lord, hear our prayers.

Harmony Grove United Methodist Church
I like this church. It's small, with about 70 people attending regularly. We sang one song I did know and one I didn't, and the choir was actually very good. No handbells. The preacher (who had such a lovely southern gentleman accent, I could listen to it all day) gave a slightly unconventional sermon about death that had a couple of historical references (I like informed preachers) and started out with a joke about a little girl asking about the birds and the bees, which I thought was daring.

The church definitely had that family feel that is so important to me. The people knew each other there. People would quip into the announcements to make a joke, and everybody laughed. They were nice to each other, they were nice to me. A woman came up to me and started telling me about the young adult Sunday School class. I was stopped by an older couple on my way out who introduced themselves. Yet another older woman stopped to talk to me and tell me how much she wanted me to come back. Rather than a chain of introductions like at the Moravian church, every individual here made it their business to meet me. I didn't have to be introduced as a visitor, because I obviously was to everyone.

This church had a prayer tradition that I've never experienced before, although I think it might be fairly common, perhaps in other denominations. In most Methodist services, there's a great big long prayer in the middle of the service, after the announcements, but before the offering. Beforehand, the preacher usually asks for prayer requests or celebrations. In this church, we all bowed our heads, and people would call out their requests one at a time, just saying the name of someone who was sick or something like "our troops overseas." Then after each one, the congregation would say in unison "Lord, hear our prayers." Admittedly, it took me a couple requests to catch on to what was going on, but once I did, I really liked it. There was a sense of togetherness in it, like your prayer is his prayer is my prayer, and we're all in this together.

Again, I like this church a lot. If there were not another Methodist church down the road that I was curious about, I would have said to myself that this was it as I walked out the door. This was the kind of church that everyone had been going to since they were born, and though they had a system and a rhythm already going strong before I came in, they were more than willing to let me, or anyone else, catch up.

something to read.

From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 1:48 PM
To: Sandra
Subject: something to read

I have a strange theory that Krispy Kreme engineers their coffee to have a strong coffee scent. The 1/2 oz. I have left in this morning's cup can still be smelled from a couple of feet away. That just doesn't happen with the office coffee (or anything I make at home).

How's your afternoon shaping up? Anything good going on? I got some stuff to look over, at least. Baby steps.

* * *

From: Sandra
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 1:54 PM
To: Rob
Subject: RE: something to read

eh. certification stuff. sleepy sandra. i'd like to take a nap. i think it's all this energy i'm devoting to not biting on the nails that broke.

i dreamt last night that i was getting a novel published. i was pretty bummed when i woke up and realized it wasn't true.

* * *

From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 1:57 PM
To: Sandra
Subject: RE: something to read

When was the last time you wrote something? Maybe you could write an exciting story about an investigation into coffee that somehow unnaturally maintains its coffee smell.

You should totally bite the nails. Life is short.

* * *

From: Sandra
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 2:02 PM
To: Rob
Subject: RE: something to read

dear, that's what coffee does.

life is too short to not be able to open stuff because you bit your nails off. also, it's too short to be miserable because your fingers hurt. my finger is bleeding.

* * *

From: Rob
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 2:04 PM
To: Sandra
Subject: RE: something to read

ouch, really? sorry about that.

I found your coffee story too brief. Elaborate a little, get the reader involved. Maybe add a character or two. Some dialog. Whatnot.

What movie did you mention on the way to lunch?

* * *

From: Sandra
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 2:10 PM
To: Rob
Subject: mulholland drive

"i'm bored," said rob, raking his right hand across his hairline to sweep his hair to the left. sometimes he worried that the gesture was causing his hairline to recede. sometimes he worried that not sweeping his hair to the left would make his hairline recede. sometimes he thought about sweeping his hair to the right, but found the motion too difficult with his non-dominant hand.

"write a story about an unnatural event that is completely and totally natural. i will read it and judge you and thereby be amused for a few minutes," he demanded, thinking that an unnatural event that was completely and totally natural would distract him from the all too natural event of hairline migration.

"no," replied sandra. she had lots of hair.

that stupid girl who never wrote me back.

Thing 1: Seth got a job!
My friend, Seth from the illustrious computer science program at Appalachian State University, is graduating this May, and has landed a job. Normally, I would not share this news for you, for though I would be excited for him anyway, my selfless excitement would not be enough for a Thing. No, I'm having some selfish excitement, too. When I found out I was moving here, I pretty much tried to talk all of my friends into moving here, too. Apparently, Seth listened. He got a job in Winston, so now I will have a(nother) friend. Better yet, I will likely be the only person he knows here, so he will have to put up with me if he wants any friends.

Thing 2: I googled for about four hours today.
Surfing the net at work is fun. Surfing for work-related stuff at work is not so much fun. I was doing the latter. I was trying to figure out how to do something with a piece of software I've never used before. After four hours, I asked someone for help. He gave up half an hour later with the advice that if we couldn't find some way to do it on the web, it couldn't be done. I like this advice, and I took it as permission to give up and have a cup of tea. I only wished I could've had a Long Island Iced Tea, but as that sort of thing is very discouraged at work, I settled for some Earl Grey.

