Overly Verbal

So I’m walking home from the bus stop, minding my own business, when I decide I’ll stop by the Dumpster, see if anything’s new. Lo and behold:

Needless to say, my neighborhood was not overnight transformed into a dusty old town in Arizona. But I think this picture looks better all sepia-ized than in black and white, and I figured if I don’t start getting more creative with the photographs of shopping carts, people will get bored and go away. (As it is, based on the recent comments I waded through in order to approve, I’m pretty sure people only read my blog (or at least comment upon it) when they’re three sheets to the wind.)

Because really, I’ve gotta find some creativity somewhere. This week has been filled with cliche. Seems like the recent warm weather has brought a number of people outside who normally are not. In the past week I have encountered:

• a man on the sidewalk playing the Charlie Brown theme song on a piano (would it have been more amusing if he’d been playing “Piano Man”? Probably.)
• a juggler
• a Jew for Jesus
• honest-to-god Hare Krishna-like people (I should probably know what they’re technically called, but I don’t) - they were chanting and all, but I’m afraid that simply hearing the chant did not bring me to a higher state of consciousness. I believe it’s supposed to, but I might be immune. (And I do recognize that their presence would have been more amusing if I had been in an airport, but I still had to smile.)

Don’t get me wrong. I really do like cliches. Ask anyone. In fact, I’ve enjoyed some other cliches recently:

• a cat in a box
• a boy telling a girl that the freckles (moles? I think they’re freckles. Freckles are cuter.) on her back resemble a constellation* (But then it goes one step beyond cliche when said boy photographs said girl’s back with a cellphone, in order to share with the girl the wonders that her back exhibits. You don’t often see the freckles on your very own back, particularly not in near real-time.**)
• me getting Seasons in the Sun stuck in my head, and then being reminded of Rod McKuen’s poem about the potentially dead squirrels, (which is totally different than the poem about the front-yard squirrel). You see, Rod McKuen co-wrote Seasons in the Sun. You’d have known that already, but only if you were as cool as I am (and you’re not. Unless you’re Sara. Sara, are you ever going to call me?)***
• a drunk guy on the bus

Okay, so those are the only cliches I can think of just now, but I really do enjoy all of them almost beyond measure.

“So what else is new, Jen?”

I have found myself this week completely delighted by the people that I know. I do have a tendency to surround myself with people who are amusing and clever and handsome and smart and engaging and engaged, but sometimes I forget that it really is fun to hang out with people, and talk to them, and also, how lovely it is when your phone rings and you pick it up without looking to see who it is only to find that the person who has chosen to call you is someone you actually enjoy talking to, and not a bill collector or newspaper salesperson or someone looking to talk to someone who does not belong to your phone number. At any rate, sometimes I feel guilty just being me, because being me is so very much fun.

Then I stop feeling guilty, because the only reason it’s so much fun being me is that I tried harder than other people, saw opportunities when other people only saw challenges, and realized, as Manuelo so kindly recently reminded me, that if you see a glass full of rocks, and think it’s full, you can still fit some gravel in there, and the glass is still not full, because you can fit some sand in there, and even then it’s not full, because you can fit some water in there, and even then, as someone told me when I recounted this idea that a glass is not full until it’s really, really full, you can maybe fit some plasma in there, and if your glass can’t handle some super-heated gas, in addition to all of the other things already in it, well, you better just go find a better glass.

One that will try harder.

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* You: “Um, Jen, is there something you’re not telling us?”
Me: “Yup. And it’s different than the last thing I wasn’t telling you was.”

** Near real-time? Also a cliche. But only at work.

*** You: “Um, Jen, that’s not a cliche.”
Me: “If you’re me it is.”

These things all seem really obvious to me, but not, apparently, to everyone else. If only my co-workers and neighbors (and Russell Simmons) read my blog. (Who am I kidding? They can’t read!)

