Sandra's note: I wrote this thing months ago (back in August of last year) and just never got around to posting it. So if things are bit dated, that's why. I figured, however, that my opinions are timeless.
The movie starts. Some Arab dudes flash up on the screen for a minute or two before I am shown shots of a busy interstate and the bustling Newark airport. A mounting dread fills me the more I watch, because even if you don't know by now that I was watching "United 93," I did. And I knew what was going to happen already.
Why did I come see this movie?
For those of you who do not know, United 93 is about the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside on September 11, 2001 because the passengers attempted to take over the plane from the hijackers. The plane is speculated to have been headed for the Capitol or the White House (the movie says the Capitol). Naturally, a lot of the movie is pure speculation, because everyone who would be able to tell us what happened on the flight is dead. But a lot of those people made phone calls to friends and loved ones while the hijackers were in control of the plane, and so the screenwriter pieced together a story with those phone calls and then filled in the holes. My worry going into this movie was that it would not be clear that most of the script was made up. Based on real events and real people, yes, but other than a few telephone conversations five years ago and profiles of passengers given by the people who loved them, this movie is fiction. I was afraid that viewers would come out thinking they knew what really happened. I was afraid that a bunch of cheap, Hollywood sentimental effects were going to turn a national tragedy into nothing more than a moneymaker.
There were no famous actors. I thought I recognized one, an old lady from a sitcom that hasn't been on in years. The rest were regular-looking people, and some of the airport staff had been actual airport staff. No one was especially attractive or well-spoken. There was no heart-wrenching music to signify the dramatic scenes and the big lines, and there really were no big lines. People stuttered and mispoke. The camera work was shaky, as if it were documentary footage. From the moment the passengers got on the plane, the movie was in real-time. Though the terrorists were speaking Arabic, the subtitles were scant. For the most part, the viewer did not need to know exactly what they said. Besides, the passengers surely couldn't tell.
The really horrifying part of the movie was before the hijacking. It was the fact that you went into the movie and watched it, knowing what was going to happen. You watched all the regular-looking people carrying luggage and checking their tickets and calling people on their cell phones while they waited in the airport. You watched them do all these normal things that you've done before and will do again, the things that are just part of air travel. But at the same time, you know the ending. Once the terrorists were taking over and everything stopped seeming so familiar and routine, it was actually a relief, and I stopped considering walking out altogether.
One of the best things about this movie is how the terrorists were portrayed. They were not vicious and they were not lunatics. Granted, they did kill a lot of innocent people, but they were definitely shown as people who saw the killings as unavoidable given the fact that they had a higher calling. It was all part of a war to them. They bore the passengers no malice. The moviemakers did not show them as cruel, and I think that was a smart move. We have enough hatred. In fact, the terrorists looked like normal people, maybe with thick dark hair and light olive skin, but just regular folks you might see anywhere. And the most striking thing was that they were scared, they were actually nervous, like anyone would be on a mission to martyrdom.
The most gripping part of the movie was a simple scene before the passengers decided to fight back, when they knew they were probably going to die but just had to sit there and wait for it. From the point of the takeover to the time of the crash was about half an hour. Things are kinda settled, the situation has sort of sunk in. The terrorists are in control, but they are nervous because they still have some time before they reach the target. They're praying at the same time, though to themselves in some language that I do not speak. There are no subtitles. The passengers are reciting the Lord's Prayer to themselves as well, the same prayer but not together. It's a powerful sequence of images, the interweaving of the pleas to Allah and the Christian God. I wanted to scream out at the screen, "We've obviously got some things in common - can't we work something out?"
The bottom line is this: if this movie had to be made, the one I watched was a pretty good one. I don't think the movie needed to be made at all; 9/11 wasn't even five years ago. But the screenwriter and the director and the cinematographer and everyone else on the movie could have taken a lot of terrible wrong turns, and they didn't. They were not trying to glorify anything.
I watched this movie alone and wished that I had not. There's no point in wishing I hadn't even seen it, because I know I would have eventually watched it out of pure curiosity. But I wish that someone had watched it with me, so that I could talk about it. I even walked out of the theatre and to my car slowly so as to overhear the conversation of some of those who had been in the theatre with me. One man said, "Well, it sorta puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" I wanted to turn around and say, "I'm sorry, could you be more generic, please?" I was irritated at the man for making such a trite comment just to have something to say. The woman who was with him made a better point, saying that the passengers had not rushed the cockpit to crash the plane, but to save it from crashing at all. Admittedly, that is a thought that hadn't occurred to me. The passengers of United 93 have been lauded as heroes, for their bold statement "We're not going down like this." Maybe their statement was "We're not going down at all."
Here's what I thought. Because of all the phone calls to people on the ground, the passengers knew what was up. They knew about the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and so they knew that they were not hostages. It was clear to them that they were bound for another building. And so what they did makes more sense now. They were not trying to be heroes or symbols of the American spirit. They were just trying to survive. I wonder if the passengers of the other flights might not have reacted the same way with the same information. If they knew it was either definitely die or fight back and still maybe die they might have opted to fight back, too.
I'm trying to figure out the point of this movie. It wasn't made to shock you, though I had been afraid that there would be graphic violence. However, the cinematography was so shaky that nothing was really seen vividly. I imagine that the views were what you would see had you been on the plane - everything happened too fast that afterwards, you weren't even sure what really went on. It didn't glorify the passengers as heroes, but merely showed people choosing survival. It didn't demonize the terrorists - they were people, too. It wasn't a patriotic movie, either; there were no stupid catchphrases about the American way or whatever. Maybe the point was to just tell a powerful story.
I'm not particularly recommending this movie. If you feel uncomfortable seeing it, then don't. It's not easy to watch, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to ever watch it again. I hear there's another 9/11 movie coming out, one that, based on the trailers, promises to have swelling music and tragic speeches. There's no shortage of tragedy movies based on actual events: Titanic, Pearl Harbor, etc. That sort of movie seems a mockery of what really happened, just an obvious attempt to capitalize off a horrific event without bothering to pay much respect to the facts or the people whose lives were altered forever. Maybe you could make a 9/11 movie like that in 50 or 100 years, but now? Too soon.
One quibble: there was a foreign passenger (German, I think?) who tried to talk the other passengers out of rushing the cabin, who was in favor of staying calm and seeing how things turned out. There was an actual foreign man on the plane, but there was never any evidence of this passenger doing anything of the sort. I suppose the filmmakers felt it would be unrealistic to suppose that everyone would be in favor of fighting back and so wanted to have someone show disagreement to add to the realism. Then they were faced with the dilemma of who to use: use one of the Americans, and you're definitely going to piss off the victim's family. So while I understand this problem, the decision to use the foreign passenger seemed kind of...I dunno, petty.
5.28.2007
5.25.2007
dice boot!
My brother Knocker, who lives in Raleigh as well, asked me what I did for lunch every day at my new job. I told him I hadn't really figured out a routine yet. A week later, I realized he was probably working up to asking me if I would like to have lunch with him, now that I'm so close and all. So I emailed him, apologized for being a doofus and not picking up on the hint, and said that I would love to have lunch with him. He replied that he hadn't been asking me to lunch at all, he'd merely been interested in the kind of luncheon social dynamics at the workplace. I thought about it some more and realized that since Knocker is the same kind of person that I am, had he wanted to eat lunch sometime, he would have, you know, just asked me if I wanted to eat lunch sometime.
Surprisingly, this entry is not about how people should just say what they mean. That would be quite a short entry, and it would go like this:
People should just say what they mean.
And now it's over, and I've got all this empty space here, so I'll have to talk about something else. It might as well be lunch social dynamics. And German board games.
I remember, way back in a simpler time, when I did not know about office politics. Worrying about what to do at lunchtime seemed such a high school thing. But, alas, too many things that I thought would fade with my graduation from West Caldwell High have found their way into my adult life, most of them social.
At the old job, there were basically three lunchtime options. The first one was to not eat. I don't really include this option as viable, though I did it on a couple of busy days. Some people did it every day. The second one is to go out to a restaurant and eat. There was usually a group of people who did this and anyone was always welcome to tag along. The final option was to eat in your office, either something you brought from home or takeout. It wasn't such a bad system. I ate out rarely, usually when they were going out to a restaurant that I favored. Otherwise I just holed up in my office with one serving out of a cauldron of homemade stroganoff.
Of course, there was basically a core group of people who ate out every day. I guess the term for that would be a "clique," but it seems strange to call it thus when you're talking about middle-aged computer programmers and not cheerleaders (middle-aged or otherwise). In any case, I never felt that I belonged as a part of that group. I think now that my days eating lunch as part of a cozy circle of close friends are over. I guess I shouldn't have gone into a male-dominated field.
At my new job, the setup seems very similar. There are the restaurant people, the desk eaters (those who eat at their desks, not those who eat their desks), as well as people who sort of combine the two groups. They bring their food back to work, but they eat it in the communal break room while reading the paper or talking to whoever else is there. Then, there is one last class of lunchers, and it is this group with which I have taken up. We spend our lunch hour playing games.
I love games. I'm probably setting a record for number of board games owned, given the fact that I live alone. So I don't get to play them very often, but I have them. After all, what if someone came by one day with a hankering to play Scattergories and I was not prepared? It came as a hard hit to me to finally understand that a lot of people just aren't that into games. I don't know if it's the competition, the technology-free time spent, the wholesome quality time with friends, or a combination of the three. But I like games a lot, to the point where I used to play them by myself as a kid. I'm talking Monopoly, people, by myself. In my defense, I always won, because the "other" players continuously made moves that were strategically advantageous to me. My imaginary friends were not very good at games, as it turned out.
And apparently I have found a group of like-minded individuals (or other formerly lonely children). The games we play are like none I've never heard of before. A lot of them are imported from Europe and include bilingual instructions. They are all thinking and strategy, rather than luck-based games. It's like playing Risk instead of Life or Bridge instead of Go Fish. Yesterday, we played a game about continental drift. In a world where I thought I was into games, these people showed me how wrong I was. Yesterday, one of my new game buddies sent out an email saying he was making an order from this site, pointing out that since he was ordering $60 worth of merchandise, the rest of us only had to order a total of $65 more to get free shipping for everyone. I didn't order anything, but I did develop a fascination for the Dice Boot. And that was before I found out that one of my new lunchtime friends has two of them.
As in any new social situation, I was concerned about acceptance. This scenario is a little more complicated, though. I make the fifth person in the lunchtime gaming group, and one of the much-loved games was a four-person one. I felt uncomfortable and vaguely unwanted every time someone mentioned the game, as I felt responsible for its recent shelfing. But then today, we spent our daily hour excitedly modifying the game to create our own version, one suitable for five players. If that's not acceptance, I don't know what is.
Surprisingly, this entry is not about how people should just say what they mean. That would be quite a short entry, and it would go like this:
People should just say what they mean.
And now it's over, and I've got all this empty space here, so I'll have to talk about something else. It might as well be lunch social dynamics. And German board games.
I remember, way back in a simpler time, when I did not know about office politics. Worrying about what to do at lunchtime seemed such a high school thing. But, alas, too many things that I thought would fade with my graduation from West Caldwell High have found their way into my adult life, most of them social.
At the old job, there were basically three lunchtime options. The first one was to not eat. I don't really include this option as viable, though I did it on a couple of busy days. Some people did it every day. The second one is to go out to a restaurant and eat. There was usually a group of people who did this and anyone was always welcome to tag along. The final option was to eat in your office, either something you brought from home or takeout. It wasn't such a bad system. I ate out rarely, usually when they were going out to a restaurant that I favored. Otherwise I just holed up in my office with one serving out of a cauldron of homemade stroganoff.
Of course, there was basically a core group of people who ate out every day. I guess the term for that would be a "clique," but it seems strange to call it thus when you're talking about middle-aged computer programmers and not cheerleaders (middle-aged or otherwise). In any case, I never felt that I belonged as a part of that group. I think now that my days eating lunch as part of a cozy circle of close friends are over. I guess I shouldn't have gone into a male-dominated field.
At my new job, the setup seems very similar. There are the restaurant people, the desk eaters (those who eat at their desks, not those who eat their desks), as well as people who sort of combine the two groups. They bring their food back to work, but they eat it in the communal break room while reading the paper or talking to whoever else is there. Then, there is one last class of lunchers, and it is this group with which I have taken up. We spend our lunch hour playing games.
I love games. I'm probably setting a record for number of board games owned, given the fact that I live alone. So I don't get to play them very often, but I have them. After all, what if someone came by one day with a hankering to play Scattergories and I was not prepared? It came as a hard hit to me to finally understand that a lot of people just aren't that into games. I don't know if it's the competition, the technology-free time spent, the wholesome quality time with friends, or a combination of the three. But I like games a lot, to the point where I used to play them by myself as a kid. I'm talking Monopoly, people, by myself. In my defense, I always won, because the "other" players continuously made moves that were strategically advantageous to me. My imaginary friends were not very good at games, as it turned out.
And apparently I have found a group of like-minded individuals (or other formerly lonely children). The games we play are like none I've never heard of before. A lot of them are imported from Europe and include bilingual instructions. They are all thinking and strategy, rather than luck-based games. It's like playing Risk instead of Life or Bridge instead of Go Fish. Yesterday, we played a game about continental drift. In a world where I thought I was into games, these people showed me how wrong I was. Yesterday, one of my new game buddies sent out an email saying he was making an order from this site, pointing out that since he was ordering $60 worth of merchandise, the rest of us only had to order a total of $65 more to get free shipping for everyone. I didn't order anything, but I did develop a fascination for the Dice Boot. And that was before I found out that one of my new lunchtime friends has two of them.
As in any new social situation, I was concerned about acceptance. This scenario is a little more complicated, though. I make the fifth person in the lunchtime gaming group, and one of the much-loved games was a four-person one. I felt uncomfortable and vaguely unwanted every time someone mentioned the game, as I felt responsible for its recent shelfing. But then today, we spent our daily hour excitedly modifying the game to create our own version, one suitable for five players. If that's not acceptance, I don't know what is.
5.23.2007
and that's the rest of the story.
I'd like to tell the rest of the story about Chad.
Like I said, Chad had one good idea, and that was the paper. But I'm probably the only kid who remembers Chad's one good idea, and I was jealous of it. Every other person who went through the Caldwell County school system during those years, if they remember Chad at all, remembers him for that whole space alien thing.
Chad wasn't a bad kid, necessarily. He was smart, at least enough to test into the academically gifted classes. He wasn't hideously ugly or fat or short, though his personality did not have a beneficial effect to the way we regarded his appearance. Just as a friendly or fun person will create a pair of rose-colored glasses for those who view him, an obnoxious person will paint his own zits. And so Chad wasn't very popular, because he was annoying. He had a tendency to give ridiculous answers with too much confidence, and he had a case of dandruff for about six months, but which was remembered forever. But he was more of a mild annoyance, meaning he was still more popular than the fat kid.
The odd thing about Chad was that teachers seemed to really dislike him. I don't put much stock in grade school popularity, a view I developed when I didn't have any. Kids are unkind. While I was disappointed to find that adults retain most of the pettiness that they had as children, most adults have the sense to hide it better. I remember two separate teachers, both of them excellent mentors and otherwise fine adults, joining in with us kids as we all mocked Chad. And of course they passed it off as being friendly and teasing - ha ha, we're all friends! - but it strikes me as completely inappropriate now. I thought it was weird at the time, and had I stopped laughing at Chad long enough, I might have realized that these teachers really disliked Chad as much as the rest of us.
Puberty hit us all hard, but it seemed to really take a toll on Chad. He started hanging out with another unpopular-for-being-strange kid, which only made the teasing worse. One weird kid is bad enough, but put two together and you get gay jokes. He became known for telling stories of dubious veracity, though usually no one listened to him for very long.
Once he saw me reading an Agatha Christie book (I went through a brief but intense Christie phase in middle school), and he said that he had read the book as well. After conversing with him for a few minutes, I began to suspect that Chad had not read the book at all. And so I made up a character's name and asked him if that character died in the book. Chad replied that yes, that character did die. I icily responded that there was no such character in the book and the conversation pretty much halted there as he realized that once again, he was busted. Now I think about this little moment, and it makes me cringe. Sandra, you little bitch, I think, he was obviously a really messed up kid with some sort of terrible backstory, and all you had to do was be nice to him. But no, you failed. Good job.
Of course, this incident pales in comparison to the misery handed to Chad over the space alien incident. We had to write term papers twice a year in english class on a topic of our choice. Once these were done, we had to give a short presentation on the topic to the class. One year, Chad did his research on UFO sightings. That part wasn't so bad. It was not uncommon to be interested in that kind of thing, as long as you didn't let on that you believed in it. That was Chad's fatal error. For his presentation, he told us the story of his own personal experience with space aliens. We were agog; was he really saying these things? Being intelligent and cruel adolescents, we asked lots of questions during his presentation. We wanted him to tell us more, more, just to see how far he would go with this tale. He naturally took these questions as encouragement and mistook our interest for genuine, so desparate was his desire to be liked. At some point, the teacher finally stopped us. By the end of the day, every one in our grade knew about it, and Chad probably figured out that his peers had screwed him over again. Even the older kids knew him now, as the kid who saw aliens.
