging my surroundings. Okay, so, if I ever get married, I strongly doubt that my husband and our bridal party will enter the reception to the dulcet strains of "In da Club," but the couple seemed to like it. So who gives a crap? What, only the people behaving like petulant children in the throes of a temper tantrum? Well, I'm not going to be associated with them, that's for damn sure.
The wedding definitely took a turn for the ridiculous after that epiphany, made all the more so because my mother was at my side about eighty percent of the time. It's one thing to acknowledge to your mother that you are human, that yes, you smoke and drink and make out with inappropriate people. I've only become comfortable admitting these activities in the last year. It's entirely another to perform them all in front of her, particularly when she is in the kitchen of the hotel room holding the afterparty, watching your uncle shotgun a Bud Lite at 4 AM. After the events of that night, there are not a whole lot of boundaries left between my mom and me. Not that there were a whole ton before.
Looking back on the wedding and the entire weekend, I feel like a line has been crossed. In some ways, I regret that my mom has now witnessed me at my most ridiculous behavior. Just as it's nice to idealize your parents as infalliable creatures, it's nice to have them think of you as somehow being untainted by life. Plus, fair or not, it's different for daughters than for sons. My male cousins have no problem palling around with their dads, and I'm pretty sure that they aren't writing diary entries or blog posts about their conflicting emotions over substance consumption in front of former authority figures.
But the thing is, she doesn't care. Most of my family members didn't care that I was out all night partying. They were just glad that I eventually made it there and wound up having a good time. Empahsis on there-- most of the snotty people in the family were too busy being snotty to even both to attend the event, and the ones that did stayed only enough to criticize everything from the flowers to the band. I may have been a silly drunk, but I was a silly drunk there celebrating the choices of a family member, which is more than can be said for the people riding their high horses into bed at 9:30. It's certainly more than they've ever done for me.
They chose to remain on the fringes the entire weekend, looking on as the rest of us hugged and gossiped and talked travel and food and wine and film. They were concerned with "propriety" and "decency" and "appropriateness," but I can't resent them because they're too lonely and angry to resent. I finally stopped taking it personally.
No, I didn't like it when one of them marched into the kitchen and acidly announced "So, EJ, I hear you had a good time with one of the groomsmen last night," in front of the entire extended family at brunch the next day. But instead of getting mad and stumbling for words , I smiled a Cheshire Cat smile and beatifically answered "It was a terrific party, thanks for including me," turned on my heel and walked away. And got some Advil. Because Lordy, did I need it.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
merry and bright
Some of my favorite photos from Christmas Up North. Comments and more shots over in Flickr.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
they buy stonehouse bread! celebrities-- they're just like us!
There was only one other family in the bakery when we entered. A rotund man with orange hair, a young boy who was maybe twelve or so, and a grandma type. The man looked very familiar, but in that way that people start to look familiar Up North, like maybe he sold you bait over the summer or he teaches organ at Interlochen and didn't that girl Megan take private lessons with him when you were thirteen? There are not a lot of strangers here, especially when in the dead period between Christmas and the New Year and the ski resorts are all empty because it's forty degrees and dry as a bone out.
We sampled the pesto hummus on the counter and instantly decided we had to have it. I followed Jen as she picked a container from the fridge next to the family. I definitely knew the man from somewhere...
Wait a minute. No, it couldn't be. Why the hell would he be in a bakery in small-town Northern Michigan? Shouldn't he be braising pigs' trotters in Puglia or something?
I not-at-all-subtly peeked down for the telltale sign. Sure enough.
Orange Crocs.
But no, it had to be a coincidence. No one remotely famous ever comes to this part of the world. I mean sure, Tom Selleck and Tim Allen have cabins here, but that's because we have lots of woods full of things to shoot and long straight roads where you can drive all coked out and never get pulled over. And sure, Jeff Daniels lives in Michigan because he hates Hollywood and loves the Midwest and a fun part of growing up where I did is selling him Girl Scout cookies. And yes, Demi Moore sent her daughter to the Academy for a hot minute, but apart from her one very random visit to the Interlochen Public Library, it's not like she ever spent a lot of time hanging out with the locals, snackin on pesto hummus and calling the baker by her first name. Celebrities don't do that. They're not normal. They hang out in their celebrity pod worlds, where everyone is very beautiful and very short and is so over being famous, like, it's such a pain. Except for Chris Noth, who was unexpectedly tall and has lost the weight and was in a very loud conversation about a ski trip in January in the middle of 41st Street. But I digress.
By this time Jen had noticed too. She probably couldn't help but, since I was at this point flat staring. I wasn't gawking, I was just really, really confused.
Back at the counter she stage-whispered "Is that...?" in a manner that was the exact opposite of smooth. We were still maybe seven feet from the family, and I'm sure they heard exactly what was transpiring. "I'm not... no, can't be..." I muttered back.
Suddenly the son was at my elbow to pay the cashier and I noticed that his t-shirt was from a Clinton Foundation event. And, because I have been in Washington for entirely too long, that's when I finally realized it really was him. Because no twelve-year-old in Leland, Michigan would be wearing a Clinton Foundation t-shirt unless he was the son of someone famous.
"Merry Whatever and Happy Whatsitsdoodle, Mary!" The orange man suddenly joined his son at the counter and ushered his family out as he waved to the cook and her assistant. As soon as the door shut behind them Jen and I gawped first at one another, then at Mary.
"So, um..." Jen asked, "was that who I think it was?"
"Oh yah, sure!" Mary replied. "He only uses our bread when he's baking here and does all sortsa charity events in the area. He's very particular about using local ingredients, dontcha know?"
Our mom looked at us as if we were nuts. "You girls could watch Food Network all day!" she said. "How did you not know that Mario Batali lives up here?"
Um, because we're normal and assume that all famous people live in New York and LA?
But whatever. That totally made up for not getting reservations at Babbo earlier this month. And Internet, aren't you proud that I didn't rush after him and ask him if Raechel Ray is that annoying in person? Because I really kind of wanted to.
We sampled the pesto hummus on the counter and instantly decided we had to have it. I followed Jen as she picked a container from the fridge next to the family. I definitely knew the man from somewhere...
Wait a minute. No, it couldn't be. Why the hell would he be in a bakery in small-town Northern Michigan? Shouldn't he be braising pigs' trotters in Puglia or something?
I not-at-all-subtly peeked down for the telltale sign. Sure enough.
Orange Crocs.
But no, it had to be a coincidence. No one remotely famous ever comes to this part of the world. I mean sure, Tom Selleck and Tim Allen have cabins here, but that's because we have lots of woods full of things to shoot and long straight roads where you can drive all coked out and never get pulled over. And sure, Jeff Daniels lives in Michigan because he hates Hollywood and loves the Midwest and a fun part of growing up where I did is selling him Girl Scout cookies. And yes, Demi Moore sent her daughter to the Academy for a hot minute, but apart from her one very random visit to the Interlochen Public Library, it's not like she ever spent a lot of time hanging out with the locals, snackin on pesto hummus and calling the baker by her first name. Celebrities don't do that. They're not normal. They hang out in their celebrity pod worlds, where everyone is very beautiful and very short and is so over being famous, like, it's such a pain. Except for Chris Noth, who was unexpectedly tall and has lost the weight and was in a very loud conversation about a ski trip in January in the middle of 41st Street. But I digress.
By this time Jen had noticed too. She probably couldn't help but, since I was at this point flat staring. I wasn't gawking, I was just really, really confused.
Back at the counter she stage-whispered "Is that...?" in a manner that was the exact opposite of smooth. We were still maybe seven feet from the family, and I'm sure they heard exactly what was transpiring. "I'm not... no, can't be..." I muttered back.
Suddenly the son was at my elbow to pay the cashier and I noticed that his t-shirt was from a Clinton Foundation event. And, because I have been in Washington for entirely too long, that's when I finally realized it really was him. Because no twelve-year-old in Leland, Michigan would be wearing a Clinton Foundation t-shirt unless he was the son of someone famous.
"Merry Whatever and Happy Whatsitsdoodle, Mary!" The orange man suddenly joined his son at the counter and ushered his family out as he waved to the cook and her assistant. As soon as the door shut behind them Jen and I gawped first at one another, then at Mary.
"So, um..." Jen asked, "was that who I think it was?"
"Oh yah, sure!" Mary replied. "He only uses our bread when he's baking here and does all sortsa charity events in the area. He's very particular about using local ingredients, dontcha know?"
Our mom looked at us as if we were nuts. "You girls could watch Food Network all day!" she said. "How did you not know that Mario Batali lives up here?"
Um, because we're normal and assume that all famous people live in New York and LA?
But whatever. That totally made up for not getting reservations at Babbo earlier this month. And Internet, aren't you proud that I didn't rush after him and ask him if Raechel Ray is that annoying in person? Because I really kind of wanted to.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
bow people
Bow People are the people who place coordinating bows atop their Christmas presents. The parents make sure that presents from Santa and presents from family are never wrapped in the same packages, lest inquiring young minds put two and two together and innocence is forever ruined. Bow People beget offspring who don coordinating velvet hairbows and thick white tights, then sing carols to neighbors in high piping voices, knowing full well that their sweetness will get them invited in for some Christmas cookies.
Bow People never scream at the hapless, lying sacks of incompetence that cancel their connecting flight from Chicago to Traverse City for the second major holiday in one month and then lose their luggage. Bow People would certainly never demand to speak with a manager and upon being told that a manager was not available, a Bow Person would never say "Then I just hope you have a shitty Christmas, too."
We are not Bow People, we Hornes. But I did feel badly about the "shitty Christmas" remark later. Much later, after I finally received my suitcase at 7:00 on Christmas Eve.
When my sister and I were growing up, the Hornes were Bow People. We began making cookies around the first week of December, generally the same period when we would select and decorate our Christmas tree. Boxes upon boxes of red and green decorations would emerge from the basement, and knitted dollies and our mother's collection of Santas would parade across every unsuspecting surface in the family room. Mom would make pepper cookies, a raisin-stuffed concoction that no one else in our immediate family would even taste, and ship them to her siblings across the country. On Christmas Eve we attended services at our church, raising our candles on the third verse of Silent Night when you sing in German. Stille Nacht, hilege Nacht... I still know the alto part to pretty much every Christmas carol. I don't remember the last time I sang melody in church. Mother wouldn't stand for it.
The energy that other families conserve for Halloween, Easter, Veterans Day, whatever, was for the Hornes concentrated in December, as if we were trying to cash in our Martha Stewart points before years end. It is no coincidence that I grew up in a house that did not give a hoot for New Year's Eve. By December 31st, our parents were so spent from all the comfort and joy that they were left with the ability to do little more than pass out on the sofa whilst watching Law and Order reruns.
We all knew this year would be different. Dad's surgery was successful but the spectre of it has cast a pall over our holiday preparation, or lack thereof. It is difficult to coordinate presents for a litany of relatives from a hotel room in Rochester and the nurses in the ICU frown upon baking in hospital facilities. Jen managed to do a lot of our decorating after she finished her finals, but we outsourced our Christmas tree to the neighbors.
On Christmas morning my aunt (and nemesis) called to say hello and Merry Christmas, but really to brag about her family. To her, holidays are a competitive sport that is meant to be surmounted and conquered, not enjoyed. It was about 11:30 when she called, and I could imagine the horror in her voice when Mom informed her that 1) we were just now cooking Christmas breakfast and that 2) Christmas breakfast consisted in part of French toast soaked in Bailey's. We are Bailey's people, we Hornes.
I've been wearing the same pajamas since that breakfast. For the first time in my life, we didn't go to church on Christmas Eve. It didn't make sense to, since Dad needs to constantly both stretch and nap and also since we ate our Christmas dinner of mustard crusted tenderloin around, oh, 10:30. We've spent the last two days opening obscene amounts of presents while saying "you guys, we were going to take it easy this year," eating lefse and cornbread dressing and entire cloves of roasted garlic. We've slept in and watched Christmas classics like Scrooged and Elf and the entire second season of The Office. We've consumed an embarassingly large amount of wine, made even more embarassing that two of our family are technically not allowed to drink, one on the orders of the head of cardiology at the Mayo Clinic and one because she's nineteen. Granted, the cabin is gorgeously decorated tea candles and garlands and stuffed mooses wearing sweaters with fir trees on them. But we have not gone a-wassaling all week. In fact, except for a hideous trip to the Traverse City Mall I haven't left the cabin since I've been here, except to walk outside on Christmas Eve and marvel at the stars. Jen somehow knew every half the constellations and pointed out Cassiopeia, Orion's Belt, the North Star, the Big Dipper. Okay, the Big Dipper I could find myself. If it had been any clearer, I could have plucked it out of the sky and used it to scoop a snowball off the ground.
When that judgmental tone crept into my aunt's voice when she heard how we'd spent out Christmas-- being lazy, materialistic gluttons stewing in each other's company-- our mother silenced her with a quick "Well, we're doing Christmas with four adults. Four adults who all live in different states and never see each other and just went through a fairly major crisis. And we can do whatever we want for the holiday."
I can't believe how happy not being a Bow Family is making us.
Bow People never scream at the hapless, lying sacks of incompetence that cancel their connecting flight from Chicago to Traverse City for the second major holiday in one month and then lose their luggage. Bow People would certainly never demand to speak with a manager and upon being told that a manager was not available, a Bow Person would never say "Then I just hope you have a shitty Christmas, too."