• If something happened, and you were supposed to tell me about it, and you didn’t, it is not enough, when I happen upon the information just in time, while looking for something else, for you to say, “Oh, I thought I copied you on an e-mail about that.” You really have to have sent me the e-mail. “Thinking” that you did doesn’t really get anyone anywhere, especially if you “think” you also sent it to a person in addition to me, which person surely would have given me the information contained in the imaginary e-mail, had he actually received it. And when I unknowingly send you an e-mail before I discover this information, and this e-mail contains text that implies that I am either completely unaware of the way in which the world works, or do not have the information you “think” you sent, you should realize at that time that I’m not that out of touch with reality, particularly as it pertains to my work, and assume that I did not receive the information you “think” you sent, and so mention that information for what you will believe to be the second time, but is in all actuality the very first time, so that I don’t have to find it out myself. The thing is, if two reliable and competent people did not receive the e-mail you “think” you sent, I’m afraid you didn’t actually send it. And, well, that makes me sad.
• Just because it’s warm outside does not mean it is necessary to slow your walking pace to one similar to that you might use if you were in a parade. My lunch break doesn’t get any longer just because it’s warm, and I have a number of things to do that require moving forward at a regular city-walking speed. (I do, however, love to say out loud when I’m driving (and no one can therefore actually hear me) “Speed it up, Buster! We’re not in a parade!” I do tend to say fewer things out loud when I am walking instead of driving, so if you could just hurry up, that would be keen - I like to keep up appearances, and if I start saying out loud the things that I’m thinking while I’m in walking, well, it’s not gonna be pretty.)
• Children should not be allowed to play in creeks without adult supervision, particularly if the creek in question contains at least one submerged tricycle (which suggests a horrific and tragic tricycle accident), and, at various times, one, if not two, shopping carts. Really, children shouldn’t be allowed to play in this particular creek even with adult supervision, which is why I was quite alarmed to find several children playing in the creek during my walk home, with an adult engaged in something that one might call “supervision”, but only if one believed supervision to entail looking the other way and talking on a cell phone while children wade in bodies of water that contain large metal objects. I suppose the fact that the children are in earshot counts for something, so I perhaps shouldn’t complain quite as vigorously as I am, but I think I might surreptitiously leave some biodegradable soap by the creek - as long as the children are wandering in the creek, they might accidentally get clean, and cleanliness, in addition to making me happy, is also next to godliness. (But I’m not going to place the soap under cover of night, because I cherish my personal safety.)
• If you have a small child, and that child is prone to leaning out of her living room window, which is mighty close to my living room window, and that child thinks she should say “hi cat!” something like 14 million times, because my charming (and amazingly quiet by comparison) cat is sitting in the window, just trying to get some fresh air?

  (Like so:
  )

  Well, teach your child to say kittycat, or kitty. Kitten? Pussy? Fuzzbusteroo? I don’t know, some other words that could be used to greet my cat. Because the first 13 million times your child says “hi cat!” it’s kinda cute. But the last million times start to get on my nerves, and those of my cat, who invariably retreats to the bedroom. I’m glad your child knows what a cat is, and how to say “cat” in English, because such a large vocabulary is really setting her right on the path to greatness, but I need slightly more variety in my life. (No, but really, if you have a minute, teach your kid how to actually use the front-door-opening buzzer system, because when she’s standing outside your building, mere feet from my open windows, and wailing and randomly pushing buttons in hopes someone will let her in the building? I want to smack you. Not her - it’s not her fault. But you? Please don’t make me go all ghetto on your ass. It doesn’t become me.)

• CNN reports today, with the caveat that the story “contains words that may be considered offensive”: “Prominent U.S. hip-hop executive Russell Simmons Monday recommended eliminating the words “bitch,” “ho” and “nigger” from the recording industry, considering them ‘extreme curse words.’” You know what I think? Russell Simmons should just shut the hell up. “Extreme curse words”. If the music industry removes “extreme curse words” from recordings, my music collection would not be nearly as much fun as it is. Kelis is always saying “nigger”, Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s entire oeuvre depends upon calling women “ho’s”, and that crazy Ben Folds is constantly saying “bitch”. Take those away and there might as well not be music at all. Geez.
• Okay, this last observation is fairly obvious, even to other people: A-Rod is awesome. But what’s especially awesome about A-Rod is that he inspires me to take the first initial of other baseball players, and add those initials to the first three letters of those player’s last names, which creates many a nickname that makes me giggle. The Yankees roster is filled with truly delightful names, and if I had time to watch more baseball, I would more often get to say, “Look, L-Viz is on deck.” And then I would giggle more. (J-Dam, however, makes me mad - switching from the Red Sox to the Yankees is cool and all, but only if you’re, say, an asshole.) (But at least the switch made him cut his stupid, stupid hair.) (Also, more things should involve depth charts, because depth charts are a truly useful way to determine, say, depth.) (Hey! I could make a depth chart for work! That wouldn’t take very long!)

