Overly Verbal

Dear Gmail and Microsoft,

Why do you hate me? I didn’t do anything, but you seem determined to prevent my spreading my profundity. Lately I’ve been sending e-mails that both arrive blank and are delivered to my sent mail folder entirely blank. Turns out it’s a combination of Microsoft Vista sucking really, really badly, Gmail being poorly capable of dealing with Vista’s suckiness, and my tendency to answer e-mail in one of only two ways: immediately, or never. So if I open my inbox, select a message and reply to it, the text of my reply will arrive and be stored as I intended. But if I just see a new message arrive in the little notifier thingie, open the message without opening the entire inbox, type a reply, and then hit send, my message disappears. This is unfortunate on at least two fronts, one of which is that I am far more clever when I just dash something off, and the other of which is that last night I believed that the problem was confined to only one other Gmail user, but instead it turns out that there’s only one person whose e-mail I desire to respond to at the moment, so my test of the problem was poorly designed – I tried to engage in a lively e-mail debate with a different Gmail user to see if they would get empty messages, but I did it entirely from within my inbox, and the problem never presented itself. Turns out I, as I am wont to do, leapt to a conclusion. (I should be a better person.)

In any event, you two really oughta get on the problem.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

Jennifer

****

Dear Friends (both Silver and Golden, both Near and Far, both Whom I am Tired of Looking At and Whom I’ve Never Laid Eyes on Before),

I seriously really like you guys. You’re always making me laugh, and sending me pleasant text messages, and populating the world with kids who are going to grow up to be good and noble and true, and being like me when no one else is. You rock, and (as Sara so kindly pointed out) I probably don’t deserve you all.

I just wish one of you knew something about video editing software already.

Jen

*****

Dear Depeche Mode,

All I did was type “people are people”, and now I’ve got an entire album stuck in my head. You sure are catchy, but there are other bands.

J

*****

Dear Overly Verbal,

Today when I got it in my head that I would finally sit down and add categories for “letters” and “poetry”, I only realized after about 10 months of entries that I also needed a category for “lists”, and now I have to go back over those 10 months again, and then finish categorizing the other 16 months, and all I really have to say about that is that you are really, really lengthy, and there are so many words that I sometimes believe I can’t cope with all of them.

I still like you though. A lot.

J

So I’ve been reading about neck pain on the Internet, when my neck doesn’t hurt so much that looking at a computer screen makes me want to cry, and while I’m not sure I have a herniated disc, I really do believe that the concept of pain being a “complex personal experience” can be applied to neck pain in general.

One would think that if I had a herniated disc, it would have shown up on an X-ray. However, I learned Wednesday that my neck X-rays were “normal”. First I wanted to tell the doctor who phoned me, “Actually, X-rays aren’t normal at all. They’ve only existed since the 1890s, and they show us what our bones look like without our having to dismantle our bodies. That’s freaking cool, but it’s not normal.” But I didn’t, because I thought he would think that was weird. Then I wanted to tell him, “Thank you,” and so I did. Then I had to call and make an appointment with a doctor for next week, so she can determine that my chest is still numb (I hope without poking me) and give me a referral for an MRI.

So that’s something to look forward to. I guess tonight I’ll take a muscle relaxant and see whether it helps, or whether it gives me hallucinations, which I guess wouldn’t be so bad, as long as I was hallucinating that my neck doesn’t hurt.

But good god does pain cause me problems. I’m getting stupider by the minute (a couple weeks ago, for example, I paid my phone bill for May, after having already paid my phone bill for May, and bounced a check in the process. I’m considering calling the bank and crying to see whether they’ll reverse the insufficient funds fee, but I might just chalk it up to pain being a complex financial experience as well). And I have reached never before seen heights of bitchiness.

So there was a big storm last week, and some trees fell over. And because the management company has their heads up their asses, two big trees fell down on the property where I live. The one closest to my house was easily four feet around, at least four stories tall, and largely (and visibly) rotten, but it was not removed or treated for disease prior to this storm, even though it was obviously ill. (That’s probably expensive or something, actually maintaining the property.) When the big one fell down I wasn’t here to hear it, and the cats weren’t even disturbed when I did get home, but I imagine it made a pretty big noise. And I don’t think it injured anyone, but take a look at this lamppost it took out:

That’s not exactly a good picture, but I didn’t want to stand around outside too long snapping photos. In any event, that’s the sidewalk I use to carry my trash to the Dumpster on my way to work in the morning there (unless I cut through the grass, which requires walking under a similarly large tree, a path I will no longer be taking) and while I wouldn’t have been using that sidewalk during a storm which included lightning and thunder and gale force winds, some squirrel or bunny might have been. I hope no animals were squooshed.

