What to do when Mamala Nature takes mother’s day weekend off and leaves you with wet-blanket and terminal killjoy aunt Rainy Pants? I already mentioned games, and also puzzles, and for some there was great joy to be found in the foozball table in the back family room. But when all else fails: FOOOOOD.
But allow me to back-peddle to the weekend before our coast trip, to the entire family sitting around planning the “who brings what” portion of the trip so as to make sure that we do not repeat the ‘weekend of being smothered to deathly death by pile upon pile of TP Rolls while simultaneously having no dish soap or garbage bags (with which we could have fought off the hordes of TP rolls I’m sure!)’ of 2005. And in that conversation we assigned snacks. ASSIGNED SNACKS. Because somebody actually decided that there was some kind of badness to fear from having not one but MANY bags of Lays thick cut potato chips or a MULTITUDE of cookie-foods or some possibility that our weekend would eat up all of the peanuts in the peanut-eating free world.
I understand the planning for the necessities, but let snacks be free, people, chosen of the whim of the shopper as they wander down the aisles of movie candy or crackers or even snacky fruit! One man’s trail mix is another man’s “Thank God I brought a one gallon carton of cheddar cheese goldfish!”
And so, despite our attempts to control and limit and impose our will on the snacks when the weekend arrived the balance of the munchie-consuming world was returned with each non-sanctioned additional back of cheese-powder-covered pretzels and cheap, generic, but still scrumptious bags of “orange slices” candy that was pulled from various bags and bundles!
All these snacks were in ADDITION to the fabulous meals already planned for the weekend. We attack both dinners (Friday and Saturday nights) with small, united forces of family clumps. “you guys are making a burrito bar with nachos and big, mexi salad on Friday while WE make chicken picata, with extra many and extra HOOGE capers and bread and veggies and pasta and CAPERS on Saturday” and hey, pass me that bag of grapes and the dark chocolate M&Ms please!
And lest we forget the culinary star of the weekend/show: the mother’s day breakfast/brunch, which is planned out by all the non-moms (or really is SUPPOSED to be planned out by the non-moms, but it’s just super hard for moms to not get involved! I believe it will be necessary to strap our various moms down in chairs in order to let the kids, dads and assorted non-mothers to do their things completely w/out help.) This year much was made of the need to reel things in a little bit, on account of this thing we were gonna do on the way home and which would require our bugging out early. AND YET still the mother’s day morning feast was eggs made ON DEMAND (as in “I’d like 2 eggs over easy and my friend here will have like scrambled with cheese and these seven dwarves will have seven petite omelets!”) PLUS fresh-baked pecan rolls and croissants and fruit salad and home-baked bread toast and fancy breakfast meat! Never ending, non-stop breakfast foods of good and glorious and WANTON abandon. And a happy mother’s day to you mothers you! And a non nom nom NOMMY NOMMY NOM!
And then maybe? Chocolate-covered orange slice pretzels dipped in cheese-powder and ranch dressing as a post-brunch SNACK!
May 15, 10:47am, edited to add: ALL HAIL THE FANCY BREAKFAST MEATS! I have pined for their bacony, brown-sugary majesty ever since writing this last night. Now I nom, nom, nom my own hand and wish it were fancy breakfast meat. I'll never make it to next May...
…tomorrow: Call Me Ishmael…
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Act Two: The Games Beach People Play...
OK, so once you get past all the “Wow, we’re at the coast and look there, that’s just a BUNCH of ocean right there is what all that is!” you come to “we gotta do SOMETHIN’ in our faboo beach house!” and also we are a people who love games. We love “you sunk my battleship!” games or “Gin!” games but we also love “super-complex-takes-30-minutes-just-to-comprehend-the-rules-but-SO-MUCH-FUN” games. And right now my special games-loving place has a massive thing-crush for this new concept: collaborative games.
These would be games where instead of it being me against you and you against him and us against them, it’s the players against the game. It’s good against evil. It’s humanity versus evil plagues of deathly-bad-pustulishy-boils and fatal hiccups and gas of death. Which are things you’d want to be against, right? And so finally when I and my favorite people all sit down to play something we get to be nice and friendly and collegial while playing the game the way it’s intended to be played! Genius!
Many games were played during our coast trip, as is always the way. But the two big events were both collaborative games of excellence: Pandemic (which is way more fun than you’d normally expect a pandemic to be!) and Shadows Over Camelot, where my Dad got to REALLY EXPLORE his inner King Arthur! Long story short, all of humanity was wiped out by three nasty plagues (sorry about that – our bad.) but the next night we found the Holy Grail, pulled Excalibur from that bitch in the water and just generally reminded the universe that though Might does not make Right, Knights make KICK ASS, BEOTCHES!!! As a bonus, we got to justifiably use phrases like ‘forsooth!” and “what ho!” and “my liege!” and if I’d had a jerken or cod piece to sport that night I totally would have!
Those that weren’t up for battling Black Nights and speedily-reproducing viruses jumped all over the puzzling portion of the weekend. We laid waste to not one but TWO 1000-piece puzzles because THAT IS HOW WE DO, MY PEOPLE! We are puzzling fiends, and I’m about to tell you the secret: (are you ready? Here it comes!) box lids. Lots and lots of box lids. We horde them in my family – not a single Omaha Steaks box or Avery labels box lid ever goes to waste around here, I assure you – but if you have to you go ahead and steal the tops of every other games box you own because what you want is a different box for every section of the puzzle!
You’re going through the pieces looking for those yellow/orange pieces of dirt road and rice crispies but you sure are finding a lot of the pieces from the giant mouse butt, as well as all that fuzzy, green border that looks like that sweater you hate, so you might as well throw those into their own box as you come across them, right? And that way when someone new comes up to help you can say to them “gosh, you could work on the giant mouse butt. It’s in that box right there.” (because you’ve got dibs on green sweater border, of course.) Sure, there’s a certain amount of turf disputes in our puzzling sometimes, but it’s not a game, people! (those are in the living room, with the people wearing the hazmat suits with built-in cod pieces. And also and by the way, HUZZAH!)
…tomorrow: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM…
These would be games where instead of it being me against you and you against him and us against them, it’s the players against the game. It’s good against evil. It’s humanity versus evil plagues of deathly-bad-pustulishy-boils and fatal hiccups and gas of death. Which are things you’d want to be against, right? And so finally when I and my favorite people all sit down to play something we get to be nice and friendly and collegial while playing the game the way it’s intended to be played! Genius!
Many games were played during our coast trip, as is always the way. But the two big events were both collaborative games of excellence: Pandemic (which is way more fun than you’d normally expect a pandemic to be!) and Shadows Over Camelot, where my Dad got to REALLY EXPLORE his inner King Arthur! Long story short, all of humanity was wiped out by three nasty plagues (sorry about that – our bad.) but the next night we found the Holy Grail, pulled Excalibur from that bitch in the water and just generally reminded the universe that though Might does not make Right, Knights make KICK ASS, BEOTCHES!!! As a bonus, we got to justifiably use phrases like ‘forsooth!” and “what ho!” and “my liege!” and if I’d had a jerken or cod piece to sport that night I totally would have!
Those that weren’t up for battling Black Nights and speedily-reproducing viruses jumped all over the puzzling portion of the weekend. We laid waste to not one but TWO 1000-piece puzzles because THAT IS HOW WE DO, MY PEOPLE! We are puzzling fiends, and I’m about to tell you the secret: (are you ready? Here it comes!) box lids. Lots and lots of box lids. We horde them in my family – not a single Omaha Steaks box or Avery labels box lid ever goes to waste around here, I assure you – but if you have to you go ahead and steal the tops of every other games box you own because what you want is a different box for every section of the puzzle!
You’re going through the pieces looking for those yellow/orange pieces of dirt road and rice crispies but you sure are finding a lot of the pieces from the giant mouse butt, as well as all that fuzzy, green border that looks like that sweater you hate, so you might as well throw those into their own box as you come across them, right? And that way when someone new comes up to help you can say to them “gosh, you could work on the giant mouse butt. It’s in that box right there.” (because you’ve got dibs on green sweater border, of course.) Sure, there’s a certain amount of turf disputes in our puzzling sometimes, but it’s not a game, people! (those are in the living room, with the people wearing the hazmat suits with built-in cod pieces. And also and by the way, HUZZAH!)…tomorrow: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM…
Monday, May 12, 2008
Mother's Day at the Coast: A Play in 5 Acts...
Prologue
OK, so every year my family cruises over to this rental beach house for Mother’s Day Weekend and we stay there through Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday. There are roughly 16 to 18 of us, give or take, and we have some specific goals each year:
Act One: Photo Phun with the Cool Cousin
I drove over to the beach house (a drive of about 2 hours) with my super-cool cousin. She’s more like a niece, in that she’s almost 20 years younger than I am, but then there’s that pesky fact that her parents are my aunt and uncle, thereby demanding that she be my cousin. There are rules, people.
Anyway, cool cousin (we’ll call her Pepe. She knows why) got into photography after the gifting of a grandparent’s very nice film camera when she graduated from high school and ever since she and I occasionally run off for fun-camera-artsy-adventure-stuff-day-things. Friday afternoon we hit the road and when we reached ocean views we started hunting for cool photo opps. We wanted tide pools, which we found, but we discovered that there were pretty much all under many, many feet of ocean. Some crazy thing about a “high Tide” which I’m pretty sure is environmentalist propaganda to keep nature all to themselves.
Eventually we found some excellent tide pool action amidst all this dramatic lava rock and we climbed hither and flan looking for “that magic shot”. (I never found magic – mostly the photo equivalent of pulling a quarter out of nature’s ear or a ninja smoke bomb) At one moment I was suddenly struck with the COMPLETE STUPIDITY of my clambering over these rocks, my most beloved camera (which I love and have GREAT love for and also wove-wove-wove and would marry if they’d let me) hanging around my neck, just asking for that moment where I trip and HULK SMASH on my precious big lens. Not to MENTION the constant threat of huge ocean waves crashing all over these rocks every 30 seconds, waiting for me to look the other way so that they could sneak up on me and swallow me up WITH THE MOST BELOVED CAMERA. If
I’d ever found photo magic I know it would have been worth it, but since I didn’t it was just temporary insanity.
