sucks.

It is one of those days, where you wake up and you know that right now, this moment of waking, is the high point of your day. You know the rest of the day is going to just suck, and the day will suck because you are determined that it will suck, and you will not be disappointed, least not today when you are just having the suckiest day of your life. Yes, one of those days. Remember that book the teacher read to you as a kid? Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? Yeah, Alexander didn't know how good he had it, the big whiner. They should write a book called You and The Day That Sucked More Than Anything That Has Ever Sucked Before. Alexander woke up with gum in his hair. Yeah, well, try waking up with a feeling of impending doom crushing in on your chest.

Lethargy caused by apathy, why put an effort into this day when it's just going to suck anyway? You get up, you get ready, your morning routine dotted with periods of sitting or lying down, staring into space and thinking about what's wrong with you, what's wrong with your life, what's wrong with this day already. So then you're late, you know, for school, for work, for whatever it was that caused you to leave the setting of the high point of your day. Whatever that thing is, it sucks.

The commute only continues with the theme of "Things That Suck." Traffic is light, because you're late and you missed the rush, but that only reminds you that you're late and you missed the rush of people who aren't having sucky days. Or maybe they are having sucky days, but at least they are having them in a punctual manner. Jerks, all of them, they suck. Whatever is playing on the radio sucks, too. The radio keeps playing Van Halen's "Jump" or that ridiculous butterfly song that was so popular a few years back. You turn to your CD player, but you're not in the right mood for this CD, and the rest of your CDs are in the back and you can't reach them, because you have to drive and there's no stopping because of this unnatural, stupid, light traffic. So whatever, just another thing in this suckfest of a day.

You're late, so all the good parking spaces are taken, and everybody is going to know you were late because you're not parked in your usual space. You're parked in the space which is beneath the tree that provides no shade, only bird excrement, the space which, incidentally, is numbered 13. Unless you're one of those people whose lucky number is 13, in which case the space is number 14.

So now you're wherever it is you intended to be when you parked in space 13 or 14, thinking about how that lucky twerp Alexander was too young to drive and so he didn't have to worry about parking. Then you think how this day could probably get by without sucking quite so much if you just didn't have to put any effort into it. You could go on autopilot, left to simply sulk about this day that started off so well and then started sucking with a passion. But no. Wherever it is that you are, someone, some jerk, is going to require you to think. To formulate original and, quite possibly, complex thoughts. You let your eyes glaze over whenever you can and concentrate only on your misery and how one day it's going to come back and bite you that you were daydreaming when you were supposed to be focusing on something, you know, important. Man, that day's just gonna suck, too.

And let's face it, you're probably going to blow off early, and your drive back home with little to no traffic impeding your way will be marred with conflicting feelings of guilt for blowing off early and anger at this sucky day for making you want to blow off early and then having the gall to make you feel guilty for it. The radio station will inexplicably be playing "Jump" again, and you still will not have changed the CD because you left wherever you were in a hurried huff.

Maybe you try to take a nap in a vain effort to recreate the magic that was happening before you awoke to this miserable excuse for a day, but sleep can't break through the wall of sulking you've built around your mind. Maybe you veg out in front of the TV, doing the same thing you were doing before with that faraway dazed look in your eyes, but nothing is on except Old Yeller and The Golden Girls, and you've seen this episode twice already. Maybe you try and read a book, but you're in the middle of Little Women, and frankly, Beth's starting to look a little thin.

So you log on to your blog and write this long and overwrought entry about your sucky day. You use a form of the word "suck" nineteen twenty times. You make an excellent display of poor writing. You post your excellent display of poor writing for all the world to see, and you are vaguely amused, but you don't feel better. Sucks.

clubbed.

There were lots of athletic clubs at my middle school. This fact was in direct contrast to my high school, where as far as I can remember, there was only one athletic club, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I'm not sure exactly what went on in FCA, other than maybe scrimmaging with prayer beforehand. But in middle school, the athletic clubs had no sort of theological requirements. In fact, only a couple of them had requirements at all. There was the P.E. Club, which was sort of like the honor society for jocks. You had to do well on your presidential fitness exams to be in the P.E. Club. There was also the Sports Club, which was only open to those who played on school sports teams. Clubs in middle school didn't do much, mostly because all meetings had to take place outside of school, usually right after classes let out. Maybe that's why there were so many athletic clubs - the jocks were already used to staying late for practices and such, and their parents were already used to having to rework schedules. However, the meetings couldn't interfere with any of the sports they were promoting. That amounted to about four meetings a year in between seasons.

Then there were the clubs that had no real requirements for joining other than interest. I remember there being three such clubs. The first, and most socially acceptable, was the Jumprope Club. Jumping rope was deemed Okay because pretty much everybody could do it. Also, it's what the boys' basketball team did in the off-season to get in shape. (In high school, the club of off-season basketball players became known as the cross-country team.) So if the jocks did it, then it must be cool. Jumprope club meetings would consist of us watching a video full of very impressive jumprope professionals. There were whole teams of them, and they would work these intricate formations with their ropes, changing positions all over the place but never missing a beat, like marching band, only bouncier. These videos would inspire us to become impressive jumprope professionals, but to be honest, I don't even remember anyone being able to double-dutch. I was one of the few that could even criss-cross, a skill I randomly picked up during one night of intense practicing in my living room when I was about seven years old.

The other non-elitist two clubs could be called college prep clubs - provided you were interested in attending Clown University. Those would be the Juggling Club and the Unicycle Club. I suspect only our first-time readers will be so foolish as to ask if I was a member of these clubs. Granted, there were some popular kids in these clubs, but they were the kind of popular kids that were popular in spite of their idiosyncrasies. Please note that I do not, nor will I ever, include myself in any sort of popular kids group. I was pretty good friends with a couple of the popular kids, mostly the kind that would participate in ridiculous extra-curricular activities.

The Juggling Club was similar to the Jumprope Club in meeting format. We watched a juggling video, then tried to imitate. No one came into the club with actual juggling know-how. We started with scarves, as they are the easiest due to their slow and meandering reaction to gravity. I honestly don't remember anyone ever graduating beyond scarves. Frankly, I'm not certain that anyone ever really got the grasp of scarves at all.

There was no need for an instructional video in the Unicycle Club. We knew what it was supposed to look like. Step 1: Get on the unicycle. Step 2: Stay there. That was pretty much it. Whereas with juggling we had started with scarves, with unicycling, we started with falling down. And we pretty much continued and ended with that as well. Again, no one entered the gym on the first meeting with any experience. And no one left the gym after the last meeting any better off. I couldn't even ride a bicycle at that point in time, so I really had no business there.

A similarity you may have noticed with all of these clubs is that no one ever managed to accomplish anything in them. Honestly, I only remember having at most two or three meetings with each of them. The teachers who sponsored the clubs were essentially off-season sports coaches. So when it came down to softball practice vs. juggling practice, the Future Outcasts of America lost out. I'm not sure why these clubs even existed or more importantly, where all the equipment came from. I can see a junior high physical education department having fifty jumpropes, but a box full of juggling apparatus and two dozen shiny unicycles? I can't decide if maybe one of the P.E. teachers was just really gung-ho about the circus or if perhaps some quirky philanthropist made a charitable donation of clown equipment and my school was just making the best of it.

For the record, I can now juggle. I made myself some little fabric juggling cubes out of yard sale scrap material and Uncle Ben's rice. I found an instructional website, sat myself down, and I learned how to juggle. It was reminiscent of the Sandra who taught herself to jumprope criss-cross and then (much) later to ride a bike. Of course, I'm not any good at juggling, but I can do it long enough to get out the words, "See? I can do it" before screwing up. I learned about six months ago when I realized that I knew a lot of people that I respected and thought were cool who could do it. Now it's just one of those things you might find out about a person and be mildly surprised and vaguely interested, like learning that someone built his own ukelele (Rob), is adopted (Ashley), or didn't learn to ride a bike until she was eighteen (no one I know).