We are not Bow People, we Hornes. But I did feel badly about the "shitty Christmas" remark later. Much later, after I finally received my suitcase at 7:00 on Christmas Eve.
When my sister and I were growing up, the Hornes were Bow People. We began making cookies around the first week of December, generally the same period when we would select and decorate our Christmas tree. Boxes upon boxes of red and green decorations would emerge from the basement, and knitted dollies and our mother's collection of Santas would parade across every unsuspecting surface in the family room. Mom would make pepper cookies, a raisin-stuffed concoction that no one else in our immediate family would even taste, and ship them to her siblings across the country. On Christmas Eve we attended services at our church, raising our candles on the third verse of Silent Night when you sing in German. Stille Nacht, hilege Nacht... I still know the alto part to pretty much every Christmas carol. I don't remember the last time I sang melody in church. Mother wouldn't stand for it.
The energy that other families conserve for Halloween, Easter, Veterans Day, whatever, was for the Hornes concentrated in December, as if we were trying to cash in our Martha Stewart points before years end. It is no coincidence that I grew up in a house that did not give a hoot for New Year's Eve. By December 31st, our parents were so spent from all the comfort and joy that they were left with the ability to do little more than pass out on the sofa whilst watching Law and Order reruns.
We all knew this year would be different. Dad's surgery was successful but the spectre of it has cast a pall over our holiday preparation, or lack thereof. It is difficult to coordinate presents for a litany of relatives from a hotel room in Rochester and the nurses in the ICU frown upon baking in hospital facilities. Jen managed to do a lot of our decorating after she finished her finals, but we outsourced our Christmas tree to the neighbors.
On Christmas morning my aunt (and nemesis) called to say hello and Merry Christmas, but really to brag about her family. To her, holidays are a competitive sport that is meant to be surmounted and conquered, not enjoyed. It was about 11:30 when she called, and I could imagine the horror in her voice when Mom informed her that 1) we were just now cooking Christmas breakfast and that 2) Christmas breakfast consisted in part of French toast soaked in Bailey's. We are Bailey's people, we Hornes.
I've been wearing the same pajamas since that breakfast. For the first time in my life, we didn't go to church on Christmas Eve. It didn't make sense to, since Dad needs to constantly both stretch and nap and also since we ate our Christmas dinner of mustard crusted tenderloin around, oh, 10:30. We've spent the last two days opening obscene amounts of presents while saying "you guys, we were going to take it easy this year," eating lefse and cornbread dressing and entire cloves of roasted garlic. We've slept in and watched Christmas classics like Scrooged and Elf and the entire second season of The Office. We've consumed an embarassingly large amount of wine, made even more embarassing that two of our family are technically not allowed to drink, one on the orders of the head of cardiology at the Mayo Clinic and one because she's nineteen. Granted, the cabin is gorgeously decorated tea candles and garlands and stuffed mooses wearing sweaters with fir trees on them. But we have not gone a-wassaling all week. In fact, except for a hideous trip to the Traverse City Mall I haven't left the cabin since I've been here, except to walk outside on Christmas Eve and marvel at the stars. Jen somehow knew every half the constellations and pointed out Cassiopeia, Orion's Belt, the North Star, the Big Dipper. Okay, the Big Dipper I could find myself. If it had been any clearer, I could have plucked it out of the sky and used it to scoop a snowball off the ground.
When that judgmental tone crept into my aunt's voice when she heard how we'd spent out Christmas-- being lazy, materialistic gluttons stewing in each other's company-- our mother silenced her with a quick "Well, we're doing Christmas with four adults. Four adults who all live in different states and never see each other and just went through a fairly major crisis. And we can do whatever we want for the holiday."
I can't believe how happy not being a Bow Family is making us.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
of horndogs and poltergeists
It's Christmas, I just paid my AmEx bill, and I'm broke. So imagine my consternation when I open my DirecTV bill and found it to be almost three times the usual amount.
"But why?" I wonder. "DirecTV doesn't pay-per-view The Office or reruns of Scrubs on Comedy Central, and that's pretty much all I watch these days."
Further inspecting the statement, I find an impressive listing of charges labeled "Adult PPV" for the weekend I was in New York. This means one of two things:
1) The ghost who lives in my apartment took advantage of my absence and had a little Me Time (more on this ghost later)
2) My very polite and lovely Republican Hill staffer upstairs neighbor, with whom I share the account, had herself a little Me Time and I would have to ask her about the charges.
You know, there is just no good way to say "Hey, did you watch a lot of porn between December 9th and the 12th? Because if so, you owe me $104.79."
Of course I did ask (cringing all the way; I emailed her, since email is the coward's phone), and it turns out she had some "friends" staying at her house that weekend who spent their vacation in Washington watching pay-per-view porn instead of visiting the National Gallery or eating at Old Ebbit. In any case, she's paying me back, so that's nice.
But NOW I feel like I can't ask her what I really want to know, which is: "have you also heard that freaky tapping in the walls when you turn off your light in your bedroom? Because I'm seriously pretty sure I have a ghost, and would you maybe want to go in on an exorcist?" Seriously, I was up until 2 AM last night and the tapping. Will. Not. Stop. Every time I start to fall asleep I hear another *tap,* and it sends a jolt of adrenaline through my veins so potent it might as well be speed steeped in espresso.
But I feel like porn and ghosts all in one week would be too much for someone as sweet as she is, and she would start telling stories about that crazy girl who lives in the basement and spends her weekends performing seances and accusing her innocent neighbors of being perverts.
I mean, I'm curious about the ghost thing. But not curious enough that I'll risk coming off as some crazy lady. Y'know, because living alone with a cat never gives that impression.
"But why?" I wonder. "DirecTV doesn't pay-per-view The Office or reruns of Scrubs on Comedy Central, and that's pretty much all I watch these days."
Further inspecting the statement, I find an impressive listing of charges labeled "Adult PPV" for the weekend I was in New York. This means one of two things:
1) The ghost who lives in my apartment took advantage of my absence and had a little Me Time (more on this ghost later)
2) My very polite and lovely Republican Hill staffer upstairs neighbor, with whom I share the account, had herself a little Me Time and I would have to ask her about the charges.
You know, there is just no good way to say "Hey, did you watch a lot of porn between December 9th and the 12th? Because if so, you owe me $104.79."
Of course I did ask (cringing all the way; I emailed her, since email is the coward's phone), and it turns out she had some "friends" staying at her house that weekend who spent their vacation in Washington watching pay-per-view porn instead of visiting the National Gallery or eating at Old Ebbit. In any case, she's paying me back, so that's nice.
But NOW I feel like I can't ask her what I really want to know, which is: "have you also heard that freaky tapping in the walls when you turn off your light in your bedroom? Because I'm seriously pretty sure I have a ghost, and would you maybe want to go in on an exorcist?" Seriously, I was up until 2 AM last night and the tapping. Will. Not. Stop. Every time I start to fall asleep I hear another *tap,* and it sends a jolt of adrenaline through my veins so potent it might as well be speed steeped in espresso.
But I feel like porn and ghosts all in one week would be too much for someone as sweet as she is, and she would start telling stories about that crazy girl who lives in the basement and spends her weekends performing seances and accusing her innocent neighbors of being perverts.
I mean, I'm curious about the ghost thing. But not curious enough that I'll risk coming off as some crazy lady. Y'know, because living alone with a cat never gives that impression.
Monday, December 18, 2006
don we now our gay apparel
I haven't felt much like blogging lately. I am really going through some major personal issues right now. You know, I just feel like I need to take some time to really work on myself, like, delve or whatever. To do some really heavy soul-searching and deeply ponder eternal questions, like "what does it all mean," and "what am I doing with my life," and "how do I look in this enormous green cardigan with jingle bell buttons and candy cane trim?"
The answer to the latter of course being "ridiculous."
I clearly have major problems. Because people who DON'T have major problems DON'T go to Buffalo Billiards on a Saturday night dressed as Cindy Lou Who.
My apologies to my poor friends who are also implicated in Donning Gay Apparel in this photo. But really, after our (very loud) public conversation about the relative merits of Mariah Carey Christmas albums versus Amy Grant Christmas albums, we pretty much gave up all hope of ever being allowed to sit at the cool kids' table in the cafeteria again.
The answer to the latter of course being "ridiculous."
I clearly have major problems. Because people who DON'T have major problems DON'T go to Buffalo Billiards on a Saturday night dressed as Cindy Lou Who.
My apologies to my poor friends who are also implicated in Donning Gay Apparel in this photo. But really, after our (very loud) public conversation about the relative merits of Mariah Carey Christmas albums versus Amy Grant Christmas albums, we pretty much gave up all hope of ever being allowed to sit at the cool kids' table in the cafeteria again.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
praise be
My Dad is out of surgery. He's going into recovery in the next half hour.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm not sure exactly who I'm thanking, but thanks seem to be in order.
Am still holding my breath for recovery, but feel like the noose has been slightly loosened. And oh, does drawing that breath feel good.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm not sure exactly who I'm thanking, but thanks seem to be in order.
Am still holding my breath for recovery, but feel like the noose has been slightly loosened. And oh, does drawing that breath feel good.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
and when i asked her what classic DVDs she wanted for Christmas, she thought for a moment and answered "Bring It On"
First, we have to get some business out of the way. You heard it here first: Spring Awakening is the next Rent. Actually, strike that, because it's inventive and raw in a way that Rent never was, or was before it had all its authenticity sucked out of it by commercialization.
"But EJ," you whine, "musical theater is so lame and unrealistic. It's gay men and Barbie doll women standing with their legs apart singing covers of ABBA songs out into space." "No friend," I respond, "this is not that kind of musical theater. This is the kind of show where the powerhouse eleventh-hour number is a song called 'Totally Fucked.' If you at all enjoy theater and/or rock music, click here. You can thank me later."
There. Dorky musical theater business accomplished. But seriously, this show was amazing.
Mom and I had a great weekend. She completely shocked me by enthusiastically spending Saturday poking around the Lower East Side and Mott Street with me, eating crepes and spending too much money on shoes. She was also kind enough to only gently laugh at me when we stopped by the Essex Street Market and I practically went into fits of excitement at a spice shop. But! Lavender-infused sea salt! It's like heaven bottled in a test tube!
Now, individually, my mother and I befriend gay men. Together, we make an unstoppable Fag Hag Delta Force Team. Once our (fabulous) waiter on at Del Frisco's on Friday night heard we were going to Spring Awakening, he told us to hit the bar next door after the show. We'd spent the entire meal chatting with him and finding out his life story, and once my mother learned that he had trained at another Big Ten school she talked his ear off trying to figure out what young actors they knew in common. I expect that he sent us to this bar knowing that friends of his would be there, and that later they could trade stories about that really funny woman from the Midwest who talks with her hands and has a slightly alarming mental Rolodex of New York-based chorus boys.
Now, based on what I've told you about my mother so far on this blog, would you at ALL be surprised to know that the night ended with her doing a shot of SoCo and lime with a musical theater professor and the advertising director of Ralph Lauren? Yeah, I didn't think so.
This is all apart from the advertising director of Ralph Lauren telling me he liked my coat (!!!), or when we saw A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, or when we followed it with cocoa and wild boar papardelle at Fiamma in SoHo. And oh heavens me, I haven't even told you about how I walked smack into Chris Noth outside the theater.
Like I said, it was a great weekend.
"But EJ," you whine, "musical theater is so lame and unrealistic. It's gay men and Barbie doll women standing with their legs apart singing covers of ABBA songs out into space." "No friend," I respond, "this is not that kind of musical theater. This is the kind of show where the powerhouse eleventh-hour number is a song called 'Totally Fucked.' If you at all enjoy theater and/or rock music, click here. You can thank me later."
There. Dorky musical theater business accomplished. But seriously, this show was amazing.
Mom and I had a great weekend. She completely shocked me by enthusiastically spending Saturday poking around the Lower East Side and Mott Street with me, eating crepes and spending too much money on shoes. She was also kind enough to only gently laugh at me when we stopped by the Essex Street Market and I practically went into fits of excitement at a spice shop. But! Lavender-infused sea salt! It's like heaven bottled in a test tube!
Now, individually, my mother and I befriend gay men. Together, we make an unstoppable Fag Hag Delta Force Team. Once our (fabulous) waiter on at Del Frisco's on Friday night heard we were going to Spring Awakening, he told us to hit the bar next door after the show. We'd spent the entire meal chatting with him and finding out his life story, and once my mother learned that he had trained at another Big Ten school she talked his ear off trying to figure out what young actors they knew in common. I expect that he sent us to this bar knowing that friends of his would be there, and that later they could trade stories about that really funny woman from the Midwest who talks with her hands and has a slightly alarming mental Rolodex of New York-based chorus boys.
Now, based on what I've told you about my mother so far on this blog, would you at ALL be surprised to know that the night ended with her doing a shot of SoCo and lime with a musical theater professor and the advertising director of Ralph Lauren? Yeah, I didn't think so.
This is all apart from the advertising director of Ralph Lauren telling me he liked my coat (!!!), or when we saw A Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, or when we followed it with cocoa and wild boar papardelle at Fiamma in SoHo. And oh heavens me, I haven't even told you about how I walked smack into Chris Noth outside the theater.
