June 28, 2002
I miss thang.
Well, in view of Allen’s enormously long (but also enormously rewarding) description of his journey to date, writing this blog about my small, baseball-playing, smoothie-drinking life seems suddenly less satisfying. Even Jacob, busily slicing mouse brains in his mad laboratory, is doing something useful. (Who would slice the mouse brains if not for him? Would you do it? I thought not.)
And in brief, here are two things you can take to your weekend:
My co-worker (with the eligible son) used the phrase “keeping company” to describe her pre-marital relations with her husband.
At lunch I sat peacefully in the Class of 1925 Plaza, a quiet spot full of trees and a broken fountain. A short, dyspeptic neckbiter of a businessman strode past at one point and growled into his cellphone: “I wouldn’t flatter yourself, first of all, that anybody would be attracted to you, okay? Nobody gives a shit…til you make money.”
Anyway, have a nice weekend. Roll your shoulders. Remember to breathe. No one is looking at you.
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June 27, 2002
I miss The Lad.
Baseball is the healthiest thing I do. There's nothing like running around in the evening air, swinging a bat, pantsing Dustin and playing Ninja Cartwheels with Michele. It's an all-American sport.
After several rounds of tandem cartwheels, Michele and I decided that next week we will bring a tape deck and my old Debbie Gibson tape -- ah, Electric Youth! -- and force the boys to do routines with us. Who among us can forget the joy of creating a routine? This was a very popular event in middle school. You guys wondered what we did at those slumber parties? Well I'll tell you: we had routine competitions. (And lesbian sex of course. Lots of that.) Routines as I recall them consisted mainly of a lot of elaborate synchronized footwork and leaping over small end tables. Some of you never got over it and went on to become cheerleaders, gymnasts and Irish dancers. Whereas others of you never got over the lesbian sex part.
Anyway, last night's baseball was comparatively injury-free. Michele got hit in the head with the tennis ball and Dustin appears to be suffering from a manly form of the consumption known as miner's lung, but other than that everyone seemed healthy. Later we went to Pasta Pomodoro even though Jason hates it and everyone enjoyed some ravioli and an amusing story about Dustin, Berkeley Aaron and a couple of hookers in Texas.
Yesterday I gave this guy my number. I don't know why I did it; we hadn't even spoken. We just happened to be in the same coffee shop together. As soon as I did it I regretted it, especially since he then called me three times that day. I know it's not fair to give a guy a number and then be weirded out when he calls it, but honestly I am a big fan of the two-day cool rule. When will I learn not to ask for stuff that doesn't interest me? It's like when I was a little kid and every time I got taken to Toys R Us, I ordered the Sea Monkeys. I just kept thinking they would be wonderful little talking playmates for me, like on the box. (Only children are lonely little freaks.) Each time they spawned into wiggly little sperm critters I was shocked and disappointed.
I am dumber than a bag of hammers. This just in.
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June 26, 2002
I miss Allen.
The first candidate for my job is being interviewed even as I sit here manically typing. What a strange situation. I really feel I should be involved in the interviewing process. Oh, and instead of an “interview,” we should have an arm wrestling contest. Oh, and instead of me having to arm wrestle, I should make Tracy “Biceps” Miller my champion and let HER keep my job for me.
What I keep forgetting is that in two months it will no longer matter what job I have, because the majority of my time is going to be spent learning interesting facts about Joyce. Well, hopefully not Joyce, but maybe Forster. So except that I will miss Biceps Miller, all I really want in my next job is an opportunity to get paid for doing my homework.
Or, I could be an office manager for a charity assisting victims of ritual sexual abuse from cults.
In the meantime, I will continue to use my massive Chambrain powers to make photocopies, order office supplies, and be professionally pleasant.
“I’m very intelligent, you know,” I said.
“Well…you’re clever,” said Jon doubtfully. Seeing my stunned expression, he hastily added, “Oh, I don’t mind that you’re clever…”
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June 24, 2002
THWACK! Planet thumpin’.