And this afternoon there’s some guys right outside my windows, feeding the branches into a wood chipper. They’re wearing jeans and t-shirts and baseball caps, and no protective eyewear at all, plus it’s 95 degrees outside, but feels like 103 degrees because of the humidity.* So I visited the OSHA website, as one does, to make sure I wasn’t being hypercritical, and I’m not. These guys operating the wood chipper are supposed to be wearing “non-gauntlet” gloves (i.e., gloves without cuffs), and goggles, and freaking helmets. So I went outside, copied down the number from the truck, and had to leave a message with the company, since no one was there. All I said was the date and time, the street I’m on, and the fact that there are four or five guys operating a wood chipper without protective gear, and I thought they might just like to know. I have a feeling that if I was to get closer to their truck I would find a pile of helmets and gloves and goggles inside, because I like to believe that most companies are honest and well-meaning and all, and it’s just a couple of guys who think it’s too hot to wear all the safety gear, but maybe I’m wrong.

Obviously I’m totally losing it, but if everyone was more like me, and reported problems as they observed them, there would be fewer problems, and I would seem normal.

And that’s all I’ve got at the moment, except that Purina products are on sale at PetSmart this month, making them actually cheaper than at the ghetto grocery store, and I’m sure your cats would appreciate it if you would therefore stock up. I know mine will.

_____
* Which is awesome, because my air conditioning is going to die sometime this summer, and it’s only June and there are already heat advisories.

Dear Weather,

Kindly fuck off.

Thx!

Jen

Dear Blog,

I know I’m ignoring you, but please don’t take it personally – I have a cold. You see, I can’t breathe, and not being able to breathe makes it hard to write. I tried those crazy Breathe Right nasal strips, and those help a little, but they don’t actually diminish mucus production, which is really what I need right now. I’ve been ignoring lots of other things too – vacuuming, laundry, grocery shopping, my fantasy baseball league. It’s not just you.

But I’m on the upswing, so I’ll be ignoring you less shortly. Please be patient.

Thanks for being so understanding. You’re a pal.

Jen

Dear Men Who Might Meet Me For a Drink After Work, Never Having Met Me Before,

I happen to be mildly allergic to crab, but I don’t want to have to interrupt your ordering the appetizers from the waitress to say so. This whole thing would be a whole lot easier if you a) knew about my allergy before you ordered the crab dip, or b) asked me whether the appetizers you chose were suitable before just ordering them. If you’re gorgeous and interesting and have an accent that I find soothing and pleasant, I’ll let that slide the first time, but next time (if there is a next time, which remains to be seen, and might require my being a blog revisionist) I’m going to have to say something.

Just sayin’,

J.

_____

Dear Certain Person Who Has Recently Moved to America,

You know how I asked you a question earlier this week, and you answered the way I’d hoped you would, and I said, “Awesome!”, and you had never used the word “awesome” before but learned a new word and started using it, and appropriately? You are, in a word, awesome. And you’re going to learn a whole lot of other words during what I hope will be frequent lunches, and I will learn a whole lot of stuff too (though probably not any new words), and that makes me glad, because learning is fun, and diversity is fun, and people who are smart are fun, particularly when they are interested in learning new things.

However, I’m really going to have to start watching what I say more, because I use many a word that you probably do not want to incorporate into your vocabulary.

Fondly,

Jennifer

_____

Dear Arlington Cemetery,

Until today, I was completely unaware that you held things called “columbariums”. (I suppose they’re columbaria, actually, but that’s neither here nor there.) I guess a lot of cemeteries have them, but when I was reading a story earlier and learned that new word, it was because of you, so you will forever be the cemetery which taught me a new word. I don’t think it’s going to be handy for Scrabble, but I’m pretty sure my grandmother is in a columbarium, only I didn’t know it before. And now I do.

(Also, I have “Cemetry Gates” stuck in my head, but I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming Morrissey.)

Thanks,

Jennifer

_____

Dear Molly,

I’ve tried and tried and tried to convince you that the rubber gloves belong on the kitchen counter, but you persist in moving them around when I’m not looking. However, because you exhibit such joy while carrying around that little ring I have to remove to get a plastic bottle of milk open, I’m just gonna let the rubber glove thing slide for now. You’re cute, and I adore you, and it’s sort of sad that you used to have to live with some other people, and then in a shelter, but I’m sure the rest of your life will be happy and exciting and lovely, and I’m glad you get to spend it with me and Mouse, even if my rubber glove expenditures are going to increase because you keep poking holes in them with your teeth.

Continuing to go to work in order to earn money to buy you cat food, since you won’t get a job,

Jen

____

Dear Weather,

You were lovely today. Can you just keep on being nice, instead of pissing rain and going all crazy-humid?

Sensitively and delicately,

Jennifer

Today, I drowned my cell phone. (That’s not so remarkable, unless you consider that I somehow owned this cell phone since August of 2005 without drowning her before.)