Like I said, it was a great weekend.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
consumerrific
I'm heading to New York this weekend with my mother, who has already warned me that we will spend a significant amount of our time there shopping. Not that I don't like this particular activity, but much of it will be shopping for Christmas and/or wedding presents for extended family members. It boggles my mind why someone who has Internet access, a bottle of wine and a corkscrew simply does not do all of their holiday shopping online from the comfort of their couch, preferably while watching The Office on DVD and nursing naughty fantasies involving John Krasinski, copier toner and Dwight's bouncy ball chair. But I've said too much.
I enjoy shopping and I enjoy New York, but the twain should not meet. I've nearly been killed by the hideous sea of humanity that floods into Manhattan on a Saturday. The worst was two years ago when Mom insisted that we get our picture taken at the Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Center. We wound up getting caught between the crowds exiting the 3:00 Radio City Christmas Spectacular and the crowd entering for the 6:00 show. It took a half hour to walk one block. The evacuation of Saigon was more efficient. And in the end the only people we could find to take our picture were some very short Japanese tourists, resulting in a photo angled so low that both Mom and I appear as if our faces are being eaten by our own chins.
The stores are better than the streets, if for no other reason than I refuse to enter an H&M anywhere on the island of Manhattan and therefore can avoid some of the more obnoxious visiting New Jerseyites, but not much better. I love to prowl for uniquely New York cute boutiques or neighborhood marketplaces, but that is because I live in an urban center surrounded by wealthy suburbs and can stop by places like Anthropologie after work. My mother, on the other hand, lives in Indiana and northern Michigan and therefore visits nice chain stores in New York with the kind of gusto usually shown by furloughed sailors at a whorehouse. Again, let me state-- I enjoy Coach, Club Monaco and the Container Store. It's just that I enjoy them so much that I go to them here, and would rather spend my vacation time hunting for vintage slips at a mothbally store on the Lower East Side.
However, we will have to make at least one pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center to visit the NBC Studio Store. It really is a fantastic place, especially the back room where they keep knickknacks and souvenirs from long-canceled NBC shows. I've purchased no fewer than two Saved By The Bell t-shirts there. The big reason, however, is to fulfill my mother's and my December-in-New-York tradition for the third year in a row: to see if the NBC Studio Store is finally making a Law and Order Christmas tree ornament. It's become our version of seeing The Nutcracker.
I enjoy shopping and I enjoy New York, but the twain should not meet. I've nearly been killed by the hideous sea of humanity that floods into Manhattan on a Saturday. The worst was two years ago when Mom insisted that we get our picture taken at the Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Center. We wound up getting caught between the crowds exiting the 3:00 Radio City Christmas Spectacular and the crowd entering for the 6:00 show. It took a half hour to walk one block. The evacuation of Saigon was more efficient. And in the end the only people we could find to take our picture were some very short Japanese tourists, resulting in a photo angled so low that both Mom and I appear as if our faces are being eaten by our own chins.
The stores are better than the streets, if for no other reason than I refuse to enter an H&M anywhere on the island of Manhattan and therefore can avoid some of the more obnoxious visiting New Jerseyites, but not much better. I love to prowl for uniquely New York cute boutiques or neighborhood marketplaces, but that is because I live in an urban center surrounded by wealthy suburbs and can stop by places like Anthropologie after work. My mother, on the other hand, lives in Indiana and northern Michigan and therefore visits nice chain stores in New York with the kind of gusto usually shown by furloughed sailors at a whorehouse. Again, let me state-- I enjoy Coach, Club Monaco and the Container Store. It's just that I enjoy them so much that I go to them here, and would rather spend my vacation time hunting for vintage slips at a mothbally store on the Lower East Side.
However, we will have to make at least one pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center to visit the NBC Studio Store. It really is a fantastic place, especially the back room where they keep knickknacks and souvenirs from long-canceled NBC shows. I've purchased no fewer than two Saved By The Bell t-shirts there. The big reason, however, is to fulfill my mother's and my December-in-New-York tradition for the third year in a row: to see if the NBC Studio Store is finally making a Law and Order Christmas tree ornament. It's become our version of seeing The Nutcracker.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
cawhfee tawhk
"Okay, I'm at the cawhfee shawhp.. what should I get?"
I look behind me at the teeny brunette in the black Northface jacket who has just barged into line behind me, yammering on her silver Razr all the while.
You have got to be kidding me.
"No, I'm eating breakfast. So, what should I order? Like, am I hungry or should I just get a drink?"
I am instantly reminded of Michael Caine's best line in Austin Powers in Goldmember: "There are only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch." Swap "Dutch" for "really Jappy girls from Nassau County" and I might have found my epitaph.
"So, like, should I get fruit? Or like, tea? Or is cawhfee better than tea?"
Oh, she is so lucky she is not in front of me. Seriously, I would yank her Japanese thermal-straightened hair right out of her head and stuff it down her throat just so I wouldn't have to hear that whiny, nasal voice.
"So like, what I should I get? I'm gonna be, like, late for class."
It's as I feared-- she's a college student. She could pass for a visiting high school student who is scared and overwhelmed and needs a little hand-holding, but no, she is a college student calling someone and asking them if she is hungry and if so, what she should eat. I weep for the youth of America.
"Are frappucinos the fatty ones? Am I getting fat?"
If she takes a cameraphone picture of herself and sends it to this person for pre-drink-order analysis, so help me, I am not responsible for my actions.
"Okay, so, like, I gotta go, cuz I'm like in the shawhp and like, I'm gonna order soon."
Maybe she's some kind of sex worker in a dom-sub situation, Ã la Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in Secretary. Is it wrong that I'm so much more okay with that than with a college student who has to call her mother from several states away for permission to order a latte?
I look behind me at the teeny brunette in the black Northface jacket who has just barged into line behind me, yammering on her silver Razr all the while.
You have got to be kidding me.
"No, I'm eating breakfast. So, what should I order? Like, am I hungry or should I just get a drink?"
I am instantly reminded of Michael Caine's best line in Austin Powers in Goldmember: "There are only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch." Swap "Dutch" for "really Jappy girls from Nassau County" and I might have found my epitaph.
"So, like, should I get fruit? Or like, tea? Or is cawhfee better than tea?"
Oh, she is so lucky she is not in front of me. Seriously, I would yank her Japanese thermal-straightened hair right out of her head and stuff it down her throat just so I wouldn't have to hear that whiny, nasal voice.
"So like, what I should I get? I'm gonna be, like, late for class."
It's as I feared-- she's a college student. She could pass for a visiting high school student who is scared and overwhelmed and needs a little hand-holding, but no, she is a college student calling someone and asking them if she is hungry and if so, what she should eat. I weep for the youth of America.
"Are frappucinos the fatty ones? Am I getting fat?"
If she takes a cameraphone picture of herself and sends it to this person for pre-drink-order analysis, so help me, I am not responsible for my actions.
"Okay, so, like, I gotta go, cuz I'm like in the shawhp and like, I'm gonna order soon."
Maybe she's some kind of sex worker in a dom-sub situation, Ã la Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in Secretary. Is it wrong that I'm so much more okay with that than with a college student who has to call her mother from several states away for permission to order a latte?
Monday, December 04, 2006
reason for the season
I did something a little shocking this morning. I went to church.
Since I quit being a Methodist in a fit of self-righteous protest, I've been back a few times. Like a lot of other people, I went a few times after 9/11 and I also went once after a particularly ghastly week at my first job out of college. Mostly it's been with family for Christmas or Easter services, or to a holiday singalong. I may have doubts about the whole Jesus our Lord thing, but I still know all the alto parts to sing His praises come Christmastime.
Even though I write about it self-effacingly, leaving my church was actually the first painful adult decision I ever made. I don't regret it and am proud that I stood up for something I believed in despite the consequences, small and personal though they may be. That said, as I continue to age and mellow, adolescent absolutes become adult ambiguities. Right now, I think God and I are working on what we mean to one another. So it is with all my other relationships in my twenties.
Maybe I went because today was the first Sunday of Advent, maybe because I actually said a prayer of thanks when I finally got my sight back on Thursday. More likely it's because for the first time, someone in my immediate family is legitimately in harm's way and I'm pulling out all the stops. Prayer, chanting, fasting, self-flagellation, just get my dad through this and make him well and Lord, I will do whatever you want. Whatever the reason, I woke up this morning and felt a genuine tug. I wanted to be at church.
I wanted to wear control-top tights on a Sunday and shake hands with elderly strangers and whisper "Peace be with you." I wanted gentle smiles from pastors and light, indulgent chuckles from the adults during the children's sermon when the one little girl starts dancing around and maybe lifts her taffeta dress up over her head (there's one in every church) (my sister was the one in ours). I wanted the familiar rhythm of voices rising and falling as we chanted the Lord's Prayer, how everyone just knows where to pause because we've all been saying this prayer for as long as we can remember. I felt alone, and I wanted to feel a common bond with strangers.
It was ritual I was craving, not a spiritual awakening. I wanted familiar. I took Communion for the first time in years, but for the comfort it gave me, it might as well have been mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese instead of a torn chunk of pita bread dipped in organic grape juice. And that was fine. As a matter of fact, it was really wonderful.
Leaving church this morning, I felt calm and full. There were no surges of faith, a sudden flash of certainty that Jesus is the light of the world and there was no shame or eye-rolling when I remembered how the very strange girl on my freshman floor had hung a poster proclaiming "Jesus is the Light of the World!" on her door and my friend Josh had in very tiny letters written "Courteney Cox" above "Jesus." The world felt big enough for sincerity and sarcasm, and that being bitter and afraid and angry was fine, go ahead, the big guy can take it. For the first time in a long time, my mind wasn't racing ahead of where I was trying to keep it. It just... was.
Maybe that's enough of a reason for the season.
Since I quit being a Methodist in a fit of self-righteous protest, I've been back a few times. Like a lot of other people, I went a few times after 9/11 and I also went once after a particularly ghastly week at my first job out of college. Mostly it's been with family for Christmas or Easter services, or to a holiday singalong. I may have doubts about the whole Jesus our Lord thing, but I still know all the alto parts to sing His praises come Christmastime.
Even though I write about it self-effacingly, leaving my church was actually the first painful adult decision I ever made. I don't regret it and am proud that I stood up for something I believed in despite the consequences, small and personal though they may be. That said, as I continue to age and mellow, adolescent absolutes become adult ambiguities. Right now, I think God and I are working on what we mean to one another. So it is with all my other relationships in my twenties.
Maybe I went because today was the first Sunday of Advent, maybe because I actually said a prayer of thanks when I finally got my sight back on Thursday. More likely it's because for the first time, someone in my immediate family is legitimately in harm's way and I'm pulling out all the stops. Prayer, chanting, fasting, self-flagellation, just get my dad through this and make him well and Lord, I will do whatever you want. Whatever the reason, I woke up this morning and felt a genuine tug. I wanted to be at church.
I wanted to wear control-top tights on a Sunday and shake hands with elderly strangers and whisper "Peace be with you." I wanted gentle smiles from pastors and light, indulgent chuckles from the adults during the children's sermon when the one little girl starts dancing around and maybe lifts her taffeta dress up over her head (there's one in every church) (my sister was the one in ours). I wanted the familiar rhythm of voices rising and falling as we chanted the Lord's Prayer, how everyone just knows where to pause because we've all been saying this prayer for as long as we can remember. I felt alone, and I wanted to feel a common bond with strangers.
It was ritual I was craving, not a spiritual awakening. I wanted familiar. I took Communion for the first time in years, but for the comfort it gave me, it might as well have been mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese instead of a torn chunk of pita bread dipped in organic grape juice. And that was fine. As a matter of fact, it was really wonderful.
Leaving church this morning, I felt calm and full. There were no surges of faith, a sudden flash of certainty that Jesus is the light of the world and there was no shame or eye-rolling when I remembered how the very strange girl on my freshman floor had hung a poster proclaiming "Jesus is the Light of the World!" on her door and my friend Josh had in very tiny letters written "Courteney Cox" above "Jesus." The world felt big enough for sincerity and sarcasm, and that being bitter and afraid and angry was fine, go ahead, the big guy can take it. For the first time in a long time, my mind wasn't racing ahead of where I was trying to keep it. It just... was.
Maybe that's enough of a reason for the season.
Friday, December 01, 2006
we're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave
Current Temperature in DC: 75 degrees
Current Temperature in Galveston, TX: 47 degrees
Current Temperature in San Jose, CA: 57 degrees
Current Temperature in Temple, AZ: 60 degrees
Whither the winter wonderland, people? Would someone please explain to me how I am supposed to deck my halls when DC is currently hotter than the entire southwest?
Memo to the Baby Jesus: when Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sang "Heat Wave" in White Christmas, it was part of a kicky cabaret act and not in any way a prayer for actual weather they wanted to experience. Because if it stays this hot, then there is no way that the General's ski lodge will have enough snow to get visitors and it will be way too toasty for Bing and Rosemary Clooney to count their blessings in front of the fire and poor Vera Ellen will be entirely too sweaty to wear all those turtlenecked leotards and tap dance her skinny little heart out and THEN what will we do with the General when he stops being a General because the General is not smart enough to get with global warming and the fact that in ten years Vermont will have the climate of Belize!
Ahem.