Finally, it’s a damn good thing I have this blog, because I sure do have a lot of crap in my brain that needs to come out somewhere. It’s like an outlet or something. (Speaking of outlets, I really would like to talk to my landlord about GCFIs. I wish he’d call me already.)

So the plumber came. I think I’m in love with him.

Okay, not in love with him, but he is my new hero. He showed up when he said he would, wrestled the old dishwasher out of its space, put the new dishwasher in its space, hooked his drill up to his big snake and removed the clog from my kitchen sink in no time. And then he checked to make sure everything worked, cleaned up all his trash, told me some things about how dishwashers work and why, and then we shared a special moment carrying the old dishwasher to the Dumpster, and actually put it inside the Dumpster! A lazier plumber would have left it on the ground near the Dumpster, but he lifted it and put it inside. Because he is my new hero.

It doesn’t take a lot to impress me. Be really good at what you do, and take pride in it, and that about does it. Be really good at what you do, take pride in it, and enjoy doing it? You’ve got me sold. I love my plumber, and in addition to plumbing, he also does electrical work. And if there’s one thing I need, now that (most of) my plumbing is in order? It’s electrical work.

Dear Odious Ghettolord,

Call me. We need to talk about Ground Circuit Fault Interrupters. And soon.

Yours in being concerned about a certain condo in a ghetto,

Jennifer

So I’m wondering. If you were going to wash your couch cushions, because it was warm outside, would you dry your couch cushions on top of your car? I would not, because the very purpose of washing things is to get them clean, and the parking lot at my complex is perhaps not the cleanest place ever. Plus, if you leave something outside to dry (on top of instead of under a roof), a bird might poop on it. But my neighbors would, because they’re classy like that:

I apologize for the low quality of the picture, but I really didn’t want to get any closer to the scene than I was. And, as I’ve mentioned previously, my camera was cheap (but cute!), and zooming does not yield an effect as lovely as one might hope. Then again, it’s a picture of one of my neighbor’s cars, with their couch cushions on top - it’s not like I expect a Pulitzer.

Needless to say, I’m still waiting for a plumber to call me back, and am attempting to amuse myself in the interim, without wandering too far from the phone.

Look what came!

So far today, I have interacted with several people on the phone, including one plumber, and sent a number of e-mail. But I did not interact with any people in person, because although I did venture out of my house today to go to the grocery store, I didn’t interact with a person there, I interacted with a self-checkout machine, which is seriously the greatest invention of all time.* Anyway, you can tell that I haven’t been out very much today, because this is something like the eleventh entry I have posted here today.

But I did have two occasions to laugh out loud, and I think it’s nice to share.

The first was a vacuum cleaner commercial for the new Dyson Slim. Whenever I mention a television commercial here, someone always jumps in and says, “I don’t have a TV, so I’ll just have to take your word for it, Jen.” I can’t find the commercial online anywhere, which is stupid, but I can describe it in words. Other small vacuum cleaners are being used to vacuum, and they are making tiny little squeaking noises. Then the Dyson Slim comes in and actually vacuums something, and so the other vacuum cleaners look lame, and squeaky. I guess if I was in marketing no one would buy my pitches, but I can assure you it’s hilarious, and it happened to be during a program that I happened to have recorded on my fancy new DVR, so if you wanna see it, you can come over.

Anyway, I think I won’t be able to die happy until someone gives me a Dyson vacuum cleaner for my birthday, because that will mean that someone actually truly and completely understands me (or else reads my blog and has an extra $500).

