Overly Verbal

So the DVD I was waiting for arrived, and it is absolutely true that the crayon factory tour appears on the DVD, and so I’m going to go ahead and insist that if you have children, or know children, those children must possess this DVD immediately, and, yeah, maybe your children are better off not watching a DVD over and over and over again, but the crayon factory tour is as captivating now as it was when I was little, only now that I’m an adult, I can appreciate to a slightly greater extent the fact that learning about collating machines when you are very young gives you a pretty remarkable head start, and, yeah, the kids you know probably have a pretty remarkable head start already, but you’re only young once, and it’s not like you’re going to actually take the kids to the crayon factory (because it’s in Easton, Pennsylvania), so please just go buy as many copies of the DVD as you may need.

In other news, all of the buses in Northern Virginia are free tomorrow, because you people keep on driving your cars all over Creation and ruining the environment, and about that I am glad (the free part, not the you wrecking the environment part). Sure, it’s an awareness-raising promotion, so that more people will know that when the air quality sucks the buses are free, and I’m already well aware of that fact, being a person nearly entirely dependent on buses to get anywhere further than 1.23 miles from my home, so I should just go ahead and pay for the bus tomorrow, but I’m not going to, because I’m pretty sure the WMATA owes me at least $3.20 for pain and suffering they’ve inflicted upon me.

In other, other news, I checked Wikipedia, and while it appears to be true that the entire state of Oklahoma has access to public television, it also appears that to this very day, the nine Iowa Public Television stations reach “almost all of Iowa”. That’s not so bad, unless you live in the part of Iowa that doesn’t have public television, in which case I imagine you don’t have Internet access either, so you’ll never know about your deprivation. And ignorance is bliss, or so I’m told.

you can blame it on the Pope. He’s been here a couple of days now, and I’ve had no problems making my way around town – the train was super-crowded Tuesday evening, but I just got real cozy with a tall guy near me, practically had my head tucked in his armpit, but I was only on the train for two stops. (I really enjoy being taller than the average woman, but never more so than when I need to hold on to an overhead railing in order to keep my balance.) (Well, okay, maybe I enjoy it more when I can intimidate someone because I’m 5’10” in my favorite heels: hi, I’m Jennifer, and I am shallow.)

Problem is, tomorrow approximately every Catholic person in the world (on God’s green earth?) (in Creation?) is going to be headed to the baseball stadium at precisely the same time I am headed for work, and all of the media in DC is acting as if I should be prepared for the apocalypse. There are a couple of ways I could tackle this problem – I could work from home, but if you need to conduct an interview with someone, as I do tomorrow, and if your employer does not yet have video-conferencing technology, you kind of have to show up for the interview, instead of, um, phoning it in. I could leave super early, hoping to beat the crowds, but since the Metro opens at 5 a.m., and people are supposed to be at the stadium at 8:30, that would requiring leaving for work right about now – I’ve been trying to convince them I need a hammock in my office, but that hasn’t worked quite yet.* Or, I could leave for work just a tiny bit earlier than my regular time, hope that my way is not barred by people who have never seen a public transportation system before, let alone used one, and simply arrive at my workplace whenever I happen to, trusting that people will understand if I am late. The people I work with are smart, and I’m sure they’ve noticed that the Pope is coming. (No, I really am sure that they’ve noticed, because I’ve had many conversations about his arrival, on such interesting topics as whether there is more than one PopeMobile or whether he just takes the same one with him everywhere,** and whether it’s impolite for me to call his driving through the streets a “Pope Parade” when everyone else seems to be using the more dignified phrase “Papal Motorcade”.***)

In any event, I just thought I’d lay out my commandments for using public transportation systems. I don’t have a direct line to God or anything, but I’m pretty sure if there was a God, he’d agree that these are some pretty sound rules:

