M to E from A to Z

Accent - on the positive
Booze - vodka
Chore I Hate - laundry
Dog or Cat - I have a cat that thinks she's a dog
Essential Electronics - what a boy question
Favorite Perfume - Yves St. Laurent's "Paris"
Gold or Silver - silver
Hometown - Huntington Beach, CA, dude
Insomnia - I drop off around 9 and it takes an A-bomb to wake me
Job Title - Customer Service Lead (sad)
Kids - 0, but I have many friends with them, so it works out
Living Arrangements - sweet little house with cousin/roommate
Most Admirable Trait - erm ... my sunny disposish
Number of Sexual Partners - if I told you, you'd laugh; if I told you when the last one was, you'd cry.
Overnight Hospital Stays - 0
Phobias - spiders and Jon Voight
Quote - "'Slackers?' queried Chang ... 'It is significant ... that the English regard slackness as a vice. We, on the other hand, should vastly prefer it to tension. Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers?'" - James Hilton, Lost Horizon
Religion - Zen Catholicism
Siblings - 2 brothers
Time I Wake Up - 4:20 (dude! way!) a.m.
Unusual Talent or Skill - there was this one thing ...
Vegetable I Refuse to Eat - can't think of one. fruits on the other hand...
Worst Habit - nail-biting, back biting ... I'm a biter
X-Rays - my left knee once and my teeth often
Yummy Foods I Make - champagne cake, that blackberry thing (I don't have a name for it yet, but it's like a cobbler or a ... thing), chicken marinade, soup sometimes comes out okay
Zodiac Sign - Cancer Sheep

Student Comment of the Day

"Like, do you know if we, like, have to take the Final? Like, can you, like, skip it?"

Reasons to love the dentist

My dentist has a television in the ceiling, so when you're lying there getting your teeth drilled, you can have headphones on and be distracted. They even give you goggles to wear over your glasses so you can see and not get sprayed by the water pik. I once had 2 fillings done and saw most of the original "Flight of the Phoenix," and once I watched half of 2 episodes of Star Trek. Today it was tuned to VH-1 and that reality game show about the models. There was no sound (I decided it wasn't worth the headphones), but it looked interesting -- and it's not hard to read lips when they keep repeating the word "bitch".

Anyway, in the middle of a poke in my top tooth this commercial came on. Turns out, it's even better with sound.

Except for the snow. The snow is too loud.

Business Name of the Day

American Institute for Preventive Medici

1st Runner-Up: Things by Jeanne

dude

I'm at work, waisting time, but this morning I pod-loaded a song called "Naked" by The Miss Alans (Bakersfield's finest band). It just came on the headphones and for a brief moment I really, really missed Los Angeles.
It was the weirdest sensation ever.

exHarmony

Spent an hour on eHarmony this morning -- did their whole 29 step, million-man-march questionnaire and the first 5 "test" matches they had for me were all at least 2 years younger (or more) than I am, 4 of them had misspellings in their profiles (one doesn't like "waisting" time on ... something. I don't remember what exactly) and 3 of them had spoutings about God in the profile. Now, I'm not a heathen. I was raised Catholic and I'm, admittedly, dabbling a little in Zen, but in this current climate of Christian Right and the whole "St. Paul says that women are supposed to be submissive" thing ... dude, do I really want to match up with that or even something that is borderline that? And, if eHarmony is so great that they can charge like Dolly Levi for the service, then why do they translate "spiritual, but not religious" into someone who would match with that?

I'm not saying this won't work -- for a minute there I was really getting into the questionnaire, because it's definitely more involved than the other ones I've tapped into lately -- but the payoff just wasn't enough. I don't know. I just don't think I've reached the compromise state yet -- and, sure, maybe this wouldn't be a compromise. Maybe the misspellings were a fluke and these guys were just too nervous to check a dictionary. I focus on the wrong things, I admit it. But I just don't think I could truck with an uber-Christian or moderate Christian or someone who thinks they can use God's influence in an eHarmony profile (or presidential election or boxing match, etc...).

Metafixthis

Yesterday, I was a little cranky. Sometimes the kids just get to that nerve and poke at it with a fiery stick, and I can't help reacting to it. Maybe it's because our refrigerator has been broken since last Saturday and our house smells like a diaper. Maybe it's the B I got on a paper where I thought covered all the A bases. Maybe it's the Shakespeare paper due tomorrow, which is only 3 pages, but I don't want to blow the really good impression I've made on Shakespeare Lady, so I'm afraid to finish it and call it done only to turn it in and get a C.