But it was fun, and I did pull that photo-quarter from nature’s ear, and nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
…tomorrow: the games beach people play…
OK, so every year my family cruises over to this rental beach house for Mother’s Day Weekend and we stay there through Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday. There are roughly 16 to 18 of us, give or take, and we have some specific goals each year:
- eat
- play games with gamey abandon
- seriously, eat
- puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, PUZZLES, puzzles!
- inhale junk food like it’s about to become prohibitive
- optimistically hope for the view of a whale, any whale, out at sea
- hey, are you going to eat that? (yeah, me too)
Act One: Photo Phun with the Cool Cousin
I drove over to the beach house (a drive of about 2 hours) with my super-cool cousin. She’s more like a niece, in that she’s almost 20 years younger than I am, but then there’s that pesky fact that her parents are my aunt and uncle, thereby demanding that she be my cousin. There are rules, people.
Anyway, cool cousin (we’ll call her Pepe. She knows why) got into photography after the gifting of a grandparent’s very nice film camera when she graduated from high school and ever since she and I occasionally run off for fun-camera-artsy-adventure-stuff-day-things. Friday afternoon we hit the road and when we reached ocean views we started hunting for cool photo opps. We wanted tide pools, which we found, but we discovered that there were pretty much all under many, many feet of ocean. Some crazy thing about a “high Tide” which I’m pretty sure is environmentalist propaganda to keep nature all to themselves.
Eventually we found some excellent tide pool action amidst all this dramatic lava rock and we climbed hither and flan looking for “that magic shot”. (I never found magic – mostly the photo equivalent of pulling a quarter out of nature’s ear or a ninja smoke bomb) At one moment I was suddenly struck with the COMPLETE STUPIDITY of my clambering over these rocks, my most beloved camera (which I love and have GREAT love for and also wove-wove-wove and would marry if they’d let me) hanging around my neck, just asking for that moment where I trip and HULK SMASH on my precious big lens. Not to MENTION the constant threat of huge ocean waves crashing all over these rocks every 30 seconds, waiting for me to look the other way so that they could sneak up on me and swallow me up WITH THE MOST BELOVED CAMERA. If
I’d ever found photo magic I know it would have been worth it, but since I didn’t it was just temporary insanity.But it was fun, and I did pull that photo-quarter from nature’s ear, and nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
…tomorrow: the games beach people play…
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Perspective A-New
So there’s this one chick here at work who I think is super-cool. I mean SOOOOOPER COOL. I have a bit of a girl crush on her, and whenever she comes to my office (from her cool office in another building which is cooler than this building if only because she’s rocking that building regularly) everybody around here gets some second-hand cool too. She’s cool like that. I will call her Joette Cool.
She’s cool also because she’s single, like me, and that is rare around here. The only other single people within cat-whacking distance of me in this place are the 16-yr old student intern and a bitter divorcee who wears make-up like Madonna from the 80’s, is almost 10 months into her “change of life” and normally goes to bed at 8:30pm. So I love having at least one other single grown-up with coolness to spare around sometimes. Like we’re the first two members of some single-girl book club, only with less books and more being cool. The "Being Cool and not Really Reading Much in the Way of Books" Club.
Anyway, JC (Joette Cool) came in the other day with an iceberg on her finger like that what sank the Titanic! A rock like that what is forever being pushed by Sisyphus! A new, shiny, FABULOUS best friend riding around on her hand! Some smart dude snatched her up forever and ever, amen, and I couldn’t be happier for her (although I guess I won’t be confessing on my girl crush now!). She was telling the story of how he proposed (took her out to the restaurant where they had their first date, popped the question at the end of the meal, even got down on one knee, no report on whether they still had dessert or not, I’ll keep you posted) and how they took a trip to Denmark, from which he comes, so that she could meet the ‘rents and how there’s now talk of house buying and everything.
Somebody asked how they met, and guess what? ONLINE DATING/MATING/MEET YOUR SPECIAL SOMEONE WEBSITE! I won’t say the name, since someone there might be innocent, so instead we’ll call it E-Melody. (Get it? Get it? How amused am I with my own self? SO AMUSED!) Now I think I’m going to have to come up with a feasible excuse for she and I to go have lunch one of these days (which is only weird because we’ve NEVER, EVER DONE THAT and I’m mostly the admin girl with whom she banters so hiply in this office and who knows, she might not think I’m cool at ALL! AWKWARD…) so I can prick her brain on how someone as cool as she went through E-BunchOfPeopleSingingSimilarNotes and met someone and didn’t feel dorky or desperate and even found a marriable fellow.
Oh, and one more thing? Bitter Divorce says she could never, EVER do an online datey-matey website. She's too precious to do that. So Uber-Cool chick get engaged via online datey-matey and worst possible version of single me is too good for them.
I think I might have to re-evaluate things just a little...
She’s cool also because she’s single, like me, and that is rare around here. The only other single people within cat-whacking distance of me in this place are the 16-yr old student intern and a bitter divorcee who wears make-up like Madonna from the 80’s, is almost 10 months into her “change of life” and normally goes to bed at 8:30pm. So I love having at least one other single grown-up with coolness to spare around sometimes. Like we’re the first two members of some single-girl book club, only with less books and more being cool. The "Being Cool and not Really Reading Much in the Way of Books" Club.
Anyway, JC (Joette Cool) came in the other day with an iceberg on her finger like that what sank the Titanic! A rock like that what is forever being pushed by Sisyphus! A new, shiny, FABULOUS best friend riding around on her hand! Some smart dude snatched her up forever and ever, amen, and I couldn’t be happier for her (although I guess I won’t be confessing on my girl crush now!). She was telling the story of how he proposed (took her out to the restaurant where they had their first date, popped the question at the end of the meal, even got down on one knee, no report on whether they still had dessert or not, I’ll keep you posted) and how they took a trip to Denmark, from which he comes, so that she could meet the ‘rents and how there’s now talk of house buying and everything.
Somebody asked how they met, and guess what? ONLINE DATING/MATING/MEET YOUR SPECIAL SOMEONE WEBSITE! I won’t say the name, since someone there might be innocent, so instead we’ll call it E-Melody. (Get it? Get it? How amused am I with my own self? SO AMUSED!) Now I think I’m going to have to come up with a feasible excuse for she and I to go have lunch one of these days (which is only weird because we’ve NEVER, EVER DONE THAT and I’m mostly the admin girl with whom she banters so hiply in this office and who knows, she might not think I’m cool at ALL! AWKWARD…) so I can prick her brain on how someone as cool as she went through E-BunchOfPeopleSingingSimilarNotes and met someone and didn’t feel dorky or desperate and even found a marriable fellow.
Oh, and one more thing? Bitter Divorce says she could never, EVER do an online datey-matey website. She's too precious to do that. So Uber-Cool chick get engaged via online datey-matey and worst possible version of single me is too good for them.
I think I might have to re-evaluate things just a little...
Monday, May 05, 2008
V-V-V-Vacation
Hey, know where I was? I was on VACATION! WOO HOO!!! And that’s the main reason that I’ve been so quiet. I was off somewhere doing relaxing things and I have no portable computerness. My only computer is plugged into my office and doesn’t travel, so while I was away the blog was quiet. (Right, because it’s been SO very vocal before that. Man, I suck so terribly that Dyson is trying to use me as the prototype for his next fancy Vacuum. Vooooooooommm.)
I've started to explain the vacation, but really it's the kind of thing that was cool for me (and the parents – they came too) but simply boring to anyone but me. In a nutshell, here are the highlights of my few days off:
-fairies in sculpted tu-tus and combat boots who were FEEE-RCE!
-masseuse turned gambler turned thief turned Buddhist monk
-the best basement cuisine west of the rockies
-floppy beach hats and shoes that were on sale, SALE for $80.
-a quick primer on “good luck!” and other things you DON’T say in a theater.
There was this one shop that we visited, which was a classic example of a place stocked by the world’s most excellent catalog shoppers. Pinecone Christmas ornaments hanging side-by-side with fancy art-puppets next to Asian scarves and bags and purses piled up with carved camels and spooky cat gargoyles and this amazingly lifelike sleeping dog, who it turned out was a real and soft and fluffy and super, SUPER mellow sleeping dog. Or possibly dead dog. But I’m rooting for super mellow and sleeping. This place also had these cool singing and dancing bowls. You fill them with water and rub the handles and they moan and groan, and the water dances and it’s just cool! It’s probably the closest I'll ever get to being Zen is with these dancing water bowls. Of course as is the case with all things Zen, it’s Zpendy. (couldn’t resist.)
Anyway, I’m back and all refreshed and springy and light on my feet and my fingers and it’s with this energy that I will rededicate myself to this blog at which I have tremendously sucked recently. Watch this space! SEE how I let you down once again! Watch as I faceplant all over my promises to be better! Or maybe? Maybe I’ll actually be all that I can be? I don’t even know what’s gonna happen next. Let’s watch and see...
I've started to explain the vacation, but really it's the kind of thing that was cool for me (and the parents – they came too) but simply boring to anyone but me. In a nutshell, here are the highlights of my few days off:
-fairies in sculpted tu-tus and combat boots who were FEEE-RCE!
-masseuse turned gambler turned thief turned Buddhist monk
-the best basement cuisine west of the rockies
-floppy beach hats and shoes that were on sale, SALE for $80.
-a quick primer on “good luck!” and other things you DON’T say in a theater.
There was this one shop that we visited, which was a classic example of a place stocked by the world’s most excellent catalog shoppers. Pinecone Christmas ornaments hanging side-by-side with fancy art-puppets next to Asian scarves and bags and purses piled up with carved camels and spooky cat gargoyles and this amazingly lifelike sleeping dog, who it turned out was a real and soft and fluffy and super, SUPER mellow sleeping dog. Or possibly dead dog. But I’m rooting for super mellow and sleeping. This place also had these cool singing and dancing bowls. You fill them with water and rub the handles and they moan and groan, and the water dances and it’s just cool! It’s probably the closest I'll ever get to being Zen is with these dancing water bowls. Of course as is the case with all things Zen, it’s Zpendy. (couldn’t resist.)
Anyway, I’m back and all refreshed and springy and light on my feet and my fingers and it’s with this energy that I will rededicate myself to this blog at which I have tremendously sucked recently. Watch this space! SEE how I let you down once again! Watch as I faceplant all over my promises to be better! Or maybe? Maybe I’ll actually be all that I can be? I don’t even know what’s gonna happen next. Let’s watch and see...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A week without sugar...