Well I called off my listless pursuit of that fellow most of you met at my party. It’s a shame and I feel bad, but he was this good looking, smart, funny, kind, interesting person and the whole time I was overwhelmed with suspicion. What’s he doing hanging around me then, I wondered, if he’s so great. I think deep down I figured he was hiding something. It’s amazing what getting dumped will do to a girl’s ego.
Okay, just kidding, I am still the most egotistical ball of carbon ever to hit the planet.
Speaking of…you will doubtless have noticed the Fiction link and its single schizophrenic entry. The first sentence in it came to me in a dream, and the rest there’s no excuse for. Basically it’s like this: I need a venue to stick my stuff on but I do not need a readership. So what I really want is to someday be published and then have all copies of my book stuck in a warehouse and forgotten until I am dead. In other words, please feel free NOT to click on the Fiction page. And if you do, then you deserve what you get. Insert ominous Winamp file here.
Here’s what I like: Balderdash (though not as much as Dictionary)
Here’s what I don’t like: When I go see A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the director casts Lysander as a foppish tart and inserts random lesbian subtext into the conversations between Helena and Hermia.
Here’s what is taller than me: Stonehenge.
Here’s what I want most: To go on a walking tour of the Swiss Alps.
Here’s what my next blog will have: More content.
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June 21, 2002
Remember the Noid.
I’m starting to notice a trend among my people – this is you guys, so pay attention – of abandoning the traditional mate-hunting methods of dating everything in sight. There seems to be a new method emerging, which (as near as I can see, squinting through my binoculars from here in the bushes) consists of having actual standards and waiting until those standards are met. Many of my friends go out every weekend to bars or parties, they regularly attend the gym, they go to school with thousands of other attractive youths: in short, they are out in the world, meeting the who’s who and other dregs. But they hardly ever come home with a phone number. And these people, these friends of mine, are to the last person attractive, intelligent, witty and kind. So what’s going on?
“Dating in California has reached new lows of timidity,” said noted psychologist Dr. Ruth Ascot-Bettentopher when interviewed in the March issue of Vanity Fair. “People seem more and more fearful of putting themselves and their feelings on the line. It might be due to increasingly prevalent media images of suspiciously perfect people living perfect lives; no one feels they can live up to what has become everyone’s fantasy.”
“But isn’t is possible that people are just no longer interested in the grueling round of first date, second date, third date, breakup?” asked the interviewer. “Maybe today’s youth culture is turning away from the sugar-pop mentality of Gen X and moving into a value system based on, well, things that are valuable. Maybe instead of focusing on the endless search for the perfect other half, these 20-somethings are putting their energy into artistic endeavors, or volunteer work, or their careers, or friends. Don’t you think the explanation might simply be that with the exception of a few throwbacks, kids today are just not interested in sifting through the morass of humanity, but are content to wait until they find someone shiny enough to be worth picking up?”
Dr. Ascot-Bettentopher considered for a moment. “No,” she said.
Seriously though, speaking as a Throwback Who Sometimes Dates, I can definitely see the con side to it. To dating I mean. I can count on one hand the meaningful connections I’ve made with people I’ve dated, and I only have two fingers on that hand after the meat-packing incident. “So if it these encounters are as repetitive and devoid of meaning as you claim, why do you continue?” asked noted psychologist Dan Small last night.
Whoops! We’re out of space. Guess I can’t answer that.
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June 20, 2002
Je mange ce que je tue. Or is it tues? Shit…
Sometimes I page through an entire book looking for the word "magician." You hardly ever find this word in a magazine but it's mentioned in novels more than you might think; in a newspaper tolerably often; infrequently in cookbooks. It is often surrounded by a disappointing sentence. In a Tom Robbins book it's everywhere.
I’m starting to wonder how long you get before you stop expecting great things. When do you wake up, look in the mirror and think, Self, it’s over…the job that you have now is the job you will always have. Your income bracket will be increased with marriage, lowered with children, decimated with retirement. You will not be spectacular. You were not born to be an artist. You will never move to Paris.
