Lightening Up

After my last post, I thought I better get back to showing my lighter side, lest anyone think I was planning to fill my pockets with rocks and drown myself in the Guadalupe River.

I was also compelled to throw you a bone here because I will be leaving town on Thursday for one of my act-like-a-lawyer trips. This one is in San Francisco, so I've already looked at the seminar schedule to determine which lectures to skip. Otherwise, I will find myself sitting in a generic hotel ballroom that could just as well be in Cleveland or Waco or anywhere in Oklahoma.

So here are a few of my latest scraps of crap, in no particular order, but I think I saved the best for last:

Just a Word or Two

First, I know that I have put the brakes on the whole "words I like/words I hate" thing, but I just have two words I need to add. After rambling on in a recent e-mail about her lackluster life, my mom sarcastically suggested that I must be "agog" at the level of excitement she has to manage on a daily basis. I was surprised that agog had not already made the list. I intend to make an effort to employ that handy word at every opportunity from now on. It's just so descriptive. Don't you just see the wide-eyed, drop-jawed shocked stare of it? The other word I need to add is "hunker" as in "hunker down." It's a word that blows in with hurricane season. It's kind of an old person word, so I don't much like it. I think the people at the Weather Channel should come up with something a little more festive-sounding, you know, just to make hurricanes and tornadoes seem less threatening.

Shop Talk

The other day, as I was comforting my fragile psyche with some shoe-shopping (which is what I do when I can't afford to go to a spa or an opium den), I overheard the woman next to me answer her cell phone in a very professional-sounding voice. This is of course not unusual. But then I heard her say (as she tried on a nice pair of peep-toe pumps), "Yes sir. In fact I'm at my desk working on it right now. I should be able to e-mail it to you by the end of the day . . ." I glanced over at her and smiled. She gave me a wink, put her finger to her lips, and said, "Shhhh." I had to laugh because I should have been at home working myself. It's nice being your own boss.

If I leave the house during office hours, I forward my work number to my cell phone just in case I need to conduct any business in the Taco Cabana drive-thru line. I've been known to have consultations with potential clients while shopping. And I can sound completely professional, unless or until the person on the other end hears something like, "Attention Ross shoppers . . ." I once even settled a case from the Nordstrom dressing room. How's that for multitasking?

On another of my recent self-nurturing shopping excursions (this time on a quest for the perfect brown skirt), I walked out of the store empty-handed. As I left, a clerk asked me, "Did you find what you needed?" I looked at her quizzically, held out my empty hands, and said, "Well . . . NO, but thanks." As the door shut behind me, I thought, "Duh!"

By the way, I think it's cruel when stores arrange their women's clothing department such that the larger "Women" sizes are right next to the "Petites."

I keep forgetting to share this little gem. When she was pregnant, a friend of mine went shopping at one of those stores like Lane Bryant. A saleslady asked if she needed any help. My friend held up a dress and said, "Yeah . . . do you have this in a 14 Wide?" The woman promptly corrected her with, "The W is for Women."

Katy's Quotes

Katy had to write sentences with her spelling words last week. One of the words was "juvenile." Her sentence: "I don't want to go to juvenile." When I read that, Katy asked what was so funny. I wasn't sure how to answer. Then she asked, "Isn't that kid jail?" Now I have another tool in my arsenal of punishment threats.

The Price of Country Living

Now that so many people followed our lead and moved north of town, the traffic into San Antonio in the mornings and out of San Antonio in the afternoons has become a disastrous joke. For one thing, the stoplights are not synchronized at all. (Typical San Antonio.) And green lights allow two-and-a-half cars to get through, while the red lights stay red for about 45 minutes. And don't get me started on the wimps in front of me when a yellow light hits. I can't tell you how many times I've almost rear-ended someone when they didn't have the balls to floor it so I could get that split second before the light turned completely red.