I cannot ride a unicycle. I own one, a rusty little number with a bad tire that I bought at a yard sale. I remember walking around at this yard sale with Casey, and all of a sudden, he grabs my arm and says, "Sandra, look down." I looked down and there was a unicycle with a two dollar price tag. My immediate thought was not, Hmm, a unicycle, but rather Hey, I have a unicycle now. Ashley and I used to try to ride it in the halls of our apartment, but if you can't ride a unicycle with a good tire, one with a bad tire isn't going to offer you much hope. I even have little unicycle earrings. I feel kind of foolish when people notice them and ask me if I can ride one. I'm not sure how to explain that I'm not so much as a unicycle enthusiast as a novelty earring enthusiast.

I should save myself the embarrassment and just learn to ride it, if for no other reason than to save myself from owning yet one more thing that I bought at a yard sale and cannot use. Then I can wax romantic about my old Unicycling Club days or perhaps finally send in my application to Clown U, listing the fact that I can ride a unicycle, juggle, and jump rope criss-cross style (not all at once). I will not mention that I'm still not very good on a bicycle.

company email.

Anytime a company-wide email goes out with someone's name in the subject line, it's a bad sign. It means that one of certain phrases is going to pop up in the body of the email in conjuction with the name in the subject, phrases like "pursue another opportunity," "position has been eliminated," or "dragged out in the street and run down by one of those big rigs we keep in the back." I've seen a couple of these emails, and luckily my name has never popped up in the subject line, though I can only hope that I would know about it before the email went out.

There was an email last week about Dave. There are several Daves in this office, and I like all of them. But the departure of this Dave would have a huge impact on the company, moreso than the other Daves. Yes, this Dave is competant, yes, he's been here a long time, but more importantly, he is the social center of this office. Screw Raymond, everybody loves Dave. Jovial and laid-back, he'll even set you up to make short jokes at his expense. His office is where you go to talk about your problems, shoot the breeze, and hear the latest word on the hallway. Dave is where it's at.

Dave's last day was to be Friday, and we were all going out to Corbin's for a farewell lunch. I went by Dave's office yesterday to ask him just where Corbin's was located, but also because I had heard a rumor about a counter-offer. He told me how to get to Corbin's, and then mumbled, "But that might not matter." A-ha! The counter-offer rumor was true! Dave had last night to settle the old clash of should-I-stay-or-should-I-go.

This morning, I went by Dave's office shortly after he came in, bursting with curiosity. I knocked softly with one knuckle and then stood in the doorway to his office and asked, "So what's for lunch on Friday?"

A pause.

"Crow."

Hands down, best answer ever.

the hallway of youth.

Josh and Zach have moved in together. Isn't it sweet?

No, no, it's nothing like that. Josh and Zach are two of my coworkers. Their offices are directly across and diagonally from mine. Together, we make up the hallway of youth. We are the three youngest members of the office family, with Josh at 28, Zach at 26, and me at 22. More important than our age is the fact that we're all single with no children. Incidentally, we are all on the same project. Our tech lead (who is a mature family man in his thirties) calls working with us a special name: baby-sitting.

We are seen as a different kind of people entirely by our more settled coworkers. Whenever one of us has a birthday, people ask if we're old enough to buy alcohol or rent a car yet. (By the way, I will not be old enough to rent a car for another three birthdays.) When we come in on Monday mornings, it's generally assumed that we spent the weekend hours under the influence (whether or not we're old enough to buy the drinks for ourselves).

The hallway of youth is a fun place to work. Both Josh and Zach are witty, and we banter back and forth all day. Zach has his faux braggart act, and Josh can talk like a pirate. Sometimes we get on a roll and start laughing so loud that others come down the hall to see if they can't get in on the fun that the kids are having. There's a certain spot in the hall where a person can stand and see into all of our offices and talk to us all at once. You can have a good time in the spot, with youth coming at you from all directions like some sort of rejuvenating triad. It's a different kind of atmosphere over here. In no other offices can you find a pick-up game of Nerf basketball with a goal that has a cheering sound effect for every made shot. In no other part of the building can you hear trash talk being called out from different offices. In fact, I've never heard people yelling from office to office in any other hallway.

While I am part of the hallway of youth, Zach and Josh make up their own little group. They're buddies, and they hang out a lot outside of work. I suppose it was just a matter of time before they became roomies. They were both living alone, and now they've rented a house a couple of minutes away. I'm amused by what this house stands for to every other male working here. I get the feeling the older men sit at the dinner table surrounded by their screaming children and nagging wives and dream about the kind of debauchery that must go on at the bachelor pad inhabited by Josh and Zach.

I'm not seen in the same way that Josh and Zach are. I think if I say that I had a couple of drinks last night, my older coworkers assume that I had a glass of wine and got a little giggly before I fell asleep with a pair of pigtails. If Josh or Zach say they had a couple of drinks, it's assumed that they had a fifth of Jack each and got a little crazy before they fell asleep with a pair of twins. The older guys rag Josh and Zach about strip clubs, and then they turn around and give me advice about how all men are after only one thing.

Josh and Zach stand for the men ten or twenty years ago; I stand for daughters and little sisters. Josh and Zach are members of the bachelor brotherhood, and I'm a simple, single girl looking for love. Josh and Zach have the glorious position of being without the old ball and chain, and I'm a old ball and chain in training. Nevermind that Josh is getting pretty serious about that girl of his or that Zach thinks more about golf than chicks, to the committed and settled family men, they are living the dream in the hallway of youth.

personal enrichment.

There's a phenomena known as the "Boonerang," that is, that graduates of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, once finding themselves in the real, working world outside of Boone, will decide that they preferred Academia and return to school at ASU. I scoff at the Boonerang. Boone was good for me, for maybe three years, but I was there for three and a half. I do not anticipate ever going back to take up residence in Boone. I don't even anticipate going back to see the leaves change in the fall.

That being said, I've gone back to school. That's right, I am free to use my student discount whenever I please, and I don't even have to feel guilty about it. My car's bumper is graced with a parking permit that allows me to park in any of the white-lined spaces on either campus of Surry Community College. In my application for admission (which I filled out about two minutes before I filled out my registration for classes form), I checked that I was taking classes for "Personal Enrichment." I also checked that I was pursuing an Associate's Degree in Viticulture and Enology. Sandra's taking wine classes!

I'm signed up for two classes: 6 credit hours, $266.00, including student insurance, technology fee, and parking. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I make the forty-five minute drive to Dobson, NC to attend my Introduction to Viticulture and Wines of the World classes, respectively. $266.00, gas not included. Viticulture and Enology programs are few and far between at even major universities. But several years ago, the Shelton Brothers (of Shelton Vineyards fame) threw some money at SCC to start a program. According to the Shelton website, SCC is one of three east coast institutions offering "accredited academic study in the grape sciences." That's me, studying grape science for personal enrichment.

It's funny to be back in school. And it's not really like being back at ole ASU, it's more like being back at ole West Caldwell High School. I don't mean any disrespect to community colleges. But I'm on my third and fourth such classes, and I gotta tell ya, I'm not struggling. I know there are hard community college classes out there. I know that just from the fact that my dad used to teach at a community college. I never had my dad as a teacher, but it's been fifteen years or more since he stopped teaching high school, and I still have his old students (usually parents of my classmates) coming up to me and saying, "Man, his class was hard." So the fact that I've not really run up against difficult courses in my community college career may have more to do with the fact that I've basically been taking intro classes.

Aside from Personal Enrichment, I'm not sure what I want out of all this. My tech lead at work heard that I was taking classes and worried that it might be an indication that I was already disatisfied with my job. It's only been 8 months; if I'd had to sleep with someone to get this job, I might not have even had the baby yet. But no, I'm not unhappy with my "real" job, though he's not the only one who doesn't seem to understand why I'm taking these classes. My classmates, when they find out that I am a software engineer (which sounds so much better than computer programmer, don't you think?), seem confused as to why I seem to be pursuing a new career path when I've made such a healthy start in a rather lucrative one already.

It's a hobby. I'm interested in wine. True, I could see myself maybe someday working in the wine business, perhaps owning a vineyard or being a winemaker somewhere. But that is way in the future, and since I know nothing about the business, I don't even know if that's something I'd want. Wine is a fascinating and broad subject, and I like learning about it. I feel personally enriched already.

