Ringing Endorsement

"I like Obama because he doesn't use all them dictionary like words."
(NPR interview on All Things Considered, Feb. 27, 2008)

I'm sold!! Anyone who successfully runs a campaign without using words from the dictionary has my vote. I propose we institute The Jabberwocky Award for Excellence in Glossolalia (psst, your dictionary like word for the day - and you think you never learn anything here - you wound me).

Geek Conversations

Co-worker: I've always wondered why Rogue doesn't fly in the X-Men movies?
Me: Do you want to know?
Co-worker: Yes.
Me: Are you SURE you really want to know?
Co-worker: Tell me.

Twenty minutes later after covering both the history of Rogue in the X-Men and a smidge of the alternate universe the Age of Apocalypse, it turns out he really didn't want to know.

Y'know, you try to warn people you're a geek, but they never fully understand until you're midway through your highly animated and extremely insightful lecture on one of Marvel's most powerful mutants.

The Universe is Out to Get Me: And it's Eyeing You, Too!

Somewhere out there in the net is a beautiful post discussing the idea that the universe is inherently mean and is out to get you. Yes my friend, the universe has you in its sights and you’d better start running a little “z” pattern (which you really run not because it will help you escape the universe, but because it makes you feel better - and personally gives me a good laugh). If you combine this idea with karma (all the things you did in that past life that you can’t remember, but you’re sure if you could remember them, you’d get a good belly laugh), you’re essentially screwed. I’m pretty sure Murphy’s Law occasionally chimes in with helpful tips, too.

Now the universe is big. We can all agree on that one point even if we can’t agree on how it got here. It’s the kind of big that if you think about too much, you’re reminded about how insignificant you are and you end up slamming back handfuls of anti-anxiety and anti-depression meds with whiskey chasers – the next thing you know, you’re in a psych ward ranting “it’s HUGE!” while being strapped to a comfy metal framed bed by an attendant that wants to lick the side of your head (that’s what the movies tell me is in their job description). In other words, it’s better to think about how the universe revolves around you and not its actual size. (For the record, it’s a documented fact (I’m writing up the paperwork now) that it revolves around me, but if it will keep you from having to cry about your misspent childhood, we can say it’s “you” for now – it will help save on your insurance premiums. Just as long as we both understand that you’re wrong, we’re good.)

Fortunately for most us, we’ve managed to dodge the full lash of the universe. But you can’t help but feel on occasion that the universe is sizing you up. Maybe your life is going a little too smoothly and there’s that ominous sense of, “something bad is about to happen.” You know that feeling, that someone is watching and no one is there? That’s the unfeeling, unswerving eye of the universe being disdainful of your carefree smug attitude – the universe isn’t big on “happy-go-lucky” – and it’s not particularly fond of you missing your round, so it’s about to say “you’re up!”

My proof - just pick up the paper any day of the week and you’ll see the universe’s “hand” in everything. As long as you stay out of the paper (which the universe occasionally uses as a scorecard - like notches on a belt), you're probably good (avoid police blotters, too). Just think of it as running a "Z".

I Can Has Cheezburger

Somedays, I need a little I Can Has Cheezburger pick-me-up.

From their archives...

Everything Happens for a Reason

WARNING: Yes, every now and again you get an actual warning before a post because I can feel something very un-ladylike is about to spew forth from my fingers – it’s when my writing becomes less whatever it is and more about channeling Louis Black. In other words, I’m ANGRY and on the edge of becoming completely unable to monitor my language.

“Everything happens for a reason.” I don’t subscribe to this “theory”. There’s not some big master design where every little snowflake impacts the universe. I’m more the kind that thinks snowflakes happen because the conditions are right – a realist. That little flake didn’t fall on my nose to remind it was cold outside, to make me value nature more or remember the value of a good coat – it hit that spot because my honker was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that flake could have taken out an eye if I’d been in the wrong spot. The only theory I occasionally subscribe to is the one that declares the universe has a personal vendetta against me. I don’t know what I personally did to piss the universe off, but it’s gunning for me. Forget all the times when things are going right and I forget about the universe – that’s when it’s trying to lull me into thinking it’s safe to be outside again – and damn if I don’t fall for it every single time.

So, let’s back up a bit.