Day One – see the last good post written.
Day Two:
I don’t know why I was making such a big deal about this. I haven’t had any candy or donuts or anything today and I’m fine. Totally fine. I was thinking this was going to be hard, but this is totally easy! Yay for me and for my rock-hard will power which is clearly made of something really solid… like rock or something. Rock hard sturdiness of solid power of my will woo hoo!
Day Three:
Must stay away from candy. Candy bad. Bad candy! Bad! Oh, but so sweet and yummy and tasty and chewy and… oh candy, how I miiiiiss yoooooou! But no, I’m going to be good and walk over to this office and- oh hey, isn’t that a bowl of mini candy bars? And M&Ms? And STAAAAARBUUUUURST????? Oh Starburst, how you tempt me with your chewy, fruity goodness made entirely of sugar and scrumptious chemicals… Give me one pack of Starburst and watch as I chew my way to ouchy mouthness… But no! I walk away from the candy! I walk away! Well, I stumble away. Ok, I crawl away…
Day Four:
OK, the urges are over and I’m fine, and I’m feeling so much better! Bright and clear and full of enerrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Day Five:
OK, the urges are REALLY over now! I honestly think I will be ok, now that I’m over… is that cinnamon rolls? Did someone bring cinnamon rolls in for breakfast? Seriously? Who would do that to me? My biggest temptation, my hardest line, my WHITE WHALE! Great, big, cinnamon-filled white whale swimming in the FROTHY OCEAN of BUTTER and FROSTING! Oh, this is SO not fair! SO too much to ask for from a girl like myself, with my tinfoil-bendy willpower! But I am good. I walk away. (stumble away, crawl away, yadda, yadda, yadda)
Day Six:
I am here at home, where there are not stashes of easily-accessible candy or surprise attacks from sugary breakfast treats. Here I am safe from sugar’s siren call. Here I can have a whole weekend of sugar-free sanctuary.
Here I have a box of Cap’n Crunch WITH Crunch Berries.
Here I am screwed.
DAY SEVEN:
I made it! I resisted the Cap’n Crunch, said “no” to the impulse candy aisle at the drugstore and just generally walked through the weekend with big ol’ blinders on. But it worked, and I feel like I finally have the stupid sugar-monkey off my back! I head back to my office of constant candy and morale-boosting through regular doses of junk food, but I can do it! Man, I hope I can do it. Wish me luck, my peoples!
Day Two:
I don’t know why I was making such a big deal about this. I haven’t had any candy or donuts or anything today and I’m fine. Totally fine. I was thinking this was going to be hard, but this is totally easy! Yay for me and for my rock-hard will power which is clearly made of something really solid… like rock or something. Rock hard sturdiness of solid power of my will woo hoo!
Day Three:
Must stay away from candy. Candy bad. Bad candy! Bad! Oh, but so sweet and yummy and tasty and chewy and… oh candy, how I miiiiiss yoooooou! But no, I’m going to be good and walk over to this office and- oh hey, isn’t that a bowl of mini candy bars? And M&Ms? And STAAAAARBUUUUURST????? Oh Starburst, how you tempt me with your chewy, fruity goodness made entirely of sugar and scrumptious chemicals… Give me one pack of Starburst and watch as I chew my way to ouchy mouthness… But no! I walk away from the candy! I walk away! Well, I stumble away. Ok, I crawl away…
Day Four:
OK, the urges are over and I’m fine, and I’m feeling so much better! Bright and clear and full of enerrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggyyyyyyyyyyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Day Five:
OK, the urges are REALLY over now! I honestly think I will be ok, now that I’m over… is that cinnamon rolls? Did someone bring cinnamon rolls in for breakfast? Seriously? Who would do that to me? My biggest temptation, my hardest line, my WHITE WHALE! Great, big, cinnamon-filled white whale swimming in the FROTHY OCEAN of BUTTER and FROSTING! Oh, this is SO not fair! SO too much to ask for from a girl like myself, with my tinfoil-bendy willpower! But I am good. I walk away. (stumble away, crawl away, yadda, yadda, yadda)
Day Six:
I am here at home, where there are not stashes of easily-accessible candy or surprise attacks from sugary breakfast treats. Here I am safe from sugar’s siren call. Here I can have a whole weekend of sugar-free sanctuary.
Here I have a box of Cap’n Crunch WITH Crunch Berries.
Here I am screwed.
DAY SEVEN:
I made it! I resisted the Cap’n Crunch, said “no” to the impulse candy aisle at the drugstore and just generally walked through the weekend with big ol’ blinders on. But it worked, and I feel like I finally have the stupid sugar-monkey off my back! I head back to my office of constant candy and morale-boosting through regular doses of junk food, but I can do it! Man, I hope I can do it. Wish me luck, my peoples!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Too sleepy to be clever...
OK, you know how I never write anymore? And how you guys have pretty much given up on me and my blog since hey, there are never any posts? Well I’ve been trying to resist the urge to give excuses each time I go too many days between posts because frankly everybody hates excuses and the only thing worse than no post at all would be an excusy post. But the truth is I just keep falling ASLEEP.
This constant sleepiness started about 6 months ago and it just sucks. It ruins my long-earned reputation as a night owl and turns so many of my attempts at blogposts into 3-4 solid paragraphs followed by hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and the semi colon key stuck in my eye. Sigh. And when I wake up, face full of keyboard, I’m angry! Angry at the lack of late-night creativity and productivity and other-thingie-tivity! I want my nights back!
I’ve tried a bunch of things and have reaped piles and piles of bupkiss. The only thing I know for sure is that this danged sleepiosity started not long after my change in jobs. But lately this fall-asleepiness has started hitting me at the office too. (a place you traditionally try not to face-nap, by the way.) I just get SO SLEEPY! But I’ve had a realization:
My new job is wall-to-wall sugar. No kidding: bowls of desk-candy, breakfast sweeties, candies used to keep folks productive in long meetings, supportive “thanks!” and “Good Job!”” suck-up sweets… sugar, sugar everywhere and I’m just SO weak! I started with the breakfast sweets, then changed my paths through the halls to hit all the desks with candy bowls and now I’ve got very steady candy and sweets breaks all day long, often capped off with the traditional afternoon fudgical. (seriously, love me the fudgical. Greatest novelty ice cream treat ever.) And now I think the whole problem is sugar highs, followed by terrible, terrible sugar face-plants.
So as of today I’ve gone cold-turkey on the sugar.
Man, by about 2:30 today I had the serious sugar jonesing going on. I could hear the voices of every little foil-covered chocolate hearts in the nearest candy bowl calling out my name, telling me that they all loved me, and would give me their sweet, sugary energy if only I would come and nom-nom-nom them up. I forego the now-traditional after-lunch handful of Oreos, instead enjoying some grapes. (so not the same thing, and if ANY of you try to point out something about grapes having some kind of natural sugar in them or something I will travel to your homes and I will set fire to ALL of your toilet paper in a completely unrelated act of aggression!!! I didn’t have any Oreos! You cannot take away that triumph, no matter the fact of the matter!!!)
I was also, once again, fighting off the mid-day desk-drool-puddle from unstoppable naps. SO SLEEPY. But I know that I cannot do anything about my sugar problem in a day. No, I totally understand this is a process, not a quick fix. I’m sure I won’t have this gummy-monkey off my back right away. Heck, it could take as long as 2 or maybe even 3 days! It’s hard!
Also rest assured that I am not swearing off sugar altogether. That would be crazy talk, and also I’m just not that strong. I still drink sugary sodas and right now, when I finish this blog post (created at night, and with only planned run-on h’s!) I’m going to reward myself with a lovely slice of chocolate cream pie, left over from dinner at the Royal house last night. The traditional tiny dessert will not go away. It will just no longer be an hourly snack plan! I am enboldened (it's a word!) by today's success and am sure it will all fall asleep tomorrow when I have a Cap'n crunch, Starburst and Snickerdoodle sammich! (on wheat, of course.)
This constant sleepiness started about 6 months ago and it just sucks. It ruins my long-earned reputation as a night owl and turns so many of my attempts at blogposts into 3-4 solid paragraphs followed by hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and the semi colon key stuck in my eye. Sigh. And when I wake up, face full of keyboard, I’m angry! Angry at the lack of late-night creativity and productivity and other-thingie-tivity! I want my nights back!
I’ve tried a bunch of things and have reaped piles and piles of bupkiss. The only thing I know for sure is that this danged sleepiosity started not long after my change in jobs. But lately this fall-asleepiness has started hitting me at the office too. (a place you traditionally try not to face-nap, by the way.) I just get SO SLEEPY! But I’ve had a realization:
My new job is wall-to-wall sugar. No kidding: bowls of desk-candy, breakfast sweeties, candies used to keep folks productive in long meetings, supportive “thanks!” and “Good Job!”” suck-up sweets… sugar, sugar everywhere and I’m just SO weak! I started with the breakfast sweets, then changed my paths through the halls to hit all the desks with candy bowls and now I’ve got very steady candy and sweets breaks all day long, often capped off with the traditional afternoon fudgical. (seriously, love me the fudgical. Greatest novelty ice cream treat ever.) And now I think the whole problem is sugar highs, followed by terrible, terrible sugar face-plants.
So as of today I’ve gone cold-turkey on the sugar.
Man, by about 2:30 today I had the serious sugar jonesing going on. I could hear the voices of every little foil-covered chocolate hearts in the nearest candy bowl calling out my name, telling me that they all loved me, and would give me their sweet, sugary energy if only I would come and nom-nom-nom them up. I forego the now-traditional after-lunch handful of Oreos, instead enjoying some grapes. (so not the same thing, and if ANY of you try to point out something about grapes having some kind of natural sugar in them or something I will travel to your homes and I will set fire to ALL of your toilet paper in a completely unrelated act of aggression!!! I didn’t have any Oreos! You cannot take away that triumph, no matter the fact of the matter!!!)
I was also, once again, fighting off the mid-day desk-drool-puddle from unstoppable naps. SO SLEEPY. But I know that I cannot do anything about my sugar problem in a day. No, I totally understand this is a process, not a quick fix. I’m sure I won’t have this gummy-monkey off my back right away. Heck, it could take as long as 2 or maybe even 3 days! It’s hard!
