Tuesday, September 2, 2003: Georgia on My Mind
Thursday, September 4, 2003: If I Were a Rich Man
Friday, September 5, 2003: Love and Marriage
Tuesday, September 9, 2003: Angry
Tuesday, September 9, 2003: Somewhere Out There
Tuesday, September 9, 2003: Amazing Grace
Thursday, September 11, 2003: The Battle Hymn of the Republic
Thursday, September 17, 2003: I Often Go Walking
Monday, September 22, 2003: Baby Love
Friday, September 26, 2003: Kodachrome
Tuesday, September 30, 2003: Always Drive A Cadillac
Tuesday, September 2, 2003: Georgia on My Mind
As parents all over Georgia laughingly rejoice over the beginning of school, we childless commuters all over Georgia weep with frustration as our commute lengthens into wearisome madness. With the beginning of the school year, my relatively short thirty-minute morning drive has lengthened into a fifty-minute drive. Perhaps I should explain some of the difficulties of driving in Georgia.
First, there is one road in Georgia that runs true east/west: Interstate 20 through downtown Atlanta. Unless you live downtown Atlanta, I 20 is useless. (No one lives downtown except for pimps and politicians.) All other roads either run north/south, northeast/southwest, or northwest/southeast. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) once proposed a state route in the northern suburbs called the Northern Arc that would run east/west, but our new governor nixed it when he discovered that too many people would loose their homes to it. I would like to add that my home is right in the second westbound lane of this proposed road and I still have no problem with it; I would gladly move if I thought that it would lessen the traffic woes in this state.
Of course, many people say that before GDOT builds a new road, it should take care of the existing ones. Georgia is the home of high-speed slalom driving thanks to GDOT and their strategic placement of potholes. The good part of this is that after driving in Georgia, my reflexes are very, very fast. Also as a result, I have muscles in my forearms that are envied by all but the most pumped of body-builders. I have yet to decide if this is good.
GDOT does spend money on the roads; it just spends money on the wrong things for the roads. GDOT recently spent a great deal of money on electronic warning signs on the interstate system to warn commuters of traffic problems and possible alternative routes. They have been in place for a year; I have yet to see one that imparts useful information. For example, when I used to travel south on I85 in the morning to get to work, there was one such sign just before the exit of a major interchange. It always read:
SR 316 to I 285: 11-13 min
I have many fond memories of staring at that sign for twenty-, thirty-minutes or more as I sat in traffic with the car in park waiting for a wreck one mile ahead to clear. I have decided that these new digital signs are not there to be helpful; they are present to make Georgia look high-tech. I�d like to humbly suggest to GDOT that Georgia might be able to carry off the high-tech appearance better if the digital signs actually worked.
Of course, the digital sign gave me something to look at. One memorable time I sat staring at it, there was little else to see except the Chevy truck in front of me that sported a picture of Calvin peeing on a Ford logo on the back window. While I appreciated the sentiment (having owned a Ford Contour myself), I found the digital sign much nicer to look at.
I suppose that this is one of the biggest problems of driving in Georgia: the drivers. Everybody thinks their car is better than everyone else�s; this is especially true of the trucks that display pictures of Calvin peeing on Ford, Chevy or Dodge logos.
The drivers are a significant part of the problem here. We have unwritten driving rules that are very particular to this state. For people who plan on visiting Georgia, I�ll list some of my favorite rules. (Someone emailed me this list; if I knew who wrote it, I would give credit.)
o Right lane construction closure is just a game to see how many people can cut in line by passing on the right as others sit in the left lane waiting for the same jerks to squeeze their way back in before hitting construction barrels.
o Turn signals are clues as to the next move in Road Battle and are never used.
o Under no circumstances should safe distances be left between cars no matter how fast traffic is moving. If enough space is left between cars, the space will be filled in by someone in a vehicle moving slower than the rest of traffic; this must be avoided.
o The faster one drives through a red light, the smaller the chance is of getting hit.