The second was a story in the NY Times, which I am still reading in spite of my earlier suggestion that I might never ingest media again, because I am a glutton for punishment. And in this story, about Charles Gibson and his rational voice in the midst of chaos, I read these words, “. . . and that has led to the Anderson Cooperization of the evening news”. Anderson Cooperization! I’m afraid that I will now refer to everything that has even the slightest amount of emotion in it as “Anderson Cooperized”. I just wish I had thought of that first. Anderson Cooperized. I just can’t stop saying it! Anderson Cooperized. I love it!

Okay, so I should go out more. Actually, I’m going out tomorrow night. It’s a Friday night, and I’m not staying home to vacuum, or knit, I’m going out. Yeah, you read that right. Alert the media or something. (If I get a chance, though, while I’m out, I’m totally going to check out this fancy new little vacuum. But I don’t think I’ll buy one, because people are starving in our very own country, and it would probably be wrong to spend $469 on a vacuum that is not even full-sized. Right?)

Can someone explain to me again why anyone ever reads anything I write here? (Never mind. Doesn’t matter.) So now I’m going to go to sleep and dream of things that have been Anderson Cooperized. Anderson Cooperized!

_____

* In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit to having in fact interacted with two people in person. One was in front of me in the line at the craft store, and she was purchasing an animated dancing chicken that danced to a really loud song. She said out loud that she was embarrassed about having pushed the button that made the chicken dance, only wanted to make sure it worked, etc. So I told her, “No, really, it’s adorable. And 70% off? What a bargain!” (Much in the same way I sometimes say, “Well, that was fun.”) Also, I paid the lady who checked me out there, but animated dancing chickens and checkout clerks have no place in this story. (”And what were you doing in the craft store, pray tell?” “Hi, my name’s Jennifer, and I am addicted to yarn.” Today I actually dismantled a scarf that I knitted months ago, because I never wear it, so now I can make a new scarf. But this newly available yarn did not stop me from going to the craft store to see whether there was any other yarn I might need. I mean, the craft store is right by the grocery store and all, and I believe in consolidating trips, even when I’m walking.)

So it turns out that contaminated rice protein is behind this latest pet food recall. I have never spent so much time reading the ingredients of cat food before, but I consider it time well spent, because without the gratuitous cat photos, I’m not sure this would even count as a blog. At any rate, there’s no rice protein in Mouse’s regular dry food, and I will therefore give it another plug, because Mouse is healthy, and it will also give me an opportunity to talk about another cat-food related incident in my life, which will leave me free from having to think of something interesting or informative to write about. So, I’d totally suggest you feed your cat Iams Active Maturity. (Mouse is mature, and active, and he’s also not fat, like some of all y’all’s cats are.) You can even get a free bag to try it: The Iams Promise.

So a long time ago, I had a cat named Seymour. And he is a healthy, active cat, but he lives in California now, and I do not. And we fed him Science Diet, because that seemed like a good idea. But one day he got really sick, and was acting lethargic and puke-y. So we took him to the emergency vet, on a Saturday, and the vet checked him out, and finally asked us whether we had recently changed his food. We had not, but when we revealed that he ate Science Diet, the vet told us to stop feeding him that, as many a cat eating Science Diet had been sickened by a recent change in formula that was not announced by Science Diet. No “new and improved” label, no “now with 15% more stuff that will make an extremely small number of cats puke”. Nothing. So we changed his food and he swiftly recovered, and the story ends happily, with Seymour’s current caregiver* having recently sent me a real live audio file of Seymour purring, which is my very most favorite thing on my iPod. He sounds well.

But that story doesn’t really go to show anything, except that you should feed your pets Iams and not Science Diet. And everything else I could possibly write about isn’t any fun. I could go on about my job, but I don’t want to. I could talk about my deep and abiding love for Italian sausage, but then you’d make bad jokes. I could tell you about how I worked from home today in order to be available for a dishwasher delivery, which would have necessitated a visit from a plumber, but because my new dishwasher was not actually delivered to my home today, and the whole thing makes me want to cry, I’m not going to go on and on about that either.

And if my dishwasher is actually delivered on Saturday, as it is currently scheduled to be, and the plumber actually comes to install it, after unclogging my kitchen sink, and I suddenly have both functioning indoor plumbing and one built-in, modern, working kitchen appliance, well, I will be the happiest girl in the whole wide world, and therefore will likely never write here again, as I think the very existence of my blog is dependent on my not being the happiest girl in the whole wide world, but instead being a moderately happy girl who has endless trials and tribulations to bitch about. We shall have to wait and see.

