I pulled up to the Starbucks near my office this morning and was momentarily jarred by the sight of a uniformed police officer, standing on the roof. Oh my God, I thought, there's some kind of terror incident at the Starbucks! This notion flared through my mind pretty much simultaneously with But will I be ABLE to get my coffee?!? Because if there are no mochas, Al Qaeda has won.
I was much relieved to discover that the local police department had simply organized a breast-cancer research fundraiser. Officer Rooftop was actually dangling a plastic bucket full of bills and change from a fishing pole; other volunteers flapped signs below, around his merrily-yellow-tape-bedecked cruiser. Whew, and yaay! coffee! (and yaay, boobies, of course). Once caffienated, I happily threw a fiver in the pot, and called up to the cop about my initial alarm, which made him laugh.
"Yeah, right now this is the SAFEST one," he noted. Arguably true, though he had pulled his stepladder up there with him and I'm not sure how fast he might have been able to fling himself down and tackle a perp from on high.
It was very entertaining, however, to listen to Officer Rooftop use his loudspeaker to chastise other customers in the parking lot. *krrrk* Don't walk in the middle of the street, sir. *krrshk* --as jaywalkers flinched and looked around wildly. That's right, buddy, move it along, on orders of Officer GOD, who can totally see you.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Commitment
It's perhaps common knowledge that the tech industry, NerdCo not excepted, has a distinctly lackadaisical dress code. "Business casual" dips to new lows round these parts; we have a few folks who are sharply turned out, and probably an equal number who can scarcely be bothered to put on shoes (which, EW, because a) stop tracking your toejam cooties through the common KITCHEN, and b) you don't know what I or ANYONE ELSE has tracked in on OUR shoes). The vast majority of us fall in the middle, schlumping around in jeans and one or another of the free NerdCo t-shirts that rain from the heavens at regular intervals. One of my writers once complained, "I wish they would start handing out some NerdCo pants; then I'd have some complete, branded outfits!" NerdCo doesn't care as long as you show up, clad at all, and do the work...and I imagine that if even putting some damn clothes on bent your fragile little spirit too much and you complained to the right person, some sort of accommodations could be made.
Recently I and several editors from my group have been working with an editor from another team who happens to be a very dedicated goth girl. Like us, she scorns dangling modifiers and appreciates the unintended hilarity of a poor comma splice; she just happens to do so while wearing a black lace corset top, a hoop skirt, and pink fishnets. Goth Editor is serious, yo. She is very likeable. I can't help being deeply impressed and kind of fascinated by her, because the level of commitment and time investment her daily ensemble and makeup clearly requires is beyond my ken. If I achieve the "shirt/pants/nothing hanging out" trifecta, I'm good; if I've moisturized and actually blow-dried my hair, that's a bonus. I can't imagine--though I would much like to see--Goth Editor trying to get 12 black crinolines into a gym locker, say.
Today we had a meeting in Goth Editor's office, which I was eager to see. It did not disappoint, chock-full of Edward Gorey ephemera and string lights in the shape of bats, plus the huge ergonomic FitBall she sits on--it stands to reason, I suppose, that wearing such a detailed and extensive wardrobe does require real attention to one's core strength. The thing that most blew my mind, though? She had black Post-its. Black! She had them stuck here and there, little notes on them in bright metallic pink ink.
I could not help myself. "Where do you even get black Post-its--Goth Depot?" I blurted. To her credit, she laughed.
"Actually, I found them at Michael's," she said.
And that was the best thing I'd heard all day, man. The thought of this woman, in her skull rings and black lipstick and gypsy-vampire-squaredance clothing, trudging up and down the craft aisles among ladies hoping to make goose-in-a-bonnet suncatchers or whatever--that, Internets, filled me with boundless glee.
Recently I and several editors from my group have been working with an editor from another team who happens to be a very dedicated goth girl. Like us, she scorns dangling modifiers and appreciates the unintended hilarity of a poor comma splice; she just happens to do so while wearing a black lace corset top, a hoop skirt, and pink fishnets. Goth Editor is serious, yo. She is very likeable. I can't help being deeply impressed and kind of fascinated by her, because the level of commitment and time investment her daily ensemble and makeup clearly requires is beyond my ken. If I achieve the "shirt/pants/nothing hanging out" trifecta, I'm good; if I've moisturized and actually blow-dried my hair, that's a bonus. I can't imagine--though I would much like to see--Goth Editor trying to get 12 black crinolines into a gym locker, say.
Today we had a meeting in Goth Editor's office, which I was eager to see. It did not disappoint, chock-full of Edward Gorey ephemera and string lights in the shape of bats, plus the huge ergonomic FitBall she sits on--it stands to reason, I suppose, that wearing such a detailed and extensive wardrobe does require real attention to one's core strength. The thing that most blew my mind, though? She had black Post-its. Black! She had them stuck here and there, little notes on them in bright metallic pink ink.
I could not help myself. "Where do you even get black Post-its--Goth Depot?" I blurted. To her credit, she laughed.
"Actually, I found them at Michael's," she said.
And that was the best thing I'd heard all day, man. The thought of this woman, in her skull rings and black lipstick and gypsy-vampire-squaredance clothing, trudging up and down the craft aisles among ladies hoping to make goose-in-a-bonnet suncatchers or whatever--that, Internets, filled me with boundless glee.
Paging George Costanza
Further evidence that New York City is the finest metropolis on the planet: as I heard on NPR yesterday, they cater to the modern businessperson with specialty boutiques just for napping.
MetroNaps has both Midtown and Wall Street locations (as well as, mysteriously, the Vancouver BC airport), and franchise opportunities are available should you want to open your own shop of crazy ergonomic reclining space pods for people to pay to doze in. They offer punch cards (buy six naps, get one free!), and (my favorite page) a selection of Nap Strategies. For when you feel like nodding off at your desk, but aren't sure how to make that most productive, I guess.
I'm so in love. And I'm sure I would need a little nap in my Sleep Egg after ordering in a different variety of mac and cheese for lunch every day, so it's all good. My Manhattan career plans are virtually set!
MetroNaps has both Midtown and Wall Street locations (as well as, mysteriously, the Vancouver BC airport), and franchise opportunities are available should you want to open your own shop of crazy ergonomic reclining space pods for people to pay to doze in. They offer punch cards (buy six naps, get one free!), and (my favorite page) a selection of Nap Strategies. For when you feel like nodding off at your desk, but aren't sure how to make that most productive, I guess.
I'm so in love. And I'm sure I would need a little nap in my Sleep Egg after ordering in a different variety of mac and cheese for lunch every day, so it's all good. My Manhattan career plans are virtually set!
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Broasted
Holy Jesus, it's hot--high 90s and humid for the second day in a row; it feels like New York. Granted, I imagine that actual New York is worse, but you have to understand that this is extremely unusual for the Pacific Northwest and we have no clue how to cope. Big companies might have air conditioning, but virtually no homeowners or small businesses do, since this shit happens only two or three times a year. So we're stumbling around limply, all Boneless Chicken Ranch, making unfortunate displays of near-nakedness. A small, sad percent hurry out to the lakes and rivers to drown. Everyone and everything stinks a little. I've been moving myself and the fan from room to room as the sun blasts different quadrants of my house; I sprawl in front of the hot breeze as if dropped from a great height.
This morning I walked (ve. ry. slow. ly.) up to the Greenwood business district for coffee. I find the snippets of life from wide-open doors and windows oddly touching and funny, somehow: the Dopplering drift of the ball game from one home, the 70s Gold hits that perpetually blare from the Tiki Torch Party House. Someone shouts "I can't, I'm all soapy! I'm all SOAPY!" from the shower. The proprietor of the Turkish rug shop is planted on the sidewalk outside, gabbing into a cell phone and incongruously drinking hot coffee; at the faux German bier hall, the door is locked but the high casement windows all yawn open in defeat: if you want to scale the building, topple in, and steal beer, go ahead, they give up.
I went to Starbucks for the air-conditioning. Yeah, yeah, giant ruthless billion-dollar corporation, yadda yadda--my dollars BUY that air-conditioning. It was delicious, and I lingered as long as I dared. Outside again, the heat clapped down like a heavy arm around your shoulders: the boisterous, blowhard colleague, the close talker you just cannot shake off.