• Remember that you are a guest in the public transportation system, and that your fare entitles you only to as much space as a regular-sized human being normally occupies.
• Honor the rule to walk on the left and stand on the right, so that all may enjoy free passage on stairs and escalators.
• You shall not run in a station, nor sleep on a train, nor stand too close to the platform’s edge. (Remember, safety is everyone’s responsibility.)
• You shall not enter the train before all those who want to exit the train have done so.
• You shall not eat smelly sandwiches on trains or buses, or even on station platforms. (While you may have been made to become a fisher of men, fish are really better eaten in more private venues, with superior ventilation to that which our trains and buses enjoy.)
• Neither shall you simply stop moving at the bottom of a staircase or escalator.
• Neither shall you leave your newspaper or other personal belongings on the seats or floor.
• Neither shall you forget that the center doors of a train are the only doors that will open in an emergency, and it is therefore necessary and prudent to place your bicycles, strollers, livestock, and other unwieldy encumbrances accordingly.
• Neither shall you neglect to wear antiperspirant and/or deodorant.
• Neither shall you allow your small children to run rampant throughout the system. You shall hold their hands, lift them up if they are small, teach them well, let them lead the way (if they know where they’re going, and won’t come to a screeching halt at the bottom of the stairwell), show them all the beauty they possess inside, but you really shouldn’t let them lick the poles. (Sure, the little bitty babies are in His hand, but the toddlers? You gotta keep an eye on them.)

Well, there I go again, preaching to the choir. In any event, wish me luck tomorrow.

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* I do know now that there is a shower in the gym in the building though, which is not knowledge I will ever put to use personally, on account of I never actually use gyms, but someone might someday ask me about showering facilities on site, or maybe just show up to work all smelly, and then I’ll be glad I know that.

** Someone told me earlier that there were at least two different PopeMobiles in the Pope Parade today, but I’m not sure that’s accurate, because if it’s not got the Pope in it, I don’t think you can call it a PopeMobile. I don’t know who was in that second vehicle, but it was likely a ReallyImportantBishopofSomeSortMobile, don’t you think?

*** Whatever. It’s just semantics.

Is it legal to pull into the parking lot of an apartment complex in a completely unmarked panel truck, yell something unintelligible through a bullhorn, then open the truck and sell fruit and other foodstuffs to people? I mean, I guess it’s kind of like a farmers market, but I think farmers markets have food safety inspectors and stuff. Anyway, this is the second time this has happened – the first time it was well after dark and I wasn’t keen on getting too close to the truck, so I didn’t know what they were selling. Looked like food from my safe vantage point, but I couldn’t be sure. Today, however, armed only with my keys and my cell phone, I went outside and approached the truck, acting as if I was simply walking through the parking lot, and they’re definitely selling food from an unmarked truck, in my parking lot, and announcing their arrival via bullhorn. Why? Are they going to do this all the time? If I want to call someone, who to call? The FDA? Homeland Security? Even if it is legal, I don’t think it should be. Maybe I should call my Congressperson, or Senator. *

Why the hell can’t I keep track of my passport? It’s not like you can keep your passport in a giant box marked “PASSPORT AND OTHER IMPORTANT IDENTITY-PROVING DOCUMENTS”, because if you do, and someone breaks into your house? That would be bad. Here’s a story – when I moved to New York I put my Social Security card somewhere for safekeeping, but I never could figure out where it was. Luckily, I have a duplicate of my birth certificate, with a seal and everything, so I never actually needed my Social Security card during the time (um, seven or eight years?) it was in a box in storage in California. Never even had to order a new one. I sure did keep it safe. Now, however, I am confident that my passport, my Social Security card, and my birth certificate are in a folder, in my home. Which folder, and where, I would really like to know right about now, on account of I need at least one of those documents, although the other two will do if I can’t find my passport. Actually, I needed them yesterday.

And there are other things I wonder: what the guy on the bus this morning who was angrily muttering to himself (causing me to get up and move so that he would no longer be between me and an exit from the bus that was not a window) was so angry about; and why the only currently available over-the-counter allergy medication that prevents my sneezing also upsets my stomach (to put it politely); and when Molly and Mouse are going to revolt because I persist in coming home later than I did before, when I was still a temp; and how many minutes I have to spend killing ants in my kitchen before I have once and for all murdered every ant in a ten-mile radius of my kitchen.