I couldn't even relax this afternoon during T'ai Chi class (which has, really, become more of a chat session than a practice -- I mean we practice, sure, but when you're outside among the students, you tend to listen to other conversations and they're funny and it leads to chit-chat about various kooky topics like amateur film and the purpose of moustaches). Today I was told that one of the things T'ai Chi does for you is it opens you up to the world around you. This awareness leads you down the road to enlightenment. My response was "Yeah, but ignorance is bliss."

"Then why do you do this?" T.C. Man asked.

Fecking A ... I hadn't really thought about it. I threw out the snappy "It's better than going to work" but it's bothered me for the rest of the day. I hadn't thought of it as having this goal of enlightenment. It was just 2 hours a week where people didn't bark at me or chip at my confidence. It's what old people do and it's good for allergies and my knees. But hadn't I just been told that if you did a kick wrong you could blow out your knee? If that's the physical end of it, what happens mentally and if you do something wrong? Do you blow out your metaphysical center of balance?

So I don't know anymore. Geez, maybe it's time to start drinking or reading romance novels or collecting newspaper and cat food cans. I fear enlightenment and I hate ignorance. Jaysis ... or maybe we just need a new refrigerator. I really can't take having to shake up the milk to filter the floaties anymore.

Shite

Here is what I listen to all day:

Like.

It's, like, every other, like, word, like, ya know? There are even sentences that have no point at all: "I was, like, totally, like, ya know?" What the feck is that? What are you saying and how am I supposed to know what it's like? This one is also good: "It's like, I think it was, like, about this, but ... I'm not sure?" Then why say it? WHY?

This leads up to my ranting about Creative Writing. We read examples of good writing to help lead us on the right path. Today it was John Updike's "A&P" and James Joyce's "Araby". Updike, as usual, has great descriptions and a vivid background, but no flipping point. Fight with me if you like, but I've tried to read "Rabbit Run" twice and if someone can tell me for certain that it will eventually get somewhere, then maybe I'll try it again. Joyce has beautiful prose and - shock! horror! - a plot. Most of the class liked Updike. Three of us liked Joyce. Why?

"I think, like, he was, like, really kind of wordy. Like, I didn't get what he was saying most of the time, and I had to keep, like, re-reading some parts."

It's 4 pages long!

My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom.

I said god-damn. It's so wonderful.

Now, if it had been written as "I cried all the time for some reason" that would have been more acceptable to some of my classmates.

So, this, to me, is an alarming trend. We're getting the rule of "2 words good, 4 words bad" drummed into our heads and it gives me the fecking fear. Am I just really old fashioned, or is language dying? It's better to use simple words and less of them, because no one wants to spend the time learning the right words and what they mean.

I won't begin the rant about how they don't like stories that don't relate to them personally. I could go off on that all night.

This makes things all better

The cousin put me onto this great cartoon.

Laughed so hard, nearly peed my pants.

I'd like to introduce myself

I'mmmmmmmmmm the other wooooman.

Honestly, I never thought I'd be the type to download music. Sure, I used the free 5-song coupon that came with my Sony pod (both the first one and the replacement after the first one stopped working), but I really didn't think I'd ever buy stuff to download. It's like a cell phone. I just didn't think I needed it.

Who knew they had Loretta Lynn? I could probably burn the cd's from the library, but within 3 minutes I had 7 songs on the pod and they sound really, really good. Honestly, I'm not a country music type, but Loretta has helped me through some hard times -- erm ... Loretta in the form of Sissy Spacek. "Patsy always said 'Little girl, you got to run your own life' ... and now my life's runnin' me." Or "may" as it's pronounced by Sissy/Loretta. But you can't walk around with a DVD of "Coal Miner's Daughter" -- or you could, but it's hard to watch on the bus. Now I can flip open the pod and get instant comfort from Loretta followed by the strange sexual energy of Jarvis Cocker ("I only went with her because she looks like you - MY GOD").

What bothers me about this -- not Loretta/Sissy/Jarvis, but the download trend, which is like crack since the first 5/10 were free and now I'm hooked, but that's not what bothers me -- what bothers me about this is the new appeal of a cell phone. Imagine, any time of the day, anywhere, you can call someone and get your existence validated. Feckin' A, that's hard to pass up.