I'm doing this because I can. I've spent all my life doing one thing so I can get to the next stage. There has always been a goal, whether it was a college acceptance letter, a scholarship, or a job with benefits. And now I've reached the end of the list, and I've spent the last few months floundering in a big fog of "What's next?" Oh wait, this is when I start to define my own life. I probably should've started that years ago, and I know people who do, but I am too practical to do anything that strays too far from the accepted path of arrival. So have I arrived? I've arrived at something, a time in my life where I'm self-sufficient, have no dependents, and have resources to take wine classes and eat name-brand ice cream. So pass the pencils, the paper, and the Häagen-Dazs, I'm going back to school.

pfascination.

Thing 1: I learn about Pfafftown.
A year or two back, Scott and I made a random evening trip to Wilkesboro and ate at Ted's Kickin' Chicken. It was a good time, just kind of this spontaneous and surreal evening. Out of nostalgia and fascination for Ted's, we decided to visit all three of Ted's scattered about North Carolina. Besides the one in Wilkesboro, there was one in Shelby and one in Pfafftown. We were particularly fascinated with the latter. Where was Pfafftown? What kind of place was it? Were there a lot of sewing machines there?

Thing 2: I learn more about Pfafftown.
I moved to Lewisville and suddenly found myself less than five miles from the Pfafftown branch of Ted's Kickin' Chicken. I told Scott, we were excited, we were one step closer to fulfilling our Kickin' Chicken destiny. I excitedly told Josh about it, explaining the whole back story back when I first moved to town.

"So we're going to go to Pfafftown!"

Josh looked at me curiously, then smiled as if belatedly getting a joke. "Oh, okay. You know how to really say it."

"Say what?"

"You know it's not FAFF-TOWN. You're just making a joke."

"It's not FAFF-TOWN? What is it then?"

"POFF-TOWN."

"It's POFF-TOWN?"

"Yeah."

"That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard."

It's true that I'd often made jokes about the name of the town, but when I did, I said PEE-FAFF-TOWN. I never would have come up with POFF-TOWN. And yet it is true. Despite the fact that Josh does tend to make up things to see if I'll believe them, Pfafftown really is POFF-TOWN. I asked other people who have not the imagination to make up the pronunciations of town names. It still may be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Thing 3: The world learns about Pfafftown.
I went to see a movie last week and saw this preview. In case you do not wish to view the preview, I will tell the important part. A man and a woman, very sophisticated, meet in that classic way, begin dating. It flashes to the scene where the woman, swept completely off her feet, asks this man in her lilting British accent where he possibly could have come from to be this wonderful and amazing. His answer?

"Pfafftown, North Carolina."

Then you see all these shots from the film (wait - was that Pilot Mountain?), which was made in this very area where I now sit. Apparently both the director and the writer hail from Winston-Salem. At least that's what the blurb that I read about the movie said. It's likely that they more specifically came from places like Pfafftown, little suburbs with ridiculous names. This movie was shown at Sundance and Cannes. People the world over have seen Pfafftown. It is all terribly exciting.

The movie is showing at the theatre here, which is surprising, since that particular theatre is not known for showing independent-type flicks. It's that hometown advantage. I will be seeing it, even if I must pay full price. My only quibble so far is that they named the movie "Junebug." I think they should have called it "Pfafftown," just because there would be all this confusion as to how to pronounce it, which would generate great publicity. But no one asked me.

james and the giant fudge round.

When I was in high school, our floundering theatre department took on the task of putting on a production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." Our drama teacher chose it because it had few parts, and we had a small and pathetic department. She should've taken notice of the fact that it was also a musical, and few of us sang all that well. In any case, I was Peppermint Patty. I can only assume that I was given this part because there were only two female roles, and ole Patty only had to sing one line solo. Lucy did a lot of singing, including an adaptation of "Moonlight Sonata," so it was just as well that all I had to manage was the line "Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band." The notes were awfully high, though.

Rehearsals were held at 4pm in the afternoons after school. Since school let out at about 3, that gave me some time to goof off and get a snack before play practice. So I'd drive down to the Gamewell Superette (or Buck Herman's store if the Superette was packed) and buy one 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew and a Little Debbie Fudge Round. You can get Fudge Rounds in those boxes of eight or ten at the grocery store, but those are usually the little ones. The ones that sell in individual packets are easily twice the size of the bulk-sold ones and they only cost a quarter. In my extensive research, I've found that the quarter Fudge Rounds are just the perfect size for enjoyment before you are overloaded with fudginess and get sick of them. My Mountain Dew and Fudge Round habit were widely known among my castmates, since I would bring my snack back and munch while we chatted in those first few minutes of rehearsal.

There was this kid, James, who was playing Linus' understudy. I say he was a kid, even though in truth he was only a year younger than I. But he was baby-faced and very shy, and I suspect that even if he had been three years older than I am, I would've still called him a kid. He was a sweet guy, though none too bright, and I had a good time with the fact that he could never get the line "assume the throne" right. He kept talking about amusing the throne. Even now, I've got this great image of him telling jokes to a fancy high-backed gold chair. It's very assuming.

James loved the theatre. He came to the show through our director, who also taught english. He was in one of her classes and expressed interest in being in a play. She was surprised, because he was such an introvert, whereas most theatre people are extroverted to the point of being obnoxious. But she gave him that small role of understudy and put him in the laid-back and welcome environment of backstage, and personality just started shooting out of that boy. He talked, he joked, he sang a song to a blue blanket. The real James decided to show himself after all. That's one thing about theatre people: being freaks themselves, they tend to be pretty forgiving of quirks.

James, ah poor James, he had a crush on me. His affections were revealed one day that I had to miss rehearsal, and he made some flattering comment about me to another cast member, a girl that was actually one of my very good friends. Perhaps James didn't realize that, oh, guess what - girls talk, or perhaps he wanted me to know. Either way, I found out quick, and then proceded to pretend that I had not found out. I was not interested and I probably was not supposed to know that he was interested, so it was better to leave well enough alone. He was welcome to pine in silence all he wanted.

But James could not resist a small opportunity to win my affections. On opening night, James brought in a big box of Fudge Rounds for consumption by the cast. The girls all giggled at his choice of pre-show snack, and I just blushed and pretended I didn't know why he hadn't chosen Moon Pies or Oatmeal Creme Pies.

James fell off the face of the earth sometime during my senior year of high school, meaning I lost track of what happened to him. I suspect he dropped out. I doubt he had much success with classes or his social life, and I think his home life might have been a little rough. He struck me as a fragile kid, and the theatre couldn't have been enough to save him. I hate that he couldn't be himself outside the theatre, and I hate to think that the sweet kid might've been turned bitter by the fact that the rest of the world wasn't so welcoming as the people backstage. Hopefully he found some community theatre troup to join and a nice little girl to settle down and buy fudge rounds for, the big ones.

just beachy this time.

I understand, perhaps only on an intellectual level, that some people have crappy families. I know several people who have seriously awful relatives. I mean, everyone's got a bank robber uncle somewhere along the line, but I'm talking about those who have actual people in their house living with them, sharing their blood, and being blights upon the human existence. Yes, fine, I understand that. That idea computes.

I do not understand family disloyalty. This fact indicates that while I comprehend that the rotten relative situation exists, I've not really experienced it to the point of saying to a person outside my family that my sister/brother/mother/father is a jerk/loser/waste of oxygen/overall bad person. And when people say those sorts of things about family members, I'm always sort of shocked and embarrassed, like I've stumbled onto some family secret that I should not be privy to. Then, rather than think bad things about the offending family member, I think terrible things about the person dissing the family member.

I met this kid at church, and by kid, I mean three years younger than I am (but I consider the years between 19 and 22 to be quite formative). He hated his family. He would say something negative about his parents, his brother, his third cousin eight times removed to anyone who would listen. And I kind of passed the guy off as someone who was just immature, who didn't have any kind of perspective of the points of view of others. And that is unfair. It was quite possible that his kin are just lousy human beings. I know that there are crummy people out there, so why don't I realize that they have relatives who might agree with that assessment?

I lucked out in that my family members are pretty good people. They are nice and considerate, and sometimes they really piss me off, but that's it. The most insulting thing you could get out of that would be that sometimes we clash, which is only natural when you combine people who are irritated by the character flaws they share.

Slander against my family isn't even allowed when I'm complaining about them. Even if I've been ranting and crying for hours about how my brother drives me absolutely nuts and how he is quite possibly evil incarnate, the proper response is to be sympathetic without judging. You say stuff like "That was unfair of him" or "You have every right to be upset with him." The minute you agree with me and go, "Yeah, what a contemptible person," then I start complaining to my contemptible brother about you.