Also rest assured that I am not swearing off sugar altogether. That would be crazy talk, and also I’m just not that strong. I still drink sugary sodas and right now, when I finish this blog post (created at night, and with only planned run-on h’s!) I’m going to reward myself with a lovely slice of chocolate cream pie, left over from dinner at the Royal house last night. The traditional tiny dessert will not go away. It will just no longer be an hourly snack plan! I am enboldened (it's a word!) by today's success and am sure it will all fall asleep tomorrow when I have a Cap'n crunch, Starburst and Snickerdoodle sammich! (on wheat, of course.)
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Birthday parties, and the ways in which they rock
My birthday hovers some time around this general time, give or take a few weeks, and in my family there are so many of us, with only so many months in the year, so we tend to do monthly birthday parties. For April I get to share party-duty with my favorite, favorite Mom and also my favorite, favorite niece. The Mom, she is the bestest Mom ever in the world, and the niece is also the premium of all nieces. We rock the April birthday party scene – rock it haaaaaard.
In years past we’ve had themes of “South of the Border” birthday (featuring a burrito bar and killer piƱata) or Hula-Hula birthday (that included this killer kahlua pork thing by my brother-in-law with his big, fancy green egg grill thing totally shaped like a green egg BUT with no ham and no questions about where you would have it, like in a box or in a train or with a fox, and seriously if you had ham with a fox wouldn’t the fox just grab the ham and run, because hey – free ham!?) and this time our theme was “a good, old-fashioned birthday party” (also known as “man, I’m kind of tired of coming up with themes and ways to theme them, aren’t you?) We had cake! And ice cream! And presents! There was a sing-along, which was extremely topical (even mentioned birthdays and everything!) and we set fire to some parts of the dessert food! Seriously, it was awesome and I seriously think that this classic birthday party thing is TOTALLY going to catch on!
A quick note on cakes: larger should not translate into taller. A taller cake is not really a handy thing, because cakes can be tippy, especially when you start taking parts of it away and giving it to people. You need to make a cake larger? Think SPREAD IT OUT, people. We had a party of about 25 people we needed to feed, and unfortunately the bakers on whom we had depended decided that meant we needed a cake with eleventeen layers, roughly 3 and a half feet tall. Tasty? ABSOLUTELY! Yummy chocolate cake with frosting and flowers and words encouraging us to be extremely happy on this, our day of celebrating that none of us have died at all the whole last year! But logistically this cake was, to put it mildly, a big challenge. So next year we’re going to have to say to the baker-people “we need to feed about 25 people, and we’ve got a station wagon ready to pick up a cake that could be up to 4 feet across if need be – don’t go up. Seriously, don’t go up. No more than 2 layers, pleeeeease.”
Do not worry – we muddled our way through the logistically-challenging-yet-flavor-excellent cake. We’re up for any cake-eating challenges in my family.
My family is chocked full of frustrated Tony-award-winning Broadway performers. To that end, we do a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” that would knock all available socks off! And if you were wearing Birkenstocks? Flying Cork, people! The only problem with our birthday song performance is that we get completely stuck on “Haaaaaaaaa-“ The song lasts nine minutes, 8 minutes and 20 seconds of which are the entire family holding the “Haaaaaaaa-“ note because nobody can seem to get the next part rolling. Also we do it in something like 8-part harmony, which is very cool, but there have been a couple of years where there was almost a fist fight at song’s end due to the starting note having been too high, too low, too sharp, not adagio enough, whatever. But it’s totally worth the effort – we’ve brought entire catering shifts to tears.
I won’t lie to you, my true-blue chums (new thing I’m trying for how to refer to you guys – what do you think of “chums”?) – I do enjoy being given gifts. I do. I love to give gifts during Christmas way more than getting gifts, but when it’s a day where I can shamelessly revel in GETTING STUFF, in being totally MINE, MINE, MINE!, I go for it. I got a bunch of cool things, from “awesome, I need this!” to “rock on, I wanted this!” to “Woah, I didn’t even know this was an option!” A couple of highlights included a Steve Martin biography, which I’m excited about because I think that guy is one of the funniest and most brilliant people ever! and I’m pretty sure if I read his biography I’ll learn all his secrets and finally be funny and brilliant my own self! Also this board game called “Pandemic” which is cooperative, which means it's you and your fellow gamers playing against the game. In this case the game is a pack of runaway, out of control diseases who want to ruin everything for everybody, and the game players are a bunch of scientists working to cure those nasty diseases. But of course we're sexy, hot scientists, like on Star Trek or The Core or stuff like that, who do their scientific thinking in tight tank tops and low-rider jeans and who, if need be, will grab a gun and shoot those bad, bad germs right between the... eye-thingies. I'm totally loving the idea of the cooperative game, although I think for this game to be truly realistic there should be the potential for you to have to battle packs of rabid, disease-infected zombies. Because we all know that all diseases eventually lead to zombies. Just ask Will Smith.
So, to summarize, birthdays are awesome and cake (even too-tall cake) is yummy and everyone should put their heart and soul into any sing-along and zombies are bad. And happy birthday to us!
In years past we’ve had themes of “South of the Border” birthday (featuring a burrito bar and killer piƱata) or Hula-Hula birthday (that included this killer kahlua pork thing by my brother-in-law with his big, fancy green egg grill thing totally shaped like a green egg BUT with no ham and no questions about where you would have it, like in a box or in a train or with a fox, and seriously if you had ham with a fox wouldn’t the fox just grab the ham and run, because hey – free ham!?) and this time our theme was “a good, old-fashioned birthday party” (also known as “man, I’m kind of tired of coming up with themes and ways to theme them, aren’t you?) We had cake! And ice cream! And presents! There was a sing-along, which was extremely topical (even mentioned birthdays and everything!) and we set fire to some parts of the dessert food! Seriously, it was awesome and I seriously think that this classic birthday party thing is TOTALLY going to catch on!
A quick note on cakes: larger should not translate into taller. A taller cake is not really a handy thing, because cakes can be tippy, especially when you start taking parts of it away and giving it to people. You need to make a cake larger? Think SPREAD IT OUT, people. We had a party of about 25 people we needed to feed, and unfortunately the bakers on whom we had depended decided that meant we needed a cake with eleventeen layers, roughly 3 and a half feet tall. Tasty? ABSOLUTELY! Yummy chocolate cake with frosting and flowers and words encouraging us to be extremely happy on this, our day of celebrating that none of us have died at all the whole last year! But logistically this cake was, to put it mildly, a big challenge. So next year we’re going to have to say to the baker-people “we need to feed about 25 people, and we’ve got a station wagon ready to pick up a cake that could be up to 4 feet across if need be – don’t go up. Seriously, don’t go up. No more than 2 layers, pleeeeease.”
Do not worry – we muddled our way through the logistically-challenging-yet-flavor-excellent cake. We’re up for any cake-eating challenges in my family.
My family is chocked full of frustrated Tony-award-winning Broadway performers. To that end, we do a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” that would knock all available socks off! And if you were wearing Birkenstocks? Flying Cork, people! The only problem with our birthday song performance is that we get completely stuck on “Haaaaaaaaa-“ The song lasts nine minutes, 8 minutes and 20 seconds of which are the entire family holding the “Haaaaaaaa-“ note because nobody can seem to get the next part rolling. Also we do it in something like 8-part harmony, which is very cool, but there have been a couple of years where there was almost a fist fight at song’s end due to the starting note having been too high, too low, too sharp, not adagio enough, whatever. But it’s totally worth the effort – we’ve brought entire catering shifts to tears.
I won’t lie to you, my true-blue chums (new thing I’m trying for how to refer to you guys – what do you think of “chums”?) – I do enjoy being given gifts. I do. I love to give gifts during Christmas way more than getting gifts, but when it’s a day where I can shamelessly revel in GETTING STUFF, in being totally MINE, MINE, MINE!, I go for it. I got a bunch of cool things, from “awesome, I need this!” to “rock on, I wanted this!” to “Woah, I didn’t even know this was an option!” A couple of highlights included a Steve Martin biography, which I’m excited about because I think that guy is one of the funniest and most brilliant people ever! and I’m pretty sure if I read his biography I’ll learn all his secrets and finally be funny and brilliant my own self! Also this board game called “Pandemic” which is cooperative, which means it's you and your fellow gamers playing against the game. In this case the game is a pack of runaway, out of control diseases who want to ruin everything for everybody, and the game players are a bunch of scientists working to cure those nasty diseases. But of course we're sexy, hot scientists, like on Star Trek or The Core or stuff like that, who do their scientific thinking in tight tank tops and low-rider jeans and who, if need be, will grab a gun and shoot those bad, bad germs right between the... eye-thingies. I'm totally loving the idea of the cooperative game, although I think for this game to be truly realistic there should be the potential for you to have to battle packs of rabid, disease-infected zombies. Because we all know that all diseases eventually lead to zombies. Just ask Will Smith.
So, to summarize, birthdays are awesome and cake (even too-tall cake) is yummy and everyone should put their heart and soul into any sing-along and zombies are bad. And happy birthday to us!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Do you like me -- check this box...
OK, confession time: I’ve been thinking about checking out speed dating.
(we’re gonna give a minute for those of you who are working through the mocking. Do your thing. Also in case my Dad finally decided to check out the blog, because his head might have ‘sploded just then…)
Now in my own defense, I don’t really think I’ll find love at an evening of 6-minute meet-and-greets. But I’m curious enough to check it out. Also, it's pretty obvious to those of you who've been paying attention that I need things to write about.
(quick tangent: why six minutes? I’m not pulling that number from my butt, it’s the official amount of time they advertise. Is that for people who say “oh please, you couldn’t possibly get to know someone in five minutes.” but think that ten minutes is officially a commitment? “oh SIX minutes! Oh well that’s different. That’s ample time to decide if Joe Winecooler here is my especialist soulmate. Sign me up, six-minute mating ritual!” Whatever. Moving on.)
The free internet dating website (loving it more and more, in a way that means I don’t really interact with it but I don’t resent it for the money I’ve spent on it. Plus hey – speed dating!) has started putting together speed dating nights. I kind of think that’s a sign of progress for our sleepy little town. “Speed Dating comes to Hippyville! Soon we’ll get indoor toilets and one o’ them fancy movin’ staircases!” So I went to sign up for the April event.
But sadly it turns out I’m either too young or too old for zoom-mating. Man! (picture me snapping fingers in an exaggerated fashion.)
