Last weekend started off really great. I woke up thinking it was Friday and then had the unexpected pleasure, just as I was about to get into the shower, of realizing that it was in fact Saturday. I WAS STOKED! I love Saturday. It's the best day of the whole week. You get to sleep a little bit more and don't have to work (except if you do... and sometimes I do, but its usually easier work) and then you have the next day to recover from whatever you do on Saturday night. It's just an all around super time of the week.
Having overly excited myself by realizing what day it was I decided I could not go back to sleep... and that wasn't even a problem 'cause I knew I could take a nap later. Since I was up I decided I should take the opportunity to do some grocery shopping. I had noticed that strawberries or something random like that was on sale at Safeway so I decided to go there instead of going to Trader Joes like I normally do... and I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER WITH THAT DECISION. Not only were strawberries on sale, but also ARTICHOKES, MUSHROOMS, RICE CRISPIES, FROZEN FRENCH FRIES, FROZEN PIZZA and probably some other stuff I am forgetting were all on sale...so basically a PLETHORA of my favorite foods were well stocked and on sale... it was sooo damned exciting ! ! ! According to my receipt I saved like $36.00 on groceries... I could not be more proud or pleased about that if I had gotten food for free. AWESOME. Getting good deals on groceries just really does it for me...
So anyway, I went home put the groceries away did some cleaning and took a nap... when I woke up from the nap it was like a whole new day... It wasn't like I was in a bad mood, but my excitement had been reset to whatever my normal level of excitement is. I was looking forward to going to dinner with my coworkers, but I was not nearly as excited about that as I was about the artichokes (the were $1.00 each they are normally like $3.50 - $5.00 each... and they weren't even shitty artichokes... it definitely was a sale worthy of the excitement it brought me), but I wasn't particularly in the mood to ride my bike 'cause it was windy outside (Me + Bike + Wind = Me - having a good time + annoyed) ( why do I love making word equations? I am such a dork...)
Whether I wanted to or not (and I DID NOT) I had to ride my bike to my office though to meet Theresa 'cause she was giving me a ride to the city where we were meeting the San Francisco Shamrock office ladies for dinner. Tony would have given me a ride at least to my office I'm sure, but he was indoor sky diving with his friend, so that wasn't an option.
The wind was totally horrible on Saturday. I was pedaling as hard as I could but felt like I wasn't even moving. and that is something that really jerks my chicken... I just hate working really hard at things and ending up with nothing to show for it, so after about an hour and forty minutes of struggling against the wind I arrived at my office pretty cranky and exhausted, but I felt better after I got a chance to change into my nicer clothes and do my hair and put eye liner on... and I was starting to get a bit more excited about seeing the girls from the other office, so I'd say by the time Theresa and I headed out I was at a baseline level of confidence and excitement.
When Theresa and I got to the city and met Emily in front of the restaurant though, my excitement level went up a little and my confidence plummeted. which resulted in me pretty much immediately acting like some stupid ass hole. Emily asked me how jury duty was and I was like "oh it would have been good except some punk kids threw rocks at me" (ok, that's true it happened so I have no problem with that comment) but then I was like "but it WAS fun to watch the prospective jurors and mock them in my head" (WHAAAAT ? Why would I say that ? It was slightly true, but it was an arrogant thing to say... why would I want to sound arrogant what the hell? I gave an example of the kid that had not yet graduated high school who told the judge that he had lived in Hayward for 4 years and San Leandro for 16 years, but was only 18 years old... yeah he made an inaccurate statement, but I'm sure its scary to be sitting there in the jury box in front of a bunch of ass holes like me telling your life story to a judge and some lawyers) So I made that comment which I wish I hadn't, but in my head at the time I was just trying to sound more bad-ass than I actually am... I don't know why I cant just let myself be an amusing dork when I'm around people... Why not just throw out some word equations and talk about how I love food... everyone loves food... and who doesn't love a good word equation... I wish that my brain would just work out its issues with my mouth and let me be me all the time, but I haven't seemed to master that art yet.
The problem I was having on Saturday night was that I think that Emily is quite possibly the coolest chick in the world and I want her to like me, but I haven't seen her for a couple months so I was trying to cram 2 months worth of coolness into 1 night and acting like I used to act in high school when I wanted people to think I was cool... namely I was acting like a callous idiot. This continued the whole night. I kept trying to force myself to say something funny or interesting and I kept saying arrogant things that were somewhat true, but were not kind things to say about people (and which I won't repeat here). I wish I didn't get like that. I wish I could just be myself. I wish I had been spouting off shit about the artichokes I bought or baby geese or things that make me happy instead of the crap I was saying to sound "cool", but when I try to force myself to talk in a group that I am not fully comfortable with I just only seem to be able to spout out caddy bitchy things or random observations like when Emily was texting a lot and I said "hey you're acting like you have an Iphone but you don't have an I phone" ... Yeah good one Jill way to start a conversation what is she going to say to that... Anyway I was lame all night and probably left a really poor impression on everyone and then I went on to leave an even poorer impression on myself, but to sum up this post in a vague and awkward way... I need to stop trying to be someone else and accept that sometimes being myself means just sitting there and being quite. I think quite lameness is a lot easier to forgive than arrogant stupidity.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Jury Duty with a fist full of rocks on top
I was not immediately thrilled when I received my jury summons, but the way Alameda County rolls is that they have all potential prospective jurors (those who've received a jury duty notice in the mail) call the night before the date of their summons to find out if their randomly assigned number had been drawn to receive the grand prize of a stay at the luxurious jury assembly room in the Hayward superior court house. Tony got his summons in the mail the same day I did and he was dismissed without ever having to report to the court house, so when I called the night before my report date I was very hopeful that the same fate would befall me as well... but It didn't.
My initial reaction to the automated woman who informed me that my prescience would in fact be required at the Hayward Superior court for jury duty earlier this week was "Youuu BITCH... I hate you for casting this burden on me !"... and then I moved onto "Life is soooo not fair, why did III get jury duty but Tony didn't, he has a car and it would have been soooo much more convenient for him to go, but no III have to ride my BIKE through ghetto-ass-Hayward to the court house and I will probably get shot and die on the way. this is Awwwwfullll!" but eventually I calmed down and realized that cursing the automated phone woman and Tony's good luck was not going to make jury duty go away, so I began to look for the silver lining. and it did not take me too long to find one.
The time for me to report to court was 8:30 AM and as it happens we live just 5 miles away from the court house which meant I would get to sleep in about 45 minutes longer than usual... and upon researching my route it seemed that I would have a pretty safe flat ride to jury duty, so I decided a day away from my office: reading a book and not having to deal with the constant nagging of phones or paperwork might be a nice change of pace, .
Upon arriving to the jury assembly room I settled into a not so comfy chair in the corner of the room next to a table (so that I would only have to sit next to 1 person ). Then I was pleased to hear that there was a secret upstairs prospective juror waiting room that had couches... I was saddened, however, by the news that, due to budgetary cuts, there were no cups available to get water from the arrowhead water cooler. I am used to keeping my body thoroughly hydrated and I had assumed their would be drinking fountains, so I was not prepared for this cupless watercooler situation. At least I had a nice couch to relax on for the day, I consoled myself. The "no cup" wound was quickly re-opened though, as I bitterly watched the court employee who had just made the announcement about cups flagrantly filling his Nalgene bottle shortly after he had broken the news to us.
I did not have too long to stew in my bitterness though, they started to call names of prospective jurors pretty quickly. When my name hadn't been called by 10:30 I assumed that I would be let go for the day... but instead the Nalgene bottle toting employee made an anouncement that all prospective jurors whose name had not yet been called would be assigned to a court room, but the room would not be ready until 1:00 pm, so we were to leave and come back to the juror assembly room in 2.5 hours. That Nalgene bottle guy was really starting to piss me off !
I returned at 1:00 pm after 2 1/2 hours of aimlessly wandering around Hayward and sitting on random benches for short periods of time to read Saving Fish From Drowning an Amy Tan book that my mom gave me around Christmas time which I was just now getting around to reading. (It's a pretty good book so far, but I don't expect to finish it unless I somehow get jury duty again or some other task forces me to sit still and not sleep, watch TV or be on the Internet for several hours at a time... and such occurrences seem to be rare in my life these days).
It was hard being away from the Internet for so many hours at a time. I was desperate to know what Michael Ian Black had tweeted about that day or what fun, exciting or pointless status updates had gone up on facebook recently (although I was fairly certain that Michael would have posted something about drinking a glass of water), but I guess did managed to fulfill my social networking needs the old timey way... with my good old cell phone. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with Michael and Megan who seem to be too busy to chat during hours that I'm not working.
After I felt I had had enough of socializing on the phone and being outside I obediently returned to the juror holding pen at 12:45. There weren't many people in the room when I got there, but I did notice there was a stack of cups by the water cooler... just as I was making that observation Nalgene bottle guy announced " We restocked the cups at the water coolers feel free to help yourself". You'd think it would have won him some points with me that he scored some cups, but it just made me like him even less since I am pretty sure he'd been lying earlier about there being no cups due to budget cut backs... I wouldn't be surprised if it was just some twisted game he likes to play with the prospective jurors for his own amusement... Nalgene bottle guy can suck it !!! I don't like him! (I made my own cup by saving the container from my apple sauce, so I just used that to get water... I'm resourceful... I don't need to be part of Nalgeen bottle guys sick cup game... )
It was not until a little after 1:30 that I received my assignment, so after 5 hours of suspence the remaining 59 prospective jurors and I shuffled into court room 209 to fill the jury for a criminal DUI hearing.
I held my breath as the court clerk called the first 12 randomly selected jurors and sighed with relief when my name was not called. It was a long process just going through the introductions of each of the 12 originally selected random jurors. Each prospective juror that had been called into the "box" was to state where they had lived for the last 5 years, the jobs they'd had for the last 5 years, if they were married or lived with someone and if they were (or did) what did their spouse/ roommate do and did they have kids, what high school they attended, had they ever served in the military and what was their education level... for most jurors there were follow up questions and random bits of unnecessary details, so it was a very slow processes... especially since some of the jurors had to be replaced as they identified reasons why they were unable to serve on that particularly jury as they went through their introduction.
For example, it took several hours to get to juror number 9 whoe we learned happened to still be an 18 year old senior in high school (even though he had lived in Hayward for the last 4 years and lived in San Leandro for the first 16 years of his life (he really needed to be in school)... Apparently students are excused from jury duty until they have a break from school.
We had only just finished going through the introductions of the 12 jurors at 3:45 when the judge dismissed everyone for the day. He wanted to give anyone who had suddenly had something come up (such as a family emergency or conflict of interest) that would prevent them from serving on the jury talk with him in private before the end of the day... so I was called to come back the next day to see if I would be required to fill in for any of the original jurors.
The next day the lawyers began their process of weeding out the jurors that would be biased against their client. I had never seen lawyers in action other than on TV and it struck me that lawyers (at least during the jury selection process) are not much more than charming teachers that have to somehow explain laws as if the jury is full of preschoolers while the actual mix of jurors ranges from high school drop outs to PHDs. Despite all of the big words and legal jargon that they had learned to pass the bar, those lawyers had to break things down to a pretty elementary level if they wanted to have everyone in the jury understand and eventually side with them.
Mrs. True (Tru?) the defendant's lawyer, whose name I swear I am not making up, was the coolest chick I have ever seen. I so want to be BFFs with her... although I'm sure she's way out of my BFF league. She was just all chill with the prospective jurors asking them about how their family's restaurant that they mentioned was and apologizing for her mispronunciation of peoples names in such a cute sincere way and throwing in witty little observations about things the prospective jurors had said... I can't recall any exact examples of why, but she just left you with the impression that she was the easiest person in the world to get along with. She must have aced her schmoozing test in Law school 'cause that chick new how to work a court... I think if I had been pulled up as a prospective juror my excuse to get out of serving would have been that Ms. True's obvious super coolness had rendered me unable to side on any other side than hers... I'm sure the judge would have loved that... Lame Mr. prosecutor would have had to dismiss me... he was not nearly so cool as Ms. True... he didn't even have a memorable and fitting law name like she did... he had mastered the talking down to the jury without sounding like he was talking down to them thing. First he asked the jurors to imagine that they were at a dinner party and had had a few drinks... and then he asked how they would tell if someone had had too much and couldn't drive... I totally wanted to raise my hand. It was just like a brain storming session in 3rd grade or something. I didn't realize how much audience participation there was in jury duty... but his next "imagine that..." scenario which involved working on a broken car never got to come to fruition 'cause the judge cut him off for wasting everyone's time... the judge did not seem to care for the prosecuting attourney... I didn't really care for him either although I don't know why exactly I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he really was just not as cool as Ms. True...
The lawyers and the judge questioned all of the prospective jurors in the box for several hours dismissing jurors for various reasons... a couple of the jurors seemed to be throwing their answers so that they would be let off...One guy was clearly desperate to get out of the trial so he said he had been charged with a DUI while he was working on a military base. Nobody seemed to want to dismiss him for that so he added that he suffered from panic attacks when he was alone, and after the judge assured him that he would always be with at least 13 people through the duration of the trial the guy suddenly claimed not to speak English very well and with an annoyed look the judge dismissed him.
