Overly Verbal

So approximately five minutes after I wrote about having “The Rose” and “You Light Up My Life” stuck in my head, I went to 7-11.

And somehow going to 7-11 made me get The Pointer Sisters’ “Jump” stuck in my head.

And then, the very instant I returned home, I got “Been Caught Stealing” stuck in my head.

Because there’s clearly an incontrovertible link between Jane’s Addiction and The Pointer Sisters. (And also, that should totally be “Been Caught Stealin’”. But I’m not in charge, so it isn’t.)

Sometimes, I feel like if I could only figure out the segues, I could rule the world.

Luckily, even though if I were in charge things would be much, much different (including the proper use of commas and apostrophes at all times), I don’t actually want to rule the world.

I just want to understand the segues.

The fact that after Jane’s Addiction comes Jessica Simpson? That’s easy. It’s the alphabet. I’ve got a pretty firm grasp on the alphabet, both in it’s proper form, where artists are alphabetized correctly, and in the iTunes form, where everything’s all mixed up and 10,000 Maniacs comes before 50 Cent*, Ben Folds follows Bell Biv Devoe, Madness and Marc Anthony are right next to each other. I can follow that. It’s wrong, but I can follow it.

But the part in my brain, where The Pointer Sisters yield Jane’s Addiction? It just doesn’t make any sense.

But here’s something: when the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long, and you feel that love is only for the lucky and the strong? Just remember, in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed, that with the sun’s love, in the spring, becomes the rose.

I should probably go do something productive, like practicing playing “Edelweiss” on the piano. (I’m kidding. I’m working on Billy Joel’s “Honesty” at the moment, not some goofy song from The Sound of Music. I mean, really.)

Should I even ask? What did we all do before I had a blog?

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* Don’t they belong under T and F, respectively? Why yes, yes they do. But I’m not in charge.

1. If you happen to get Bette Midler’s “The Rose” stuck in your head, that will invariably remind you of “You Light Up My Life” and then it will be a medley of misery in your head for something like two days.
2. If the Metro is all jacked up, and you decide to take a bus to the Metro station where a bus will come to take you home, after you walk all the way to that far-off bus stop, the bus will be late. And then, a woman waiting for the same bus might say, “Wanna share a cab to [the aforementioned Metro station]?” If you were at that point to say, “Sure, why not?” it’s not like anything really bad will happen. I mean, it’s not as if you’re really taking a ride with a stranger - it’s a cab. And it’s not like it’s that far. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Oh, she might talk to you the entire way, and then when she’s not talking to you she’ll be telling the cab driver how to drive. “Um, lady, he’s a professional. I mean, you’re a professional too, seemingly, but you work in a law office, and he drives a cab. So maybe let’s let him do the driving, huh? And, yeah, it’s totally cute that you’re all self-conscious about your backseat driving, but maybe instead of repeatedly remarking upon how you shouldn’t do it, you should try, oh, I don’t know? Not doing it? How ‘bout that? And I’m sure your dog is in fact the cutest dog in the entire universe, but could you please just stop talking? Just for like 25 seconds? Please?” (But eventually you will get to remove yourself from her presence, and when you do, you can just go ahead and pay for slightly more than half of the cab ride, so you don’t have to listen to her talk any more while she makes change or whatever. If you’re me, anyway.)
3. If, upon arriving at the Metro station from which you can take a bus home, the buses seem to be running late, you should just go to Macy’s, because it’s right by the bus stop and there might be cute boots on sale.

   Here’s something: everything is instantly all better when you have cute boots. (Also? Hi. I am remarkably shallow.*)

   Also, if you buy boots in February, instead of September, you can purchase for $27.65 a pair of boots that were originally priced at $79. (And because this is the happy part of this story, I am going to refrain from writing an entire paragraph about why anyone in their right mind would purchase a pair of boots for $79 when their apparent real value is $27.65.) If I were in a better mood I’d take a picture of my new boots, just so you could see them. Oh my god are they adorable. (And they have 3 1/2 inch heels, and if you can tell me even one single thing that is hotter than me walking around in a pair of granny boots with 3 1/2 inch heels, I will pay you money.) (Now if I only had something to do tomorrow that required my wearing enormously cute boots. Ah well. Wearing enormously cute boots to work is not a complete waste of effort. Last time I wore enormously cute boots to work, while wandering through the copy room, I was told that my boots were “fierce”. Granted, the man who said that to me is likely gay, but if a gay man tells you your boots are fierce? My work here is done.)