Seriously, here are the two options I have for the April speed dating:
Then, of course, the final irony: the less-than-fit-and-disactive-lifestyle group is SOLD OUT. Apparently we are a town with a lot of older people who shun the healthy foods and the exercise and yet still think we’re worthy of wove, or at least hip-breaking nooky. Shame, shame on us all.
Gotta go take my calcium pill and learn to knit.
(and yes, I’m on the waiting list.)
(and just shut up.)
(we’re gonna give a minute for those of you who are working through the mocking. Do your thing. Also in case my Dad finally decided to check out the blog, because his head might have ‘sploded just then…)
Now in my own defense, I don’t really think I’ll find love at an evening of 6-minute meet-and-greets. But I’m curious enough to check it out. Also, it's pretty obvious to those of you who've been paying attention that I need things to write about.
(quick tangent: why six minutes? I’m not pulling that number from my butt, it’s the official amount of time they advertise. Is that for people who say “oh please, you couldn’t possibly get to know someone in five minutes.” but think that ten minutes is officially a commitment? “oh SIX minutes! Oh well that’s different. That’s ample time to decide if Joe Winecooler here is my especialist soulmate. Sign me up, six-minute mating ritual!” Whatever. Moving on.)
The free internet dating website (loving it more and more, in a way that means I don’t really interact with it but I don’t resent it for the money I’ve spent on it. Plus hey – speed dating!) has started putting together speed dating nights. I kind of think that’s a sign of progress for our sleepy little town. “Speed Dating comes to Hippyville! Soon we’ll get indoor toilets and one o’ them fancy movin’ staircases!” So I went to sign up for the April event.
But sadly it turns out I’m either too young or too old for zoom-mating. Man! (picture me snapping fingers in an exaggerated fashion.)
Seriously, here are the two options I have for the April speed dating:
- “Active/Fit Lifestyle, Ages 23-36 -- For those who are on the go, like to keep in shape and would like to meet the same!”
- “All Single Professionals, Ages 42-58” (for, um… old, creaky people who want to be nasty with another before they die. Of being in bad shape. With same. Or something.)
Then, of course, the final irony: the less-than-fit-and-disactive-lifestyle group is SOLD OUT. Apparently we are a town with a lot of older people who shun the healthy foods and the exercise and yet still think we’re worthy of wove, or at least hip-breaking nooky. Shame, shame on us all.
Gotta go take my calcium pill and learn to knit.
(and yes, I’m on the waiting list.)
(and just shut up.)
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Attack of the crappy crapweasels, part II
So last night I'm writing an email to a chum of mine who is FAR TOO PATIENT WITH ME, in that I don't write her ever. I am the worst at keeping in touch, even while I still post to the blog (not a lot, of course -- you've already noticed that I'm sure) and she READS the blog, so to her it looks like I'm too busy to write an email to her yet I have the time to get busted by hot cops, get all flustered around strange grocery store dudes and send adoring emails to random email customer service guys. (man, I now see how much I suck -- why does she continue to be my friend?) ANYWAY...
I'm writing this long-overdue email and I'm already in my online email (we'll call them SUPEREASYTOHACK-DOTCOM!!!) but I try to log into my email on another browser to see other emails she's sent me and gee, apparently ONCE AGAIN my perfectly correct email password is no longer perfectly correct. F*********CK!!!!!
I check my info in the browser where I'm already logged in, and SURE ENOUGH, the secret question has changed, as has the alternate email address. And here's the really sucky, frustrating, KILL SOMEONE BY WEDGING FIRECRACKERS INTO THEIR CREVICES part: even though I can see that these have been changed, I can't go in and change them back to anything accurate BECAUSE the password has also been changed, and even though I'm in there, right then, seeing the badness I have to have the correct password to make anything better.
SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!! It felt like I woke up to the sound of someone wandering around my house (someone whom I knew was unarmed and also timid and only weighed about 63 lbs, so I knew that they could not HURT me, but still) and they're looking at my stuff and taking things, and can't make them get out because they've found my keys and in this Bizarro world whomever is holding the keys is in charge of the house. And if I actually had been in my house with some interloper holding my keys I would have just have beaten them repeatedly with an iron skillet or 12-pack of Pepsi or my television set. (REPEATEDLY. UNTIL THEIR BRAINS WERE A SMOOTH PASTE.)
AND of course by the time I'm hip to all that's happening its past bedtime, but I know that once I go to bed I'll eventually lose access to my email because at some point the email-thing decides that you're not there anymore and you have to sign in again to get access, which I'd love to do IF ONLY SOME STUPID WANKER WASN'T HOLDING MY EMAIL KEEEEEEEYS!!!! So I'm dashing around logging in to other important online accounts, making sure that I've changed all my passwords and looking for any signs of tampering and feeling just totally at risk. There should be some kind of 911 for hacking!
I’ll tell you who has a system – Ebay! Sure, they’re probably where the initial hacking started, for which I would like to Fedex them a box of flaming donkey poop, but when I said “Help Me, help me, help MEEEEEEEE!” they were all over it. I said “danger, Will Ebayson!” and they said “hey, we’re going to call you and make sure that you are you. Get ready – here it comes.” And then the phone rang, which was much spookier than I’d expected. And I answered it, and it was Ebay (who is apparently a bright young lady, possibly from the Midwest somewhere) and she told me that if I was EXPECTING this call I should press 1, and when I did some new guy (I’m thinking this was Ebay’s disgruntled younger brother who is feeling kind of lost, can’t figure out what he wants to do with his life, especially difficult with his living in the shadow of his extremely successful, even famous bigger sister Ebay) who just kept yelling “Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER!” over and over in this aggressive, surly voice. But I put that PIN into the window on Ebay and voila – instant fish! I’m in!
So in short: online email company probably bad, online auction company vulnerable but tricky, hackers SUCK. I think I’ll go back to writing letters.
I'm writing this long-overdue email and I'm already in my online email (we'll call them SUPEREASYTOHACK-DOTCOM!!!) but I try to log into my email on another browser to see other emails she's sent me and gee, apparently ONCE AGAIN my perfectly correct email password is no longer perfectly correct. F*********CK!!!!!
I check my info in the browser where I'm already logged in, and SURE ENOUGH, the secret question has changed, as has the alternate email address. And here's the really sucky, frustrating, KILL SOMEONE BY WEDGING FIRECRACKERS INTO THEIR CREVICES part: even though I can see that these have been changed, I can't go in and change them back to anything accurate BECAUSE the password has also been changed, and even though I'm in there, right then, seeing the badness I have to have the correct password to make anything better.
SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!! It felt like I woke up to the sound of someone wandering around my house (someone whom I knew was unarmed and also timid and only weighed about 63 lbs, so I knew that they could not HURT me, but still) and they're looking at my stuff and taking things, and can't make them get out because they've found my keys and in this Bizarro world whomever is holding the keys is in charge of the house. And if I actually had been in my house with some interloper holding my keys I would have just have beaten them repeatedly with an iron skillet or 12-pack of Pepsi or my television set. (REPEATEDLY. UNTIL THEIR BRAINS WERE A SMOOTH PASTE.)
AND of course by the time I'm hip to all that's happening its past bedtime, but I know that once I go to bed I'll eventually lose access to my email because at some point the email-thing decides that you're not there anymore and you have to sign in again to get access, which I'd love to do IF ONLY SOME STUPID WANKER WASN'T HOLDING MY EMAIL KEEEEEEEYS!!!! So I'm dashing around logging in to other important online accounts, making sure that I've changed all my passwords and looking for any signs of tampering and feeling just totally at risk. There should be some kind of 911 for hacking!
I’ll tell you who has a system – Ebay! Sure, they’re probably where the initial hacking started, for which I would like to Fedex them a box of flaming donkey poop, but when I said “Help Me, help me, help MEEEEEEEE!” they were all over it. I said “danger, Will Ebayson!” and they said “hey, we’re going to call you and make sure that you are you. Get ready – here it comes.” And then the phone rang, which was much spookier than I’d expected. And I answered it, and it was Ebay (who is apparently a bright young lady, possibly from the Midwest somewhere) and she told me that if I was EXPECTING this call I should press 1, and when I did some new guy (I’m thinking this was Ebay’s disgruntled younger brother who is feeling kind of lost, can’t figure out what he wants to do with his life, especially difficult with his living in the shadow of his extremely successful, even famous bigger sister Ebay) who just kept yelling “Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER!” over and over in this aggressive, surly voice. But I put that PIN into the window on Ebay and voila – instant fish! I’m in!
So in short: online email company probably bad, online auction company vulnerable but tricky, hackers SUCK. I think I’ll go back to writing letters.
Monday, April 07, 2008
You should see how I tip!
An email just sent to a customer service dude with whom I was ever so slightly pleased:
"To the boss of CustomerServiceDude: I'm writing to let you know of just how much Mr. CustomerServiceDude is a rockstar. And that amount, if quantified, would be equal to 16 large barrels of rockstardome, plus an additional VW Bug full of rockstar-type clowns, each contributing their rockstar-ness to his overall rockstar quotion. In short: a half-time show of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin and Janis Freakin' Joplin have nothing on our friend CustomerServiceDude.
Before now I have always waxed poetically about your establishment, the fine things found both on-site and online and the exceptionally reasonable prices, and that surely won't be changing. But now I can add to my "Ode to [Consumer Establishment]" that their customer service is so good as to be dipped in chocolate with sprinkles and gold flakes and deep-fried (in that excellent way that Twinkies sometimes are, not the gross way that rats sometimes are) and then served with free booze and canvas bags marked with great, big dollar signs!
Thanks to CustomerServiceDude and I hope you guys will buy him a cupcake every day this week, unless he doesn't like cupcakes, in which case you should bring him daily nachos or daily shots of tequila or whatever sinful and indulgent thing would make CustomerServiceDude a happy camper.
And have a nice day.
-Femtastic"
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Dear Abby Internets
OK, so the other night was “tv and food night of fun and tv and food” and we discovered a distinct lack of dessert which is just WRONG. So I trekked off to the grocery store for yummy, sweet goodness. Anyway, I’m standing in checkout line #1 and over in checkout line B is this guy who, for I have no idea what reason, I totally, TOTALLY noticed. He was not bad looking but my noticeyness went beyond “hey, that dude is kinda cute.” I mean I was really looking. Really looking a bunch. I was about 6 seconds from “piercing mad gaze of a crazed nutbag.” looking at this guy. Somewhere in the back of my brain, where I keep the unicycle and the old issues of Highlights magazine, I had this idea that I was just sure this guy was single and my age and cool and that we’d have things in common and make a connection. I can’t remember having ever been this instantly intrigued by a stranger. And yet this isn’t the part I’m confused about.