Some of the questions that they asked each of the prospective jurors seemed like a trap... there were things that you knew would get you out of jury duty, but would probably also get you beat up in the parking lot outside: "Is there anything about the fact that the defendant is a Latino that would make you inclined to vote one way or another on this trial" was one question that I was sure that no one would bite on... yet much to my surprise on the second day of jury selection... after about 20 minutes of questioning just befoer swearing in the 2 alternate jurors and dismissing us for the day alternate juror number 2 had a burning confession he had to make...
alternate juror number 2 was a hearty looking Chinese man who worked for his brother's construction company and who felt unique in that the "majority of his friends [were] Latinos because of the industry he worked in so [he] would probably side with the defendant"... WHAT? We live in California who doesn't have a dozen or so Latino friends ? Come on... really? You really can't see the distinction in your mind between our defendant "Mr. Perez" and your friends from work? To me that seems almost as racist as if he had said that he would have to convict Mr. Perez because he just didn't trust Mexicans... do they all look the same to you man ? Total crap! Oh well. The prosecutor obviously had to pull that guy off of his alternate jury seat, so another random name, which was not mine (SCORE! ) was called, and a very sweet soft spoken Asian girl who didn't drink because it was considered a sin at her church, but didn't judge people who did drink, took the final alternate juror position. The alternate jurors were signed in at about 3:00 pm on the 2nd day of selection and the 7 or 8 unselected prospective jurors (including myself) were set free minutes later (after the judge assured us that us unslectees were really missing out on an experience... I guess I can go ahead and look forward to my next jury duty session then).
I was so excited to be out in the sunshine and fresh air and on my way home at 3:00 in the afternoon. I was already dreaming of walking through my garden at home and admiring my little baby corn and pea plants when I approached my bike and noticed that my front tire was flat. It was the second flat I'd gotten in 3 days so I was a little annoyed, especially since 3 days ago I had ordered a new bike tube online, but had not yet received it, and when I went to the bike shop to get a new tube for my first flat I hadn't the fore site to buy an extra tube to take care of my next flat.
I remembered that there was a gas station about 3 blocks from the court house though so I figured that I could put some air in it and see if i could ride it at least most of the way home... I was still in pretty good spirits and was optimistic that I could find a way to ride my bike home, but as I walked my bike past a group of teenagers they decided I had somehow offended them and the two boys started to throw rocks at me... fortunately for me they seemed to be completely blind and managed to miss me (and my bike) with each of the 14 or 15 rocks they threw... I was glad to find that not all the youths of Hayward are ass holes though 'cause the 2 girls that were with those boys convinced them to stop throwing things at me cause they, like me, had noticed that the boys were "being stupid". Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, but at the time it made me want to cry. I guess it was just so unnecessarily mean and inconsiderate that it made me feel kind of helpless and definitely angry. Cruelty bothers me...
I got to the gas station a few minutes later and found that the valve stem of my bike's tire had actually been completely ripped off. I am not sure if it was something that I had inadvertently done when I was locking up my bike or if it was an intentional act of random vandalism, but feeling the way I did at that moment I was certain it was intentional and I once again felt like the victim of injustice. I decided I would turn it in to a positive thing though 'cause I knew there was a K-Mart not too far away and I needed practice changing bike tires, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I could just buy a new tube and a cheap air pump and get my independent womanness on. I did make it to Kmart after about 45 minutes of walking my bike across town (turned out that Kmart was a little farther than I had originally imagined) and I did successfully changed my tire, but much to my shagrin when I went to pump up the new tube and couldnt seem to get air into it, I suddenly remembered that the wheels on this particular bike required a special type of valve that was longer than those on regular bike tubes... so I was stuck once more with a heavy useless bike to walk home and now I also had a 10 lb bike pump to carry with me. AWESOME HAD JUST GOTTEN AWESOMEER!
At that point there was no saving my mood. I was hot and tired and angry at the injustice of it all, but fortunately I called Tony and he came to rescue me and I still got home exactly at 5pm which is earlier than usual. I find it somewhat striking though that I went to jury duty which is supposed to teach you about justice and I seemed to learn a lot more about the prevalence of injustice in America. Not just because some punk kids threw rocks at me, or because I had to go to jury duty and Tony didn't, but the whole system, the way prospective jurors will say things to get let off the jury and the way lawyers will try to charm you to say something rather than leaving it to be truly decided by the evidence seems kind of whack although I definitely can't think of any solution to our legal system that would be better... but I hope that if I ever am on a jury I can put a little justice in the justice system... but I guess I can't totally hate on my 1st bay area Jury experience If nothing else I got some extra sleep, read part of an actual grown up book and I rediscovered PB and J so I guess that alone is enough to make it a positive experience.
My initial reaction to the automated woman who informed me that my prescience would in fact be required at the Hayward Superior court for jury duty earlier this week was "Youuu BITCH... I hate you for casting this burden on me !"... and then I moved onto "Life is soooo not fair, why did III get jury duty but Tony didn't, he has a car and it would have been soooo much more convenient for him to go, but no III have to ride my BIKE through ghetto-ass-Hayward to the court house and I will probably get shot and die on the way. this is Awwwwfullll!" but eventually I calmed down and realized that cursing the automated phone woman and Tony's good luck was not going to make jury duty go away, so I began to look for the silver lining. and it did not take me too long to find one.
The time for me to report to court was 8:30 AM and as it happens we live just 5 miles away from the court house which meant I would get to sleep in about 45 minutes longer than usual... and upon researching my route it seemed that I would have a pretty safe flat ride to jury duty, so I decided a day away from my office: reading a book and not having to deal with the constant nagging of phones or paperwork might be a nice change of pace, .
Upon arriving to the jury assembly room I settled into a not so comfy chair in the corner of the room next to a table (so that I would only have to sit next to 1 person ). Then I was pleased to hear that there was a secret upstairs prospective juror waiting room that had couches... I was saddened, however, by the news that, due to budgetary cuts, there were no cups available to get water from the arrowhead water cooler. I am used to keeping my body thoroughly hydrated and I had assumed their would be drinking fountains, so I was not prepared for this cupless watercooler situation. At least I had a nice couch to relax on for the day, I consoled myself. The "no cup" wound was quickly re-opened though, as I bitterly watched the court employee who had just made the announcement about cups flagrantly filling his Nalgene bottle shortly after he had broken the news to us.
I did not have too long to stew in my bitterness though, they started to call names of prospective jurors pretty quickly. When my name hadn't been called by 10:30 I assumed that I would be let go for the day... but instead the Nalgene bottle toting employee made an anouncement that all prospective jurors whose name had not yet been called would be assigned to a court room, but the room would not be ready until 1:00 pm, so we were to leave and come back to the juror assembly room in 2.5 hours. That Nalgene bottle guy was really starting to piss me off !
I returned at 1:00 pm after 2 1/2 hours of aimlessly wandering around Hayward and sitting on random benches for short periods of time to read Saving Fish From Drowning an Amy Tan book that my mom gave me around Christmas time which I was just now getting around to reading. (It's a pretty good book so far, but I don't expect to finish it unless I somehow get jury duty again or some other task forces me to sit still and not sleep, watch TV or be on the Internet for several hours at a time... and such occurrences seem to be rare in my life these days).
It was hard being away from the Internet for so many hours at a time. I was desperate to know what Michael Ian Black had tweeted about that day or what fun, exciting or pointless status updates had gone up on facebook recently (although I was fairly certain that Michael would have posted something about drinking a glass of water), but I guess did managed to fulfill my social networking needs the old timey way... with my good old cell phone. It was nice to get a chance to catch up with Michael and Megan who seem to be too busy to chat during hours that I'm not working.
After I felt I had had enough of socializing on the phone and being outside I obediently returned to the juror holding pen at 12:45. There weren't many people in the room when I got there, but I did notice there was a stack of cups by the water cooler... just as I was making that observation Nalgene bottle guy announced " We restocked the cups at the water coolers feel free to help yourself". You'd think it would have won him some points with me that he scored some cups, but it just made me like him even less since I am pretty sure he'd been lying earlier about there being no cups due to budget cut backs... I wouldn't be surprised if it was just some twisted game he likes to play with the prospective jurors for his own amusement... Nalgene bottle guy can suck it !!! I don't like him! (I made my own cup by saving the container from my apple sauce, so I just used that to get water... I'm resourceful... I don't need to be part of Nalgeen bottle guys sick cup game... )
It was not until a little after 1:30 that I received my assignment, so after 5 hours of suspence the remaining 59 prospective jurors and I shuffled into court room 209 to fill the jury for a criminal DUI hearing.
I held my breath as the court clerk called the first 12 randomly selected jurors and sighed with relief when my name was not called. It was a long process just going through the introductions of each of the 12 originally selected random jurors. Each prospective juror that had been called into the "box" was to state where they had lived for the last 5 years, the jobs they'd had for the last 5 years, if they were married or lived with someone and if they were (or did) what did their spouse/ roommate do and did they have kids, what high school they attended, had they ever served in the military and what was their education level... for most jurors there were follow up questions and random bits of unnecessary details, so it was a very slow processes... especially since some of the jurors had to be replaced as they identified reasons why they were unable to serve on that particularly jury as they went through their introduction.
For example, it took several hours to get to juror number 9 whoe we learned happened to still be an 18 year old senior in high school (even though he had lived in Hayward for the last 4 years and lived in San Leandro for the first 16 years of his life (he really needed to be in school)... Apparently students are excused from jury duty until they have a break from school.
We had only just finished going through the introductions of the 12 jurors at 3:45 when the judge dismissed everyone for the day. He wanted to give anyone who had suddenly had something come up (such as a family emergency or conflict of interest) that would prevent them from serving on the jury talk with him in private before the end of the day... so I was called to come back the next day to see if I would be required to fill in for any of the original jurors.
The next day the lawyers began their process of weeding out the jurors that would be biased against their client. I had never seen lawyers in action other than on TV and it struck me that lawyers (at least during the jury selection process) are not much more than charming teachers that have to somehow explain laws as if the jury is full of preschoolers while the actual mix of jurors ranges from high school drop outs to PHDs. Despite all of the big words and legal jargon that they had learned to pass the bar, those lawyers had to break things down to a pretty elementary level if they wanted to have everyone in the jury understand and eventually side with them.
Mrs. True (Tru?) the defendant's lawyer, whose name I swear I am not making up, was the coolest chick I have ever seen. I so want to be BFFs with her... although I'm sure she's way out of my BFF league. She was just all chill with the prospective jurors asking them about how their family's restaurant that they mentioned was and apologizing for her mispronunciation of peoples names in such a cute sincere way and throwing in witty little observations about things the prospective jurors had said... I can't recall any exact examples of why, but she just left you with the impression that she was the easiest person in the world to get along with. She must have aced her schmoozing test in Law school 'cause that chick new how to work a court... I think if I had been pulled up as a prospective juror my excuse to get out of serving would have been that Ms. True's obvious super coolness had rendered me unable to side on any other side than hers... I'm sure the judge would have loved that... Lame Mr. prosecutor would have had to dismiss me... he was not nearly so cool as Ms. True... he didn't even have a memorable and fitting law name like she did... he had mastered the talking down to the jury without sounding like he was talking down to them thing. First he asked the jurors to imagine that they were at a dinner party and had had a few drinks... and then he asked how they would tell if someone had had too much and couldn't drive... I totally wanted to raise my hand. It was just like a brain storming session in 3rd grade or something. I didn't realize how much audience participation there was in jury duty... but his next "imagine that..." scenario which involved working on a broken car never got to come to fruition 'cause the judge cut him off for wasting everyone's time... the judge did not seem to care for the prosecuting attourney... I didn't really care for him either although I don't know why exactly I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he really was just not as cool as Ms. True...
The lawyers and the judge questioned all of the prospective jurors in the box for several hours dismissing jurors for various reasons... a couple of the jurors seemed to be throwing their answers so that they would be let off...One guy was clearly desperate to get out of the trial so he said he had been charged with a DUI while he was working on a military base. Nobody seemed to want to dismiss him for that so he added that he suffered from panic attacks when he was alone, and after the judge assured him that he would always be with at least 13 people through the duration of the trial the guy suddenly claimed not to speak English very well and with an annoyed look the judge dismissed him.
Some of the questions that they asked each of the prospective jurors seemed like a trap... there were things that you knew would get you out of jury duty, but would probably also get you beat up in the parking lot outside: "Is there anything about the fact that the defendant is a Latino that would make you inclined to vote one way or another on this trial" was one question that I was sure that no one would bite on... yet much to my surprise on the second day of jury selection... after about 20 minutes of questioning just befoer swearing in the 2 alternate jurors and dismissing us for the day alternate juror number 2 had a burning confession he had to make...
alternate juror number 2 was a hearty looking Chinese man who worked for his brother's construction company and who felt unique in that the "majority of his friends [were] Latinos because of the industry he worked in so [he] would probably side with the defendant"... WHAT? We live in California who doesn't have a dozen or so Latino friends ? Come on... really? You really can't see the distinction in your mind between our defendant "Mr. Perez" and your friends from work? To me that seems almost as racist as if he had said that he would have to convict Mr. Perez because he just didn't trust Mexicans... do they all look the same to you man ? Total crap! Oh well. The prosecutor obviously had to pull that guy off of his alternate jury seat, so another random name, which was not mine (SCORE! ) was called, and a very sweet soft spoken Asian girl who didn't drink because it was considered a sin at her church, but didn't judge people who did drink, took the final alternate juror position. The alternate jurors were signed in at about 3:00 pm on the 2nd day of selection and the 7 or 8 unselected prospective jurors (including myself) were set free minutes later (after the judge assured us that us unslectees were really missing out on an experience... I guess I can go ahead and look forward to my next jury duty session then).
I was so excited to be out in the sunshine and fresh air and on my way home at 3:00 in the afternoon. I was already dreaming of walking through my garden at home and admiring my little baby corn and pea plants when I approached my bike and noticed that my front tire was flat. It was the second flat I'd gotten in 3 days so I was a little annoyed, especially since 3 days ago I had ordered a new bike tube online, but had not yet received it, and when I went to the bike shop to get a new tube for my first flat I hadn't the fore site to buy an extra tube to take care of my next flat.