Thing 3: I mailed a card to Yuliya.
Yuliya is a girl I used to work with at Vintner's. She's originally from Belarus, but now she's settled down in the eastern part of NC with her husband. I hadn't spoken to her since she moved, but we always got along very well. Of all the people I worked with at Vintner's, she's one of the ones I miss the most. Anyway, I happened to look her up on the internet and found her mailing address. I'm bad to let friendships fizzle, and I've decided recently that I've known too many wonderful people to lose them out of neglect. She may or may not ever respond, and that's fine really. I feel better knowing that I gave it a shot. That way, she won't become "that sweet girl that I lost touch with," but "that stupid girl who never wrote me back."

free opinions!

I don't have any sneakers. No, that's not right, I have lots of sneakers. I have red ones with blue stripes and blue ones with white stripes and black ones with bleach spots. What I mean is that while I have several pairs of sneakers, I don't really have anything I can go running in or play basketball in or any other kind of sporting thing that I don't do regularly but might if I had some shoes in which to do them.

I don't have any athletic shoes. Well, that's not true either. I have a pair of Adidas, white with some purplish-blueish design on them that I got when I was in high school and I played volleyball. But they're kinda old, and maybe my tastes have changed a bit. What I mean is that I don't really have any athletic shoes that I like to wear.

I wanted some new athletic shoes. That is true.

Last night, Rob and I went athletic shoe shopping. Last night was not to be confused with last week, which was when Rob and I went dress shoe shopping. Rob likes to take girls shopping because girls can tell him what looks good and what does not. He has a gay man friend who supposedly has great taste, but since Rob's target audience is girls and not gay men, he brings a girl. He often even promises to buy the girl something in exchange for her opinions.

I told Rob it would be silly for him to buy me something in exchange for my opinion, when I am so happy to give it freely and usually without being asked. Plus, I like to shop, and I have no other friends in Winston-Salem. Maybe I should've been buying him something. But no. I also went because I was toying with the idea of buying some shoes myself for reasons covered earlier.

We started at Sears', and really, we should've just stayed there. Every shoe store we perused had essentially the same stock at essentially the same price. We both agreed that there were lots of pairs of shoes that were fine, but nothing that made either one of us say, "Wow, my feet would look sexy in those." There was a pair of lovely suede green New Balances that Rob liked, and of course I enthusiastically approve of all suede shoes; alas, they were women's. I tried hard to convince him that no one would ever be able to tell, but he was convinced the day would come when he would hit on a girl and look down to realize she had the same shoes. There was another pair of some funny-shaped track shoes that Rob liked, but when he tried them on, I looked at him sadly and said, "Sweetie, I just don't think you can pull those off. Frankly, I don't know anyone who can. I'm sorry." He sighed, and said, "It's okay. That's why you're here."

Finally, it was back to Sears'. He tried on a pair of men's Nikes, and I tried on a pair of men's Nikes. Then we switched; Rob and I wear the same shoe size. I decided to buy my pair after much walking with one of them on and checking myself out in the feet mirror with my pants rolled up to see if they had a slimming effect on my calf. Rob decided to buy his, took them off, tried mine on, decided to buy mine, then tried his on again and decided to buy them so we wouldn't have the same pair of shoes. I suggested both of us each wearing one of each shoe, but Rob has an amazing ability to completely tune me out when I make suggestions.

We walked out of Sears' with matching bags containing matching boxes containing non-matching shoes in matching sizes. And that's the truth.

loaded with protein!

For the uninformed, a Cricket Lick-It is a novelty lollipop with a cricket inside. A friend of mine brought one to class when I was in middle school. We all crowded around to examine the rectangular prism of yellow candy with the bug inside, which was vaguely reminiscent of the mosquito in Jurassic Park. I examined it closely and remarked that it was amusing, but that it was not a real cricket. My friend retorted that of course it was a real cricket, that they wouldn't be able to claim it was a cricket on the packaging if it was fake.

We checked the side of the plastic wrapper for the ingredients.
Ingredients: HSH (Maltitol syrup), Cricket, Natural and Artifical flavoring, Artificial Color (Yellow 5, Blue 1)

Huh. Well, still, there's no way that it could be a real cricket, right? I was still not convinced. They'd have to have a warning or something that stated, "Hey! Stubborn girl! That's a real cricket in there!" Crickets can't be good for you.* Surely that was just a fake cricket made of candy or maybe even a toy. We argued for a good few minutes over it, and I was not to be convinced. And then came the challenge that I should've seen coming.

"Well, then you eat it and find out."

Fine, I will, I said. I was confident that it was candy, so I unwrapped the sucker and started working on it. The cricket was in the middle, and since this was not a Tootsie Pop, it took more than three licks to get to the center. ("Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the insectival center of a Cricket Lick-It?") Some time went by while I sucked on the lollipop. Regardless of the genuineness of the bug inside the sucker, obviously the HotLix Candy Company did not put a lot of money into their sucker recipe - the candy itself tasted like crap. I guess when you've got an obvious gimmick, there's no point in making a quality product.

Finally I started getting to some cricket parts. Before long, there was a leg sticking out into open air where the candy had been diminished by my tongue. It was at about this point that I begin to have doubts in my fake cricket theory. Then I bit the leg and switched sides of the argument altogether. Yup. That is one real cricket I am eating, I thought. Worse than that was the knowledge that I still had five legs, an abdomen, antennae, and a head to go. No one else had noticed me eat the leg, so as far as they knew, the question was still in the air.

