-I had banh mi for lunch today and it was a huge, delicious sandwich for only $2.25. I’ll be back.
-Today I woke Bryan up from a nap by balancing a cube of cheddar cheese on his nose.
-My skin has been breaking out like I am a teenager lately. It’s gross. I am trying out some solutions, but–ugh. I am 26; shouldn’t this be over with by now?
-I went to a group volunteering thing yesterday and was really disappointed in the experience. I’ve been to two so far (both with different nonprofits and organizations), and while it was nice to be able to help the nonprofits and actually see what they do, I’m also doing this group volunteering to meet people (both for personal and professional reasons). It’s hard to do that when we’re all separated into different tasks. It did give me some perspective, as a volunteer coordinator, on how to manage networking groups when they come to volunteer at the food bank. I was also disappointed because I was two (2!) minutes late, but when I arrived I had no idea where to go and there was no indication that anyone else had arrived or that an event was happening, and when I asked someone she said, “I have no idea.” So when it was all sorted out, I was over ten minutes late. Blah.
-I have had “All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force in my head for two days. It alternates with “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler. At first it was entertaining, but then it just got annoying and kind of embarrassing.
-I have a friend from college coming to town next week, but he’ll be spending most of his time here. (The gamer convention). To that, I say NERD.
-Do you see the clock radio in the background of the picture above? I have had that thing since I was in first grade (1990-1991). My parents bought it for me so I could start waking myself up in the morning. It will be a sad day when that thing dies.
I’ve been neglecting the blogging world. But it’s been for good reason: I’ve been having dreams about Barack Obama and Katie Couric wearing the same outfits. This prompted me to start writing down my dreams again, which prompted me to start reading through my dream journal again, which made me start dreaming more again, which has created a whole level of crazy-in-my-head.
If so many people weren’t so bored and annoyed at hearing other people’s dreams, I would create a dream-blog because some of the stuff in my dream journal is just weird. Like the dream I had about a little girl with a radioactive arm.
But let’s get back to the purpose of this post: exposing the shameful and embarrassing journal entries from my teen years.
–
July 24, 1997, age 13
The movie Good Burger opens tomorrow. I want to go see it. But I cant. We will be in Oklahoma until Sunday and I don’t have any money. Maybe I can go when we get back and borrow some money from someone. I want to go see Good Burger.
[added as a side-thought at the bottom of this entry]
Y’know what would be really cool? If I went to the movies in Oklahoma and saw Good Burger.
–
August 5, 1997, age 13
I just got done watching the tonight show with Jay Leno. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a guest. I know this sounds crazy and stupid, I wrote down some stuff about him. I didn’t tape it like when he was on the Rosie show. He looked cuter on the Rosie show.
-Has a driving learning permit
-Got car 3 days ago (Aug 2, 1997)
-Missed 5 questions on written driving test
-Is not a good parallel parker
-has a dog named Mac (weenie dog)
-JTT quote: “basically a Q-tip with an attitude.”
-Cat named Sam was brought to Canada with him and got stuck in a hotel wall.
-has a dog and 2 cats
-Not a steady girlfriend (he is single now) he said when he gets his license.
-gets a lot of mail (duh)
–
I watched Good Burger again in college (on a date, actually—we rented it because we thought that would be hilarious. And it was.) and actually watched a large portion of it pretty recently. I guess the obsession never went away. But the JTT obsession went away. I absolutely do not have a poster of him on the inside of my closet.
It was hot in Seattle yesterday (but nothing compared to the 118 it was in Phoenix when I flew in last week). I’m blaming what I saw yesterday on the heat–because people here freak out when the temperature rises above 75 or below 40.
I was at the 3rd & Pine bus stop (of course) when I saw this guy. He’s a typical guy you might see from time to time: white tank top tucked into baggy shorts. The shorts were pulled up to just below his butt.
I’m not one to rant about how people should “wear their pants properly.” I just spend a lot of time thinking about how uncomfortable that would be, and how uncomfortable it would make people if I decided to start wearing my pants like that.
So I was thinking about the time, care, and dedication that it might take to wear pants that way when I noticed something unusual about this man and his pants-situation. Through his white tank top, I could see a dark outline of a thong. That’s right. HE WAS WEARING A MAN-THONG.
I’m heading out this morning to the Southwest corner of the country. I’ve never been there, and I’m not looking forward to the 107 degree weather. That’s almost twice the temperature that it is right now here in Seattle, and almost 30 degrees hotter than it is when it’s “hot” here. I’ve dealt with hot weather before, but it’s been awhile–so we’ll see how big of a pansy I’ve become.
Anyway, this means that today I’ll be riding the bus, the light rail, and a plane and spending lots of time in the airport. It’s a buffet of people watching for me (which is almost as appealing as an actual buffet of delicious food), and I’m actually looking forward to the travel time for that reason.
I always look forward to the travel time when I take trips–until I get on the plane and realize that the baby behind me has a dirty diaper and the plane is going to smell like the dirty diaper for the entire ride. Or when the guy next to me is listening to really bad music really loudly on his ear phones (Linkin Park esque music).