I remembered that there was a gas station about 3 blocks from the court house though so I figured that I could put some air in it and see if i could ride it at least most of the way home... I was still in pretty good spirits and was optimistic that I could find a way to ride my bike home, but as I walked my bike past a group of teenagers they decided I had somehow offended them and the two boys started to throw rocks at me... fortunately for me they seemed to be completely blind and managed to miss me (and my bike) with each of the 14 or 15 rocks they threw... I was glad to find that not all the youths of Hayward are ass holes though 'cause the 2 girls that were with those boys convinced them to stop throwing things at me cause they, like me, had noticed that the boys were "being stupid". Looking back on it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, but at the time it made me want to cry. I guess it was just so unnecessarily mean and inconsiderate that it made me feel kind of helpless and definitely angry. Cruelty bothers me...
I got to the gas station a few minutes later and found that the valve stem of my bike's tire had actually been completely ripped off. I am not sure if it was something that I had inadvertently done when I was locking up my bike or if it was an intentional act of random vandalism, but feeling the way I did at that moment I was certain it was intentional and I once again felt like the victim of injustice. I decided I would turn it in to a positive thing though 'cause I knew there was a K-Mart not too far away and I needed practice changing bike tires, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I could just buy a new tube and a cheap air pump and get my independent womanness on. I did make it to Kmart after about 45 minutes of walking my bike across town (turned out that Kmart was a little farther than I had originally imagined) and I did successfully changed my tire, but much to my shagrin when I went to pump up the new tube and couldnt seem to get air into it, I suddenly remembered that the wheels on this particular bike required a special type of valve that was longer than those on regular bike tubes... so I was stuck once more with a heavy useless bike to walk home and now I also had a 10 lb bike pump to carry with me. AWESOME HAD JUST GOTTEN AWESOMEER!
At that point there was no saving my mood. I was hot and tired and angry at the injustice of it all, but fortunately I called Tony and he came to rescue me and I still got home exactly at 5pm which is earlier than usual. I find it somewhat striking though that I went to jury duty which is supposed to teach you about justice and I seemed to learn a lot more about the prevalence of injustice in America. Not just because some punk kids threw rocks at me, or because I had to go to jury duty and Tony didn't, but the whole system, the way prospective jurors will say things to get let off the jury and the way lawyers will try to charm you to say something rather than leaving it to be truly decided by the evidence seems kind of whack although I definitely can't think of any solution to our legal system that would be better... but I hope that if I ever am on a jury I can put a little justice in the justice system... but I guess I can't totally hate on my 1st bay area Jury experience If nothing else I got some extra sleep, read part of an actual grown up book and I rediscovered PB and J so I guess that alone is enough to make it a positive experience.
Friday, April 17, 2009
This one's for Carly... but not because it's her birthday... we're not thinking about that
One of my favorite days EVER was when Carly and I went to CLU one time in high school. I don't remember why the hell we decided to go there, but I think it had something to do with the fact that it was the summer and we wanted to take pictures. Maybe it was just because we both looked particularly cute that day (and we totally did ! I have photographic proof of that... which was awesomely double exposed over pictures of Carly's family in New York ... I love those pics. For the longest time they were the best looking pics of me in existence (thank you for your awesome photographic skills Carly! )... until I discovered what a difference tweezing your brows can make... Carly was super delicious in the pictures too by the way... maybe if I'm feeling ambitious I will scan them and put them with this blog entry... I wouldn't hold my breath for that though 'cause it would involve me remembering to bring them to work, then actually bringing them to work and then somehow making it look like I am doing actual work for my company while I scan them... maybe next time I work a Saturday I can do that. )
Wow, I just wrote the majority of that last paragraph in parentheses... I think I probably don't understand how to use Parentheses correctly... like that sentence that I just wrote... the one about using parentheses, (that probably should have been in parentheses).
So I actually don't remember exactly what we did that made CLU day so fantastic, but it was! I know it was a Carly and Jill day... or I guess it could have been a Jill and Carly day either way it would mean there was an exchange of awesome hand made cards... that in itself makes for a good day I think... OH and also I remember it was warm and I like being warm so that was nice, and as I mentioned earlier, Carly and I were looking hot, and I like that too! and I really enjoy taking pictures with friends (especially when everyone is looking hot) it's just fun ! I don't care if it makes me a poser or something, but I love posing for pictures... I don't do well with trying to look pretty or modelly or anything, but I think I can usually pull off a pretty kick ass silly face... and sometimes I feel kinda artistic and creative when I take pictures of other people or scenery and what have you, but based on looking through pictures I've taken compared to pictures other people have taken I've come to realize that I am not very great at photography... oh well..
Another fun thing Carly and I did at CLU was run through their fountain (and pose on it like mermaids), so that was fun 'cause we were being daring and mischievous ... and who doesn't love some good mischief... ; ) (<-winking face... I find it odd that I have suddenly started using winking faces when I write things 'cause I would never wink at someone in real life... I guess I throw out the occasional super over exaggerated wink where I scrunch up one entire side of my face and open my mouth really wide, but I don't think I can pull off a sexy wink... facial coordination [ or any kind of coordination for that matter] is not my thing).
Also on Carly and Jill/ CLU day Carly and I went in the student union and at the time I thought that was super bold of us. I remember thinking that we must have stood out so much when we were going into the student union and I was sure we were going to get yelled at or thrown out for not being CLU students or for being minors, but after having actually gone through college I realize now that no one really cares about that sort of thing... I think we had been looking for somewhere to buy ice cream or water or candy and food / water tend to be good motivators so I guess that is why we went ahead with it despite the whole being strangers in a strange land thing... i think we did end up finding some type of vending machine or snack stand, so I guess it was all worth it... anway that is my story about Carly and Jill day/that one time Carly and I went to CLU in high school... I am super awesome at remembering things and telling stories about those things huh?
Wow, I just wrote the majority of that last paragraph in parentheses... I think I probably don't understand how to use Parentheses correctly... like that sentence that I just wrote... the one about using parentheses, (that probably should have been in parentheses).
So I actually don't remember exactly what we did that made CLU day so fantastic, but it was! I know it was a Carly and Jill day... or I guess it could have been a Jill and Carly day either way it would mean there was an exchange of awesome hand made cards... that in itself makes for a good day I think... OH and also I remember it was warm and I like being warm so that was nice, and as I mentioned earlier, Carly and I were looking hot, and I like that too! and I really enjoy taking pictures with friends (especially when everyone is looking hot) it's just fun ! I don't care if it makes me a poser or something, but I love posing for pictures... I don't do well with trying to look pretty or modelly or anything, but I think I can usually pull off a pretty kick ass silly face... and sometimes I feel kinda artistic and creative when I take pictures of other people or scenery and what have you, but based on looking through pictures I've taken compared to pictures other people have taken I've come to realize that I am not very great at photography... oh well..
Another fun thing Carly and I did at CLU was run through their fountain (and pose on it like mermaids), so that was fun 'cause we were being daring and mischievous ... and who doesn't love some good mischief... ; ) (<-winking face... I find it odd that I have suddenly started using winking faces when I write things 'cause I would never wink at someone in real life... I guess I throw out the occasional super over exaggerated wink where I scrunch up one entire side of my face and open my mouth really wide, but I don't think I can pull off a sexy wink... facial coordination [ or any kind of coordination for that matter] is not my thing).
Also on Carly and Jill/ CLU day Carly and I went in the student union and at the time I thought that was super bold of us. I remember thinking that we must have stood out so much when we were going into the student union and I was sure we were going to get yelled at or thrown out for not being CLU students or for being minors, but after having actually gone through college I realize now that no one really cares about that sort of thing... I think we had been looking for somewhere to buy ice cream or water or candy and food / water tend to be good motivators so I guess that is why we went ahead with it despite the whole being strangers in a strange land thing... i think we did end up finding some type of vending machine or snack stand, so I guess it was all worth it... anway that is my story about Carly and Jill day/that one time Carly and I went to CLU in high school... I am super awesome at remembering things and telling stories about those things huh?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Saying good bye is hard
One of my best friends (who is a former SF roommate of mine), Anushka, had a 5-day visit to the Bay Area this week after having been in Kenya for the last 9 months (today she is going back to Kenya - after she makes a 5 day stop in Baharain and Syria to visit another friend of hers... she's so travely ! ) ... so for me this week has been a whirlwind of fun, good food and shadowing Anushka through her exciting fast paced life ! I wish I had 1/2 the energy Anushka does ! She can wake up at 6:00 Am and still be partying hard at midnight (with the help of some coffee to get her going). I on the other had am pretty much ready for bed by 10:00 pm no matter what, but I can usually fake alertness (with the help of caffeine or a 5-hour energy drink) until about 11:30pm... after that I'm pretty much useless...
Anyway, to culminate her stateside stay, Anushka, threw a party and invited a bunch of her friends to Tony's and My house last night... and I, hoping to give off the appearance that I have more friends than I really do, took as many pics as I could of everyone at our house so I can put them on Facebook. It was AWESOME ! We had to use all 8 of our plates 'cause that was how many people were AT OUR HOUSE AT 1 TIME. It was like an octagon of FUN in our living room.
Also, it was actually the first real party our house has seen since it's been OUR house (Apparently the guy who owned the house before Tony and I bought it was very popular in the neighborhood and had a lounge set up in his garage, so I think the house was probably pretty disappointed in Tony and I for being so lame, but I like to think we took a HUGE step towards redeeming ourselves last night) It was frickin' WEDNESDAY NIGHT and we were just chillin' till like 11:00 PM and snacking on some pasta and aps (that's how us cool kids refer to appetizers... and also computer applications, which seems like it might get confusing, but us coolies can tell which "ap" is being used by looking at the syntax)... we've had people over to our house since we bought it of coarse, but those were small tame dinner/board game kind of gatherings... and I'm not saying I'm opposed to that. I do love a good board game, but last night was an off the hook drinkin' wine, eating cheese / worldly hors d'oeuvress and watching U-tube videos on our TV kind of party. It was definately a more exciting type of fun than I'm used to. I'd say it was probably akin to a typical Wednesday night for Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan... well, actually, I think Lohan and Hilton probably aren't quite hard core enough to watch 4 YOUTUBE videos on a weekday night...ROCK-US-NESS ! After a few glasses of wine I even cast off the poncho of shyness that I usually wear to other peoples parties and I started to talk to people I BEARLY KNOW ! ( there were two guys there that I had only met once before and I believe I spoke 2 or 3 FULL SENTENCES to each of them... I feel so brave ! I was pretty familiar with everyone else at the party though, so I was actually a fairly particiapatory party at Anushka's party).
Anyway, as the night started to wind down people inevitably had to leave... and that's where things always get REALLY awkward for me (I am in standard awkward mode from the time a stranger or someone who I'm not 100% comfortable with enters my presence, but knowing that they're leaving enhances the awkward to a whole new level for me...) First Magnus left, I think I had met him once before, but he said "nice to meet you and thanks for having me over" and we shook hands and I think it went pretty well 'cause he took control of the situation and I don't think he heard my awkward "I think I met you once... before... ... but maybe not" and he made it clear we were going for a hand shake and not a hug, so that actually took a lot of pressure off, but then it was Brian's turn to leave... I think Brian is at least equally as socially awkward as I am... so while he was saying good bye to Anushka I kind of stood awkwardly off to the side and stared at them... he hugged Anushka and I stood there rigidly thinking he would probably hug me... but he didn't and I wasn't sure if that mean I should go for the hug with him or not... so I didn't, and then he hugged like everyone else at our house and left... and I was standing there feeling even more awkward than before... It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was meant as a snub? had I somehow offended Brian ? Was he mad at me ? or was this just because I looked like I didn't want a hug ?... I was still pretty baffled and distraught about it 5 minutes later when Marlen and Mark said they were gonna head out... but I think my good bye went pretty well with them. I hugged Marlen or she hugged me either way it seemed natural (she is super cool and lives close to where I work, so I am hoping she and I will get to hang out sometimes...)... anyway, after I hugged Marlen, I shook Mark's hand and I think it was a really well executed hand shake on both of our parts... and I think it would have been a really good goodbye session overall, but then I started to feel a little awkward again when Marlen and Anushka hugged for like 5 full minutes. For some reason I feel like its rude to NOT STARE at people when they are saying good bye to someone, but my eye balls were starting to feel dry from being so focused so late at night so I think I started to look like I was fighting back tears 'cause I kept blinking... but I really don't know what you're supposed to look at or do when a good by hug is going that long so eventually I sat down and had some more chips while they finished... and then Anushka remembered she wanted Marlen to mail something to her brother for her and that just kind of extended the weird everyone standing around good bye phase...
ok, well anyway, this is getting to be a really long boring play by play of people hugging good bye, but i guess the fact that I have so damn much to say about it is probably a testament to the fact that I give way way way too much thought to good byes... They are important and all, but there really is no reason for me to freak out over it so much... I wish that I was part of a culture where there was some definite thing to do when you leave... I would prefer it if you just always hugged everyone when they left or you never hugged anyone when they leave... why is it sometimes yes and sometimes no? CONFUSING ! Actually I think high 5s would be nice... its satisfying, you can just take all of your good bye time tension and slap it against someone else's hand ... it just feels good... hugging can be nice too, but its kind of an intimate invasion of space, so I guess that is why there is the sometimes no with that...
Anyway, it was a great visit with Anushka, so it was hard too having to mentally say good bye , but I am so friggin exhausted I think I can only hang at her pace for like 3-4 days at a time before I get zonked out... it would be nice to be able to get those 3-4 days more often than once a year though... Perhaps I shall look into going to Kenya.