I know a couple guys who are good friends. One guy has a sister who apparently sucks at the art of being someone that anyone would ever want to associate with. Anytime this guy ever brings up his sister, no matter what he says about her, be it that she's moving or she got a new car or that she's been volunteering at the orphanage, after the inital conversation is over, the friend goes, "Man, she's a bitch." And the guy goes, "Yeah." I've heard variations of this conversation several times, and I'm floored every time. I've never met this chick, and all signs seem to say that she is, in fact, a bitch. I might think my sister is a bitch, and I might even say it to someone that I really, really trusted. More likely, I would say, "My sister was kinda bitchy today," or something else noncommittal and temporary-sounding. And I would be very upset if a friend called my sister anything negative. Even if I said "My sister was kinda bitchy today" every single day of my life, she is my bitchy sister, so please keep your opinions to yourself.

Of course, that is the issue. I have every right to judge my family. They are mine. An outsider has not had the full experience of my family. An outsider is coming to the table without enough information to pass judgment. An outsider does not remember that time that my contemptible brother and my bitchy sister built that fort in the woods with me.

I realize that I'm being unfair and showing a severe lack of perspective. I've just rubbed it in everyone's face that my family is great and then scolded anyone for not having a similar situation. But that was the point, really, just for me to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't get it." So call me a bitch if you must. Just don't say it around my family.

Note: The author would like to stress that she neither has a bitchy sister nor a contemptible brother. For any sisters or brothers reading and still not believing, just assume it's one of the other ones.

sandy and beachy.

Ah, the many facets of Sandra! Well, three of them, anyway.

Thing 1: Stupid.
I was eating dinner at Josh's dad's place the other week. It was an every-man-for-himself, make your own taco salad situation. There were all the basic necessities of taco salad: ground beef, nachos, lettuce, refried beans, cheese, tomatoes, thousand island dressing. Wait, what? The thousand island was apparently a selection of Josh's dad, and the rest of us looked askance at the way he liberally poured it on what had been a perfectly good taco salad until then. He said, "There was a taco stand in Eden that made taco salads with thousand island dressing." I laughed, because I thought that was a great way to defend food quirks. Me, I like cottage cheese on my pancakes with syrup, so I can just scoff at naysayers with "There's an Waffle House in Eden that serves cottage cheese on their pancakes." Also, the image of Adam and Eve in the garden, surrounded by all God's creatures, beautiful fruit trees, and a lone taco stand is amusing. Then Josh told me that his dad had grown up in the small town of Eden, North Carolina. And then I just felt stupid.

Thing 2: Pretty.
A small family with three sons lives in the apartment next to mine. The boys range in age from about eight to thirteen and are often hanging out in the parking lot outside the apartment building. The littlest one talks to me sometimes. I drove up from a trip to the grocery store last week and they were all standing in the parking space next to mine. As I got out, the little one said quickly and loudly, like he was just going to burst open with the information, "My big brother is thirteen, and he likes you!" To which the big brother replied, "Do not!" So the little one clarified, "Well, he thinks you're pretty." The big brother's response to that was "Nuh-uh! That's a bunch of bullcrap!" I really don't think I'd heard the word "bullcrap" since I was thirteen. It's nice to see that neither eight-year-old nor thirteen-year-old boys have changed much since I was that age.

The trouble was that I couldn't think of anything to say. I wanted something that would handle the situation calmly, making me come off as cool and saving the thirteen-year-old from embarrassment. But I couldn't come up with anything, so I just smiled, tried not to laugh, and brought my groceries into my apartment. My impulse was to giggle and blush, thinking, "Someone thinks I'm pretty." Looks like I haven't changed much since I was that age, either.

Thing 3: Bitchy.
Dave, at my office, likes wordplay. He is ridiculous with his puns, and though some are better than others, I have to admire how quick he is with them. I seem to have more appreciation for that sort of humor than most at my office, so apparently, I'm a dork, too. He also likes to make up poems and songs and things. I sent him a website once where some group was compiling an online dictionary where all the definitions were limericks. I'm pretty sure Dave's productivity went way down that day.

Dave was grumpy with work-related stress today, and so I encouraged him to make up mean limericks about the people who were pissing him off. Unfortunately, those people have names that don't rhyme with much (We happen to work with a very irritating guy named Nebuchadnezzar). Even though I am nothing but charming, he apparently decided to attack me with his rhyming rapier. He sent the result to me (note that the rural Southern pronunciation of "Nietzsche" would rhyme with "peachy"):

For David, life was not peachy.
He felt as morose as a Nietzsche.
He had, at the sea,
this epiphany:
What's Sandy, quite often, is beachy.

The lesson here is that you can get away with calling me a bitch if you are clever about it.

the full spectrum of music.

Note that I wrote this a couple of months ago when it happened, and am only now getting around to posting it. I hope that I am not a writer whose relevance is lost as time passes.

Saturday night was a night of music for me, and the full spectrum of music at that. I saw not one, not two, but three live performances.

Piedmont Chamber Singers
If not for my student ID, I would not have been in attendance for the 7:30 concert at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church. Rob is a member of the Piedmont Chamber Singers, but the bounds of our friendship does not cover paying for a $15 ticket to hear him sing. Luckily, student tickets were $6, and without getting into the moral discussion of whether I should be using my student ID to get discounts anymore, I would like to say that if I hadn't gone as a student, I wouldn't have gone at all.

Going was kind of an impromptu decision, so I was late, mostly because I couldn't figure out what to wear. I ended up looking severe and not at all feminine in some black pants and a gray sweater. I slid into a pew just as the Piedmont Chamber Singers or at least some other group of smiling people in black formal wear filed out.

Yes, yes, the music was lovely, the arrangements were splendid, and the direction was superb. Which is to say that my mind started to wander well before intermission. The theme was folk songs, and I started thinking about the ridiculousness of the group singing folk songs. These were white-collar, upper middle class Southerners singing about hunting caribou in Inuit. I felt that the moment someone decided to make an arrangement of a folk song, it ceased to be a song of the folk. The folk do not sing while wearing tuxedos, the folk do not sing from sheet music, and the folk do not drive to the event in their SUVs.

One other item of interest: An arranger of some of the songs was present that night, and it was his wife's birthday. The director made us all sing "Happy Birthday" to dear Olive. Aside from the people up front, there were professional, or at least well-trained, singers all in the audience. I'd just like to say that you've never heard "Happy Birthday" until you've heard it in four-part harmony with several lingering sopranos at the end of each line. I myself sang quietly, as I am neither professional nor well-trained, nor even any good at all.

The Finks
Part of my difficulty in choosing what to wear that night was the fact that I would be appearing at two very different venues. Before I went into The Werehouse, I took off my gray sweater for the second part of the evening. Don't worry - I had something on underneath the sweater; it wasn't that kind of evening. I had a vintage t-shirt on underneath, also gray, but I think it used to be black. I'd call that ready to see a rock show.

I didn't know I was going to see The Finks until I arrived at The Werehouse. I'd never heard of them, because they are a local band, and I am only recently local to the same area. I was lured into conversation with a banker sitting next to me who was here to see them. He was a fan. He told me about The Finks, and then we talked about chaos theory. It was a weird night.

They weren't bad. I toe-tapped to the music, but I didn't find it striking. The Finks are a regular local rock band, though I will admit that they are leagues ahead of most local bands. Plus, they put on an interesting show to watch. The guy in charge of the witty banter in between songs was not as witty as I would have liked, though he had his moments. Later, the banker who was a fan came back to me to ask what I thought. I might have exaggerrated my opinion a tad. He said, "Yeah, they're great! They're like the Pixies without the melody!" I decided that I agreed with him, and at that moment, I realized that one of the things I liked most about The Pixies was...the melody.

Captured! By Robots
I would just like to note that the exclamation point is part of the name of the band. The exclamation-point-in-the-middle is the new version of the umlaut-over-any-vowel-ever so prevalent in 80s metal bands.