The good thing about my stubbornness is the fact that I am consistent with it. So I refused to give up in eating the cricket that I had refused to believe was real. I sucked some more until I could get the cricket in all one bite, my misery and dread building up with each successive lick. By this time, people noticed that it was cricket-eating time, and it was with an audience watching that I took a big bite out of that very real cricket. I chewed and nodded confidently, "It's candy." I had just eaten a cricket. There was no way I was about to make myself feel worse by admitting to being wrong. "Adding insult to injury" doesn't even begin to cover what I was feeling.

Oh, I learned my lesson that day. I think the moral of this story is pretty clear: never be wrong about anything. Also, don't eat crickets.

*As according to the FAQs on cricketscience.com:
ARE ANY CRICKETS POISONOUS? No, not to our knowledge. Undoubtedly, however, there are crickets somewhere in the world that produce a noxious chemical that wards off one or more kinds of predators that might otherwise have the crickets for food. This kind of thing is very common among insects. The crickets in "Cricket-Lick-It" lollipops certainly aren't poisonous, however; they're loaded with protein!

heel yeah!

My NCAA bracket got shot all to heck after the first round, and my $5 contribution to the office pool should've been spent buying groceries. But I don't care. We won!

Admittedly, UNC is not my team. I've always been a NC State girl, I guess starting from when I was little and wanted to go to veterinary school there. I haven't wanted to be a vet for a good fifteen years now, but I still pull for the Wolfpack over anybody. But when you live in North Carolina, you have to love college basketball and you have to pull for the Atlantic Coast Conference. It's a rule.

Okay, I know a lot of exceptions to that rule. I know lots of ACC team fans who won't pull for one of their supposed rivals during tournament time. I don't understand those people. I especially can't understand the people who can watch a game and not root for someone, anyone. I start watching a game and within five minutes, I'm emotionally involved. I want someone to win for some reason, even if the reason has something to do with the mascot or the way the point guard does his hair. I don't get any enjoyment out of a game where I don't have a dog in the fight. Even if I don't think I have a side, when the game's over and I notice I'm feeling disappointment or happiness over the outcome, it's clear the way I wanted things to turn out.

But I don't understand how you can root against a fellow ACC team when your team isn't involved. There are some huge rivalries around here, and it's not uncommon to hear some blush-inducing obscenities hurled at the opposing team during the regular season or the ACC tournament. But when that's all over, a conference team is a conference team. It's not a matter of disloyalty. It's a matter of something bigger than the rivalry between two teams. You want what's best for the conference.

Because, let's face it, the ACC rocks. It was pure luck that I was born smack dab in the middle of all this, and I can't help but feel sorry for those who weren't. Those people should think about moving so that their children don't have the same misfortune. I live within two hours of four big ACC schools (all of which were in the tourney, 3 of which made Sweet Sixteen). I live within fifteen minutes of Wake Forest, and it was like a day of mourning around here when they lost. How could anyone not get caught up in this kind of excitement?

So last night, even the most hard-core of Wake Forest fans in this town pulled for the Tarheels. We cursed them all when Wake played them, but now it's the Big Dance, and it's a different set of rules. We learned the players' names and yelled for them without including curse words as their middle names. We felt relieved when we pulled away and got nervous again when it got close again. We jumped from our seats when Felton made that last steal. We cheered when it was all over, though maybe not as loudly as we would have had it been our favorite team. We live here, and it's our team, too.

Go Heels.

all right, you win, it's great to be alive.

I've got a New Yorker cartoon day-by-day calendar. I save the really good ones. I have one from Thursday, February 24 that shows a couple walking down a beach at sunset beneath a sky dotted with fluffy marshmallow clouds. The man is saying, "All right, Stephanie, you win -- it's great to be alive!"

Days like these are what Henry Ford had in mind when he made automobiles available for the Everyman. Just because those old cars couldn't go 74 miles per hour in a 65 mph zone down the yet-uninvented interstate doesn't mean that wasn't what he was shooting for. I don't know what the American Dream really is anymore, but it's gotta include driving fast on a pretty day. Driving fast with the windows down and the music loud, all right, you win, it's great to be alive.

There's a song I've been listening to lately, "Pacific Theme" by Broken Social Scene. Laid-back and cool, it's a good song. But when you play it loud while driving with the windows down, it's a great song. It's an instrumental number and starts out quiet, slowly building up and adding more instruments to the same basic theme each iteration of the tune. First there's some soft percussion, then a surf guitar, then a bass, another guitar. At about the two and a half minute mark, the song breaks into a soft bridge with just the drums and a lone trumpet. You think maybe the song's over, it's getting so quiet. But then, after fouty-five seconds, the original tune comes back again in a fantastic aural climax, this time with all the other instruments plus the trumpet, loud, strong, but still mellow and cool. It has to be the song built of a jam session in somebody's open garage in the summertime. Sun's shining, hanging with your buddies, playing music, all right, you win, it's great to be alive.

I could put this song on repeat during a long trip on a day like today and just relax behind the wheel of my Japanese part of the American Dream. Windows down, my hair pulled back to keep it from getting all nappy in the wind (not that it helps, but who cares?), my left arm out the window catching the breeze in the very model of a driving position I did not learn in Driver's Ed. "Pacific Theme" is playing loudly, because otherwise you can't hear it over the breeze and the engine pushing my car to the limit of the velocity range that I can drive without being pulled over. I feel happy and young. I am young, but now I feel it. All right, you win, it's great to be alive.

traditionally, well, traditional.