When we lived in Clovis, New Mexico, we always said that the town was so small, even when you were running late you could still be on time. That was no joke.

A Sign From the Department of Redundancy Department

So the kids and I went to Mike's church softball game last Friday night. As we entered the ballpark, I could not help but notice a large warning sign for all the park's patrons. It said, (I kid you not): "No Animals Permitted Including Cats And Dogs." What prompted this wording? Did someone try to bring a llama or an emu into the park? I took a picture of the sign with my phone, so as soon as can I post it for your entertainment, I will.

'Shrooms

When I see mushrooms in my fridge, I wonder whether I bought them or they grew there. I'm afraid I'm really becoming my mother. She pulled an old jar of those little sliced mushrooms from the back of her fridge, opened it, and saw something she said looked like a liver fluke. Now I'm not sure what that is, but my mom and I came up with a pretty good definition. When she e-mailed me about this highlight of her day, the subject line read only "fluke?" I thought I was going to read about some random, unexpected event. We decided that whatever it was that she saw in that jar was indeed random and unexpected. Hence, fluke.

That's My Boy

I overheard big brother Luke advising little sister Katy, "Now that you're in third grade, don't rush it. These are good times for you. Before you know it, it'll be over." Tell me more, O wise sixth-grader.

This really could be one of my School of Rock stories. Let me start by saying that I iron only on an as-needed basis. I would almost rather pay to take something to the cleaners than to iron it. But because I'm a lazy cheapskate, I just don't iron, and never wear a lot of my clothes for that reason. Mike is the same way about ironing, but he has been known to wear wrinkled clothes. I hate it when he does that, because it makes me look like a bad housewife. (Which I am, but that's beside the point.) So last weekend, Mike got a wild hair (I think it's actually hare, but hair is way funnier) and decided to iron some of his shirts. As Mike set up the ironing board and iron, Luke started singing Black Sabbath's Iron Man: "I AM IRON MAN! Nah-nah, Nah-nah-nah, Nanah, Nanah, Nanah, Nah, Nah-nah-nah, Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? . . . " Again we see the pure genius in our ever-so-well-rounded sixth-grader. Not only can he sing a song from 1970 as he imitates Ozzy Osbourne's voice, but he can create such an apt and clever (and dare I say, beautiful) reference. Wish I had thought of it. Mike and I were so proud. Ironically, (get it? ironically?) it was probably too much Black Sabbath that robbed my mind of such quick wit.

Who am I kidding? I'm still witty. Just not as quick.

Carrying the Weight of the Word

Sportswriter Red Smith said, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace found it necessary to hang himself last week. I admired his insight and ability to express his view of the world, but I found his writing somewhat verbose and dense. While I would read his essays and mentally edit some of his paragraph-length sentences, I still savored each word--until the weight of the words (and of the book itself) would tip out of my sleepy hands. In fact, I don't think I ever finished one of his books. He was one of those writers I read not necessarily for the pleasure of reading but for the pleasure of his writing. I think he was often drunk on his own swirling thoughts and swam self-indulgently in his philosophical musings. I can identify with that, but it's really too deep for me. I prefer shallow.

The news called his death "an apparent suicide." Usually hangings are, I guess. Unless he was strangled to death, then someone hoisted his limp, heavy corpse up into a noose. It could happen. I could see it in a dark comedy. Maybe I have. Funny stuff.

Why do so many writers and artists kill themselves? Is it creativity overload that drives them to death? Some sort of tortured genius that the body can't sustain? I think most writers struggle with a sense of apartness. A heightened self-consciousness. Trying to answer Why am I me? Good writers are observers who can choose words well, even effortlessly, and put them in a certain order such that readers respond with emotion, thought, adrenalin, comfort, or connection. Creative people can take in too much. More than the mind can manage. A sensory burden. They carry so many sights and sounds that simmer and stew until they boil over onto scraps of paper, or a computer screen, and into a book if they make the cut.