4. If, upon purchasing a new pair of boots, you go wait for the bus again, and the bus doesn’t come, even after you have a five minute telephone conversation, you should just go ahead and take a different cab the rest of the way home. But if you do, the cab driver will have a loud cell phone conversation in Arabic, during which he will repeatedly say “closing costs”, because there is apparently no corresponding phrase in Arabic. And then, when he gets off the phone, he will apologize for having the heated phone conversation, and then start telling you about the house he just bought. And then you can actually get out of the cab a block and a half away from your home just so you can stop having to listen to him talk.

(Do we need any more evidence as to why I should never leave my home? I mean, aside from the cute boots, nothing good has happened so far. People just will not shut up.)

5. This didn’t happen today, but it sort of counts: if you start a conversation in a bar with the question, “Is this your least favorite Depeche Mode song?” that will likely be a fun conversation, because then you get to talk about your favorite Depeche Mode songs. So the song in question was “Personal Jesus”, which I think is my least favorite, because someone I was once attached to had a cassette tape that consisted solely of something like five different remixes of that song, and I had to listen to it way too often, and it’s not even a good song. But if a random person in a bar tells you that Johnny Cash covered that song, you should believe them, because it’s true. Of course, I didn’t believe that random person, because that seems absurd, but it’s true - I looked it up on the Internet later - and that’s kinda cool.

   And that doesn’t seem so bad, right? But it just serves to remind me that I need to have a cell phone that also can read the Internet. So that I can settle bar bets as they happen, instead of later. (Also, or perhaps rather, so that I can find out about Metro delays in real-time without having to speak with anyone who works for the WMATA. They always hang up on me right when they’re on the verge of giving me useful information anyway. The Internet can’t hang up on you, nor does the Internet ask you to press 1 if you want the information in English. (Ooh, does that make me mad. Make people press 1 if they want the information in some other language, but don’t make me press 1 to hear the information in English. I’m busy, for Christ’s sake.))

6. This didn’t happen today either, but if you suggest that no one has ever had a woman install her cable, someone who reads your blog will have had a woman install her cable. But will you be shamed forever? Not if you’re me you won’t. You’ll maintain that there’s simply one female cable installer in the universe, but since the universe is small, you’ve somehow managed to interact with one of the small number of people who have interacted with a female cable installer. (And given that that same person is the only other person you’ve ever met who also happens to start reciting the Gettysburg Address when asked to “say something, just anything”, you’re probably cool.)

I think that’s all I’ve got. I’m hungry. I should eat. Maybe I’ll have a pizza delivered, and then I can hear about the troubles the pizza delivery driver is having with his girlfriend. That could be fun.

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* But not, apparently, pretentious. In fact, recently someone, upon first meeting me after only having exchanged e-mail with me, said out loud, “Well, yeah, you’re different than I thought you would be. I mean, I thought you’d be pretentious. But you’re not. You’re pretty well the opposite of pretentious.” Aww.

This weekend I’ve been feeling quiet, so I’ve been reading about playing piano more than I’ve been playing piano. (But I’ve also been listening to Ben Folds for inspiration. Can someone explain to me again why Ben Folds isn’t madly in love with me?)

So it’s snowing. I stayed home until noon, because Verizon told me they were coming. They told me that yesterday too, and then called at 10 to cancel, but I haven’t heard from them yet today. I hope that my Verizon agent is not stuck somewhere in the snow, but then again, if he is, maybe he’s sitting there thinking about how he should get a job with a company that will mail set top boxes to those customers who don’t really need someone to show up at their house to plug in a box. (Particularly if the customer in question already edited her own registry to make her router work.) That might be good for him. (And yeah, right, maybe it’s a her. Has anyone ever had a woman show up to connect their cable, phone, or Internet services? Ever?)

Then I decided I wanted stew, so I walked to the grocery store, in the snow. But first I went to the Dumpster, and noted that there are now three shopping carts parked there, one of which may be the selfsame shopping cart I photographed last week. So that was fun.

