Overly Verbal

Yesterday I learned that some people who grew up in the middle of the country did not have PBS when they were young. This disturbs me on many levels. How did they learn how to count to ten (or tell you whether the door is open or closed) in Spanish if they didn’t have Sesame Street? Why do I always assume that everyone in America has the same cultural touch points I do when it’s abundantly clear that not everyone had the same privileges I did?

But the worst? No PBS means no Mr. Rogers. A childhood without Mr. Rogers is like no childhood at all, if you ask me. So next week, when Netflix delivers to me a DVD that is alleged to contain the segment in which Mr. Rogers shares with the children what it’s like inside a crayon factory, everyone I know who has never seen that segment is going to be required to watch it with me.*

Two things about that segment I would like to point out now: a) the portion available on YouTube is an excerpt that was shown on Sesame Street, I believe, and is not precisely what I’m talking about, and b) the proper pronunciation of crayon is “cray-on”, and not “crane”. I have a newfound appreciation for the fact that some people grew up in places where there was no PBS, but they at least have crayons in the middle of the country, I think, and while regional language differences are interesting and all, it upsets my delicate sensibilities to hear words mispronounced. A temporary solution has been to refer to crayons as “paper-covered colored wax writing implements”, and while that’s unwieldy, at least it’s not wrong.

In other news, a confluence of events has prevented my visiting the National Museum of Health and Medicine today, so that I will be unable to participate in the special “National Hairball Awareness Day” commemoration, which includes “an opportunity to handle an actual hairball”. However, the exhibit runs through next weekend, so I’ll get to see 9 of the 27 hairballs the NMHM owns then. Plus, Molly ate some grass yesterday and woke me up in the middle of the night when she was loudly and forcibly removing an actual hairball from her belly, so I’ve had an opportunity to handle one today already, and may get another such opportunity if Mouse is feeling frisky. My life is rich.

Finally, I am really, really irritated with Microsoft. They broke my Netflix, and I can’t unbreak it. Apparently, if you’re running Vista, and you install Service Pack 1, which should make your machine work better, it screws things up royally. Compared to some problems people have had when installing Service Pack 1, like having the mouse cease to function, or finding the machine doesn’t want to boot at all, my problem seems minor in comparison. Thing is, one of the prerequisites to Service Pack 1 is an un-uninstallable update. That’s the one that seems to cause the problem, and I would be able to restore my machine to the point before that unremovable update was installed, save that Vista is only saving a limited number of system restore points, and I don’t have one old enough to make my machine and Netflix get along again. In any event, it’s all my fault, because I should have done more research, or dealt with the problem as soon as I recognized it, but instead I’m stuck. I think it would be nicer if the people who create and maintain operating systems would never, ever present to me an update that cannot be removed, and I might just have to write Microsoft a letter, particularly given that the Service Pack has also made my machine do a number of other things that are truly annoying. Either Netflix or Microsoft will find a way around this problem eventually, but until then, I’m annoyed.

Did I say finally? There’s one more thing: on a happier note, these newfangled Pretzel Crisps are about the most delicious things ever! You should get some.

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* If you haven’t seen it, because you were deprived as a child, let me know, and you can come over too.

While I am well aware that today was Earth Day, and I do enjoy nagging people about recycling and whatnot, I’m afraid I only have enough time this week to celebrate one Day. And that day is going to be Sunday, which happens to be National Hairball Awareness Day.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!

If there is something funnier than referring to the complex in which I live as “Nutsack Arms”, I don’t know what it is.

I only wish I had thought of it myself, and last week.

Lest any more comments are left about a certain soup, please be aware that you can get your own:

It’s only 95 cents a package.

(It’s amazing to me how many situations are entirely suited to that Milkshake song.)

It seems that I have a new job.

They’re going to be paying me more than I thought they would.

But still not enough. Whatever.

Their vision plan is paid for by the company, which is good because my retinas are silently deteriorating as I write.

My office is no more than a fifteen-minute walk from the offices of at least two gentlemen* I know with whom I can eat lunch, or have a drink after work.

I can pay for my transit fees with pre-tax dollars. Or my parking, if I had, say, a car.

I may start as early as next Wednesday, or as late as the following Monday.

Writing it here first means that nobody can be mad because I didn’t tell them first, or even immediately.

Now I have to call and explain to the temp agency that while I appreciate their finding me a long-term, potentially permanent position, I really don’t want it anymore. Luckily, that can wait until tomorrow, after I find out when they’d like me to start.

After that’s done, I will only have 13,998 other things to worry about.