The very first thing I thought, after “Crap, that’s gonna be broke,” was “Sing whatever songs are sung / wind whatever wreath, / for a playmate perished young.”* I couldn’t remember the rest of the poem, couldn’t look it up until just now, because I spent my evening going to Target, buying a new cell phone, spending eleventy hundred minutes speaking with a “customer service representative” at Tracfone so we could transfer my old phone number to my new phone, et cetera, ad nauseam.

But now that I have looked it up, I’m reminded of how nice it is. I really, really love Edna St. Vincent Millay, and one of my favorite gifts of all time is an old, somewhat musty book of her collected poems which is not only beautiful inside, but beautiful outside too, in a way it seems only old books can be.*** Anyway, here it is in its entirety:

Dirge
Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.

Brought to earth the arrogant brow,
And the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.

Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate perished young,

For a spirit spent in death.
Boys and girls that held her dear,
All you loved of her lies here.

“And the withering tongue chastened”? Brilliant.

Anyway, not to worry, for the transferring of my old cell phone number to my new cell phone was an unmitigated success. Well, mitigated only by the fact that my entire phone book is missing, which is not such a big deal, as the (aforementioned, if you happen to read the footnotes inline, which I can’t imagine you not doing, because that would be silly) OCD requires my memorizing phone numbers the same way I memorize song lyrics, by which I mean with no conscious effort and sometimes disastrous effect.

The untimely drowning death of my cell phone, however, led me to act rashly, purchase a phone of exactly the same model, furnished by exactly the same cell phone provider I’ve used my entire cell phone owning career. So it still takes me 16 pushes of a button to get an open parenthesis into any given text message. I’m hoping the new phone will allow me to purchase airtime online without speaking with a “customer service representative”, which would be a vast improvement over the old cell phone’s functioning. And the new phone is black, where the old phone was silver, which just makes it that much easier to lose my phone in the interior of my bag. All that being said, however, I would just like to point out that although I’m an idiot, and destroyed my old cell phone in one fell swoop,**** I managed to replace her for the low, low price of $15.74, with a disruption in service of only about six hours. I’d like to see someone else pull that off.

Actually, I wouldn’t. I like you people, and I hope you don’t drown your cell phones. It’s cool to be like me and all, but not every single day.

_____
* And yes, I did think of it with line breaks and punctuation intact. They don’t call it OCD for nothin’.**

** Actually, that’s not true. The second thing I thought was, “Thank whatever whims of fate prevented my dropping her in the toilet. I do sort of lead a charmed life, don’t I?”

*** Dear boys who are secretly in love with me,

Sorry to ruin this for you, but that whole “buying an old book of Edna St. Vincent Millay poems for Jennifer for her birthday to win her heart forever” only plays once. (And, um, it doesn’t actually play as planned, even if you are a (um, Jewish) English major at Columbia, which the boy in question was, in spades. In fact, it ultimately fails miserably, except I do have fond thoughts of the boy in question occasionally, when I have cause to pull the book off the shelf and look at it.) (Maybe that wasn’t what he was aiming for, though, winning my heart forever. Maybe he just enjoyed having a nice smart girl to talk to, thought he’d buy her a book. Who can tell the vagaries of the human heart?)

Fondly,

Jennifer

**** Yup, that’s the noise she made entering the water: swoop! Then she went “gurgle, gurgle”, then she made some pretty Rorschach test-like images on her screen, then some pink goo oozed out of her battery. All in all, it wasn’t a bad death, really.

Dear Vera Wang,

You know your new commercials, for some fancy line you’ve designed exclusively for Kohl’s? They are on my televison all the goddamned time. I like “A Horse With No Name” just fine, but I really think I’d be happier if it wasn’t stuck in my head right now. Are there no other songs that adequately express your aesthetic? If not, could you try to find one? I’ll help, if need be.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter,

Jennifer

Dear Just Born,

Why are there no shamrock-shaped Marshmallow Peeps?

Just sayin’,

Jennifer

*****

Dear War Protesters,

I’m pretty pissed off about this war too. However, I intend not to attempt to block traffic on Wednesday to show my anger. Ultimately, I believe that’s not only counter-productive, but dangerous. Intelligent and potentially mind-changing discourse about the behavior of our leaders is unlikely to happen in a traffic circle blocked entirely by bicyclists. If I understand correctly, there’s going to be a knit-in. I can get behind that,* but I can’t get behind jamming up traffic so that innocent people who need ambulances find their emergency services delayed.

I like just fine the idea of dressing people up in death masks and having them wander through Washington DC as if they’d returned to make their arguments against their possibly unnecessary deaths. Sure, you might muck up sidewalk traffic, what with the curious onlookers and all, but very rarely does an ambulance need to use a sidewalk to treat an injured or ill person.