Anyway, to culminate her stateside stay, Anushka, threw a party and invited a bunch of her friends to Tony's and My house last night... and I, hoping to give off the appearance that I have more friends than I really do, took as many pics as I could of everyone at our house so I can put them on Facebook. It was AWESOME ! We had to use all 8 of our plates 'cause that was how many people were AT OUR HOUSE AT 1 TIME. It was like an octagon of FUN in our living room.
Also, it was actually the first real party our house has seen since it's been OUR house (Apparently the guy who owned the house before Tony and I bought it was very popular in the neighborhood and had a lounge set up in his garage, so I think the house was probably pretty disappointed in Tony and I for being so lame, but I like to think we took a HUGE step towards redeeming ourselves last night) It was frickin' WEDNESDAY NIGHT and we were just chillin' till like 11:00 PM and snacking on some pasta and aps (that's how us cool kids refer to appetizers... and also computer applications, which seems like it might get confusing, but us coolies can tell which "ap" is being used by looking at the syntax)... we've had people over to our house since we bought it of coarse, but those were small tame dinner/board game kind of gatherings... and I'm not saying I'm opposed to that. I do love a good board game, but last night was an off the hook drinkin' wine, eating cheese / worldly hors d'oeuvress and watching U-tube videos on our TV kind of party. It was definately a more exciting type of fun than I'm used to. I'd say it was probably akin to a typical Wednesday night for Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan... well, actually, I think Lohan and Hilton probably aren't quite hard core enough to watch 4 YOUTUBE videos on a weekday night...ROCK-US-NESS ! After a few glasses of wine I even cast off the poncho of shyness that I usually wear to other peoples parties and I started to talk to people I BEARLY KNOW ! ( there were two guys there that I had only met once before and I believe I spoke 2 or 3 FULL SENTENCES to each of them... I feel so brave ! I was pretty familiar with everyone else at the party though, so I was actually a fairly particiapatory party at Anushka's party).
Anyway, as the night started to wind down people inevitably had to leave... and that's where things always get REALLY awkward for me (I am in standard awkward mode from the time a stranger or someone who I'm not 100% comfortable with enters my presence, but knowing that they're leaving enhances the awkward to a whole new level for me...) First Magnus left, I think I had met him once before, but he said "nice to meet you and thanks for having me over" and we shook hands and I think it went pretty well 'cause he took control of the situation and I don't think he heard my awkward "I think I met you once... before... ... but maybe not" and he made it clear we were going for a hand shake and not a hug, so that actually took a lot of pressure off, but then it was Brian's turn to leave... I think Brian is at least equally as socially awkward as I am... so while he was saying good bye to Anushka I kind of stood awkwardly off to the side and stared at them... he hugged Anushka and I stood there rigidly thinking he would probably hug me... but he didn't and I wasn't sure if that mean I should go for the hug with him or not... so I didn't, and then he hugged like everyone else at our house and left... and I was standing there feeling even more awkward than before... It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was meant as a snub? had I somehow offended Brian ? Was he mad at me ? or was this just because I looked like I didn't want a hug ?... I was still pretty baffled and distraught about it 5 minutes later when Marlen and Mark said they were gonna head out... but I think my good bye went pretty well with them. I hugged Marlen or she hugged me either way it seemed natural (she is super cool and lives close to where I work, so I am hoping she and I will get to hang out sometimes...)... anyway, after I hugged Marlen, I shook Mark's hand and I think it was a really well executed hand shake on both of our parts... and I think it would have been a really good goodbye session overall, but then I started to feel a little awkward again when Marlen and Anushka hugged for like 5 full minutes. For some reason I feel like its rude to NOT STARE at people when they are saying good bye to someone, but my eye balls were starting to feel dry from being so focused so late at night so I think I started to look like I was fighting back tears 'cause I kept blinking... but I really don't know what you're supposed to look at or do when a good by hug is going that long so eventually I sat down and had some more chips while they finished... and then Anushka remembered she wanted Marlen to mail something to her brother for her and that just kind of extended the weird everyone standing around good bye phase...
ok, well anyway, this is getting to be a really long boring play by play of people hugging good bye, but i guess the fact that I have so damn much to say about it is probably a testament to the fact that I give way way way too much thought to good byes... They are important and all, but there really is no reason for me to freak out over it so much... I wish that I was part of a culture where there was some definite thing to do when you leave... I would prefer it if you just always hugged everyone when they left or you never hugged anyone when they leave... why is it sometimes yes and sometimes no? CONFUSING ! Actually I think high 5s would be nice... its satisfying, you can just take all of your good bye time tension and slap it against someone else's hand ... it just feels good... hugging can be nice too, but its kind of an intimate invasion of space, so I guess that is why there is the sometimes no with that...
Anyway, it was a great visit with Anushka, so it was hard too having to mentally say good bye , but I am so friggin exhausted I think I can only hang at her pace for like 3-4 days at a time before I get zonked out... it would be nice to be able to get those 3-4 days more often than once a year though... Perhaps I shall look into going to Kenya.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
It may not seem like it at first but this entry is about how Michael Ian Black might be the funniest man alive
I tweeted... yesterday. it was something that I have feared was coming for a long time, but I felt that I really had to do it. I broke down and joined twitter...
The morning radio show that I dearly love has been wretched from the airwaves. It came right after the show had taken a vacation to go to Disney world, so at first I didn't realize the show had actually be cancelled, but when the vacation started to roll into it's 2ND week I began to fear for the worst... and then yesterday when they played a commercial (during the time when the morning show should have been on ) making fun of morning radio talk shows and saying how great it is that live 105 doesn't have one of those, the reality sunk in like a lead weight through a bubble bath. The Woody Show was over.
They had taken the website for the morning show off of the radio's website and google didn't have much info, but in the weeks leading up to the tragic death of my morning show, the host of the show and his cohorts had been talking about their twitter accounts, and since I am the type of person who enjoys reality TV, and therefore has become accustomed to knowing all the details of the lives of the complete strangers that are broadcast to me, I had to know what had happened to the radio personalities that had brought me so much laughter and joy on so many cold/wet mornings as I rode my bike to work... so the second I got into my office yesterday I went online and signed up for twitter and tracked down these radio people and found out that they had been fired over some legal issue which they could not discuss until lawyers were done sorting it out... so that was pretty disappointing... but i figured since I'd already taken the plunge and joined twitter I might as well look around....
I didn't know who's tweets to follow so I decided to just check out who my radio peeps were following... and one of them happened to be following Michael Ian Black, who I knew from such things as "I love the..." on VH1 and random movies like "wet hot American summer" and anyway, I've always thought he was funny and cute so I put him on my "following" list... and within 3 tweets I realized that he was even funnier than I had originally thought...
so I followed a link he had tweeted to the website for his blog, http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ , and I read his blog entry about writing for a TV show... and it made me chuckle on the inside... so I started reading more stuff on his website... and it made me LOLAW (laugh out loud at work... I'm pretty sure I'm not the first you use that acronym but I'm the first person I know and it has a nice ring to it i think...) and I hardly ever laugh at work, but I could not contain myself... that guy is funny... I am super stoked that he will have a new show on Comedy Central this summer... although I am not going to count my chickens or anything 'cause I watched a couple episodes of his last show on Comedy Central, "Stella" and either it was horribly unfunny or I just totally didn't get it... none the less Michael Ian Black seems to have mastered the art of blogging and twittering and that in turn has filled about 5 or 6 of my otherwise empty minutes at work with laughter and happiness, so I'm pretty grateful for that! Maybe I won't be so bored next winter during the slow moving season... and maybe I'll be slacking off on http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ a little too much this summer during the winter moving season... only time will tell I guess.
The morning radio show that I dearly love has been wretched from the airwaves. It came right after the show had taken a vacation to go to Disney world, so at first I didn't realize the show had actually be cancelled, but when the vacation started to roll into it's 2ND week I began to fear for the worst... and then yesterday when they played a commercial (during the time when the morning show should have been on ) making fun of morning radio talk shows and saying how great it is that live 105 doesn't have one of those, the reality sunk in like a lead weight through a bubble bath. The Woody Show was over.
They had taken the website for the morning show off of the radio's website and google didn't have much info, but in the weeks leading up to the tragic death of my morning show, the host of the show and his cohorts had been talking about their twitter accounts, and since I am the type of person who enjoys reality TV, and therefore has become accustomed to knowing all the details of the lives of the complete strangers that are broadcast to me, I had to know what had happened to the radio personalities that had brought me so much laughter and joy on so many cold/wet mornings as I rode my bike to work... so the second I got into my office yesterday I went online and signed up for twitter and tracked down these radio people and found out that they had been fired over some legal issue which they could not discuss until lawyers were done sorting it out... so that was pretty disappointing... but i figured since I'd already taken the plunge and joined twitter I might as well look around....
I didn't know who's tweets to follow so I decided to just check out who my radio peeps were following... and one of them happened to be following Michael Ian Black, who I knew from such things as "I love the..." on VH1 and random movies like "wet hot American summer" and anyway, I've always thought he was funny and cute so I put him on my "following" list... and within 3 tweets I realized that he was even funnier than I had originally thought...
so I followed a link he had tweeted to the website for his blog, http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ , and I read his blog entry about writing for a TV show... and it made me chuckle on the inside... so I started reading more stuff on his website... and it made me LOLAW (laugh out loud at work... I'm pretty sure I'm not the first you use that acronym but I'm the first person I know and it has a nice ring to it i think...) and I hardly ever laugh at work, but I could not contain myself... that guy is funny... I am super stoked that he will have a new show on Comedy Central this summer... although I am not going to count my chickens or anything 'cause I watched a couple episodes of his last show on Comedy Central, "Stella" and either it was horribly unfunny or I just totally didn't get it... none the less Michael Ian Black seems to have mastered the art of blogging and twittering and that in turn has filled about 5 or 6 of my otherwise empty minutes at work with laughter and happiness, so I'm pretty grateful for that! Maybe I won't be so bored next winter during the slow moving season... and maybe I'll be slacking off on http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/blog/musings/ a little too much this summer during the winter moving season... only time will tell I guess.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Skunks are PUNKS ! and a poem about nature
It never ceases to amaze me what arrogant brats Skunks are... it like they think that just because their shit stinks worse than anything in life they are entitled to have everyone bow down to them !
This morning when I was riding my bike through Coyote hills on my way to work I happened upon a skunk in the middle of the road... actually at first I thought it was a bunny 'cause he seemed to be hopping, but then I realized it was too slow to be a bunny... and then when I started to get close he* stopped and stuck his big bushy tail up in the air and I was like WHOA... I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THAT... so I slowed down even though I had had a pretty good momentum going on my bike and was about to start up a huge hill, but that's fine. I can break for small woodland creatures.
When I stopped the skunk put his tail back down and continued to scurry SLOWLY along RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD up this STEEP ASS HILL. It was as if he figured all he would have to was threaten me with his rank rear end and I would just high tail it out of there, but there was no other way for me to get to work on time, so even if I wanted to go back and take another route I couldn't... We were on a little dirt road that ran along the edge of the bay right up against a fairly steep hillside with tall grass, so the road was really the only thoroughfare...and I was perfeclty willing to share the road with HIM, so I decided I would just speed up and hang as wide as I could and pass the lil' guy... but as soon as I was about 2 feet away from him he turned around again, thrust his little tail up and aimed his b-hole straight at me. JERK! He apparently was never taught about sharing the road.
I was alone and this skunk clearly was not intimidated by me, so I tried yelling at him to see if that would make him get out of the road... "YOU ARE A WOOD - LAND CREATURE WHY ARE YOU NOT SCURRYING OFF IN TO THE WOOD LAND AREA ? !" I yelled at him, but he just kept right on trudging up the hill IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD so I continued to sit on my bike seat and slowly scoot my bike along a few yards behind him... yelling... and every time I would start to get close him: up went his bushy striped tail.
Clearly Mr. Skunk was calling my bluff . He knew I did not want him to shoot that thing at me. He didn't even turn around and he did not step one inch out of the middle of the road until we were up over the hill and half way down the other side... that's right he made me WALK UP THE DAMNED HILL then he had the AUDACITY to STEAL the GLORIOUS DOWN HILL MOMENTUM from me. Jha-hERK ! (That's supposed to be "jerk" pronounced in a sing songy way).
Fortunately we passed his home or something 'cause he finally strolled off the road into the bushes... I think I heard him laughing though... such a punk... oh well he waass kinda cute and I made it to work on time, so I guess I'll forgive him... one thing that does make it even more annoying though was that I was totally having an awesome bike ride and nature was speaking to me or something 'cause I started having these poetic sounding thoughts so I really wanted to get to work and write a poem ( I can be super hippy dippy sometimes huh ?) But I think my poem suffered as a result of Mr. Le Pew distracting me
( *I assume it was a male skunk 'cause it was slow and annoying... j/k... about men being slow and annoying... some aren't. )
Anyway here's my naturey bike ride poem... I'm not sure about the title, but I think Sherpa seems fitting:
SHERPA:
As the city sleeps off Friday night
and the week that came before it
I am guided by good fortune
through a spot of overwhelming natural beauty
My bike and I trespass on the perfect serenity of the morning
Birds are calling into the cool quiet mist of the wetlands all around
and I am honored to be the only lucky person
drinking in the sanctity of this moment
HERE
I am humbled and awed by the wild freedom that surrounds me
The wild freedom people have traded for an existence
bound by nagging obligations
which render numbing comfort and predictability
...for the fortunate
But I know I am only a trespasser
journeying through this tiny corner of wilderness
My presence is announced by the whirring of my bike's wheels
which sound almost like the whooshing of a birds wings... but not quite
In a moment I will see the lights of the city again
and cross the bridge that takes me to work
but before I an engulfed by obligations
I have this moment
This morning when I was riding my bike through Coyote hills on my way to work I happened upon a skunk in the middle of the road... actually at first I thought it was a bunny 'cause he seemed to be hopping, but then I realized it was too slow to be a bunny... and then when I started to get close he* stopped and stuck his big bushy tail up in the air and I was like WHOA... I DO NOT WANT ANY OF THAT... so I slowed down even though I had had a pretty good momentum going on my bike and was about to start up a huge hill, but that's fine. I can break for small woodland creatures.