You know how people praise a “childlike sense of wonder”, as if that’s somehow a good thing? Really, it’s just confusion. That’s not so great, if you think about it, but it does keep one’s mind occupied, during those moments when one’s, say, trying to figure out how to avoid a crazy guy on the bus, or, oh, I don’t know, killing ants?

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* Maybe I should find out who my local representatives are. Nah, I’m busy. (Busy wonderin’.)

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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

So I went dancing this evening, and then I had to go somewhere else to go dancing, and so part of my evening involved sharing a cab from the shady side of town to the more upscale side of town with some young Republican types (who really needed to just give William F. Buckley, Jr., his suit coat back), and my butt went numb because you really can’t easily fit five people into a cab, no matter how hard you try, and I, being the skinny one, had to sit on someone’s lap, and those boys were so obnoxious that I wanted to poke my eyes out with rusty scissors, and that’s all fine and good, because they were going roughly where I was going, but oh my god are the people who inhabit DC obnoxious, and I am way too brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous for this.

That is all.

First off, say you’re looking for a job. I don’t know whether this is already common knowledge, but, if you were looking for a job, it would be slightly more productive to read job postings online (or, heck, randomly call people on the phone and ask them whether they’re hiring) (or, geez, fold copies of your resume into paper airplanes and throw them at people) than it would be to read the entire Wikipedia entry on escalators to see if it mentions why the handrails sometimes move at a different speed than the steps do.*

I’ll save you some time. It doesn’t. In fact, it very clearly states, “Escalators are required to have moving handrails that keep pace with the movement of the steps.” But that is not always the case, and it’s been bugging me for a while. A couple of weeks back I was on an escalator that’s really long,** and standing still, and halfway up a man started touching my hand with his hand. I don’t really like being touched by strangers, so I turned around and looked at him, and he apologized, and blah, blah, blah.

But then next time I was on that escalator I noticed that my hand was getting ahead of my feet. It’s weird - if you put your hand behind you on the handrail, by the time you get halfway up your hand will be in front of you.

I wish I knew why this was the case. I don’t. But now that I know it is, I’m just careful about it. I wish other people would be more careful too, but they’re not, and so sometimes people touch me. And I don’t like it, and I have been tempted lately to have conversations with random people on escalators about the handrail/steps speed variance issue, but I’ve been too busy talking about my hair. Plus, starting a conversation with “Hey, have you ever noticed that the handrail moves faster than the steps?” might lead to conversations I don’t actually want to have. I mean, what are the people who notice those kinds of things also noticing, and therefore likely to talk about? (Okay, maybe I do want to have those conversations after all.)

What else do I care about that’s not my hair?

Um . . .

Well, that’s about it. Escalators, my hair. Yup, that’s all. I’ll try again tomorrow.

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* And then? If you weren’t writing a whole blog entry about what you do when you’re not looking for a job? That might be productive too.

** At Rosslyn. Locals and ex-pats will know which escalator I mean. It’s not the longest ever. In fact, the longest ever might be in my very own Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s area of concern. In Wheaton. (But Wheaton’s in Maryland or some god-awful place like that, so I can’t confirm that information.)

So they say if you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at all. If only I believed that, everything would be much, much nicer.

I do believe that you should accentuate the positive, though, so here goes:

• My second pair of new old jeans have arrived, and they’re just like my other pair, only bluer! Yay! Now I can delay doing the laundry even longer!*
• The WMATA has started a new advertising campaign, to let people know about the stand to the right, walk to the left rule on escalators. Now I don’t have to do everything myself!**
• Egg salad is delicious. I love egg salad sandwiches. Madly.

That is all.

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*Which is good, because the other day while I was on one of my frequent walks to the Dumpster, I saw a dead rat. Earlier that day I had seen a dead bird. Later, while walking to the laundry room, I saw a squirrel’s tail that was unfortunately no longer actually attached to a squirrel, which a) is sad, but makes perfect sense since I had recently seen a tail-less squirrel, and b) reminded me of the time we moved into a new apartment when I was little and I found in the closet a braid that was no longer attached to the person it had grown from. I was old enough to realize that hair is just hair, and not alive or anything, but young enough to be deeply disturbed that I had found a hank of human hair in my closet. I am actually still disturbed about that today. (And I’m sorry I just disturbed you about it, but isn’t part of the value in my blog the cathartic-ism?) (Why, yes, yes it is.)