Lewisville United Methodist Church
By my count, there are four United Methodist churches in Lewisville. That's a lot for a town of 8000 people. I also think it's a good sign. But anyway, Lewisville United Methodist is the biggest. It has two Sunday morning services, and I attended the later service, which is why there were Cadillacs and Buicks in the parking lot instead of minivans and coupes.

Late services are traditionally, well, traditional, while the contemporary services are generally held at some ungodly hour like 8:30 AM. The main difference in these services (besides the time) tends to be the music. Contemporary christian music, in my experience, tends to kinda suck. Critiquing the quality of praise music is probably missing the point, and I'm sure the songwriters had their hearts in the right place. It just seems that the writers (mainly the lyricists) are trying to glorify the Lord through talents that He didn't give them. Give me Tennessee Ernie Ford and Johnny Cash over Michael W. Smith any day.

Unfortunately, the type of people who seem to agree with me on this point are, ahem, chronologically advanced. And while I don't seem to find a lot in common with what counts as "young adults" in most churches (30s, married with children), I can relate more easily to them than I can to the traditional service set (60s, widowed with grandchildren). This really is a total side issue, but honestly, I took the fact that Lewisville UMC has two services as a sign that I may not like the church. Whichever service I chose, I was going to have to give up something I was looking for. I suppose the joint Sunday School between services is supposed to rectify that situation, but I would still feel like a stranger in the late service. Plus, most multiple-service churches are bigger than what I like.

The service itself was fine. Standard stuff, nothing special. We sang songs I already knew, which I found comforting. However, exactly one person said "Good morning" to me, and that was it. I had people stepping all over me to see the new baby sitting in front of me, but they managed to do it without saying even hello to me. It's possible they figured I was just an early service regular who overslept, and so they didn't realize that I was a visitor, in which case, they still should've realized that they personally didn't know me and made an attempt to correct that. In the case that people didn't realize I was new, the church may just be too big for my tastes anyway, if the folks there don't know a visitor when they see one. I even got lost looking for the sanctuary, so they really should've figured it out. Maybe they're just rude. In any case, I didn't feel welcome at all, and I'm not going back, even though their handbell choir was very good. Maybe if they had performed a song called "We're So Happy You Are Here, Sandra!" Ah, well.

a VISITOR!!!

Unity Moravian Church
Moravians are relatively common in this area because the town was first settled by a group of wayward ones. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, spent a lot of time with the Moravians, and the two denominations are supposed to be fairly similar. Plus, the Moravians make great cookies, and if I became a Moravian, then I too would make great cookies.

Cookies or not, I had essentially written this church off by the end of the service. There was a lot of ritual in the service, much more than to my taste. I'm fine with a little bit of ritual in my church routine, in fact, some ritual I find comforting. But too much and worship becomes stale and rehearsed. You can stand up, sit down, and read the bold-faced words on autopilot; too much of that and nothing means anything. And I don't know if this is church-specific or not, but this particular Moravian church liked its rituals. Lots of singing and reading prayers, plus a five-page litany from the hymnal. This was just a regular Sunday, mind you, not even Easter or Communion Sunday. I shudder to think of what the Christmas or Good Friday service must be like.

However, the members of Unity Moravian Church are either very, very friendly or just hard up for new members. A lady came up to me, introduced herself, and then introduced me to someone else, saying, "This is Sandra! She's a VISITOR!!!" The next person talked to me a while, then introduced me to another person, saying "This is Sandra! She just moved here from Boone! She's a VISITOR!!!" Finally, after going through another chained introduction or two, I was introduced to the pastor by another of my new aquaintances, who said, "This is Sandra! She just moved here from Boone! She recently graduated from Appalachian! She writes software! SHE'S A VISITOR!!!" I was concerned for the health of these people, as the excitement of having a visitor (!!!) seemed to be almost too much for them. In any case, I was charmed (and a little frightened) by their enthusiasm. But I kept thinking about that five-page litany, and in the end, I wanted to look around some more. Five pages of responsive reading? No cookies are that good.

not enough handbells.

I'm looking for a church, both because I want to meet new people and because I feel guilty when I don't go. And while I know this isn't really why God wants you to go to church, I think He'll agree that'll it'll do until you come up with a better reason.

It's hard to choose a church, because you're mostly judging on things that ultimately aren't important. You may choose this church because it has a good handbell program, but if it turns out handbells don't equal spiritual growth in this church, then you may have made a poor choice. Then again, I tend to think you could feasibly get the same spiritual nourishment out of your experience at any church; you just may have to work harder at places without handbell choirs. In any church experience, you only get out what you put in.

So I have to figure out what's important to me in a church. I tend toward United Methodist churches, because I grew up in one. I joined the UMC when I was twelve, and by the time I was eighteen, I had begun to pay attention what denominations actually meant. Luckily, it turned out that I still liked the Methodists. That could've been because of the mass brain-washing they did to me over eighteen years, but if so, they at least had the courtesy to brain-wash me into being happy about it.