In high school, both Holly and I worked in a weird little gift shop on Capitol Hill, selling greeting cards and exotic chunky jewelry, crystal vases and wedding-present-type items. The owner was an older woman with a pronounced Norma Desmond streak; she'd swan around the place in palazzo pants and the occasional turban, and was given to breathy, dramatic declarations: "WATCH these babies fly out of here!" she'd proclaim over a new shipment of lurid handbags, or "I don't want any STOOL-SITTERS." This last meant that you could not simply perch behind the cash register, but had to appear busy, usually by dusting. "Norma" kept vast bales of rags in the stockroom and an endless supply of Windex. Holly and I spent countless Sunday afternoons poking around the dozens of shelves and rearranging the film of dust that lay over every piece of china and stemware.
Norma had several wretched prejudices. She or her husband would count in the cash drawer in the mornings--frequently wrong. The register was ancient, the kind where you had to punch keys for each decimal place: TEN dollars and FOUR dollars and SIXTY cents and FIVE cents, putting your whole weight behind it so that the correct little tabs would pop up in the glass window on top. The till rarely balanced at the end of the day, and Norma would give us the fish eye. More than once, Holly and I crawled on the floor searching for every last dropped coin, or even scrounged change out of our own purses to remain above suspicion. Far, far worse were the occasions when a customer of color would come in while I was working, because if Norma was present she'd sidle up to me and hiss "Watch the BLACK." Oh my God. I was seventeen, mortified but not bold enough to defy her, and so I'd miserably trail around the store behind the rare African-American shopper. I am still sorry about this, still ashamed.
But Norma had her moments of strange tenderness and generosity, too. When Holly and I finished our last summer at the shop and were leaving for our respective colleges, Norma presented us each with a big honkin' footlocker. (Because she'd known my family since I was in kindergarten, I was also shocked to receive two pieces of Oleg Cassini luggage.) At one point or another, three generations of my family worked in Norma's store: my mother had, when she was newly divorced and back in college; my grandmother, when she was freshly widowed and half-mad with grief and needed a distraction. I don't think Norma needed her, frankly--but she saw Grammy's anguish and found space in the budget for her wages, kept her busy dusting dusting dusting and allowed her to empty her mind, an extraordinary kindness.
This is how I prefer to remember her, and what I'm thinking of now when it's blistering hot. The store was in a small brick building that held heat like a pizza oven, and on certain summer days it was easily 20 degrees hotter inside than out. One day like today, Holly and I were drooping like our own dustrags while Norma sat in her windowless office in back, even hotter, a wet towel wrapped around her head to cut the misery. It wasn't enough, and finally she emerged, gruffly booming "It is entirely TOO HOT! We deserve A TREAT!" She stomped regally out the door. Holly and I shrugged at each other.
Ten minutes later, Norma stalked back. Carefully aligned between her fingers were three already-dripping vanilla ice cream cones from the place down the block. "Here," she said grandly, and the three of us loitered at the counter, chasing the rivulets of vanilla, trying to outrun the inevitable mess. No more dusting that day...just a momentary cooling off, a quick sweetness that, it turns out, has lingered.
This morning I walked (ve. ry. slow. ly.) up to the Greenwood business district for coffee. I find the snippets of life from wide-open doors and windows oddly touching and funny, somehow: the Dopplering drift of the ball game from one home, the 70s Gold hits that perpetually blare from the Tiki Torch Party House. Someone shouts "I can't, I'm all soapy! I'm all SOAPY!" from the shower. The proprietor of the Turkish rug shop is planted on the sidewalk outside, gabbing into a cell phone and incongruously drinking hot coffee; at the faux German bier hall, the door is locked but the high casement windows all yawn open in defeat: if you want to scale the building, topple in, and steal beer, go ahead, they give up.
I went to Starbucks for the air-conditioning. Yeah, yeah, giant ruthless billion-dollar corporation, yadda yadda--my dollars BUY that air-conditioning. It was delicious, and I lingered as long as I dared. Outside again, the heat clapped down like a heavy arm around your shoulders: the boisterous, blowhard colleague, the close talker you just cannot shake off.
In high school, both Holly and I worked in a weird little gift shop on Capitol Hill, selling greeting cards and exotic chunky jewelry, crystal vases and wedding-present-type items. The owner was an older woman with a pronounced Norma Desmond streak; she'd swan around the place in palazzo pants and the occasional turban, and was given to breathy, dramatic declarations: "WATCH these babies fly out of here!" she'd proclaim over a new shipment of lurid handbags, or "I don't want any STOOL-SITTERS." This last meant that you could not simply perch behind the cash register, but had to appear busy, usually by dusting. "Norma" kept vast bales of rags in the stockroom and an endless supply of Windex. Holly and I spent countless Sunday afternoons poking around the dozens of shelves and rearranging the film of dust that lay over every piece of china and stemware.
Norma had several wretched prejudices. She or her husband would count in the cash drawer in the mornings--frequently wrong. The register was ancient, the kind where you had to punch keys for each decimal place: TEN dollars and FOUR dollars and SIXTY cents and FIVE cents, putting your whole weight behind it so that the correct little tabs would pop up in the glass window on top. The till rarely balanced at the end of the day, and Norma would give us the fish eye. More than once, Holly and I crawled on the floor searching for every last dropped coin, or even scrounged change out of our own purses to remain above suspicion. Far, far worse were the occasions when a customer of color would come in while I was working, because if Norma was present she'd sidle up to me and hiss "Watch the BLACK." Oh my God. I was seventeen, mortified but not bold enough to defy her, and so I'd miserably trail around the store behind the rare African-American shopper. I am still sorry about this, still ashamed.
But Norma had her moments of strange tenderness and generosity, too. When Holly and I finished our last summer at the shop and were leaving for our respective colleges, Norma presented us each with a big honkin' footlocker. (Because she'd known my family since I was in kindergarten, I was also shocked to receive two pieces of Oleg Cassini luggage.) At one point or another, three generations of my family worked in Norma's store: my mother had, when she was newly divorced and back in college; my grandmother, when she was freshly widowed and half-mad with grief and needed a distraction. I don't think Norma needed her, frankly--but she saw Grammy's anguish and found space in the budget for her wages, kept her busy dusting dusting dusting and allowed her to empty her mind, an extraordinary kindness.
This is how I prefer to remember her, and what I'm thinking of now when it's blistering hot. The store was in a small brick building that held heat like a pizza oven, and on certain summer days it was easily 20 degrees hotter inside than out. One day like today, Holly and I were drooping like our own dustrags while Norma sat in her windowless office in back, even hotter, a wet towel wrapped around her head to cut the misery. It wasn't enough, and finally she emerged, gruffly booming "It is entirely TOO HOT! We deserve A TREAT!" She stomped regally out the door. Holly and I shrugged at each other.
Ten minutes later, Norma stalked back. Carefully aligned between her fingers were three already-dripping vanilla ice cream cones from the place down the block. "Here," she said grandly, and the three of us loitered at the counter, chasing the rivulets of vanilla, trying to outrun the inevitable mess. No more dusting that day...just a momentary cooling off, a quick sweetness that, it turns out, has lingered.
Friday, July 21, 2006
The greatest city in the world
I said IN THE WORLD.
S'MAC: an East Village restaurant that specializes exclusively in varieties of macaroni and cheese. Evidently served up in big ol' cast-iron skillets. And they deliver.
The mountains and lakes n'all are pretty, but occasionally I have no freaking idea why I moved back home, man.
S'MAC: an East Village restaurant that specializes exclusively in varieties of macaroni and cheese. Evidently served up in big ol' cast-iron skillets. And they deliver.
The mountains and lakes n'all are pretty, but occasionally I have no freaking idea why I moved back home, man.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Decisions, decisions
A mysterious sidebar ad on the Seattle P-I's Web site declares simply "Vote for Ann Coulter!"
Unless that's "...to be fired from a goddamn cannon into a solid brick wall," then no, I don't believe I'll be clicking.
Unless that's "...to be fired from a goddamn cannon into a solid brick wall," then no, I don't believe I'll be clicking.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
It's probably just my clamshell bra
I was in a public restroom at the mall, running a comb through my hair, when a mom with two little girls came in. One kid goggled at me for a moment and then blurted, "Mommy, she has RED HAIR!"