When Columbine happened, Chad was the kid that everyone started looking at differently. Would he fly off the handle and take his revenge upon us someday? And that wasn't even fair, either. I don't know that he ever entertained thoughts of taking everyone out, though I can't help but think he probably wished a little malice on at least a couple of kids. Maybe he wasn't that kind of guy at all. Maybe he still just wanted us to like him.
Me, I'm sitting here feeling like pond scum about poor Chad. And I feel bad about Chris (scrawny, nasal voice and smelled bad), Eric (fat, also smelled bad), Jessica (big nose), Charity (no good reason). I don't think that I was a bully, nor do I recall ever targetting someone for any reason. It was more that I was one more laughing face in the crowd. To a person kept on the outside, I was just another person on the inside, no matter how bad I feel about it now.
And that's the story about Chad. He had one good idea. He told us some stories about aliens. We made his life miserable and then forgot about him. I bet he remembers us.
Like I said, Chad had one good idea, and that was the paper. But I'm probably the only kid who remembers Chad's one good idea, and I was jealous of it. Every other person who went through the Caldwell County school system during those years, if they remember Chad at all, remembers him for that whole space alien thing.
Chad wasn't a bad kid, necessarily. He was smart, at least enough to test into the academically gifted classes. He wasn't hideously ugly or fat or short, though his personality did not have a beneficial effect to the way we regarded his appearance. Just as a friendly or fun person will create a pair of rose-colored glasses for those who view him, an obnoxious person will paint his own zits. And so Chad wasn't very popular, because he was annoying. He had a tendency to give ridiculous answers with too much confidence, and he had a case of dandruff for about six months, but which was remembered forever. But he was more of a mild annoyance, meaning he was still more popular than the fat kid.
The odd thing about Chad was that teachers seemed to really dislike him. I don't put much stock in grade school popularity, a view I developed when I didn't have any. Kids are unkind. While I was disappointed to find that adults retain most of the pettiness that they had as children, most adults have the sense to hide it better. I remember two separate teachers, both of them excellent mentors and otherwise fine adults, joining in with us kids as we all mocked Chad. And of course they passed it off as being friendly and teasing - ha ha, we're all friends! - but it strikes me as completely inappropriate now. I thought it was weird at the time, and had I stopped laughing at Chad long enough, I might have realized that these teachers really disliked Chad as much as the rest of us.
Puberty hit us all hard, but it seemed to really take a toll on Chad. He started hanging out with another unpopular-for-being-strange kid, which only made the teasing worse. One weird kid is bad enough, but put two together and you get gay jokes. He became known for telling stories of dubious veracity, though usually no one listened to him for very long.
Once he saw me reading an Agatha Christie book (I went through a brief but intense Christie phase in middle school), and he said that he had read the book as well. After conversing with him for a few minutes, I began to suspect that Chad had not read the book at all. And so I made up a character's name and asked him if that character died in the book. Chad replied that yes, that character did die. I icily responded that there was no such character in the book and the conversation pretty much halted there as he realized that once again, he was busted. Now I think about this little moment, and it makes me cringe. Sandra, you little bitch, I think, he was obviously a really messed up kid with some sort of terrible backstory, and all you had to do was be nice to him. But no, you failed. Good job.
Of course, this incident pales in comparison to the misery handed to Chad over the space alien incident. We had to write term papers twice a year in english class on a topic of our choice. Once these were done, we had to give a short presentation on the topic to the class. One year, Chad did his research on UFO sightings. That part wasn't so bad. It was not uncommon to be interested in that kind of thing, as long as you didn't let on that you believed in it. That was Chad's fatal error. For his presentation, he told us the story of his own personal experience with space aliens. We were agog; was he really saying these things? Being intelligent and cruel adolescents, we asked lots of questions during his presentation. We wanted him to tell us more, more, just to see how far he would go with this tale. He naturally took these questions as encouragement and mistook our interest for genuine, so desparate was his desire to be liked. At some point, the teacher finally stopped us. By the end of the day, every one in our grade knew about it, and Chad probably figured out that his peers had screwed him over again. Even the older kids knew him now, as the kid who saw aliens.
When Columbine happened, Chad was the kid that everyone started looking at differently. Would he fly off the handle and take his revenge upon us someday? And that wasn't even fair, either. I don't know that he ever entertained thoughts of taking everyone out, though I can't help but think he probably wished a little malice on at least a couple of kids. Maybe he wasn't that kind of guy at all. Maybe he still just wanted us to like him.
Me, I'm sitting here feeling like pond scum about poor Chad. And I feel bad about Chris (scrawny, nasal voice and smelled bad), Eric (fat, also smelled bad), Jessica (big nose), Charity (no good reason). I don't think that I was a bully, nor do I recall ever targetting someone for any reason. It was more that I was one more laughing face in the crowd. To a person kept on the outside, I was just another person on the inside, no matter how bad I feel about it now.
And that's the story about Chad. He had one good idea. He told us some stories about aliens. We made his life miserable and then forgot about him. I bet he remembers us.
5.21.2007
not a movie review: capote.
I sometimes think that I should post movie reviews up here. I like movies and people nag me when I don't post, so it seemed like a natural combination. But I don't really like the idea of calling them movie reviews. To me, that term implies, well, for one thing, that the writer knows anything at all about movies. And I don't really. So for me to write a movie post, it would really be more like "I don't know movies, but I know what I like." Except that since I'm making you read it, it's more like "I don't know movies, but now you know what I like."
So think of this as a Not a Movie Review. I'm not going to feel obligated to talk about cinematography or the script or the directing unless those things strike me, in which case I will. It's my blog anyway.
Capote
To sum up: Truman Capote is a flamboyant and just outright odd writer who hears about some murders in Kansas and goes to write a story about it. He becomes close with the residents of the town and then with those arrested for the killings. The movie covers his relationship with one of the killers in particular, Perry Smith, and how Capote transforms this experience into a genre of writing he claims to have invented, the nonfiction novel. Based on the story of Capote writing In Cold Blood, his most famous work. Also feature Capote's childhood pal, Harper Lee, in the midst of the publishing of To Kill a Mockingbird.
I really wanted to see this film. For one thing, I like Philip Seymour Hoffman (who played the title character) in the way that I like a lot of actors who are not particularly attractive. Oh, he's in no way ugly. He's just not pretty enough to be a famous actor without being talented. I've only seen him in smaller roles thus far, but his performances leave me with a nice fuzzy feeling that he was exactly what he should have been (see Brandt, The Big Lebowski and Lester Bangs, Almost Famous). Further reasons to see this film were that that it has a basis in fact (it's like learning!) and is centered around an incredibly interesting and eccentric person. Plus, it's mostly set in Kansas. What's not to like?
And you know what? It was a really good movie. The kind of good movie that I have no interest in seeing again anytime soon. I guess I mean that while I understand its beauty and quality, it isn't necessarily entertaining. It is slooooow. There are a ton of panoramic shots of flat and empty prairies interlaced with scenes of quiet dialog in old houses. And that's totally the point, because that's rural Kansas. I understand and appreciate that idea, but I don't necessarily want to watch it again.
The pace of the film is countered with a fair amount of suspense. A great deal of the movie is Capote trying to get Smith to talk to him about the night of the murders. And each time Capote goes back to the jail cell to ask what happened, you want to shake the guy, "Tell him! Tell him!" So it's quiet, Kansan suspense, but it is suspense nonetheless. In some ways, that makes it even more maddening.
What the movie does really well is the character study, both of its eponymous character and his jailbound confidant. The latter is so quiet and unassuming. You want to like him for his gentle manner, and just when you catch yourself rooting for him to get off death row, you think, wait, this dude shot four people in the face. He should hang.
And then there is Mr. Capote himself. You can't help loving him, because he's charming and interesting and has had this horrifying (no, seriously) childhood. But you want to hate him, too, because he's this arrogant, lying attention-whore who will make a joke about how much more important he is than you are. The whole time you are never really sure what his relationship with Smith is, which is likely a mystery that carried over from reality. Did Truman care anything about him, or was he just getting his novel? You get evidence of each, but when Truman is being tender, you're never sure that you can trust him. Hoffman gives us a Truman Capote who is fascinating and possibly brilliant, but not necessarily someone you'd like if you met him.
I do like that the movie leaves in a lot of ambiguity about Capote's motives. I would feel that it was untrue if the director glorified him, but I don't want him to be demonized either. I'm okay with him just being complicated. The most beautiful line in the movie was Capote's answer when Harper Lee asked him whether he was just using Smith for the novel. "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front." And while that's awfully pretty to be true, you do want to believe him. Maybe he even believed it himself.
As a side note, Catherine Keener was lovely as Harper Lee. I have no idea what kind of person Ms. Lee really was, but I would want to think that she was a beautiful, intelligent and gentle person. Even if she was in fact an obnoxious she-demon, this portrayal was exactly how I want to picture her. Her affinity for Capote made it easier for the audience to appreciate him as a individual who is flawed but has quality as well. We should all have a Harper Lee in our lives who loves us for who we are but doesn't let us get away with being jerks.
Basically, see the movie if you want. It's interesting and the acting is fantastic. It's so good that you end up judging the movie more on how you feel about the characters than the actors. There's some intense, but brief and disguised violence and several naughty words.
So there was my attempt at Not a Movie Review. I'm not sure I liked it, and I'm really not sure if you did. It may not ever happen again.
So think of this as a Not a Movie Review. I'm not going to feel obligated to talk about cinematography or the script or the directing unless those things strike me, in which case I will. It's my blog anyway.
Capote
To sum up: Truman Capote is a flamboyant and just outright odd writer who hears about some murders in Kansas and goes to write a story about it. He becomes close with the residents of the town and then with those arrested for the killings. The movie covers his relationship with one of the killers in particular, Perry Smith, and how Capote transforms this experience into a genre of writing he claims to have invented, the nonfiction novel. Based on the story of Capote writing In Cold Blood, his most famous work. Also feature Capote's childhood pal, Harper Lee, in the midst of the publishing of To Kill a Mockingbird.
I really wanted to see this film. For one thing, I like Philip Seymour Hoffman (who played the title character) in the way that I like a lot of actors who are not particularly attractive. Oh, he's in no way ugly. He's just not pretty enough to be a famous actor without being talented. I've only seen him in smaller roles thus far, but his performances leave me with a nice fuzzy feeling that he was exactly what he should have been (see Brandt, The Big Lebowski and Lester Bangs, Almost Famous). Further reasons to see this film were that that it has a basis in fact (it's like learning!) and is centered around an incredibly interesting and eccentric person. Plus, it's mostly set in Kansas. What's not to like?
And you know what? It was a really good movie. The kind of good movie that I have no interest in seeing again anytime soon. I guess I mean that while I understand its beauty and quality, it isn't necessarily entertaining. It is slooooow. There are a ton of panoramic shots of flat and empty prairies interlaced with scenes of quiet dialog in old houses. And that's totally the point, because that's rural Kansas. I understand and appreciate that idea, but I don't necessarily want to watch it again.
The pace of the film is countered with a fair amount of suspense. A great deal of the movie is Capote trying to get Smith to talk to him about the night of the murders. And each time Capote goes back to the jail cell to ask what happened, you want to shake the guy, "Tell him! Tell him!" So it's quiet, Kansan suspense, but it is suspense nonetheless. In some ways, that makes it even more maddening.
What the movie does really well is the character study, both of its eponymous character and his jailbound confidant. The latter is so quiet and unassuming. You want to like him for his gentle manner, and just when you catch yourself rooting for him to get off death row, you think, wait, this dude shot four people in the face. He should hang.
And then there is Mr. Capote himself. You can't help loving him, because he's charming and interesting and has had this horrifying (no, seriously) childhood. But you want to hate him, too, because he's this arrogant, lying attention-whore who will make a joke about how much more important he is than you are. The whole time you are never really sure what his relationship with Smith is, which is likely a mystery that carried over from reality. Did Truman care anything about him, or was he just getting his novel? You get evidence of each, but when Truman is being tender, you're never sure that you can trust him. Hoffman gives us a Truman Capote who is fascinating and possibly brilliant, but not necessarily someone you'd like if you met him.
I do like that the movie leaves in a lot of ambiguity about Capote's motives. I would feel that it was untrue if the director glorified him, but I don't want him to be demonized either. I'm okay with him just being complicated. The most beautiful line in the movie was Capote's answer when Harper Lee asked him whether he was just using Smith for the novel. "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front." And while that's awfully pretty to be true, you do want to believe him. Maybe he even believed it himself.
As a side note, Catherine Keener was lovely as Harper Lee. I have no idea what kind of person Ms. Lee really was, but I would want to think that she was a beautiful, intelligent and gentle person. Even if she was in fact an obnoxious she-demon, this portrayal was exactly how I want to picture her. Her affinity for Capote made it easier for the audience to appreciate him as a individual who is flawed but has quality as well. We should all have a Harper Lee in our lives who loves us for who we are but doesn't let us get away with being jerks.
Basically, see the movie if you want. It's interesting and the acting is fantastic. It's so good that you end up judging the movie more on how you feel about the characters than the actors. There's some intense, but brief and disguised violence and several naughty words.
So there was my attempt at Not a Movie Review. I'm not sure I liked it, and I'm really not sure if you did. It may not ever happen again.
5.18.2007
the quick brown fox.
I learned to type in the sixth grade, when it was taught by a short, gravelly-voiced woman whose name I cannot recall (Mrs. Pullman? Mrs. Paxton?). We would all file into a computer lab twice a week, one of maybe three labs at my middle school. And then we'd spend the time using some basic typing program that taught us to type the letter 'S', then the letter 'A', then the words "as", "sass", and one other one that wasn't in the program, but we picked up on our own. All our typing was in lowercase, because we weren't set to learn about the Shift key for a couple of months.
Typing was very easy for me, and I flew through the lessons way on ahead of my classmates. Mrs. Whatever spoke to me in conspiratorial tones because I was clearly a gifted typist, which meant that I was destined for great things in the secretarial world, I suppose. Then, one day - it must have been either a Tuesday or a Thursday - we came in to the computer lab to find big pieces of red posterboard folded into trays that fit neatly over the keyboard, leaving just enough room for a twelve-year-old's hands. Apparently, someone or something had finally clued Mrs. Whatever in to the fact that we had been looking at our hands. She never named names or made accusations, but everyone was forced to start at the beginning of our typing program, all the way back to the letter 'S'. I felt accused and convicted, and I suspected that Mrs. Whatever acted a little more coolly to me after that, but maybe that was just my own conscience.
And so I started all over, too, and it should be noted that my pace slowed down considerably. Of course I had looked at my hands - that's what made it easy, that's how I'd been doing it the past two or three years when they'd tried to teach me in elementary school. I said that I learned to type in the sixth grade, but really I meant that's when I learned to type without looking at my hands. In any case, I finally completed that typing program, having successfully learned the keys to make all the naughty words.
I am still not very good with the numbers. Digits were taught at the very end of the typing program, when the school year was halfway over and we were all just sick of coming in here to load up the same program and type the same nonsense about quick brown foxes jumping over lazy dogs. And though I learned my numbers well enough to pass through the program, I never really felt comfortable with them, and every time I have to type out my phone number or address on an internet form, I find myself peering over the keyboard with two index fingers outstretched.
Mrs. Whatever (Patterson? That might be it.) left after the sixth grade and we got a male teacher whose name I remember quite clearly but am omitting for reasons which will become obvious later. He was a friendly, if rather bland fellow, and he'd give us basic assignments that were only just busy work but made the claim of teaching us proper business letter form. I don't know why they taught us how to write a business letter. I was thirteen years old; I didn't have much use for the Dear Sirs or Madams. In any case, the teacher would walk around and joke with students, occasionally massaging the shoulders of female students busily typing away. Us girls used to make jokes about it - "ew, so gross!" I don't think it even occurred to me that he was being completely inappropriate and possibly quite lecherous until I was in college. In any case, I've discovered that one can feel quite violated by something like that, even if it doesn't occur to her to feel so until ten years later.
But now, setbacks and pedophiles and all, I know how to type. I do it for a living now, though the typing I do now is even more obscure than writing about quick foxes and lazy dogs. It's probably not the dream secretarial job that Mrs. Patterson had seen for me back when I was her typing protege, before my fall from grace when she found out my (and everyone's) secret.