Sorry. The heat is making my brain melt. The point is: shorts and air-conditioning in December = unnatural and wrong.
Current Temperature in Galveston, TX: 47 degrees
Current Temperature in San Jose, CA: 57 degrees
Current Temperature in Temple, AZ: 60 degrees
Whither the winter wonderland, people? Would someone please explain to me how I am supposed to deck my halls when DC is currently hotter than the entire southwest?
Memo to the Baby Jesus: when Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sang "Heat Wave" in White Christmas, it was part of a kicky cabaret act and not in any way a prayer for actual weather they wanted to experience. Because if it stays this hot, then there is no way that the General's ski lodge will have enough snow to get visitors and it will be way too toasty for Bing and Rosemary Clooney to count their blessings in front of the fire and poor Vera Ellen will be entirely too sweaty to wear all those turtlenecked leotards and tap dance her skinny little heart out and THEN what will we do with the General when he stops being a General because the General is not smart enough to get with global warming and the fact that in ten years Vermont will have the climate of Belize!
Ahem.
Sorry. The heat is making my brain melt. The point is: shorts and air-conditioning in December = unnatural and wrong.
a whole lot about my eyeballs that you probably never wanted to know
In case you were wondering, it turns out that getting two liters of saline solution dripped into your pried-open eyeballs-- *drip... drip... drip*-- at two in the morning is even less fun that it sounds.
If you can imagine such a thing.
I'd wanted a chance to hate my new optometrist since I first visited him three weeks ago and he literally wagged his elderly, wrinkled finger in my face as he lectured me on my improper lens care regimen. He also stuck the same wrinkled finger in my eye to take out my contact lenses, even as I squawked "Um, can I do that?! I hate having people touch my eyes!" Of course he didn't stop as he rasped "Young lady, I've been doing this for fifty years, I think I can manage."
Ahem.
If you want me to hate your guts, calling me "young lady" is a fantastic way to get the ball rolling.
He gave me a new lens cleaning solution, and I tried it for the first time on Monday night. Around lunchtime on Tuesday I noticed that things were looking decidedly fuzzy, as if my office had become the set for a Barbara Walters special. By my 3:30 meeting with my boss, her boss and all of the deans at the Education Corporation, I was on the verge of tears from the stinging pain in my eyes. I spent the meeting darting my eyes at whatever dark surfaces I could find (table! blackboard! shadow under the table! gah, not the computer screen, owowowowowow!), trying desperately not to start sobbing in front of all the VIPs. I mean, I cared about the subject matter of the meeting, but so much that I'd weep over it.
By the time I got home, it was bad. Like, "unable to see out of my right eye and can't stop crying" bad. I took out my contacts and called the friend I was supposed to shoot pool with to cancel, thinking that the whole "unable to see..." thing might hurt my game. I spent the next few hours gnashing my teeth, popping Aleve, going through two rolls of toilet paper in lieu of Kleenex and yes, crying.
When 9:00 rolled around, it got worse. My right eye had completely swollen shut, the left one was on it's way to join the right one, and I was sitting in the dark in my apartment, surrounded by a pile of snotty toilet paper and a very confused Sadie, who didn't understand why Mommy had just kicked her. I was so sensitive to light that the glow from my cell phone was incredibly painful as I called my boss to let her know that, um, I might not be in tomorrow and then called my friend B to bring me whatever anti-allergy meds she had in her apartment.
B, being the amazing friend that she is, padded right over, took one look at me and almost instantly agreed that I should go to the ER. She guided me into the car, helped me fill out the paperwork when we go to the ER and since the act of rolling my eyes was enough to send me into screaming fits of pain, she did it for me when the night clerk asked me to sign off on the forms. Because, y'know, when you CAN'T SEE ANYTHING AT ALL, that is the PERFECT time to go back and re-initial medical paperwork.
I was worried that I was overreacting by wanting to head there, but that worry was dispatched fairly quickly, right about when the ER doctor on call used the words "severe reaction" and "I'm going to get my attending." I may not know a lot about medicine, but I've watched enough episodes of Scrubs to know that the phrase "I'm going to get my attending" almost never means something good is going on.
I'm condensing for the sake of brevity; by the time the attending came, B and I had been at the ER for over three hours. The attending decided that they were going to flush out my eyes with saline solution, and I asked B to take the car and her poor tired self home before they wheeled me away to a brightly lit corner of the ER to drip fluid onto my eyeballs for ten minutes. Not surprisingly, she agreed fairly quickly.
Thus began the flushing of the eyes. They set up an IV line on my nose with a hole over each eye, and instructed me to keep my eyes open for as long as possible. Now, I am a well-reknowned wuss when it comes to pain and all medical procedures, but PEOPLE, this was Chinese water torture on my EYEBALLS. In a BRIGHTLY LIT ROOM. With EXTRA blaring in the background. Because the only way to make the procedure worse was to perform it to a soundtrack of MARK MCGRATH YAMMERING ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS' EXPOSED LADYBITS.
At least, I thought that was the only way to make it worse until it didn't work, and they had to repeat the entire thing again an hour later.
I'm really not ready to discuss that part.
By 4 AM I'd regained enough sight to pour myself into a cab, collapse, and sleep like the dead until my alarm went off at 8:00. I managed to wake myself up enough to call the hospital's optometrist, who asked me a series of questions about my ability to focus my eyes and be exposed to light. I was somewhat bereft when I found that I was unable to do either. Actually I was incredibly fucking angry and freaked out, but doesn't "bereft" sound more polite?
Tonight is the first occasion since Tuesday evening that I've been able to look at a computer screen, watch TV or go out in the sunlight without LITERALLY blinding myself. Let me tell you, it's a darn pleasant change. I had really missed that whole "sight" thing. Plus, you cannot believe how incredibly boring being blind is, especially when the rest of you feel physically fine. Not being allowed to watch TV, use my computer or read for two days has made me so stir crazy that last night I stumbled over to an exhausted B's house to coerce her into conversation as she tried to pass out in front of the TV. Of course, I did walk into a fencepost on the way home, which I think was God's way of telling me "Um, EJ, if you can't focus your eyes then maybe you shouldn't be out and about in the world."
But on the upside, now I don't feel the least bit guilty for wishing very bad things on my optometrist.
If you can imagine such a thing.
I'd wanted a chance to hate my new optometrist since I first visited him three weeks ago and he literally wagged his elderly, wrinkled finger in my face as he lectured me on my improper lens care regimen. He also stuck the same wrinkled finger in my eye to take out my contact lenses, even as I squawked "Um, can I do that?! I hate having people touch my eyes!" Of course he didn't stop as he rasped "Young lady, I've been doing this for fifty years, I think I can manage."
Ahem.
If you want me to hate your guts, calling me "young lady" is a fantastic way to get the ball rolling.
He gave me a new lens cleaning solution, and I tried it for the first time on Monday night. Around lunchtime on Tuesday I noticed that things were looking decidedly fuzzy, as if my office had become the set for a Barbara Walters special. By my 3:30 meeting with my boss, her boss and all of the deans at the Education Corporation, I was on the verge of tears from the stinging pain in my eyes. I spent the meeting darting my eyes at whatever dark surfaces I could find (table! blackboard! shadow under the table! gah, not the computer screen, owowowowowow!), trying desperately not to start sobbing in front of all the VIPs. I mean, I cared about the subject matter of the meeting, but so much that I'd weep over it.
By the time I got home, it was bad. Like, "unable to see out of my right eye and can't stop crying" bad. I took out my contacts and called the friend I was supposed to shoot pool with to cancel, thinking that the whole "unable to see..." thing might hurt my game. I spent the next few hours gnashing my teeth, popping Aleve, going through two rolls of toilet paper in lieu of Kleenex and yes, crying.
When 9:00 rolled around, it got worse. My right eye had completely swollen shut, the left one was on it's way to join the right one, and I was sitting in the dark in my apartment, surrounded by a pile of snotty toilet paper and a very confused Sadie, who didn't understand why Mommy had just kicked her. I was so sensitive to light that the glow from my cell phone was incredibly painful as I called my boss to let her know that, um, I might not be in tomorrow and then called my friend B to bring me whatever anti-allergy meds she had in her apartment.
B, being the amazing friend that she is, padded right over, took one look at me and almost instantly agreed that I should go to the ER. She guided me into the car, helped me fill out the paperwork when we go to the ER and since the act of rolling my eyes was enough to send me into screaming fits of pain, she did it for me when the night clerk asked me to sign off on the forms. Because, y'know, when you CAN'T SEE ANYTHING AT ALL, that is the PERFECT time to go back and re-initial medical paperwork.
I was worried that I was overreacting by wanting to head there, but that worry was dispatched fairly quickly, right about when the ER doctor on call used the words "severe reaction" and "I'm going to get my attending." I may not know a lot about medicine, but I've watched enough episodes of Scrubs to know that the phrase "I'm going to get my attending" almost never means something good is going on.
I'm condensing for the sake of brevity; by the time the attending came, B and I had been at the ER for over three hours. The attending decided that they were going to flush out my eyes with saline solution, and I asked B to take the car and her poor tired self home before they wheeled me away to a brightly lit corner of the ER to drip fluid onto my eyeballs for ten minutes. Not surprisingly, she agreed fairly quickly.
Thus began the flushing of the eyes. They set up an IV line on my nose with a hole over each eye, and instructed me to keep my eyes open for as long as possible. Now, I am a well-reknowned wuss when it comes to pain and all medical procedures, but PEOPLE, this was Chinese water torture on my EYEBALLS. In a BRIGHTLY LIT ROOM. With EXTRA blaring in the background. Because the only way to make the procedure worse was to perform it to a soundtrack of MARK MCGRATH YAMMERING ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS' EXPOSED LADYBITS.
At least, I thought that was the only way to make it worse until it didn't work, and they had to repeat the entire thing again an hour later.
I'm really not ready to discuss that part.
By 4 AM I'd regained enough sight to pour myself into a cab, collapse, and sleep like the dead until my alarm went off at 8:00. I managed to wake myself up enough to call the hospital's optometrist, who asked me a series of questions about my ability to focus my eyes and be exposed to light. I was somewhat bereft when I found that I was unable to do either. Actually I was incredibly fucking angry and freaked out, but doesn't "bereft" sound more polite?
Tonight is the first occasion since Tuesday evening that I've been able to look at a computer screen, watch TV or go out in the sunlight without LITERALLY blinding myself. Let me tell you, it's a darn pleasant change. I had really missed that whole "sight" thing. Plus, you cannot believe how incredibly boring being blind is, especially when the rest of you feel physically fine. Not being allowed to watch TV, use my computer or read for two days has made me so stir crazy that last night I stumbled over to an exhausted B's house to coerce her into conversation as she tried to pass out in front of the TV. Of course, I did walk into a fencepost on the way home, which I think was God's way of telling me "Um, EJ, if you can't focus your eyes then maybe you shouldn't be out and about in the world."
But on the upside, now I don't feel the least bit guilty for wishing very bad things on my optometrist.
Monday, November 27, 2006
whatevering whatevers
We all know that online friendship networks-- your Friendster, your MySpace, your Facebook-- are rife with land mines. Besides the obvious time-wasting factor when I'm on one, I inevitably see someone I used to despise in high school/hook up with/engage in emotionally destructive behavior with looking incredibly happy and fulfilled, usually accompanied by someone far more attractive than myself. The always-brilliant Hey Pretty wrote about the pitfalls of seeing an ex-whatever on MySpace, and I generally agree with her that such online encounters usually leave me feeling worse than when I began procrastinating.
(And for the record, I don't have a MySpace page. I figure that Rupert Murdoch owns enough of the world without staking a claim to a portion of my identity, however virtual.)
But during lunch today, I happened to be playing around on an online friendship network and came across photos of an ex-whatever looking... not so good. Specifically, he's gotten really, really tubby. Like, man-pregnant tubby. He still has a shit-eating grin, but the enormity of his belly, swathed in a massive untucked pastel polo shirt, suggests that he has been eating a whole lot else over the last several years.
Now, I perpetually struggle with a stubborn ten pounds that refuses to get off my body, and find fat jokes to be really unhelpful and offensive. However, I don't particularly mind telling the Internet that this guy is packing it on because this particular ex-whatever
1) was by FAR the best-looking person I ever whatevered with, an NCAA athlete who took enormous pride in both his incredibly chiseled body and his Abercrombie-model face,
2) in everything he did, fulfilled every negative stereotype about frat boys, including his proud ownership and frequent wearing of a t-shirt reading "Freshman Girls: Get 'em While They're Skinny,"
3) dumped me in an incredibly cold-hearted fashion that involved him sleeping with his ex-girlfriend while we were still together and then suggesting that we didn't work because I gave it up too soon.
Oh yeah. You can bet I am cackling my still-toned ass off right about now.
(And for the record, I don't have a MySpace page. I figure that Rupert Murdoch owns enough of the world without staking a claim to a portion of my identity, however virtual.)
But during lunch today, I happened to be playing around on an online friendship network and came across photos of an ex-whatever looking... not so good. Specifically, he's gotten really, really tubby. Like, man-pregnant tubby. He still has a shit-eating grin, but the enormity of his belly, swathed in a massive untucked pastel polo shirt, suggests that he has been eating a whole lot else over the last several years.