True enough: Feria "Cinnamon", $9.99 a box at Bartell's, dear heart. I chuckled.
After a pause, the kid elaborated: "She looks like ARIEL!"
Well, now I know what to say in my personal ad under "Celebrity you resemble most."
True enough: Feria "Cinnamon", $9.99 a box at Bartell's, dear heart. I chuckled.
After a pause, the kid elaborated: "She looks like ARIEL!"
Well, now I know what to say in my personal ad under "Celebrity you resemble most."
Monday, June 26, 2006
Don't wear those to the library, hon
Starbucks. A little girl, three or four maybe, is stomping around the cafe area in rubber flip-flops that some diabolical marketing genius has outfitted with...squeakers, so that each stride produces the shrill tweet of a squishy dog toy. Squeek SQUEEK squeek SQUEEEEK SQUEEEK squeeeeek squeek SQUEEK squeek SQUEEEEK and holy balls, kiddo, whoever got you those really, really detests your parents.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Hi, hi, hi, hi there...
It's the first full day of summer, both calendarically and academically; the Seattle schools let out yesterday. In a shocking departure from the norm, it's bright and sunny outside. I'm working from home, and at high noon betook myself to the Starbucks for an iced caffeine beverage.
Mistake. My localest S'bux adjoins the magnificent burger joint Red Mill, where folks were lined up outside a dozen deep when I sidled through to get at my damn coffee. Not only is the Red Mill pretty firmly beyond even the widest boundaries of Fat Club dining (...sigh), but the place was TEEMING with kids. SO MANY freaking celebratory kids! Don't get me wrong, I like kids, am thinking about picking up a couple to have around the house myself. But maybe not forty of the little buggers, thronging the burger stand, scraping the metal chairs across the concrete outside, flicking limp strands of onion off their burgers into the shrubbery, hollering "I WANT..." at their dazed mothers and nannies. Only 86 days to go, ladies!
The outdoor tables abut the curb, where there are perhaps two parking spaces at that end of the block if you squeeze. One of these was occupied by a dude on a Harley, and as I was threading my way back through the mob, he kick-started it in a purely deafening, terror-inducing BLATT of noise. The entire crowd leapt reflexively, in unison; the kid next to me's arms jerked so wildly that he threw his cardboard boat of French fries skyward like a double handful of confetti. A rain of fried potato strips pattered around us, pelting heads and shoulders as the motorcycle dude roared away and relieved, self-deprecating laughter swept the patio.
Actually, it's hard to find fault with this kind of first-summer day. Maybe I should take the next three months off.
Mistake. My localest S'bux adjoins the magnificent burger joint Red Mill, where folks were lined up outside a dozen deep when I sidled through to get at my damn coffee. Not only is the Red Mill pretty firmly beyond even the widest boundaries of Fat Club dining (...sigh), but the place was TEEMING with kids. SO MANY freaking celebratory kids! Don't get me wrong, I like kids, am thinking about picking up a couple to have around the house myself. But maybe not forty of the little buggers, thronging the burger stand, scraping the metal chairs across the concrete outside, flicking limp strands of onion off their burgers into the shrubbery, hollering "I WANT..." at their dazed mothers and nannies. Only 86 days to go, ladies!
The outdoor tables abut the curb, where there are perhaps two parking spaces at that end of the block if you squeeze. One of these was occupied by a dude on a Harley, and as I was threading my way back through the mob, he kick-started it in a purely deafening, terror-inducing BLATT of noise. The entire crowd leapt reflexively, in unison; the kid next to me's arms jerked so wildly that he threw his cardboard boat of French fries skyward like a double handful of confetti. A rain of fried potato strips pattered around us, pelting heads and shoulders as the motorcycle dude roared away and relieved, self-deprecating laughter swept the patio.
Actually, it's hard to find fault with this kind of first-summer day. Maybe I should take the next three months off.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Smashed
As Mike noted recently, the end is nigh for the current incarnation of Seattle's Garfield High School. After 84 years of use and abuse, there's little left to save beyond the ornate Jacobean brick facade. The scheduled remodel is intended to gut the building and, presumably, fill it with shiny new fixtures and Internets and drinking fountains that don't corrode your brain cells while you wait.
I graduated from Garfield in 1988, almost precisely a generation ahead of Mike's kids. The school was a limping hulk even then; during my senior year, we enjoyed both an electrical fire and a flood: a main water pipe in the attic burst, one pre-dawn winter morning, and we arrived to find water pouring down the southeast staircase like a fish ladder. The wooden classroom floors warped and buckled under the deluge. If memory serves, Holly and I cut that day, waded off to the Dilettante for coffee, and sat drinking it in the eye-watering teal-blue chlorine warmth of the pool building.
Several folks sent me information and links to the farewell-party-open-house shindig that alumni and supporters were hosting on Saturday, June 10: The Bash Before the Smash! I'll admit, it took me a while to decide. I had fun in high school, sure...I was no prom queen, but I was smart and witty and I got by with the average amount of teen angst I would've had anywhere. For years after I graduated, though, I had recurring anxiety dreams about the school, always the same basic thing: it was the end of the semester, the day before the final, and I hadn't studied or gone to class in...oh, fifteen years. I was in the school, standing in the main hallway, on the checkerboard tile between the trophy cases, and I couldn't find my locker. Night falling, the final coming and COMING on like Tax Day and Christmas, and I'd wander the empty figure eight of the hallways, searching and searching, increasingly desperate as the shadows lengthened. Again and again I'd retrace my steps, start over: left at the auditorium, up to the second floor, past the chem lab...no, wait. In the dreams, the building took on the dimensions of an Escher drawing, too: staircases that ended in blank walls, a fourth level I'd somehow never noticed, the walls and floors angling away like a funhouse maze. I never did find the locker, the book I intended to frantically read; I always woke up still lost.
Despite this, yeah, I figured I'd go. Drop in, get the layout straight in my head once more and bid it goodbye. I imagined a handful of people would turn up, maybe.
Holy crap, was I wrong. It was a mob scene, hundreds and hundreds of people milling through the school--a line to get in and sign the register. They'd opened up the soggy playing field to parking, ribboning rough lanes off between the goalposts. I drove in on the dirt track I'd never managed to completely run around, in the mercifully brief time I'd spent in P.E. Inside, I couldn't stop laughing in sheer amazement at the crowd. All around me people screamed and hugged each other, beaming and pointing. Mini-class reunions were staged in different classrooms--'68 over here, '54 over there. Rumors rippled through the crowd: I didn't see him, but others insisted that a 90-year-old member of the class of 1924, the first to graduate from the building, had turned up for pastries in the cafeteria.
Jazz combos jammed and swung in the dingy auditorium named for Quincy Jones. (It's a source of some controversy--the plans call for the space to be stripped and converted into a student commons, and a new performing arts center will be built, but people are freaking out about destroying Mr. Jones's namesake. Just name the NEW building after him, people. Problem solved!) The lunch line dished up hot dogs; the cafeteria was as inexplicably hideous as I remembered, its bright lavender and orange (orange?!) paint untouched. Cameras flashed in every direction, people calling and waving and saying "Jesus Christ, those BATHROOMS." It was uncomfortably warm. The tiny classrooms were magically even smaller, twice as tall as they were wide. The lead-laced drinking fountains were wrapped up in black garbage bags and duct tape.
I saw Dave's little brother Greg (who's thirty if he's a day), with one of his small daughters on each arm and his newborn son in a sling across his wife's body. Apparently the whole family has been exchanging e-mails, trying to decide what statement to make on a Garfield memorial brick. Between the five siblings, there was at least one Wong child in that building for 15 years straight, Greg told me. A dynasty. (And lord, how the administrators must have slumped to the ground in exhausted relief when the last brilliant, prank-mad Wong burst out through those purple doors.) I saw my 9th-grade bio teacher, who kindly pretended to recognize me, in the Marine Science classroom that still smelled like dirty ocean and formaldehyde. He's teaching at another school, now, but "I put up that poster, and that one, and those fish pictures," he said, pointing around the room at decor left untouched for a decade or more. I saw three beautiful black women doubled over, pointing at each other's hairdos in a 1969 yearbook and screaming with helpless laughter. I saw more purple outfits than seemed statistically possible.