How can artists who have such skill at relating life let life kill them? It must be the unwritten words, the ones they hold inside. The words that stick in the throat and strangle, the words that cut off blood to the heavy head. Words left hanging.

How do you like my morose side? Not pretty, I know.

Is It Just Me?

Do I just have a dirty mind? Here's what I forgot to mention in my last post of various and sundry miscellany:

Katy went to two different weeks of Brownie/Girl Scout camp over the summer. At the end of the week, when the parents come to pick them up, the girls put on skits and sing songs while we have a little picnic. It's all very sweet. Flag ceremony, recitation of the Girl Scout Oath and Girl Scout Motto (I will never know which is which), the singing of the Girl Scout signature song "Make new friends/but keep the old/one is silver and the other gold…," blah, blah, blah, then a nice tape-recorded playing of Taps as the flag is lowered at the end, etc. It really is fun to see so many little girls all happy and dirty in mismatched clothes, laughing with their friends and performing for their parents. (I'd say it is as American as apple pie, but that concept was tainted –in my dirty mind- by American Pie.) Anyway, at some point in the show, the girls line up to sing and act out a certain song. This is where (for me) it suddenly becomes awkward and inappropriate. The cuteness comes to a screeching halt and I giggle like Wayne and Garth or Beavis and Butthead:

THE BEAVER SONG

Beaver one, beaver all,
Let's all do the beaver crawl (pretend to crawl)

Beaver two, beaver three,
Let's all eat a beaver tree (pretend to climb)

Beaver four, beaver five,
Let's all do the beaver dive (pretend to dive)

Beaver six, beaver seven,
Let's all go to beaver heaven (sway with hands in prayer)

Beaver eight, beaver nine STOP
It's beaver time, go beaver, go beaver (rapper/hip-hop moves)

Beaver ten, beaver ten
Let's all do the beaver again!

I then pictured a burlesque team of the grown-up scout leaders (most of them rather burly women) taking it one step further, and I wanted to poke my eyes out. Am I just immature? Do I have an adult chip missing? Do I need to exorcise this teenage boy who has taken up residence in the basement of my mind? I kind of like him.

Sorry if this offended anyone. Wait…not really.

Clearing and Rearing my Head

WARNING: This is the most random assortment of useless information I have fed you in a long time. So, bon appétit!

I've had one of those weeks where I work a lot but still get nothing done. I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday so I won't feel quite as guilty about getting nothing done. So I'm topping off my do-nothing week with a glass of wine and this damn computer that I've been staring at all week long. I find myself more comfortable here in the office, seeing as how my kids have some friends over and they have all taken over the kitchen, living room, and especially the TV. God forbid they stay in the movie room and play the quiet game. Speaking of God…

Jesus H. Christ

A couple of weeks ago, I saw another story on the news about one of those apparently naturally-occurring phenomena where the image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary appears in a most unlikely place. Here in San Antonio, about once a week we get a local news story about Mary appearing in, e.g., a tortilla, a quesadilla, a grilled cheese sandwich, or some driveway oil stains. This time, the national news showed us the face of Jesus discovered on a moth. First, no one really knows what Jesus looked like. So really, the image on that moth could have been that of the bearded white hippie dude who modeled for all the pictures we are so familiar with. When I saw the face on that moth, I thought it could just as easily be the face of the devil. He has a goatee, right? Just before the moth story, I remember seeing something about someone finding Jesus on a cross-shaped Cheeto. Do these stories really make the news because of the alleged Jesus sightings, or is it more about pointing out the depths of stupidity hidden in so many pockets of future Darwin victims all across this fruited plain?