My speed is great if my accuracy is only slightly above average. I can type a variety of naughty words in both lower and upper cases, though that sort of thing isn't really required in my line of work. However, numbers are frequently required, but I can just sneak a peek at my keyboard and no one is any wiser. Don't go calling my boss, telling him that one of his employees can't even type numbers without looking at the keyboard. Considering that some of my coworkers must have learned to type at the School of Hunt and Peck, I don't think it will much matter.
Typing was very easy for me, and I flew through the lessons way on ahead of my classmates. Mrs. Whatever spoke to me in conspiratorial tones because I was clearly a gifted typist, which meant that I was destined for great things in the secretarial world, I suppose. Then, one day - it must have been either a Tuesday or a Thursday - we came in to the computer lab to find big pieces of red posterboard folded into trays that fit neatly over the keyboard, leaving just enough room for a twelve-year-old's hands. Apparently, someone or something had finally clued Mrs. Whatever in to the fact that we had been looking at our hands. She never named names or made accusations, but everyone was forced to start at the beginning of our typing program, all the way back to the letter 'S'. I felt accused and convicted, and I suspected that Mrs. Whatever acted a little more coolly to me after that, but maybe that was just my own conscience.
And so I started all over, too, and it should be noted that my pace slowed down considerably. Of course I had looked at my hands - that's what made it easy, that's how I'd been doing it the past two or three years when they'd tried to teach me in elementary school. I said that I learned to type in the sixth grade, but really I meant that's when I learned to type without looking at my hands. In any case, I finally completed that typing program, having successfully learned the keys to make all the naughty words.
I am still not very good with the numbers. Digits were taught at the very end of the typing program, when the school year was halfway over and we were all just sick of coming in here to load up the same program and type the same nonsense about quick brown foxes jumping over lazy dogs. And though I learned my numbers well enough to pass through the program, I never really felt comfortable with them, and every time I have to type out my phone number or address on an internet form, I find myself peering over the keyboard with two index fingers outstretched.
Mrs. Whatever (Patterson? That might be it.) left after the sixth grade and we got a male teacher whose name I remember quite clearly but am omitting for reasons which will become obvious later. He was a friendly, if rather bland fellow, and he'd give us basic assignments that were only just busy work but made the claim of teaching us proper business letter form. I don't know why they taught us how to write a business letter. I was thirteen years old; I didn't have much use for the Dear Sirs or Madams. In any case, the teacher would walk around and joke with students, occasionally massaging the shoulders of female students busily typing away. Us girls used to make jokes about it - "ew, so gross!" I don't think it even occurred to me that he was being completely inappropriate and possibly quite lecherous until I was in college. In any case, I've discovered that one can feel quite violated by something like that, even if it doesn't occur to her to feel so until ten years later.
But now, setbacks and pedophiles and all, I know how to type. I do it for a living now, though the typing I do now is even more obscure than writing about quick foxes and lazy dogs. It's probably not the dream secretarial job that Mrs. Patterson had seen for me back when I was her typing protege, before my fall from grace when she found out my (and everyone's) secret.
My speed is great if my accuracy is only slightly above average. I can type a variety of naughty words in both lower and upper cases, though that sort of thing isn't really required in my line of work. However, numbers are frequently required, but I can just sneak a peek at my keyboard and no one is any wiser. Don't go calling my boss, telling him that one of his employees can't even type numbers without looking at the keyboard. Considering that some of my coworkers must have learned to type at the School of Hunt and Peck, I don't think it will much matter.
5.15.2007
free beverages.
"How's your new job?"
"Do you like your new job?"
"How's the new job going?"
"Are you going to eat that?"
All of these questions have been asked of me this week, and it doesn't take an experienced player of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other" to figure out the topic of today's entry. Because while the first three questions require a long, drawn-out and self-indulgent answer perfectly suited to the blog environment, the answer to the last question is simply, "Yes" or at its most verbose, "Yes. Now buzz off."
So, the new job. There are a lot of ways I could go with this. I could talk about how I get to work on software that I would actually use (as opposed to truck mechanic software) and how much that helps my interest in my job. I could talk about how I've been downgraded from a window office to a cube and how that hasn't really bothered me very much. I could talk about how I always have enough work to do and the best part is that the work is mostly all writing actual code. I could talk about how really and truly dorky my coworkers are and how that makes me feel like I instantly belong. I could even do a whole entry where I write nothing but "I can wear jeans and sandals and t-shirts to work every single day!" over and over like a disciplinary assignment for Bart Simpson.
But no. I'm going to talk about the free beverages.
So here it is: We get free beverages.
Oh man, oh man, do I love this simple little perk. There is a big refrigerator entirely devoted to free soda (about ten varieties, including diet and caffeine-free options) and free juice (apple, orange, and grapefruit). There is a coffee vending machine, where you can get coffee, espresso, and hot chocolate, but you don't have to put any money in it. And while my old job had free, uh, water, the new place has two kinds of free water: filtered or bottled. Both are available throat-warming hot or refreshing cold, so I guess that means I really get four kinds of free water. And it's all free. I can go in the break room whenever I want, as often as I want, and just help myself to any of it. And because I am one of those people who tries all the samples at Sam's Club, I take advantage of my free beverage rights, by gum. It is the Best Thing Ever.
I feel that I'm going to be fielding the new job questions for a while. Sometimes I will be talking to someone who either understands me or the programming industry, and I will be able to tell them how awesome it is to be challenged mentally at work and how fortunate I feel to be working on software that I care about. But most times, it will just be small talk, and that asking person will either not understand what I mean or won't really be looking for anything in-depth. For them, I know my answer.
"Did you know that I get free beverages?"
"Do you like your new job?"
"How's the new job going?"
"Are you going to eat that?"
All of these questions have been asked of me this week, and it doesn't take an experienced player of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other" to figure out the topic of today's entry. Because while the first three questions require a long, drawn-out and self-indulgent answer perfectly suited to the blog environment, the answer to the last question is simply, "Yes" or at its most verbose, "Yes. Now buzz off."
So, the new job. There are a lot of ways I could go with this. I could talk about how I get to work on software that I would actually use (as opposed to truck mechanic software) and how much that helps my interest in my job. I could talk about how I've been downgraded from a window office to a cube and how that hasn't really bothered me very much. I could talk about how I always have enough work to do and the best part is that the work is mostly all writing actual code. I could talk about how really and truly dorky my coworkers are and how that makes me feel like I instantly belong. I could even do a whole entry where I write nothing but "I can wear jeans and sandals and t-shirts to work every single day!" over and over like a disciplinary assignment for Bart Simpson.
But no. I'm going to talk about the free beverages.
So here it is: We get free beverages.
Oh man, oh man, do I love this simple little perk. There is a big refrigerator entirely devoted to free soda (about ten varieties, including diet and caffeine-free options) and free juice (apple, orange, and grapefruit). There is a coffee vending machine, where you can get coffee, espresso, and hot chocolate, but you don't have to put any money in it. And while my old job had free, uh, water, the new place has two kinds of free water: filtered or bottled. Both are available throat-warming hot or refreshing cold, so I guess that means I really get four kinds of free water. And it's all free. I can go in the break room whenever I want, as often as I want, and just help myself to any of it. And because I am one of those people who tries all the samples at Sam's Club, I take advantage of my free beverage rights, by gum. It is the Best Thing Ever.
I feel that I'm going to be fielding the new job questions for a while. Sometimes I will be talking to someone who either understands me or the programming industry, and I will be able to tell them how awesome it is to be challenged mentally at work and how fortunate I feel to be working on software that I care about. But most times, it will just be small talk, and that asking person will either not understand what I mean or won't really be looking for anything in-depth. For them, I know my answer.
"Did you know that I get free beverages?"
5.11.2007
class of '01.
Chad was an unpopular kid who had one good idea. In the fifth grade, he decided to start up a class newspaper. Mrs. Bolick, who was an excellent teacher for encouraging ambition in her students, allowed him to take up class time to meet with whatever kids showed interest in the paper. I was supremely jealous for not coming up with the idea for the paper myself, but I still wanted in on it. Chad was editor, of course, because he thought of it and we all knew that "editor" was the most important title in a newspaper. I was the only one with access to adequate technology to create a typed document (this was 1994), and so I was designated the typist. I also volunteered to be a horoscope columnist, because it sounded fun. My friend Alisha became the weather girl, and another kid was the sports columnist. Seems like a kid named John was some sort of generic feature writer.
We decided to name the paper Class of '01, because in 1994, the idea of the millenium was still pretty novel. Unfortunately, that was my idea, though I place some of the blame on my colleagues for not coming up with anything better. Surely that would have been easy, because that was a pretty lame name. We thought it sounded very grown-up, because here we were at eleven and we were already looking forward to our bright futures. I get irritated now whenever I see campus graffiti that was put there by freshmen, their graduation dates seeming so impossibly far away, but I suppose I trumped them all in that crime a long time ago.
My job as typist was to collect articles from everyone, then combine them in some sort of format and order while checking and correcting errors, and create a master copy of each week's edition. I was doing this on my dad's word processor. The term "word processor" does not mean " a copy of Microsoft Word on a computer." It means "an electric typerwriter with a fancy text-only screen." Considering the technology and the typist were both quite young, putting together the one-sheet (front and back) paper every week took considerable time. Chad, as editor, performed his part by asking Mrs. Bolick to make copies of my finished product and then distributing them to our classmates.
Okay, I'm griping here, but I really took this job upon myself and was happy to do it. I am amazed at my eleven-year-old self, she who took on all this extra work for some other kid's good idea. I try to think now whether I've done anything even in the past ten years that was even close to this kind of extracurricular work. (*pauses to blink at blog for a few moments*) Oh. Moving on.
Writing the horoscopes was easy. For a while, I would look in the Lenoir News-Topic for inspiration, but after a while, I just started making them up rather than plagiarizing the stuff other people made up. I was only eleven, but even I knew that you just had to be sorta vague to have a good success rating in terms of horoscopes. After maybe two issues, Alisha got sick of the weather (also copied from the News-Topic), and so I handed over the horoscopes. See, I had a bigger dream; I wanted Ann Landers' job.
Chad announced that there would be a new column in the paper, an advice column. We had decided to keep the identity of the advisor anonymous, so as to encourage my classmates to feel more comfortable asking for advice. We installed a submission box in the form of a mutilated shoe box with a sign on it. We even used a secret advice column name - Dear Jerri. It was all very secretive and exciting, until the day Chad handed me the submission box to take home in front of the entire class. Dear Jerri was still a moderate success, for reasons which completely escape me now. There were lots of questions, little things about what to do if someone is teasing you or how to talk to a boy that you like. Jerri's advice to handle teasing was to tell a joke back to deflect attention. This advice so reeks of me that I shake my head at how little I have changed in thirteen years. I would like to note that I still follow this advice, and it's quite solid.
And then the year was over and the paper died with our elementary school selves. I think Chad tried to revive it the next year without me, but found it difficult to be an editor-in-chief without an accomplished typist. Now it's thirteen years past, the members of the class of '01 have all gone on to graduate (some of us even in 2001) and start their real lives. I haven't heard that any of them are journalists, but I heard that one of them blogs.
I'd be willing to wager that few, if any, of my classmates remember the fifth-grade paper at all. I realize though that it was fairly significant for me, perhaps because I did so much work on it. I bet if I looked not very hard at all in my closet, I could still find some back issues (as if there were any other kind) of Class of '01. Of course, I bet if I looked not very hard at all in my closet, I'd find a lot of stupid crap that I kept, so maybe I'm looking for significance where there is none. It wouldn't be the first time. I mean, I used to be a horoscope writer.
We decided to name the paper Class of '01, because in 1994, the idea of the millenium was still pretty novel. Unfortunately, that was my idea, though I place some of the blame on my colleagues for not coming up with anything better. Surely that would have been easy, because that was a pretty lame name. We thought it sounded very grown-up, because here we were at eleven and we were already looking forward to our bright futures. I get irritated now whenever I see campus graffiti that was put there by freshmen, their graduation dates seeming so impossibly far away, but I suppose I trumped them all in that crime a long time ago.
My job as typist was to collect articles from everyone, then combine them in some sort of format and order while checking and correcting errors, and create a master copy of each week's edition. I was doing this on my dad's word processor. The term "word processor" does not mean " a copy of Microsoft Word on a computer." It means "an electric typerwriter with a fancy text-only screen." Considering the technology and the typist were both quite young, putting together the one-sheet (front and back) paper every week took considerable time. Chad, as editor, performed his part by asking Mrs. Bolick to make copies of my finished product and then distributing them to our classmates.
Okay, I'm griping here, but I really took this job upon myself and was happy to do it. I am amazed at my eleven-year-old self, she who took on all this extra work for some other kid's good idea. I try to think now whether I've done anything even in the past ten years that was even close to this kind of extracurricular work. (*pauses to blink at blog for a few moments*) Oh. Moving on.
Writing the horoscopes was easy. For a while, I would look in the Lenoir News-Topic for inspiration, but after a while, I just started making them up rather than plagiarizing the stuff other people made up. I was only eleven, but even I knew that you just had to be sorta vague to have a good success rating in terms of horoscopes. After maybe two issues, Alisha got sick of the weather (also copied from the News-Topic), and so I handed over the horoscopes. See, I had a bigger dream; I wanted Ann Landers' job.
Chad announced that there would be a new column in the paper, an advice column. We had decided to keep the identity of the advisor anonymous, so as to encourage my classmates to feel more comfortable asking for advice. We installed a submission box in the form of a mutilated shoe box with a sign on it. We even used a secret advice column name - Dear Jerri. It was all very secretive and exciting, until the day Chad handed me the submission box to take home in front of the entire class. Dear Jerri was still a moderate success, for reasons which completely escape me now. There were lots of questions, little things about what to do if someone is teasing you or how to talk to a boy that you like. Jerri's advice to handle teasing was to tell a joke back to deflect attention. This advice so reeks of me that I shake my head at how little I have changed in thirteen years. I would like to note that I still follow this advice, and it's quite solid.
And then the year was over and the paper died with our elementary school selves. I think Chad tried to revive it the next year without me, but found it difficult to be an editor-in-chief without an accomplished typist. Now it's thirteen years past, the members of the class of '01 have all gone on to graduate (some of us even in 2001) and start their real lives. I haven't heard that any of them are journalists, but I heard that one of them blogs.
I'd be willing to wager that few, if any, of my classmates remember the fifth-grade paper at all. I realize though that it was fairly significant for me, perhaps because I did so much work on it. I bet if I looked not very hard at all in my closet, I could still find some back issues (as if there were any other kind) of Class of '01. Of course, I bet if I looked not very hard at all in my closet, I'd find a lot of stupid crap that I kept, so maybe I'm looking for significance where there is none. It wouldn't be the first time. I mean, I used to be a horoscope writer.
5.07.2007
spontaneously read.
I have become a spontaneous reader.
You're probably not familiar with the term, because I made it up and then neglected to release the new volume of Sandra's Made-Up Terms so that you could know what it meant. I apologize for this oversight. To assist you, I have included this excerpt from the new, as-yet-unreleased edition of Sandra's Made-Up Terms:
spontaneous reader, noun.
1. One who judges books entirely upon their cover.
A spontaneous reader is not someone who, finding a lack of something else to say, enthusiastically reads out signs and labels and anything else she might see around. I call this A Person Who is Celebrating Her Own Literacy, and I have long been one of those. Trips to the grocery store with A Person Who is Celebrating Her Own Literacy are never dull, for they are peppered with exclamations like "Fancy shredded!," "Ho-hos!," and "Macadamia!"
What was I talking about?
Oh yeah, spontaneous reader. I never used to be a spontaneous reader, because it is expensive to read spontaneously. I rarely bought books unless I was pretty sure I was going to like them. The trouble with judging books by their covers is that it's not a reliable method of finding good books. And so I was always afraid of paying for a book that had a really groovy cover and nothing of value inside.
And then I discovered buying books remaindered on internet bookstores, like Daedalus Books. And that was cool, because I picked out some good books (and some crappy books) and I got to read them for only a few dollars apiece. At some point I realized I was still spending a lot of dough on books with only a mediocre return of good books to bad.
So I started buying books at thrift stores. I'm not new to that practice in the least. Whereas before I would quickly browse the book section for titles I already knew I liked but lacked in my collection, now I was spending much more time in the book section, adding any old book that looked vaguely interesting to my overflowing armload of fifty cent paperbacks. I judged books on their jacket designs, their titles, their authors, their awards, and (sigh) their Oprah seals of approval. At this point, I've had to stop doing this, because my stack of unread books at home has grown perilously tall, because I read slower than I buy.
I'm working my way through my stack of unread books, which is more of a box of unread books since I haven't been much of a spontaneous unpacker since the move. When I finish one, I pick out another almost randomly. If I just finished a thin book, I try to read a fat one. Some of them are okay, some are a struggle to finish, and some I love so much I could die. Afterwards, the books go into new stacks. Most go into the stack to be given to the used book store in exchange for store credit for which to buy more used books. Fewer reach the dizzying heights of going into my permanent collection, where they will be read and adored and again and again.
