It is What it Is

Too Sensitive?

Some of my friends keep telling me that it's time to "get back out there" (i.e. dating). But, then I have days when I feel like the Mailer-Daemon return service on my e-mail sounds like it's breaking up with me. (After all, it does say, "This is a permanent error. I will not try again.") And, on those day, I think I'm not quite there yet.

A Word Please...

We all know that I love my celebrity gossip. In fact, one of my favorite gifts this year was a subscription to US Weekly magazine. (Of course, considering my somewhat severe addiction to celebrity gossip websites, I usually know everything in the magazine before it arrives - excepting, obviously, stars and how they're "just like" me, but bygones.) Even if I have all the details on Britney's divorce and Kingston Stefani's hairstyle, I still read it. (I know, I know - between the repetitive play of Lindsay Lohan's shenanigans and soap operas, my brain is well-fed.) And, by most accounts, this Monday was no different from most: I came home from work, I changed into sweat pants, I spent time actually talking out loud to my dog about how my day was, and then I sat down on the couch with my recently-delivered US Weekly. That's when I noticed it. It was right there on the cover, staring up at me. That's when I saw that this particular US Weekly was, in fact, a Collector's Edition. That's right - a collector's edition. A collector's edition of a those-of-us-who-read-it-pretend-it-isn't-but-deep-down-we-all-know-it-really-is-one tabloid. My obvious question is, WHO THE HELL COLLECTS US WEEKLY?!?! Is there someone laminating TomKat's wedding album as we speak? Does it get a special place on the coffee table where it stays - forever? Do you pull it out when people come over for dinner along with slides from that last trip to the Grand Canyon saying, "Now I don't know whether you've seen this before or not...but we've been saving something really special for after dessert"? It's US Weekly people! Everyone has seen it! Anyone can have it! Collector's Edition or not, there's nothing that special about it. I really don't think it will be worth more if they break up, if that's what people are hoping for. I'm pretty sure mainstream copies of celebrity rags don't appreciate in value like baseball cards or discontinued, sexist Barbies. Sure, when my grandmother held a garage sale years ago, her National Enquirers sold out and sold fast, but they went for ten cents a piece. She couldn't exactly retire on rumors. (Hey - do you think that phrase could catch on? Maybe like "living on love"? "Retiring on rumors"? Huh? Ok, I realize it doesn't work and barely makes sense, but I've been dying to slap something on a needlepoint pillow and make my fortune for years. After all, if people like collector's editions of mediocre magazines...) Of course, when I consider that some people amass Precious Moments figurines and clocks shaped like trains from the Time Life corporation, none of this seems that bad, but, as I've said before and will say again, when people are thinking inside "the crazy box," I don't dive in there with them trying to work with their logic. If you're taking "the train to crazy," I'm not hoping on board with you. I'll stay in "reason-ville," and we can have any discussion you want there. Holding on to an US Weekly just because it says "Collector's Edition" on the top is a little bit crazy. I can't help but thinking it's the same mindset that leads to one day far in the future when EMT technicians have to fight their way through a maze of years-old newspapers and empty cans of Le Sueur green peas to find your body. In short, throw it out. Get out of the crazy box. You'll thank me in the long run.