And then I realized that it would be easier to get the car out next week if I stopped to clean the already four inches of snow off of it, even though it was still snowing. So I did that, and I got cold.

Then, at the grocery store, it occurred to me that I wanted meatloaf instead. That is totally different than my normal weekend routine. See? Mixing it up.

And then it occurred to me that the cornmeal cranberry muffins I made last week might be interesting if I used mixed berries instead of cranberries. Even though cranberries are the only berries I actually like, because every other berry I’ve ever eaten has made me think of what it must be like to eat bugs, I bought some black-, rasp-, straw-, and blueberries, just to see if that would work too. See? Really mixing it up. (The berries are thawing now, so I’m not sure what’s gonna happen, but I’ll let you know how it plays out.)

And now, because I can’t actually go anywhere in the car, on account of the freezing rain that is oh-so-very-helpfully following the six inches of snow, I’m knitting the same sweater that I knit before. Only this time, instead of making it green, I’m making it grey. And instead of making it a turtleneck, I think I’m going to make it a V-neck.

“Oh my goodness, Jennifer, you’re crazy, with all the mixing it up!”

It seems my take on mixing it up is maybe a little less revolutionary than one might hope.* So be it.

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* But I didn’t tell you about the date I went on on Thursday. It was with a man who did not have English as his first language. I’ve never done that before. Of course, there’s a really very solid reason I’ve never done that before. It’s because I have to be attached only to people who have a facility with the English language that is equal to or greater than mine. So I won’t be doing that again, but I think my willingness to even consider doing it in the first place is pretty stinkin’ remarkable. And it’s not like it was a horrible date. I had a lovely steak for dinner, and we went to a bar that had karaoke, but thankfully left that bar before I was subjected to too much karaoke. But it ended with one of those awkward street corner episodes in which I always, but always, lie: “So, that was fun.” I really hate dating, but I guess I’ll just keep on doing it.

So my new book about how to play the piano (Instant Keyboard: Quick & Easy Instruction for the Impatient Student, by Gary Meisner. I highly recommend it, for reasons that will become clear in a moment) asks: How many times have you sat at your keyboard and thought, “How can I do more when I play?” or “What makes the pros sound so good?”

Given that I’ve only had my digital keyboard out of its box for 20 minutes, I haven’t had a lot of time to consider those things. Instead I’ve mostly been sitting at my keyboard thinking, “Why do I like that Dan Fogelberg song “Longer” so much, and how impressed will people be that I’ve taught myself to play it on my new digital keyboard?”

So I’m in the bookstore yesterday, trying to select a book about how to play the piano, and attempting to make reasonable choices based on practical considerations, such as whether any given book actually looked like it would serve to teach me how to play the piano, and how much each book cost. I finally gave into my more whimsical side, however, and settled on a book that includes lessons for such songs as the aforementioned “Longer”, “Havah Nagilah”, and “The Rainbow Connection”.

This is going to be the most fun project that I have ever attempted, and people are going to get so tired of being forced to listen to me play “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” that I will soon have no friends at all.

When I had an electronic keyboard, back when I was taking piano lessons when I was 15 or so, it was a pretty cool instrument. But although it could make a goofy rhythm with some electronic drums, it sure as hell didn’t plug into my computer, or play itself.

Nor did it have sound effects. I can make my new keyboard laugh, scream, bark like a dog, or sound like a car crash, or fireworks. (I haven’t found the meow yet, because there are something like 500 different ways to make my keyboard make noises, but when I made it chirp like a bird, Mouse didn’t even wake up. Ennui is not a strong enough word to describe my cat’s predominant mood.)

And because it’s so fancy, I can not only alienate my local friends, but my remote friends as well, by recording myself playing the piano, and e-mailing said recordings to my friends who live in far-off places.

So I would like to take a moment to publicly thank Manuelo for being kind enough to help me select a digital keyboard. I’d call him to talk to him about it, but I’m kinda busy at the moment.

So if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to practice “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” I freakin’ love that song. (And that lesson includes syncopation. What do I like better than syncopation? At the moment, nothing.)

Yesterday I made cranberry cornmeal muffins. They were even more delicious than I expected them to be.