And now, since I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to come up with a clever way to end this post and have come up short, I will just do it spontaneously.
Macadamia!
You're probably not familiar with the term, because I made it up and then neglected to release the new volume of Sandra's Made-Up Terms so that you could know what it meant. I apologize for this oversight. To assist you, I have included this excerpt from the new, as-yet-unreleased edition of Sandra's Made-Up Terms:
spontaneous reader, noun.
1. One who judges books entirely upon their cover.
A spontaneous reader is not someone who, finding a lack of something else to say, enthusiastically reads out signs and labels and anything else she might see around. I call this A Person Who is Celebrating Her Own Literacy, and I have long been one of those. Trips to the grocery store with A Person Who is Celebrating Her Own Literacy are never dull, for they are peppered with exclamations like "Fancy shredded!," "Ho-hos!," and "Macadamia!"
What was I talking about?
Oh yeah, spontaneous reader. I never used to be a spontaneous reader, because it is expensive to read spontaneously. I rarely bought books unless I was pretty sure I was going to like them. The trouble with judging books by their covers is that it's not a reliable method of finding good books. And so I was always afraid of paying for a book that had a really groovy cover and nothing of value inside.
And then I discovered buying books remaindered on internet bookstores, like Daedalus Books. And that was cool, because I picked out some good books (and some crappy books) and I got to read them for only a few dollars apiece. At some point I realized I was still spending a lot of dough on books with only a mediocre return of good books to bad.
So I started buying books at thrift stores. I'm not new to that practice in the least. Whereas before I would quickly browse the book section for titles I already knew I liked but lacked in my collection, now I was spending much more time in the book section, adding any old book that looked vaguely interesting to my overflowing armload of fifty cent paperbacks. I judged books on their jacket designs, their titles, their authors, their awards, and (sigh) their Oprah seals of approval. At this point, I've had to stop doing this, because my stack of unread books at home has grown perilously tall, because I read slower than I buy.
I'm working my way through my stack of unread books, which is more of a box of unread books since I haven't been much of a spontaneous unpacker since the move. When I finish one, I pick out another almost randomly. If I just finished a thin book, I try to read a fat one. Some of them are okay, some are a struggle to finish, and some I love so much I could die. Afterwards, the books go into new stacks. Most go into the stack to be given to the used book store in exchange for store credit for which to buy more used books. Fewer reach the dizzying heights of going into my permanent collection, where they will be read and adored and again and again.
And now, since I've been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to come up with a clever way to end this post and have come up short, I will just do it spontaneously.
Macadamia!
5.01.2007
bandana on a stick.
You know, I could write for quite a long time about how much I hate moving. I could whine at length about each stage: finding a new place, packing, moving, unpacking, plus all the other little tiny things that you have to do to relocate your body, stuff, and services to a new location. I could talk about visiting apartment complex after complex, looking at places that somehow are all the same and being expected to pick one out of a bunch of places, none of which I'm all that impressed by. I would easily be able to rant about the boxes - oh, the boxes - that start out as empty donations from liquor and grocery stores but become heavy burdens that litter my apartment with contradicting labels like "Amaretto Amore - The Liquor of Love" and "Socks." Pages could be filled with my griping about truck rentals, heavy appliances, and one very cumbersome futon. Finally, I could wrap up the series with having to empty all the boxes - oh, the boxes - and try to figure out how I ended up with all this stuff and where it goes now. Indeed, I am experienced in moving, and I could put before your eyes many diatribes about signing leases, labeling boxes as fragile, and back pain and holy CRAP, I am so stressed out right now.
But I won't do that.
In an attempt to see the vodka box as half full, I'm going to focus on something that I like about moving: the purge. When someone is moving, they invariably complain about how much stuff they have. Just to prove my point, here I go: I have too much stuff. But see, moving is a great opportunity to correct, or at the very least, alleviate that situation. So while I fill boxes with the things that will live to see my new apartment, I'm also filling others with things that will have to wave goodbye to me as I drive away from the Goodwill donation truck.
I'm generally pretty brutal about it, too. If I can pick something up and realize that I haven't even used it while living in my current place, the thing needs to go. But even if I have used it recently, I can usually tell pretty quickly whether it deserves to spend some more time as my property. I have regretted buying many, many things. But I have never regretted getting rid of something. Never have I wished I had something back. My memory aids me in this by conveniently forgetting I ever owned the thing.
I also know that I personally have to be brutal. I mostly shop used, and so the stuff is cheap, which is a great excuse to buy a lot of it. I consider many of my purchases to be experiments. I'm not really sure if I like them, but I'm willing to pay a dollar to find out. And while sometimes that works out for me so well that I wonder why I ever had any shopper's doubt (see Amazing Technicolor Dream Sweater), sometimes it does not (see shellacked wall-hangings featuring American currency). Whatever falls into the latter category goes back to a donation center. I believe in the stuff circle of life, which is like The Lion King circle of Life, but with fewer meerkats and more wine racks.
Purging makes me feel lighter, freer. I crave simplicity. And while I can walk through a store and point out lots of things that I might want, at the same time, I want less stuff. Granted, I live by myself in a two bedroom and I have no problems filling it, so I'm hardly someone who can wrap a few necessities in a bandanna and tie it to a stick and be on my way. I'd need a really big bandanna. But I admire the people who do get by with so little as a choice, who understand that in the end, it is just stuff. Me, I'd need a big sack just for some books, and my laptop, and obviously I'd have to bring my gumball machine...my hobo lifestyle is getting very complicated already.
So each trip I make to the Goodwill truck leaves me feeling better and less burdened. This feeling frees me up to burden myself with new things, but for a little while at least, I am cleansed.
I still hate moving.
But I won't do that.
In an attempt to see the vodka box as half full, I'm going to focus on something that I like about moving: the purge. When someone is moving, they invariably complain about how much stuff they have. Just to prove my point, here I go: I have too much stuff. But see, moving is a great opportunity to correct, or at the very least, alleviate that situation. So while I fill boxes with the things that will live to see my new apartment, I'm also filling others with things that will have to wave goodbye to me as I drive away from the Goodwill donation truck.
I'm generally pretty brutal about it, too. If I can pick something up and realize that I haven't even used it while living in my current place, the thing needs to go. But even if I have used it recently, I can usually tell pretty quickly whether it deserves to spend some more time as my property. I have regretted buying many, many things. But I have never regretted getting rid of something. Never have I wished I had something back. My memory aids me in this by conveniently forgetting I ever owned the thing.
I also know that I personally have to be brutal. I mostly shop used, and so the stuff is cheap, which is a great excuse to buy a lot of it. I consider many of my purchases to be experiments. I'm not really sure if I like them, but I'm willing to pay a dollar to find out. And while sometimes that works out for me so well that I wonder why I ever had any shopper's doubt (see Amazing Technicolor Dream Sweater), sometimes it does not (see shellacked wall-hangings featuring American currency). Whatever falls into the latter category goes back to a donation center. I believe in the stuff circle of life, which is like The Lion King circle of Life, but with fewer meerkats and more wine racks.
Purging makes me feel lighter, freer. I crave simplicity. And while I can walk through a store and point out lots of things that I might want, at the same time, I want less stuff. Granted, I live by myself in a two bedroom and I have no problems filling it, so I'm hardly someone who can wrap a few necessities in a bandanna and tie it to a stick and be on my way. I'd need a really big bandanna. But I admire the people who do get by with so little as a choice, who understand that in the end, it is just stuff. Me, I'd need a big sack just for some books, and my laptop, and obviously I'd have to bring my gumball machine...my hobo lifestyle is getting very complicated already.
So each trip I make to the Goodwill truck leaves me feeling better and less burdened. This feeling frees me up to burden myself with new things, but for a little while at least, I am cleansed.
I still hate moving.
4.25.2007
twenty-two down.
WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP! WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP! May I have your attention please. This is a fire drill. Please make your way to the nearest exit. Do not use the elevators. WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP! WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP! Puedo tener su atención por favor. Esto es un simulacro de incendio. Haga por favor su manera a la salida más cercana. No utilice los elevadores.
We all received emails a week ago that there was going to be a fire drill soon. One of our program managers was designated Fire Warden for our floor, and we made fun of him for that, because we used up the bad coffee jokes years ago. We were informed that during this drill, we would be expected to completely exit the building, rather than just stop at the 18th floor like we had last time. I secretly hoped that the fire drill would come at some point after my last day.
But no. And so when I started hearing that WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP!, I grabbed my jacket and followed Lee, the guy who has the office next to mine, because I hadn't finished reading the email about the fire drill and so I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. Lee seems like the kind of guy who reads his emails. I used to read mine. Then I gave notice.
The nearest exit turned out to be about twenty feet west (which I did not know) and twenty-two floors down (which I did know). I'm sure you don't hold any illusions about going down seemingly endless flights of stairs as pleasant. Just in case, I'll describe for you what it's like.
After five floors, you get a little bored of the scenery, unless you happen to get stuck behind someone with some head scars that look like maps of Latin American countries. After ten floors, you start to feel like you might be trapped in an Escher picture or maybe you're one of the lower classes in Brave New World. You may feel like a nameless drone, depending on how often that thought occurs to you during your workday anyway. After fifteen floors, you are sure that you are ready to cause personal harm to the pair of secretaries (noted by their business dress matched with tennis shoes and who you have dubbed Cathy and Kathy) who have been listing off each floor the whole way, making the same joke about wishing the sign said "Lobby" every single time. And while yes, fine, your calves are starting to feel a little weird, you do realize that gravity is doing most of the work here and to complain about it incessantly would be obnoxious. After twenty floors, you feel a little wobbly in either your ankles or your knees, depending on which sport you played in high school. The secretaries have slowed the pace considerably, the equivalent of aged Florida tourists on a single-lane curvy mountain road, a line of locals behind them. You imagine a real emergency, wherein those same secretaries would suddenly become Olympic athletes and the stairwell would be much too smoky for them to make lame jokes. Finally, the wildest dreams of Kathy-K and Cathy-C come true: the sign actually does say "Lobby." And you can exit the building towards your designated meeting spot where the Fire Warden will count you safe, which makes him sound like more of a Fire Umpire. Then you will stand there for less than two minutes before turning around and heading back into the building.
You will take the elevator.
We all received emails a week ago that there was going to be a fire drill soon. One of our program managers was designated Fire Warden for our floor, and we made fun of him for that, because we used up the bad coffee jokes years ago. We were informed that during this drill, we would be expected to completely exit the building, rather than just stop at the 18th floor like we had last time. I secretly hoped that the fire drill would come at some point after my last day.
But no. And so when I started hearing that WHOOO-UP WHOOO-UP!, I grabbed my jacket and followed Lee, the guy who has the office next to mine, because I hadn't finished reading the email about the fire drill and so I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. Lee seems like the kind of guy who reads his emails. I used to read mine. Then I gave notice.
The nearest exit turned out to be about twenty feet west (which I did not know) and twenty-two floors down (which I did know). I'm sure you don't hold any illusions about going down seemingly endless flights of stairs as pleasant. Just in case, I'll describe for you what it's like.
After five floors, you get a little bored of the scenery, unless you happen to get stuck behind someone with some head scars that look like maps of Latin American countries. After ten floors, you start to feel like you might be trapped in an Escher picture or maybe you're one of the lower classes in Brave New World. You may feel like a nameless drone, depending on how often that thought occurs to you during your workday anyway. After fifteen floors, you are sure that you are ready to cause personal harm to the pair of secretaries (noted by their business dress matched with tennis shoes and who you have dubbed Cathy and Kathy) who have been listing off each floor the whole way, making the same joke about wishing the sign said "Lobby" every single time. And while yes, fine, your calves are starting to feel a little weird, you do realize that gravity is doing most of the work here and to complain about it incessantly would be obnoxious. After twenty floors, you feel a little wobbly in either your ankles or your knees, depending on which sport you played in high school. The secretaries have slowed the pace considerably, the equivalent of aged Florida tourists on a single-lane curvy mountain road, a line of locals behind them. You imagine a real emergency, wherein those same secretaries would suddenly become Olympic athletes and the stairwell would be much too smoky for them to make lame jokes. Finally, the wildest dreams of Kathy-K and Cathy-C come true: the sign actually does say "Lobby." And you can exit the building towards your designated meeting spot where the Fire Warden will count you safe, which makes him sound like more of a Fire Umpire. Then you will stand there for less than two minutes before turning around and heading back into the building.
You will take the elevator.
4.19.2007
must-see.
I know I haven't done a Thousand Words Thursday in a long time, and I apologize. The reason for this drought is simply that I ran out of good pictures. I have lots of pictures that are kind of similar to the ones I've already posted, and I have lots of pictures of people that I know but you might not care about. So I can't really post those. I've decided to make up for the dearth of photography posts by giving you a really good one today. Well, it's a good one if you like dinosaurs and whales and giant flowers, and everybody's got to like at least one of those things, right?
A dude at work told me that there was a sculpture garden in Lewisville that was a must-see. Despite his glowing review, I did not see the must-see for a long time. It was on the list in the back of my mind, along with replacing the tire on my unicycle, learning to sing, and taking pictures for my blog. But then it turned out that I was leaving Lewisville, so while singing and my unicycle tire remain flat, the sculpture garden visit took a new priority.
The sculpture garden appeals to me for a couple of reasons. For one, it's in the middle of nowhere, with no advertisements or signs showing where it would be. It's the kind of thing you just have to know about or stumble upon. Secondly, it's freakin' awesome.
You drive down this road, then take another road, and BAM! It's on the left. You are greeted by a pair of dinosaur skeletons, a giant grasshopper, man-sized daffodils, a tiki hut next to a pond surrounded by shorebirds and containing a whale. Since a lot of the things seem to have nothing to do with each other, it's kind of like a sculptor's resume, where he just shows everything he can do, be it an egret or an overfed daisy.
The pond. Across the way, you can see a dinosaur and a big grasshopper.
It's hard to get a picture that kind of captures the whole experience, so here are some close-ups of the highlights. There were two dinosaur skeletons, a generic T-Rex type and a generic Brontosaurus type, which was covered in vines. Right in the shadow of the carnivore, a grasshopper that looked like it could have had a B-movie career.
Ones like these used to plague Kansas all the time. Behind, a Brontosaurus who wears plants rather than eats them.
The whale was kind of a masterpiece in itself. There was a pump system inside it, and so water would shoot out of its blowhole. Periodically, the whale would dive down into the water to collect more water to shoot out.
The whale goes up...
and the whale comes down!
But I have to confess that most of my admiration and my camera's memory card went to the mermaid. Careful, she's naked, so this might not be safe for work.
The mermaid and um, a really big flower.
She's just kinda hanging out by the pond, checking out the whale, holding some little flowers, enjoying the shade of a mammoth ten-foot daffodil. I wish her face had a better expression rather than what looks like mermaid constipation (an issue which raises a lot of questions about merperson digestion), but I can hardly complain.
She looks better from the side.
There's a driveway to places unknown separating the pond from the dinosaurs/grasshopper. As I was walking around snapping pictures, a big white pickup pulled into the driveway and continued on up. The man driving waved, as if he was used to a.) having a ridiculous metal menagerie and b.) having strangers stop to look at it. I suppose he is.
A dude at work told me that there was a sculpture garden in Lewisville that was a must-see. Despite his glowing review, I did not see the must-see for a long time. It was on the list in the back of my mind, along with replacing the tire on my unicycle, learning to sing, and taking pictures for my blog. But then it turned out that I was leaving Lewisville, so while singing and my unicycle tire remain flat, the sculpture garden visit took a new priority.
The sculpture garden appeals to me for a couple of reasons. For one, it's in the middle of nowhere, with no advertisements or signs showing where it would be. It's the kind of thing you just have to know about or stumble upon. Secondly, it's freakin' awesome.
You drive down this road, then take another road, and BAM! It's on the left. You are greeted by a pair of dinosaur skeletons, a giant grasshopper, man-sized daffodils, a tiki hut next to a pond surrounded by shorebirds and containing a whale. Since a lot of the things seem to have nothing to do with each other, it's kind of like a sculptor's resume, where he just shows everything he can do, be it an egret or an overfed daisy.
The pond. Across the way, you can see a dinosaur and a big grasshopper.It's hard to get a picture that kind of captures the whole experience, so here are some close-ups of the highlights. There were two dinosaur skeletons, a generic T-Rex type and a generic Brontosaurus type, which was covered in vines. Right in the shadow of the carnivore, a grasshopper that looked like it could have had a B-movie career.
Ones like these used to plague Kansas all the time. Behind, a Brontosaurus who wears plants rather than eats them.The whale was kind of a masterpiece in itself. There was a pump system inside it, and so water would shoot out of its blowhole. Periodically, the whale would dive down into the water to collect more water to shoot out.