When does that happen? Because frankly I’m not there yet. I still think I’m going to write a novel, despite the fact that about the only thing I write these days is this weblog. I still think I can live in the midwest and play guitar and wear a headscarf, or send weird crates full of small dried fingers home from a dusty unpronounceable country, or be a millionaire’s mistress in New York. I’m ignoring the fact that I can’t play guitar (though I do own a headscarf), I’m allergic to dust and I don’t have nice enough manners to be rich. These things are going to become unimportant once the epiphany hits.
I am a big believer in the last minute epiphany. I’ve stayed in all kinds of uncomfortable situations for too long due to this belief. Sure, I have a deathly bug phobia, but surely that will pass if I just stick it out in this roach trap long enough. Yes, you asked me to marry you on the first date and told me I wasn’t that bright, but maybe if we go out a few more times I’ll see your good side. Roommate wants a cat? Sure. What cat allergy?
Actually, that worked – I fucking loved that cat. Hey! My epiphany theory isn’t all wrong. That’s kind of encouraging. Do not lose heart. Here is a relevant quote for you to enjoy, from Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge: “She thought perhaps she was in the midst of an anecdote which, for reasons of proximity, she was not yet able to perceive.”
Think about it. And remember the cat.
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June 19, 2002
Mommy, how does a mountain get born?
The birth of Mount Diablo:
Geologic Summary: 165 million B.C. Mt Diablo began as volcanic rock beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean and was scraped into a mass between the Pacific tectonic plate and the overlying sedimentary layers of the North American plate. As ice ages affected sea levels, sedimentation continued in shallow coastal seas. About four million years ago, the older, harder volcanic material from the sea floor forced its way up from between the two plates heaving the weaker sedimentary layers up an angle. Over time, younger rock above eroded and by 2 million B.C. the older rock we recognize as Diablo's peaks was exposed as low-lying hills.
Human History: ca. 2000 B.C. According to one tradition, at the Dawn of Time, Mt Diablo and Reed's Peak were surrounded by water. From these two islands the creator Coyote and his assistant Eagle-man made Indian people and the world. In a Plains Miwok creation account, Mol-luk (Condor man) lived on the north side of Mt Diablo. His wife, the rock on which he roosted, gave birth to Wek-wek (Prairie Falcon-man). With the help of his grandfather Coyote-man, Wek-wek created Indian people, providing them with "everything, everywhere so they can live".
Yes sir, that's my baby. Tiny little mountain, multiple history options. One is long, hard, and science-ish. The other one has talking animals, and magic! Guess which one I like more?
"...created Indian people, providing them with everything, everywhere..."
Later, a lot of that was reposessed, but it was a nice thought.
So far the highlights of my day have included a child abuse discussion with my boss and gnawing hunger pains. But tonight is baseball, salve of my heart.
Hey, I like you guys. All my normal, healthy, funny, charming, intelligent, wonderful friends. You too, Allen.
Hm. Is she coming down off her morning coffee and feeling clingy? Or just trying to get us to read her blog more often? We'll never know.
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June 17, 2002
If you're reading this, you're more interesting than I am.
This Yan restaurant is a fast food franchise. And the Dome is doomed. I thought we were becoming cool, but I guess that was a trick of the light.
I sigh. I return to eagerly plotting my move every waking minute.
While living in Seattle, too young to frequent bars, I spent a lot of my time haunting various coffee shops in my neighborhood. (Habitat is gone now, but B&O lives on, as does Seattle's Best -- my backup cafe.) The Lad spent a lot of time watching me order mochas with a fearful look on his face and then cower through the ensuing storm as the caffeine entered my blood and made me both feisty and stupid. Ah, nineteen.
Anyway, on one of these excursions, The Lad and I came up with the idea of starting a place called the Scrabble cafe. We could have large moveable scrabble letters on the walls, games on every table, etc. You see the brilliance of this. But The Lad pointed out that Parker Brothers would probably take offense and sue us. Then we would have to rename it the Fuck You, Parker Brothers Cafe.