** Which is good, because earlier today I had to tell a man off on the subway. He was pushing the person behind me with such force that the man behind me pushed me into the woman in front of me. I’m little, so I push easy. So as I’m being forced into the woman in front of me, I have to say out loud, “I’m sorry. It’s not me doing the pushing.” I then rather loudly suggested that the last person to get on the train might simply get off the train, since he was blocking the doors, at which point several people pointed to a man who said, “Sorry”, just as I started to say, “I don’t get any skinnier than this, no matter how hard you try”. I didn’t mean to, but I looked at him and said, “No, that’s not good enough. Why don’t you try acting in a manner that doesn’t require apologizing for your behavior? You could just be polite, sir. I mean, really.***” Several people smiled at me then, and the woman he was with looked truly mortified, and I felt better, at least for a little while, but I bet that guy’s still going to be pushing people tomorrow. Oh well.

*** Secretly, I sometimes wish I had instead named my blog, “I mean, really.” Oh well.

Best idea ever: Adopt-a-Bus Stop!

I’m always trying to think of ways to contribute to my community without actually spending any money, because I’m poor. This is perfect: they’ll put a plaque with my name on it at the bus stop, and all I have to do is visit the bus stop once a week, clean up debris, notify the WMATA of any suspicious packages*, and not alter the bus stop in any way. And they’ll not only provide cleaning supplies, but a safety vest.

A safety vest! And cleaning supplies! Frankly, I already pick up trash at my bus stop regularly, and I would sort of like to adopt a kitten, but a kitten would not come with a safety vest, so I think a bus stop will do, at least for now.

So I read the terms of agreement.** And although they want a six-month commitment, I can cancel the agreement with only 30 days notice, so I think I’m in.

(I don’t mean to come across as a person who’s afraid of commitment. Commitment’s fine and all. (In fact, I often think I oughta probably be committed.) It’s just that I’m not quite sure I’m going to live here for another six months, and if I’m going to adopt a bus stop, I would like that stop to be close to my home, because the only thing worse than visiting my current bus stop once a day in order to go to work would be moving from here and having to visit my old bus stop once a week to inspect it.)

But I don’t want my real name on a bus stop close to my house. (Then again, I could put my website on the sign, and then I’d have oodles and oodles of readers, because I know that people who visit my bus stop regularly are way interested in reading about my fascinating life.)

So I think I need to make up an organization. One that would be particularly funny on a sign at a bus stop. I’m thinking a bad plumbing pun, and then I could set up a website for a fake plumbing company. That might be amusing, particularly if I took on the identity of a certain plumber I know who never actually shows up to do the plumbing work. Would serve them right, selecting a plumber based on the fact that he’s adopted a bus stop. (Wait, would that be illegal? Damn it would be helpful if I knew a couple of lawyers.)

Ideas? I know that if there’s one thing I can count on you people for, it’s bad puns. Make me proud.
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* I would do that anyway, but even if it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d normally do, the WMATA’s recorded message that insists, “Remember, safety is everyone’s responsibility” has been forced upon me so many times that sometimes I just say that out loud for no reason at all, in precisely the same way as the woman who says it in the recording. (You know what’s more annoying than that? When I say “79 cents” in precisely the same way as the woman who says that at the self-checkout lane at the grocery store. Having perfect relative pitch is a gift, really.)

** In which there is a typo, because no one is apparently in charge of inspecting the documents the WMATA produces. And now I kind of wonder whether my agreeing to “indemnity” the WMATA would leave them demnified if something did happen to me in the course of my volunteer work. If only I knew a lawyer. Or two . . .

It figures that just after I go so far as to find an icon to represent my troubles numerically, the very next day when I get home, all of the shopping carts have been removed. There are none by the near Dumpster, none by the far Dumpster, none in the creek. There aren’t even any in front of anyone’s door.

But I finally figured out what’s happening to them.

They’re taking the bus!