I can’t decide whether I’m happy or not. Getting a new job is one of the most stressful things you can do in life, right?

In other news, after making turkey stock, I have only one thing to say about next Thanksgiving. If I’m making dinner, we’re having ham. Because ham doesn’t leave a carcass.

I am doing a great job with this parenthesis thing, no?
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* And I use that term loosely.

I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but some people apparently don’t understand why the word cotillions might be useful in Scrabble. Sure, it has more than seven letters, but it builds off the words “cot”, “ill”, “till”, “ion”, “ions”, “lion”, and “lions”. Could we all just try to be a little bit better at Scrabble, so I don’t have to do everything? Geez.

And as long as we’re talking about Scrabble, did you see this?

So I’m reading about insomnia, which gives me something to do when I’m not sleeping, and I just read that it’s possible that there are electro-magnetic fields in my bedroom disrupting my pineal gland. Did I not have enough to worry about already? Anyway, if no one has a magnetometer, I suppose I could just build my own. Anybody up for a trip to Radio Shack?

But if it’s not EMFs quietly ruining my internal organs, then I’ve also just read that one way to improve your sleep is with positive affirmations. You know, like “Even though I am not sleeping, I am a good and valuable person.” And I would try that (maybe even incorporate Ms. Williamson’s inspirational words: “Even though I’m not sleeping, who am I not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?”), except then I’d be so busy laughing that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

(Other things I’m not going to try? Avoiding alcohol. Avoiding caffeine. Avoiding nicotine. Reading something spiritual or religious right before going to bed. Exercise.)

Also, one does not have chronic insomnia unless one is having trouble sleeping at least three nights a week for a month. So that’s good - I’m not chronic. (Yet.) I just have acute insomnia. (And I can’t remember now who used to always say, “That’s chronic!” to mean that something was good. If it was you, can I just mention again now how annoying that was?)

(You know what’s weird? Words that start and end with C. They all look wrong. Chronic. Copacetic. Catatonic. Catholic. Critic. (And you know what else is weird? The word of the day is concinnity. That looks wrong too, but I didn’t know it before. You know, the earlier you wake up, the more words you can learn.) (“Even though I am not sleeping, I have a rich and active vocabulary.”))

Finally, these? Are the most beautiful measuring spoons of all time.

Tomorrow I have to report to work at 9 AM. And you know what? I don’t wanna.

I think that’s all there is to say about that, because one really shouldn’t go on and on on the Internet about their workplace, not to mention I have only the vaguest idea of what the company actually does. In fact, I should be reading their website right now, instead of writing this. So that’s it. All good things must come to an end, I guess, and my unemployment is one of them. Dang it.

(One good thing: the job’s in the District. For the rest of this week I’ll be commuting. And you know what this means? Either a bus or my apartment complex’s shuttle to the Metro, and then back again. There hasn’t been a good public transportation encounter in a while, has there?)

+++++

Microsoft Word just told me that “vaguest” is a “non-standard word”.

Dear Microsoft Word,

I don’t know what you mean by “non-standard word”. But I do know that writing can be made more lively and interesting by using words that might be just the tiniest bit unusual. Additionally, given that ‘vaguest’ is in all three of the dictionaries that I currently use, I think you should just get a grip. Don’t make me turn off any more of your “features”.

Thanks so much,

Jennifer

Misjudged your limits, pushed you too far, took you for granted, I thought that you needed me more, more, more.

I would apologize for my absence, but really, it’s my prerogative (and if you’ve got Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” stuck in your head now, I will not accept responsibility.) (If you get the Britney Spears version stuck in your head, well, um, I just don’t know what to say. Are you sure I even know you?). And I said from the get-go that this would probably be updated at a leisurely rate. I haven’t had much leisure lately. But here’s a bunch of junk that’s currently in my brain:

All day long I had Salt and Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” stuck in my head. Then I came home and somehow wound up with The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” in there. (Never mind whether there even is a why for this series of events.) (And can anyone explain why “Staring at the Sea - The Singles” does not include “Fire in Cairo”? Anyone?) (And did you know that when I once tried to learn how to play guitar I first successfully managed to learn the first sixteen notes to a Cure song? Of course you didn’t. I can’t remember what song it was, though.) (Interestingly, the boy who taught me now wants to be my “friend” on MySpace. I should probably let him, but I’m kinda afraid of MySpace right now, because all these people I haven’t talked to in fifteen years keep finding me. Weird.) (And you probably don’t know either that three of the only songs I ever managed to learn how to play on the piano were “Norwegian Wood”, “Homeward Bound”, and “Take My Breath Away”.) (But you could probably guess that I can’t read music. Because I don’t apply myself. But I am good at memorizing stuff.)