Man, I tell that story about once a week and it just never gets old. To me.
My dad proposed to my mom over a game of Scrabble. As I understand it, he said something like "Want to get married?" and she said something like "Sure, I guess." It's possible he was trying to use it as a distraction technique in reaction to a hand of bad letters, but apparently she won the game anyway. Unless he's telling the story.
Brief plug: Dog-Eared Books in the Mission is the new Twice Sold Tales of Seattle. It's so far the best bookstore I've found around here, not that I've looked very hard. But they have used Wodehouse and Wharton and Ondaatje (oh my!). Anil's Ghost in hardcover for $5.00. Beat that with a stick.
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June 13, 2002
Shazbot! Shazbot! And you thought I was cool.
Star Wars fans be warned: this will probably piss you off. Everyone else be warned: this is the most boring blog entry in the history of narcissistic websites, and that is certainly saying something.
Last night I had dinner with Jack and he finally gave me some perspective on why I hate Star Wars so much.
Up until now, I had been operating on the premise that a filmmaker should make movies which can sweep people up and consume them for the two point whatever hours that they last. Jack pointed out, though, that most of them (the good ones, obviously, not James Cameron) probably make films for the same reason any artist practices his work: for themselves. Ergo, while I can point to a hundred different factors which prevented me from gaining any enjoyment out of, for example, Episode II, it's very possible that for Lucas, stilted dialogue, two-dimensional characters and a listless plot are the stones paving the road to Nirvana. In other words, he might just make crappy movies on purpose.
Whoa! Please stop throwing rocks at my head.
Thanks. Anyway, initially it seemed weird to me that I got so pissed off about the atrociousness of I and II when I am only listlessly unimpressed by films which are far worse (i.e. Scary Movie). But really, here's me, fantasy reader and all-around nerd, going to see a sci-fi fairy tale: this should be a long-term relationship, right? But I just can't get into it, so I get pissed off, especially since most people seem to have no problem. And I realized I got pissed off because I thought Lucas was just being a cock-tease, offering me a tasty film and then pulling a last-minute switcheroo and feeding me a heaping spoonful of foul-smelling marketing genius.
But I'm over it now, thanks to Jack. Because hey, Lucas isn't a cock-tease if he thinks he's delivering a great product. And I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm just not willing to give another $8.50.
End stupid Star Wars rant. Please feel free to pelt me with electronic vitriol, if you are one of the lucky few who knows me. And for the thousands of strangers who read this page, I guess you can just return to trying to kill each other in Tribes.
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June 12, 2002
It's an anagram. Think about it.
Well, well, well. Guess who's coming to Pleasant Hill? That's right, it's everybody's favorite Yan. He's opening a restaurant in our fair city, a place whose high school once put on a production of "Our Town" with no apparent sense of irony. In other good town-related news, the best movie theater I've ever been in (no, I haven't yet been to the Parkway), the Dome, has been in danger of closing down ever since they opened the new Century just up the street in the increasingly misnamed "Pleasant Hill Downtown." However, recently Century announced a plan to keep the Dome open and use it to screen old and independent films. (The Dome, for those of you from or in foreign parts, is an enormously huge arena-type theater with a screen the size of your Aunt Sally's bottom. It is momumental and fabulous.) So now we have:
Yan
Dome
Indie Films
Six thousand new elephants before 2003
Classic Films
I am still moving to the city in August. But I am so proud of my little town.
P.S. I didn't actually read that article I linked to, so if it directly contradicts my cultural optimism, please don't mention that to me.
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June 11, 2002
SHOULDN'T YOU BE WORKING NOW?
My dog turned thirteen in May. Stop! I know some of you are doing the "dog math" in your head (and I know which of you are doing it), and you've mentally concluded that she's sev -- tw -- carry the -- ah, ninety-one in dog years, but you are the same people who walk into stores in Italy and demand to know how much the ceramic gondola costs in real money. Trust me, this dog is a teenager, and she's moody as hell now. She's taken to pouting on walks if you don't go the way she wants. She actually stopped dead in the middle of the street -- no, not really dead, she's not that old -- and sat down until I agreed to go her way. Plus, she's gotten all stupid about boys. She used to just play with them if they were around and didn't worry about what they thought, but now she's bending over backwards to make them like her. She actually almost let this one guy pee on her head. "Oh, honey," I said as I pulled her away. "No man is worth it."