Everybody was taking pictures of each other, their old classmates...but I found myself taking photos of the building, actually waiting for the moments when a hallway would clear and I could capture it, empty. At the time I wanted to capture those details, the battered, grimy surface almost obscuring the weird old beauty we'd all taken for granted. It's not going to be here, I kept thinking, this isn't going to be here any more.
I look at the pictures now (you can too, that link is to the set on Flickr) and it's kind of odd, actually. The place was teeming with people, old Bulldogs come home, and I was surprised by how much that moved me. The crowd was so diverse, all colors, all ages, reflecting the atypical racial and cultural stew that was and is Garfield all along, a lucky accident of geography. We milled and mixed and grinned at each other, crowded the tables for sweatshirts and bumper stickers to take home, all of us different, none of us minding. Another beautiful thing we took for granted, once.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Son, she's no lady, she's your wife
So, it's true: Sis and the now official Mr. Sis are no longer living in sin, having been sanctioned in the chambers of a polite, bored judge in mid-May. Yes, it's been nearly a month. I was a little bit busy, Internets, what with wedding prep and post-wedding recovery and trying to keep various branches of the extended family tree from open fisticuffs in the streets. Because weddings first and foremost are a JOYOUS FUCKING OCCASION GODDAMN IT so let's all try to ACT LIKE ADULTS THANK YOU.
Sis and Mr. Sis had planned for several months to have only a simple courthouse ceremony, followed by a nice party for family and friends. They'd scheduled their reception and honeymoon for August. Then they applied for a court date, and got...May 12. This led to some of the most strenuous, extreme dress-shopping I've yet experienced, and culminated in my steering a nearly catatonic Sis around the Nordstrom's shoe department by the elbow, as she murmured sotto voce, "I'mgonnafreakoutI'mgonnafreakoutI'mgonnafreakout." Strappy silver sandals were thankfully applied in the nick of time.
The morning of the wedding dawned gray and cool. Sis and I had arranged beforehand to be professionally tarted up at Habitude in Ballard, with mani/pedis, makeup, and what the spa cards they handed us referred to as "up doos."
Yeah, yeah, it's My Day--just bring me My Goddamn Coffee.
I was a little worried about the makeup application: first, that they would have the gun set on "Whore"; second, because I watch far too many makeover shows, that I would look magnificently fabulous...but would henceforth require a team of trained cosmetologists to follow me around 24 hours a day to maintain my high gloss. The end result, I think, fell somewhere in the middle. It was nice, but with a lot of shimmering shimmery-stuff layers going on. To me, they emphasized the roundness of my face, so that my head looked a bit like an enormous Gala apple. I didn't care for any of the photos of me, so y'all are SOL.
Oh, for God's sake. All RIGHT.
See? Apple. Also, melons, Jesus.
Photos I wish I had: me and Sis at the salon, our hair ratted out like a Phil Spector act (or, simply, like PHIL SPECTOR); Sis on the front walk in jeans and a cowboy shirt, furiously doing the Twist to scuff the soles of her shoes so that she wouldn't wipe out on the marble courthouse floors; Sis and Mr. Sis, getting a first look at each other All Dressed Up...in the confines of their kitchen. Parking is difficult downtown; bride and groom carpooled together.
Anyway. I did like my hair--sleek in the front, with this incredibly elaborate Celtic knot woven together in the back. This was secured with 45(!) hairpins--I counted, after the fact--which might explain why my head set off the metal detector at the courthouse. My family laughed and pointed while a bored security guard wanded my Up-Doo.
We spent more time horsing around outside the courtroom (taking faux mug shots, tapping out the Judge Wapner bongo theme) than we did at the actual ceremony, which took approximately eight minutes, paperwork included.
Look at her. You're a lucky man, Mr. Sis.
After a leisurely round of appetizers and multiple exotic cocktails (I believe Mr. Sis had a Blue Hawaii; you go, Mr. Sis!), we returned the happy couple to their humble abode--which their neighbors had festooned with balloons and a Congrats sign that led the rest of the block to believe that Sis was pregnant.
Mr. Sis, Sis, and my nephew Willis.
Other friends brought them a white-trash wedding cake, constructed of tiers of Ding-Dongs and Twinkies. As Mr. Sis noted, this gave their cake an expiration date of 2010.
Ring-a-ding-ding, baby!
So. Reader, she married him. And I can honestly say that I am so happy that these two lovely, beautiful people found and deserve each other...and that I'm lucky enough that now I'm related to both of them. Congratulations, kids. I wish you the happiest rest-of-your-lives.
Seriously, how pretty are they? Mr. and Mrs. Sis, everybody!
Sis and Mr. Sis had planned for several months to have only a simple courthouse ceremony, followed by a nice party for family and friends. They'd scheduled their reception and honeymoon for August. Then they applied for a court date, and got...May 12. This led to some of the most strenuous, extreme dress-shopping I've yet experienced, and culminated in my steering a nearly catatonic Sis around the Nordstrom's shoe department by the elbow, as she murmured sotto voce, "I'mgonnafreakoutI'mgonnafreakoutI'mgonnafreakout." Strappy silver sandals were thankfully applied in the nick of time.
The morning of the wedding dawned gray and cool. Sis and I had arranged beforehand to be professionally tarted up at Habitude in Ballard, with mani/pedis, makeup, and what the spa cards they handed us referred to as "up doos."
Yeah, yeah, it's My Day--just bring me My Goddamn Coffee.
I was a little worried about the makeup application: first, that they would have the gun set on "Whore"; second, because I watch far too many makeover shows, that I would look magnificently fabulous...but would henceforth require a team of trained cosmetologists to follow me around 24 hours a day to maintain my high gloss. The end result, I think, fell somewhere in the middle. It was nice, but with a lot of shimmering shimmery-stuff layers going on. To me, they emphasized the roundness of my face, so that my head looked a bit like an enormous Gala apple. I didn't care for any of the photos of me, so y'all are SOL.
Oh, for God's sake. All RIGHT.
See? Apple. Also, melons, Jesus.
Photos I wish I had: me and Sis at the salon, our hair ratted out like a Phil Spector act (or, simply, like PHIL SPECTOR); Sis on the front walk in jeans and a cowboy shirt, furiously doing the Twist to scuff the soles of her shoes so that she wouldn't wipe out on the marble courthouse floors; Sis and Mr. Sis, getting a first look at each other All Dressed Up...in the confines of their kitchen. Parking is difficult downtown; bride and groom carpooled together.
Anyway. I did like my hair--sleek in the front, with this incredibly elaborate Celtic knot woven together in the back. This was secured with 45(!) hairpins--I counted, after the fact--which might explain why my head set off the metal detector at the courthouse. My family laughed and pointed while a bored security guard wanded my Up-Doo.
We spent more time horsing around outside the courtroom (taking faux mug shots, tapping out the Judge Wapner bongo theme) than we did at the actual ceremony, which took approximately eight minutes, paperwork included.
Look at her. You're a lucky man, Mr. Sis.
After a leisurely round of appetizers and multiple exotic cocktails (I believe Mr. Sis had a Blue Hawaii; you go, Mr. Sis!), we returned the happy couple to their humble abode--which their neighbors had festooned with balloons and a Congrats sign that led the rest of the block to believe that Sis was pregnant.
Mr. Sis, Sis, and my nephew Willis.
Other friends brought them a white-trash wedding cake, constructed of tiers of Ding-Dongs and Twinkies. As Mr. Sis noted, this gave their cake an expiration date of 2010.
Ring-a-ding-ding, baby!
So. Reader, she married him. And I can honestly say that I am so happy that these two lovely, beautiful people found and deserve each other...and that I'm lucky enough that now I'm related to both of them. Congratulations, kids. I wish you the happiest rest-of-your-lives.
Seriously, how pretty are they? Mr. and Mrs. Sis, everybody!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
I hear ya, buddy
Lady in grocery store: Okay, now we need to get some lettuce.
Little kid: But I don't like lettuce!
Lady: You don't like lettuce?
Little kid: Yeah, I like...BANANA CREAM PIE!
Little kid: But I don't like lettuce!