Labels: pop culture rantings

Crank Yankers

Right after I graduated college, I went to work for a small non-profit firm in Northwest D.C. My title was Assistant Director of Marketing and Development, but since it was a small firm and a non-profit, I usually ended up "wearing many hats" so to speak. And, since the non-profit I worked for operated a CCRC (that's Continuing Care Retirement Community for those of you not in the know), those many hats could be quite interesting. "Assistant Director of Marketing" actually meant that I spent a lot of time talking to the elderly and their family members about whether or not it was time for a retirement community, an assisted living facility, or the nursing home. (Yes, it was a crazy good time every day.) I answered a lot of phone calls (including a 1-800 number that did not have any sort of screening process) and a lot of people who called me tended to get my number confused with someone else's (after all, they were pretty old). Also while I had this job, my roommate would call me every day so that we could plan dinner or discuss who needed to pay the gas bill, etc. (You know - the general joys of domesticity.) And every day when I answered the phone, he would try to prank me in some way. Sometimes he pretended that he needed to find retirement housing for his grandfather, sometimes he wanted to sell me bed pans, and other days just had him screaming "she's fallen and she can't get up" into the phone. And, while this behavior of his is somewhat interesting, what is much more fascinating is that he got me every single time. Despite the fact that the person I lived with called me daily with pretty much the same joke, I never caught on. Every time, I would try my best to answer his questions ("Has your father said anything about being ready to move?" "Sanitation devices aren't really my area," "Should I call 911 for you?") until he would start giggling and tell me for the umpteenth time that he wasn't actually one of my clients. It was more than ridiculous and had him believing I might be the most gullible person on earth. But, you see, the truth is that it was nearly impossible for me to catch on because the "normal" phone calls I got were so weird to begin with. (Remember - old people.) One morning, I got a call asking if I was ready for "the 700 pound man on route to my facility." (I know what you're thinking, but could I really make this stuff up? I'm not that creative.) After many frantic calls to the nursing staff who told me we were in no way prepared for this arrival, and they had no idea what I was talking about, the woman on the phone and I finally worked out that she had the wrong number. And, as bad as that was, no call was as uncomfortable as the one when I picked up the phone to find a very angry, Katherine Hepburn-sounding lady loudly asking "when on earth are you going to get over there to bathe my husband?!?!" I'm pretty sure I stuttered as I answered that that wasn't my job, but she wasn't willing to back down for another five minutes as she continued to ask why I wasn't already at her house sponge-bathing away. (I'm still not sure how those numbers got confused.) As stupid as I seemed for all those times on the phone with my roommate, that was the sacrifice I had to make for not being ridiculously unprofessional at the office. (I sure know that if I had laughed in the face of the woman with a 700 pound patient, I would have been called insensitive and a fatist, and that wouldn't have gone over well with the boss man.) These are the lessons about the working world they don't teach you in school. And, this probably explains some of why I never lasted that long in the customer service field.

Labels: story time

My Confession

I could have been disappointed last night. After all, Sunday is usually my "Cold Case"night, and I don't like it when I can't watch "Cold Case." (I like blending the fictional closure of their cases with the close to my week. It completes me.) So, the fact that "Cold Case" wasn't on last night could have really bugged me. But, fortunately, "Cold Case" wasn't being shown for one of my other greatest guilty pleasures - the Hallmark made-for-television movie. Sure, I usually can't find the raping, stalking, abusing men of my Lifetime choices, but, there's something to the heartwarming cheesiness of their stories that just kills me. If I can't have a murderous secretary out to steal her boss' job and man, I want a disheartened widower who learns to love again or an emotionally scarred old maid who finds peace in caring for an orphaned child. Plus, as a crier, there is rarely anything that offers me as much catharsis as a Hallmark movie. You don't even want to know how much tissue I went through when Rosie O'Donnell played the mentally handicapped woman who just wanted to ride the bus. And, as we all know, a crier tears up over both the commercials and the movie. So, in the spirit of the season, I will now share with you my favorite Hallmark commercial. The shot opens in the Principal's office of a high school. A young brunette girl is sitting in a chair in front of the desk and asks why she's been called into the office. The principal, an older woman who looks like one of those "loving on the inside/tough on the outside" ladies, hands the girl a card. The girl opens up the card, reads it, and says, "You're proud of me?" The principal nods and then tells the girls she needs to get back to class. Now, I'm sure that you're thinking that up until this point, this commercial sounds like the most boring thing in the world. A principal who's proud of a student - how bland. But, as the teenager is leaving, the principal looks up and says, "Now, Laurel, don't forget to close the door behind you." Maybe it was my mood. Maybe it was the lowered defenses created by the movie. Maybe I was having a low self-esteem day, but I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I felt like Hallmark and fate were talking directly to me that night. I was a little overcome, and I cried - a lot. In fact, I kind of creepily hoped that they'd show that same commercial again last night just so I could have another one of my mildly pathetic, warm, fuzzy moments. What can I say? I'm sick, and that gold crown really is something special.

Black Friday

Now, normally I'm not one to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. In fact, usually I'm such a wreck about getting ready for the holidays, I've finished my shopping by the end of October and don't even need to get near the mall for the last two months of the year. (Except, of course, for my trips to Forever 21 and The Great American Cookie Company, but that's personal and not really "gift-related.")