Now, I perpetually struggle with a stubborn ten pounds that refuses to get off my body, and find fat jokes to be really unhelpful and offensive. However, I don't particularly mind telling the Internet that this guy is packing it on because this particular ex-whatever
1) was by FAR the best-looking person I ever whatevered with, an NCAA athlete who took enormous pride in both his incredibly chiseled body and his Abercrombie-model face,
2) in everything he did, fulfilled every negative stereotype about frat boys, including his proud ownership and frequent wearing of a t-shirt reading "Freshman Girls: Get 'em While They're Skinny,"
3) dumped me in an incredibly cold-hearted fashion that involved him sleeping with his ex-girlfriend while we were still together and then suggesting that we didn't work because I gave it up too soon.
Oh yeah. You can bet I am cackling my still-toned ass off right about now.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
home, where my thoughts are sleeping
So perhaps I should have tried NaBloPoMo another time. Another time when there would not be five days in the woods, stealing the neighbor's already-weak wireless signal and then being called away because the compost needs to be taken out and will someone please cut up the turkey carcass and come on, everyone, let's head into town because Santa is lighting the Christmas tree at 6:00!
Distractions + unfulfilled good intentions = the holiday season.
It's been 98% loveliness, with the remaining 2% actually being incredibly entertaining in retrospect, but there is a definite pall cast by my dad's upcoming surgery. My mother the planner is constantly repeating the itinerary for December over and over, asking my sister questions about her finals schedule that she has already answered several times. Everyone is being very hearty and Midwestern about the whole thing ("he's fine! he's going to be fine! who wants more ham?!"), but it's major surgery with a long recovery period and it is not the kind of thing where we can all just swallow and ignore it, like we do when certain individuals in the family make loud and completely unsolicited remarks about Asians not being very good drivers.
Oh, but one unexpected yet totally welcome consequence of the collective worry over my father's surgery? No one has given me any grief whatsoever about being single! Heaven bless us, everyone!
Distractions + unfulfilled good intentions = the holiday season.
It's been 98% loveliness, with the remaining 2% actually being incredibly entertaining in retrospect, but there is a definite pall cast by my dad's upcoming surgery. My mother the planner is constantly repeating the itinerary for December over and over, asking my sister questions about her finals schedule that she has already answered several times. Everyone is being very hearty and Midwestern about the whole thing ("he's fine! he's going to be fine! who wants more ham?!"), but it's major surgery with a long recovery period and it is not the kind of thing where we can all just swallow and ignore it, like we do when certain individuals in the family make loud and completely unsolicited remarks about Asians not being very good drivers.
Oh, but one unexpected yet totally welcome consequence of the collective worry over my father's surgery? No one has given me any grief whatsoever about being single! Heaven bless us, everyone!
Monday, November 20, 2006
i now pronounce you shorty and wife
The dress was unquestionably lovely. And yes, she is scrunched down so that they're eye to eye, but I am also a tall girl who has dated not-so-tall men, and I understand The Scrunch that tall girls do for photos with their shorter men.
But why does Kat(i)e Holmes Cruise have my hair from after I go to the gym?
But why does Kat(i)e Holmes Cruise have my hair from after I go to the gym?
Sunday, November 19, 2006
i am NOT talking about the game today
At this point, it's pretty much just blogging for the sake of NaBloPoMo.
Friday, November 17, 2006
bo knew best
How is this possible?
Bo Schembechler is dead.
Today.
The day before the biggest college game ever. No, I would say, the biggest football game ever. The biggest game of the biggest rivalry ever in sports.
God help any Buckeye who rejoices in this. I will slaughter you, so help me Jesus.
If I were watching this game in a movie, watching all the events that led up to it, I would reject the coming together of all the elements even before this happened. Michigan and OSU are already the bitterest rivals of any two sports teams (yes, including the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry), but never before have they played each other when ranked as the top two teams nationally. OSU has the best QB in college ball, probably the best QB in their history, while Michigan's defense has given up on average only 30 yards per game, the best record of any team since 1959. Put it this way: this game is so big, the loser gets to go to the Rose Bowl.
But now... now it is a completely different game. Bo Schembechler coached the Wolverines during the most intense ten years of the UM-OSU rivalry, opposite his foul-tempered mentor OSU coach Woody Hayes, proud owner of the number one most unsportsmanlike moment in history. Growing up in Ann Arbor in the 80s meant that you worshipped at the altar of Schembechler. People spoke about him in hushed, reverent tones. He lived for Michigan football and he loved Game Day with Ohio State more than Christmas.
I seethe when Michigan alumni accuse me of not being a "real fan" because I didn't go to Michigan. That is a load of crap. I spent 18 years going to football games, four of them going to school directly across the stadium. I was at the Rose Bowl when Michigan won the 1997 National Championship (along with 20,00 other people from Ann Arbor-- it was very strange; you'd be walking along the pier or down Main Street in Disney World, and hey! there's the Rosenwasser family! and there's Dr. Joyner from the church!). You might call me a townie, fine, but I have years of being a Wolverine fan on most Michigan alums. I chose my own college in part because it didn't have a football program, and I wouldn't have to divide loyalties.
Michigan football is one of the very few things, along with my family and A Prairie Home Companion, that is forever tied to my fondest memories of growing up and that I deeply, affectionately cherish with no irony whatsoever. Bo Schembechler was the greatest coach that Michigan ever had, and more importantly, he was a great man who cared for his players and his community. He was aware of his place in history and took it seriously.
I was already jittery and excited for tomorrow. But now, we're winning it for Bo.
Bo Schembechler is dead.
Today.
The day before the biggest college game ever. No, I would say, the biggest football game ever. The biggest game of the biggest rivalry ever in sports.
God help any Buckeye who rejoices in this. I will slaughter you, so help me Jesus.
If I were watching this game in a movie, watching all the events that led up to it, I would reject the coming together of all the elements even before this happened. Michigan and OSU are already the bitterest rivals of any two sports teams (yes, including the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry), but never before have they played each other when ranked as the top two teams nationally. OSU has the best QB in college ball, probably the best QB in their history, while Michigan's defense has given up on average only 30 yards per game, the best record of any team since 1959. Put it this way: this game is so big, the loser gets to go to the Rose Bowl.
But now... now it is a completely different game. Bo Schembechler coached the Wolverines during the most intense ten years of the UM-OSU rivalry, opposite his foul-tempered mentor OSU coach Woody Hayes, proud owner of the number one most unsportsmanlike moment in history. Growing up in Ann Arbor in the 80s meant that you worshipped at the altar of Schembechler. People spoke about him in hushed, reverent tones. He lived for Michigan football and he loved Game Day with Ohio State more than Christmas.
I seethe when Michigan alumni accuse me of not being a "real fan" because I didn't go to Michigan. That is a load of crap. I spent 18 years going to football games, four of them going to school directly across the stadium. I was at the Rose Bowl when Michigan won the 1997 National Championship (along with 20,00 other people from Ann Arbor-- it was very strange; you'd be walking along the pier or down Main Street in Disney World, and hey! there's the Rosenwasser family! and there's Dr. Joyner from the church!). You might call me a townie, fine, but I have years of being a Wolverine fan on most Michigan alums. I chose my own college in part because it didn't have a football program, and I wouldn't have to divide loyalties.
Michigan football is one of the very few things, along with my family and A Prairie Home Companion, that is forever tied to my fondest memories of growing up and that I deeply, affectionately cherish with no irony whatsoever. Bo Schembechler was the greatest coach that Michigan ever had, and more importantly, he was a great man who cared for his players and his community. He was aware of his place in history and took it seriously.
I was already jittery and excited for tomorrow. But now, we're winning it for Bo.
Which is more annoying?
1) When a coworker non-ironically refers to "having a case of the Mondays?"
2) When a coworker refers to Wednesday as "Hump Day?"**
** Disclaimer: This is of course a completely hypothetical question that is in no way related to the author's own workplace. She is not so stupid as to blog about work, even in the most tangential of ways. Of course, if it were to have any coincidental relationship to the author's professional arrangements, well, then you couldn't prove it, nyah-nyah.
1) When a coworker non-ironically refers to "having a case of the Mondays?"
2) When a coworker refers to Wednesday as "Hump Day?"**
** Disclaimer: This is of course a completely hypothetical question that is in no way related to the author's own workplace. She is not so stupid as to blog about work, even in the most tangential of ways. Of course, if it were to have any coincidental relationship to the author's professional arrangements, well, then you couldn't prove it, nyah-nyah.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
you take the bad with the good
I don't have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy!
However, after three weeks of comfort eating and not being allowed to work out, I do have an unsightly extra few pounds.
If you need me, I'll be at the gym.
However, after three weeks of comfort eating and not being allowed to work out, I do have an unsightly extra few pounds.
If you need me, I'll be at the gym.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
no business like it
WARNING: The following is a story I wish to tell. However, its inherent randomness does not lend itself to traditional narrative structure. Please bear with me.
Friends, I am a deeply ridiculous human being.
Basically, I am the kind of person who has three glasses of cheap Merlot at happy hour, hears about an open audition for a professional theater company and says "Brilliant! Let's go!"
Really. Really. Ridiculous.
Perhaps some background might help here.
I went to this audition because several of us from Company were gathered for the birthday of one of our own and several of his friends (hi C!). After a few drinks and a lot of mutual adoration (have I mentioned how much these people rock? because they do), another friend shows up and tells us that she's on a break from an audition over at Studio Theater, waiting to be called to sing. Then her eyes got really big, and she said "EJ! You should totally come with!"
Now, I'm not the kind of girl who just steals someone's thunder and tags along with their cool lives. This goes double when it involves sheet music. But I had spent the last hour bitching about how much I missed being in a show. And even though it was an Equity production, it was an open call audition.
And also, I was nicely drunk by this point.
Smashing.
So, to make a very long story very short, three hours later I found myself in a green room backstage at the Studio Theater. Everyone else was very small, looked about fifteen and was groomed within an inch of their lives. One girl had so much blush on it appeared she'd been slashed in the cheeks on her way to the theater. The amount of overdone makeup and nude pantyhose in the room made it feel like a Young Republicans meeting.
And so, you ask, how did the audition go? Well... let's just say I don't think this will be my big break. See, for auditions you're always asked to prepare 16 bars, or 32 bars, or something. Most often, the musical director will cut you off when he or she has heard enough. They let me sing about 44 bars, all the way to the end of the song, and I honestly couldn't tell if it was because they liked my voice or if it was like when everyone cheers extra-loud in gym class when the "special" kid scores a goal.
Lessons Learned From Spontaneously Attending an Equity Musical Theater Audition after Cocktails on a Monday Night:
1) Don't.
2) Okay, fine, do. But know that you're going to sober up halfway through and find yourself in a little hallway filled with short girls wearing nude pantyhose and insanely high heels humming songs from Hairspray! under their breath and you're going to wonder exactly how this happened. And you might freak out a little bit.
3) Actors at a professional audition? Not nice. Really quite bitchy. Am used to community theater auditions, where you sit with friends and people smile at one another and whisper "you did such a good job!!" as people sit back down after singing, even if they forgot the words and started crying onstage.
4) Three glasses of wine + sudden drop in temperature + complete lack of preparation + inability to warm up voice = cracking while trying to belt a high E on a song I last successfully sang in the shower. So, um, warm up. 'Kay?
5) Write a really disjointed post about it on your blog, abandon any sense of structure or order in relating the story and know when to stop.
Friends, I am a deeply ridiculous human being.
Basically, I am the kind of person who has three glasses of cheap Merlot at happy hour, hears about an open audition for a professional theater company and says "Brilliant! Let's go!"
Really. Really. Ridiculous.
Perhaps some background might help here.
I went to this audition because several of us from Company were gathered for the birthday of one of our own and several of his friends (hi C!). After a few drinks and a lot of mutual adoration (have I mentioned how much these people rock? because they do), another friend shows up and tells us that she's on a break from an audition over at Studio Theater, waiting to be called to sing. Then her eyes got really big, and she said "EJ! You should totally come with!"
Now, I'm not the kind of girl who just steals someone's thunder and tags along with their cool lives. This goes double when it involves sheet music. But I had spent the last hour bitching about how much I missed being in a show. And even though it was an Equity production, it was an open call audition.
And also, I was nicely drunk by this point.
Smashing.
So, to make a very long story very short, three hours later I found myself in a green room backstage at the Studio Theater. Everyone else was very small, looked about fifteen and was groomed within an inch of their lives. One girl had so much blush on it appeared she'd been slashed in the cheeks on her way to the theater. The amount of overdone makeup and nude pantyhose in the room made it feel like a Young Republicans meeting.
And so, you ask, how did the audition go? Well... let's just say I don't think this will be my big break. See, for auditions you're always asked to prepare 16 bars, or 32 bars, or something. Most often, the musical director will cut you off when he or she has heard enough. They let me sing about 44 bars, all the way to the end of the song, and I honestly couldn't tell if it was because they liked my voice or if it was like when everyone cheers extra-loud in gym class when the "special" kid scores a goal.
Lessons Learned From Spontaneously Attending an Equity Musical Theater Audition after Cocktails on a Monday Night:
1) Don't.
2) Okay, fine, do. But know that you're going to sober up halfway through and find yourself in a little hallway filled with short girls wearing nude pantyhose and insanely high heels humming songs from Hairspray! under their breath and you're going to wonder exactly how this happened. And you might freak out a little bit.