The banker was at the Werehouse for The Finks, but as I told him, "I'm here for the robots." I'd never heard any of C!BR's songs. All I know that it was a guy who, discovering his talents for computers and therefore his lack of friends, decided to make his own band by programming some robots. The result ended up being like some cross between those giant mice at Chuck e' Cheese and Johnny Five's foul-mouthed cousin. There was a trio of politicians making up the horn section in the back and a pair of stuffed gorillas playing cymbals, though I think those were all more for show, as their command of their individual instruments seemed limited. The gorillas did talk, though. The drum-bot and the guitar-bot were pretty cool, though. They had personalities and they played instruments; if they'd been skinny and pale, I would've hit on them. Part of their speech seemed recorded, particularly during the songs, but at other times, the actual living person in the band was speaking through some microphone/speech modifier.

Casey told me once that Captured! By Robots is something everyone should see at least once, but that one viewing was probably sufficient. As entertainment, it was worth the fiver I spent, but as music...well, let's just say I didn't buy a CD. Although maybe I should have, again for pure entertainment value. C!BR's latest CD features songs about the movie The Ten Commandments, and anytime you have a song where you have Moses rapping that he is a gangsta' Old Testament style, then you have something special on your hands.

I don't know why the rest of the audience was there. Maybe for The Finks. In any case, about midway through the show, the one non-AI member of of the band just left for a song. And the robots played a whole song unattended. Me, I thought it was pretty cool, but about half of the audience members took it as a good opportunity to make an escape. Perhaps they thought the show was over, but more likely they figured it wouldn't hurt the robots' feelings if they snuck out then. I think a lot of people were there out of curiosity. I talked to a couple before the show who admitted as much, and even I could tell from my prior knowledge of C!BR and by looking at these people in their Gap gear that they were not going to stay the whole show. There's nothing wrong with that - foul-mouthed animatronic musicians are not for everyone. The same could be said for chamber singing and garage bands.

nothing tragic.

One of my coworkers was making small talk back when I first started at the company. He asked when my birthday was, and I told him that it was in late October. He then asked if I had been forced to wait an extra year to go to school because I didn't turn five until the end of the month. I thought it was a really odd question. Most people make some sort of Halloween comment when I tell them my birthday. Turns out his kid was going to turn five this year, right after the cut-off for starting kindergarten. He was worried that being made to start school would adversely affect his child.

Not to worry, I said. I'm sure it affected me, but nothing tragic.

The funny thing is, I knew exactly what he was talking about as soon as he said it. I did have to wait an extra year, and I remember it being an issue. I don't think it was so much a problem for me - I didn't care. But I remember my mother explaining to me that to start kindergarten in the fall of 1987, you had to turn five by October 15 of that year. I would not turn five until October 30. Two weeks. Maybe my mother was put out by the inconvenience of having to keep me around the house for another year. It did seem stupid to miss it by only fifteen days, but the school system has to set a firm date somewhere, and I suppose that's where it landed.

So I started school in the fall of 1988, almost six years old. Ever since my coworker asked me how the extra year has affected me, I've been thinking of all the ways. The answer I should have told him is no, I've never been able to tell any adverse effects, but yes, it will affect your child's life in ways that you will never know. Of course, there's no way to know every difference - perhaps I would've been killed in a class field trip or won some sort of lottery only available to children born before October 15, 1982. It's a massive game of "What if?" where you don't think about that promotion you didn't get or that girl you rear-ended, but you start at the very beginning with something as basic as your birthdate.

This isn't the first time this idea has occurred to me. I used to be very glad that I waited a year to start school, because I didn't like a lot of the people in the class ahead of me. Also, it was always really cool to be older than everyone else. I hit all the major rite of passage ages before all my friends: 13, 16, 18, 21. Then I hit 22, and I realized that 21 was probably the last age when it was cooler to be older. When I hit 30, I'm going to look around at all my 29 year old friends and wish I'd been born a couple of weeks earlier so that I'd be hanging out with older people. Or maybe I should just start hanging out with some older people before then.

But now I realize there was a lot more to it than being able to tell a friend that being seven was so passe when she finally reached it months after I did. In high school, I might not have gotten the same scholarship opportunities that I got, because the graduating class ahead of mine had two very ambitious students that worked the system better than I would have thought possible, and I worked it pretty darn well. I might not have gone to Appalachian. That's a toss-up, depending on whether I would've been serious enough about my relationship with Casey to follow him to school, given that he and I even got together in the first place. Even if I had gone to ASU, I probably would not have ended up with a job in Winston. I know the guy they hired at the end of what would have been my graduating year, and I'm thinking he would've beaten me out for the job.

But the difference I think about most are the people. The people surrounding you make such a huge difference just by being a part of your life. They influence your decisions, both the daily ones of what movie you watch that night and the major ones, like where you go to college. Plus, I know some really amazing people, and I have to think that they are way better than anyone I would have met in the life of the Sandra that was born before the fifteenth of October. I look down my buddy list, and I can check all but a few as being people that I only know because I was born two weeks "too late."

Granted, I realize that I would simply have a different group of friends that I would probably like very much, but that's not the point. These are my friends, and I want to keep them. My grade school and high school set would be completely different. I would not have my college roommates, all my ex-coworkers, my friends from all those high school summer programs. And yes, I would still have college roommates and ex-coworkers and old high school buddies, but they would be a completely different set of people. And true, I'd never know the difference, but I look at those friends of mine, and I am nothing but relieved that I decided to hang out in the uterus for a couple more weeks.

Those are only the differences that are obvious. Things like where you went to college and where you get your first job, those are the major crossroads where it's clear to you that one path is very different from another. Differences like the fact that I wouldn't have gotten the chicken pox from that kid in my kindergarten class - who can tell how much or little effect that may have had on me? Everything affects everything, and it is only by a very long series of events and choices and chances that I have ended up as this person sitting where I sit. Ending up this girl right here was very unlikely, though just as likely as any of the billion other girls I could've turned out to be. So that alternate Sandra, that one who is two weeks older than I am, she may have my eyes and my mother's thighs, but she is somewhere completely different, and she is someone else.

All of this struck me hard while I was standing in Josh's kitchen, which I was only doing because I had been born two weeks too late. Otherwise I wouldn't be in Winston, I wouldn't know Josh. I wouldn't be standing in his kitchen, eating pancakes and bacon, unwinding from a long day of packaging installs, wearing that green shirt with those jeans, sporting those Buddy Holly glasses, and thinking about the importance of fifteen days, because I would be someone else. I asked him, "Did you know that if I had been born a couple of weeks earlier, we never would have met?" He flipped a pancake, shook his head and smiled at me as he answered, "That would have been tragic."

bad taste.

There's a vineyard a mere five miles from my apartment, one I've driven by but not officially visited. It's getting to be grape harvest time, and the vines are all laden with fruity burdens. Vineyards can be very pretty indeed, and rows upon rows of healthy green plants appeal to both my outdoorsy and my mathematical sides (look at all the straight lines - how pleasing!). So I thought I'd go down to the vineyard with my trusty camera and capture some memories of the 2005 growing season.

I'd been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks, but finally got around to it Sunday afternoon. So I made the short drive, parked my car in the visitor lot and then trotted the dozen or so yards to the vineyards. I didn't even have to hop a fence. I was meandering up and down the rows, taking pictures wherever I managed to find a break in the netting used to keep out the birds. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and this particular vineyard has a kind of rustic southern charm about it. I was tempted to eat a couple of the grapes, but I resisted, since I figured the owners of the vineyard might not like that so much. I even made a point to not even touch the vines or look as if I were doing so, so as not to even look like I might be eating the fruit. I'd been perusing the vines for maybe ten minutes when a voice called out behind me.

"Can I help you?"

That question can be such a loaded one. If I'd gone up to a vineyard employee or if I'd been obviously looking confused, then asking me if I needed assistance would have been very helpful and proper. But when I'm clearly not seeking help of any kind, asking me if I need it is only telling me that you think that I do need it. I'm always confused as to how to answer it in these situations. The answer is no, but people don't seem to care for that response. But seeing as I haven't yet found a better one, I still go for that one.