[stamp] you exist.

feckin' a...

posting to the post after the fact

Did I jump the acupuncture gun? Maybe. T'ai Chi Man has since filled me in on the working of Chinese medicine and he recommends massage or moxibustion (which sounded a lot like Matza ball, which made me think of Deepfry, which made me think of cake and bacon, which made me hungry, and on and on and on ...). Apparently moxibustion (which also made me think of the cousin's dog, Moxie) involves heating up some stuff and sticking it on the thing and then letting it burn. Sounds a bit G. Gordon Liddy/James Dean-esq, but it also sounds a lot better than a needle.

Although, honestly, going to a girlie spa and getting a massage (facial, mani and pedi) sounds even better. The chances of insurance paying for that? ha ha ha.

post script

turns out what i requested was done. it just looked like it hadn't been done.
so i'm the a-hole.
this should surprise no one.

Carpe De Tunnel Um

I'm convinced that carpal tunnel/tendinitis has started. It's already been the ruin of two co-workers and I'm beginning to get the same tingly feelings they described. I'm also getting the Popeye forearms.

This is worrying.

I've been weighing it over during the past few days and I don't want to lose the job -- I hate the job, but I've grown fond of eating, drinking, rent paying, etc... -- so I don't want to go to a doctor who will throw me over to Workers' Comp. That's why I called an acupuncturist. I hate needles (some may remember the childish way I backed into the room with my eyes closed when we had free flu shots at Store of Knowledge) but I figure that 30 million Chinese can't be wrong. Anyway, it falls into the whole Eastern thing I've been trying out lately with the T'ai Chi, etc... I mean, feck it, the T'ai Chi is helping my allergies, so there must be something to this stuff. Bad news is I have to wait until June 2 to see the poker-man. By then the Popeye arms will have fallen off and I'll be crippled by my job like some flipping child seamstress in a Dreiser novel.

Mordieux.

-- Just a note, now that I'm at the office and looking to work off building feelings of irritation ... here is one of my biggest pet peeves:
Asking someone to do something and having it not get done.
That and coming into work relaxed and quickly getting pissed off by 1) email 2) incompetence and 3) having my backpack fall off while the alarm is going off and I'm trying to lock the front doors behind me. Maybe the job really isn't worth it. --

We are One, and it is wonderful in our sight

I can't believe I've had this blog for a full year. It was a shaky start, but now it's quite comfortable: The Old Shoe blog.

I can't honestly say it's been an eventful year. Sure, there was school starting for the first time in 20 years, but people do that every day. Trip to Vegas ... no ... boring ... No, nothing really of note. The boxing night was fun and the top contender for highlight of the year, but I just noticed this phrase in my description of it:

" in the blue corner, wearing his trucks in shreaded pleats of blue and white "

His what? His TRUCKS? And they're what? "SHREADED"?? What the hell is "shreaded"?

dear God.

And to think, my first post was titled "Grammar Police".
I think that sums it all up quite nicely.

Like, ya know, I guess

First day of Spring Term and I'm an old woman. Yet again, it's Italian that's going to be the death of me. The entire class (with the exception of 4 boys) is composed of tanned, toned, frosted and chunky-haired girls. Not women. Girls. "Oh my God, like, Mexico was, like, really cool." "Cool." "Yeah." "My break was spent totally wedding planning. Like, who knew flowers were, like, so expensive?" (She turned to those of us in the back row for support on this, but no one really knew what to say.) "Ya know? But, it's totally fun." "Way. I want to plan a wedding." "Yeah."

I felt so out of place. I need blonde hair, a belly piercing and flip-flops.

Then, after we settle in, ("Mi chiamo ________. Sono alcoholica.") and break into coppie (of which I had no one to coppia, since they had all been in this class together last term and there was no one I knew so sono solo) the instructor, Jamie, says to me. "What was your name?" I tell her and she says "I don't have you on my list. Are you enrolled in this class?"

Feck! Could I be any more of an outsider? And now she's preying on my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I pull out the schedule. I check it three times before handing it to her. She shrugs and says "Okay" and hands it back. Okay? It's not okay! Shite. I'm on coals for 40 minutes until class ends. "Should I be worried?" I ask her. "About what?" "About not being enrolled in here." "Oh, you are. I found you listed."

Feck!

Of course it's my first class and, of course, I walk into the next two classes worried about not being enrolled even though I was enrolled and am enrolled, but now I'm going to have that gnawing fear that gnaws like a gnawing gnawer.

That said, I've chosen the part of Cambridge in "Henry V" ("Never was monarch better feared and loved/Than is your majesty.") in the Shakespeare class, and I think Creative Writing will be okay -- although when I heard one of my fellow-students say "I think Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' is the best book I've ever read" I couldn't stop the reflexive gaping and eye-rolling. Bad me.