When I stopped the skunk put his tail back down and continued to scurry SLOWLY along RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD up this STEEP ASS HILL. It was as if he figured all he would have to was threaten me with his rank rear end and I would just high tail it out of there, but there was no other way for me to get to work on time, so even if I wanted to go back and take another route I couldn't... We were on a little dirt road that ran along the edge of the bay right up against a fairly steep hillside with tall grass, so the road was really the only thoroughfare...and I was perfeclty willing to share the road with HIM, so I decided I would just speed up and hang as wide as I could and pass the lil' guy... but as soon as I was about 2 feet away from him he turned around again, thrust his little tail up and aimed his b-hole straight at me. JERK! He apparently was never taught about sharing the road.
I was alone and this skunk clearly was not intimidated by me, so I tried yelling at him to see if that would make him get out of the road... "YOU ARE A WOOD - LAND CREATURE WHY ARE YOU NOT SCURRYING OFF IN TO THE WOOD LAND AREA ? !" I yelled at him, but he just kept right on trudging up the hill IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD so I continued to sit on my bike seat and slowly scoot my bike along a few yards behind him... yelling... and every time I would start to get close him: up went his bushy striped tail.
Clearly Mr. Skunk was calling my bluff . He knew I did not want him to shoot that thing at me. He didn't even turn around and he did not step one inch out of the middle of the road until we were up over the hill and half way down the other side... that's right he made me WALK UP THE DAMNED HILL then he had the AUDACITY to STEAL the GLORIOUS DOWN HILL MOMENTUM from me. Jha-hERK ! (That's supposed to be "jerk" pronounced in a sing songy way).
Fortunately we passed his home or something 'cause he finally strolled off the road into the bushes... I think I heard him laughing though... such a punk... oh well he waass kinda cute and I made it to work on time, so I guess I'll forgive him... one thing that does make it even more annoying though was that I was totally having an awesome bike ride and nature was speaking to me or something 'cause I started having these poetic sounding thoughts so I really wanted to get to work and write a poem ( I can be super hippy dippy sometimes huh ?) But I think my poem suffered as a result of Mr. Le Pew distracting me
( *I assume it was a male skunk 'cause it was slow and annoying... j/k... about men being slow and annoying... some aren't. )
Anyway here's my naturey bike ride poem... I'm not sure about the title, but I think Sherpa seems fitting:
SHERPA:
As the city sleeps off Friday night
and the week that came before it
I am guided by good fortune
through a spot of overwhelming natural beauty
My bike and I trespass on the perfect serenity of the morning
Birds are calling into the cool quiet mist of the wetlands all around
and I am honored to be the only lucky person
drinking in the sanctity of this moment
HERE
I am humbled and awed by the wild freedom that surrounds me
The wild freedom people have traded for an existence
bound by nagging obligations
which render numbing comfort and predictability
...for the fortunate
But I know I am only a trespasser
journeying through this tiny corner of wilderness
My presence is announced by the whirring of my bike's wheels
which sound almost like the whooshing of a birds wings... but not quite
In a moment I will see the lights of the city again
and cross the bridge that takes me to work
but before I an engulfed by obligations
I have this moment
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
hi Subject Lines ... blah
I was just about to write an email to a friend of mine when I realized I didn't know what "subject" to give the email... "Hi" was my first thought, but then I decided that didn't really say anything... so then I thought... "ok maybe I should just write the email and the come up with a subject line later", but then I realized I really wasn't going to write to her regarding any subject in particular... ok well there was one subject I was KINDA curious about who won the poker game at her house on Saturday night, but that hardly seemed like a lengthy enough topic to warrent an entire email... so then I ended up just closing the "compose message" window to stew on it some more.
I realize though that subject lines can be kind of intimidating to somone, like myself, who stresses about every small detail of social interaction the way I do. Having "NO SUBJECT" seems like an immediate declaration that you are sending a pointless email that isn't really worth reading anyway, and subjecting ( I know I'm not using that word right, but oh well) your email as "Hi" seems like pretty much the same thing as having no subject... I have a few other token worthless subject lines that I throw out every once and a while to good friends who I am just writting to to see where the key board takes me... one is "..." the other is "blah"... blah usually indicates that I am going to complain about something or that I am bored and am just subjecting (using that word correcltly now) other people to random typing so that I may feel slightly more amused.
I think actually now that i think about it, I rarely have a pertinent subject line to my emails... at least not the ones I compose as part of my personal life. (I am all about consicise pointful subject lines when I email at work... so I'll just go ahead and pat myself on the back for that super accomplishment !) Anyway, I am looking through my "sent mail" from my Gmail account and the occasional event crops up that gets a poinent subject line such as "Reno?" or "tonight" but most of the subjec lines I've written recently are "hey" or "hi" or "happy monday (tuesday, wed... etc)" ... damn I suck... I can't believe I never worried about Subjecting (New meaning again) my emails before. I guess I usually just go for the emailing before I give it too much though, but the particular email I was going to write that prompted this blog entry was kind of a way for me to feel out if I did something wrong or not... 'cause I am worried that I might have jacked up the poker game I was playing in last Saturday when I left early and sold my chips for less than they were worth to someone else especially since that was right after I had just kind of questionably won a hand...
....We were playing texas hold 'em and there was an off suit straight on the table and I was a little tipsy and wasn't paying too much attention so I thought that was the best thing I had, but I also had a flush and I had the king or ace of the suit and the other guy who was still in had a flush also and had a lower card in his hand so my hand was technically better, but he asked if I wanted to just play what was on the table and I said yes, so he thought I should have lost the hand, but everyone else said I should get the pot... so I took the pot and sold all the chips...
I guess I kind of want to find out what happend with the game to assuage my guilt, but I dont want to come off like I feel guilty because then that is like I am saying that I am guilty of doing something wrong and I'm not totally sure if I am... but if I just drop it then its like I was just drunk and didn't know any better... I mean I was pretty tired and watned to get enough rest to be able to enjoy going to Reno the next day... and I was TRYING to be thoughtful of the rest of the players in the game ... someone had offered to let me put my chips away and take back the initial $20.00 I had bought in with, but I knew if I took my $ 20.00 out of the pot that the winner of the game would end up with a smaller pot so I decided selling my chips was the best thing for the game (even though I had about $25.00 worth of chips that I sold for $17.00)... anyway since I dont think anyone from that poker game reads my blog, I guess I have decided that rather than subjecting and writing an email about the game to my friend who hosted the game I am going to just go ahead and publish this entry as penance for any problem I might have caused in the poker game...
Damn, when I started this entry I really thought I was just going to write about how hard it is to write a good subject line for an email, but instead I seem to have uncovered my underlying issues with subjecting a particular email and have dealt with those issues... what a productive entry this has been (for me... sorry for wasting anyone elses time who might have wandered upon my self help therapy session)... and also I've come up with a new usage for the word subjecting... that is to say I used the word subjecting wrong several times because I was too lazy to figure out a more appropriate word. SCORE!
I realize though that subject lines can be kind of intimidating to somone, like myself, who stresses about every small detail of social interaction the way I do. Having "NO SUBJECT" seems like an immediate declaration that you are sending a pointless email that isn't really worth reading anyway, and subjecting ( I know I'm not using that word right, but oh well) your email as "Hi" seems like pretty much the same thing as having no subject... I have a few other token worthless subject lines that I throw out every once and a while to good friends who I am just writting to to see where the key board takes me... one is "..." the other is "blah"... blah usually indicates that I am going to complain about something or that I am bored and am just subjecting (using that word correcltly now) other people to random typing so that I may feel slightly more amused.
I think actually now that i think about it, I rarely have a pertinent subject line to my emails... at least not the ones I compose as part of my personal life. (I am all about consicise pointful subject lines when I email at work... so I'll just go ahead and pat myself on the back for that super accomplishment !) Anyway, I am looking through my "sent mail" from my Gmail account and the occasional event crops up that gets a poinent subject line such as "Reno?" or "tonight" but most of the subjec lines I've written recently are "hey" or "hi" or "happy monday (tuesday, wed... etc)" ... damn I suck... I can't believe I never worried about Subjecting (New meaning again) my emails before. I guess I usually just go for the emailing before I give it too much though, but the particular email I was going to write that prompted this blog entry was kind of a way for me to feel out if I did something wrong or not... 'cause I am worried that I might have jacked up the poker game I was playing in last Saturday when I left early and sold my chips for less than they were worth to someone else especially since that was right after I had just kind of questionably won a hand...
....We were playing texas hold 'em and there was an off suit straight on the table and I was a little tipsy and wasn't paying too much attention so I thought that was the best thing I had, but I also had a flush and I had the king or ace of the suit and the other guy who was still in had a flush also and had a lower card in his hand so my hand was technically better, but he asked if I wanted to just play what was on the table and I said yes, so he thought I should have lost the hand, but everyone else said I should get the pot... so I took the pot and sold all the chips...
I guess I kind of want to find out what happend with the game to assuage my guilt, but I dont want to come off like I feel guilty because then that is like I am saying that I am guilty of doing something wrong and I'm not totally sure if I am... but if I just drop it then its like I was just drunk and didn't know any better... I mean I was pretty tired and watned to get enough rest to be able to enjoy going to Reno the next day... and I was TRYING to be thoughtful of the rest of the players in the game ... someone had offered to let me put my chips away and take back the initial $20.00 I had bought in with, but I knew if I took my $ 20.00 out of the pot that the winner of the game would end up with a smaller pot so I decided selling my chips was the best thing for the game (even though I had about $25.00 worth of chips that I sold for $17.00)... anyway since I dont think anyone from that poker game reads my blog, I guess I have decided that rather than subjecting and writing an email about the game to my friend who hosted the game I am going to just go ahead and publish this entry as penance for any problem I might have caused in the poker game...
Damn, when I started this entry I really thought I was just going to write about how hard it is to write a good subject line for an email, but instead I seem to have uncovered my underlying issues with subjecting a particular email and have dealt with those issues... what a productive entry this has been (for me... sorry for wasting anyone elses time who might have wandered upon my self help therapy session)... and also I've come up with a new usage for the word subjecting... that is to say I used the word subjecting wrong several times because I was too lazy to figure out a more appropriate word. SCORE!
My Weekend of Gambling and Bikalaciousness
Last weekend was the weekend of Gambling... On Friday night Tony and I went to a poker game at Shane and Vika's house and I was doing pretty good but was kinda tired and wanted to go to bed so I sold my chips off to other players for $37.00 and recouped nearly all of the $40.00 that Tony and I had bought in for... I'm not sure if Tony and I will be invited back for more poker games in the future though 'cause I'm pretty sure it was somewhat disruptive to the game for me to sell my chips 'cause I unloaded a bunch of them for under face value... what can I say though one thing that seems to instantly evaporate my respect for games and competitiveness is sleepiness... plus I knew we were going to Reno on Saturday so I wanted to make sure we had some cash on hand to lose in the "BIGGEST LITTLE CITY ON EARTH"(... that phrase is written and repeated by Reno-promoters all over Reno by the way...) even though there really doesn't seem to be anything big about Reno at all... I'm not complaining, I'm not a size queen or anything...but the down town area where the casinos and stuff are is only about 4 square blocks... OF CRAZY FUN!!!!
Tony and I had a jam packed 30 hour trip to Circus Circus in Reno / a Random snowy area on the side of the road on the way home from Reno (I think it was in Truckee).... and we managed to come home with $2.00 of Cash and about 6 new stuffed animal friends (and we didn't even have to get cash from an ATM to play with at any point.) I'm actually really proud of how thrifty we were with our spontaneous little vacation. The room was about $ 60.00 and we spent about $40.00 on dinner the night we got there and maybe $30.00 on Gas and lunch on the way up, but since I was expecting to lose our $40.00 in cash at the poker game the night before we left I don't even consider that a loss... plus we got to have a super cool winning moment at the first slot we played... it was a huge wheel of fortune slot with a wheel that is the size of the one they use on the TV show ... and we were actually up about $50.00 after about 5 minutes of playing, so that was pretty cool... Tony wanted to keep playing, but I had dreams of paying for our trip entirely with slot machine winnings... oh well... at least we lasted most of the trip before we ran out of cash.
Anyway, We made it home by 3:00 pm on Sunday (after stopping briefly to play in the snow and take lots of wintery looking pictures)...
and I had kind of told myself before I left work on Friday that if we won any money this weekend I would take that as justification to buy myself a new bike... and also Shane had given us a catalog of bikes on sale at "Performance Bike Shop" and there was a bike that he pointed out that was perfect for my commute and was on sale for $150.00 off... but the sale ended on Sunday at 6:00... so at about 4:30 I decided that the $ 0.15 voucher that Tony and I had brought home with us (so we could take a frowny face picture of our loseriness) counted as winning something over the weekend, so we headed off feeling fully justified in purchasing me a new bike... and so I did... and it is GLORIOUS!!! Her name is Sherpa and she is shiny and bluish and she has disc brakes and is sooooo much faster than my old bike. 