"No. Thank you." I try to tack on the thanks so as not to appear rude. I also explained to the man that I was just walking around and taking pictures, even going so far as to compliment the beauty of the vines for good measure, because I was getting the impression that I was in trouble. The man went into an extended lecture about pesticides and liability. He told me that if someone wishes to explore the vineyards, the person should first come to the sales room and ask permission, so that they can receive the pesticide and liability lecture in advance. That all made good sense, and honestly I felt a little foolish for not thinking of that myself, so I apologized very nicely and promised both not to eat the grapes and to ask permission next time. He seemed to want to say something more, but instead just unsmilingly accepted my apologies and walked back towards the sales room. I got the impression that he had more lecture planned, as if he expected me to resist or argue.

I continued my wandering tour, but found the temperature to be a little much after a few minutes. So I found a shady spot under a tree at the edge of the vineyard, sat down, and pulled out a notebook to write awhile. I was a little grumpy from my encounter with the old man, not because I didn't understand why I had been lectured, but because of his seeming lack of acceptance of my apology. I had said I was sorry and I had been very nice about it, so if there was nothing more, why hadn't he just smiled and let it go? I idly considered some amusing forms of payback, some of them more clever (buying a bunch of table grapes, hiding the bag, and eating them in full view) than others (taking a picture of my extended middle finger).

After another quarter hour, a shiny silver Mercedes drove up and stopped right on the other side of the fence from my shady spot. A woman with platinum hair got out, and there was that question again:

"Can I help you?"

I was really confused now, because the tone was very angry. What kind of place is it that customer service representatives agressively seek out people to help and then yell at them?

"No." I was so confused that I forgot to thank her for her very unfriendly offer.

"Excuse me?" This woman apparently really wanted to help me.

"No, uh, thank you?" Now I was just asking what the right answer was. Apparently, mine wasn't it, as she began a long tirade, very similar to the one I'd just heard, but in a much angrier voice. I was still very confused, but my righteous indigation did not kick in and I did not interrupt until she got to the phrase "refused to leave." I informed her that I had not been asked to leave, so I could have hardly refused it. The statement seemed to take the wind out of her sails, an unforeseen ad-lib in her thoroughly prepared script, like when you prove to a telemarketer that you're already getting a better rate.

Regardless of whether I'd been asked to leave before, I was clearly being asked to leave now. Not content to let me walk through the vineyard back to my car, the woman told me that she would drive me back. Also, she wanted to talk about pesticides and liability some more. When we crossed into the parking lot, she suddenly seemed to realize that I was a member of the grand class of consumers and decided to make nice. She said, "You're still more than welcome to come into our sales room and try some wines. I just don't want you to just leave with a bad taste in your mouth." I thanked her, resisting the urge to say, "Well, I hardly think tasting your wine is going to help that."

I perused the sales and tasting room for a few minutes. I considered buying something to show that I held no hard feelings, but that would have been dishonest, since I was holding some hard feelings. I didn't even partake in a free tasting. The old man who had originally lectured me was giving a tasting, and he asked me if I'd gotten all the pictures I'd wanted. After the required five minutes of browsing, I headed for the door, pausing once more to apologize for the misunderstanding to the Mercedes lady. She was all smiles now, but it was clear that she just wanted to get me out of there, particularly since I was obviously not buying.

Sales room or no, I left with a rotten taste in my mouth, and judging from the salt content, it wasn't just because of my sweat. I was grumpy and pouty. I have a fear of consequences anyway, and when they are doled to me unfairly, I get unpleasant. I tried to make light of it to myself: I'd just gotten kicked out of a vineyard, and I'm not the kind of girl who gets kicked out of anywhere. I realized that in few years time, I'd find the whole story pretty amusing.

But not yet.

over my left shoulder.

Thing 1: "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Last night, I went to see Revenge of the Sith at the two buck theatre with Josh. So now I've completed my Star Wars education, having seen all six movies (it should be noted that I'd had a couple of drinks while watching The Phantom Menace, so I really couldn't tell you what happened, but whatever). I have seen so many hands get cut off by light sabers, it is ridiculous. I dunno, the movie was okay. Everyone's lost faith in this new trilogy that's come out. And while they were fine, they weren't of the caliber of the originals. But let's face it, it would be very difficult to achieve that kind of greatness. The special effects, by the way, were amazing. But maybe next time, spend a little more time on the script, okay? Oh, and someone please tell Samuel L. Jackson that Jedi Knights do not strut.

Thing 2: A crick is more than just a little river.
Apologies for the heading - my roots are showing. Somewhere along the timeline of Wednesday, I developed a crick in my neck on the left side. I can only hope that somewhere along the timeline of some future day, I will develop an absence of a crick in my neck. I've never had a crick that a night's sleep didn't cure, so I'm finding this one unpleasant in its staying power. It's not so bad, but the worst is when I'm driving and I would like to change lanes, so I check my blind spot. Or rather, I turn my head to check my blind spot, feel a sharp pain, make a pathetic little whine, and then pout and change lanes at the same time. Also, it was very difficult to lean over and make snarky comments to Josh during the movie last night because he was sitting on the injured side. However, being a devoted snarky comment professional, I did not let a minor injury keep me out of the game. I'm sure the other movie patrons were relieved.

I looked up home remedies. One was some sort of stretching thing that I must not be doing correctly. It doesn't help and I just look stupid. Another was to apply heat. So I tore my apartment up last night looking for this Christmas gift I'd gotten a couple of years ago and not used. It's not that I did not appreciate the gift, I just hadn't had cause to use it yet. It was a homemade heating pad, a pink fabric bag with three segments full of rice. Throw it in the microwave, heat for a couple of minutes, and BAM! Hot rice in a bag. Now that I have finally used it, I can say that it works marvelously, and that my crick situation is improving. My one complaint is that it makes me smell as if I've been necking with Uncle Ben.

Thing 3: What do athiests say when they're glad the week is over?
I don't know when I became one of those "Thank God It's Friday" kind of people, but I am now. It probably happened about the time that I stopped having to wait tables, and weekends actually became time off for me. In any case, Amen. It's been a long week spent reading transmission protocol specifications, which is just as exciting as it sounds. If only J.K. Rowling wrote those, my job would be much easier. Even having had a better than usual beer-thirty afternoon yesterday, I'm glad to embrace the weekend and not look back at this week. Particularly not over my left shoulder.

beer-thirty.

At The Bistro, I learned the hard way that if you don't go to the first social function to which you are invited by your coworkers, you will not be invited again (with the exception of company-wide shindigs, in which case everybody, even that weird kid who only works on Thursdays and always wears that same shirt, is invited). At Vintner's, I learned the hard way that if you don't work night shifts, you will not be included in any post-night-shift shennanigans. At Winn-Dixie, I learned the hard way that if you don't go to the same high school as everybody else, no one will talk to you, and the baggers will ignore you even when you are neck deep in baby food jars.

I'm beginning to doubt my own social skills.

The social scheme here in the real world is very different. For one thing, these people are bona-fide adults. While adults can still be petty and immature (and frequently are), they have the sense to do it privately. So basically all invitations are extended to everyone on the same employment level (meaning we don't invite the higher-ups or the intern). For another thing, I'm the only female employee under the age of thirty. Youth is very valuable, and they like a girl who can talk back to the men. So yeah, I get invited.

Post-work gatherings are different here in a lot of other ways. For one thing, they're not held every night in attempts to drink away every cent made during the day. They're generally more once a month or biweekly events. Remember, these fellas have to call and get permission to have beer with the boys (and the girl) from the little woman. Also, the events last maybe an hour or an hour and a half. None of this out til dawn mess. They're more of an out til dusk crowd, and sometimes not even that late during daylight savings time.

So we all head out in a giddy we-are-leaving-the-office convoy and head out to the pre-approved watering hole. Sometimes First Street Draught House, sometimes Lucky 32, sometimes Fox and the Hound. Never the kind of sketch dive bars college-age waiters would frequent. We go to clean places and we take our white collars with us. We talk about the coworkers who aren't there, what our weekend plans are, whatever home improvement topics we're working on, and what we'd be doing if we weren't being computer programmers. If the waitress is a pretty lady, we talk about that, too. If the waiter is an attractive man, well, we never talk about that, but I think about it privately while the guys talk about home improvement.