I think I saw Jesus in my dryer's lint screen one time. I probably could have sold it on eBay, but I was afraid it would get damaged in shipping, and how do you insure something so priceless? So I hand-delivered it to a local Catholic church in exchange for a few dispensations. What if it really was Jesus trying to send me a message? Like maybe I need to engage my good/bad filter, or maybe I need to shed some unnecessary "fuzz" from my life. Or maybe he was just trying to tell me that I should clean that thing out more often. Speaking of eBay…

Sometimes when I'm feeling really down on myself, I'll go look at the feedback people have left me. A while back, I got this one: "This eBay Superstar may be proof that the Second Coming has already happened!!!" Now that right there is some high praise.

Confession:

I didn't learn to tell time until they came out with a digital clocks.

Something I hope will soon to be a new feature here:

Funny lines found in veterans' medical records. For example, one guy sported a "narcissistic moustache" and another "cheerfully admitted to excessive smoking."

And don't miss the new "Katy's Quotes" feature:

She saw a little food sample tray at the grocery store and looked at the sign next to it. "Ewww, Mom, that says, 'use tongues to pick up food.'" I had to explain the difference between tongues and tongs.

"When I was little, I thought phone calls went through the wires, but now I know they go through satellites."

Katy cries when she hears the Blue Bell ice cream commercials that say, "Blue Bell tastes just like the good old days," because, she says, it reminds her of when she was a kid. She doesn't realize she's only 8.

A few School of Rock additions:

Is it okay for the kids to sing along to Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me? How can anyone not sing along to that?

Has anyone noticed the three-word band-name thing lately? Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Plain White T's, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, All-American Rejects, Boys Like Girls, My Morning Jacket. I think Stone Temple Pilots, 3 Doors Down, and Third Eye Blind were ahead of their time.

Proposals for the anthem list: Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me, Mellencamp's Jack and Diane (or did I already add that one?), Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, Prince's Purple Rain (sorry, I think he's underrated), and Bob Seger's Turn the Page.

I still need anthems from Frampton, The Who, and The Eagles, but I haven't put any thought into what they should be. Help me out folks, this is urgent business.

Things I love about hotels:

That bleach/mildew smell on the towels and wondering if they ever wash that blanket that's between the bedspread and sheets. You know, the blanket everyone sits on when they pull the dirty bedspread back? I usually don't think much about what could be on the remote or the phone or in the coffee maker. If I did, I wouldn't have room in my head to enjoy the fact that I'm in a hotel, which usually means I'm on some sort of vacation or a least a break from reality. I can put up with a lot of nastiness. I'm a flea market shopper for Christ's sake. I stayed in tons of skanky youth hostels in Europe. I don't mind getting dirty. BUT, if I find an unidentifiable pube in my hotel bathroom, you can bet I'll be calling the front desk.

The Darndest Things

My 3-year-old nephew told me and my mom, "I was going to say fucking hell, but I didn't." We kept asking him, "What did you say???" And he kept repeating it, with a straight face, in his sweet soft little toddler voice. I swear, the Q & A went back and forth a good 7 or 8 times. We realized that indeed that was what he was saying. What do you do with that?

That reminded me of a time the son of a friend of mine (I think he was 6 then) got in trouble for saying something like "butthole." His mom put Tabasco on his tongue and made him stand in the corner. His response from that corner, "I guess I can't say shit either."

Leftovers

I think BFE is my generation's common parlance for "far away." The E is for Egypt. Didn't this come from an Eddie Murphy movie? When I tell someone that we had to park way out in BFE, and they don't know what I mean, depending upon whom I'm talking to, I either feel young or old. Usually old. (Or have I just been smoking crack and BFE is my own little expression?)

Last time we were in Hico, Katy got this heinous candy marshmallow burger. Its label touted it as fat-free, cholesterol-free, and low-sodium. It was called Giant All-American Fun Burger. Get this: Calories--343, Carbs--81g, of that, 59g sugar, Ingredients—sugar, glucose syrup, gelatin, artificial flavors, yellow #5, yellow #6, red #4, and blue #1. And the best part of all: Made in China. It just doesn't get any more All-American than that.

I'm done purging for now. I hope this was a nice binge for you.