Lady: You don't like lettuce?
Little kid: Yeah, I like...BANANA CREAM PIE!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
M is for the many times she did not kill us
* I know, it's been forever, and now I'm recapping the last few weeks all bass-ackwards. Please accept this belated Mother's Day paean to my mum, and I'll cover the nuptials of Mr. and Mrs. Sis in my next post.
A little Interweb research suggests that the Sheila E. song "The Glamorous Life" came out in about 1984. I would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. (And how deeply distressed am I, to have Googled it and located its versecraft on OldieLyrics.com? Holy shit, that's cold.) Man, how I loved that stupid song, and Sheila E's mad drumming skillz. I found the song's anonymous lead sex-ay and sophisticated--as much as a ninth grader would, anyway. She swans around all year in a mink coat! And a big brown Mercedes sedan! She don't need a man's touch! (Particularly empowering, that last, as I was not getting any real romantic action in World Geography or Algebra II.) I think I also labored under the impression that she and her paramour Made Love IN the brown sedan, which DIRTY! And glamorous indeed!
Anyway. Okay, picture in your mind youthful, teenaged, dork-ass Kim. Probably I am wearing a ski sweater emblazoned with little hearts, or bears, or Scottie dogs; probably my hair is in a long French braid with a droopy ribbon tied to the end. Whether I am faring stylistically better than eleven-year-old Sis is debatable, as she is no doubt sporting a pastel-striped rugby shirt and her Stevie Nicks poodle perm. We think we are Hot Shit! Ssssssssssssssss of hissing steam! We are in fact enormous goobers, but let's not spoil it for the girls, hey? We're young.
I don't remember the event we were supposed to attend, that evening. In all likelihood it was something FOR us--a Parent Night at school, an awards banquet or something. At any rate, Mom had to run an errand before chauffeuring us wherever. She instructed us to get ready while she hurried out; she'd return, pull into the driveway, honk, and take us to our important, time-sensitive destination. She left; Sis and I set to primping, with the Big Stereo in the living room blasting accompaniment...and Sheila E. came on.
We cranked it. We got down with our bad selves, Sis and I, wielding the AquaNet and the Dippity Do, air-drumming furiously, the windows vibrating in their frames. We needed a man's man, baby! Diamonds and furs!
Now I will describe the crux of the action in screenplay form.
I don't know how long Mom sat down there fuming. I just remember the part where the door EXPLODED open, rebounding off the wall with a crash. If Mom could have kicked it completely off the hinges, I'm sure she would have. She was scarlet with rage, apoplectic, pop-eyed; her voice, when she spoke, fell somewhere between "Hulk smash!" and possessed-Linda-Blair:
"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU I HAVE BEEN HONKING GO GET IN THE GODDAMN CAR!"
Which of course we did--probably sulking and sneering and GOD, mom, CALM DOWN, you don't have to have a total FIT. I still don't remember where we were going, but I am sure my mother laid a patch pulling out of the driveway to take us there.
That was, and is, the angriest I have ever seen my mother. In the intervening twenty years I have known her giddy with laughter and wracked with grief; she's been proud of us, happy with us, hysterical at the girls staggering in their giant shoes on Top Model. She's been weary, and furious, and blissful. But that's the only time I have ever seen Mom go entirely berserk with rage, driven to lose her entire mind simply by the fact of having teenaged daughters...with a little added magic from Sheila E.
Point is...that's a pretty fair average. Borders on sainthood, really. Once more, Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Thanks again for not sending us away to military school!
A little Interweb research suggests that the Sheila E. song "The Glamorous Life" came out in about 1984. I would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. (And how deeply distressed am I, to have Googled it and located its versecraft on OldieLyrics.com? Holy shit, that's cold.) Man, how I loved that stupid song, and Sheila E's mad drumming skillz. I found the song's anonymous lead sex-ay and sophisticated--as much as a ninth grader would, anyway. She swans around all year in a mink coat! And a big brown Mercedes sedan! She don't need a man's touch! (Particularly empowering, that last, as I was not getting any real romantic action in World Geography or Algebra II.) I think I also labored under the impression that she and her paramour Made Love IN the brown sedan, which DIRTY! And glamorous indeed!
Anyway. Okay, picture in your mind youthful, teenaged, dork-ass Kim. Probably I am wearing a ski sweater emblazoned with little hearts, or bears, or Scottie dogs; probably my hair is in a long French braid with a droopy ribbon tied to the end. Whether I am faring stylistically better than eleven-year-old Sis is debatable, as she is no doubt sporting a pastel-striped rugby shirt and her Stevie Nicks poodle perm. We think we are Hot Shit! Ssssssssssssssss of hissing steam! We are in fact enormous goobers, but let's not spoil it for the girls, hey? We're young.
I don't remember the event we were supposed to attend, that evening. In all likelihood it was something FOR us--a Parent Night at school, an awards banquet or something. At any rate, Mom had to run an errand before chauffeuring us wherever. She instructed us to get ready while she hurried out; she'd return, pull into the driveway, honk, and take us to our important, time-sensitive destination. She left; Sis and I set to primping, with the Big Stereo in the living room blasting accompaniment...and Sheila E. came on.
We cranked it. We got down with our bad selves, Sis and I, wielding the AquaNet and the Dippity Do, air-drumming furiously, the windows vibrating in their frames. We needed a man's man, baby! Diamonds and furs!
Now I will describe the crux of the action in screenplay form.
EXTERIOR. NIGHT. MOM pulls into the driveway below and honks the horn briskly.
INTERIOR. KIM and SIS dance spastically to the very loud strains of Sheila E.
EXT. NIGHT. MOM again honks, more insistently.
INT. The girls apply mousse, gold eyeshadow, etc. Still rocking out.
EXT. NIGHT. MOM leans on the horn. From this angle she can see the silhouetted forms of her daughters in the window, doing the booty bump.
INT. More Sheila E. funk jam antics.
I don't know how long Mom sat down there fuming. I just remember the part where the door EXPLODED open, rebounding off the wall with a crash. If Mom could have kicked it completely off the hinges, I'm sure she would have. She was scarlet with rage, apoplectic, pop-eyed; her voice, when she spoke, fell somewhere between "Hulk smash!" and possessed-Linda-Blair:
"WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU I HAVE BEEN HONKING GO GET IN THE GODDAMN CAR!"
Which of course we did--probably sulking and sneering and GOD, mom, CALM DOWN, you don't have to have a total FIT. I still don't remember where we were going, but I am sure my mother laid a patch pulling out of the driveway to take us there.
That was, and is, the angriest I have ever seen my mother. In the intervening twenty years I have known her giddy with laughter and wracked with grief; she's been proud of us, happy with us, hysterical at the girls staggering in their giant shoes on Top Model. She's been weary, and furious, and blissful. But that's the only time I have ever seen Mom go entirely berserk with rage, driven to lose her entire mind simply by the fact of having teenaged daughters...with a little added magic from Sheila E.
Point is...that's a pretty fair average. Borders on sainthood, really. Once more, Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Thanks again for not sending us away to military school!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Our amphibian friend...and also his little amphibian friend
Sis works in graphic design, also in the computer industry. It's like our skill sets were neatly split along some genetic line: I have an obsessive-compulsive eye for the written detail but couldn't draw so much as a map to my own ass, while Sis has designed business logos and user interfaces and elaborate media content.
Today, though, she is in what she described as a career valley. Her employer is hosting a Take Our Progeny To Work Day event tomorrow, and trying to come up with fun activities for the kidlets. One of their corporate mascots (or a client's? I'm not clear on just what represents who, here) is a sort of deranged, animated toad creature. He originates from somewhere in Europe, so he is, you know, alternative , and edgy, and, apparently...anatomically correct.
So. This afternoon, Sis was asked to apply her artistic talents to removing a cartoon frog penis. They're going to distribute the newly neutered logo to the kiddies as a Color Me! handout.
That there? Is a real resumé-builder, I tell you what.
Today, though, she is in what she described as a career valley. Her employer is hosting a Take Our Progeny To Work Day event tomorrow, and trying to come up with fun activities for the kidlets. One of their corporate mascots (or a client's? I'm not clear on just what represents who, here) is a sort of deranged, animated toad creature. He originates from somewhere in Europe, so he is, you know, alternative , and edgy, and, apparently...anatomically correct.