3) Actors at a professional audition? Not nice. Really quite bitchy. Am used to community theater auditions, where you sit with friends and people smile at one another and whisper "you did such a good job!!" as people sit back down after singing, even if they forgot the words and started crying onstage.
4) Three glasses of wine + sudden drop in temperature + complete lack of preparation + inability to warm up voice = cracking while trying to belt a high E on a song I last successfully sang in the shower. So, um, warm up. 'Kay?
5) Write a really disjointed post about it on your blog, abandon any sense of structure or order in relating the story and know when to stop.
Monday, November 13, 2006
party in the back
Washington mornings on the Metro. Every day, the same. Company Men and Women in anonymous suits and sensible shoes. Maybe a particularly daring twentysomething guy will have floppy yet noncontroversial hair, a la Jim Halpert. The tired souls coming off a night shift might sprawl across two seats as they rest greasy heads against smudged windows, trying to catch a nap as they barrel out to the suburbs while dropping off commuters downtown.
Everyone stares vacantly and intently at nothing. IPod buds jam into the younger ears, while several middle-aged black women bend over worn copies of the New Testament, diligently taking notes in the margins. A girl in too-tight pegged jeans with purple beads clacking at the ends of her braids picks up a discarded copy of the paper from under her sneakered foot, scans the headlines and tosses it back to the floor.
Every day, the same.
Portly white gentleman outside Union Station who looks exactly like family friend Harry? Check.
WaPo Express barker, full of smiles even though it's a rainy Monday morning and his job is to hand papers to an endless stream of grumpy, scowling people? Check.
FeMullet Lady? Um, hello. That's new!
She has the most spectacular example of a femullet I've ever seen outside of the Midwest, and without the typical accompanying overalls, gaping maw full of Skoal and four rugrats clinging to her. Her blondish hair flows halfway down her back, but as the viewer's eyes travel up her mane they are abruptly assaulted by the sudden crop into a spiky two-inch buzz cut that begins at her crown. From this back view, it looks like Senator-elect Tester started playing with Jessica Simpson's line of hair extensions but got bored after the first round of gluing and went outside to butcher a cow.
She looks like any other middle-aged, white, petite, somewhat meek downtown Washington worker. Maybe a bank teller or a paralegal. Except for that glorious hair.
I'm overjoyed when she sits down beside me at Metro Center and I can get a closer look. She appears to be wearing slightly smudged brown eye shadow and has painted her fingernails a tasteful (if slightly dated) shade of dusty pink. She's wearing white sneakers with her black pantsuit, but in Washington that is less a crime against fashion than a sadly expected norm. She's also sporting a gold circle on her left ring finger.
In other words, FeMullet appears to pay attention to her appearance and take pains to make herself look good. She apparently has a partner (I'm guessing a husband, though the hair could be throwing off my Gaydar) that she wants to impress. She works in downtown DC, not downtown Duluth.
So.. how?? How did this hair happen? What inspired this woman to wake up one day and say "Mullets. That's where the future lies." Did she lose a bet? Is it a medical condition? Why does the rest of her look so normal while from the neck up she looks like she wandered out of an Evangelical Hoedown for Christ Weekend Retreat?
Before I can think of more questions, we lurch to a halt at our mutual station and she stands up to gather her purse and umbrella. As she turns to the door, her underlayers flap ever so gently in the ensuing breeze.
And I have to bite my lip from telling her "thank you for not being like everyone else in this town."
Everyone stares vacantly and intently at nothing. IPod buds jam into the younger ears, while several middle-aged black women bend over worn copies of the New Testament, diligently taking notes in the margins. A girl in too-tight pegged jeans with purple beads clacking at the ends of her braids picks up a discarded copy of the paper from under her sneakered foot, scans the headlines and tosses it back to the floor.
Every day, the same.
Portly white gentleman outside Union Station who looks exactly like family friend Harry? Check.
WaPo Express barker, full of smiles even though it's a rainy Monday morning and his job is to hand papers to an endless stream of grumpy, scowling people? Check.
FeMullet Lady? Um, hello. That's new!
She has the most spectacular example of a femullet I've ever seen outside of the Midwest, and without the typical accompanying overalls, gaping maw full of Skoal and four rugrats clinging to her. Her blondish hair flows halfway down her back, but as the viewer's eyes travel up her mane they are abruptly assaulted by the sudden crop into a spiky two-inch buzz cut that begins at her crown. From this back view, it looks like Senator-elect Tester started playing with Jessica Simpson's line of hair extensions but got bored after the first round of gluing and went outside to butcher a cow.
She looks like any other middle-aged, white, petite, somewhat meek downtown Washington worker. Maybe a bank teller or a paralegal. Except for that glorious hair.
I'm overjoyed when she sits down beside me at Metro Center and I can get a closer look. She appears to be wearing slightly smudged brown eye shadow and has painted her fingernails a tasteful (if slightly dated) shade of dusty pink. She's wearing white sneakers with her black pantsuit, but in Washington that is less a crime against fashion than a sadly expected norm. She's also sporting a gold circle on her left ring finger.
In other words, FeMullet appears to pay attention to her appearance and take pains to make herself look good. She apparently has a partner (I'm guessing a husband, though the hair could be throwing off my Gaydar) that she wants to impress. She works in downtown DC, not downtown Duluth.
So.. how?? How did this hair happen? What inspired this woman to wake up one day and say "Mullets. That's where the future lies." Did she lose a bet? Is it a medical condition? Why does the rest of her look so normal while from the neck up she looks like she wandered out of an Evangelical Hoedown for Christ Weekend Retreat?
Before I can think of more questions, we lurch to a halt at our mutual station and she stands up to gather her purse and umbrella. As she turns to the door, her underlayers flap ever so gently in the ensuing breeze.
And I have to bite my lip from telling her "thank you for not being like everyone else in this town."
on doofy grins, and the causes thereof
Very first trip to Forever 21 (my God, the bliss), Blogger Happy Hour, playing in leaves on an 80 degree Saturday in November, cheap wine in used bookstores, the Prettiest Person on the Internet turned 30, another semi-offensively themed suprise birthday party, Skyping with Libs, shrimp pasta, Baileys and John Cusack double feature during a chilly wet Sunday.
Now to get through Monday morning...
Sunday, November 12, 2006
one of those entries that would make my parents SHRIVEL with pride
"So when we do blow off a hooker, do you think it would cost more to do it off the ass or the belly button?"
"Wait, out the ass or off the ass? Because that's an important distinction."
"No, no, off, definitely cheek region, nothing internalized."
"Okay, in that case I'd have to say belly button."
"Really! You think? I'd have said ass for sure."
"Yeah, like, how can a belly button be more intimate than the ass?"
"It's not a matter of intimacy, it's simple physiology. The belly button has more crevasses, more coke would get caught in the skin flaps. You'd inevitably wind up spending a lot more just because you wouldn't be able to hoover everything you put in there, whereas on an asscheek, it would be much more efficient."
"Oh, wait, we're talking two separate paradigms here."
"Yeah, you're talking overall cost of the endeavor, while I'm talking cost of the hooker. As in, how much would she charge you for letting her do blow out of her belly button versus off of her ass."
"Ohhh, that makes sense. No, I see what you're saying."
"Yeah, she would likely charge less for the belly button, but it wouldn't make up for the deficit of extra coke lost in the flesh folds."
"You do realize this is the worst conversation anyone has ever had, ever in the history of all time?"
"Yes, completely."
"Good, just making sure."
"Wait, out the ass or off the ass? Because that's an important distinction."
"No, no, off, definitely cheek region, nothing internalized."
"Okay, in that case I'd have to say belly button."
"Really! You think? I'd have said ass for sure."
"Yeah, like, how can a belly button be more intimate than the ass?"
"It's not a matter of intimacy, it's simple physiology. The belly button has more crevasses, more coke would get caught in the skin flaps. You'd inevitably wind up spending a lot more just because you wouldn't be able to hoover everything you put in there, whereas on an asscheek, it would be much more efficient."
"Oh, wait, we're talking two separate paradigms here."
"Yeah, you're talking overall cost of the endeavor, while I'm talking cost of the hooker. As in, how much would she charge you for letting her do blow out of her belly button versus off of her ass."
"Ohhh, that makes sense. No, I see what you're saying."
"Yeah, she would likely charge less for the belly button, but it wouldn't make up for the deficit of extra coke lost in the flesh folds."
"You do realize this is the worst conversation anyone has ever had, ever in the history of all time?"
"Yes, completely."
"Good, just making sure."
Friday, November 10, 2006
one more leeeettle favor this week
This week has been full of incredibly good things. Nationally we've celebrated Democrats winning back Congress and the unceremonious dumping of both Donald Rumsfeld and Kevin Federline, and on a personal note, the birthdays of my most favoritest people and weather so freakishly warm that I wore flipflops to work today (yes, in NOVEMBER, sorry Al but I'm kind of loving global warming at this moment). Best of all, my sister's heart test results came back fine. Exhales.
Now, I don't want to be greedy. It's been an amazingly good week. But I would have no objection at all if the Baby Jesus decided to extend this luck at the very least through tomorrow morning, when I have my own echocardiogram. Y'know, just saying.
And while we're at it, how about some inspiration? Because honestly, I'm running out of topics to make daily blogging interesting, and we are but nine days into NaBloPoMo. Suggestions from the peanut gallery are welcome.
See you guys at Blogsiving tomorrow-- I will hopefully be able to let you buy me a "Congratulations, You Don't Display the Symptoms of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy!" cocktail.
Now, I don't want to be greedy. It's been an amazingly good week. But I would have no objection at all if the Baby Jesus decided to extend this luck at the very least through tomorrow morning, when I have my own echocardiogram. Y'know, just saying.
And while we're at it, how about some inspiration? Because honestly, I'm running out of topics to make daily blogging interesting, and we are but nine days into NaBloPoMo. Suggestions from the peanut gallery are welcome.
See you guys at Blogsiving tomorrow-- I will hopefully be able to let you buy me a "Congratulations, You Don't Display the Symptoms of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy!" cocktail.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Yeah, NOW he wants bipartisanship.
I am so happy. So very, very happy. Still biting fingernails to the quick because of Virginia, but still incredibly, extremely happy.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
britney spears: political prognosicator
Does anyone else feel that Britney Spears filing for divorce is a really, really good omen for the election results tonight? There's a sense in the air of rolling up sleeves and cleaning up after big mistakes, mistakes that EVERYONE KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING were terrible ideas and bad and costly and would make you have two babies in fourteen months with a D-list David Silver and invade a nation that did not at all pose a direct threat to our safety thus getting America involved in a hugely unpopular and costly war that makes the rest of the world hate us and, like, appear on Dateline looking like something Pa dragged out from under the '78 Buick LeSabre propped on cinderblocks in front of the trailer park.
It's all very "waking up from our long national nightmare."
It's all very "waking up from our long national nightmare."
this porcupine has to win
This NaBloPoMo business is proving tougher than I thought. Day Six and I'm hurting for content.
Blog about the election? Hrmmm? What is this "election" business you speak of?
Sorry, don't got much for you there. There are a million other people who do that way better than me, and judging from the lack of comments when I do blog about something political, you all would much rather read thoughts on why we're going to hell in a handbasket elsewhere.
It's not that I'm not excited about the election. I am thrilled with the very thought of removing Republicans from Congress, and am very pleased that finally, finally Americans seem to be letting substantive issues guide their votes, as opposed to wedge issues like gay marriage or ill-defined "morality" concerns. Unpopular war from unpopular president = removal of president's party from Congressional power. I may have only pulled a C in trigonometry, but that's an equation I can get behind.
What makes me unenthused is that Democrats don't seem to have any more of a plan for getting us out of Iraq while leaving it even close to the shape we found her in. Nor is there a comprehensive party platform on domestic concerns such as raising the minimum wage, implementing a national health care system, making college tuition tax deductible or any of the major issues you can hear on the campaign trail. It's a lot of promises but there isn't even agreement within the party of 1) if they should be acted on or 2) how to act on them. "Not Republican" is good, but "in possession of a comprehensive strategy to get us out of the mess the Republicans got us into" is much better.
Maybe I'm too cynical and tomorrow will usher in a new era of progressive social policies designed to help the most disenfranchised members of our society in the ways they tell us they need help, all while mending fences with the increasingly anti-American world at large. Or, maybe nothing substantive will change tomorrow.
Um.
Did I depress you thoroughly there? So sorry. Here, watch something funny and appropos of nothing. Oh, and vote.
Blog about the election? Hrmmm? What is this "election" business you speak of?
Sorry, don't got much for you there. There are a million other people who do that way better than me, and judging from the lack of comments when I do blog about something political, you all would much rather read thoughts on why we're going to hell in a handbasket elsewhere.
It's not that I'm not excited about the election. I am thrilled with the very thought of removing Republicans from Congress, and am very pleased that finally, finally Americans seem to be letting substantive issues guide their votes, as opposed to wedge issues like gay marriage or ill-defined "morality" concerns. Unpopular war from unpopular president = removal of president's party from Congressional power. I may have only pulled a C in trigonometry, but that's an equation I can get behind.