I’m at home. I’m at home on a work day. Why? It’s not that I don’t like being at home, but I was enjoying accruing leave. It’s because I can’t drive to work today. I can’t drive to work today because I don’t have a car and I need to spend the day chatting up insurance people. But thank GOD the woman who slammed into the back of it last night felt like “everything happens for a reason” and expressed that. She’s very lucky that I’m a calm person, because I just stared at her while thinking, “oh, is that reason that you’re a moron? Is that reason that you don’t understand that red lights and a series of brake lights means WE’RE NOT MOVING FORWARD MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T EITHER?”

Everything in my car flew forward – my glasses, everything in the little trays and the birthday cake my aunt saved for Jay. I hit the person in front of me (who hopped out, looked at his fender and then sped off). Then there was the sobbing mess of a person behind me and she had every right to be – her car was completely totaled with steam coming out and bits of car all over the road. Whereas, my car had a flapping bumper and a dislodged tail pipe. Let me say real quick “go little Honda Civic coups”.

I called the police and the response time was an amazing 15-20 minutes so I got to know the driver. She called every person she knew and declared through heavy sobbing, “I’ve been in a wreck, I’m going to jail.” Why? Well, a few phone calls later, “I’ve been drinking…” Of course you have. She’d just been off work for 9 days with pneumonia, her mode of transportation was destroyed and she was in the dead center of a personal meltdown. “My life is over.” Every few minutes she’d come hang on me to let me know it was her fault. “No, no, it was mine. I shouldn’t have been born and this whole ugly thing could have been avoided. I shouldn’t have left the house. I shouldn’t have been in front of you. My bad.” Then there was the whole “I have no defense” which in 40 degrees without a coat, in traffic and waiting on the police sounds just like “I have no insurance”. I just stared blankly. Of course you don’t. Just a quick note, I’m not your go-to girl when you’ve just trashed my precious car and most of you know how I love my car.

Fortunately, Kendra was two cars in front of me, heard the wreck, went up a block to see if I’d pass and then came back when I didn’t. She doesn’t blog, so you won’t get to read about what my meltdown looked like. Kendra had to clarify the whole “insurance” “defense” mix-up later.

The police came, information was exchanged, the woman wanted to hug on me more (bad in almost any situation, but REALLY bad when you’ve trashed my precious) and I failed to get the car home. Seems that bits flew off at Kendra as we were driving down the road and the bumper was waving around like mad – threatening all behind it.

The car is now sitting in a parking lot waiting for me to figure out what the hell I’m doing today. I really hate dealing with crap like this. I hate that I’m going to be stuck on the phone telling this story over and over and over again to some drone. I hate that my precious is going to a body shop and I’m really trying hard not to get into a serious funk over accidents and my cars, because when I start the whole “I was never meant to own anything nice or anything good” people get twitchy and feel like they need to convince me that isn’t so despite all of the obvious proof. If “everything happens for a reason”, then it’s for that reason alone.

Valentine's Day

So, I'm a day late, but yesterday I was sugaring up on Lindt chocolate (only to regret it later) and I couldn't possibly focus on posting while chocolate was sitting on my desk staring me down. (It never blinks. Why doesn't it blink?!?!)

I spent some part of the day making mental lists of all of my favorite romantic things and thought to myself, I should share (oh sure, you're thinking please don't, but Valentine's Day is about sharing... just like Christmas and Groundhog's Day and most any other day of the week I feel like posting something).

I flipped through my copy of The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Vol. 2 trying to remember a specific poem by Yeats that I always enjoyed, which actually began as a search on Google, a trip to Wikipedia, some chocolate, a grand "AH HAH! Yeats" moment and finally the book came into play. The poem is titled "Adam's Curse" and I think that what I like most about it is the story behind it - the story reflects a moment in Yeats' life and his longing for the Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. And with that, an excerpt form the last two stanzas:

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

W.B. Yeats - 1902,1903

As I made my lists, I had to come to terms with the fact that while I lodge my eyes into the back of my skull when it comes to romance novels, I have to admit I'm a complete and total weak-kneed sucker for Gothic Romances. Give me my Jane Eyre, my Wuthering Heights or some Pride and Prejudice and please pass the tissue because I'll be snorting and blubbering by the last sentence. I completely blame my high school English teachers, because up until then I was all about Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land and other titles you wouldn't recognize unless you avidly trolled the shelves for pulp science fiction/fantasy. I suspect that Seth, having had the same teachers in school, is the exact same way judging by his writing (thankfully, I don't live close by and I like to think he's a pacifist - or at least wouldn't hurt a girl with glasses).