I didn't even realize what a pile of shit my old bike (that I didn't bother to name because it was just another bike that i figured I would ride for a year or so until I finally busted the crank) was... but I LOVE SHERPA. She is the most magnificent vehicle I have ever owned and I am definitely going to take care of her so she has a long thriving life and we can ride many many miles together... I actually have shaved 15-20 minutes off of my commute by riding Sherpa... and I have gotten passed by other bikers way less... so that makes me feel less losery on my commute than usual. YAY! Now I totally wanna plan a time next year or something to try to ride to Socal or go on a long bike camping trip. I want to see the world with my little Sherpa... Ok, now I'm getting creepy, but yeah it makes such a difference to have a nice bike as opposed to a Costco, dumpster or early 1990s bike to ride!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
My whiteness
Last Saturday when I was buying bananas at el supermercado down the street from our house the cashier looked at me and said "es dos en once" ( well she actually probably didn't say that exactly, but since I suck at Spanish that is what it sounded like to me... ). It was super flattering that she though that I was Latina though... I wish I was Latina... or Asian... or something ... Anyway, I didn't want to ruin the illusion for either of us, so when I handed her a five and she gave me my bananas and change and said "gracias" I just said "mmm hmm" and left so I wouldn't have to say "thank you" in English or "Grassyass” in my I-can't-speak-Spanish-too-well accent and totally blow my cover.
Other cultures just seem to be so much more interesting than white American culture and Latina women and Asian women and Native American women and women from most anywhere other than the general Anglo decent are so much more exotic and interesting looking and prettier than I am, so of course it felt like a great compliment that the cashier that day assumed I was Latina... it was like she thought I was prettier than I really am.
I think one of the best unintended compliments I've ever gotten was when I was in college going to a swim meet. I was looking at a magazine my friend had brought me from Japan and one of my teammates from Hawaii said "Oh are you Japanese? I didn't know that".
I was floored. The notion that I could even remotely pass myself off as Japanese just tickled me pink! ... and this notion had come from someone who is pretty much Asian herself. (I think technically Hawaiians are considered Pacific Islanders, but they get grouped together a lot on surveys where you are supposed to check a box for your ethnicity... I'm pretty sure I've seen "Asian/ Pacific Islander" more than a couple times as an option... and I think the native inhabitants of Hawaii came originally from Japan although I could be totally pulling that out of my ass but I do feel like I heard that somewhere) , so it made it all the more powerful of an implication coming from her, but Before I could tell her that I wasn't actually Japanese another girl on my swim team, who is actually Japanese laughed and said "geeze she's obviously not Asian. Not everyone who can read Japanese is from Japan."
So my moment of feeling like a beautiful lotus flower from the East was quickly dashed to the ground and then when my teammate asked me to read something to her from the magazine I also had to explain that I did not read Japanese either but was just looking at the pictures in the magazine... and then I felt really boring and plain for the rest of that bus ride. Oh well. It was a nice moment anyway.
It's not that I think I’m ugly. I don’t. I even have moments where I pass by a mirror and wanna go back for a second eye full of myself… but then I’ll be watching tv or surfing the net or looking at magazine covers while I’m in line at the grocery store… and I’ll realize that I am pretty…PRETTY AVERAGE LOOKING (ZING !). There’s not really anything wrong with me (aside from the occasional wart, cold sore, pimple, dandruff flake, stretch mark, oily hair or split end … ok, well yeah I guess I’m somewhat busted looking, but more than that) I just don’t have a super exciting and exotic look… Apparently even when I am actually excited and having fun… I still look dull.
All my life I have constantly heard that I should “smile more” and I’ve had people asking “what’s the matter” when the answer really and truly is “nothing”. My neutral expression is just kind of frowny I guess… so my excited expression just seems to come off as mildly amused. Last weekend, for example, I took Tony to a magic dinner show for his birthday, and there were magicians coming around and doing card tricks and things while we were waiting for dinner to be served and I was having a really good time and I thought all the tricks were good and stuff, but I think I was going to have to just get up and start dancing or something if Tony had to say “This IS what she looks like when she’s excited” to one more roving magician who thought he had to point out sarcastically how “EXCITED” I looked. Blah…
One thing that is going pretty well for me lately though is my skin… I seem to have finally found a skin care regime for my face that works pretty well. I have been loyal to Clean and Clear ever since I found their moisturizer that actually contains acid… I’ve had Acne issues for as far back as I can remember and pretty much any moisturizer I used made my skin break out, but I finally was able to give my face the moisture that it deserves once I found “Clean and Clear’s Duel Action Moisturizer” which pampers my face with cool moisturizing lotion… while also burning my face with salicylic acid… its pretty awesome !!! I feel my acne is so much better since I found that moisturizer… but I still would not say I have great skin. My big (pun intended) skin problem I think is that I have huge pores on my face… (wow suddenly I feel this post turning into a wanna be proactive commercial…)
Anyway, here is an example of how awfully big my pores are… About a year or so ago after Tony and I had just returned from a camping trip I was squeezing a black head on my cheek and it turned out to actually not be a black head at all… a flea suddenly wriggled out of my face… it was so very very VERY disturbing... and itchy… so yeah I kind of put it out of my mind, but there has been an onslaught of commercials recently for pore minimizing cleansers and creams and what not and I would say pores that small blood sucking insects can hide in are too large, so while I was at target a couple weeks ago buying groceries I wandered past the skin care aisle and I noticed that there were some skin care products ON SALE… and Target was so kind as to put big enticing red stickers on these items to let me know what GREAT BUY they were… so I ended up buying 3 new facial cleansers and a night-time moisturizer… and I saved $3.00 on the whole lot. SCORE! Anyway, the random on sale products that I got work great (three were clean and clear and the third was Biore, but it was so cool I had to buy it… it’s a “warming facial scrub” and it heats up almost to the point that it feels almost like touching a hot stove just by rubbing it around in your hand with water… chemistry is CRAZY) … anyway my skin has never looked better, but I’m pretty sure that since all the products I bought were marked down they will soon be discontinued and my face will go back to being a gross pitted desert. Until then I’m going to enjoy it though… even if it is only smooth WHITE PERSON skin at least its smooth.
Other cultures just seem to be so much more interesting than white American culture and Latina women and Asian women and Native American women and women from most anywhere other than the general Anglo decent are so much more exotic and interesting looking and prettier than I am, so of course it felt like a great compliment that the cashier that day assumed I was Latina... it was like she thought I was prettier than I really am.
I think one of the best unintended compliments I've ever gotten was when I was in college going to a swim meet. I was looking at a magazine my friend had brought me from Japan and one of my teammates from Hawaii said "Oh are you Japanese? I didn't know that".
I was floored. The notion that I could even remotely pass myself off as Japanese just tickled me pink! ... and this notion had come from someone who is pretty much Asian herself. (I think technically Hawaiians are considered Pacific Islanders, but they get grouped together a lot on surveys where you are supposed to check a box for your ethnicity... I'm pretty sure I've seen "Asian/ Pacific Islander" more than a couple times as an option... and I think the native inhabitants of Hawaii came originally from Japan although I could be totally pulling that out of my ass but I do feel like I heard that somewhere) , so it made it all the more powerful of an implication coming from her, but Before I could tell her that I wasn't actually Japanese another girl on my swim team, who is actually Japanese laughed and said "geeze she's obviously not Asian. Not everyone who can read Japanese is from Japan."
So my moment of feeling like a beautiful lotus flower from the East was quickly dashed to the ground and then when my teammate asked me to read something to her from the magazine I also had to explain that I did not read Japanese either but was just looking at the pictures in the magazine... and then I felt really boring and plain for the rest of that bus ride. Oh well. It was a nice moment anyway.
It's not that I think I’m ugly. I don’t. I even have moments where I pass by a mirror and wanna go back for a second eye full of myself… but then I’ll be watching tv or surfing the net or looking at magazine covers while I’m in line at the grocery store… and I’ll realize that I am pretty…PRETTY AVERAGE LOOKING (ZING !). There’s not really anything wrong with me (aside from the occasional wart, cold sore, pimple, dandruff flake, stretch mark, oily hair or split end … ok, well yeah I guess I’m somewhat busted looking, but more than that) I just don’t have a super exciting and exotic look… Apparently even when I am actually excited and having fun… I still look dull.
All my life I have constantly heard that I should “smile more” and I’ve had people asking “what’s the matter” when the answer really and truly is “nothing”. My neutral expression is just kind of frowny I guess… so my excited expression just seems to come off as mildly amused. Last weekend, for example, I took Tony to a magic dinner show for his birthday, and there were magicians coming around and doing card tricks and things while we were waiting for dinner to be served and I was having a really good time and I thought all the tricks were good and stuff, but I think I was going to have to just get up and start dancing or something if Tony had to say “This IS what she looks like when she’s excited” to one more roving magician who thought he had to point out sarcastically how “EXCITED” I looked. Blah…
One thing that is going pretty well for me lately though is my skin… I seem to have finally found a skin care regime for my face that works pretty well. I have been loyal to Clean and Clear ever since I found their moisturizer that actually contains acid… I’ve had Acne issues for as far back as I can remember and pretty much any moisturizer I used made my skin break out, but I finally was able to give my face the moisture that it deserves once I found “Clean and Clear’s Duel Action Moisturizer” which pampers my face with cool moisturizing lotion… while also burning my face with salicylic acid… its pretty awesome !!! I feel my acne is so much better since I found that moisturizer… but I still would not say I have great skin. My big (pun intended) skin problem I think is that I have huge pores on my face… (wow suddenly I feel this post turning into a wanna be proactive commercial…)
Anyway, here is an example of how awfully big my pores are… About a year or so ago after Tony and I had just returned from a camping trip I was squeezing a black head on my cheek and it turned out to actually not be a black head at all… a flea suddenly wriggled out of my face… it was so very very VERY disturbing... and itchy… so yeah I kind of put it out of my mind, but there has been an onslaught of commercials recently for pore minimizing cleansers and creams and what not and I would say pores that small blood sucking insects can hide in are too large, so while I was at target a couple weeks ago buying groceries I wandered past the skin care aisle and I noticed that there were some skin care products ON SALE… and Target was so kind as to put big enticing red stickers on these items to let me know what GREAT BUY they were… so I ended up buying 3 new facial cleansers and a night-time moisturizer… and I saved $3.00 on the whole lot. SCORE! Anyway, the random on sale products that I got work great (three were clean and clear and the third was Biore, but it was so cool I had to buy it… it’s a “warming facial scrub” and it heats up almost to the point that it feels almost like touching a hot stove just by rubbing it around in your hand with water… chemistry is CRAZY) … anyway my skin has never looked better, but I’m pretty sure that since all the products I bought were marked down they will soon be discontinued and my face will go back to being a gross pitted desert. Until then I’m going to enjoy it though… even if it is only smooth WHITE PERSON skin at least its smooth.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
names... and a random thought about chapped lips
I like naming things. I just decided that when I buy a new bike I'm going to name it Zippy. It will be a pretty ironic name if I continue to ride as slow as I do now, but the next bike that I buy is going to be an actual expensive light way hardcore cyclist bike, and I rode my friends fancy smancy bike the other day and I think if I could only use one word to describe that experience I'd have to say I felt ZIPPY... those bikes are pretty darned efficient!
Anyway, another name that I recently bequeathed was Herbie ... I felt that was a good name for my cold sore since Herbie kind of sounds like Herpes... and since I get a cold sore in the same spot at least 2-3 times a year I thought it was about time I give it a cute name.
I think I better have a lot of pets before I have kids 'cause there are a ton of names that I like and I don't plan to have a ton of kids, but I wanna be able to give the names out to someone... Nathan for example... I think I will save that name for a child 'cause it just sounds so cute for a baby or you could call him Natie if you wanna make it even more babyish but then when he gets older he can be Nate and that is just a cool sounding name... but if he wants to still be Nathan that still sounds professional and sophisticated for an adult... plus there was a hot guy in one of my classes in high school named Nate and so I assume that any child named Nate or Nathan will grow up to be attractive... and you've really gotta do all you can to ensure that your kids have every advantage in life so I think I owe it to my son (if he should ever come to exist) to name him Nathan.
Another of my favorite boy names is Tavis. Ever since I heard that one of the trumpet players in Reel Big Fish was named Tavis I was blown away by the coolness of that name. It is almost a common name (Travis... which is a crappy name that I hate by the way) and yet it is so unique. I bet a child named Tavis would get his name mispronounced and mispelled ( spell check has just informed me that I MISSPELLED "mispelled" but I think that's kinda funny so I'm gong to leave it) all the time though so I am thinking maybe Tavis is a good dog or cat name... although I tend to like to give pets names that are descriptive of their physical appearance or personality. Misty, my cat, is so named because she is a long haired gray cat and her fur kind of resembles a mist surrounding her body... I wanted to just name her Mist but my ex boyfriend who I was dating at the time when I got her said that was a lame name, so now, even though he is no longer in my life, he is still keeping my cat from having a slightly cooler name than she otherwise would have...
For girls I like the name Chase and Corsica. I think if I have a daughter i will name her Chase though... or maybe Chaise... yeah I think with the I is better. I like that name 'cause I've always liked androgynous names for girls I think it makes them more mysterious or something, but yeah it just appeals to me for some reason it just sits well for me, but I can't think of any chicks I've ever known named Chaise... maybe it was a character in a movie or something... The name Chase for a boy doesn't have an affect on me one way or another though. I knew a guy in college named Chase and he was really cool, but I wouldn't name my first born after him.