The whale goes up...
and the whale comes down!But I have to confess that most of my admiration and my camera's memory card went to the mermaid. Careful, she's naked, so this might not be safe for work.
The mermaid and um, a really big flower.She's just kinda hanging out by the pond, checking out the whale, holding some little flowers, enjoying the shade of a mammoth ten-foot daffodil. I wish her face had a better expression rather than what looks like mermaid constipation (an issue which raises a lot of questions about merperson digestion), but I can hardly complain.
She looks better from the side.There's a driveway to places unknown separating the pond from the dinosaurs/grasshopper. As I was walking around snapping pictures, a big white pickup pulled into the driveway and continued on up. The man driving waved, as if he was used to a.) having a ridiculous metal menagerie and b.) having strangers stop to look at it. I suppose he is.
4.16.2007
recommended.
Sometimes, more information is not a good thing.
I've been looking for a new apartment, because I'm not really in the mood to commute an hour and forty minutes every day; plus, I did honestly get this new job to be closer to Raleigh and a particular resident anyway. I've hunted for living space before, but this is the first time that I basically had only a couple of days to find something. Before I had weeks, even months to find the perfect spot and barring that, the cheapest one. I had no such luxury this time. Plus, I was disadvantaged in that I was hunting from long-distance. I could look up apartments on the internet, but in the end, I still had to visit them in person. Facing east and squinting just doesn't quite cut it when you're trying to examine a walk-in closet.
I discovered a web site that is aimed to help those in the market for rented living space, called ApartmentRatings.com. I found it not helpful, rather I found it depressing and discouraging. It seems that there is no apartment that doesn't have roaches, unfriendly staff, paper-thin walls, shady characters walking the grounds, and unfair policies.
I tried to justify it to myself that only people who want to complain bother commenting about their experiences. There are probably thousands of people, so happy and so shiny, thinking about how great their Raleigh rental is. They are off composing upbeat songs in tribute to their spacious living rooms, their fantastic views, their reasonable rent, and so therefore have not the time to get on a silly web site and reassure me.
Then I started thinking about my first apartment, way back in downtown Boone, North Carolina. I thought about the review that I could write.
This apartment is incredibly spacious and ridiculously inexpensive. The appliances are reasonably modern in that they are probably less than ten years old. No dishwasher, disposal, or drawers in the kitchen. Very little counter space. The management is reasonable and helpful if a bit aloof. If there is a lot of rain, it will flood. Luckily, the institution carpeting present is quite absorbent. Be sure to spend a lot of time out in the cozy and private courtyard, as you're going to want some sun, seeing as the apartment has only two windows. The floors are noticeably uneven and badly stained and scuffed. There are pipes from the upstairs apartments jutting out from the ceiling in the kitchen and back bedroom. They may leak, which will cause the maintenance man to arrive at your apartment and drill at 7 am every day for a week before just ripping the ceiling apart. There is a giant hole in the wall of the largest bedroom, but if you leave the cardboard that covers it, you won't even notice it after a while. As you stay, the mildew on the walls will get progressively worse, and you will develop a cold that will not go away. Officially, there is no parking, but you can park in the alley, where your car will be frequently blocked in by a stranger right before you need to go to work. Your car will rapidly depreciate in value as the scratches left by others increase. You may hear upstairs neighbors dancing, doing rhythmic dance, and/or fornicating. Not pet friendly (except perhaps for mice), but the management is forgiving about that if you act really sorry. Very safe, but mostly because you are in Boone, where the stranger on the street is more likely to offer you a joint than rob you.
Parking: 1 out of 5
Maintenance: 3 out of 5
Construction: 2 out of 5
Noise: 2 out of 5
Grounds: 1 out of 5
Safety: 5 out of 5
Staff: 3 out of 5
RECOMMENDED: Yes
And to think that I lived there two years. In my sweet, Ramen noodle college innocence, I loved that apartment. So I think I can deal with whatever comes my way in the new apartment, no matter what those other big complainers say.
I've been looking for a new apartment, because I'm not really in the mood to commute an hour and forty minutes every day; plus, I did honestly get this new job to be closer to Raleigh and a particular resident anyway. I've hunted for living space before, but this is the first time that I basically had only a couple of days to find something. Before I had weeks, even months to find the perfect spot and barring that, the cheapest one. I had no such luxury this time. Plus, I was disadvantaged in that I was hunting from long-distance. I could look up apartments on the internet, but in the end, I still had to visit them in person. Facing east and squinting just doesn't quite cut it when you're trying to examine a walk-in closet.
I discovered a web site that is aimed to help those in the market for rented living space, called ApartmentRatings.com. I found it not helpful, rather I found it depressing and discouraging. It seems that there is no apartment that doesn't have roaches, unfriendly staff, paper-thin walls, shady characters walking the grounds, and unfair policies.
I tried to justify it to myself that only people who want to complain bother commenting about their experiences. There are probably thousands of people, so happy and so shiny, thinking about how great their Raleigh rental is. They are off composing upbeat songs in tribute to their spacious living rooms, their fantastic views, their reasonable rent, and so therefore have not the time to get on a silly web site and reassure me.
Then I started thinking about my first apartment, way back in downtown Boone, North Carolina. I thought about the review that I could write.
This apartment is incredibly spacious and ridiculously inexpensive. The appliances are reasonably modern in that they are probably less than ten years old. No dishwasher, disposal, or drawers in the kitchen. Very little counter space. The management is reasonable and helpful if a bit aloof. If there is a lot of rain, it will flood. Luckily, the institution carpeting present is quite absorbent. Be sure to spend a lot of time out in the cozy and private courtyard, as you're going to want some sun, seeing as the apartment has only two windows. The floors are noticeably uneven and badly stained and scuffed. There are pipes from the upstairs apartments jutting out from the ceiling in the kitchen and back bedroom. They may leak, which will cause the maintenance man to arrive at your apartment and drill at 7 am every day for a week before just ripping the ceiling apart. There is a giant hole in the wall of the largest bedroom, but if you leave the cardboard that covers it, you won't even notice it after a while. As you stay, the mildew on the walls will get progressively worse, and you will develop a cold that will not go away. Officially, there is no parking, but you can park in the alley, where your car will be frequently blocked in by a stranger right before you need to go to work. Your car will rapidly depreciate in value as the scratches left by others increase. You may hear upstairs neighbors dancing, doing rhythmic dance, and/or fornicating. Not pet friendly (except perhaps for mice), but the management is forgiving about that if you act really sorry. Very safe, but mostly because you are in Boone, where the stranger on the street is more likely to offer you a joint than rob you.
Parking: 1 out of 5
Maintenance: 3 out of 5
Construction: 2 out of 5
Noise: 2 out of 5
Grounds: 1 out of 5
Safety: 5 out of 5
Staff: 3 out of 5
RECOMMENDED: Yes
And to think that I lived there two years. In my sweet, Ramen noodle college innocence, I loved that apartment. So I think I can deal with whatever comes my way in the new apartment, no matter what those other big complainers say.
4.13.2007
i learned i had to kill them myself.
Everybody who read The Jungle Book knows that Riki Tiki Tavi's a mongoose who killed snakes.
When I was a young man,
I was led to believe there were organizations to kill-a my snakes for me,
i.e. the church, i.e. the government, i.e. the school.
But when I got a bit older,
I learned I had to kill them myself.
-Donovan, "Riki Tiki Tavi"
The first week of school is one alternately filled with excitement and boredom. There's all the newness, and there's all the orientation. New teacher! New forms to fill out. New classmates! New syllabi to cover. New school supplies! New speech about attendance that doesn't really seem all that new somehow.
You get the idea.
During my first week of the third grade, my teacher Mrs. Allen gave a speech that I had not heard before. It was a long speech, as I think she was trying really hard to communicate a point to us, but didn't have the right words. As it is, I didn't even get it until recently.
The basic point of Mrs. Allen's speech is that we were allowed to punch each other in the face.
Of course, there was quite a bit more to the speech, like I said, which was her clarifying why she said we could clock classmates so she wouldn't get a lot of calls from angry parents. She explained that despite our forward and enlightened thinking in modern twentieth century society, sometimes, there are bullies. And sometimes, after rhetoric and good sense and tattling have failed us, what a bully needs is a good right hook to the jaw. Then she told us that if any of us gave a bully what he needed, she would punish us to the full extent of the elementary school law. Principal's office, note home, suspension, whatever it was that happened to kids for fighting in the third grade.
My understanding of the speech at the time was that she used to get picked on as a kid, so if we did end up giving some kid what was coming to him, she would secretly give us a high-five as she escorted us to the principal's office. I remember being confused about the whole thing, wondering how someone could condone and not condone an action at the same time. Of course, I didn't yet know the word "condone," so my thinking was probably even more muddled.
I've since decided that Mrs. Allen's speech was really about consequences. There are several messages that I've gleaned here. One, we all have the ability to do anything allowed by physics without anyone really stopping us, but there are consequences for all actions. Two, sometimes the establishment cannot protect you, and you must kill your own snakes, for which act, the establishment may even punish you. Three, sometimes the consequences for breaking a rule are preferable to not breaking the rule. In short, Mrs. Allen was telling us that sometimes you have to stick it to The Man.
Now this all seems to be a rather adult message, and though I agree with all of it, it still seems pretty radical to tell third graders to think about rules in this way, i.e. that they might need a good breaking. If I were my mother, I would've called up and voiced some concern, at which point, Mrs. Allen would have said, "Don't worry, Sandra won't really get this for another ten years or so." I don't think we were ready for it, but maybe she was hoping that at least one of us would file it away in the back of her mind to bring out every once in a while and poke at it before finally understanding and writing a blog about it. Considering blogs hadn't even been invented yet, Mrs. Allen was impressively ahead of her time.
4.11.2007
interviewee.
I remember when I was looking for a job a little over two years ago in the months leading up to my college graduation. I was discouraged. I'd not been job hunting before, but I found the task not to my liking. It seems like I spent hours pouring over job sites, trying to find jobs in my target region that I was qualified for. Finding none of those, I applied to jobs in my target region for which I was grossly unqualified. Having no luck with those, I started pelting companies as far away as Kansas City with my resume, figuring I'd just get back to my Kansas roots. I despaired that I somehow did not know the right things, and I sent off resume after resume into the black hole that is the internet, never hearing even so much as a "Yeah, right."
You know, not much has changed.
I did all of those things again. Even though I had just spent a couple of years working in the industry, again, I did not learn the right things. I was looking at taking classes so that I could finally learn the stupid right things, but thankfully some poor personnel managers took pity on me and gave me some interviews. Luckily for me, I am good at interviews. Or maybe I'm not, but I'm just better than most of the computer science world. You remember those kids in high school who never quite grasped being normal in public? A lot of those people are my competition. And that's very, very good for me.
But very, very bad for those other people. I look at some of my coworkers, and I wonder how they will ever get another job. These are incredibly smart people, great programmers, fantastic employees and coworkers, but I don't know how they ever convinced anyone to hire them. They get nervous talking to me, and I don't want to imagine how they'd be in front of a panel of judging strangers. I honestly don't even think that I'm all that great at interviews, but maybe the standards are just low in this field. I show up, do not wet my pants, manage to eek out a few complete sentences without hyperventilating, and I have a job! Staying calm really seems to be the only thing that I do differently, and it apparently makes a big difference. The answers to the questions don't even seem to matter. Of course, the percentage of right (or at least reasonably correct) answers to incorrect answers probably has a lot to do with the stress levels of the interviewee.
I've done a lot of interviews. This go around, I did two in-persons and countless phone screenings. A couple years ago, it was about the same. I got my start in high school, though, back when I was trying to convince scholarship committees that they wanted to pay for my college education. My first interview was for the Morehead Scholarship, UNC's free ride. I didn't want to go to UNC, but no one in my school had ever won the Morehead, so I applied. The interview was a fiasco. I did not have butterflies in my stomach, I had ferrets or something. My hands and voice were shaky and I sat with those judges, everyone in the room knowing with complete understanding that I was not going to get this scholarship. And after that, I was fine. Sure I'll get a little nervous, but my stomach never hurts. I don't shake. I manage to come up with good, yet unique answers. Maybe I just know that nothing could ever go as badly as that Morehead interview, and since I've already survived the worst, I might as well chill out.
I remember another scholarship interview, an all-day affair where fifteen candidates met with three judges separately. This was a big scholarship, and the downtime hanging out in the hall in between meetings was tense. One of these judges was your typical genius college professor; he was eccentric, had crazy Einstein hair, and asked really hard, thoughtful questions. At the end of my session with him, he shook my hand and said that I could relax because it was over. I shrugged and smiled at him and replied, "I'm alright." He cocked his head to the side and looked at me before saying, "I believe you are." I really don't know why I do so well at interviews. I'm just really glad that I do.
You know, not much has changed.
I did all of those things again. Even though I had just spent a couple of years working in the industry, again, I did not learn the right things. I was looking at taking classes so that I could finally learn the stupid right things, but thankfully some poor personnel managers took pity on me and gave me some interviews. Luckily for me, I am good at interviews. Or maybe I'm not, but I'm just better than most of the computer science world. You remember those kids in high school who never quite grasped being normal in public? A lot of those people are my competition. And that's very, very good for me.
But very, very bad for those other people. I look at some of my coworkers, and I wonder how they will ever get another job. These are incredibly smart people, great programmers, fantastic employees and coworkers, but I don't know how they ever convinced anyone to hire them. They get nervous talking to me, and I don't want to imagine how they'd be in front of a panel of judging strangers. I honestly don't even think that I'm all that great at interviews, but maybe the standards are just low in this field. I show up, do not wet my pants, manage to eek out a few complete sentences without hyperventilating, and I have a job! Staying calm really seems to be the only thing that I do differently, and it apparently makes a big difference. The answers to the questions don't even seem to matter. Of course, the percentage of right (or at least reasonably correct) answers to incorrect answers probably has a lot to do with the stress levels of the interviewee.
I've done a lot of interviews. This go around, I did two in-persons and countless phone screenings. A couple years ago, it was about the same. I got my start in high school, though, back when I was trying to convince scholarship committees that they wanted to pay for my college education. My first interview was for the Morehead Scholarship, UNC's free ride. I didn't want to go to UNC, but no one in my school had ever won the Morehead, so I applied. The interview was a fiasco. I did not have butterflies in my stomach, I had ferrets or something. My hands and voice were shaky and I sat with those judges, everyone in the room knowing with complete understanding that I was not going to get this scholarship. And after that, I was fine. Sure I'll get a little nervous, but my stomach never hurts. I don't shake. I manage to come up with good, yet unique answers. Maybe I just know that nothing could ever go as badly as that Morehead interview, and since I've already survived the worst, I might as well chill out.
I remember another scholarship interview, an all-day affair where fifteen candidates met with three judges separately. This was a big scholarship, and the downtime hanging out in the hall in between meetings was tense. One of these judges was your typical genius college professor; he was eccentric, had crazy Einstein hair, and asked really hard, thoughtful questions. At the end of my session with him, he shook my hand and said that I could relax because it was over. I shrugged and smiled at him and replied, "I'm alright." He cocked his head to the side and looked at me before saying, "I believe you are." I really don't know why I do so well at interviews. I'm just really glad that I do.
4.09.2007
way to go, paula!
You know that great scene at the end of An Officer and a Gentleman where Richard Gere comes to the factory in his dress whites and scoops up Debra Winger in her arms to carry her to her new destiny as an aviator wife? And all the other factory girls are all clapping and cheering for her, "Way to go, Paula! Way to go!" because she is escaping her job.
A former Naval officer is standing outside my office in his khakis clapping and saying those words. He does not come and scoop me into his arms and carry me out, which is good, because that sounds like a great way to get fired. He has to explain all about the movie to me, because I've never seen it, and I've no idea why in the world he's clapping and calling me Paula.
In other words, I quit my job.
Officially, I resigned my position to pursue other career interests. My other career interests include a different software job in another city, coincidentally the one where my boyfriend lives. However, in great news, I'm really excited about my new job, which sounds dorky and challenging. Also, I can wear sandals and jeans every single day, and there are free sodas in the breakroom. These are the things that make me happy.
I've never quit a job before, at least not a real one. I quit being a cashier at Winn-Dixie, which consisted of me handing in my teal shirt and nametag. I quit being a hotel housekeeper, but I had to be told by the boss that I was quitting. I quit being a waitress, but mostly because the restaurant was closed, and I was having a hard time getting any tables.
I'm just glad I can be done with the secrets. For three months I've been furtively searching the want ads, avoiding telling anyone at work about what I really did in the evenings. For a while I didn't tell my mother, because doing so would give her reason to ask about it every week, and if things were not going well, I'd have to tell her that. I don't like admitting that I'm trying something unless I'm assured of success. I don't mind being a failure, but I prefer to be a secret one.