And speaking of that: my romantic life has taken yet another toboggan ride downhill, and it's all the fault of that darn Sara Jessica Parker and her merry little gang. I'm now to the point where I'd rather watch Sex in the City than have sex. I've been back to the video store three times in three days. Tonight I watched six episodes. People, I need an intervention. Take away my VCR if you have to. Don't let me do this anymore.
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June 10, 2002
Ow, quit it. Ow, quit it. Ow, quit it. Ow, quit it.
After sleeping 14 hours or so on Saturday, I awoke a new woman. Unfortunately, the woman I became turns out to be addicted to old episodes of Sex in the City. I started renting them from the wonderful family-owned Einstein Video near my house and now I can't stop. I think it's all the sparkly clothes. And, okay, all the gorgeous girl flesh prancing around like overly made up My Little Poniestm. I don't actually want to be the kind of status-conscious woman who only dates men who are rich, powerful and gorgeous, I just -- wait, no, I do want to be this kind of woman. Dur. I also want to date this kind of woman. The more math-conscious among you have just concluded that I want to date myself and maybe you're right, but only if myself looks like Kristin Davis who plays Charlotte.
I went on a date this weekend with my co-worker's son. This is the first time I've been fixed up, and boy did she work at it. She had the whole office (a nest of women, who like to do this sort of thing) plugging him to me and me to him. I think he asked me out in the end just to get them to leave him alone. Being fixed up is kind of like being placed at the kid's table at Thanksgiving. I was really expecting one of the fixers to show up midway through dinner and offer to cut my meat or pour me some more milk. Plus, every time he said something nice, I kept thinking "Oh, well sure you like me; I'm the only other one at the table. Now, if you got to sit with the grownups, that might be a different story."
To those of you who don't read cementhorizon as often as you should: partial solar eclipse tonight, y'all. Peak is at 6:15 p.m., but I think it will still be going on at sunset so you should check that out.
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June 07, 2002
Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year.
More photos of my pretty this one. Please pardon the memepool-esque hyperlinks -- I just learned how to do them a few weeks agone and they are super fun.
I've been trying to do one scary thing each week. That's easy, considering everything scares me. Yesterday I found someone who also used to have a fear of shopping alone in grocery stores. Vindication! Now we need a clinical name and we're set. Being that agoraphobia was (I think) originally "fear of the marketplace," we may be well on the road to an extended medical leave and many happy therapy sessions. Maybe we could start a support group, where one person holds up flashcards of melons and boxed rice until the other person has a panic attack.
Baseball was improved last night with the advent of the "tag-ball" rule. If someone throws the ball at you and it hits you while you're running to a base, you are totally out, cheesehead. This was helpful to me because a) I don't like all the running involved with chasing people down and b) I can throw a ball but I can't remember to throw it to someone. This way even if the ball winds up miles from my teammates, I still have a chance at getting an out.
Here's who played:
Jacob (broken toe)
Michele (broken ankle)
Ellie (broken finger)
Dustin (intense heartburn and shitty day)
Jason (knocked down by Ellie)
Erica (also knocked down by Ellie)
Ash (knocked down by Dustin)
Me (4 hours of sleep for the week so far)
Dan (healthy, but very disgruntled about the new rule)
Don't bother checking for updates this weekend because I'll be asleep. Although my body has now moved past tired into that distrustful, grumpy wakefulness (word?) that you get when your whole corpus is thinking "Sure, lie down, nine o'clock at night. Lie down allll you want. But I know damn well in half an hour the phone will ring or something else and you'll be up again, so no way in hell am I falling asleep until at least one a.m. You got it?" I am suffused with a false cheer, but behind the perky chatter my brain is emitting, I am hearing that song "Running on Empty."