So. This afternoon, Sis was asked to apply her artistic talents to removing a cartoon frog penis. They're going to distribute the newly neutered logo to the kiddies as a Color Me! handout.
That there? Is a real resumé-builder, I tell you what.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Your mother works neither here nor there
I am, at best, an indifferent housekeeper. It's not Whitney Houston's bathroom or anything, but a) I have two cats who shed so copiously, I can't understand how they have anything left to hork up in hairball form in the laundry basket, and b) I suffer from, and am aided and abetted by all friends in, an addiction to the written word. I dust, I tidy a little...and then the piles of books and magazines and newspapers begin creeping across every flat surface again, like plate techtonics.
I do have a healthy degree of respect for shared public space, however. I've long puzzled over the kitchen messes at NerdCo; not a day goes by when the countertop isn't littered with half-finished beverages, blops of unidentified casseroles, milk souring in the carton 26 inches from the refrigerator. People pour god-knows-what into the sinks, which have no disposals; they mark their path with damp wads of paper towel, like the hatch-marked trail of Little Billy in Family Circus. We had a popcorn machine on this floor that I am sure had not been cleaned in a decade, its glass walls opaque with an electric-yellow film of Butter Flavoring. (One of the writers at last took it upon himself to disassemble and scour the works, with mixed results: some of the crud was baked on there like space-shuttle tiles, plus the machine was...rather harder to put back together than he'd anticipated. Whoops, no more popcorn, kiddies!)
I'd made the default, sexist assumption that most of this kitchen slobbery could be blamed on boys. There are so many of them at NerdCo, vastly outnumbering the fairer sex, wandering around with their Mountain Dew and their foosball and their Y-chromosomes.
However. Through Fat Club, I've been spending a large percentage of my time at the gym, and a good segment of that in the women's locker room (not quite as Alyssa depicts it, though God I laughed), and I have to say: Ladies, YOU ARE PIGS.
Seriously, chicks, what is up with that? It's crowded, we're all in a hurry, I get that...but how hard is it really to pick up your towels and your water bottles and your 87 ponytail bands before scurrying off to the rest of your day? If you accidentally squirt lotion across the dressing area, or crumble a cake of pink eyeshadow onto the counter, take two seconds to WIPE THAT SHIT UP. Perhaps with one of your many many towels? The ones that you do not seem to be using in the shower stalls, considering that some days I have to wade across the tiles? How do you even GET the surrounding area that wet, outside the shower? What kind of sprinkler attachment are you dancing around with in there?
(Side complaint about towels: I don't have a problem with the periodic nakedness in the locker room. People dress and bathe there, both tasks that are easier to start from the default clothes-free condition. But on the other hand, enough with the Nudes On Parade routine for a few of you. I read Our Bodies, Ourselves, I too am proud of my womanness, but this isn't a runway. Wrap it up.)
I think that, in either locale, it's that root sense of entitlement that bothers me most. Do you wander around your home, a trail of sodden terrycloth and assorted garbage in your wake? Surely not. Just because there are people whose job it is to clean, to collect the towels and take out the trash...you shouldn't extrapolate that to mean that said people are your Personal Filth Assistants, you know? I seriously don't understand someone who can drop their crap on the floor and walk away, secure in the faith that "someone" will pick it up. It's no excuse to trash the place.
The gym features weird giant ceramic urns as both its trash cans and towel bins; they are similar, but different. The other day a woman marched right up beside me and flung her towel into the trash by mistake. "Oh, no," she said, and we laughed.
"I hate it when that happens," I said.
"I know!" she said. Then...she left.
This is why the gym costs a million dollars, folks. I wrapped my own towel around my hand (because surely that is antibiotically protective, yes?), dug her towel out of the trash, and deposited them both in the correct giant ceramic urn. Had I not, that little karmic wrinkle would have bothered me ALLLLL DAY.
Must be easy, to be some other people.
I suppose it could always be worse. A friend's mother was famously forgetful, twice accidentally leaving her prosthetic breast at the pool. (She had another, for day use; I guess this was a regulation swim boob.) That would be a fun one to retrieve from the Lost-And-Found bin, no?
I do have a healthy degree of respect for shared public space, however. I've long puzzled over the kitchen messes at NerdCo; not a day goes by when the countertop isn't littered with half-finished beverages, blops of unidentified casseroles, milk souring in the carton 26 inches from the refrigerator. People pour god-knows-what into the sinks, which have no disposals; they mark their path with damp wads of paper towel, like the hatch-marked trail of Little Billy in Family Circus. We had a popcorn machine on this floor that I am sure had not been cleaned in a decade, its glass walls opaque with an electric-yellow film of Butter Flavoring. (One of the writers at last took it upon himself to disassemble and scour the works, with mixed results: some of the crud was baked on there like space-shuttle tiles, plus the machine was...rather harder to put back together than he'd anticipated. Whoops, no more popcorn, kiddies!)
I'd made the default, sexist assumption that most of this kitchen slobbery could be blamed on boys. There are so many of them at NerdCo, vastly outnumbering the fairer sex, wandering around with their Mountain Dew and their foosball and their Y-chromosomes.
However. Through Fat Club, I've been spending a large percentage of my time at the gym, and a good segment of that in the women's locker room (not quite as Alyssa depicts it, though God I laughed), and I have to say: Ladies, YOU ARE PIGS.
Seriously, chicks, what is up with that? It's crowded, we're all in a hurry, I get that...but how hard is it really to pick up your towels and your water bottles and your 87 ponytail bands before scurrying off to the rest of your day? If you accidentally squirt lotion across the dressing area, or crumble a cake of pink eyeshadow onto the counter, take two seconds to WIPE THAT SHIT UP. Perhaps with one of your many many towels? The ones that you do not seem to be using in the shower stalls, considering that some days I have to wade across the tiles? How do you even GET the surrounding area that wet, outside the shower? What kind of sprinkler attachment are you dancing around with in there?
(Side complaint about towels: I don't have a problem with the periodic nakedness in the locker room. People dress and bathe there, both tasks that are easier to start from the default clothes-free condition. But on the other hand, enough with the Nudes On Parade routine for a few of you. I read Our Bodies, Ourselves, I too am proud of my womanness, but this isn't a runway. Wrap it up.)
I think that, in either locale, it's that root sense of entitlement that bothers me most. Do you wander around your home, a trail of sodden terrycloth and assorted garbage in your wake? Surely not. Just because there are people whose job it is to clean, to collect the towels and take out the trash...you shouldn't extrapolate that to mean that said people are your Personal Filth Assistants, you know? I seriously don't understand someone who can drop their crap on the floor and walk away, secure in the faith that "someone" will pick it up. It's no excuse to trash the place.
The gym features weird giant ceramic urns as both its trash cans and towel bins; they are similar, but different. The other day a woman marched right up beside me and flung her towel into the trash by mistake. "Oh, no," she said, and we laughed.
"I hate it when that happens," I said.
"I know!" she said. Then...she left.
This is why the gym costs a million dollars, folks. I wrapped my own towel around my hand (because surely that is antibiotically protective, yes?), dug her towel out of the trash, and deposited them both in the correct giant ceramic urn. Had I not, that little karmic wrinkle would have bothered me ALLLLL DAY.
Must be easy, to be some other people.
I suppose it could always be worse. A friend's mother was famously forgetful, twice accidentally leaving her prosthetic breast at the pool. (She had another, for day use; I guess this was a regulation swim boob.) That would be a fun one to retrieve from the Lost-And-Found bin, no?
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Three-fer
Three things that vexed me today, one with slight mitigation.
1. Vanity plate, MANOWAR. Being a progressive pacifist pinko, I probably would have just stuck to my initial thought--"Like, a giant jellyfish?"--and been on my way...but for the big clipped-to-the-window American flag also flying from the automobile. Then I was given to wonder. Man-o-war as in your car is an armed naval vessel? Man-o-war as in you're a veteran? Or...Man-o-war 'cause you just think war is...kind of awesome? There was some sort of pro-Dubya, God Bless the USA, bomb-Eye-Raq-now vibe hovering over the whole thing that unsettled me, war as a spectator sport. CNN, ESPN, quelle difference?