o One should never pass on the left when it is possible to pass on the right; by passing on the right, much fun can be had by scaring the people entering the highway.
o Speed limits are arbitrary figures; they are only given as suggestions and are not enforceable during rush hour.
o When one passes a wreck or a person changing a tire, one must slow down and rubberneck; more advanced drivers must immediately call everyone on their cell phone�s speed-dial to let them know about it.
o When there is garbage in the car, it must be disposed of through an open window while driving at top speeds. Throwing litter on the roads add variety to the landscape, keeps the existing litter from getting lonely, and gives the non-violent offenders from the local jail something to do besides exercise at the jail�s palatial gym.
o It is traditional to honk the horn at cars that don�t move the instant the light turns green.
o Seeking eye contact with another driver revokes right-of-way.
o Never take a green light at face value; always look left and right before proceeding if one is the first in line at a traffic light when it turns green.
o The goal of every Georgian driver is to get there first by whatever means necessary.
o If one smokes, never use the ashtray in the car to dispose of cigarette butts. Instead, they must be flicked out the window while still lit; this contributes to the landscape along Georgia highways and motorcyclists love it when lit cigarette butts hit them in the face.
o Reversible lanes are not understood by anybody, especially the people who use them; they should be avoided unless a head-on collision is desired.
o If it raining or snowing, stay at home.
If it weren�t so accurate, it might be funny.
All of these problems are magnified exponentially inside the Perimeter. In Metro-Atlanta, there are two types of residents: Innies and Outies. Innies live inside the Perimeter, the local name for the interstate (I 285*) that circles Atlanta. Innies are a curious people. They willfully pack themselves into $300,000 lofts. They attend Braves and Falcon games by taking MARTA, Atlanta�s public transportation system. They also visit Underground Atlanta, a, well, an underground mall near the Capital. I�ve even heard tales that some Innies walk to work. I can�t imagine the horror of it all.
Anyway, Innies have more problems to deal with. Here�s a list:
o Downtown Atlanta is made up of one-way streets. The only way to get out of downtown Atlanta is to turn around when one reaches the suburbs.
o If an Atlantan is asked for directions, they will always begin with "Go down Peachtree..."
o Peachtree Street has no beginning and no end.
o Do not confuse Peachtree Street* with West Peachtree Street, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Place, Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Road, Peachtree Parkway, Peachtree Run, Peachtree Trace, Peachtree Ave, Peachtree Commons, Peachtree Battle, Peachtree Corners, Peachtree Corners Circle, New Peachtree, Old Peachtree Road, Old Peachtree Street, or Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
o It�s impossible to go around a block and end up on the original street.
o Construction on Peachtree Street is a way off life, and a permanent form of entertainment, especially when a water line is tapped and Atlanta's version of Old Faithful erupts.
o Construction crews aren't doing their job properly unless they close down all lanes except one during rush hour.
o Georgia 400 is Atlanta�s equivalent of the Autobahn. You will rarely see a semi-truck on GA 400, because even the truck drivers are intimidated by the oversized SUV-wielding housewives racing home after a grueling day at the salon or the tennis match to meet their children at the school bus coming home from the college-prep preschool.
o The last thing a visitor to Atlanta should do is give another drive the finger, unless their car is armored, their trigger finger is itchy, and their AK-47 has a full clip.
Again, someone emailed me that list and I have no idea who wrote it; if I did, I�d give credit.
I have to say that the Peachtree roads snafu isn�t a myth. I travel on two different Old Peachtree Roads, I cross Peachtree Industrial Blvd, and I pass several Peachtree Something Apartments during my commute. I have no idea why Georgia developers are so obsessed with the name. We are the Peach State, but we don�t produce the most peaches in the nation; South Carolina does. I don�t think that the state has ever been the leading producer of peaches. I�ve lived in Georgia most of my life and I�ve never once actually seen a real Peach tree. I�ve bought Georgia peaches; I�ve recently learned that they�re grown in South Carolina.