I had just NO idea what to do with this moment.
I mean I stood there and kind of hoped that he’d look up and maybe we’d make eye contact, because I knew that an extended look in the eye was a way of saying “I’m single and my loins are inflamed. And you?” But he didn’t and we didn’t so I didn’t, so what do you do when you’re in this situation? I’m really, really asking here. After all, Hippyville is a little place, ripe with second chances for Mr. Fleece-Vest-And-Sharp-Goatee to appear again. And even if I never see him again, in another dozen years I could be instantly attracted to someone else and I’d love to feel less simultaneously helpless and also dorky! So compelling was this one-sided infatuation of about 83 seconds that when I finished my transaction I caught myself hurrying out to the parking lot. (and wouldn’t you know it – he drove away in a mini-cooper, a car I am personally ape over! Augh!)
It’s funny too, because lately I’ve been surrounded by other people being asked out in really average locations. My PT got asked out while faxing a timesheet at a Kinkos. Kinkos, not normally a place I think of as being a hotbed of steamy sexual tension. You don’t think of people going “Hey, let’s have a couple of wine coolers here at my swinging singles pad and then we’ll go pick up chicks while we make some color copies or perhaps purchase some binder tabs. PARTY!!!” Another person at work was approached by some cute dude while at the laundromat. (with her boyfriend – aaawkwaaard….)
Based on all of these stories from others I’ll admit that I thought for a second that this guy at the grocery store might be my turn. Maybe I should go stand by the fresh cut pineapple to give the story a better ring for our grandkids? Then he ruined it by being totally unaware of my human existence. Like we weren’t on the same page at ALL. Just so not cool, dude.
So really, from you people out there who have healthy social interactions and maybe have had sex since the last time a Clinton was in office: what would have been my move here? I don’t mind being single if there’s not an alternative, but I am embarrassed to admit that it really bugged me to have this moment and not been able to figure out how to capitalize on it at all. I need insight, ammunition, possibly alibis if you guys are as nuts as I am and things go awry. Don’t leave me hangin’ here, internets – give me your worldly wisdom!
Signed: Sexless in Safeway
I had just NO idea what to do with this moment.
I mean I stood there and kind of hoped that he’d look up and maybe we’d make eye contact, because I knew that an extended look in the eye was a way of saying “I’m single and my loins are inflamed. And you?” But he didn’t and we didn’t so I didn’t, so what do you do when you’re in this situation? I’m really, really asking here. After all, Hippyville is a little place, ripe with second chances for Mr. Fleece-Vest-And-Sharp-Goatee to appear again. And even if I never see him again, in another dozen years I could be instantly attracted to someone else and I’d love to feel less simultaneously helpless and also dorky! So compelling was this one-sided infatuation of about 83 seconds that when I finished my transaction I caught myself hurrying out to the parking lot. (and wouldn’t you know it – he drove away in a mini-cooper, a car I am personally ape over! Augh!)
It’s funny too, because lately I’ve been surrounded by other people being asked out in really average locations. My PT got asked out while faxing a timesheet at a Kinkos. Kinkos, not normally a place I think of as being a hotbed of steamy sexual tension. You don’t think of people going “Hey, let’s have a couple of wine coolers here at my swinging singles pad and then we’ll go pick up chicks while we make some color copies or perhaps purchase some binder tabs. PARTY!!!” Another person at work was approached by some cute dude while at the laundromat. (with her boyfriend – aaawkwaaard….)
Based on all of these stories from others I’ll admit that I thought for a second that this guy at the grocery store might be my turn. Maybe I should go stand by the fresh cut pineapple to give the story a better ring for our grandkids? Then he ruined it by being totally unaware of my human existence. Like we weren’t on the same page at ALL. Just so not cool, dude.
So really, from you people out there who have healthy social interactions and maybe have had sex since the last time a Clinton was in office: what would have been my move here? I don’t mind being single if there’s not an alternative, but I am embarrassed to admit that it really bugged me to have this moment and not been able to figure out how to capitalize on it at all. I need insight, ammunition, possibly alibis if you guys are as nuts as I am and things go awry. Don’t leave me hangin’ here, internets – give me your worldly wisdom!
Signed: Sexless in Safeway
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Recycling: good for the planet, great for my blog
Best overheard quote from my trip to the recycling center:
“Mom, I found this bicycle wheel that I think we could use to wheel the cradle for the Ark of the Covenant!”Runner-up (by the same kid):
“OK, so I’ve figured out the deal: you find stuff on the ground and it’s free! Like this rubber band! Or this spring!”
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Open Letter to Mr. Hot Cop
Thanks for coming by and being heroic on a day when I wanted to jump off the closest, tallest tall close thing. And also for being hot while you were being heroic. Your combination hot-and-heroic presence was very helpful and also a little “Whew!” (and then picture me fanning my face with a lacey, southern ‘kerchief, like I’m all hot and bothered)
I’m sorry that your possible flirting (and I say “possible flirting” because I’ve lost all ability to recognize flirting unless it comes in the shape of a cheap, crappy drink purchased from one end of a bar and delivered to the other end, along with an offer of a boob-rub in a dude’s hot tub later, whatchathinkaboutthat?, to which I’m automatically forced to reply “tell him thanks but I’m scheduled to have my head bashed in with a wine bottle and couldn’t bear to miss it.”) wasn’t responded to better. There are two reasons for that.
The first is that my Dad was RIGHT THERE and even though I know he knows that I know about sex I still prefer to be pretty much A-Sexual around him. Maybe we could have done flirting plant-style, where you get a third party (such as a bumble bee or butterfly) to rub up against you and then rub up against me, but even so let’s not have my dad be around to see it.
The second is that I was super-busy trying to make sure that I was standing between you and my license plates. My still-expired, still-out of date, still-“hey, shouldn’t this chick get a ticket for these old, sad tags?” license plates. And even though I thought I recognized some flirting from you (like the giving me your card when I didn’t ask for it or anything) it was hard to be sure, what with all the scootching and shifting and messing around and leg-contorting I had to do to block those plates. Also it was a little hard to imagine that you’d be flirting with someone who so clearly suffered from severe adult ADD with all my dashing from the front of the car to the back of the car, three steps ahead of you and your deep, liquid pools of expired-plate-identifying blue eyes. And eventually I was all out of breath and panicky and bug-eyed and just not sexy.
Here’s the deal: my plates are legal now (properly motivated was I!) so I was thinking I’ll just starting driving around town crashing into things, in the hopes that you’ll once again come pulling up, manly in your car-of-many-radios and your macho smooth head and those uber-reflective sunglasses, capable of piercing my very smooshy soul. (hold on, my monitor got all steamed up...) This time I'll be ready and flirty and girlish and much less swirly and spastic and suspicious-acting! I’ll wear girl-clothes everywhere I drive crash from now on and I’ll practice giggling at anything said and I’ll work on my light punch-to-show-I’m-feisty action. Watch for me!
I’m sorry that your possible flirting (and I say “possible flirting” because I’ve lost all ability to recognize flirting unless it comes in the shape of a cheap, crappy drink purchased from one end of a bar and delivered to the other end, along with an offer of a boob-rub in a dude’s hot tub later, whatchathinkaboutthat?, to which I’m automatically forced to reply “tell him thanks but I’m scheduled to have my head bashed in with a wine bottle and couldn’t bear to miss it.”) wasn’t responded to better. There are two reasons for that.
The first is that my Dad was RIGHT THERE and even though I know he knows that I know about sex I still prefer to be pretty much A-Sexual around him. Maybe we could have done flirting plant-style, where you get a third party (such as a bumble bee or butterfly) to rub up against you and then rub up against me, but even so let’s not have my dad be around to see it.
The second is that I was super-busy trying to make sure that I was standing between you and my license plates. My still-expired, still-out of date, still-“hey, shouldn’t this chick get a ticket for these old, sad tags?” license plates. And even though I thought I recognized some flirting from you (like the giving me your card when I didn’t ask for it or anything) it was hard to be sure, what with all the scootching and shifting and messing around and leg-contorting I had to do to block those plates. Also it was a little hard to imagine that you’d be flirting with someone who so clearly suffered from severe adult ADD with all my dashing from the front of the car to the back of the car, three steps ahead of you and your deep, liquid pools of expired-plate-identifying blue eyes. And eventually I was all out of breath and panicky and bug-eyed and just not sexy.
Here’s the deal: my plates are legal now (properly motivated was I!) so I was thinking I’ll just starting driving around town crashing into things, in the hopes that you’ll once again come pulling up, manly in your car-of-many-radios and your macho smooth head and those uber-reflective sunglasses, capable of piercing my very smooshy soul. (hold on, my monitor got all steamed up...) This time I'll be ready and flirty and girlish and much less swirly and spastic and suspicious-acting! I’ll wear girl-clothes everywhere I drive crash from now on and I’ll practice giggling at anything said and I’ll work on my light punch-to-show-I’m-feisty action. Watch for me!
Monday, March 24, 2008
How my email was kidnapped by China.
OK, so I’m just checking, but so far the things I’ve been writing here are NOT in Chinese, right? I haven’t rocked the mandarin or jammed in Cantonese, right? The reason I’m asking is on Friday my correct email password spontaneously refused to be correct, and when I traipsed, la,la,la into the “forgot your password?” part I discovered that my secret question was ęÆäŗ²ēåŗēå°. Which is “where was your mother born?”, which is a secret question that I never, ever use because my Mom was born in Ames, and that’s too few characters to use. Oh, and also that is CHINESE!
That is a moment where you become very aware that stuff is not at all right. Badness has come and camped out in your front yard, smoking clove cigarettes and cooking leftover fish in your microwave oven. SO not right!