There are Tons of other names that I like but I can't think of any others right now... oh I do think my brother and Nicole picked an excellent name for their daughter, Bailey, its a very pretty girl name I think and its also a bit androgynous so she will grow up to be cool and mysterious a little. So that's good that I'll have a cool niece. My cousin's son is named Brek and I really like that name too. Its very unique but it has a good strong sound to it and stuff... so yup, good names in my family. The next generation will be full of cool kids!
by the way why (this is totally unrelated to the rest of this blog and might be better suited as a status update on face book... or perhaps just a random comment to through into a conversation, but here I am typing so I'll just throw it out there...) why is it that sucking it up and wait until your lips heal themselves is better than the best chapstick on the market ? Chapstick and carmex and lipstick and lip gloss and all of those things just seem to make your lips feel better for about 15 minutes and then they dry up worse than ever and crack and bleed until you put more stuff on them... but if you just leave your lips untreated they may get chapped every once and a while, but ultimately you will experience much longer periods of soft managbleness than you will with the products... why is it so hard to make a long lasting unharmful lip moisturizing product?
Anyway, another name that I recently bequeathed was Herbie ... I felt that was a good name for my cold sore since Herbie kind of sounds like Herpes... and since I get a cold sore in the same spot at least 2-3 times a year I thought it was about time I give it a cute name.
I think I better have a lot of pets before I have kids 'cause there are a ton of names that I like and I don't plan to have a ton of kids, but I wanna be able to give the names out to someone... Nathan for example... I think I will save that name for a child 'cause it just sounds so cute for a baby or you could call him Natie if you wanna make it even more babyish but then when he gets older he can be Nate and that is just a cool sounding name... but if he wants to still be Nathan that still sounds professional and sophisticated for an adult... plus there was a hot guy in one of my classes in high school named Nate and so I assume that any child named Nate or Nathan will grow up to be attractive... and you've really gotta do all you can to ensure that your kids have every advantage in life so I think I owe it to my son (if he should ever come to exist) to name him Nathan.
Another of my favorite boy names is Tavis. Ever since I heard that one of the trumpet players in Reel Big Fish was named Tavis I was blown away by the coolness of that name. It is almost a common name (Travis... which is a crappy name that I hate by the way) and yet it is so unique. I bet a child named Tavis would get his name mispronounced and mispelled ( spell check has just informed me that I MISSPELLED "mispelled" but I think that's kinda funny so I'm gong to leave it) all the time though so I am thinking maybe Tavis is a good dog or cat name... although I tend to like to give pets names that are descriptive of their physical appearance or personality. Misty, my cat, is so named because she is a long haired gray cat and her fur kind of resembles a mist surrounding her body... I wanted to just name her Mist but my ex boyfriend who I was dating at the time when I got her said that was a lame name, so now, even though he is no longer in my life, he is still keeping my cat from having a slightly cooler name than she otherwise would have...
For girls I like the name Chase and Corsica. I think if I have a daughter i will name her Chase though... or maybe Chaise... yeah I think with the I is better. I like that name 'cause I've always liked androgynous names for girls I think it makes them more mysterious or something, but yeah it just appeals to me for some reason it just sits well for me, but I can't think of any chicks I've ever known named Chaise... maybe it was a character in a movie or something... The name Chase for a boy doesn't have an affect on me one way or another though. I knew a guy in college named Chase and he was really cool, but I wouldn't name my first born after him.
There are Tons of other names that I like but I can't think of any others right now... oh I do think my brother and Nicole picked an excellent name for their daughter, Bailey, its a very pretty girl name I think and its also a bit androgynous so she will grow up to be cool and mysterious a little. So that's good that I'll have a cool niece. My cousin's son is named Brek and I really like that name too. Its very unique but it has a good strong sound to it and stuff... so yup, good names in my family. The next generation will be full of cool kids!
by the way why (this is totally unrelated to the rest of this blog and might be better suited as a status update on face book... or perhaps just a random comment to through into a conversation, but here I am typing so I'll just throw it out there...) why is it that sucking it up and wait until your lips heal themselves is better than the best chapstick on the market ? Chapstick and carmex and lipstick and lip gloss and all of those things just seem to make your lips feel better for about 15 minutes and then they dry up worse than ever and crack and bleed until you put more stuff on them... but if you just leave your lips untreated they may get chapped every once and a while, but ultimately you will experience much longer periods of soft managbleness than you will with the products... why is it so hard to make a long lasting unharmful lip moisturizing product?
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Shoevolution is coming... aren't you intrigued?
The other day I was riding my bike and my feet were FREEEZZZZing, as usual, and I had a brilliant idea for an invention... bike powered shoe heaters. I have no idea why they don't exist already... it must be because my genius ass didn't get around to thinking about it until a few days ago!
Here is the basic concept: There are already special shoes that attach themselves to your bike pedals and you already have to pay hella money for them so why not throw a heater into them. The power for the heater would come from kinetic energy produced as the wheels on your bike spin around and turn a tiny turbine via a magnet attached to the spokes of your bike and another magnet attached to the little turbine and then you just need to run wires from the turbine generator through the frame of the bike and have them charge a battery that would be in the bottom of the shoe. The battery would then power a little heat coil system in the shoes and voila toasty toes!!!
Since they already have lights for bikes that are powered using the energy from the revolving wheels on the bike and they already have batteries for hybrid cars that are charged in the same there's no reason why someone shouldn't put all this existing technology together and keep my feet warm during cold winter bike rides... and hell, I bet with a good enough design the shoes could hold a charge even after you are done riding. Thus I could have bike shoe heated feet all day long (provided I don't feel like a dork walking around in bike shoes all day and it's not uncomfortable to do so).
These shoes would save so much electricity ! With my self warming shoes I wouldn't have to use a space heater anymore and space heaters are total electricity hogs...but why stop at a heater... maybe you could pull the battery out of your shoe once you've arrived at your destination and use it to power your lap top, ipod or coffee maker as well... this invention could be the answer to the energy crisis... I may have just saved the world!!!
Now I just need to think of a name... my first instinct is to go with: "Magic Shoes", but I have a feeling the creators of Forest Gump may not be too keen on that... or maybe they would... the business world is all about synergy... or maybe I could call them :"shoevolution"... as in "spread the word, Global warming will be reversed: the shoevolution is coming" ... I think that would be a pretty good billboard campaign. (who isn't a sucker for those vague ad campaigns where you have to go home and google what you read to find out what they hell its about ? I know I am !!! I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall had a pretty good campaign like that. I only saw a couple billboards for that movie and they just said things like "My mom always hated you Sarah Marshall,” and “You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall." and it seemed conceivable to me that this was just a personal vendetta some guy had against his ex since I didn't know yet that Sarah Marshall was actually a character in a movie... I seriously considered seeing that film in theatres solely based on the genius billboard campaign... but then the price of movie tickets scared me away so I waited for netflix... it was pretty good though... anyway, that is the kind of ad campaign I'm gonna go with for the shoe heaters... they are going to be the biggest thing since Heeleys! You just wait!!!
...damn I googled shoevolution and it seems to already exist... I wonder if Shoeloution (Shoe/ solution ?) is as powerful... or maybe just something like "Volt" ?
Here is the basic concept: There are already special shoes that attach themselves to your bike pedals and you already have to pay hella money for them so why not throw a heater into them. The power for the heater would come from kinetic energy produced as the wheels on your bike spin around and turn a tiny turbine via a magnet attached to the spokes of your bike and another magnet attached to the little turbine and then you just need to run wires from the turbine generator through the frame of the bike and have them charge a battery that would be in the bottom of the shoe. The battery would then power a little heat coil system in the shoes and voila toasty toes!!!
Since they already have lights for bikes that are powered using the energy from the revolving wheels on the bike and they already have batteries for hybrid cars that are charged in the same there's no reason why someone shouldn't put all this existing technology together and keep my feet warm during cold winter bike rides... and hell, I bet with a good enough design the shoes could hold a charge even after you are done riding. Thus I could have bike shoe heated feet all day long (provided I don't feel like a dork walking around in bike shoes all day and it's not uncomfortable to do so).
These shoes would save so much electricity ! With my self warming shoes I wouldn't have to use a space heater anymore and space heaters are total electricity hogs...but why stop at a heater... maybe you could pull the battery out of your shoe once you've arrived at your destination and use it to power your lap top, ipod or coffee maker as well... this invention could be the answer to the energy crisis... I may have just saved the world!!!
Now I just need to think of a name... my first instinct is to go with: "Magic Shoes", but I have a feeling the creators of Forest Gump may not be too keen on that... or maybe they would... the business world is all about synergy... or maybe I could call them :"shoevolution"... as in "spread the word, Global warming will be reversed: the shoevolution is coming" ... I think that would be a pretty good billboard campaign. (who isn't a sucker for those vague ad campaigns where you have to go home and google what you read to find out what they hell its about ? I know I am !!! I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall had a pretty good campaign like that. I only saw a couple billboards for that movie and they just said things like "My mom always hated you Sarah Marshall,” and “You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall." and it seemed conceivable to me that this was just a personal vendetta some guy had against his ex since I didn't know yet that Sarah Marshall was actually a character in a movie... I seriously considered seeing that film in theatres solely based on the genius billboard campaign... but then the price of movie tickets scared me away so I waited for netflix... it was pretty good though... anyway, that is the kind of ad campaign I'm gonna go with for the shoe heaters... they are going to be the biggest thing since Heeleys! You just wait!!!
...damn I googled shoevolution and it seems to already exist... I wonder if Shoeloution (Shoe/ solution ?) is as powerful... or maybe just something like "Volt" ?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thoughts aboutThinking…
I wonder what thoughts are like when you don’t speak any language… my cat, Misty, always looks like she is plotting something, but I wonder what that is like for her… I wonder if she is visualizing what she will do using only imagery instead of language or if she does have some form of language. I usually think about what I’m going to do using words… it just seems quicker and easier than imagining a visual scenario of what I want to do. Animals seem to be able to interpret scent and sound much better than people, so they probably recall scents and sounds in much better detail than we can, so I’m sure those senses are a lot more involved in their thought processes.
Misty doesn’t talk, but she can definitely communicate with Tony and I though. For example when she started to see moving boxes appear around our apartment last year it put her in a pretty shitty mood. (Literally … Her preferred method of expressing her distaste in Tony’s and my actions is to crap on Tony’s pillow), so when she was upset about the idea of moving she found a way to let us know it. She also glares at us when we’re annoying and leads us to her food when she’s hungry… and also she mews at us all the time with the same sounding mew, but Tony and I are unfortunately too dense to figure out what she’s trying to say.
...There seem to be different layers of brain activity. What I consider to be my “thoughts” are the words I string together to form a notion of something in response to a situation or the way it makes me feel. Right now I am thinking about each word I type… and also thinking about the words I want to use to type my next thought… the part about finding words to use seems to be coming from a different part of my brain than the part about the words I’m using though… its like the non-verbal part of my brain has a notion that it is trying to convey to the verbal part of my brain so it can match a word up with it… so I guess I can come up with the same ideas with or without language… its just a lot harder to convey them in a way that I can share with other people or in a way I can remember later… I can read the words I am typing or maybe even remember the words later without rereading them or I can share my words with others to convey what I’m thinking, but the general notion that I’m conceiving of seems to be back in the way back of my brain without needing words to go with it… there had to be a notion of the concept of thought before there was an actual word for it… you can’t really make up a word for something that has never crossed your mind.
Even having the advantage of being able to use a language I sometimes get inclinations that I don’t really understand at all… like I’ll have a craving for SOMETHING? And I have no idea what exactly… like I have a general direction like sweet or savory, but there will be some specific texture or something that I want and I just do not know what I can eat to satiate that hunger. SOo annoying… also sometimes get a vague urge to DO SOMETHING… usually its like a desire to create something… so I will draw for a while and that’s ok or I’ll write and that’s ok… but it doesn’t really fulfill my creative urge, but I know I wanna do something artistic or sometimes I’ll feel like I want to do something athletic, yet nothing seems to really sound fun when you ask me about it… maybe when I feel like that it just means I’m getting a craving for something I had or did a long time ago, but I don’t remember what it was… anyway, this is starting to feel like one of the awful philosophy papers I wrote in college, so yeah I’m done now…
Misty doesn’t talk, but she can definitely communicate with Tony and I though. For example when she started to see moving boxes appear around our apartment last year it put her in a pretty shitty mood. (Literally … Her preferred method of expressing her distaste in Tony’s and my actions is to crap on Tony’s pillow), so when she was upset about the idea of moving she found a way to let us know it. She also glares at us when we’re annoying and leads us to her food when she’s hungry… and also she mews at us all the time with the same sounding mew, but Tony and I are unfortunately too dense to figure out what she’s trying to say.
...There seem to be different layers of brain activity. What I consider to be my “thoughts” are the words I string together to form a notion of something in response to a situation or the way it makes me feel. Right now I am thinking about each word I type… and also thinking about the words I want to use to type my next thought… the part about finding words to use seems to be coming from a different part of my brain than the part about the words I’m using though… its like the non-verbal part of my brain has a notion that it is trying to convey to the verbal part of my brain so it can match a word up with it… so I guess I can come up with the same ideas with or without language… its just a lot harder to convey them in a way that I can share with other people or in a way I can remember later… I can read the words I am typing or maybe even remember the words later without rereading them or I can share my words with others to convey what I’m thinking, but the general notion that I’m conceiving of seems to be back in the way back of my brain without needing words to go with it… there had to be a notion of the concept of thought before there was an actual word for it… you can’t really make up a word for something that has never crossed your mind.