Though there were not any visible Bush stickers or magnetic ribbons. Perhaps he is just a proud patriot who also happens to be fond of the 80s metal band.
2. Safeway. They were piping in innocuous lite hits, as you do...but as I patrolled the aisles in search of my Fat Club-approved lean proteins and frozen blueberries, I gradually became aware that the song playing overhead was...the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club.
First, buh? That doesn't turn up on your average Time-Life compilation. If there was some sort of promotional tie-in going on, I missed it. Second? I'd never thought about it before, but that song consists primarily of CHILDREN YELLING. At ten o'clock in the freaking morning; what gives, Safeway?
3. Here at NerdCo we are subject to a perpetual onslaught of internal marketing. Lavish banners and posters appear in the night, urging us to check out this or that new Awesome Product TM; glossy fliers are thrust into our thousands of mailboxes. I've never understood this because nine times out of ten, I have been looking at/working on Awesome Product TM all damn day and I KNOW ALREADY, NerdCo! Just who are they trying to reach?
Anyway. New poster in the hall this week, touting something or other, with the bold, bright headline: More Firepower. Less Firedrills.
No, no, NO! Wrong! Bad! FEWER. "Less" goes with numbered items, "fewer" with abstract quantities. (Yes, I am one of those people who wigs out in the grammatically incorrect express checkout lane.) Perhaps they could have spent less dollars on posters, and tapped one of the HUNDREDS of NerdCo editors before this thing rolled off the presses, maybe?
So. Grumpy, I marched back out there with my red pen to correct/vandalize corporate property. Imagine my delight to find that someone else had beaten me to the punch! Editors--we are everywhere, bub, look out.
1. Vanity plate, MANOWAR. Being a progressive pacifist pinko, I probably would have just stuck to my initial thought--"Like, a giant jellyfish?"--and been on my way...but for the big clipped-to-the-window American flag also flying from the automobile. Then I was given to wonder. Man-o-war as in your car is an armed naval vessel? Man-o-war as in you're a veteran? Or...Man-o-war 'cause you just think war is...kind of awesome? There was some sort of pro-Dubya, God Bless the USA, bomb-Eye-Raq-now vibe hovering over the whole thing that unsettled me, war as a spectator sport. CNN, ESPN, quelle difference?
Though there were not any visible Bush stickers or magnetic ribbons. Perhaps he is just a proud patriot who also happens to be fond of the 80s metal band.
2. Safeway. They were piping in innocuous lite hits, as you do...but as I patrolled the aisles in search of my Fat Club-approved lean proteins and frozen blueberries, I gradually became aware that the song playing overhead was...the theme to the Mickey Mouse Club.
First, buh? That doesn't turn up on your average Time-Life compilation. If there was some sort of promotional tie-in going on, I missed it. Second? I'd never thought about it before, but that song consists primarily of CHILDREN YELLING. At ten o'clock in the freaking morning; what gives, Safeway?
3. Here at NerdCo we are subject to a perpetual onslaught of internal marketing. Lavish banners and posters appear in the night, urging us to check out this or that new Awesome Product TM; glossy fliers are thrust into our thousands of mailboxes. I've never understood this because nine times out of ten, I have been looking at/working on Awesome Product TM all damn day and I KNOW ALREADY, NerdCo! Just who are they trying to reach?
Anyway. New poster in the hall this week, touting something or other, with the bold, bright headline: More Firepower. Less Firedrills.
No, no, NO! Wrong! Bad! FEWER. "Less" goes with numbered items, "fewer" with abstract quantities. (Yes, I am one of those people who wigs out in the grammatically incorrect express checkout lane.) Perhaps they could have spent less dollars on posters, and tapped one of the HUNDREDS of NerdCo editors before this thing rolled off the presses, maybe?
So. Grumpy, I marched back out there with my red pen to correct/vandalize corporate property. Imagine my delight to find that someone else had beaten me to the punch! Editors--we are everywhere, bub, look out.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Reading between the lines
Just got e-mail at work announcing that the parking garage for my particular building at NerdCo is being repainted over the coming weekend: fresh stripes for the drivers of Hummers and other penile enhancements to callously disregard come Monday.
I liked the name of the company they've hired, though: Straight Line Striping. Apparently, Half-Assed Crooked Striping didn't underbid it nearly as much as you'd think.
I liked the name of the company they've hired, though: Straight Line Striping. Apparently, Half-Assed Crooked Striping didn't underbid it nearly as much as you'd think.
Spring
Yesterday was the Seattle Mariners' home opener. I'm third-generation in the Church of Baseball, and for over a decade the fam and I have observed Opening Day like a religious holiday, trucking down to the Safe (and the Kingdome before it) to slowly grow numb with cold (well, that's new to open-air ball in Seattle), savor the last of the hot dogs left over from last year, and oftener than not observe the M's lose.
Which they did, yesterday--but we were not in attendance. The openers are usually day games, scheduled at weird hours, and Mom couldn't make yesterday's 2:05 start all the way down from Mukilteo. We're going tonight instead, probably a wise choice because the sun is out, for a change.
My reputation precedes me, however. Yesterday at about 1:30, Boss burst into my office brandishing this year's M's schedule. "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?" she fretted. I had to explain myself, and reassure her that I had not lost my faith. Heh. I'm loyal; they still have 161 chances to prove me wrong, this year.
Which they did, yesterday--but we were not in attendance. The openers are usually day games, scheduled at weird hours, and Mom couldn't make yesterday's 2:05 start all the way down from Mukilteo. We're going tonight instead, probably a wise choice because the sun is out, for a change.
My reputation precedes me, however. Yesterday at about 1:30, Boss burst into my office brandishing this year's M's schedule. "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?" she fretted. I had to explain myself, and reassure her that I had not lost my faith. Heh. I'm loyal; they still have 161 chances to prove me wrong, this year.
Friday, March 24, 2006
The first rule of Fat Club
I've been debating with myself on whether to write about this at all. I've insisted before that this isn't a weight-loss blog, per se; rather, it's a blog where I alternately bitch about and make fun of the things that occasionally penetrate my usual inattention. A mixed-grill blog. Haha.
But. I have decided, after many months of soul-searching, to embark upon a very strenuous, medically supervised weight loss and management program, offered through my gym and, incredibly, co-sponsored by NerdCo and their insurance provider. They are paying the lion's share to help me get this shit under control once and for all, and for that I feel very much blessed, and privileged, and grateful. Also, if I fail to complete the program, I owe NerdCo Health Insurance $10 grand. Consider me incentified.
So. Since the NerdCo-brand Fat Club pretty much owns me from now until Christmas, I anticipate that it will by necessity come up in the blog from time to time over the next 32 weeks. Thus, if my new Nautilus regimen renders me too sore to dress myself, or if I end up eating printer cover sheets out of the recycling bin in a hysterical bid for carbs, ANY CARBS PLEASE BABY JESUS....well, Internets, you will be the first to know.
* * * * *
To enroll in Fat Club, you have to go through quite the battery of tests. Their offices in the gym convey this odd sort of louche, Dynasty Medical Center circa 1989 vibe: plush burgundy carpet, lots of brass and faux marble accents. It's a lot like providing Nordstrom's with a urine sample. The exam rooms are equally glamorous, and I had blood drawn while reclining on a vast chaise lounge upholstered in mauve vinyl. When I give blood at my Regular Doctor's, I sit in a plastic cafeteria chair with an arm chute bolted onto it like a torpedo chamber. I guess Fat Club atmosphere is what you get for the big bucks.
This week, I met with my assigned Fat Shrink. (She is not fat; she is there to counsel me into being less fat. She does, however, bear a striking resemblance to Rachel Dratch, so I fully expected her to bust out with something zany during the entire session. This was distracting.) Together we agreed that I was already getting quite a lot of therapy and so didn't need to talk Fat every single solitary week, and thank goodness.
I also had a fitness assessment on Wednesday. I was very anxious about it, largely because I did not know exactly what it would entail and so could speculate many different worst-case scenarios. What if I registered simply as "inert" on all their diagnostic tools? What if I, like, fell over, or shot off the end of the treadmill? Or tripped on it and abraded the flesh from my lower extremities, like Mike? (Sorry, Mike.)