I send an email to the loving and caring people at the email help center saying, roughly, “crap, crap, help because badness and also augh because help with I CAN’T GET INTO MY EMAIL!!! And I'm NOT Chinese, NOT Chinese, I’m very un-chinese but my email is all Chinese now, which BAD, help HELP and gibbergibbergibber help MEEEEEEEE!” They replied with first the classic automated reply (“hey, you should totally try to do the “Forgot your password?” thing because that would definitely fix everything, and thanks for asking. Have a super day.”) and then a real person’s reply. Real Dude (because who knows, maybe he’s innocent and worthy of protection too?) said basically that he totally believed me, wanted oh so very much to help me and would even give me a big, squishy hug if he weren’t somewhere on the other side of the globe.
Real Dude goes on to say that they also have to be careful about privacy and security and so before he can help me I’ll just need to answer a question or two. Or 17. (not kidding even a little bit – 17 questions.) OK, that makes sense to me. So I answer the questions (what’s the email address? What’s my birthdate? What size bra do I wear? When was my last bm? If a train leaves Houston, going north, at 4pm and a plane leaves San Francisco at the same time who the hell cares?) and send off the answers, and eagerly await my email of deliverance, saving me from my hacking nightmare. But then I’m thinking “well crap, if Senior CrapWeasel has changed my password and my security information I’m sure he/she has changed pretty much everything else! So how the hell will helpful Real Dude be able to tell anything from my list? Mayhaps I have stopped panicking a little too early?
Long story short, Real Dude was totally THE MAN and he totally believed me and sent me magical links that let me back into my email and ALL IS WELL! Well, all is better. I seriously do not speak, read, understand or remotely grok Chinese, which is only an issue because that’s still the language everything is showing up in. And funny thing: when you ask for help to change the language setting everyone gives you the steps, but they seem to forget that all the buttons are in Chinese. Which (hate to keep harping on this) I CAN’T READ, so how do I tell which button to push or which item on the drop-down menu to select? Hello? Sigh. Wish me čæę°.
That is a moment where you become very aware that stuff is not at all right. Badness has come and camped out in your front yard, smoking clove cigarettes and cooking leftover fish in your microwave oven. SO not right!
I send an email to the loving and caring people at the email help center saying, roughly, “crap, crap, help because badness and also augh because help with I CAN’T GET INTO MY EMAIL!!! And I'm NOT Chinese, NOT Chinese, I’m very un-chinese but my email is all Chinese now, which BAD, help HELP and gibbergibbergibber help MEEEEEEEE!” They replied with first the classic automated reply (“hey, you should totally try to do the “Forgot your password?” thing because that would definitely fix everything, and thanks for asking. Have a super day.”) and then a real person’s reply. Real Dude (because who knows, maybe he’s innocent and worthy of protection too?) said basically that he totally believed me, wanted oh so very much to help me and would even give me a big, squishy hug if he weren’t somewhere on the other side of the globe.
Real Dude goes on to say that they also have to be careful about privacy and security and so before he can help me I’ll just need to answer a question or two. Or 17. (not kidding even a little bit – 17 questions.) OK, that makes sense to me. So I answer the questions (what’s the email address? What’s my birthdate? What size bra do I wear? When was my last bm? If a train leaves Houston, going north, at 4pm and a plane leaves San Francisco at the same time who the hell cares?) and send off the answers, and eagerly await my email of deliverance, saving me from my hacking nightmare. But then I’m thinking “well crap, if Senior CrapWeasel has changed my password and my security information I’m sure he/she has changed pretty much everything else! So how the hell will helpful Real Dude be able to tell anything from my list? Mayhaps I have stopped panicking a little too early?
Long story short, Real Dude was totally THE MAN and he totally believed me and sent me magical links that let me back into my email and ALL IS WELL! Well, all is better. I seriously do not speak, read, understand or remotely grok Chinese, which is only an issue because that’s still the language everything is showing up in. And funny thing: when you ask for help to change the language setting everyone gives you the steps, but they seem to forget that all the buttons are in Chinese. Which (hate to keep harping on this) I CAN’T READ, so how do I tell which button to push or which item on the drop-down menu to select? Hello? Sigh. Wish me čæę°.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
My road to hell is paved with obsession and pretty, pretty!
So, tomorrow is Easter. Did you get some Easter Candy? Yeah, me too. Did you decorate eggs? Yeah, me too. Did your decorated egg take you hours to complete? Yeah, me too. Oh wait, just me?
So Easter is another one of those holidays were me and my people get super-enthusiastic about the crafty part. Where as most folks think “egg decorating” and get some dye and make some really nice blue or lovely green eggs, or maybe they do a little waxing stuff or some stickers or crayons, my family shows up with boxes and BOXES of supplies. I remember one year there was an easter right after a wedding, and a friend of mine in town for the wedding was invited to join in the egg decorating festivities, but he declined. When pressed for a “why” he finally fessed up that he was too intimidated to decorate eggs with my family. “I mean cripes,” he said, “for me I’m happy when I get a really nice blue! You people are crazy!”
We’ve got crayons, pastels, colored pencils and markers, paints, drafting pens, 3-d attachments… I’m waiting for the year we finally motorize an egg. It’s coming – oh yes it is coming. Also we have these things – I don’t know exactly when we first got them, but long enough ago that I don’t remember us NOT having them, and also long enough ago that the best way to attach them to massive blocks of 4x4 wood was duct tape. (these days we’d have done something elaborate with power tools and high-tech hardware pieces. And then duct tape.)
Anyway, they’re these plastic egg lathes. They’re spring-loaded and you put the egg between the holder-bits and then you can turn it and draw and stuff and you don’t have to hold the egg in one hand while you are being creative. They ROCK! We have only three, and no matter how much time I spend on the internet looking for more of them I’ve never seen any other evidence of them. It’s like we’re the only people who ever thought they were a worthwhile idea. To which I say "just how is one supposed to draw shimmering, symmetrical scales with a forced perspective, to show movement of course,on their blowfish egg without some method of holding the egg still?" I’m just saying!
So beloved are our three egg lathes that we often have creative back-ups when folks are waiting for a lathe to free up. "No, I'm fine, I just need, NEED, to draw a perfect line around the exact center of the egg before I can finish the design. So I'll just eat some more dark chocolate M&Ms (perfect for egg decorating because of the lack of meltage upon one's hands -- nice job, people at Mars Candy!) while I wait for Aunt Whosit to finish painting Monet's Wildflowers."
This year my big plan was to bead an egg, and everything mostly went to plan, except the part of the plan where it said “expected time required to complete egg: not so much, maybe 45 minutes tops, it’ll be cool” and it apparently should have said “expected time required to complete egg: bring a sleeping bag, drink lots of fluids, don’t forget to stretch first, what the heck are you thinking anyway?”
Still, at 1:something a.m. I was the happy owner of a lovely, beaded egg.
The whole collection was very cool. We’re just an artsy-fartsy bunch! So I say that if the rest of the Easter-celebrating world wants to spend this holiday with prayer and worship and such they should have a big old blast with that. And pardon me while I work on next year’s egg, which I think will be an aircraft with working propeller, landing gear and tiny air stewardesses. Made from Peeps. (You know you're jealous. Jealous of our madness!)
So Easter is another one of those holidays were me and my people get super-enthusiastic about the crafty part. Where as most folks think “egg decorating” and get some dye and make some really nice blue or lovely green eggs, or maybe they do a little waxing stuff or some stickers or crayons, my family shows up with boxes and BOXES of supplies. I remember one year there was an easter right after a wedding, and a friend of mine in town for the wedding was invited to join in the egg decorating festivities, but he declined. When pressed for a “why” he finally fessed up that he was too intimidated to decorate eggs with my family. “I mean cripes,” he said, “for me I’m happy when I get a really nice blue! You people are crazy!”
We’ve got crayons, pastels, colored pencils and markers, paints, drafting pens, 3-d attachments… I’m waiting for the year we finally motorize an egg. It’s coming – oh yes it is coming. Also we have these things – I don’t know exactly when we first got them, but long enough ago that I don’t remember us NOT having them, and also long enough ago that the best way to attach them to massive blocks of 4x4 wood was duct tape. (these days we’d have done something elaborate with power tools and high-tech hardware pieces. And then duct tape.)
Anyway, they’re these plastic egg lathes. They’re spring-loaded and you put the egg between the holder-bits and then you can turn it and draw and stuff and you don’t have to hold the egg in one hand while you are being creative. They ROCK! We have only three, and no matter how much time I spend on the internet looking for more of them I’ve never seen any other evidence of them. It’s like we’re the only people who ever thought they were a worthwhile idea. To which I say "just how is one supposed to draw shimmering, symmetrical scales with a forced perspective, to show movement of course,on their blowfish egg without some method of holding the egg still?" I’m just saying!
So beloved are our three egg lathes that we often have creative back-ups when folks are waiting for a lathe to free up. "No, I'm fine, I just need, NEED, to draw a perfect line around the exact center of the egg before I can finish the design. So I'll just eat some more dark chocolate M&Ms (perfect for egg decorating because of the lack of meltage upon one's hands -- nice job, people at Mars Candy!) while I wait for Aunt Whosit to finish painting Monet's Wildflowers."
This year my big plan was to bead an egg, and everything mostly went to plan, except the part of the plan where it said “expected time required to complete egg: not so much, maybe 45 minutes tops, it’ll be cool” and it apparently should have said “expected time required to complete egg: bring a sleeping bag, drink lots of fluids, don’t forget to stretch first, what the heck are you thinking anyway?”
Still, at 1:something a.m. I was the happy owner of a lovely, beaded egg.The whole collection was very cool. We’re just an artsy-fartsy bunch! So I say that if the rest of the Easter-celebrating world wants to spend this holiday with prayer and worship and such they should have a big old blast with that. And pardon me while I work on next year’s egg, which I think will be an aircraft with working propeller, landing gear and tiny air stewardesses. Made from Peeps. (You know you're jealous. Jealous of our madness!)
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Not Just for St. Patrick's Day. Or breakfast.
OK, so the plan was to write a post about my best guy friend, the King. I wanted to do that both because Monday was the King’s birthday and also because in the last year and a half I’ve hardly ever written about him, so it’s SO TIME! This was the plan. The plan was also to post this on his actual birthday, and to have it be this cool post that would be all heart-warming and funny and maybe people would read it and get throat-lumpy and tell their friends “I read this post today about this one woman’s friend and it was touching and so I’m giving you my last Pop Tart to show you that I love you like she loves this friend and just… just… wow.”
These things, and so much more, were the plan.