When someone sends you an e-mail via [online dating service’s name obscured to protect Jennifer’s probably imagined (since I totally gave the site away last week) privacy], that indicates that the person found your profile, “funny” and “evocative”, and adds “you always use just the right word”, is it wrong to send them an e-mail back that says, “I know, it’s great isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about getting a job writing profiles for people.”? (Just checking.)

It’s really hot. And when it’s really hot, the Metro doesn’t work. Apparently the aboveground tracks are prone to melting, forcing trains to derail and whatnot. When I lived in New York they never had to reduce the speed of the trains by 25% and the frequency by 50% because of heat. That never happens in Boston or Chicago either (or Tokyo, I’m told). So what gives, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority? Haven’t we already covered the fact that sometimes you make me sad? Did no one anticipate extreme temperatures? (Also, when it rains heavily everything gets all screwed up too. ‘Cause rain is unusual and all.)

(And today at work the power went out for less than 15 seconds, and somehow this caused the air conditioning to go out. And could they immediately turn it back on? No, they had to wait for someone to come from somewhere (and, you know, there’s hardly any traffic around here, so that happened real quick-like), so they could reset it. We finally got an e-mail indicating that once the system was reset it would take forty-five minutes for the building to cool down. The high temperature today was 81 degrees. AT MY DESK! We closed all the blinds and turned off all the lights, otherwise it would have been worse. I guess I shouldn’t complain, since it was something like eleventy thousand degrees outside, but still, some days I feel like I live in a third world country.)

Apparently no one (but me and Mr. Monkeyspank) thinks that my newfound hilarious expression is hilarious at all. You all are weird.

_________________

Yesterday on the bus:

[Jennifer enters]

Bus Driver: [Some nonsense during which people were repeatedly axed. Not killed, but instead simply inquired of.]

Woman: How old was she?

Bus Driver: Eighty-nine. And she died right at church. They thought she catched the spirit, but she had an ann-yoo-rhythm!

[Jennifer: biting her tongue to keep from laughing out loud at the woman propelling the vehicle she’s in.]
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And that, of course, reminds me of two of my favorite church signs:

a) This church is prayer-conditioned.

b) Life is fragile. Handle with prayer.

Which necessarily reminds me of this: Church Sign Generator.

(If I believed in hell, I would believe that I would be going there, probably now.)

I think that’s all. I’m sorry I left you, and I promise to come back soon.

So, from January of 1998 until June of 2005, I was continually either a student at or employed in the library of a world class university. And now? Not so much. I’ve sort of gotten over not being able to access the OED online (although sometimes I think that I will not be truly satisfied until I own a real, actual OED), but today I’d like to read an article in a journal that doesn’t happen to be in my local library. I could read it online if I could access the database, but I can’t.

Not that anyone cooperated with me last time I made a plea here, but here’s what I need you to do, loyal and somewhat over-educated readers: either have CR: The New Centennial Review (Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2001) in your personal library and loan it to me, or have access to Project Muse. Either one would do nicely.

I know I can count on you, ’cause you’re a smart bunch. (And if you do come through for me, I’ll bake you cookies.)

(The article is about Arthur Mole, who did this: The U.S. Human Shield. He also did a remarkable photograph of the Statue of Liberty, and the only picture of it I can find online is on the cover of this book: American Exposures, which is also not available in my local library (but is, not surprisingly, in the libraries of Yale and Columbia). If it happens to be in your personal library, I would be as happy as the day is long were you to lend it to me.)

Also, I would like to mention that the only reason I didn’t write here at all yesterday is that nothing happened. Well, okay, one thing happened: I beat The Right Reverend Alonzo Q. Monkeyspank at Scrabble. That hardly ever happens, but I used the word anxious (which you’ll notice not only has seven letters, but also has an X). Still, I only beat him by four points, because he also formed a word with seven letters, but I can’t now remember what it was. (I’m sure he’ll remind me shortly after he reads this, because he likes nothing more than to remind me of his Scrabble prowess.) (And it occurs to me now that I should have chosen to refer to him here as “Slowpoke McTakealongtime”. I wish I had thought of that last week.)

Finally, “mompreneur” is a word that appears neither in The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary nor in either of the unabridged Random House dictionaries in use in my home (1966 and 2001). But I will now allow you full Scrabble use of “polyamory”, “unibrow”, and “biodiesel”. I have to, because Merriam-Webster told me so: New Words.