In fact, my love of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series started with The Eyre Affair simply because I wanted to be back with Jayne and Rochester one more time. I wanted to hear their voices again even if it meant they didn't come directly from Charlotte Brontë's pen - it was enough that the words were in her style. (Yes, my friends... that's what started me on those books. The ugly truth is out.)

So, those are obviously my Valentine's Day picks for books.

Movies: Well, of course it would have to be "Sense and Sensibility" and yes, I do cry at the end every single time (I cry every time I see "Beaches", too for the record). When it comes to movies, another guilty pleasure of mine is romantic comedies. The experience is even more perfect if it's with my cousin, Kim - she's the only person I know who reacts in the same way as I do. I'd share, but you all are my serious-minded friends and with you I like to sit as stoically as possible in the theater and pretend I'll have something intelligent to say at the end like "Did you know that Bumblebee was actually a Volkswagen Beetle in the Transformers cartoon?" "Oh, indeed indeed and Megatron was a machine gun" "Coffee?" "Let's!" (I am the embodiment of sophistication. And hopefully one of my Transformer friends won't smite me for goofing that up. I mean, I think I got it right.)
EDIT: Well, I got busted. Jay says Megatron was a pistol and more specifically a Walther P38, a WWII German service pistol. Who knew? Well, aside from Jay? and you?

Music: Well, you really can never go wrong with the Beatles and "I Will". In fact, I sang that to myself all day yesterday. Jay, not being a Beatles fan, lucked out in that I didn't sing it loudly at him. "I've Just Seen a Face" - again, the Beatles, is also timeless. They just have a way of singing the word "girl" that makes me all gushy. Blame my aunts who came of age in the 70's and were my babysitters.

TV: Well, I'm not a big fan of sit-coms so finding a show that depicts a strong relationship that doesn't leave me bemused and uttering snarky remarks is hard - so I'll go with my favorite love story arc - from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (yeah, yeah - shush) - Willow and Tara. I really didn't like this arc at first, it seemed awkward and forced and made me uncomfortable, but by the time the character's relationship ultimately ended, it was hard for me to let it go. Just thinking of one of the lines from the show "she still sings to you" chokes me up. Truly, it's one of Josh Whedon's finer writing moments.

There you have it - not a story today, but a simple list of a few of my favorite Valentine's things (and of course... Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...)

My love to you all this day and every day and especially to Jay, my best-friend and favorite co-conspirator.

Blog Housekeeping Notes

Hi all! I'm about two whole minutes from slumping over in my chair for no real good reason - lack of oxygen, lack of iron, Sam slobbered all over my pillow and left big gross soppy wet spots on it leaving me with an untested pillow, plus it's like what... the crack of 7pm. It's practically bed time and I still have things to do.

How that affects you? It doesn't. Well, it does mean I'm not proof reading because the screen is one black and white blur (I wish I were exaggerating - but let's all take a moment to thank my typing teacher for teaching me how to type blind).

Right... Housekeeping - seems I just titled my entry that, so I should probably make some reference to it. Some time ago I tried to update the template on this thing and I blew it. You may not have even noticed, but yesterday someone clicked on one of my links and the blog stats showed me where it sent them and I said WTH? (that's an acronym for: "oh my goodness" - which is a nicer acronym than one that's very similar which loosely translates to a more powerful "oh my stars and garters" - now you know what Hank McCoy really meant (yes, a shout out in this tired state to my geekiest readers)). I have since fixed that. So, if you're the one who clicked The Daily Coyoyte link and received an error, well... that's all fixed. You can also now see the other website I thought I posted. Right, lesson learned - next time I'll verify the changes.

Housekeeping 2
You might have attempted to get to my site over the last week and noticed it was down. You can thank people who write spam scripts for that. They broke my site by attacking the Guestbook. The Guestbook is now disabled, which of course caused me to have a big ugly fit that I acted out the entire day. Hrmm... could be why I'm tired; it was a really BIG, blood vessel popping fit.