Sometimes we plan these things a week in advance. Sometimes it's decided that afternoon, as the day drags on and we find ourselves buried under documents and processes and code. You alert the right people, and the information spreads like SARS across the office: beer-thirty this afternoon. Beer-thirty is the understood password that means we're going out for a beer after work. Beer-thirty is the time, because the joke is that it's always beer-thirty. And it's always beer; these guys don't have cocktail or wine habits.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun, and sometimes things are a bit dull. It varies depending on how much the boys want to talk about woodworking or landscaping or football or other things I'm not even vaguely interested in. But hey, free beer, because one or two guys usually pick up the tab for everyone, and I'm a girl, so I never have to. There are some sexist double standards that I'm willing to hold onto. In any case, I go when I can because I've finally figured out that your work social life is important, whether you want someone to help you bag baby food or figure out some algorithm. You could probably suck pretty hard at your job, but if everybody liked you, you might get by. Of course, I'd rather be competent and well-liked, but we can't have everything, now can we?

improving my aim.

I use Gmail for my personal email (and if any of you would like to do the same, let me know and I'll send an invite your way; I've got about 50). There are a lot of features that I like about Gmail, the ridiculous amount of space I have being one of them. I was used to Hotmail, where if I didn't check my email every two hours and delete all the spam, I was in danger of going over my space limit. At Gmail, I'm using fifteen times as much space as I had in the old Hotmail, but the bottom of my inbox states "You are currently using 1% of your 2432 MB." That's good stuff.

Anyway, Gmail also has these sponsored links that show up on the right toolbar of each email. I assume these are powered by Google, because there's obviously some sort of search mechanism that relates the ads that appear to whatever email you're looking at (again, as opposed to Hotmail, which seemed to think that all my correspondence is related to meeting blonds or getting in touch with people from high school). I suppose Google goes by keywords in the email. I've gotten in the habit of checking the sponsored links, just because it's sort of interesting to see what Google has deemed relevant in my email. For example, I got an email from a friend a week or so ago that was just sort of all over the place, and there were links for Italian food, Muppet memorabilia, and luncheon meat. I got an email from an old roommate about her new apartment, and the links were about finding roommates, finding apartments, and, inexplicably, expatriating to Brussels. Today, I got an email from my sister-in-law regarding the recent change in my relationship status. These were the links that appeared beside her email:

Overcome Breaking Up
Powerful subliminal methods. We'll get you through this.
www.innergear.com

I Used to Miss Him
But My Aim is Improving: Not Your Ordinary Breakup Survival Guide
www.improveyouraim.com

Relationships
Find Highly compatible Matches Get A Free Compatibility Profile.
www.PerfectMatch.com

I like how the links tell a story. Notice how they go through the stages of a breakup: depression, bitterness, and moving on.

I'd kind of like to experiment with this feature. If someone sends you an email with about three letter X's in a row, do you get porn advertisements? Of course, if you mention any sort of product, I imagine that makes Google's job really easy, but what about more abstract concepts, like numbers or gravity or sarcasm? And do those ads even serve the purpose of attracting site visitors? I read somewhere that an obscenely large percentage of the population couldn't tell the difference between a search result and a sponsored link (The big hint for me is the heading "SPONSORED LINKS"). So maybe people think it's part of the email, as if they happen to be friends with a lot of marketing people.

It's kind of creepy, both the ubiquity of ads and the fact that Google is "reading" my email. But most email providers do that anyway, if nothing else for spam-blocking. So maybe you might not even get your email with all those letter X's, because it's been sent to the spam can.

But enough. I've apparently got better things to do, according to Google. I've got to move to Brussels, buy some salami, and practice my aim. Maybe not in that order.

throwing silence to the wind.

I was just sitting here thinking about Mrs. Hartso. And I wanted to tell the goofy little story about Mrs. Hartso, but there just wasn't enough for a full entry. So it's Substitute Teacher time, Three Things Style.

Thing 1: Mrs. Woodring
I never had a very flattering view of Mrs. Woodring's intelligence. Maybe I always figured that the reason she wasn't a full-fledged teacher was because she couldn't get into full-fledged teacher school. She was the standard substitute; in elementary school, I probably had her more than any other sub. But the thing that drove me nuts about her was the way she pronounced "apostrophe." And it seemed like every time she taught us, we had to learn something about contractions or possessive nouns. I'd like to find her now, give her a good shake, and ask her, "What in heaven's name is an 'a-pos-ta-pee?'" Come to think of it, I think she said "li-berry" too.
Now I'm wondering just what kind of weird, anal-retentive ten-year-old I was to be bothered by this so much. Perhaps the kind that grows into a weird, anal-retentive twenty-two-year-old.

Thing 2: Mrs. White
In the observatory. With the candlestick.

No, no. Mrs. White was a perfectly normal lady with a penchant for leopard print up until about seventh period one day during my eighth grade year. Then she became a completely absent lady with a penchant for leopard print. She just left in the middle of the day. I'm not even sure why. We hadn't been terrorizing her at all. It had just been normal science class with us sitting there nicely doing busy work. There might have been some friendly banter with the jocks. The ironic thing was that she left (crying, by the way) right before the advanced class came in, which probably would have been cake for her. Silly lady. She probably wasn't a full-fledged teacher because she couldn't hack it in full-fledged teacher school.

I tell this story a couple different ways depending on the audience. Sometimes it's the more accurate crazy lady story. Other times, it's more like "Once, my class made a substitute teacher cry and leave before the school day was out." Everyone is always very impressed.

Thing 3: Mrs. Hartso
Ah, the inspiration for this whole entry. I only had the Mrs. Hartso experience a couple of times in middle school. She was an old, squat woman with a cheeky mouth that comes from years of raising/teaching children in the South. She used to tell us that she was a hundred years old. She was probably more like seventy. She liked me because she knew my dad and liked him. So she'd get up close to me to talk in conspiratorial tones, all the while spitting on my face with every word.

You didn't mess with Mrs. Hartso, because she came from a time when children were meant to be beaten and not heard. We were too young to logically come to the conclusion that she couldn't legally take us over her knee and light a fire on our hides, so we minded her. Not that she ever actually threatened to do that, but the threat was somehow implied by her nature.

But the thing I will always remember about Mrs. Hartso was when she made us write sentences. We were apparently being loud as a class, and so she decided that we would write a sentence one hundred times as punishment. She wrote the sentence on the board.

"Silence is the best policy."

What? No. Silence is golden. Honesty is the best policy. Of course, I could hardly argue with her, seeing as she thought silence was the best policy. I really wanted to, because I still believed that it was honesty. I can't figure why she didn't go with "Silence is golden," except that maybe she thought we deserved a longer sentence. But if she was going to abandon sense and just go for length, she should have gone all out with something like "Silence in the hand is worth two birds in the bush" or maybe "Early to bed, early to rise, and shutting the heck up makes a man healthy, wealthy, wise, and silent."

In any case, I do enjoy using Mrs. Hartso's example from time to time for silliness. You can say anything is the best policy, and no one can argue with you, because you sound very wise. I told my coworker today that caution was the best policy. He started mumbling something or other about throwing caution to the wind, but that can't be right, because caution is the best policy. It's also golden.

english letters.

My parents are in Israel. Yes, my mother, age 63, and my father, age 70, are in Israel. Even better, my mother, the rural mail carrier, and my father, the retired teacher, are in Israel participating in an archaeological dig. Things like that are what keep me from worrying that I can't write fiction. I got a message this morning from my mother, the rural mail carrier, age 63, all the way from Israel.

Hi
Posted on 7.21.2005 9:13 AM
I wrote down the exact addresses of special sites I wanted to visit while in Israel. It is so good to read your blog sitting in a foreign country. This computer has English letters like a regular keyboard, but also Hebrew letters.
Love ya,
MOM

I could just picture Mama, sitting in the holy lands, having a cup of kosher coffee and logging onto my journal. I smiled, because the note was from the other side of the world and was still just so very Mama, even down to the all-caps signature. And then I wondered what other sites she wrote down to visit. The Drudge Report? Her stock portfolio? Her hometown weather (just to remind herself of home)?

I never know how to explain why my parents go on trips, even when I used to go with them. "Because we want to" never seems to be an acceptable reason to most people. People thought we were nuts when we went to Australia and New Zealand. Apparently, it's perfectly reasonable to go to Myrtle Beach because you want to, but not the Southern Hemisphere. Okay, so my folks had a good reason to go to China a couple years ago (baby-fetchin'), but even still, why would someone ask for a reason to travel somewhere new and exciting and foreign? When a person asks why we go to Kansas, I understand. Kansas is rumored to be flat and boring and only my loyalty to my family's history will keep me from agreeing. But Australia? Not flat! Or boring!