I like interesting, thought-provoking sermons that aren't just retelling the same Bible stories over and over. I want to hear something I haven't heard in 20 years of sermons. I would like for there to be other people my age and marital status. I like pot lucks with lots of deviled eggs. I like for there to be programs going on, even if they're not ones I'm necessarily interested in; I want the church to be active. I like smaller churches. I like it when everybody seems to know everybody. I liked anonymity in my college classes, but not in my church. I honestly feel like a sense of a tightly-knit, yet open to new people church family is the most important thing to me. I want a church family that is warm and friendly. I can sacrifice on all the other things if I go in there every Sunday and someone is just thrilled to see me.

So I've been church-hopping. It's a hard thing to do, to just show up somewhere where you don't know anyone. Then you have to try to figure out the order of service, the songs they sing, and Lord help you if they sing the Doxology to a different tune. And you're supposed to fill in the attendance pad. I always do, but I never tell them my address or phone number. I'll pick a church without the assistance of a marketing team, thank you very much. I do mark down that I'm a visitor and that I'm new to the area, just so they know if they don't see my name again, they need to work on something. Chances are, they just didn't have enough handbells.

but with less issues.

Hi there, I'm Brian. Don't worry, I'm not here to harass you, I'm just looking for non-violent people. Are you a violent person?

Um, no. Is he a violent person? Why is he on my porch?

Well, good. They're just sending us all out here to make us work on our people skills, make sure we keep eye contact and don't spit all over people. Have I soaked you yet?

Um, no. Why is he here? Why is he here? Why is he here?

Then I'm doing a good job. You know, there are six hundred of us all over the state of North Carolina running around, and right now, I've got the most points. I'm trying to win so I can open up a Cajun restaurant. I'm from New Orleans.

Wow, that's mighty ambitious of you. I hate Cajun food. Why is he here?

Yes it is, and I'm going to need your help. Plus, if I win, they're going to send me to Cancun. Ever been to Cancun?

No.

Oh, well, I'm going to need a dancing partner...

...

...unless you have a husband or a boyfriend already.

I do have a boyfriend. He's six-nine, and he plays for the Redskins, except now he's on probation because he killed a man with his bare hands.

Ah, that's too bad, but I don't wanna get in trouble now.

(uncomfortable laughter) Go away. Why is he here?

See, the more magazines I sell...

Ah.

...the more points I get. Here's a list of my magazines. Now I'm not asking you to buy twenty subscriptions, just ten!

(forced laughter) You obviously don't know me very well, then.

Nah, that's just a little joke there. But seriously, all you gotta do is pick these out and sign a form for me, and the magazines come right to your door. It's cheap and easy, like my ex-girlfriend, but with less issues.

That's not very nice. Not to mention really creepy and weird.

Ah, well, it was just a rough situation there, you know? She had this baby and it died, and then two weeks later she broke up with me because she didn't want a committment. After two years together! Can you believe that?

...

Then, well, I just decided I had to get out of there, so I started travelling around the country, just get away from there. And now I'm here!

Yes, you are. Oh, good.

So, here are the magazines. Now, I'm not points-greedy, I'm just points-needy. And you know what? You can even send these magazines as a gift to a charity. I had a guy in the next building over send a subscription of Maxim out to our troops. And you know what the best part about that is?

What? That you'll leave?

It's tax deductible.

That is good. That is the first sensible thing you have said to me.

Now, what do you do for a living?

I write software. Where is he going with this?

Wow! Good for you!

Thanks. Funny how those college degrees keep you from selling magazines door-to-door.

How much do you make?

That's really none of your business. You've got to be kidding me.

Ah, well, I like to ask. I really like to ask cops, because I make more than they do. Cops are so full of themselves, and it's funny that I make more than they do.

Plus you don't get shot at. Although, if I had a gun right now...

Well, there was this one time that I did get shot.

That's no good. This is ridiculous.

Ah, well, it happens. So what can I put you down for?

I really don't need any magazines, thank you. Go away, go away, go away.

No one needs magazines.

Okay, I don't want any magazines. Why did I tell him that I have a good-paying job?

No one wants magazines...

What the heck kind of pitch is this?

...but you can still do your part and send some as a gift, you know.

I'm sorry. I'd like to send a subscription of Playboy to the local children's home and a subscription of Cat Fancy to our troops, please.

Do you mind me asking why?

I'm sorry, I'm just not interested. Because you're creepy. Because your magazines are overpriced. Because you're bothering me. Because no one needs or wants magazines.

Well, bye then.

(locks door)

look at me.

So, Alexandra Zuck died a few weeks ago.

Depending on how old or how up on trivia you are, you may not know who Alexandra Zuck is. I know who she is, because my name is Sandra, and for all the years of my life, people have been calling me by Alexandra Zuck's pseudonym.

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee...

If your name is Sandra, you already knew all about Sandra Dee. If your first name is Sandra and your last name starts with a D, then I'm very, very sorry. I feel your pain. It's not even Sandra Dee's fault for branding all future Sandras. It is the fault of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, who wrote "Grease," and the fault of Stockard Channing, who sang "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" in the movie. I even blame Olivia Newton-John a little bit. Thanks to them, I'm forever associated with being "lousy with virginity."

People began calling me "Sandra Dee" in middle school, probably coinciding with my classmates realizing what "virginity" meant. Since then, I've heard all sorts of variations. Sometimes it's "Sandra Dee," sometimes "Sandra G." (my last initial), and I even had a guy who called me "Miss Dee" for a while, and I could never figure out why he was calling me "Misty."