Then again, the plan was also to keep writing regularly and be fabulous and pithy and beloved by all. And be skinny. And make grown men weep and grown women envy. And the skinny thing – did I mention this? Anyway, the point is that I don’t seem to be able to work to the plan recently, and this King post is, painfully, NO EXCEPTION.
I TRIED to write the post. I tried a bunch of times, and all of them were a stupendous combination of lame, boring and painful to read. No, painful to write and agonizing to read. A post that would beg the question: read this or gouge my eyes out with a melon-baller? Decisions, decisions…
This is the thing: The King is naturally cool. Always has been. Has always been the coolness barometer of our group, and all the groups that he’s been part of. He’s funny (officially funny, not just my opinion. He was once voted as the funniest person of all Hippyville) and smart and bright and over and over he’s the guy that everyone else wants to impress.
And I’m no exception.
I have only told a few people that I’m writing this blog. I knew he knew about it, but the day I heard he’d actually been reading it I was floored. Then when I heard that he was some level of impressed with it I preened and glowed and used phrases like “how special am I? Oh yes, so very special!” until a tranquilizer dart was required to stop me. So in trying to write an homage to this friend of decades and decades, knowing that he might read it, I just kept getting inside my own head. (a scary place, full of saber-toothed Smurfs and gravy-flavored jello and the
theme from Shaft playing as muzac in a terrible loop.) It has to be as cool as he is, or else I should just bail on the whole idea and instead bake him something made of chocolate and money.
And in the end I realized that my own nerves here were my best homage to the coolest guy I know. Dude, in all the years I’ve known you and known all the people that you and I both know, you’re the only one who’s laughter makes me feel REALLY funny because I know you don’t laugh at just anything. You’re the King of Cool, and its so amazing to me that I keep getting to be your friend, because that means (at least I have decided that it means) that I’m at least cool enough to rate a place in your court. All hail the King – Long may his Coolness Reign!
These things, and so much more, were the plan.
Then again, the plan was also to keep writing regularly and be fabulous and pithy and beloved by all. And be skinny. And make grown men weep and grown women envy. And the skinny thing – did I mention this? Anyway, the point is that I don’t seem to be able to work to the plan recently, and this King post is, painfully, NO EXCEPTION.
I TRIED to write the post. I tried a bunch of times, and all of them were a stupendous combination of lame, boring and painful to read. No, painful to write and agonizing to read. A post that would beg the question: read this or gouge my eyes out with a melon-baller? Decisions, decisions…
This is the thing: The King is naturally cool. Always has been. Has always been the coolness barometer of our group, and all the groups that he’s been part of. He’s funny (officially funny, not just my opinion. He was once voted as the funniest person of all Hippyville) and smart and bright and over and over he’s the guy that everyone else wants to impress.
And I’m no exception.
I have only told a few people that I’m writing this blog. I knew he knew about it, but the day I heard he’d actually been reading it I was floored. Then when I heard that he was some level of impressed with it I preened and glowed and used phrases like “how special am I? Oh yes, so very special!” until a tranquilizer dart was required to stop me. So in trying to write an homage to this friend of decades and decades, knowing that he might read it, I just kept getting inside my own head. (a scary place, full of saber-toothed Smurfs and gravy-flavored jello and the
theme from Shaft playing as muzac in a terrible loop.) It has to be as cool as he is, or else I should just bail on the whole idea and instead bake him something made of chocolate and money.And in the end I realized that my own nerves here were my best homage to the coolest guy I know. Dude, in all the years I’ve known you and known all the people that you and I both know, you’re the only one who’s laughter makes me feel REALLY funny because I know you don’t laugh at just anything. You’re the King of Cool, and its so amazing to me that I keep getting to be your friend, because that means (at least I have decided that it means) that I’m at least cool enough to rate a place in your court. All hail the King – Long may his Coolness Reign!
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Validation!
OK, so as still a fledgling blogger (too many g’s in that combination of words – sorry about that) you’re always looking for signs that you’re succeeding; that what your doing is something you should keep doing; that you’re not just flapping wasted wings like a sad, sad penguin. I have spent my time as a stats whore, checking every hour to see “did anybody look in the last 60 minutes? How ‘bout now? How ‘bout now?” I’ve done triumphant victory dances when a comment comes from someone I don’t know. Only to be crushed when I realize that it’s some comments robot responding to some combination of words in my post. Only to be back to dancing when I realize “hey, my blog is worthy of spam comments! The robots know about me! Whee!!”
At this point, in an attempt to seem all cool and aloof and Fonzie-esque, I’ve been only checking the stats every couple of weeks, and I never really GET comments anymore so the dancing has gone way down. (which is actually good, because we all know that Fonzie don’t dance. Eeeeey!) But recently my gmail has become my new-found source of validation!
First I got an email from some industrious woman who has written a book! A novel! An author is she! And she wrote me because her book is “fresh, fun, quirky and hilarious”, and also about a lady looking for love (Like me!) who is desperate to get her ex back (Hmmm, less like me) and decides to learn how to be a fake psychic, in order to give the new girlfriend psychic readings to wreck their relationship! (...aaaaaawkwaaaaard... ) Actually, it could be excellent, and besides I say kudos to her for sitting down and actually writing a danged book. I’m totally going to do that any day now myself, just as soon as that huge tub of Red Vines is gone and I run out of 100% passive hobbies in which to indulge. ANY day now…
But here’s the thing: Ms. Authorette thought I was noteworthy enough to send me this email spam! It included phrases like “…a book I know your readers will be interested in…” which, by association, meant she thinks that my blog might attract readers, AND that my readers might like to also read books, which would make them all edumacated and smart-like! (that’s you guys!! Wave at the nice author-lady! Show her how smart you are!!) She offered to send me a review copy of the book! My blog could now get me free stuff! What says “successful” more than free stuff? NOTHING! She offered to be a guest-blogger, which I won’t be taking her up on, but still, cool that she thought that might even be worth doing! That blogging even momentarily on my space might be a way for her to promote a book. A real, bound, published by a publisher book!
You can clearly tell by my excessive use of exclamation points that this whole thing is thrilling beyond,… well, beyond thrills. But wait. There’s more.
Later, after the cool author email, I got another email from another person that I didn’t even know! At all! She said things like “Oh, you made me laugh!” and even that I brought TEARS! To her EYES! From the LAUGHTER! (At least I’m pretty sure it was from laughter. Hold on, I’d better check… Yes! Laughter tears! Back to the rejoicing!)
Needless to say I’m working on my E-Shrine to the email lady – we’ll call her Email Lady – that will go somewhere over there on the left. And I’m checking my Gmail alla time alla time. Because someone out there liked me! They really liked me! Suck on that, Sally Field!
At this point, in an attempt to seem all cool and aloof and Fonzie-esque, I’ve been only checking the stats every couple of weeks, and I never really GET comments anymore so the dancing has gone way down. (which is actually good, because we all know that Fonzie don’t dance. Eeeeey!) But recently my gmail has become my new-found source of validation!
First I got an email from some industrious woman who has written a book! A novel! An author is she! And she wrote me because her book is “fresh, fun, quirky and hilarious”, and also about a lady looking for love (Like me!) who is desperate to get her ex back (Hmmm, less like me) and decides to learn how to be a fake psychic, in order to give the new girlfriend psychic readings to wreck their relationship! (...aaaaaawkwaaaaard... ) Actually, it could be excellent, and besides I say kudos to her for sitting down and actually writing a danged book. I’m totally going to do that any day now myself, just as soon as that huge tub of Red Vines is gone and I run out of 100% passive hobbies in which to indulge. ANY day now…
But here’s the thing: Ms. Authorette thought I was noteworthy enough to send me this email spam! It included phrases like “…a book I know your readers will be interested in…” which, by association, meant she thinks that my blog might attract readers, AND that my readers might like to also read books, which would make them all edumacated and smart-like! (that’s you guys!! Wave at the nice author-lady! Show her how smart you are!!) She offered to send me a review copy of the book! My blog could now get me free stuff! What says “successful” more than free stuff? NOTHING! She offered to be a guest-blogger, which I won’t be taking her up on, but still, cool that she thought that might even be worth doing! That blogging even momentarily on my space might be a way for her to promote a book. A real, bound, published by a publisher book!
You can clearly tell by my excessive use of exclamation points that this whole thing is thrilling beyond,… well, beyond thrills. But wait. There’s more.
Later, after the cool author email, I got another email from another person that I didn’t even know! At all! She said things like “Oh, you made me laugh!” and even that I brought TEARS! To her EYES! From the LAUGHTER! (At least I’m pretty sure it was from laughter. Hold on, I’d better check… Yes! Laughter tears! Back to the rejoicing!)
Needless to say I’m working on my E-Shrine to the email lady – we’ll call her Email Lady – that will go somewhere over there on the left. And I’m checking my Gmail alla time alla time. Because someone out there liked me! They really liked me! Suck on that, Sally Field!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
(With apologies to Ziggy.)
So the first Monday of every month I change the image on my computer at work. I have convinced myself that my desktop image is a way that I can further show my co-workers just how cool I am. Most of the time it's a picture I especially love-a-love-a-love-a from Icanhascheezburger.com, but any picture I find online is fair game. And so seriously do I take this percieved opportunity to share my inner-me with my co-workers that I even move the "This computer is locked" box out of the way, to better display my clever and entertaining desktop picture.
And if the people I work for are worthy for sharing then CERTAINLY my best beloveds are! (that's you guys -- I'll be trying out some new nicknames for you, my best beloveds, over the next couple of weeks. If you like one, shout out!) So I give you a new, monthly feature: The Desktop Picture. Enjoy March:
(courtesy of Daily Oliver)
So the first Monday of every month I change the image on my computer at work. I have convinced myself that my desktop image is a way that I can further show my co-workers just how cool I am. Most of the time it's a picture I especially love-a-love-a-love-a from Icanhascheezburger.com, but any picture I find online is fair game. And so seriously do I take this percieved opportunity to share my inner-me with my co-workers that I even move the "This computer is locked" box out of the way, to better display my clever and entertaining desktop picture.
And if the people I work for are worthy for sharing then CERTAINLY my best beloveds are! (that's you guys -- I'll be trying out some new nicknames for you, my best beloveds, over the next couple of weeks. If you like one, shout out!) So I give you a new, monthly feature: The Desktop Picture. Enjoy March:
(courtesy of Daily Oliver)
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