But now I can tell everyone, and no one is much surprised. I heard tell that my boss, upon hearing the news, said, "We expected that, right?" Everyone knew about my weekend pilgrimages, and so everyone easily came to the conclusion (as I had) that a move to Raleigh was the next step. I am taking that step now, subdivided as it is into little steps. Find new job, check. Quit old job, check. Find new place to live...I'm tired already.
At least I can whine about it here now.
A former Naval officer is standing outside my office in his khakis clapping and saying those words. He does not come and scoop me into his arms and carry me out, which is good, because that sounds like a great way to get fired. He has to explain all about the movie to me, because I've never seen it, and I've no idea why in the world he's clapping and calling me Paula.
In other words, I quit my job.
Officially, I resigned my position to pursue other career interests. My other career interests include a different software job in another city, coincidentally the one where my boyfriend lives. However, in great news, I'm really excited about my new job, which sounds dorky and challenging. Also, I can wear sandals and jeans every single day, and there are free sodas in the breakroom. These are the things that make me happy.
I've never quit a job before, at least not a real one. I quit being a cashier at Winn-Dixie, which consisted of me handing in my teal shirt and nametag. I quit being a hotel housekeeper, but I had to be told by the boss that I was quitting. I quit being a waitress, but mostly because the restaurant was closed, and I was having a hard time getting any tables.
I'm just glad I can be done with the secrets. For three months I've been furtively searching the want ads, avoiding telling anyone at work about what I really did in the evenings. For a while I didn't tell my mother, because doing so would give her reason to ask about it every week, and if things were not going well, I'd have to tell her that. I don't like admitting that I'm trying something unless I'm assured of success. I don't mind being a failure, but I prefer to be a secret one.
But now I can tell everyone, and no one is much surprised. I heard tell that my boss, upon hearing the news, said, "We expected that, right?" Everyone knew about my weekend pilgrimages, and so everyone easily came to the conclusion (as I had) that a move to Raleigh was the next step. I am taking that step now, subdivided as it is into little steps. Find new job, check. Quit old job, check. Find new place to live...I'm tired already.
At least I can whine about it here now.
4.03.2007
the hardest there is.
Stuck again in a car with a strange man. This time I'm driving myself to my office with Ken riding along so that he can take my car back to the garage to figure out why my check engine light insists on shining. Ken makes a couple of banal comments about the weather and the brightness of the sun as we drive towards it. I ask him a couple of questions about the software they use in the garage, trying to gauge how similar it is to the applications that I write for trucks. It becomes clear that Ken is just a change-the-tires-check-the-oil kind of guy. When I ask him if he likes his job, he thinks for a moment before saying that he doesn't mind it.
"Okay, so what do you really want to do?" I ask.
"Race cars." No hesitation in his voice this time.
"Fair enough," I laugh, delighted at such big dreams.
"Yeah, I mean, what I'm doing now, it's automotive, so that's a start."
"Well, have you ever done any actual racing?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I've done some. I just, you know, five years ago, I thought I would be closer to it by now."
"I imagine that's a tough thing to break into."
"It's about the hardest there is, that I know of."
I think to myself that the hardest field to break into probably is the one you really want. In any case, I am no longer delighted. I wonder how many people are stuck in dead-end jobs that they cling to because it bears some resemblance to what they really want. How many middle-aged men are still changing tires after twenty years because they wanted to race cars when they were twenty-five? I wondered how long Ken will say "I want to race cars" before switching it to "I used to want to race cars."
The world is full of accountants who wanted to be astronauts, cashiers who wanted to play for the Miami Dolphins, computer programmers who wanted to be writers. Every time you meet a salesperson or a bank clerk or a delivery person, you have to wonder if they're working the job they dreamed of when they were eight or sixteen or even twenty-five years old. Few people give up on their dreams instantly, it's a gradual process where reality and sensibility slowly get their grip on you, and then one day you wonder whatever happened to that kid who wanted to race cars.
"Okay, so what do you really want to do?" I ask.
"Race cars." No hesitation in his voice this time.
"Fair enough," I laugh, delighted at such big dreams.
"Yeah, I mean, what I'm doing now, it's automotive, so that's a start."
"Well, have you ever done any actual racing?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I've done some. I just, you know, five years ago, I thought I would be closer to it by now."
"I imagine that's a tough thing to break into."
"It's about the hardest there is, that I know of."
I think to myself that the hardest field to break into probably is the one you really want. In any case, I am no longer delighted. I wonder how many people are stuck in dead-end jobs that they cling to because it bears some resemblance to what they really want. How many middle-aged men are still changing tires after twenty years because they wanted to race cars when they were twenty-five? I wondered how long Ken will say "I want to race cars" before switching it to "I used to want to race cars."
The world is full of accountants who wanted to be astronauts, cashiers who wanted to play for the Miami Dolphins, computer programmers who wanted to be writers. Every time you meet a salesperson or a bank clerk or a delivery person, you have to wonder if they're working the job they dreamed of when they were eight or sixteen or even twenty-five years old. Few people give up on their dreams instantly, it's a gradual process where reality and sensibility slowly get their grip on you, and then one day you wonder whatever happened to that kid who wanted to race cars.
3.30.2007
lock-in.
I'm locked in a Goodwill dressing room with two skirts and a pile of clothes from previous users. I do not know what to do.
At this point, you say, "Hey, silly, it's a dressing room. Ever used one of those before? You take off your clothes, you put on the skirts - one at a time, mind you. Then you look at yourself in the mirror and you make a face. If it's a happy face, then you buy the skirt. If it's a sad or any other sort of unhappy face, then you put the skirt back on the rack. Then you put your own clothes back on and leave to either purchase the skirt(s) or put them away. See? Easy!"
No, no, no, I know all that. In fact, I have done most of that. I tried on two skirts and made two unhappy faces. Then I put my own pants back on and made ready to put the skirts back. But the door is locked.
"Man, you are stupider than I thought. Look, the door is locked to allow you privacy while you strip down to your skivvies in public. In fact, you were the one who locked it. So you just unlock it. It'll be fine, really. Sit down and have a rest first if you don't feel you're ready for it."
I'm telling you, I tried that. I turned the lock back to horizontal (that's a big word, see, I am not stupid). When I came in, it was horizontal, and I turned it to vertical. Now that I'm ready to leave the room, I've turned it back to horizontal and the door still won't open. The lock is jammed or something, I am locked in a Goodwill dressing room, and I'm just not sure what to do.
"So the lock is stuck somehow?"
Yes.
"You can't get out?"
No.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh man, that is rich! Ha ha ha ha! Wow, that really sucks! Good luck with that one!"
Thanks.
The way I look at it, I have a several options, none of which is particularly appealing.
1. I could live in the Goodwill dressing room. While the Goodwill dressing room does provide ample shelter from cold and weather, it does not provide food. That would be good up to a point: for instance, I would be able to wear one of these skirts within a couple of days.
2. I could continue fidgeting with the lock, hoping that I will do something I haven't already done in the last five minutes. The trouble with this one is that eventually someone will notice. Also, this seems to be more and more unlikely to be helpful the longer I stand in here.
3. I could knock on the door and hope someone answers. No doubt that someone will have to get another someone to help, and there might be five or six someones standing outside snickering by the time they free me. Though I am quite an avid collector of public humiliation stories, I collect them from other people.
4. I could shimmy under the doorway. Doorway shimmying is something I've done many times in the past to unlock a locked public bathroom or even a dressing room. Of course, I was always trying to get in, but I suppose that's irrelevant. The thing is, I haven't done that in probably ten or fifteen years. Also, this doorway is a bit low to the ground, making an already ungraceful move even more difficult. The image of me stuck under a doorway to a Goodwill dressing room flashes in my head, and I want to cry.
Still, Number 4 is really the only option if I want to a.) get out, and b.) avoid as much embarrassment as possible. Both of these things are very important to me.
I get low to the ground and peer under the doorway. A pair of women saunter by, pausing to admire something or other right in front of the door for what seems like ages. Finally, they move on. I peek to the sides to see if anyone is near. The time is ripe. I get down on my stomach and I shimmy. Oh boy, do I shimmy. I do not get stuck, and I get out, standing up quickly and tossing my hair casually over my shoulder. The pair of women miraculously were looking in the other direction. I walk up to the front counter, prepared to explain to the cashier what has just happened. But then I realize what I would have to say, decide to let them figure it out for themselves, and walk straight out the front door, which, thankfully, is unlocked.
At this point, you say, "Hey, silly, it's a dressing room. Ever used one of those before? You take off your clothes, you put on the skirts - one at a time, mind you. Then you look at yourself in the mirror and you make a face. If it's a happy face, then you buy the skirt. If it's a sad or any other sort of unhappy face, then you put the skirt back on the rack. Then you put your own clothes back on and leave to either purchase the skirt(s) or put them away. See? Easy!"
No, no, no, I know all that. In fact, I have done most of that. I tried on two skirts and made two unhappy faces. Then I put my own pants back on and made ready to put the skirts back. But the door is locked.
"Man, you are stupider than I thought. Look, the door is locked to allow you privacy while you strip down to your skivvies in public. In fact, you were the one who locked it. So you just unlock it. It'll be fine, really. Sit down and have a rest first if you don't feel you're ready for it."
I'm telling you, I tried that. I turned the lock back to horizontal (that's a big word, see, I am not stupid). When I came in, it was horizontal, and I turned it to vertical. Now that I'm ready to leave the room, I've turned it back to horizontal and the door still won't open. The lock is jammed or something, I am locked in a Goodwill dressing room, and I'm just not sure what to do.
"So the lock is stuck somehow?"
Yes.
"You can't get out?"
No.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh man, that is rich! Ha ha ha ha! Wow, that really sucks! Good luck with that one!"
Thanks.
The way I look at it, I have a several options, none of which is particularly appealing.
1. I could live in the Goodwill dressing room. While the Goodwill dressing room does provide ample shelter from cold and weather, it does not provide food. That would be good up to a point: for instance, I would be able to wear one of these skirts within a couple of days.
2. I could continue fidgeting with the lock, hoping that I will do something I haven't already done in the last five minutes. The trouble with this one is that eventually someone will notice. Also, this seems to be more and more unlikely to be helpful the longer I stand in here.
3. I could knock on the door and hope someone answers. No doubt that someone will have to get another someone to help, and there might be five or six someones standing outside snickering by the time they free me. Though I am quite an avid collector of public humiliation stories, I collect them from other people.
4. I could shimmy under the doorway. Doorway shimmying is something I've done many times in the past to unlock a locked public bathroom or even a dressing room. Of course, I was always trying to get in, but I suppose that's irrelevant. The thing is, I haven't done that in probably ten or fifteen years. Also, this doorway is a bit low to the ground, making an already ungraceful move even more difficult. The image of me stuck under a doorway to a Goodwill dressing room flashes in my head, and I want to cry.
Still, Number 4 is really the only option if I want to a.) get out, and b.) avoid as much embarrassment as possible. Both of these things are very important to me.
I get low to the ground and peer under the doorway. A pair of women saunter by, pausing to admire something or other right in front of the door for what seems like ages. Finally, they move on. I peek to the sides to see if anyone is near. The time is ripe. I get down on my stomach and I shimmy. Oh boy, do I shimmy. I do not get stuck, and I get out, standing up quickly and tossing my hair casually over my shoulder. The pair of women miraculously were looking in the other direction. I walk up to the front counter, prepared to explain to the cashier what has just happened. But then I realize what I would have to say, decide to let them figure it out for themselves, and walk straight out the front door, which, thankfully, is unlocked.
3.26.2007
sandra the spy.
Writers don't care what they eat. They just care what other people think of them.
-Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy
Harriet is an observer. She calls herself a spy, because that's much more glamourous. I read the book about Harriet the Spy a long time ago when I was still occupying the age group for which the novel was intended. I liked it a lot and secretly filed it away in the ranks of classic young adult novels, where the greats like Judy Blume and Roald Dahl (the ultimate) live.
1.23.07
The worst job in the world must surely be the bus driver of the terminal shuttle at Reagon National Airport. As far as I can tell, his job is to drive a small bus back and forth across an asphalt slab half the length of a football field. I suppose if he's good, he's promoted to...I'm not even sure what.
Harriet carries around a notebook all the time, and in it, she writes her thoughts as well as the daily comings and goings of her neighbors. She writes who has a big nose and who has a disgusting pimple and who has the most ridiculous red hair she has ever seen.
11.18.04
Tracy, a chatty Wal-Mart employee, is having problems with her knee. Also, her car broke down this morning. She hurt her knee in the bathroom, she loudly complains, loud enough for a girl with glasses and a small notebook to hear her from the table across the way. Then she leans in to tell an old woman quietly some secret woman thing that she was doing when she hurt her knee. Across the way, a girl with glasses and a small notebook wishes she had been able to overhear the secret woman thing.
Harriet takes notes constantly. She scribbles over breakfast, during math class, before she goes to bed at night. She is taking notes as if life were a class, the events of which she will be tested on later. Some of them are just to remember the things she has seen. Some are things that she wants to remember to think about later. These she notes with a brief note followed by the words "THINK ABOUT IT."
10.10.06
The guy keeps looking at me, and I can't decide if it's because I look like his dead sister or because I look better than his blind date.
Harriet wants to be a writer, or is it a spy? Or maybe some sort of combination, which I suppose adds to either a tabloid writer or a really terrible spy. Someone told her once that to be a writer, you have to write, write, write all the time. People have told me that, too, and so I try, though I suspect it's just another joke, like that one about how to get to Carnegie Hall.
9.8.06
I have started to get comfortable with the natural ebb and flow of writing. For the past two weeks, nothing has come to me. Nothing in my life has changed, it wasn't as if everything got boring all of a sudden. I knew the little nuggets of inspiration that allow me to turn an everyday event into three pages are still all around me, but it's like I couldn't see them. And that feeling is not nearly as upsetting as it has been in the past - I had a bunch of old stuff saved up so I could keep up the blog. I worried a little, because one can never tell how long a dry spell will last, but at least this time, I seemed to realize that it definitely would end.
But Harriet isn't so much trying to get to Carnegie Hall anymore. The notebook has become a part of her, a kidney or lung, and she is unable to let it go. It interferes with her life. Even when she can focus on whatever is going on around her, she is composing it all in her head, her hands aching for the time when she can record it all in her notebook.
7.15.05
Things found in my car:
3 umbrellas
1 deck of cards
1 sewing machine instruction book, copyright 1970
9 burned CDs, 8 labelled
31 cents
2 pens (blue)
a box of hangers
1 diabetic test strip
1 hospital volunteer badge
And so I found Harriet the Spy for a quarter at the Salvation Army and immediately brought it home to snuggle it next to the Roald Dahls. I read it in one night on my couch, all two-hundred ninety-seven pages of it. I'm grown up enough to realize immediately why Harriet appeals to me so much, and I only wonder if I realized it then.
-Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy
Harriet is an observer. She calls herself a spy, because that's much more glamourous. I read the book about Harriet the Spy a long time ago when I was still occupying the age group for which the novel was intended. I liked it a lot and secretly filed it away in the ranks of classic young adult novels, where the greats like Judy Blume and Roald Dahl (the ultimate) live.
1.23.07
The worst job in the world must surely be the bus driver of the terminal shuttle at Reagon National Airport. As far as I can tell, his job is to drive a small bus back and forth across an asphalt slab half the length of a football field. I suppose if he's good, he's promoted to...I'm not even sure what.
Harriet carries around a notebook all the time, and in it, she writes her thoughts as well as the daily comings and goings of her neighbors. She writes who has a big nose and who has a disgusting pimple and who has the most ridiculous red hair she has ever seen.
11.18.04
Tracy, a chatty Wal-Mart employee, is having problems with her knee. Also, her car broke down this morning. She hurt her knee in the bathroom, she loudly complains, loud enough for a girl with glasses and a small notebook to hear her from the table across the way. Then she leans in to tell an old woman quietly some secret woman thing that she was doing when she hurt her knee. Across the way, a girl with glasses and a small notebook wishes she had been able to overhear the secret woman thing.
Harriet takes notes constantly. She scribbles over breakfast, during math class, before she goes to bed at night. She is taking notes as if life were a class, the events of which she will be tested on later. Some of them are just to remember the things she has seen. Some are things that she wants to remember to think about later. These she notes with a brief note followed by the words "THINK ABOUT IT."
10.10.06
The guy keeps looking at me, and I can't decide if it's because I look like his dead sister or because I look better than his blind date.
Harriet wants to be a writer, or is it a spy? Or maybe some sort of combination, which I suppose adds to either a tabloid writer or a really terrible spy. Someone told her once that to be a writer, you have to write, write, write all the time. People have told me that, too, and so I try, though I suspect it's just another joke, like that one about how to get to Carnegie Hall.