Even having the advantage of being able to use a language I sometimes get inclinations that I don’t really understand at all… like I’ll have a craving for SOMETHING? And I have no idea what exactly… like I have a general direction like sweet or savory, but there will be some specific texture or something that I want and I just do not know what I can eat to satiate that hunger. SOo annoying… also sometimes get a vague urge to DO SOMETHING… usually its like a desire to create something… so I will draw for a while and that’s ok or I’ll write and that’s ok… but it doesn’t really fulfill my creative urge, but I know I wanna do something artistic or sometimes I’ll feel like I want to do something athletic, yet nothing seems to really sound fun when you ask me about it… maybe when I feel like that it just means I’m getting a craving for something I had or did a long time ago, but I don’t remember what it was… anyway, this is starting to feel like one of the awful philosophy papers I wrote in college, so yeah I’m done now…
Friday, March 6, 2009
Me + Facebook = : ) Me + phones = : <
Sorry about the title…for some reason lately: me + fake math equations = YAY : ) !!!
I seem to be turning into a veritable Facebook socialite lately… I feel a need to post pics, and status updates and links all the time these days… and I feel like every single one of my facebook friends needs my commentary on everything they do on facebook as well… This is a fairly recent development. When I first joined facebook I was very hesitant to post anything, but now all of the sudden I just can’t get enough!
I can see this turning into the beginning of some dark downward spiral that ends with me going broke after joining one of those virtual world things where I have to spend actual money (or at least the virtual money that is directly deposited into my bank account for working at my actual job) on cute virtual outfits and virtual pets and virtual beers and whatnot in the little virtual universe. God knows I love role playing games or RPGs if you will ( I keep getting final fantasy withdrawals… why won’t Squarenix release FFXIII already?)
…I am pretty sure if I actually allowed myself to go check out one of those virtual sites I would be pretty screwed… When I was in college I was hooked on this video game for N64 called Harvest Moon, which was a game that basically consisted of 15 minute cycles of doing daily chores such as watering plants, milking cows, selling my milk, harvesting my plants and going fishing… after about 15 minutes the next day would start and then I would do all of my chores again… I did this for HOURS AT A TIME rivet-TING!! It seems so sad to think about it now, but when I am playing an RPG I just get totally sucked in… which I guess is ok in moderation.
I am also avoiding twitter ‘cause I figure the “status” thingy in facebook is pretty much the same thing as twitter and I don’t know if I have enough material to put up a witty “status” on facebook AND then tweet some other clever thing as well… and it just seems tedious and stupid to be twittering and facebooking the same thing, so I shan’t be twittering anytime soon… Although I am probably a few days away from breaking down and subscribing to other people’s twitters… what’s the harm in reading what everyone else is doing every minute of the day?
Anyway, even though I do love facebook, I don’t have a ton of friends on there like some people do. The other day I was doing some facebook stalking and I saw that my friend’s sister has over 750 facebook friends… HOLY CRAP! I am quite positive that I have not met 750 people throughout the course of my ENTIRE LIFE! Not to mention the fact that of all of the people I have ever met only like 5% of them could remember my name to look me up on face book. I don't even remotely have the time to meet 750 people... I'm way too busy facebooking all the time to go meet people... geeze.
I seem to have the opposite problem with phones as I do with facebook. Whereas I am becoming miss chatty over-poster on facebook, I am tremendously shy almost to (or maybe all the way to) the point of being phone-phobic. In general I just get really shy and can’t think of a damn thing to say when someone calls on the phone… I think my social schizophrenia has something to do with the fact that I have a lot more time to formulate the perfect witty little quip to throw down on facebook, but with the phone I’ve got to DO IT LIVE! And that kind of pressure melts my brain into a puddle!
I can do a really strong “hell-o” on the phone but everything after that just feels like I am desperately grasping in the dark for something to say… I have a few friends where this is not an issue… I’d say I probably have 4-5 casually-phone-chattable peeps, but with everyone else that I talk to on the phone I suddenly start acting like a parrot or something. The majority of the phone conversations I have consist of me giving 1 word answers to all questions asked of me and then repeating the same question back to the person with whom I'm speaking in a really quick awkward fashion… so for example if someone says to me “how was your weekend” I will say to them“GoodHowWasYours?”… and I also have this problem on the phone where I don’t really know how or when to end the phone call so often it ends like this:
...Them “ok So I’ll see you around 6 then”
Me: “Ok…”
Them “ok”
ME: (not sure if they’re still there)…
Them: (not sure if I’m still there)…
ME: (look at the phone to see if we are still connected… then hang up slowly whether or not it is)
So it’s no wonder that I’m not exactly a bustling socialite in real life… Thank God I seem to be able to handle phones like a normal human being at work though. I have the keen ability to turn on my “its just a job” personality once I walk through the door of my office and I have no problem calling people up and pestering them about paying past due bills and I answer phone calls and seem to be able to converse on the phone in a fairly articulate and cheery manner, yet when it comes to talking with people in my personal life… phones scare the bejeesus out of me… even ordering a pizza is like my worst nightmare… I have no problem… or at least less problem going to a pizza parlor and picking up a pizza to go, but for some reason making that simple phone call just makes me want to hide under my bed. It makes no sense and I wish I knew what the hell my hang up is, but I just do not like phones.
I remember one time when I was in Jr. high my brother and I were home alone and we were supposed to order pizza for dinner, so my brother, knowing that I have a ridiculous phone phobia, got me to wash his car in exchange for him ordering the pizza. Despite the fact that I feel that I have progressed pretty far with my social skills since junior high, if given the choice today I still would rather wash a car than call and order a pizza. Forutnately though internet pizza ordering seems to be getting more and more prevalent... so maybe I am not alone with this whole phone phobia thing.
I seem to be turning into a veritable Facebook socialite lately… I feel a need to post pics, and status updates and links all the time these days… and I feel like every single one of my facebook friends needs my commentary on everything they do on facebook as well… This is a fairly recent development. When I first joined facebook I was very hesitant to post anything, but now all of the sudden I just can’t get enough!
I can see this turning into the beginning of some dark downward spiral that ends with me going broke after joining one of those virtual world things where I have to spend actual money (or at least the virtual money that is directly deposited into my bank account for working at my actual job) on cute virtual outfits and virtual pets and virtual beers and whatnot in the little virtual universe. God knows I love role playing games or RPGs if you will ( I keep getting final fantasy withdrawals… why won’t Squarenix release FFXIII already?)
…I am pretty sure if I actually allowed myself to go check out one of those virtual sites I would be pretty screwed… When I was in college I was hooked on this video game for N64 called Harvest Moon, which was a game that basically consisted of 15 minute cycles of doing daily chores such as watering plants, milking cows, selling my milk, harvesting my plants and going fishing… after about 15 minutes the next day would start and then I would do all of my chores again… I did this for HOURS AT A TIME rivet-TING!! It seems so sad to think about it now, but when I am playing an RPG I just get totally sucked in… which I guess is ok in moderation.
I am also avoiding twitter ‘cause I figure the “status” thingy in facebook is pretty much the same thing as twitter and I don’t know if I have enough material to put up a witty “status” on facebook AND then tweet some other clever thing as well… and it just seems tedious and stupid to be twittering and facebooking the same thing, so I shan’t be twittering anytime soon… Although I am probably a few days away from breaking down and subscribing to other people’s twitters… what’s the harm in reading what everyone else is doing every minute of the day?
Anyway, even though I do love facebook, I don’t have a ton of friends on there like some people do. The other day I was doing some facebook stalking and I saw that my friend’s sister has over 750 facebook friends… HOLY CRAP! I am quite positive that I have not met 750 people throughout the course of my ENTIRE LIFE! Not to mention the fact that of all of the people I have ever met only like 5% of them could remember my name to look me up on face book. I don't even remotely have the time to meet 750 people... I'm way too busy facebooking all the time to go meet people... geeze.
I seem to have the opposite problem with phones as I do with facebook. Whereas I am becoming miss chatty over-poster on facebook, I am tremendously shy almost to (or maybe all the way to) the point of being phone-phobic. In general I just get really shy and can’t think of a damn thing to say when someone calls on the phone… I think my social schizophrenia has something to do with the fact that I have a lot more time to formulate the perfect witty little quip to throw down on facebook, but with the phone I’ve got to DO IT LIVE! And that kind of pressure melts my brain into a puddle!
I can do a really strong “hell-o” on the phone but everything after that just feels like I am desperately grasping in the dark for something to say… I have a few friends where this is not an issue… I’d say I probably have 4-5 casually-phone-chattable peeps, but with everyone else that I talk to on the phone I suddenly start acting like a parrot or something. The majority of the phone conversations I have consist of me giving 1 word answers to all questions asked of me and then repeating the same question back to the person with whom I'm speaking in a really quick awkward fashion… so for example if someone says to me “how was your weekend” I will say to them“GoodHowWasYours?”… and I also have this problem on the phone where I don’t really know how or when to end the phone call so often it ends like this:
...Them “ok So I’ll see you around 6 then”
Me: “Ok…”
Them “ok”
ME: (not sure if they’re still there)…
Them: (not sure if I’m still there)…
ME: (look at the phone to see if we are still connected… then hang up slowly whether or not it is)
So it’s no wonder that I’m not exactly a bustling socialite in real life… Thank God I seem to be able to handle phones like a normal human being at work though. I have the keen ability to turn on my “its just a job” personality once I walk through the door of my office and I have no problem calling people up and pestering them about paying past due bills and I answer phone calls and seem to be able to converse on the phone in a fairly articulate and cheery manner, yet when it comes to talking with people in my personal life… phones scare the bejeesus out of me… even ordering a pizza is like my worst nightmare… I have no problem… or at least less problem going to a pizza parlor and picking up a pizza to go, but for some reason making that simple phone call just makes me want to hide under my bed. It makes no sense and I wish I knew what the hell my hang up is, but I just do not like phones.
I remember one time when I was in Jr. high my brother and I were home alone and we were supposed to order pizza for dinner, so my brother, knowing that I have a ridiculous phone phobia, got me to wash his car in exchange for him ordering the pizza. Despite the fact that I feel that I have progressed pretty far with my social skills since junior high, if given the choice today I still would rather wash a car than call and order a pizza. Forutnately though internet pizza ordering seems to be getting more and more prevalent... so maybe I am not alone with this whole phone phobia thing.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
I love you iGoogle ; )
I am completely amazed when an artist is able to illustrate two totally different pictures within the same exact space. Or better still three...
How did anyone ever figure out how to encompass three faces in one simple picture ... every time I see that sort of optical illusion, MY MIND IS BLOWN!!!! I have tried many times to draw one of these multifaceted optical thingies, but my repeated failure has lead me to believe that perhaps you have to be able to draw well to begin with in order to become a successful illusionist. My attempts at optical illusions seem to all look like nothing in particular from one angle and then when you look at them from another angle they just look like crap.
Artists know how to trick the human brain into seeing something in detail while furnishing as little detail as possible. Those clever artistic bastards play on the mental weaknesses of their viewers to make them fill in the missing bits of an incomplete picture and we are left wondering if we have some weird perversion that makes us see dolphins when we are looking at a picture of people groping one another.
Anyway, Both of the above illusions come from the "optical illusion of the day gadget" on my igoogle home page. It's kind of sad how much my iGoogle home page is my window to the world... I think I may have written this in my blog before, but an alarming percentage of my conversations with people seem to begin with either " The other day on the morning show I listen to... " or they begin with a quote from something I read or saw on my iGoogle homepage:
Isn't is GLORIOUS?
... it is my source of news and weather, a reminder of upcoming events... Also, I've been known to try to work a Spanish word of the day into a conversation with Jose or quote an iGoogle quote of the day or joke of the day here and there (today's joke and quote of the day were pretty lame, so I'm not going to throw either of those down right now)... and recently on my iGoogle page Tony put up some GPS gadget that is linked to the GPS in his cell phone so I can see where he is at all times... HOORAY STALKER TECHNOLOGY! so with all of my sweet ass gadgets I pretty much get hours and hours of joy and entrainment from my iGoogle home page...At this point I can't even search things on the "classic google home" page anymore... It's just so boring: it's all white and empty like some pale sickly person with no imagination... SO LAME! I need my screen to be filled with art and optical illusions and all of my personalized crap if I'm going to bother to google things... if Google ever took away "iGoogle" I don't know if I could handle it... I would certainly cry and throw a temper tantrum at the very least...I LOVE YOU iGOOGLE LETS BE BFFS FOR LIFE!
oh, by the way, guess who finally figured out how to put pictures in her blog (after only having a blog for like 3 years)?!? ... That's right this girl right here:
... it is my source of news and weather, a reminder of upcoming events... Also, I've been known to try to work a Spanish word of the day into a conversation with Jose or quote an iGoogle quote of the day or joke of the day here and there (today's joke and quote of the day were pretty lame, so I'm not going to throw either of those down right now)... and recently on my iGoogle page Tony put up some GPS gadget that is linked to the GPS in his cell phone so I can see where he is at all times... HOORAY STALKER TECHNOLOGY! so with all of my sweet ass gadgets I pretty much get hours and hours of joy and entrainment from my iGoogle home page...At this point I can't even search things on the "classic google home" page anymore... It's just so boring: it's all white and empty like some pale sickly person with no imagination... SO LAME! I need my screen to be filled with art and optical illusions and all of my personalized crap if I'm going to bother to google things... if Google ever took away "iGoogle" I don't know if I could handle it... I would certainly cry and throw a temper tantrum at the very least...I LOVE YOU iGOOGLE LETS BE BFFS FOR LIFE!
oh, by the way, guess who finally figured out how to put pictures in her blog (after only having a blog for like 3 years)?!? ... That's right this girl right here:
SCORE!
Oh and speaking of having this blog for 3 years... I would like to take a moment to note that 2009 is now officially my most productive blogging year EVER... it didn't take much to make 2008 suck it, but 2007 can suck it now too 'cause I have now blogged more this year than I did in 07'... so I guess that means '09 just pretty much rules! Oh YEAH!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