Granted, I need to use the sidewalk to get to work, but I respect and applaud the free expression of your ideas and beliefs. I’d just like you to do it respectfully, and not in a way that impedes my morning or evening commute.

Trying to figure out a way to work from home on Wednesday,

Jennifer

_____
* Even though anyone who may have stumbled upon my blog without having first met me likely thinks I’m a “granny”, I’m not. I just act like one, what with the bum knee (feeling much better, thanks for asking), and the cats, and the baking. Either way, I can’t really afford to take a day off work to knit, much though I‘d like to.

*****

Dear Pollen,

You make me sneeze. A lot.

Ah-choo!

Jennifer

*****

Dear London Broil Recipe I Found on the Internet on Sunday,

You are not delicious. At all. About this I am sad.

Disappointedly,

Jennifer

*****

Dear People Who Read My Blog,

You seriously have nothing better to do? Maybe you should take up knitting.

Fondly,

Jennifer

Dear United States Postal Service,

There is a post office 0.8 miles from my home, in between here and the grocery store. There is another post office 1.1 miles from my house, in the opposite direction. Why, when I am not home to sign for a package that is mailed to me, is it held at the post office that is further away? Didn’t you just read my blog? My knee hurts! Sure, I can take a bus to the further post office, but have you ever tried to take a bus on a weekend? It doesn’t always work. I think you provide a great service and all, but couldn’t you be just a little more accommodating?

Curiously,

Jennifer

Homemade donuts do not age well. In fact, I’d say if you aren’t going to eat a homemade donut within a couple of hours of someone having made it, you shouldn’t eat it at all. I’m not sure what all is involved in putting preservatives into things, but I might just have to try that if I make donuts again, or else invite approximately eight people over to eat the donuts.

_____

I recently learned two new expressions, and I can’t decide which I like better:

He couldn’t lead a two-car funeral.

or:

That’s just putting perfume on a pig.

_____

There hasn’t been a public transportation encounter in a while, and this one almost doesn’t count, except it involves a bus stop. So I approach a bus stop this evening, and a huge guy is just emerging from his nice car, which happens to bear diplomat plates, so I say to him, “Hey! You’re parked in my bus stop!” He looks a little startled, then looks at me in a way that can only be described as ogling (but diplomatically), and says, “You want a ride? I’ll be out in six seconds.” So he has an Italian accent, and I resolve not to get into his car even if the bus isn’t there by the time he emerges, and then I turn around to see where he’s going. Lo and behold, he enters the “Camiceria Italiana”. When he came back out, my bus was not 50 yards from his car, but he wasn’t as familiar with the bus traffic on Connecticut Avenue as I am, so he said, “You’re still here?”, and I said, “Well, my bus is right there.” And I pointed, and he said, “Uh-oh”, and leaped back into his fancy car and pulled away. I could see through the window of this Camiceria that this store holds mostly shoes and shirts, but I checked with Goethe just to be sure, and he tells me it’s a shirt maker or the like. So,

Dear Italian Embassy,

Please see to it that the diplomats in your employ are not walking stereotypes. (Also, they should not park in my bus stop, since I don’t like walking in traffic.)

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter,

Jennifer

_____

Finally, I am having a hair crisis. If I were going to keep my hair extremely short, I would have had it cut before Christmas. But I’m letting it grow a little, and it’s past the week where it looks awkward, and now it’s in a place where it looks fine if I harass it into place, but if I don’t fuss with it I look like my mom. (My mom’s cute, though, so that’s okay.) I kind of want a chin-length bob, but I kind of can’t make up my mind. These are the things that keep me up at night, and sometimes I really do think it would be easier if someone could just manage my regular life for me so that I could sit around knitting and reading and trying to explain to Molly why it’s not okay to make heavy things fall from the bookshelf to the floor every single day, not only because Mouse is trying to sleep and doesn’t like loud noises, but also because one of these days she’s going to break something. Like one or more of her legs. She’s sweet, and I’m smitten, but she’s got to learn how to just sit still for a minute. Geez.

_____

Otherwise, I’ve got nothin’, except it looks like I’m going out on a date later this week. (In an Irish pub. I’ve already asked him whether he is inclined to doing things like ordering an Amstel Light when he could instead drink a Guinness, but I haven’t heard back yet on that count.) Here’s hoping I don’t have to mention that at all here.

Dear Holiday Shoppers,

I really don’t think Jesus would have wanted you to cut down a perfectly good tree, tie it to the top of your SUV, and then drive it home and put shiny crap on it so you can keep it in your living room for several weeks just because it was his birthday.

If you have to get a Christmas tree, why not buy a live one, and then plant it somewhere when you’re done with it? Better for the environment, don’t you think?

That is all.