The trouble with this nickname is that people independently come up with it themselves. It's not like you know a specific group of people who call you "Boo-Squawky" or that you're known as "Buggy" around the office. People who have never before heard me called "Sandra Dee" by others call me that. It flows, they like it, and they are impressed with their own ingenuity.

Okay, I'm done griping. I really don't mind, and to be honest, I kinda like it. Having a nickname, even a really awful one, which Sandra Dee is not, is generally a sign of affection of others for you (unless it's "Dummy" or something like that). And there are worse things to be associated with than wholesomeness. So I don't really blame Alexandra Zuck for anything. There are worse things to be called than Sandra Dee.

Like Alexandra Zuck.

it's fun to be good.

Thing 1: Zach played golf on his lunch break.
Zach, the guy in the office diagonally from me, plays a lot of dang golf. He plays every day there is no precipitation and the temperature is above 40 degrees. When he doesn't play outside, he practices his swing technique in his apartment with the aid of a pair of giant mirrors he bought at Lowe's expressly for that purpose. Whatever Zach does, he is passionate about it, and he is always trying to improve himself. He says he plays to be good. I asked him if he ever played anything because it was fun. He said that being good was fun. Part of me wishes that I were like this; the rest of me thinks it would be awfully inconvenient.

Thing 2: The ACC men's basketball tournament started today.
Sure wish I could get the games with my TV and rabbit ears setup. Setting the score page on ESPN.com to automatic refresh every 30 seconds is just not the same. Tomorrow we are having an office lunch, the time of which is magically coinciding with the tipoff of the Carolina game. You probably think it is coincidental, since the game starts at noon. Not so. Every office lunch I've been to in the past two months has always started at 11:30. We are true North Carolinians.

Thing 3: I had deviled eggs with my lunch today.
I made them myself last night without any adult supervision. The rest of my lunch was also homemade, and none of it involved the letters P, B, and J. Every day, I become a little bit more marriage material.

ten-cent limes.

Chris happened to have a Winn-Dixie sales paper on his desk. I honestly don't hang out with Chris all that much, except for the fact that he is Rob's officemate, and I try to talk to Chris so it's not like I'm just coming to see Rob all the time. But anyway, Winn-Dixie was having this phenomenal produce sale. Ten cent limes! Ten cent kiwis! Ten cent baking potatoes! Plus, ten cent Granny Smith apples and bananas, as well as a big selection of twenty cent apples. Chris, Rob, and I fantasied about the possibilities of such a veritable menagerie of produce-tastic enjoyment. Actually, I fantasied about it, and Chris and Rob laughed at me.

Here's the thing: there is only one Winn-Dixie in the Winston-Salem area, and it's about fifteen miles from my house, down Highway 52 in the suburb of Midway. Driving that far to get ten cent limes would probably offset what I would be saving off the cost of my ten cent limes (regularly 33 cents apiece). Plus, there was the fact that I don't ever use limes. Kiwis, potatoes, apples, and bananas, maybe.

Rob tried to talk me into going and picking up some limes for him. He wanted me to go, not because he needed limes, but because he would be amused at the thought of me driving 13.82 miles (according to MapQuest) for some ten cent limes. Really, the idea was ridiculous.

Of course, I went.

There's not much in Midway. Besides boasting the area's only Winn-Dixie, there was a Dollar General, a local pizza place ("Presto Pizza"), a nail salon ("Art Nails"), and a gas station or two. That's it, nothing else to justify a trip to get ten cent limes. I bought a dollar's worth of limes for Rob and didn't accept reimbursement, making them especially cheap for him. Plus, I got some other fruits and veggies for me, though nothing I couldn't have gotten at the Food Lion close to my house for more than ten cents apiece. Still, I'm glad I went, because it's silly and ridiculous, and because I am a grown-up, I can do all the silly and ridiculous things that I want to do.

Actually, I am just that hard-up for something to write about these days.

blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch.

I always stop to check my mailbox when I get home from work. My mailbox is one in a pair of clusters in a tiny building attached to the apartment building next to mine. From my mailbox, I can see my front door. And so one day last week, I could see the little red and white pieces of paper as they stuck in my screen door from my mailbox. How exciting!

Not really. The red piece of paper was from my rental office, saying I needed to come see them ASAP regarding March's rent check. Eh, whatever. The white piece of paper was a piece of wide-ruled notebook paper folded in half twice. At the top of the page it said, "Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch." And that was it.

No, it wasn't a very odd sexual predator. It wasn't even your run-of-the-mill sexual predator. The sentence fragment in question is a song lyric that I know well, from They Might Be Giants' "Birdhouse in Your Soul." You would probably say the fact that a person who knows such a bizarre little snippet says something about the person who left the note. You would probably also say the fact that I recognized it immediately says something about me.

The best thing about the mystery of the weird note was that there were multiple suspects. If it says something about me that I know someone who would leave a note saying "Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch" in my door, what does it say that I know multiple someones who would do it? What if I had, in fact, two suspects in mind, and that I called the wrong one first because of geographical evidence?

Josh very nicely said it wasn't he who left the note, very nicely humored me and said it did sound like something he would do, then probably hung up the phone laughing at me. First suspect eliminated, I called the second, my brother, Sid. He laughed at me, too, because I called the wrong guy first. Then we talked a minute, and hung up. Then I laughed at me, because it was all very ridiculous.