What makes me unenthused is that Democrats don't seem to have any more of a plan for getting us out of Iraq while leaving it even close to the shape we found her in. Nor is there a comprehensive party platform on domestic concerns such as raising the minimum wage, implementing a national health care system, making college tuition tax deductible or any of the major issues you can hear on the campaign trail. It's a lot of promises but there isn't even agreement within the party of 1) if they should be acted on or 2) how to act on them. "Not Republican" is good, but "in possession of a comprehensive strategy to get us out of the mess the Republicans got us into" is much better.
Maybe I'm too cynical and tomorrow will usher in a new era of progressive social policies designed to help the most disenfranchised members of our society in the ways they tell us they need help, all while mending fences with the increasingly anti-American world at large. Or, maybe nothing substantive will change tomorrow.
Um.
Did I depress you thoroughly there? So sorry. Here, watch something funny and appropos of nothing. Oh, and vote.
Monday, November 06, 2006
cringe!
As some of you may know, the brilliant Sarah of Que Sera Sera runs a show called Cringe! where bloggers and writers hang out in bars and do dramatic readings of their childhood journals. I've been a huge fan of this for a long time, because, well, imagine how overwrought I get in this space and then add in adolescent hormones and being stranded in a large Midwestern high school. The ANGST, people. Oh my god, the ANGST. The way I wrote in 1996 you'd think I was living in Bosnia instead of suburban Detroit.
Back in January I'd asked Sarah if I could borrow the Cringe! name to organize a similar show at the DC Fringe Festival called Cringe! At The Fringe! She wrote me a very polite email back explaining that they were in the process of securing TV rights for Cringe! and therefore I would be unable to use that name. Frankly, I thought she was taking the piss out of me, because while I loved the idea and everyone I mentioned it to loved it, it seemed to require a certain distance and appreciation of irony. Repatraited East Coasters would completely dig it, but would the people who stayed in their hometowns and started popping out babies upon receiving a high school diploma appreciate the hilarity of publicly reading their diaries?
It turns out yes, because Sarah recently included me on an Evite to attend the first taping of Cringe! (Sarah, if you're reading this, thank you and good luck!) I really wish that I could go, but there's that whole pesky not-living-in-New-York thing.
Getting the Evite inspired me to pull out my old middle school and high school diaries, which I brought back home with me the last time I was in Michigan. Last night I poured myself a very large glass of Cab Sav, put on The Cure t-shirt with Robert Smith's face on it that my high school boyfriend gave me when I asked for something of his to sleep in (oh, how my father just LOVED that), and cracked open the diaries.
And, sweet Merlin's beard, it was horrifying. More hysterically scary than I ever could have imagined. I mean, I remember watching a lot of My So-Called Life and thinking that I WAS Angela Chase because I moped a lot and had dyed red hair, but I honestly had no idea that that level of tormented angst had seeped into my journaling. Has it really been only nine years since I was that tortured and self-obsessed? Did I really throw around the word "love" with so much abandon while being such a gigantic prude? Was I seriously that dramatic? If so, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone I ever knew between the years of 1994 and 1999.
There were some entries about my high school boyfriend that were actually really quite sweet, and I'm so glad I wrote down the things he said because they are to this day the best things that a guy has ever told me. Sorry, kids, I'm keeping first love to myself. But I will leave you with two passages I once wrote in complete dead seriousness that last night made me laugh so hard I snorted wine out of my nose onto the cat:
"Dear Diary, Mike is so incredibly cute... without his glasses, he looks exactly like Harvey in Sabrina, The Teenage Witch!"
"Dear Diary, In one instant, my dreams were hopelessly shattered in front of me and my family is picking up the pieces and cutting me with them. It is so unfair that I'm taller than Donny Osmond!"
Back in January I'd asked Sarah if I could borrow the Cringe! name to organize a similar show at the DC Fringe Festival called Cringe! At The Fringe! She wrote me a very polite email back explaining that they were in the process of securing TV rights for Cringe! and therefore I would be unable to use that name. Frankly, I thought she was taking the piss out of me, because while I loved the idea and everyone I mentioned it to loved it, it seemed to require a certain distance and appreciation of irony. Repatraited East Coasters would completely dig it, but would the people who stayed in their hometowns and started popping out babies upon receiving a high school diploma appreciate the hilarity of publicly reading their diaries?
It turns out yes, because Sarah recently included me on an Evite to attend the first taping of Cringe! (Sarah, if you're reading this, thank you and good luck!) I really wish that I could go, but there's that whole pesky not-living-in-New-York thing.
Getting the Evite inspired me to pull out my old middle school and high school diaries, which I brought back home with me the last time I was in Michigan. Last night I poured myself a very large glass of Cab Sav, put on The Cure t-shirt with Robert Smith's face on it that my high school boyfriend gave me when I asked for something of his to sleep in (oh, how my father just LOVED that), and cracked open the diaries.
And, sweet Merlin's beard, it was horrifying. More hysterically scary than I ever could have imagined. I mean, I remember watching a lot of My So-Called Life and thinking that I WAS Angela Chase because I moped a lot and had dyed red hair, but I honestly had no idea that that level of tormented angst had seeped into my journaling. Has it really been only nine years since I was that tortured and self-obsessed? Did I really throw around the word "love" with so much abandon while being such a gigantic prude? Was I seriously that dramatic? If so, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone I ever knew between the years of 1994 and 1999.
There were some entries about my high school boyfriend that were actually really quite sweet, and I'm so glad I wrote down the things he said because they are to this day the best things that a guy has ever told me. Sorry, kids, I'm keeping first love to myself. But I will leave you with two passages I once wrote in complete dead seriousness that last night made me laugh so hard I snorted wine out of my nose onto the cat:
"Dear Diary, Mike is so incredibly cute... without his glasses, he looks exactly like Harvey in Sabrina, The Teenage Witch!"
"Dear Diary, In one instant, my dreams were hopelessly shattered in front of me and my family is picking up the pieces and cutting me with them. It is so unfair that I'm taller than Donny Osmond!"
Sunday, November 05, 2006
adult education
"So, does anyone feel like taking a blowjob class with me?"
Long pause.
"I thought we were taking Argentinian tango classes."
Long pause.
"I thought we were taking Argentinian tango classes."
Friday, November 03, 2006
schadenfreude is the new prayer
It is very un-Christian of me to be so damn gleeful about Ted Haggard, the (former!) head pastor of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitting that he purchased meth (but didn't use it!) and solicitied a gay male prostitute. But whoops, don't get too gleeful, because now Haggard is saying that he solicited a gay male prostitute for a MASSAGE. After all, it's written in the Bible:
"And Jesus did sayeth unto his disciples, 'thou shalt have none of thy fairy bretheren anoint thine junk, nor shalt thou anointeth theirs, but thine shoulders be sore from tilling thy fields for mine glory, a rubdown is totally okay.'" Luke 6:9
This guy happens to be a "character" in the movie Jesus Camp, which I saw last weekend at E Street Cinema and has been sticking with me since. The kids in this movie are really great-- obviously very passionate and incredibly well-spoken for such young people. They are clearly smart enough to handle a complex and ambiguous world, which made it all the more painful to watch them being molded to see only black and white, good and evil, heaven and hell.
Reverend Ted came on at the very end of the movie, just in time to yell at the camera operator as they filmed him preaching in his (former!) church in Colorado Springs. That smarmy grin of his was practically demonic as he preached just the most vile, incindiary hate speech at this really great boy who gazed at him with wonder and awe. Knowing that scum like that-- someone who gleefully brags about shaping a "Christian army to take back America" and who takes obvious pride in brainwashing children to hate-- has the ear of the President while good people work for worthy causes and face the derision of the White House every day made my blood boil.
Or rather, I should say "had the ear of the President." Something tells me that from now on Dubya will be too busy on Mondays to meet with his favorite Evangelical Hypocrite.
"And Jesus did sayeth unto his disciples, 'thou shalt have none of thy fairy bretheren anoint thine junk, nor shalt thou anointeth theirs, but thine shoulders be sore from tilling thy fields for mine glory, a rubdown is totally okay.'" Luke 6:9
This guy happens to be a "character" in the movie Jesus Camp, which I saw last weekend at E Street Cinema and has been sticking with me since. The kids in this movie are really great-- obviously very passionate and incredibly well-spoken for such young people. They are clearly smart enough to handle a complex and ambiguous world, which made it all the more painful to watch them being molded to see only black and white, good and evil, heaven and hell.
Reverend Ted came on at the very end of the movie, just in time to yell at the camera operator as they filmed him preaching in his (former!) church in Colorado Springs. That smarmy grin of his was practically demonic as he preached just the most vile, incindiary hate speech at this really great boy who gazed at him with wonder and awe. Knowing that scum like that-- someone who gleefully brags about shaping a "Christian army to take back America" and who takes obvious pride in brainwashing children to hate-- has the ear of the President while good people work for worthy causes and face the derision of the White House every day made my blood boil.
Or rather, I should say "had the ear of the President." Something tells me that from now on Dubya will be too busy on Mondays to meet with his favorite Evangelical Hypocrite.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
into the fray she descends
What is fair game on a blog?
Several people have written on this lately, and it's an interesting question. How much should you censor your writing when you aren't the subject? Does a blogger have the right to tell another person's story?
How much of a blog about another person should be abstract and disguised with euphamisms and nicknames? I'm not even talking about about quality of your content here (I once referred to an ex as The Boyfriend, thereby committing Awful Blogging Cliche #417); just the responsibility factor. Because there is some majorly effed up stuff going on with some other bloggers, and the hints and winks and nudges don't disguise it and don't make it less ugly than the people who put a name to a face, or blog, or whatever.
I happen to think that criticism of writing is fair game. You write, people read what you write, they have opinions on it. And yes, I know I enjoy run-on sentences and split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions way too much. And I type in all caps way too much. And many other things. And I start sentences with "And." If someone wants to call me out for that or other things about my writing, that's definitely playing by the rules.
This doesn't mean that all criticism is good. A lot of critics are tools, or stupid, or ill-informed. But hey, even the dumbasses get space on the Internet just like we do. That whole First Amendment thing is such a pest.
Where this gets murky is when the criticism starts to get personal. A lot of us write about our personal lives on our blogs, which begs the argument that as content, our personal lives are fair game for other people to comment on. Even if we bloggers don't like that, we have to accept the reality of it.
Just as readers have the right to call out a blogger, so does a blogger have the right to defend him or herself. We get these little corners of the Internet so that we can make our voices heard, and it's completely understandable to get defensive when someone makes fun of or disparages what we do here.
I don't believe for a single second that there is one person on the planet who is immune to criticism and mockery. Whenever people say "I don't care what you think of me," I instead hear "Oh God, pleeeeease like me." Bloggers especially-- be honest, we all have open comment boxes and Sitemeters for a reason. I mean, if you really don't care what other people think, why are you giving them your writing in the first place? Why not just keep a journal?
So, how much responsibility should a blogger take for the stories he or she does tell? If your readers choose to get very fired-up about a topic and take it beyond your original intent, do you have to own that? Recently some well-known bloggers (who I read and enjoy) had their children's posted photos taken and Photoshopped in rather crude ways by some blogger looking for attention. He got it, all right-- we're talking hundreds of comments calling him sick, vile, a pervert, threatening legal action and violence against his right to publish and his body. Honestly, those strings of comments, which were meant to be supportive, creeped me out more than some random loser who Photoshopped a turd into a photo of a toddler.
Sometime the cure is worse than the disease, people. Righteous anger from the parents is understandable, but a there is a difference between a child molester and a garden-variety jerk, a distinction that seemed to be lost on the general audience.
Something similar is happening now, and the bile that people seem to have for someone who "attacks" a popular blogger is really disturbing. I assume there's other, non-posted stuff going on that I don't know about, because people are saying some really nasty stuff that in my opinion is not fair game. Not to get too Pollyanna here, but if we channeled all of that nastiness into getting angry about something that actually had significance to the general world, like, oh, say, that war we're in or the pathetic state of the public schools in this city or the fact that my Safeway seems to have stopped stocking Softbatch cookies and that is REALLY NOT OKAY, then maybe we could get some good done out of all this anger? Productivity, not mud-slinging? Is that too idealistic a pipe-dream for this town?
Writing and writing styles are personal, but bloggers are all about making the personal public. So where does that leave us? Bound by very few rules and safe to hide in comment boxes and write things we would never say in public to a person's face because most of us really are very decent, very nice people who don't harbor violent fantasies or walk around telling perfect strangers that they're twatwaffles. Or we hide behind "personas" to bash people and lifestyles and choices and defend being a jerk because we're writing in character, like, it's just a role people, and you know I don't really mean the things I write here but I'm still keepin' it real.
Hell, I don't know where the line is. I doubt there is one. But I've read a lot of stuff lately that made me think "wow, that was not cool."
Several people have written on this lately, and it's an interesting question. How much should you censor your writing when you aren't the subject? Does a blogger have the right to tell another person's story?
How much of a blog about another person should be abstract and disguised with euphamisms and nicknames? I'm not even talking about about quality of your content here (I once referred to an ex as The Boyfriend, thereby committing Awful Blogging Cliche #417); just the responsibility factor. Because there is some majorly effed up stuff going on with some other bloggers, and the hints and winks and nudges don't disguise it and don't make it less ugly than the people who put a name to a face, or blog, or whatever.