(Also, you don’t actually have to call and tell me that I haven’t posted your comment yet. I know. I get e-mail. It’s just that there’s a complicated four-step process I have to go through to moderate your comments (some of which do in fact require moderation, or at least copyediting), and I’ve been busy. I’ll catch up over the weekend, while I’m sitting around waiting for Brutus and Bluto to bring me a dishwasher.)
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* Who is still in desperate name of a nickname, and is also owed an e-mail. I am a bad correspondent.

Also, I take back what I said yesterday about The Chronicle. Posting a picture of people watching a television that is showing an unnecessary picture is still posting unnecessary pictures. Please don’t send any young-ish children there to learn about the story. (I had such great hopes.)

I haven’t been outside today, because I’m working from home, so I haven’t seen any print media, but I think I’m going to refrain from looking at any tomorrow too, because it seems everyone has gone insane, except for my local ABC affiliate. Perhaps I’ll stop taking in media altogether, and simply read books.

One of my local news stations, WJLA, has apparently been paying attention. I don’t think they’ll mind me copying their vice president’s words here:

Effective immediately, WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 will discontinue broadcasting images and videotapes provided to the media by Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui. The images are very disturbing to many of our viewers and we see no positive value in continuing to broadcast them. We believe this decision serves the best interests of our community. We will continue to broadcast the yearbook style photos of Cho Seung-Hui that aired prior to the images he sent to the media.

Bill Lord
Vice President, News
WJLA-TV / NewsChannel 8

Thank you, Mr. Lord, for acting in a responsible manner. I only hope more media decision-makers follow your lead.

Dear Major Media Outlets,

Oh my holy god. Used to be, CNN was my homepage. I’d log onto the Internet, and look at the news. No longer, because I might someday have impressionable young children in my home, and I wouldn’t want them to open an Internet browser and land on a website showing a truly unnecessary picture. So I look around a little, trying to find a major media outlet covering this big news story with a modicum of sense and decency.

ABC News? Nope. CBS News? Nope. NBC News? Nope.

Well, let’s go to the old grey ladies. New York Times? Not quite as offensive a picture, but still pretty bad. The Washington Post? Ditto. While I would really like East Coast news, living on the East Coast and all, I’d even settle on the LA Times, if they were being decent about this whole story. But they’re not. Even the venerable BBC (is there an emoticon indicating “tongue-in-cheek”?) is using a picture that I would not want my 12 year old to see, were I to have a 12 year old.

(The Chronicle of Higher Education is presenting the story in a way that does not include photographs that are wholly unnecessary, and (since they’ve now backed off their earlier prominent use of the word “massacre”) I’d be comfortable sending a reasonably young person there to read about the story. But they have a mission that would leave me wanting for news about pet food recalls, which are pretty damned important, so they’re clearly not a long-term solution.) (How much do I miss having a job where there were Chronicles lying around everywhere? I haven’t had academic library privileges in almost two years, and I’m afraid it’s starting to show.)

Suddetusche Zeitung? If only I could read German. (I think it’s German anyway.) (And yes, I should learn how to make an umlaut here.)

Le Monde also does not have any completely absurd pictures on their website, but I’m not sure the story is even covered there, because all of my French vocabulary about guns is from the 18th century. (No, really, they are covering the story, but there is not a massive picture of a gunman on their homepage. It’s kind of interesting how much French I retain, actually. I understood every word of the story, but then again, I also knew the chronology ahead of time, so I didn’t have to fuss too much about the verb tenses.)

Google News? That’s my new homepage. And you know why? Because “The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.” And computer programs seem to be less prone to ridiculous nonsense than do human editors. That makes me sad.

For the love of God, put a picture up if you want, but if it’s likely to be offensive to some viewers, bearing in mind that children are required to complete “Current Events” projects for school every single day in America, please simply put the potentially offensive pictures behind a link that reads, “The images you will see might be offensive to some viewers.”

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter,

Jennifer