BFFAABYMBFOC*

Amy and I were best friends in high school. She was slightly on the weird side of normal, and maybe I was on the normal side of weird. (I say maybe because I don't really like to declare myself as "weird." I don't like to declare myself as anything. I'm Sandra, and if you don't know what that means, then you're not paying attention. But this is another issue.)

My relationship with Amy was peppered with lots of in-jokes, as all my best relationships are. Sometimes I get my in-jokes mixed up and I make them with the wrong friend. I made a tea kettle roar at my friend Josh this weekend and received a blank stare. I said, "If you were Amy, you would have thought that was hilarious." With Amy and I, even having in-jokes was an in-joke, along with "John's Bluff," cookin' beans, and making tea kettles roar.

But the real focus of this aside-riddled entry is BFFAA, one of our most oft-used in-jokes which stands for "Best Friends Forever And Always." It's something that elementary school girls sign at the bottoms of letters to their bosom companions. But Amy and I didn't sign "BFFAA." We signed things like "BFFAABYLWIMATKR"** or "BFFAAETYWTTLWIMATKR"***. We made up new ones every time, and put a little star at the end which matched up to the footnote where we would explain what all those letters meant. The challenge was to guess what the letters stood for. Mostly, the statements were so ridiculous that we could never get the whole thing. But sometimes, we could. Whether that's a testament to how close we were, how similar we were, or just how sad we were, I don't know.

Amy and I still talk quite a bit, mostly on the internet. When I lived in Boone, we'd go weeks without seeing each other until we happened to both be bored on the same night, and then we'd get together. We say we are "friends of convenience" now, and though it may seem kinda sad, it works for us. But we'll send cards sometimes, and we always sign off with our version of BFFAA. And it still makes us laugh to do it, even though it's been years since we came up with it, just like all our little in-jokes, like "John's bluff," cookin' beans, and making tea kettles roar.


*Best Friends Forever And Always Because You're My Best Friend Of Convenience

**Best Friends Forever And Always Because You Laugh When I Make A Tea Kettle Roar

***Best Friends Forever And Always Even Though You Weren't There To Laugh When I Made A Tea Kettle Roar

best in the world.

Thing 1: This morning, traffic was rotten.
Usually there's a bottleneck where Business 40 begins from the merging of 421 and the cars coming off of I-40. Today, the traffic was backed up a whole exit away from that, which I took as a bad sign. However, it was because of a wreck. None of the lanes were blocked, but there was a rubber-necking delay, as there was a jeep, a sedan, and a cop car in the median. I didn't slow down enough to really assess the situation, but I did see that the license plate of the jeep read "FECK!" I can only assume this is a euphemism for some other word that the DMV won't let you put on your license plate, and I thought it oddly appropriate for this jeep sitting in the median of the highway after being in a wreck. FECK! indeed.

Thing 2: Josh said he could never marry a North Carolina girl.
This is Josh that I work with, not to be confused with any other Josh in my life. Josh is from California, and frankly, I'm not sure what's wrong with him. NC girls are, like, the best, even when they do pepper their sentences with "like." We're so nice, and we talk purty. He seems to think we're unenlightened as a group. Most of the NC girls he knows are from his studies at Wake Forest. He seems to think there is something wrong in general with a group of people who feel no desire to move to another state. I feel this is a recommendation for that state. Anyway, the conversation left me feeling offended and bummed that even someone who has lived here a couple years still thinks we're all backwoods hicks. I'd like to throw some sweet tea at
him.

Thing 3: I discovered findyourspot.com
It's a survey. You take it, and it tells you where to live. It doesn't include every city in the country, but it does include some pretty obscure ones (Boone, for instance). I think they have to achieve some sort of standard to be a recommended city. Winston-Salem does not achieve this standard, as it's not on the list. Anyway, I took the quiz, and my top recommendation was Hickory, NC (about half an hour from where I grew up). I also got recommendations for places like Chattanooga and Tulsa, and a couple of places in South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. Most of my cities were NC cities, clearly because they are the best ever, no matter what those silly boys in California think.

everything i need to know, i learned somewhere other than college.

One of the things that frustrated me as I was looking for a job for after college was the fact that I was about to receive two degrees, and I still didn't seem to know enough. Most of the job listings I found, I didn't meet the qualifications. Though I had a sheet of paper that said I spent four years learning, I apparently didn't learn the right things. There's a reason there aren't any posters that say "Everything I need to learn, I learned in college." (Actually, there probably are those posters, but they all have statements about kegs or going out in public in your pajamas.)

I shouldn't have been upset, as I had been warned. When I was in the eighth grade, my algebra teacher told me that college is only about getting a degree that proves to companies that you can have the ability to learn. He told me you didn't learn anything in college that actually prepares you for a job, that your employer will train you when you get there. I did not believe him. What a ridiculous story! Not learn anything in four whole years? That's craziness.

Okay, so I believe him now.

This isn't such a terrible thing as long as you can find a place that's willing to hire someone straight from school and train them. It's accepted practice. Apparently, it wasn't just me that didn't learn the right things, it was everyone. So that's why I have a job now, and that's why I'm learning a lot of things that were never even mentioned in all those computer science classes I took. My first couple of weeks, the guy who was training me would ask, "So, have you ever worked with this? Yeah, I hadn't either before I came here." That always made me feel better, because he had a Master's Degree, so he went through six years of school not learning anything.