9.8.06
I have started to get comfortable with the natural ebb and flow of writing. For the past two weeks, nothing has come to me. Nothing in my life has changed, it wasn't as if everything got boring all of a sudden. I knew the little nuggets of inspiration that allow me to turn an everyday event into three pages are still all around me, but it's like I couldn't see them. And that feeling is not nearly as upsetting as it has been in the past - I had a bunch of old stuff saved up so I could keep up the blog. I worried a little, because one can never tell how long a dry spell will last, but at least this time, I seemed to realize that it definitely would end.
But Harriet isn't so much trying to get to Carnegie Hall anymore. The notebook has become a part of her, a kidney or lung, and she is unable to let it go. It interferes with her life. Even when she can focus on whatever is going on around her, she is composing it all in her head, her hands aching for the time when she can record it all in her notebook.
7.15.05
Things found in my car:
3 umbrellas
1 deck of cards
1 sewing machine instruction book, copyright 1970
9 burned CDs, 8 labelled
31 cents
2 pens (blue)
a box of hangers
1 diabetic test strip
1 hospital volunteer badge
And so I found Harriet the Spy for a quarter at the Salvation Army and immediately brought it home to snuggle it next to the Roald Dahls. I read it in one night on my couch, all two-hundred ninety-seven pages of it. I'm grown up enough to realize immediately why Harriet appeals to me so much, and I only wonder if I realized it then.
3.23.2007
tree hugging.
Did you know that I used to be a tree hugger?
In the fifth grade, I became aware of the plight of the rainforest, of the endangered giant golden-crowned flying fox, of the ozone layer, of anything Mother Nature related that had a plight. Thinking back, I don't remember what started me on this environmentalist fervor - probably some nature show meant to enrage people by employing lots of sentiment and misleading statistics.
I did what any outraged eleven year old with a rapidly deteriorating home planet would do: I started a club. Inspired by the weekday afternoon advertisements for Kids F.A.C.E (Kids For A Cleaner Environment), I started K.C.E. - Kids Caring for the Environment. My club was totally different from those Kids F.A.C.E. losers. You could tell we really cared about the environment - it was right there in our name.
I enlisted the help of my classmates. My fifth grade teacher encouraged the whole enterprise by allowing me class time to explain what my club was and how we were going to care for the environment. I elected myself president and collected one dollar in dues from a dozen kids or so. The other kids went for it because I was the smart kid, and at that age, being smart was still cool. Had I known about the upcoming drastic drop in my popularity, I would have started a club that lobbied for dork coolness.
Each month, we had a theme. The first month was "Hug a tree" a phrase that I most likely heard from Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show was broadcast every day into the ears of my parents and whatever unsuspecting children might be around. My adult siblings thought this theme hilarious, and my brother Knocker even had me pose for a picture in which I was physically hugging a tree. It's been about thirteen years, but I think now that they were probably making fun of me. Thinking back on all this, I realize that Rush Limbaugh didn't use the term "tree-hugger" as a compliment. So while I was really a kid who just didn't get the joke, I prefer to delude myself that I was being satirical.
Misguided names or no, we actually did some stuff. The dues we collected went towards a membership in the Arbor Day foundation or some tree thing. Whatever foundation it was, they promised us that 2500 square feet of the rainforest would not be cut down. I'm not sure how that works, but it doesn't matter, because we never got around to sending in the ten dollars. I think it might have been eventually embezzled by the club treasurer, but I've decided not to report her to the authorities for fraud, mostly because I figure I could probably be held responsible in some way. I also had plans to adopt a whale and name it Kasey E. Whale (get it? K.C. E. Whale!), but that never happened due to the embezzlement incident and the general loss of interest in the whole thing on my part. There was one afternoon where the entire class voluntarily and spontaneously spent a whole recess period picking up trash off the playground area. One kid was the hero of the day because he even picked up cigarette butts, which the rest of us thought were too nasty to touch with our bare hands. I later found out this same kid had a crush on me, and I wonder if the cigarette butts were his secret cry for love. It's like the sweetest creepy thing anyone has ever done for me.
I saw the summer after fifth grade as a good opportunity to let my whole tree hugging past fade away. I decided I wasn't really into saving the world, or at least leading a save the world club. I was busy dealing with the onset of puberty and the sudden loss of my popularity amongst my classmates. It surprises me to think of it now, realizing that I was kind of an ambitious little kid. I don't consider myself to be a particularly ambitious adult, and I wonder what happened. It makes me a little sad to think of that girl unabashedly hugging a birch, even while her big brother laughed at her. I know she's got to be still inside me somewhere, and I think maybe I should let her out more often. Not necessarily to embrace fauna, but to go after big dreams and do good things without realizing they might also be somewhat unrealistic and/or idiotic.
I just won't let my brother take pictures this time.
Note: Knocker - do you still have that picture? I would like a copy, please. It will bedestroyed treasured forever.
In the fifth grade, I became aware of the plight of the rainforest, of the endangered giant golden-crowned flying fox, of the ozone layer, of anything Mother Nature related that had a plight. Thinking back, I don't remember what started me on this environmentalist fervor - probably some nature show meant to enrage people by employing lots of sentiment and misleading statistics.
I did what any outraged eleven year old with a rapidly deteriorating home planet would do: I started a club. Inspired by the weekday afternoon advertisements for Kids F.A.C.E (Kids For A Cleaner Environment), I started K.C.E. - Kids Caring for the Environment. My club was totally different from those Kids F.A.C.E. losers. You could tell we really cared about the environment - it was right there in our name.
I enlisted the help of my classmates. My fifth grade teacher encouraged the whole enterprise by allowing me class time to explain what my club was and how we were going to care for the environment. I elected myself president and collected one dollar in dues from a dozen kids or so. The other kids went for it because I was the smart kid, and at that age, being smart was still cool. Had I known about the upcoming drastic drop in my popularity, I would have started a club that lobbied for dork coolness.
Each month, we had a theme. The first month was "Hug a tree" a phrase that I most likely heard from Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show was broadcast every day into the ears of my parents and whatever unsuspecting children might be around. My adult siblings thought this theme hilarious, and my brother Knocker even had me pose for a picture in which I was physically hugging a tree. It's been about thirteen years, but I think now that they were probably making fun of me. Thinking back on all this, I realize that Rush Limbaugh didn't use the term "tree-hugger" as a compliment. So while I was really a kid who just didn't get the joke, I prefer to delude myself that I was being satirical.
Misguided names or no, we actually did some stuff. The dues we collected went towards a membership in the Arbor Day foundation or some tree thing. Whatever foundation it was, they promised us that 2500 square feet of the rainforest would not be cut down. I'm not sure how that works, but it doesn't matter, because we never got around to sending in the ten dollars. I think it might have been eventually embezzled by the club treasurer, but I've decided not to report her to the authorities for fraud, mostly because I figure I could probably be held responsible in some way. I also had plans to adopt a whale and name it Kasey E. Whale (get it? K.C. E. Whale!), but that never happened due to the embezzlement incident and the general loss of interest in the whole thing on my part. There was one afternoon where the entire class voluntarily and spontaneously spent a whole recess period picking up trash off the playground area. One kid was the hero of the day because he even picked up cigarette butts, which the rest of us thought were too nasty to touch with our bare hands. I later found out this same kid had a crush on me, and I wonder if the cigarette butts were his secret cry for love. It's like the sweetest creepy thing anyone has ever done for me.
I saw the summer after fifth grade as a good opportunity to let my whole tree hugging past fade away. I decided I wasn't really into saving the world, or at least leading a save the world club. I was busy dealing with the onset of puberty and the sudden loss of my popularity amongst my classmates. It surprises me to think of it now, realizing that I was kind of an ambitious little kid. I don't consider myself to be a particularly ambitious adult, and I wonder what happened. It makes me a little sad to think of that girl unabashedly hugging a birch, even while her big brother laughed at her. I know she's got to be still inside me somewhere, and I think maybe I should let her out more often. Not necessarily to embrace fauna, but to go after big dreams and do good things without realizing they might also be somewhat unrealistic and/or idiotic.
I just won't let my brother take pictures this time.
Note: Knocker - do you still have that picture? I would like a copy, please. It will be
3.15.2007
got your goat.
I stole this sign from the window of an empty shop in a strip mall. In my defense, it had been up for quite a while (notice the water marks). Also, I did it all for you, my loyal readers, because I knew that you would find this sign as fascinating as I do. If not, that's okay, too, because I guarantee I am fascinated enough for every single one of you. When you first read this sign, how many times did you stop and say, "Wait, what?" I really can't decide what intrigues me more: the idea of people who bow-hunt goats or that last remark about serial killers. Should I be concerned about mass murderers? Or maybe just lost and confused Bushmen?
Notice that I did mark out the phone numbers so as to avoid some sort of 867-5309 incident. I mean, these poor people have been through enough.
3.14.2007
portuguese bacon with salt.
Thing 1: When it rains, it pours.
You know, I was having kind of a blue evening tonight, and I decided to go shopping. Yes, yes, I know that it is a dangerous thing when my moods can be affected by retail success, and I am coming off as a rather stereotypical female here. I'll defend myself on that front some other day. Besides, I went to Goodwill. While sometimes shopping can only worsen a bad mood (see "Bathing Suits, Shopping For"), the find of a good bargain can make my week. For instance, this evening, I came home with - get ready for it - a bright yellow rain slicker! I've haven't had a rain slicker since second grade or so, when I had a reversible one that was solid blue or white with blue polka dots, depending on how you wore it. This one is much, much cooler.
It's a little silly how much this rain slicker (not rain coat, that's not as much fun to say) excites me. "I'm going to look like the Morton's Salt girl!" I said to whoever was close enough to hear me talking to myself. Then, later tonight when I was looking for images of said little girl to show to you, I found out that I have been misinformed about her and that she wears a bright yellow dress, not a slicker.
I'm going to look even cooler than the Morton's Salt girl!
Thing 2: Line of Demarcation.
I've been getting a lot of emails in Portuguese. I know you all have very high opinions of my intelligence, but sadly, I do not speak Portuguese. These were emails from actual people who were trying to send forwards to another girl named Sandra, presumably one who does speak Portuguese. I would sometimes get as many as a dozen a day. I don't even know if they were good forwards or just a bunch of good luck nonsense, in which case, I wish to know what sort of exceptions there are to the chain letter bad luck ruling. I feel like not knowing the language is a very good excuse.
In any case, I went to one of those websites that will translate a small amount of text into any language for free and entered the phrase "Please stop sending me messages. You have the wrong address." Out came, I assume, the Portuguese equivalent. I wanted to enter something much more elaborate, for instance:
However, since I was using a questionable translation tool, I thought it best to stick to a simple message. I started replying to these emails with my translated message. Thankfully, they have stopped, and I am at peace once more.
Thing 3: Something by M.C. Escher's fat cousin.
Phone call, 11:33 AM
Sandra: Hello?
Josh: Hi. I made a moebius strip of bacon.
Sandra: You did what?
Josh: A moebius strip of bacon. I just thought you wanted to know. I have to go now, because I'm cooking bacon.
You know, I was having kind of a blue evening tonight, and I decided to go shopping. Yes, yes, I know that it is a dangerous thing when my moods can be affected by retail success, and I am coming off as a rather stereotypical female here. I'll defend myself on that front some other day. Besides, I went to Goodwill. While sometimes shopping can only worsen a bad mood (see "Bathing Suits, Shopping For"), the find of a good bargain can make my week. For instance, this evening, I came home with - get ready for it - a bright yellow rain slicker! I've haven't had a rain slicker since second grade or so, when I had a reversible one that was solid blue or white with blue polka dots, depending on how you wore it. This one is much, much cooler.
It's a little silly how much this rain slicker (not rain coat, that's not as much fun to say) excites me. "I'm going to look like the Morton's Salt girl!" I said to whoever was close enough to hear me talking to myself. Then, later tonight when I was looking for images of said little girl to show to you, I found out that I have been misinformed about her and that she wears a bright yellow dress, not a slicker.
I'm going to look even cooler than the Morton's Salt girl!
Thing 2: Line of Demarcation.
I've been getting a lot of emails in Portuguese. I know you all have very high opinions of my intelligence, but sadly, I do not speak Portuguese. These were emails from actual people who were trying to send forwards to another girl named Sandra, presumably one who does speak Portuguese. I would sometimes get as many as a dozen a day. I don't even know if they were good forwards or just a bunch of good luck nonsense, in which case, I wish to know what sort of exceptions there are to the chain letter bad luck ruling. I feel like not knowing the language is a very good excuse.
In any case, I went to one of those websites that will translate a small amount of text into any language for free and entered the phrase "Please stop sending me messages. You have the wrong address." Out came, I assume, the Portuguese equivalent. I wanted to enter something much more elaborate, for instance:
Long ago and far away, the Pope drew a line on the world, giving Portugal some room to be fruitful and multiply without tripping over Spaniards all the time. Regardless of whether the Pope had any right to do this, the land where I was born some centuries later was not affected. Therefore, I cannot understand a single word in these emails. I am up late at night, fearful that I am missing great pieces of literature or insightful discussion, just because of the way a dead Catholic arbitrarily drew a line. Please, cease in sending these emails to me, so that if I cannot read them, I will no longer suffer in the wondering of what I cannot understand.
However, since I was using a questionable translation tool, I thought it best to stick to a simple message. I started replying to these emails with my translated message. Thankfully, they have stopped, and I am at peace once more.
Thing 3: Something by M.C. Escher's fat cousin.
Phone call, 11:33 AM
Sandra: Hello?
Josh: Hi. I made a moebius strip of bacon.
Sandra: You did what?
Josh: A moebius strip of bacon. I just thought you wanted to know. I have to go now, because I'm cooking bacon.
3.12.2007
a background of pasty.
It's Saturday evening, and I'm inspecting the damage to my legs. I count three injuries, all of the variety of capillaries broken beneath the skin, i.e. bruises. There's a teensy one just below the right knee, while the other two are right on the shins, one on each leg. The one on the right leg is noticeably swollen. I'm poking that one to test for tenderness. I don't know it yet, but I will develop a scratched-up hand and a sore bottom the very next evening. This is the first weekend we got the wheely shoes, and our bodies show it.
I remember when my legs were quite the colorful things, with varying hues of red, blue, green, and brown all over a background of pasty. This was all in my high school sports days, back when I did something more than sit at a computer all day long. My knees were always particularly vivid in volleyball season, where my kneepads could only do so much to cushion the blow of a girl my size crashing to hardwood floors.
As I admire the colors of my new bruises, Josh sees and makes sympathetic noises. He kisses me and tells me that he is sorry that his poor, sweet baby is damaged. I smile broadly and tell him that I am nothing but proud of these little blue and swollen patches among the pale. I am proud of any badge on my body, be it a bruise or a scratch or even a hickey, that I got from living. Monday morning, I will go to work and whenever someone asks me about my weekend, I will silently and wide-eyed show them the new cut on my hand before I launch into talking about my new wheely shoes, and how they're so cool, and I just had the most fun ever.
I remember when my legs were quite the colorful things, with varying hues of red, blue, green, and brown all over a background of pasty. This was all in my high school sports days, back when I did something more than sit at a computer all day long. My knees were always particularly vivid in volleyball season, where my kneepads could only do so much to cushion the blow of a girl my size crashing to hardwood floors.
As I admire the colors of my new bruises, Josh sees and makes sympathetic noises. He kisses me and tells me that he is sorry that his poor, sweet baby is damaged. I smile broadly and tell him that I am nothing but proud of these little blue and swollen patches among the pale. I am proud of any badge on my body, be it a bruise or a scratch or even a hickey, that I got from living. Monday morning, I will go to work and whenever someone asks me about my weekend, I will silently and wide-eyed show them the new cut on my hand before I launch into talking about my new wheely shoes, and how they're so cool, and I just had the most fun ever.
3.09.2007
bela lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla.
"So, seen any good movies lately?"
The question is put to me by Todd, who is sitting next to me at an employee lunch. The other half a dozen people present are talking about their children and the various stages of baby poop. Neither Todd nor I have children, and though someday baby poop might be an interesting conversational topic for us someday, today is not that day.
"Actually, no. I have seen no good movies lately." The answer takes both of us aback, but it's the total truth. In fact, I have seen nothing but absolutely wretched movies lately. I don't mean your regular bad movies, like where the acting is sub-par or maybe the script is uninspired. I mean horrendously, awful, terrible movies that show up in lists like "The 50 Worst Movies of All Time" or "Movies Which Make the Eyes Bleed." I've been watching them on purpose, completely aware that they are insults to the medium of film.
See, I've recently discovered Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Back in college, I heard the really cool kids talking about this show. I'd never seen it, nor did I know what it was, but I knew better than to admit that to those guys. Better just nod along. But now I'm qualified to discuss it at length and even use the very hip nickname MST3K.