But, last year, I couldn't sleep and thought that I might as well see what it's like to be in a department store at 7:00 a.m. Unfortunately, being with the rabid bargain-hunting crowd taught me two things:

1. Something about being in the presence of a "doorbuster" completely destroys my rational sensibilities. I was loaded up with seven $12.00 digital cameras (as if a $12.00 digital camera could be any good) before I realized that just because everyone else was grabbing at the boxes under the "special sale" sign didn't mean I had to, too.

2. I should not be unleashed on the world in a situation that involves both early mornings and slashed prices. After the doorbuster incident, I found myself at Old Navy in search of discounted performance fleece. I had picked up two jackets that I thought were ten dollars a piece and proceeded to the check-out line.

Now, being the day after Thanksgiving, the line at Old Navy lasted for 45 minutes, but I was willing to wait it out because of the cheap jackets. (I'd also like to add that I don't think waiting in the line was nearly as bad as the "waiting entertainment" dreamed up by overly-peppy retail gurus. I think it's fair to say that I never want to play "purse and pocket raffle." I don't care who has tweezers in their purse. And, having to watch the "sudden death" as to who would win the holiday motif stickers when both middle-aged woman A and middle aged woman B had Q-tips in their purses nearly made me impale myself on a coat hanger.)

Movie Picks

Well, since nothing particularly zany has happened to me in the last few days, I suppose I'll be forced to revisit a story from my childhood. So, I figured I'd tell everyone about the movie that scared me the most as a child - "The Neverending Story." That's right, I was most terrified by "The Neverending Story." Nothing about the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz" got to me. I was cool with the Big Bad Wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood." Not even the title to "Nightmare on Elm Street" bothered me. (I say the title, because, obviously as a four-year-old I didn't see "Nightmare on Elm Street." But, I did know it existed, and I grew up on Elm Street. Kind of freaky, isn't it?) "The Neverending Story" was the big baddie of my nightmares. When I was little, I really liked going to see "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" at the movie theater in the mall closest to our house. In fact, I liked "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" so much, I saw it in the theater four times. So, you can imagine the pain my father felt one Saturday afternoon when he asked me what I wanted to do for the day, and I answered, "Watch 'The Smurfs and the Magic Flute!'" On go number five, my father finally put his foot down. He had had enough of the those little blue creatures, so he made me pick another movie, and, since G-rated movies are hard to come by, we had to settle on "The Neverending Story." (Well, truth be told, I stook to my guns. There wasn't really any "settling" involved. I wanted to see my smurfs, and I wanted to see them tout de suite, if you know what I mean. This whole "other movie thing" was really a tyrannical parent choice.) We went down to the theater, and settled in for the show. But, unfortunately, we didn't really make it past the first half hour. As soon as Atreyu lost his horse Atrax to the Swamps of Sadness, I was done. (How could anyone be punished for crying with death? I don't think it's difficult to understand why such dire circumstances for tears would terrify a small girl.) As soon as the horsey was gone, I started to cry. (And, of course, considering what I had just watched, this only elevated the level of upset, leading to - you guessed it - more tears.) I was crying in a way that meant my father had to escort me out of the theater. In the hallway, I calmed down. My unsuspecting father took this to me that we could go back to watching the movie, but he was very wrong. I refused to re-enter the theater. I was having none else of that movie. (As a small aside, my father does not like to waste money, so you can imagine how strong my objections must have been for us to leave right then and there without him seeing the rest of the film.) And, truth be told, I have never seen the end of "The Neverending Story" since walking out of that theater over twenty years ago. (Is there irony in that?) I avoid it in the video store. I switch the channel when it's on TV. It freaked me out once, and I'm not willing to give it another shot. (If only I would remember to apply this same rule to my dating life...) But, more importantly, do you know what the moral to this story is? When I want to watch some German-based cartoons fight evil, it's best to let me have what I want.