I think I’m staying home on Friday so that I can be here to receive my new electronic keyboard. And then it will be the weekend, and I will have my new electronic keyboard (and a new book which I intend to buy on my lunchbreak tomorrow, about how to read music), and then I will never leave my house again.

“But Jennifer, are you really happy staying in your house and making muffins and practicing the piano, instead of going out and interacting with humanity?”

As a matter of fact, I am. I mean, it’s nice sometimes when people come over (especially if they bring me McDonald’s*), and since it’s going to be relatively warm out this weekend I might just go somewhere in the car (somewhere other than the library or the grocery store, I mean).

But the way I see it, the alternative to my boring life would be a life so exciting that I have to shave my head (so that my soon-to-be-ex-husband can’t run drug tests on my hair to gather evidence for use in our custody battle) or wander in and out of rehab facilities as if they were antique shops.

I don’t know, it just seems smarter to stay in. (That being said, however, let it be known that I find myself having two dates in the next six days, both of which are with men I have never met before. I’m making an effort to have a vibrant and exciting social life. I should get points for that, no?)

At least I’m making progress on the list of things to do. That’s not nothing.
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* Speaking of which, the other night I had a most delicious steak for dinner. And I ate the whole thing (except for the small pieces I was kind enough to share with my dinner companion). Ever since then I’ve been eating like a horse. Tonight for dinner I had a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and fries, and I ate it all. Do you have any idea how many calories are in a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese? 740, that’s how many. When you add in the 380 in the fries, and the 240 in the Hi-C Orange Lavaburst, we’re talking a lot of calories. You’d think I’d be as wide as a house by now, but I’m not.

Mae West: Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?

A presumably Catholic man: I can’t. It’s Lent.

Mae West: Well, why don’t you come up and see me when you get it back?

Sometimes, I act like I am 12. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. (You might, but I wouldn’t.)

(Catholic readers should expect my standard Ash Wednesday e-mail later in the day. (If you’re Catholic and I just don’t know it, do drop me a note.))

I had a largely lovely weekend. I made some banana bread earlier. It was delicious. I’m wearing my new sweater. It’s gorgeous. I did my taxes. I get money back. But then my weekend started going downhill:

Dear Neighbors,
I know some of you saw me walking around on a snowy slope earlier, taking photographs. I wasn’t trying to look in your windows or catch your children vandalizing the mailboxes or something. I just had to photograph the shopping carts.

People think I’m prone to hyperbole, and I knew that if I wrote an entry to my blog suggesting that not only had a new shopping cart appeared, but that it brought with it its friend (and they’re even different colors, because our neighborhood is nothing if not diverse), people would stop believing me.

I know you people don’t read books or anything, but maybe someone once told you the story of the boy who cried wolf. The gist of it is, even when a liar is telling the truth, he or she might not be believed. And so I had to take some photographs. Not because I lie - I don’t. But I do kind of complain about the shopping carts a lot, and I’ve never shown them to anyone before.

Also, you suck. All of you.

Jennifer
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Dear Readers,
No, I’m not kidding. Not one shopping cart, but two*.

I present to you photographic evidence (don’t forget, if you click the pictures, they get bigger):

J

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* And this I only noticed after I walked back from the store. While walking to the store, waiting to cross the street, I was accosted by some Mormons. Well, not accosted, really, more chatted up. We had a banal conversation about the weather, and when I mentioned that I was from California, one of them said to me, “I’m from Utah, originally.”

Had I encountered these gentlemen after encountering the shopping carts, I likely would have said, “No kidding? I never would have guessed. Neither by your blondness, nor your nametags, nor the fact that you’re in a pair, chatting up girls on street corners. Okay, so maybe I would have figured it out if you’d also been on bicycles, but you’re from Utah? Really?”

Instead, I just said, “Utah, huh? Isn’t it cold there too?”

Does it seem like the same things keep happening to me, over and over and over? That’s because it’s true. Numerous shopping carts, people trying to convert me, banana bread and knitting. I gotta mix things up some, huh?

I got the car out.

Then I put it right back, because I didn’t want someone to steal my newly dug-out parking place. I’ll go somewhere tomorrow.

And you know why I got the car out? Because I am not a quitter. (Neither am I modest, shy, quiet, or any number of other things.)

But I still need a man.

To stand in my parking place and prevent anyone else from parking there while I go to the grocery store and the library.