It's not that I thought learning would be over as soon as I finished my last class. I believed in continued learning, but I believed it in that learn-something-new-everyday, cliche kind of way. No, I'm learning whole new languages and programs and processes. And don't even get me started on all the office politics I'm learning about.

It gets worse - I actually have to take tests. My company wants its programmers to be certified in a language I had no exposure to before I came here. I spend my free time reading textbooks and taking notes for the test I have to take. It's like school all over again, except for the minor detail that I get a certificate and a Microsoft pin if I actually pass the test. That never happened in college.

But it's not so bad. I do like computer science, so learning about it is not torture. And the new language is very similar to one that I already know, because I learned it...in college.

the advent of the three things.

I've been struggling to write lately. You've probably noticed. If not, call my mother, and she'll tell you about it. I'm not too worried about it because I'm a strong believer in ebb and flow, so if the writing isn't coming as easily as it once was, someday it'll be easy again. But until then, I must power through, because it is important to me that I keep writing, whether it's easy or not.

And so I announce the advent of Three Things. A guy at work plays this game at the dinner table with his family. Everyone gets three turns to tell something that happened that day. So that's my new game. All I have to do is tell you three things that happened, and I am free to elaborate as much or as little as I want. I may elaborate so much that one of the Things becomes an entry by itself. Or I may not feel like going into detail and a Thing may be just one sentence long. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to limit myself to just Things that happened that specific day, mostly because I write at different times of the day, and if I'm writing in the morning (not at work!), then much may not have happened yet.

I like this idea very much. Not only because it take some pressure off of me to produce a lot of writing, but also because there are often things that I would write about, except I don't really have enough for a whole entry. Now I don't have to. I can tell you about the funny incident, even if it does only take up two sentences.

And since this entry would suck if it stopped here, here are the first Three Things.

Thing 1: I bought Girl Scout cookies from my coworkers.
There were two cookie order forms in the break room last month, and so I ordered a box of cookies from each of the two daughters of two coworkers. This morning, there was a box of Iced Berry Pinatas (with real strawberries) on my desk. I'm expecting a box of Thin Mints (with no strawberries, real or otherwise) as well. I'm very excited about my cookies, despite the fact that I'm a little bitter that I never had parents who would take my various sales to work and peddle for me. But in any case, I ordered cookies partly because buying cookies from a coworker's daughter seemed like an adult thing to do. I am a grown-up, and I have coworkers old enough to have children. Plus, I like cookies.

Thing 2: The guy who sells newspapers at the corner of Stratford Road and the off-ramp of Silas Creek Parkway South wore an umbrella hat this morning.
You know, those little head attachments with mini multi-colored umbrellas on top? Like this. I've seen him wear it before, when it was raining or rain was in the forecast. It wasn't raining this morning, but it had been and the clouds remained dark. Anyway, the umbrella hat makes me like this guy even more and on the mornings when I'm feeling frisky, I wave at him. A couple mornings last week, he wasn't there, and I was getting worried that he might be sick or that he had been fired. But he's back now, and all is right with the world.

Thing 3: I used expensive conditioner this morning.
I bought it last night, because it was on sale. Also because I always wanted to know whether expensive hair products really worked better. Usually I get the dollar or two-dollar brand (which smells nicer than the one-dollar brand). This stuff is the four-dollar brand, very pricey. My hair is awfully soft and nice-smelling this morning, but I don't know about twice as soft and twice as nice-smelling as it usually is. The true test is volume, because I have limp noodle hair (the professionals call it ultra-fine, which, as I was disappointed to find out, is not really a compliment). By the end of the day, I'm sure it will be just as flat as usual, and I'll be able to go back to buying cheap products, confident that the expensive brands are no better.

See? That was easy.

what would bruce do?

We all hate her. Despite the fact that many of us grew up with parents who told us it was not nice to hate, we all hate her without remorse.

Usually computer projects are not referred to with a gender-specific pronoun, except maybe in those languages that assign gender to everything. But we speak English at my company. We call the project a her because the project name is actually a girl's name. So if you happen into our doors to hear us talking disparagingly about Sheila, don't feel bad for the poor girl. If you worked with her, you'd say all those words, too.

Sheila is the name of the company that we are building the project for. Some man probably named it for his wife in a misguided tribute. If it were me, I wouldn't want a company that makes truck parts named after me. Maybe a company that makes really great tea, or vintage tee-shirts, or unique clocks. Truck parts? I'll pass.

In any case, we hate her. We are releasing a new version of Sheila tomorrow, or we are supposed to. The program doesn't work. The install doesn't work. It is all Sheila's fault. So the half a dozen of us who are assigned to her sit at our workstations and plug away and making the stupid hussy work stopping only to call someone else on the team and complain about what a dumb broad Sheila really is. We call her all sorts of names reserved for females, just as if she were some very lazy and uncooperative girl that we all happen to know.

I feel that it is also the fault of the guy who named his company that makes truck parts after his wife. If he had named it after himself or maybe a best friend, we would not be having these problems. These things would never happen to a Bruce. Would a Bruce make everyone beat their heads against their desks? Would Bruce mess up all the other projects when he was installed? No, of course not. Not Bruce. He'd never do something like that.