I hope someone starts playing the flute while we’re in the air.
This trip is a family gathering. And it’s not my family, but it’s Bryan’s family–which I can easily describe as “the opposite of my family.” That means there will be no games of charades, no loud farting, and no nights of sitting around until 1am seeing who can make the most ridiculous face or who has the creepiest dead-eyed stare (my dad always wins this one).
But that doesn’t mean it won’t be interesting. How the word “interesting” should be interpreted has yet to be determined.
Before I even entered the bus, I could see that a woman was wearing some really shiny foil on over her hair. She was sitting on the front bench seat, which is where blind passengers often sit (this information is important for the story). When I entered the bus, I noticed that this foil was not only covering her hair, it was long and hanging like a cape off the back of her head. She was sitting so that it draped over the seat next to her.
Side story: Bryan works at a hospital. A little over a year ago he saw an ad for the above product. It was just a picture of the baby wrapped in foil and it said in large letters, “STERILE FOIL BABY.” He made about 30 copies of the page and brought it home. I gave copies to some of my friends and hung one in my then-office. I hope it’s still there because, for me, when teaching got tough, all I had to do was look to the Sterile Foil Baby to remind me that there are things to laugh about. Like Sterile Foil Baby ads.
Back to the current story:
She was holding a mirror in front of her face and applying mascara in a way that tugged up her eyelids and made the white of her eyeballs freakishly visible. She was just applying and reapplying this stuff, and I was suddenly totally grossed out by the idea of eyeballs and the fact that everyone has such disgusting things in the front of their faces.
A few stops later, a blind man entered the bus. She didn’t move. She just kept applying her mascara with her little mascara-caked wand. The people around her moved the shiny foil head cape from the seat beside her and guided the blind man to sit down. So he was sitting there, rubbing all against her foil—which, by the way, wasn’t quiet. She put away her make up and adjusted her foil.
She got off a few stops later. I watched her walk down the sidewalk. Her shiny foil head cape fluttered behind her.
Once the bus got going again, the blind man turned toward the guy sitting next to him and asked, “What was all that foil stuff?”
Half the bus broke out into a gradual laugh, and a few people tried to explain what had been going on. I’m not sure what exactly people said to him, but I did hear “space blanket.”
I already wrote about this on Twitter and Facebook, but I’ve got to get all the outlets covered on this one:
Yesterday when I was riding the bus, I saw a lady playing her flute in her car while waiting at a red light.
Let the image soak in for a moment. Here it is again: There’s a lady driving to work in the morning. She’s stuck at a red light so she’s decided to whip out her flute and play a little tune.
I’ve spent a lot of time replaying this moment in my head–for a couple reasons. The most obvious reason is that I take a ton of pleasure in moments like these that just seem so bizarre and ridiculous. The other reason is that I really want to understand why she was doing that. Maybe she takes lessons and really has no other time to practice. Maybe she was on her way to a morning recital. I don’t know.
All I know is that this may have been the highlight of my week, and I’m unsure what to make of that.
See, I pretty much only use my mp3 player for when I go jogging, and I have quite a mix of embarrassing music on that thing. I didn’t think this would be much different.
The problem is that I can’t listen to a Lady Gaga song and let that be it. I see her face and her ridiculous outfits and I begin wondering what it’s like to be her, and why the heck someone would go through so much trouble to create such an image and that maybe I’d like her more if her preoccupation with image didn’t undermine talent that she has. And then I think that she’s completely achieved what she set out to do because people like me are attempting to listen to her and then thinking about why and either way she is getting attention. And then I think about the stories that I’ve come across about her–like all the pictures of her falling because she was wearing such a ridiculous pair of boots, and about how she took a flight in a ridiculously tight outfit that could actually cause damage because it could cut off circulation if she sits in it for a long amount of time, and about how she doesn’t ever want to be seen in public without high heels and how she refused to wear bowling shoes at a bowling alley and caused all sorts of damage on the floor and just gave the employees tickets to her show after that and how, if I were the manager of the bowling alley, I would’ve made her wear the goddamn bowling shoes.
And then I wonder if I’ve really read that many stories about her and what the heck compelled me to do so and why my brain is retaining this information about Lady Gaga when I don’t even really consider her to be someone that I even feel very strongly about. I don’t love her. I don’t hate her. I shrug about her.
And then I wish that my brain would spend time pondering more important things, like why Prince’s antics (ass-less chaps, the whole name change, this picture) don’t prevent me from listening to his music and just enjoying it for what it is. Or for what it was, since I have no idea what kind of music he is making now.
And then I think about how maybe grad school would’ve been more successful and enjoyable had my brain had the drive to consider poems the way it considers Lady Gaga.
Anyway, I took Lady Gaga off my mp3 player. I don’t want to think about all that stuff when I’m out for a run.
Prince and I hope that you are having a good July 4th. It’s cold and drizzly here in Seattle, just like it has been for the whole freaking spring and summer.