(I thought about including a photograph from a different angle, which includes the 7-11 of which I am so fond, but it also shows one of the buildings in my complex, and I really don’t want people to know where I live.*)

And that, as one might say, is all.
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* Sara, are you still under the impression that I live in Jersey? Keep telling people that, if you would.

So over the weekend I met my cute, cute, cute niece. She’s 21 months old, and we have a lot in common. We both look absolutely precious in our pajamas. We both wear shoes that are so adorable it should probably be illegal. We both get grumpy if people try to keep us up past our bedtime, or wake us up before we’re ready. We both like to put things where they belong, and to clean up after ourselves, and to try to figure out how things work before we ask someone else for help.

We both dissolve into giggles at the slightest provocation, and no one else understands what we think is so funny. (Other times we collapse into tears and hysterical screaming and no one understands why.) If you try to feed us something we don’t like, we make funny faces (but she’s a little more likely than I am to simply hold her mouth open until the offending food dribbles down her shirt). And we also both realize that if a group of human adults is amused by your behavior, you should continue that behavior, because positive feedback is good.

We both have a thing for rubber ducks. Given our druthers, we either will sit contentedly on the floor singing “la, la, lalala” or “doot, doot, doot, doo-doo doot”, or dance around the living room to music no one else can hear (and I think she’s got perfect relative pitch, just like I do). We both have incredibly sensitive skin. We both say “no” a lot. (But she says it in two different languages. Yes, I can say no in at least seven different languages, but she’s growing up in a tri-lingual household. If I had done that? I would rule the world, I’m sure. Thank goodness she is going to.*)

But there are a couple of ways in which we differ. She likes Cheerios and I think Cheerios are gross. Likewise milk. She can’t read yet, or count, and, in fact, after my repeatedly counting three rubber ducks, I think she is under the impression that “twothree” is a number, or at least something one should say while pointing at a rubber duck. She is entirely more blonde than I am, and also gets to take naps pretty much whenever she wants, which I do not. She wears lavender sometimes and I never do, but I think the prevalence of polka dots in our wardrobes is about the same.

Also she is not jaded, or bitter, or callous, or disappointed, or bitchy, or angry, or possessed of enough misanthropy for at least eleven people, or disgruntled. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kinda am. I know that I have maintained my wide-eyed wonder at things that are truly beautiful, or sublime, or unusual. It hasn’t been easy, always, but at least I’ve managed to hold onto that.

But at least sometimes, I forget that the world is really pretty neat. There’s a lot out there. And if you can somehow ignore the ugly, and the bad, and the guys who are already drunk and smelly at 11 in the morning that populate train stations the world over (and particularly Penn Station in Newark, New Jersey**), you’ll see that the world really can make you giggle uncontrollably. Or at least smile in a way that makes other people wonder what, precisely, you’re smiling about. So that’s something. I’m gonna try to remember that more.

Granted, this evening, that will be really easy, because I’m totally hooked on the cheesy piano music. In fact, if I were you, I would not be surprised if my very next entry here consisted solely of an audio file of “Hooked on a Feeling” rendered by yours truly. (To which one will only be able to reply, “Keep it up, girl, yeah, you turn me on.” If there’s one thing I can say about myself with any confidence whatsoever, it’s that I have more BJ Thomas songs on my iPod than you do on yours.)
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* I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but the children are, apparently, our future. You should teach them well and let them lead the way, right after you show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride, to make it easier. Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be.

** The presence of a number of such men influenced my decision to take an Acela home, so I would not have to stay in Newark’s Penn Station any longer than absolutely necessary. Honestly, I would have paid double to leave the train station when I did. (To what end? To return to my very own personal ghetto. At least in my very own personal ghetto I have high-speed Internet. And cable.) (Which reminds me. Yesterday, when I was feeling dizzy and nauseous, I watched a program on TV in which some Australian chef picks up chicks in the grocery store and goes to their homes to help them fix dinner. And in Australia, they call shopping carts “trolleys”. This being the Month of Optimism and all, I am going to refer to my neighborhood shopping carts as trolleys throughout, because that makes them sound less offensive. Instead of four shopping carts by the Dumpsters, there are four trolleys by the rubbish bin. That sounds better already, doesn’t it?)