But anyway, my parents are in Israel. It was Daddy's idea. First he was going to go by himself, and then Mama signed up. Depending on which parent you ask, she either signed up because she couldn't stand be without him or because she didn't trust him to be by himself in a foreign land. I was invited, and maybe I should have gone. For some reason, spending hours digging in the desert sun didn't strike me as my ideal vacation. But now I think, man, Sandra, when are you ever going to get another chance to go dig in the desert sun?

My camera, however, did go to Israel. That's even how I described the situation last Friday after my camera left my clingy little hands. "Well, my camera has gone to Israel. Oh, and my parents went with it, too." I didn't even know my camera was Jewish. Mama wanted a camera, but she didn't decide on this desire until a week before their flight out of the country, and that is not enough time for a practical person to make a major purchase. So she asked to borrow mine. Knowing how I feel about lending things, she even said that she wouldn't be offended if I said no. But even so, there was this subtext of "I gave you life, and you can't lend me a stupid gadget for two weeks?"

So my camera went to Israel. Worst case scenario: even if she loses it and she has to buy me a new one, I will forever be able to say that I lost my first camera when my mother dropped it in the Dead Sea or flung it against the Wailing Wall. And then, I'll have to explain why my camera was in Israel, and subsequently why parents were in Israel.

Because they wanted to be.

curtis dessertis.

I think for a long time that I thought "Dessert" was Curt's last name. Curt Dessert is what I called him, because that's what the desserts he made rang up as on our computer system at Vintner's. I called him Curtis Dessertis if I was feeling scientific.

Curt started working at Vintner's a couple of months after I did. He was our in-house pastry chef. He was a bit overweight and losing his hair though only in his late twenties, but he had this great boyish grin. And he made the best desserts, and was generous in letting the staff sample them. The desserts had french names that I could never spell and could barely pronounce, but I could taste them, and they were wonderful. Curt made me fall in love with creme brulee, and his cheesecake is still the best I have ever tasted. All the servers looked forward to brownie-cutting day with a passion, because there were always end pieces waiting to be gobbled up, and if there is anything servers ever did well at Vintner's, it was eat.

But Curt also had to make these creme horns. The pastry chef before him made them, and possibly the pastry chef before her. Who knows where those stupid creme horns came from, but Curt hated making them and they sold better than anything else he ever made. They were cheap, and people would walk in the door and order a dozen of them to go. I never understood it. Why would they want those creme horns, when the filling was far too rich, when they could have a big creamy slice of delicate cheesecake?

Curt had a crush on every girl that ever worked at Vintner's. No, I'm exaggerrating. Curt had a crush on every girl that ever worked at Vintner's while he was there. He was the kind of guy that would hit on you as a joke, secretly trying to test the waters. To say that he liked all the girls is misleading of his character. He was not a pervert. I like to think that Curt was just really good at finding the beauty in any girl, and he loved us all for our different beauties, however hidden or obvious they were. He liked girls for qualities they didn't know they had, and for the ones they were most proud of but thought that no one ever noticed.

I was decorating a plate with a colored syrups once to put a piece of cake on it. I never really got the knack for plate presentation, and Curt used to make fun of my vain attempts at syrup art. I got particularly frustrated that day, finally just taking all the colors and wildly squirting them around. I sighed, defeated, and said, "It looks like Jackson Pollock decorated this plate." Curt looked at the plate, looked at me, and said, "That's why I love you. No one but you would ever say something like that." Curt knew I had a boyfriend that I was pretty attached to, so he knew we were just friends.

Curt and I were two of longest-working employees I ever knew to work at Vintner's. People rarely last over six months, much less over a year. So we knew each other fairly well, and would tease and pick at each other a lot. And whenever I ran out of comebacks, I told him that we were out of creme horns. He would usually just flip me the bird at that point, which I took to mean that I had won.

In the last few months that Vintner's was open, I saw Curt less and less. When I did see him, he was in a foul mood. As great of a guy that Curt is, I knew to steer clear of his bad moods. Curt hated working there. He hated the way the place was managed, he hated the hours, he hated having to make creme horns all the time when his talent would allow so much more. He was rotting there.

So he left about a month before the restaurant closed anyway. For the last few weeks, we had another pastry chef named Sara Lee. She was good, but nowhere as good as Curt Dessert. Her pre-cut portions were smaller, her cheesecake wasn't nearly as creamy, and she didn't smile at you with that great boyish grin and tell you that you were gorgeous. But we never changed the computer menu, and we still rang them up as "Curt Dessert," which felt like lying all the time. But people never noticed that we never had tiramisu in a glass or triple layer chocolate mousse cake anymore. Fickle things, they just noticed that we never had creme horns.

west side.

"Hello, welcome to Backyard Burgers, may I take your order?"

"Yes, I'd like a Hawaiian Chicken combo, with-"

"Okay! One Hawaiian chicken combo! Yes, ma'am!"

"Um. Yeah. With seasoned fries and a Dr. Pepper with just a little bit of ice, please." He's enthusiastic.

"That's a Hawaiian chicken combo with seasoned fries and Dr. Pepper, light ice?"

"Yes, please." He's going to forget the light ice.

"Right away! Your ta-zotal is $5.59 at the first window!"

"Um. Thank you." Did he just say ta-zotal?

(Drive Around)

"That's $5.59, please! Ma'am, are you laughing at me?"

"Yes." Busted.

"Why?"

"You are, uh, very enthusiastic about your job." Also, I'm pretty sure you said ta-zotal.

"Why, thank you. Hey, I like those earrings."

"Oh, thank you." Is he hitting on me? Hard to tell, these are some awesome earrings. Mudflap girls.

"I saw that girl once on a motorcycle. It was pretty cool."

"Oh, yeah?" He saw her once? Dude, it's the mudflap girl. He's hitting on me.

"So...do you go to West?"

... West? West what? I used to go to West Caldwell High School, but how would he know about that? That's an hour and a half away from here. Wait, does he mean West Forsyth High School?

"Um, no." West Forsyth High? High school? Is he kidding me?

"Oh."

... He thinks I'm dissing him now because I didn't tell him what high school I do go to.

...

... High school? Dude, I'm 22.

...

... Poor guy. He thinks he's been shot down.

"Here's your food, ma'am. Have a nice day."

"Thank you." I still got a way with the overweight high school drive-thru employees. Poor guy. I should say something, so he won't feel bad. I should explain that I didn't mean...that jerk, he forgot the light ice.

near and far.

Thing 1: Sexy Code!
In addition to my build master duties, I am actually doing something at work that I went to college to do. Yes, they let me write code now. And let me tell you, I've written some sexy code lately. I told Josh that I'd written sexy code, and he asked, "What does that even mean? Efficient?" Yes, that is what I meant, but then we started discussing possibilities of actual sexy code, like erotic novels for computers. I'm resisting the urge to reproduce some of the examples I came up with. The people who don't understand code wouldn't get them, and the people who did understand code would be appalled. Trust me, it was funny.

Thing 2: Up! Up! And away!
I bought a mass-produced shirt at a retail store. Tsk, I know. I rarely buy shirts like that, both for cost reasons and the fact that I don't want to be wearing the same thing as everyone else. This is particularly true for t-shirts with slogans on them. Usually by the time a slogan makes it to a t-shirt being sold at the mall, it's no longer clever, if it ever was. So a shirt has to be really good, and really on sale. I found a shirt at an outlet store featuring Super Grover. I can resist Elmo and Oscar and even the Cookie Monster. I might, if I were feeling particularly strong, could resist plain old Grover (unless he was featured doing that Near/Far thing, then it would be all over). But I can't resist Super Grover. I cannot resist an obscure character like that. Everyone knows Elmo or Oscar. But the people that can see my proud new shirt and go "Hey! Super Grover!", those people are my kindred spirits.

As a side note, I did a little searching to see if I could find a picture of my shirt online. No dice. I did, however, find a Guy Smiley shirt, and now I am just wrought with t-shirt desire.

Thing 3: Casey and I broke up.
And that's all I have to say about that.