Anyone? I’ll only be gone for a while. (I’d ask Mouse to do it, but he’s too small. Plus, he’ll likely be sleeping.)

So when I talked to Uncle Wiggly earlier today, he told me the car is front-wheel drive. Given this information, when I expect it to snow, I can now back into a parking space, a thing I did not do last Sunday.

And so the car is stuck.* I mean, I could get it out, but that would require spending way more time with my new shovel than I want to. I’m already a little more familiar with it than I think I should be.

I need a man.

Or some salt, which I could have purchased at Home Depot, but that there was no salt available at Home Depot, on account of every single person in the tri-state area needs large amounts of salt. I am so unprepared for disaster it’s not even funny.

So if anyone has some salt (or a man), please do bring it (or him) over, because I can’t get the car out to come get it (or him).

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* Am I wrong about this, gentlemen? (And I use that term loosely.) Is it or is it not true that front-wheel drive doesn’t help you back out of a frozen parking space, but would help you drive forward out of a frozen parking space? I used to have a front-wheel drive Mustang, and if I remember correctly, you have to put snow chains on the front wheels of a front-wheel drive car. Right? I hope I’m right, because a) I like to be right, and b) that would help explain why the car won’t move backwards.

So I get to the train station this morning, and all the trains are delayed. By like hours. Why? Because Amtrak and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are conspiring to kill me. So I gave up and came home, but only after standing in the ticket line for a really long time to exchange my ticket for another.

And on the way home, I figured since my day was already sucking up a storm, I might as well go to the mall and try on some clothes that wouldn’t fit me. So I did that, and nothing fit.

And then I went to Starbucks. While waiting for my coffee, I found that Starbucks has a new line of stuffed animals, called, appropriately enough, “Bearistas.”

And that’s when I found the nearest bridge and jumped off of it.

Okay, not really, I just cursed whoever got paid money to come up with that brilliant idea, and then cursed myself for having wandered into Starbucks in the first place. But that at least reminded me of this: Delocator. You can easily find non-corporate cafes, bookstores, and movie theatres* near you, and no one’s going to argue that that’s not a good thing to do.

But not to worry, I’ll still get to meet my niece. They’re coming back this way in two weeks, but instead of meeting them in the City, I get to meet them at Newark Airport. (That’s how I know for absolutely certain that I’m a good person - someone said to me, “Well, you can just meet us in Newark,” and I didn’t say, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”) Unfortunately, there are no Chinatown buses to Newark Airport. (Okay, maybe there are, but if so, I’m going to remain blissfully ignorant of that fact - I just really, really, really don’t want to take a bus. There is Greyhound service, though - too bad I vowed never to take a Greyhound bus anywhere ever again. Don’t want to go back on my word now, do I?)

So after resting from the trials and tribulations of the morning, I went outside to clear the ice off the car and see if it would start. I was going to do that earlier in the week, but the roads were not fit for driving. Three solid inches of frozen water came off the hood easily enough, but the foot wide, six-inch deep pile of ice-covered snow behind the back wheels is not likely to budge without a shovel, and maybe not even then. Being a girl who hasn’t had a car in the last nine years, and only ever having owned a car in California, I find myself woefully without even the most rudimentary tools required to dig your car out of the snow - yeah, I’ve got cute boots to do it in, but nothing to do it with. So two nice men in the parking lot saw me standing there trying to assess the problem, and offered to help. Alas, they, too, did not have a shovel. They figured they could push the car so we could get it over the ice, but I was afraid I’d accidentally run over one of them (until one of them pointed out that that would be physically impossible), and besides that, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to get the car back into the parking place once I got it out.

So now? I’m going to walk to Home Depot. (I have a 10% off coupon.) I need some other stuff for around here anyway, but I am excited that I will soon be the proud owner of a shovel (and various and sundry other things required to spring your car when it’s been subject to an ice storm) (Sand? Should I own sand? Do people buy sand? I mean really pay money for sand, and then keep it in their trunk, with a shovel? What do they do with all the junk in their trunk in order to make room for the sand? This is hard.)

So see, that’s not what was supposed to happen. Now we’ll all just have to wait patiently to see what the next thing that’s not supposed to happen will be.
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* That’s not me being pretentious - I copied it from the site.