Aging

Well, I'm officially a year older. I was going to attempt a post about the "craziness of this past weekend" that sounded like I was talking about TomKat's wedding when, in fact, I was talking about my own birthday - (do you see what I was going for there? what kind of crazy twist would that have been?) - but, then I realized that I don't have much of anything in common with TomKat, and that creative well ran dry. (Why could I really do? Talk about A-list guests? Exotic sights? An incredible, designer gown? I think we all know my birthday party's classiest moments occurred sometime after I (loudly) shared my theory on olives and their lack of necessity in the world and sometime before I spilled red wine down the front of my shirt.) Then, I thought about writing about my presents. But, since I got "House" on DVD, a book by Amy Sedaris sub-titled "Hospitality Under the Influence," and cash, my gifts were pretty much perfect and, for anyone who knows me, completely expected. I mean, I already get a lot of topic mileage out of Hugh Laurie, alcohol, and running out of money, so I don't want to over-mine, if you will, and find out that the well has gone dry one day. Plus, this is one of the rare weekends I didn't spend eight hours watching Lifetime, so I don't even have cheesy movies to mock and re-hash for the anti-made-for-television crowd. My dog didn't get any new outfits. My landlord has stayed out of sight. And, I haven't run into a single vagrant wanting to predict my future or sell me a dead pigeon. Why am I telling you about everything that wasn't funny enough to write about, you might ask? Because it all leads me to my new worry that turning 27 has killed my storytelling mojo. Normally, weird stuff happens to me all the time - especially on my birthday. At twenty-two, my crazy ex-roommate caused a scene in front of forty people before throwing a beer against the wall and storming out, and I coined the phrase "crazy like a loon and not like a fox." For twenty-three, there was literally dancing on the table. And, last year I threw an 80s prom. Even before I became of legal age, this stuff happened. I spent half of my tenth birthday in a horrendous girl scout camp where an obese camp cook tried to make me eat my weight in spaghetti before a homeless man stole my duffel bag as it was sitting on the front steps of my school when the troop got back and unloaded the van. I usually like to go big. Yet, this past weekend was tame. Some might even say "drama free." I can't help but wonder if I've come to the end of the road for zaniness. Will I stop having the experiences that make for my future anecdotes? Will I have to start writing about food or social issues or what kids will be wearing in the spring to get by? Will I have to embrace gardening or evaluating toaster ovens just to have topics of discussion? I don' think anyone wants to see the day I'm planting crocus bulbs from all the different Home Depots in town to see which one bears the brightest bloom - especially me. All I can say is that if my family gets through all of Thanksgiving dinner without incident, I'm really going to get scared...

My "Real" Job

For anyone who's interested, the website I work for goes live today, and you can check it out at: http://www.rezoom.com

More on the Thunder-Stealers

If ever there was proof that a certain "religion" must be a bar bet that got way out of hand, and L. Ron Hubbard is laughing his ass off from somewhere beyond the grave, let's examine the much-publicized-of-late wedding vows: "girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat" While I am willing to get behind clothes, food, tender happiness, and a comb, I'm not sure what the "frills" are unless that's an antiquated way of saying "diamonds and Marc Jacobs" (in which case, hell yes), but if "frills" has anything to do with doilies, very small buttons, or accessories that would impede my drinking, then that's a big NO. As for a pan and a cat - well, those are just silly. Don't get me wrong, but wasn't L. Ron Hubbard born in the twentieth century? Therefore, I assume he learned to talk pretty much the same way the rest of us did. I mean, it's not like these Scientology texts date back centuries. It seems to me that someone (L. Ron, I mean you) was trying to make himself sound smarter than the rest of us, and doesn't realize that he really comes off as being a bit pretentious and sounding more like the friend you grew up with who picked up a fake accent after a week of watching too much BBC America on extended cable but told everyone else that they "couldn't help it" when they were "exposed to new cultures." I think I might rather go through a silent birth than have to watch an over-priced wedding video of me standing near five or six of my satin-clad friends as I promised to "remember his follies."

Labels: pop culture rantings

Buyer Beware

This evening (yes, this evening, I work late now which is kind of an unsettling phenomenon in my world - especially when it makes me miss my weekly date with Hugh Laurie), I got into an argument with a co-worker as to who has the worse apartment. Apparently, he thought he had me beat because somehow my hardwood floors were such an improvement over his carpeted ones despite my list of complaints that includes an unattractive bricked-in fireplace, textured, brown bathroom walls that actually resemble poop, and a very inconvenient lack of hot water. Luckily, that false sense of victory only lasted until he heard my trump card. As soon as I mentioned the slanting floors - and, by "slanting," I'm talking about a slope that actually prevents me from putting glassware or other valuables on tables or shelves for fear that they will immediately slide off to the floor - he conceded. But, somehow this minor triumph doesn't do a lot for me as I'm sitting in the possibly-in-need-of-condemnation hovel I call home.