Fuck I hate that song.
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June 05, 2002
King of the road*
Chapter the Twelfth, in which: I talk to Jack and no one is naked.
How delighted was I to see Jack's ruddy, nervous face hovering in my kitchen? So delighted. At last, someone willing to discuss Elliott Smith's albums with me at length without getting bored.
And it was nice to see the rest of you too.
That was the first party I've had since my eighth grade Halloween party. The Halloween party was a fiasco, due mainly to intense hostess paranoia. My parents were in the back of the house, no doubt just plotting the ways that they could leap out and embarrass me, and no one was allowed back there or outside. No one was allowed outside. I think to keep us from wandering off and finding alcohol just, you know, laying around on the street. People were intensely costumed -- one girl came as a tub of popcorn, so I'm not the only one trying to live something down here -- and boiling and unfashionable. Because, you know, eighth grade. Plus, after awhile my parents predictably enough got bored in the back and wandered out to the front. They caught one girl making out with some hapless lad in the study -- my dad is still in shock.
Anyway, this one was better I thought. Mainly, getting to watch Ash romping around in the pool with whoever would join him was a delight. All week I've been going around saying "Is something wrong with Ash? He doesn't have the puppyish enthusiasm that I remember him having." Well last night he was not just a puppy, he was the whole damn cry. There is no joy like the joy of Ash and Dustin trying to drown each other. Sitting anywhere near them and a pool is like being in the front row at Sea World.
. . .
Okay, okay. I'll tell you what I was for Halloween that year. I was the devil. With the vampy dress and the large plastic pitchfork. And the spiked heels. Oh, wait, I was still super height-conscious then. So did I wear heels? No. Did I, in fact, wear clumpy red slippers? The kind designed to look like plush red Smurf boots?
Yes.
Yes I did.
Enjoy your day; see you at baseball if you don't suck/live abroad/have a life.
. . .
And some addendums.
1. I actually got to use "sesquipedalian" the very same day of that entry. Coming back from lunch with Tracy, we encountered a herd of wee children on a field trip. "Hey," said Tracy, "What"s with all the--"
"Sesquipedalians?" I said. Seriously? That made my day.
2. Magpies destroy other birds' eggs and young and kill sickly, wounded, or newborn sheep and cows by pecking. A group of magpies is sometimes known as a cure.
*King of the road is a registered trademark of Maggie, who is cooler than I am.
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June 03, 2002
Pithy 1: consisting of or abounding in pith.
From Webster's:
hippie a usu. young person who rejects the mores of established society (as by dressing unconventionally or favoring communal living), advocates a nonviolent ethic, and often uses psychedelic drugs or marijuana; broadly: a long-haired unconventionally dressed young person
I'm reading Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment, a book recommended to me by my wonderful high school English teacher Mr. Hagar lo these many years ago. It's a book about the psychology of fairy tales which so far has managed not to leap outside my very limited sphere of knowledge -- id, ego, superego. (My psych professor in college was very interested in encouraging us to sleep nude in the forest or go train-hopping and not so interested in, well, the subject.) The author keeps claiming that all these symbols will naturally resonate in a child's subconscious, and that she'll understand that Hansel and Gretel getting ditched in a forest does not mean that mommy and daddy are going to ditch you in a forest. Apparently she associates the bad parent figures with her own parents when they are cruel and deny her, say, cookies, or won't let her put a parachute on the hamster and drop it off the roof because hamsters are expensive. So she can live out her fantasies of surmounting these troubles, and at the end she can return to reality and happy family life.
I dunno. My mom refused to read me abandonment stories. (Though she was all the time trying to lose me in grocery stores.) I got read books about Sesame Street. Lots of non-gender-specific muppets and anthropomorphic animals playing together in the primary-colored real world. I don't think I turned out too badly because of that, although Bettelheim does make the point that reading a child fairy tales both encourages them to engage in a fantasy life and enables them to embrace reality as they get older. Now we all know I have Posted by didofoot at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