"You should try and get some exercise beforehand, so your legs don't seize up," my father recommended. I am not sure how incapacitated by blubber my father thinks I am, but nonetheless this statement was not encouraging.
What if they made me jog with one of those oxygen mask-and-tube rigs strapped over my mouth?
"I think tests that sophisticated are really expensive," Boss informed me kindly. Boss is of course one of the healthiest, most active women on the planet and spent her Sunday trotting up 69 flights of stairs for charity; I imagine her fitness assessment would fall somewhere in the "can lift Kim over her head while dancing the can-can" category. Still, I amused and terrified myself in equal measure, imagining a NASA-caliber series of evaluations, culminating in the part where they strap you into the G-force simulator and spin you around, jowls a-flappin'. It's scientific!
It was, for good and ill, nothing like that. For the first half hour we filled out forms and reviewed the degree to which I was signing my life away. They took my measurements and my "Before!" pictures, at which I groaned. "Everybody hates this part the most," said my assessor cheerfully. Can't think why.
I was zapped with electrodes to determine my body-fat percentage, and made to blow into a tube to check my lung capacity. I walked on the treadmill to determine how long it took to elevate my heart rate to a certain point; the hardest part of this was trying to strap on the heart-rate monitor beneath my ample bosom.
I sat on the floor and reeeeaaaached for my toes while holding onto...a little stick on a string, that magically measured my flexibility. They also measured my upper-body strength by having me stand on a platform and curl a bicep bar tethered to it; this whole thing was wired somehow into a computer to record the results. I expected to be able to actually curl the bar; I hadn't realized that the tether was fixed and simply measured the force I exerted. It didn't move, and so I nearly did a back flip with the effort I put into that first pull. Luckily, I'd schlepped a 34-pound bag of cat litter to my car on Sunday, so I don't think my arm tone is entirely nonexistent.
Anyway. All my stats were duly noted and will be provided to my trainer and my nutritionist, both of whom I start seeing next week. At the end of the proceedings, the assessor handed me back my steaming Visa card and said, "Wait, I have one more thing to give you--your $4000 water bottle!"--a 28-ounce bike bottle emblazoned with the Fat Club logo, because yeah, you really want to wave that around. Ha ha ha ha ha.
In truth, I'm looking forward to getting freaking started already, though occasionally indulging in a pie-eyed, muttered round of whathaveIdonewhathaveIdonewhathaveIdone. We'll see how it feels next week, when I'm getting up at 6:00 a.m. for the expensive privilege of toiling under the command of a perky blonde. Energy! Woooooo!
But. I have decided, after many months of soul-searching, to embark upon a very strenuous, medically supervised weight loss and management program, offered through my gym and, incredibly, co-sponsored by NerdCo and their insurance provider. They are paying the lion's share to help me get this shit under control once and for all, and for that I feel very much blessed, and privileged, and grateful. Also, if I fail to complete the program, I owe NerdCo Health Insurance $10 grand. Consider me incentified.
So. Since the NerdCo-brand Fat Club pretty much owns me from now until Christmas, I anticipate that it will by necessity come up in the blog from time to time over the next 32 weeks. Thus, if my new Nautilus regimen renders me too sore to dress myself, or if I end up eating printer cover sheets out of the recycling bin in a hysterical bid for carbs, ANY CARBS PLEASE BABY JESUS....well, Internets, you will be the first to know.
* * * * *
To enroll in Fat Club, you have to go through quite the battery of tests. Their offices in the gym convey this odd sort of louche, Dynasty Medical Center circa 1989 vibe: plush burgundy carpet, lots of brass and faux marble accents. It's a lot like providing Nordstrom's with a urine sample. The exam rooms are equally glamorous, and I had blood drawn while reclining on a vast chaise lounge upholstered in mauve vinyl. When I give blood at my Regular Doctor's, I sit in a plastic cafeteria chair with an arm chute bolted onto it like a torpedo chamber. I guess Fat Club atmosphere is what you get for the big bucks.
This week, I met with my assigned Fat Shrink. (She is not fat; she is there to counsel me into being less fat. She does, however, bear a striking resemblance to Rachel Dratch, so I fully expected her to bust out with something zany during the entire session. This was distracting.) Together we agreed that I was already getting quite a lot of therapy and so didn't need to talk Fat every single solitary week, and thank goodness.
I also had a fitness assessment on Wednesday. I was very anxious about it, largely because I did not know exactly what it would entail and so could speculate many different worst-case scenarios. What if I registered simply as "inert" on all their diagnostic tools? What if I, like, fell over, or shot off the end of the treadmill? Or tripped on it and abraded the flesh from my lower extremities, like Mike? (Sorry, Mike.)
"You should try and get some exercise beforehand, so your legs don't seize up," my father recommended. I am not sure how incapacitated by blubber my father thinks I am, but nonetheless this statement was not encouraging.
What if they made me jog with one of those oxygen mask-and-tube rigs strapped over my mouth?
"I think tests that sophisticated are really expensive," Boss informed me kindly. Boss is of course one of the healthiest, most active women on the planet and spent her Sunday trotting up 69 flights of stairs for charity; I imagine her fitness assessment would fall somewhere in the "can lift Kim over her head while dancing the can-can" category. Still, I amused and terrified myself in equal measure, imagining a NASA-caliber series of evaluations, culminating in the part where they strap you into the G-force simulator and spin you around, jowls a-flappin'. It's scientific!
It was, for good and ill, nothing like that. For the first half hour we filled out forms and reviewed the degree to which I was signing my life away. They took my measurements and my "Before!" pictures, at which I groaned. "Everybody hates this part the most," said my assessor cheerfully. Can't think why.
I was zapped with electrodes to determine my body-fat percentage, and made to blow into a tube to check my lung capacity. I walked on the treadmill to determine how long it took to elevate my heart rate to a certain point; the hardest part of this was trying to strap on the heart-rate monitor beneath my ample bosom.
I sat on the floor and reeeeaaaached for my toes while holding onto...a little stick on a string, that magically measured my flexibility. They also measured my upper-body strength by having me stand on a platform and curl a bicep bar tethered to it; this whole thing was wired somehow into a computer to record the results. I expected to be able to actually curl the bar; I hadn't realized that the tether was fixed and simply measured the force I exerted. It didn't move, and so I nearly did a back flip with the effort I put into that first pull. Luckily, I'd schlepped a 34-pound bag of cat litter to my car on Sunday, so I don't think my arm tone is entirely nonexistent.
Anyway. All my stats were duly noted and will be provided to my trainer and my nutritionist, both of whom I start seeing next week. At the end of the proceedings, the assessor handed me back my steaming Visa card and said, "Wait, I have one more thing to give you--your $4000 water bottle!"--a 28-ounce bike bottle emblazoned with the Fat Club logo, because yeah, you really want to wave that around. Ha ha ha ha ha.
In truth, I'm looking forward to getting freaking started already, though occasionally indulging in a pie-eyed, muttered round of whathaveIdonewhathaveIdonewhathaveIdone. We'll see how it feels next week, when I'm getting up at 6:00 a.m. for the expensive privilege of toiling under the command of a perky blonde. Energy! Woooooo!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Things that make you say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Dude. Dude. New item on the list of Things I Will Never Be Able to Stop Thinking About Ever: spontaneous globe luxation. Or, as Slate describes it, when YOUR EYEBALL POPS OUT WHEN YOUR EYELID IS PUSHED IN THE RIGHT WAY.
Oh sweet Jesus, I could totally have my eyeball come boinging out accidentally at any time. It was kind of Slate's Explainer to describe how to relocate my fucking eyeball back in my fucking skull, there at the end of the article, but at that point I was not paying much attention because of having leapt backwards over my desk chair, causing it to twirl emptily as I writhed on the floor holding my hands over my face JUST IN CASE.
Nighty night! Sweet dreams!
Oh sweet Jesus, I could totally have my eyeball come boinging out accidentally at any time. It was kind of Slate's Explainer to describe how to relocate my fucking eyeball back in my fucking skull, there at the end of the article, but at that point I was not paying much attention because of having leapt backwards over my desk chair, causing it to twirl emptily as I writhed on the floor holding my hands over my face JUST IN CASE.
Nighty night! Sweet dreams!
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