I happen to think that criticism of writing is fair game. You write, people read what you write, they have opinions on it. And yes, I know I enjoy run-on sentences and split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions way too much. And I type in all caps way too much. And many other things. And I start sentences with "And." If someone wants to call me out for that or other things about my writing, that's definitely playing by the rules.
This doesn't mean that all criticism is good. A lot of critics are tools, or stupid, or ill-informed. But hey, even the dumbasses get space on the Internet just like we do. That whole First Amendment thing is such a pest.
Where this gets murky is when the criticism starts to get personal. A lot of us write about our personal lives on our blogs, which begs the argument that as content, our personal lives are fair game for other people to comment on. Even if we bloggers don't like that, we have to accept the reality of it.
Just as readers have the right to call out a blogger, so does a blogger have the right to defend him or herself. We get these little corners of the Internet so that we can make our voices heard, and it's completely understandable to get defensive when someone makes fun of or disparages what we do here.
I don't believe for a single second that there is one person on the planet who is immune to criticism and mockery. Whenever people say "I don't care what you think of me," I instead hear "Oh God, pleeeeease like me." Bloggers especially-- be honest, we all have open comment boxes and Sitemeters for a reason. I mean, if you really don't care what other people think, why are you giving them your writing in the first place? Why not just keep a journal?
So, how much responsibility should a blogger take for the stories he or she does tell? If your readers choose to get very fired-up about a topic and take it beyond your original intent, do you have to own that? Recently some well-known bloggers (who I read and enjoy) had their children's posted photos taken and Photoshopped in rather crude ways by some blogger looking for attention. He got it, all right-- we're talking hundreds of comments calling him sick, vile, a pervert, threatening legal action and violence against his right to publish and his body. Honestly, those strings of comments, which were meant to be supportive, creeped me out more than some random loser who Photoshopped a turd into a photo of a toddler.
Sometime the cure is worse than the disease, people. Righteous anger from the parents is understandable, but a there is a difference between a child molester and a garden-variety jerk, a distinction that seemed to be lost on the general audience.
Something similar is happening now, and the bile that people seem to have for someone who "attacks" a popular blogger is really disturbing. I assume there's other, non-posted stuff going on that I don't know about, because people are saying some really nasty stuff that in my opinion is not fair game. Not to get too Pollyanna here, but if we channeled all of that nastiness into getting angry about something that actually had significance to the general world, like, oh, say, that war we're in or the pathetic state of the public schools in this city or the fact that my Safeway seems to have stopped stocking Softbatch cookies and that is REALLY NOT OKAY, then maybe we could get some good done out of all this anger? Productivity, not mud-slinging? Is that too idealistic a pipe-dream for this town?
Writing and writing styles are personal, but bloggers are all about making the personal public. So where does that leave us? Bound by very few rules and safe to hide in comment boxes and write things we would never say in public to a person's face because most of us really are very decent, very nice people who don't harbor violent fantasies or walk around telling perfect strangers that they're twatwaffles. Or we hide behind "personas" to bash people and lifestyles and choices and defend being a jerk because we're writing in character, like, it's just a role people, and you know I don't really mean the things I write here but I'm still keepin' it real.
Hell, I don't know where the line is. I doubt there is one. But I've read a lot of stuff lately that made me think "wow, that was not cool."
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
but at least i never gave whiskey to any children
So I decided to skip M Street and hand out candy this Halloween. Going out on Halloween is fun, but since I've already dressed up as a filthy pirate whore once this year, I didn't feel the urge to replicate the experience with thousands of drunken college students dressed as Borat, Mark Foley or more filthy pirate whores in Georgetown. I mean, you've seen one grown man in a twelve-foot penis costume, you've seen them all. Am I right?
So instead I poured my mini candy bars in a bowl, lit a bunch of candles and set up the speakers by the windows to blast the Decemberists over my tiny yard. It ain't "Thriller," but the lyrics of "Shankill Butcher" are quite Halloweeny, thank you. Plus I'd just seen The Decemberists the night before and was still in the post-concert mode of listening to everything by the band you just saw (still am; am listening to the NPR recording of the concert as I type this and humming along to "Sons and Daughters").
My walk home should have warned me what was about to happen. If the lighting technicians working on the haunted house on 7th and East Capitol hadn't clued me in, you'd think I would have perhaps gleaned from the house blasting "Thriller" so loudly I could hear it a block away as purple strobe lights flashed all over the front yard that Halloween on the Hill was going to be a BFD this year.
I had thought that two bags of mini Hershey bars would be sufficient for trick-or-treaters. After all, though my neighborhood is decidedly safe and charming, it's still transitioning and is not the kind of place where kids ride their bikes on the street before Mom calls them into dinner.
The trick-or-treaters came. They came in hordes, packs of five and ten little Spidermen, witches, butterflies and basketball players, little feet clopping down my dungeon-like steps to grab at the mini Hershey bars. I was completely out of candy in twenty minutes.
I pulled the drapes shut and blew out the tea candles in the window to discourage more trick-or-treaters until I figured out what to do. It was barely 7:00 at this point, and more kids would be demanding more candy. I didn't want to be that mean lady who gives out apples or toothbrushes, because I always made fun of that lady when I was a kid and more importantly, because her house always got egged, but I had no candy anywhere in my house. Finally I took the brownie cupcakes I'd planned on using for my boss' birthday party tomorrow and started stuffing them in plastic bags to distribute. I didn't really want to give them away, but it was either that or my collection of mini liquor bottles, and hey, the cobbler needs to be paid.
I gave a brownie to the next girl who came by with her parents, and I think she must have a My First Blackberry or something, because suddenly every kid on the Hill seemed to know that the white girl who lives in the basement with the gray cat was handing out brownies. I got mobbed, people. Brownies were gone almost as soon as I finished bagging them up, and not just to kids dressed in costumes-- parents were helping themselves. One dad looked so excited you'd think I'd given him a space cake.
So I'm out of candy, out of brownies and there are some hungry kids at the door. A sane person would have just run to the 7-11 down the street, or perhaps would have just shut the blinds and turned on the TV to ignore Halloween. But we all know I'm not a sane person, and besides, think of the children! Yes, even the boys who have clearly not attempted a costume and are wandering around the Hill in basketball jerseys and mumble "turkurturt" then shove an open backpack at me! I can't turn them away, little rascals!
Seriously the only sugary thing I had left in my kitchen was a half-eaten pint of Haagen Daas Bailey's Ice Cream, and I was fairly sure that most Halloween chaperones would object to both its ingredients and consistency. But- ahha! That giant container of pretzels from Costco that was leftover from Drunk-In-The-Woods! Pretzels keep well, right? Pretzels keep for like, nine months of living on top of a refrigerator, right? Right? And a handful of nine-month old pretzels in a hastily assembled Saran-Wrap bundle is way better than, say, a Hershey bar! Right?
The lesson is, as most lessons are: Buy More Candy Next Time.
So instead I poured my mini candy bars in a bowl, lit a bunch of candles and set up the speakers by the windows to blast the Decemberists over my tiny yard. It ain't "Thriller," but the lyrics of "Shankill Butcher" are quite Halloweeny, thank you. Plus I'd just seen The Decemberists the night before and was still in the post-concert mode of listening to everything by the band you just saw (still am; am listening to the NPR recording of the concert as I type this and humming along to "Sons and Daughters").
My walk home should have warned me what was about to happen. If the lighting technicians working on the haunted house on 7th and East Capitol hadn't clued me in, you'd think I would have perhaps gleaned from the house blasting "Thriller" so loudly I could hear it a block away as purple strobe lights flashed all over the front yard that Halloween on the Hill was going to be a BFD this year.
I had thought that two bags of mini Hershey bars would be sufficient for trick-or-treaters. After all, though my neighborhood is decidedly safe and charming, it's still transitioning and is not the kind of place where kids ride their bikes on the street before Mom calls them into dinner.
The trick-or-treaters came. They came in hordes, packs of five and ten little Spidermen, witches, butterflies and basketball players, little feet clopping down my dungeon-like steps to grab at the mini Hershey bars. I was completely out of candy in twenty minutes.
I pulled the drapes shut and blew out the tea candles in the window to discourage more trick-or-treaters until I figured out what to do. It was barely 7:00 at this point, and more kids would be demanding more candy. I didn't want to be that mean lady who gives out apples or toothbrushes, because I always made fun of that lady when I was a kid and more importantly, because her house always got egged, but I had no candy anywhere in my house. Finally I took the brownie cupcakes I'd planned on using for my boss' birthday party tomorrow and started stuffing them in plastic bags to distribute. I didn't really want to give them away, but it was either that or my collection of mini liquor bottles, and hey, the cobbler needs to be paid.
I gave a brownie to the next girl who came by with her parents, and I think she must have a My First Blackberry or something, because suddenly every kid on the Hill seemed to know that the white girl who lives in the basement with the gray cat was handing out brownies. I got mobbed, people. Brownies were gone almost as soon as I finished bagging them up, and not just to kids dressed in costumes-- parents were helping themselves. One dad looked so excited you'd think I'd given him a space cake.
So I'm out of candy, out of brownies and there are some hungry kids at the door. A sane person would have just run to the 7-11 down the street, or perhaps would have just shut the blinds and turned on the TV to ignore Halloween. But we all know I'm not a sane person, and besides, think of the children! Yes, even the boys who have clearly not attempted a costume and are wandering around the Hill in basketball jerseys and mumble "turkurturt" then shove an open backpack at me! I can't turn them away, little rascals!
Seriously the only sugary thing I had left in my kitchen was a half-eaten pint of Haagen Daas Bailey's Ice Cream, and I was fairly sure that most Halloween chaperones would object to both its ingredients and consistency. But- ahha! That giant container of pretzels from Costco that was leftover from Drunk-In-The-Woods! Pretzels keep well, right? Pretzels keep for like, nine months of living on top of a refrigerator, right? Right? And a handful of nine-month old pretzels in a hastily assembled Saran-Wrap bundle is way better than, say, a Hershey bar! Right?
The lesson is, as most lessons are: Buy More Candy Next Time.
Monday, October 30, 2006
E.V.O.Bleeeeeeech
What. The. Hell.
Why would Nabisco do this? Why would they take the most perfect snack food in the world, Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins-- that sweet, salty, rib-stickingly delicious nourishment of the angels-- and ruin it by sticking Rachael Ray's stupid face all over the box? I have made my feelings about Rachael Ray VERY CLEAR and so can only assume that Nabisco wants me to feel conflicted and cry. That is the only explanation.
It was bad enough when I opened my new InStyle to find a six-page spread on her perfect New York loft, and it was really bad when I started coveting her kitchen (those tiles would look so good on my backsplash!). But this... this is completely unacceptable. I do not want to see that smarmy, annoying catch phrase-spouting, criminally undertipping face anywhere NEAR my most favoritest snack food ever. Nabisco, I will "Yum-O!" your ASS. No, I don't know exactly know what I mean by that and realize that I don't exactly have a plan for how I will do that, since the most damaging thing I could do would be to not buy Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins and that is so not an option, but know that I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU.
And her recipe for Mexican Poblano Bean Dip looks like barfed poop.
Why would Nabisco do this? Why would they take the most perfect snack food in the world, Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins-- that sweet, salty, rib-stickingly delicious nourishment of the angels-- and ruin it by sticking Rachael Ray's stupid face all over the box? I have made my feelings about Rachael Ray VERY CLEAR and so can only assume that Nabisco wants me to feel conflicted and cry. That is the only explanation.
It was bad enough when I opened my new InStyle to find a six-page spread on her perfect New York loft, and it was really bad when I started coveting her kitchen (those tiles would look so good on my backsplash!). But this... this is completely unacceptable. I do not want to see that smarmy, annoying catch phrase-spouting, criminally undertipping face anywhere NEAR my most favoritest snack food ever. Nabisco, I will "Yum-O!" your ASS. No, I don't know exactly know what I mean by that and realize that I don't exactly have a plan for how I will do that, since the most damaging thing I could do would be to not buy Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins and that is so not an option, but know that I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU.
And her recipe for Mexican Poblano Bean Dip looks like barfed poop.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
your tax dollars at work
Imagine my surprise when I found this little gem of an email waiting for me when I got out of my meeting this afternoon:
You submitted an application for vacancy 050298: Writer-Editor, GS-1082-11. Although we greatly appreciate your interest in this position, ultimately another candidate was selected.
Again, we appreciate your interest in employment with the Library Of Congress.
Yes, I did submit an application for this position. IN DECEMBER OF 2005.
Good thing I wasn't holding my breath there.
Though to be fair, the Library of Congress is very, very busy making sure their employees are properly equipped with Glow Sticks in case of a terrorist attack. Probably HR was diverted from processing job applications because the Library needed them to distribute anti-aircraft disco balls.
You submitted an application for vacancy 050298: Writer-Editor, GS-1082-11. Although we greatly appreciate your interest in this position, ultimately another candidate was selected.
Again, we appreciate your interest in employment with the Library Of Congress.
Yes, I did submit an application for this position. IN DECEMBER OF 2005.
Good thing I wasn't holding my breath there.
Though to be fair, the Library of Congress is very, very busy making sure their employees are properly equipped with Glow Sticks in case of a terrorist attack. Probably HR was diverted from processing job applications because the Library needed them to distribute anti-aircraft disco balls.
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