For the uninitiated: Have you ever watched a really bad movie with some good friends and the whole experience turned out to be pretty fun, because you just ruthlessly made fun of the movie the whole time? That is the whole concept of this show. Rather than try to keep up or even understand the movie, just make fun of it in any way possible. In a lot of movies, that's better than trying to take the film seriously. MST3K shows a bad movie with the silhouettes of a guy and two robots in the front row. You watch the movie and hear their commentary. And it's hilarious and brilliant.
Josh and I watch this show together. We rent them through Netflix as fast as the mail allows. And while we listen to the comments made by the show, we're making up our own, too. I've come to realize that there are some atrociously bad movies out there. As one of the characters on the show said, "Just when you think you've seen the worst movie ever made, along comes the worst movie ever made."
This show has messed with my mind. I can't watch a movie anymore without making a bunch of smart-aleck comments. What's more, I've developed a special place in my heart for bad movies. I read somewhere that the movie Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla makes Plan 9 From Outer Space (widely regarded as the worst movie ever made) look like Gone with the Wind. I've seen Plan 9. It's ridiculously terrible; at one point, a prop gravestone actually falls over. But I've seen much, much worse. And so my reaction to reading that statement was to immediately go to Netflix and queue up Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. After I did that, I realized that my logic was completely backward. It's like someone showed me the arsenic, and I excitedly started sprinkling it on my pancakes.
I realized at some point that I seemed to be seeking out the holy grail of crappy flicks, The Worst Movie Ever Made. It wasn't just a matter of wanting to make fun of poor filmmaking, I was actively looking for the one that is the most terrible. That quest begs a lot of questions. Will I know the worst movie when I see it? Is there actually a worst movie ever, seeing as how movies can be bad in so many different ways? Is The Worst Movie Ever Made available on DVD?
So far, in my book the title of Worst Movie Ever Made belongs to Monster A Go-Go. Watch it if you're feeling brave, as it's going to hurt. The promotional poster quotes N.A.S.A as saying "This picture could set our space program back at least fifty years!" I assume that's only if the astronauts saw it, as then their brains would all explode. Maybe it's the Worst Movie Ever Made, and maybe not. I haven't even seen Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.
The question is put to me by Todd, who is sitting next to me at an employee lunch. The other half a dozen people present are talking about their children and the various stages of baby poop. Neither Todd nor I have children, and though someday baby poop might be an interesting conversational topic for us someday, today is not that day.
"Actually, no. I have seen no good movies lately." The answer takes both of us aback, but it's the total truth. In fact, I have seen nothing but absolutely wretched movies lately. I don't mean your regular bad movies, like where the acting is sub-par or maybe the script is uninspired. I mean horrendously, awful, terrible movies that show up in lists like "The 50 Worst Movies of All Time" or "Movies Which Make the Eyes Bleed." I've been watching them on purpose, completely aware that they are insults to the medium of film.
See, I've recently discovered Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Back in college, I heard the really cool kids talking about this show. I'd never seen it, nor did I know what it was, but I knew better than to admit that to those guys. Better just nod along. But now I'm qualified to discuss it at length and even use the very hip nickname MST3K.
For the uninitiated: Have you ever watched a really bad movie with some good friends and the whole experience turned out to be pretty fun, because you just ruthlessly made fun of the movie the whole time? That is the whole concept of this show. Rather than try to keep up or even understand the movie, just make fun of it in any way possible. In a lot of movies, that's better than trying to take the film seriously. MST3K shows a bad movie with the silhouettes of a guy and two robots in the front row. You watch the movie and hear their commentary. And it's hilarious and brilliant.
Josh and I watch this show together. We rent them through Netflix as fast as the mail allows. And while we listen to the comments made by the show, we're making up our own, too. I've come to realize that there are some atrociously bad movies out there. As one of the characters on the show said, "Just when you think you've seen the worst movie ever made, along comes the worst movie ever made."
This show has messed with my mind. I can't watch a movie anymore without making a bunch of smart-aleck comments. What's more, I've developed a special place in my heart for bad movies. I read somewhere that the movie Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla makes Plan 9 From Outer Space (widely regarded as the worst movie ever made) look like Gone with the Wind. I've seen Plan 9. It's ridiculously terrible; at one point, a prop gravestone actually falls over. But I've seen much, much worse. And so my reaction to reading that statement was to immediately go to Netflix and queue up Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. After I did that, I realized that my logic was completely backward. It's like someone showed me the arsenic, and I excitedly started sprinkling it on my pancakes.
I realized at some point that I seemed to be seeking out the holy grail of crappy flicks, The Worst Movie Ever Made. It wasn't just a matter of wanting to make fun of poor filmmaking, I was actively looking for the one that is the most terrible. That quest begs a lot of questions. Will I know the worst movie when I see it? Is there actually a worst movie ever, seeing as how movies can be bad in so many different ways? Is The Worst Movie Ever Made available on DVD?
So far, in my book the title of Worst Movie Ever Made belongs to Monster A Go-Go. Watch it if you're feeling brave, as it's going to hurt. The promotional poster quotes N.A.S.A as saying "This picture could set our space program back at least fifty years!" I assume that's only if the astronauts saw it, as then their brains would all explode. Maybe it's the Worst Movie Ever Made, and maybe not. I haven't even seen Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.
3.07.2007
the right song.
I consider myself to be quite arrogant. I'm not proud of it, though a fat self-esteem seems to make my life so much easier than the lives of my friends who constantly struggle with self-doubt. So let's say that I'm aware of it, but not necessarily doing anything about it. I wasn't even aware of it until some people who didn't like me much told me and then the people who did like me wouldn't look me in the eye when I asked them if it was true.
Similar to the way good chickens come from good eggs, arrogant adults come from arrogant children, who are made by other arrogant adults; namely, the child's parents. The way I am is entirely my mother's fault, and I don't think she's one bit sorry, because deep in her heart she thinks if anyone deserves to be a little full of themselves, it's her children. Again, considering the damage some mothers do to the psyches of their offspring, I don't think I did too badly here.
As a child completely and unreservedly full of myself, I thought I could do anything and do it well. I applied this thought particularly to the arts. I could write, I could draw, I could act, I could dance, I could sing, I was a vaudeville act born seventy years too late. Of course, none of all that was really true. I can write a little, and I can draw a little less. I'm a good actress as long as it's a comedic role and no one else is auditioning. I can't dance at all, and I can carry a tune if I know it well enough, but it's not particularly pleasant to hear. Please note that I don't believe any of that, and in my secret heart of hearts, I still am that highly successful vaudevillian. But when I was a kid, I still quite openly believed all of it.
I was going to be a singing sensation (provided it didn't interfere with my acting and writing and drawing careers). I would practice in my room with a tape recorder, making up songs and singing along to Disney songs with considerable emoting. I acted as if I were onstage, reaching out to my adoring fans and expressing the songs' deep feelings through my face and hands. Luckily, this was all before YouTube, or I'd be one of those kids whose older siblings record and then humiliate.
I remember a particular car trip. My mom was driving, my sister was in the front seat, and I was sitting in the middle of the back. I sat there because I could stretch the seatbelt all the way out and have relative freedom while still following Mama's strict seatbelt policy. We were on the interstate on a long drive, and for some unknown reason, I was singing the national anthem. No, I was performing the national anthem with all feeling that my nine-year-old voice could muster. Why was I performing? To show off, I assume. Why did I pick "The Star-Spangled Banner," which is a rather difficult song? I doubt I could have told you at the time. At the end of that very long song, which I'm sure was particularly long for my mother and sister, there was a brief moment of silence.
"Wow," my mother said simply and almost breathlessly.
"What?" I asked innocently and modestly, already preparing myself for the barrage of compliments that was sure to come. I wondered if Mama would try and enter me into national contests or perhaps get me an audition for the Mouseketeers.
"You knew all the words!"
My poor, poor mother, who tried so hard to boost our egos at every turn, could not lie to me. I imagine her suffering through that excruciating song, realizing at about the time that I got to singing about the twilight's last gleaming that she was going to have to come up with something positive to say at the end of it all. She made a valiant effort, but I was crushed. I played it cool, like I didn't care, but I surely didn't sing for them anymore, which is probably what they wanted.
I have recovered from the incident. I love to sing, and I do my best music video-worthy work in the car. But that's when I'm alone. I don't like to sing in public. Even if someone that I trust (and who can't sing very well either) is in the car with me, my volume is turned down. So my mother can take credit for deflating the ego she herself inflated. S'okay, no hard feelings, I feel certain that I need more deflation than the alternative.
Okay, I admit it. I still hold secret fantasies of my illustrious singing career. It's not that I have no talent or that my voice sucks. I just haven't found the right song.
Similar to the way good chickens come from good eggs, arrogant adults come from arrogant children, who are made by other arrogant adults; namely, the child's parents. The way I am is entirely my mother's fault, and I don't think she's one bit sorry, because deep in her heart she thinks if anyone deserves to be a little full of themselves, it's her children. Again, considering the damage some mothers do to the psyches of their offspring, I don't think I did too badly here.
As a child completely and unreservedly full of myself, I thought I could do anything and do it well. I applied this thought particularly to the arts. I could write, I could draw, I could act, I could dance, I could sing, I was a vaudeville act born seventy years too late. Of course, none of all that was really true. I can write a little, and I can draw a little less. I'm a good actress as long as it's a comedic role and no one else is auditioning. I can't dance at all, and I can carry a tune if I know it well enough, but it's not particularly pleasant to hear. Please note that I don't believe any of that, and in my secret heart of hearts, I still am that highly successful vaudevillian. But when I was a kid, I still quite openly believed all of it.
I was going to be a singing sensation (provided it didn't interfere with my acting and writing and drawing careers). I would practice in my room with a tape recorder, making up songs and singing along to Disney songs with considerable emoting. I acted as if I were onstage, reaching out to my adoring fans and expressing the songs' deep feelings through my face and hands. Luckily, this was all before YouTube, or I'd be one of those kids whose older siblings record and then humiliate.
I remember a particular car trip. My mom was driving, my sister was in the front seat, and I was sitting in the middle of the back. I sat there because I could stretch the seatbelt all the way out and have relative freedom while still following Mama's strict seatbelt policy. We were on the interstate on a long drive, and for some unknown reason, I was singing the national anthem. No, I was performing the national anthem with all feeling that my nine-year-old voice could muster. Why was I performing? To show off, I assume. Why did I pick "The Star-Spangled Banner," which is a rather difficult song? I doubt I could have told you at the time. At the end of that very long song, which I'm sure was particularly long for my mother and sister, there was a brief moment of silence.
"Wow," my mother said simply and almost breathlessly.
"What?" I asked innocently and modestly, already preparing myself for the barrage of compliments that was sure to come. I wondered if Mama would try and enter me into national contests or perhaps get me an audition for the Mouseketeers.
"You knew all the words!"
My poor, poor mother, who tried so hard to boost our egos at every turn, could not lie to me. I imagine her suffering through that excruciating song, realizing at about the time that I got to singing about the twilight's last gleaming that she was going to have to come up with something positive to say at the end of it all. She made a valiant effort, but I was crushed. I played it cool, like I didn't care, but I surely didn't sing for them anymore, which is probably what they wanted.
I have recovered from the incident. I love to sing, and I do my best music video-worthy work in the car. But that's when I'm alone. I don't like to sing in public. Even if someone that I trust (and who can't sing very well either) is in the car with me, my volume is turned down. So my mother can take credit for deflating the ego she herself inflated. S'okay, no hard feelings, I feel certain that I need more deflation than the alternative.
Okay, I admit it. I still hold secret fantasies of my illustrious singing career. It's not that I have no talent or that my voice sucks. I just haven't found the right song.
3.06.2007
COMPACT.
Easily half of the spaces in the parking deck outside my office building are marked "COMPACT." And that word is routinely ignored, as cars which are not COMPACT are frequently parked in those spaces. I would be irritated at every gargantuan SUV in a COMPACT space, if not for the fact that my car actually is COMPACT, and I can't park it correctly at the deck. I think I've hit the sweet spot in between the parallel yellow lines maybe once or twice in the few months that I've been parking here. Usually, I'm over on one side or another. And so I decided that it was not the SUV owners who were stupid, but the people who painted the parking lines.
The system seems very inefficient to me. There's so much double-parking that many spaces are rendered useless by the vehicle parking next door. It seems like they could have easily given us all a few more inches per spot and saved a lot of trouble.
I used to park on the first floor. There were usually several spaces on that level when I arrived in the morning, all of them COMPACT. But see, this was when I still naively believed in the COMPACT spaces and my right to park there.
One day, I went out to my COMPACT car and found it to be COMPACTED. There was a sizeable dent on my left back bumper where I had not put one. True, I had put a hideous scratch there years ago, but the dent completely obscured that. What I did not see was a friendly note on my windshield that said, "Hello there! Sorry, I'm a dolt and I've gone and ruined your hideous scratch by putting a big dent in it. Please call my insurance agent." I found no note at all. I left work that day feeling very bitter about the COMPACT spaces, the parking deck, and the human race in general. I considered checking all the other cars in the deck for traces of my paint color, but decided against it.
I don't care about the dent. Yes, it is unsightly, but my car is a functional piece of equipment. When I do finally trade her in, it will be because her engine does not run or because her transmission has exploded, not because of superficial damage. But, man, what a jerk. It pisses me off to know that I am probably continuing to park alongside this bonehead, and that he smiles a special jerk smile every time he passes by my marred bumper.
It's time like these that I like to believe in karma, because it makes me feel better when other people get away with being lousy to think that they will get their comeuppance. Congratulations, sir, you have cheated consequence this time, but it will come around and bite you in the hindquarters some day. Then you will complain about the big jerk who ran into your car and did not even leave a note, the scum. You will lose faith in human nature.
I was comforting myself with the idea of karma when I realized that maybe the event was already an example of karma. Maybe I was being repaid by the universe for some wrong I had done someone else. I didn't remember doing anything, but I'm certainly not dismissing the possibility that I was a jerk at some point. Now I can't even look at that big, stupid dent on my car without wondering fearfully what the heck I did to deserve it.
I park on the third floor now, regardless of how many open COMPACT spaces are on the first floor. I secretly hope the extra walking is causing me to lose weight. The spaces are still very tiny up on the third level, but the people don't seem so intent on squeezing their Yukons or Escalades or whatever into the closest open space to the entrance. I never did see a car with my paint color flaking off, nor did I ever figure out what I had done to merit my big dent. Karma's fine, but sometimes people are just jerks.
The system seems very inefficient to me. There's so much double-parking that many spaces are rendered useless by the vehicle parking next door. It seems like they could have easily given us all a few more inches per spot and saved a lot of trouble.
I used to park on the first floor. There were usually several spaces on that level when I arrived in the morning, all of them COMPACT. But see, this was when I still naively believed in the COMPACT spaces and my right to park there.
One day, I went out to my COMPACT car and found it to be COMPACTED. There was a sizeable dent on my left back bumper where I had not put one. True, I had put a hideous scratch there years ago, but the dent completely obscured that. What I did not see was a friendly note on my windshield that said, "Hello there! Sorry, I'm a dolt and I've gone and ruined your hideous scratch by putting a big dent in it. Please call my insurance agent." I found no note at all. I left work that day feeling very bitter about the COMPACT spaces, the parking deck, and the human race in general. I considered checking all the other cars in the deck for traces of my paint color, but decided against it.
I don't care about the dent. Yes, it is unsightly, but my car is a functional piece of equipment. When I do finally trade her in, it will be because her engine does not run or because her transmission has exploded, not because of superficial damage. But, man, what a jerk. It pisses me off to know that I am probably continuing to park alongside this bonehead, and that he smiles a special jerk smile every time he passes by my marred bumper.
It's time like these that I like to believe in karma, because it makes me feel better when other people get away with being lousy to think that they will get their comeuppance. Congratulations, sir, you have cheated consequence this time, but it will come around and bite you in the hindquarters some day. Then you will complain about the big jerk who ran into your car and did not even leave a note, the scum. You will lose faith in human nature.
I was comforting myself with the idea of karma when I realized that maybe the event was already an example of karma. Maybe I was being repaid by the universe for some wrong I had done someone else. I didn't remember doing anything, but I'm certainly not dismissing the possibility that I was a jerk at some point. Now I can't even look at that big, stupid dent on my car without wondering fearfully what the heck I did to deserve it.
I park on the third floor now, regardless of how many open COMPACT spaces are on the first floor. I secretly hope the extra walking is causing me to lose weight. The spaces are still very tiny up on the third level, but the people don't seem so intent on squeezing their Yukons or Escalades or whatever into the closest open space to the entrance. I never did see a car with my paint color flaking off, nor did I ever figure out what I had done to merit my big dent. Karma's fine, but sometimes people are just jerks.
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