See, spammers and virus writers that impact my life and make me cranky enough that I'm about to drop at 7 pm (because I'm the angriest person you've ever met; I was just raised to be impossibly polite and quiet) always put me in the mood to rant about judicial canings administered on the White House lawn and broadcast for the world as a warning. I'd like their pasty white hides dragged out of their momma's basement so they can be swatted like they were four years old before a national audience. I'd broadcast it on Fox, because that some how feels like the appropriate network. (Now, if I were a good blogger, I'd find the little blog I wrote about canings and have a link, but have I mentioned I'm tired?) This is all because I have to make changes to my site thanks to some (errr... I'm sure there's a good acronym that would work here, but I don't know it - anyway) ... some pasty white dork living in some third world country or just next door preventing me from enjoying my 14 little comments that make my day (like when I'm having a day that ends with people being harmed to set an example for all annoying little script writing spammers). And while I can still see the guestbook, I can never look forward to more than those 14 without making changes to the site and that really pisses me off. I suppose I've calmed down enough that we can forego removing the first joint of their pinkies, but I'm still sticking to having a Vin Diesel type poke them in the chest repeatedly with his big meaty index finger - maybe flipping up the bills of their hats - because they're probably those annoying little guys with their hats cocked to the side and those baggy pants. Of course, if the above offends you in any way, then I'm just kidding. Really. Spammers are just misunderstood and should be hugged. Maybe someone in the world would really like 200 postings about "male enhancement" aids and I'm just a bitter penis hater. Who am I to deprive them of future spam.

Right... to bed with me.

Value

A recent headline read “Nurse and Social Worker Among the Dead” and I had to wonder if I was supposed to be more upset because it was a nurse and a social worker versus a burger girl at the mall. Personally, if it were a place I frequented, I think I’d notice and miss the burger girl the most – the way she always made the correct change, the special way she undercooked my burger every single time and other little things like how she could never remember to throw a straw into my bag, but she could always manage a smile.

Is each life of equal value? If you ask your parents, your relatives or your friends, they’ll typically answer yes without thinking. (Assuming, you have a good relationship.). Sure, you may not be their favorite – they may love your brother more, their kids more, the mailman more, but you’re in there somewhere – and we are talking about a “life” being of equal value, not whether you’re better than everyone else at being on time to Thanksgiving. Still, your life, your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, and the memories you share probably matter more to these people than say the CEO of Frost Bank – so to them, you are equally as important, if not more so than an oil tycoons or a fallen celebrity.

We desperately want and need to believe that in this world, we are some how important – whether it’s to an individual or to a community. However, when we turn on the news there’s the ugly reminder that in a broader since we are not meaningful at all. When tragedy strikes, the death roles list people by their color, their status, their job and their gender (all of the little discriminatory distinctions we fought so hard against for centuries come screaming through the speakers on our TV to remind us we’re not exactly a “melting pot”) you even get bonus points if you’re a single parent whose kids are heading straight to the orphanage once the film crew stops shooting their sad little urchin faces. And then there’s you - what’s left over because you didn’t cut the mustard – you didn’t run for cheerleader of your neighborhood – you were single, poured tar into potholes – and while we all say that’s important and noble, you weren’t a nurse… you weren’t a social worker – you were a blue collar faceless nothing according to the reporter. Your entire family could be standing in the background, their hearts breaking, but because of who you were, the best you might get is your name thrown in as an afterthought.

It reminds me of the time I was in a malfunctioning elevator so many years ago. All I could think as it jerked and bumped and occasionally stalled out for no reason was – if this elevator plummets to the ground – the one carrying Lady Bird Johnson, her daughter Lucy, Jake Pickle (a former Congressman from my district) and I– the world would not lament a lowly non-profit membership director who happened to cushion the fall of Mrs. Johnson in her final moments. I would be remembered and reported as the unimportant splat in the elevator shaft – a whimsical footnote in a tragic story.

Every person is equally valuable. And while some lives are valued by individuals more than others, they’re not less valuable as a whole. So, let’s stop reporting them as if they are. If you have to say “a nurse”, then also say “the doorman on 5th Avenue who smiled every single morning as if he never had a bad day” or “the lady next door who was mostly a shut-in, but came out once a day to tend her rose garden” or even “the guy who always stood on the corner who could never seem to make ends meet.” They’re just as important. They’re just a valuable. What we do for a living makes up only a small part of who we are and in my mind doesn’t make us more or less valuable as a person.

Although, truth be told, I’ll still probably miss the waitress more.