We do produce the most peanuts in the nation, but I guess the Peanut State just doesn�t have the same ring as the Peach State.
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Thursday, September 4, 2003: If I Were a Rich Man
 How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 54,675,565 richest person on earth! |
I�m not sure what to think of this. I am the 54,675,565 richest person in the world. That means I am in the top 0.911% richest people in the world. There are 5,945,324,435 people who make less than I do. I found out at the Global Rich List*. Interesting. I feel bad about complaining about money all the time, now; I guess this puts it in perspective.
And since that site is all about donating money to charity, I suppose that I was meant to feel that way when I saw the results.
I'm 42% freak!! I�m not sure how happy I am about that.
My Music Personality Well, I didn�t need a quiz to tell me that I don�t like rap music, but it�s interesting to see how they equate liking de Meij and Fleming to my book addiction. They did get my movie preferences all wrong: I much prefer action/FX movies.
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Friday, September 5, 2003: Love and Marriage
It�s amazing the lengths some people will go to excuse their poor behavior. Take this article on marriage* from MSN.com, for example. It asserts that marriage is an "insidious social construct" that doesn�t work because people have to "willingly consent to a lifetime of monogamy."
They also take the time to tie the "prison of marriage" to the "insidious chokehold capitalism has on us." What garbage. It�s just one more salvo from the Left in their war on marriage.
And what�s wrong with capitalism?
I was going to fisk this article sentence by sentence, but I decided that it wasn't worth the effort. And frankly, I don�t feel up to a good fisking.
This is pretty amazing. You think of a dictator or a sitcom character while you answer a series of questions. The computer will predict who you are thinking of. Pretty cool. It guessed right twice: Once for Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie and once for Jill Taylor from Home Improvement. If it guesses correctly after a few questions, it insults you. Very funny.
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Tuesday, September 9,2003: Angry
I never watch the news; if I want to get up-to-the-minute news I know of at least a dozen websites where I can get it at my convenience without having to look at the cheesy anchor with the semi-combover. I get too angry when I watch the news. It�s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. (Er, no cow jokes, please.) When I do watch the news, I can feel my face warm and my pulse pound and steam jet out my ears. I disagree with everyone on the news; I have yet to find a news organization that is unbiased one way or another. Perhaps that is asking too much.
Out of boredom, I watched the news last night and all everyone was talking about was Kobe, Laci, The Ten Commandments, The Kiss, and The Recall. Yuck.
What does it say about our culture that we care more about a cute, perky woman who may have been murdered by her husband than we care about world events? Why do we care so much about Madonna and her latest ploy for attention? After more than twenty years of such tactics, shouldn�t we have we grown immune to her by now? Why is it that we are shocked about yet one more story of a young athlete, who has been given everything because of his prowess in sports, gone wrong? Holy Hannah, why are we so obsessed with yet one more story of a super-athlete who thinks he can do anything and face no consequences?
What about the latest homicide bombing in the Middle East? What about Iraq? What about Afghanistan? Iraq is very important; we should not, by any means, ignore Iraq as we have ignored Afghanistan ever since the public eye turned towards Iraq.
And now, we�re getting ready to ignore the second anniversary of September 11th.
There�s a small part of me that wants to move on and ignore it. This part of me says, "Why should we remember? We weren�t in NYC; we didn�t loose a loved one. So we got emotional when we saw the plane hit the building; so what?" The voice from the part of me that wants to move on is pretty strong. It�s very rational; it knows that there wasn�t really a direct impact on my life from September 11th and it pushes that point.
There�s a small part of me that wants to forget. It says, "Why go through the pain of reliving that day? We heard all about it ad nauseum for months after it happened. We know what happened; why sit through hours of silly montages the networks will broadcast? How does that aptly remember the lives lost that day? Is that a true memorial? It�s just meaningless Hollywood lip service." This is the voice that whispers all night when I�m half asleep and unable to form an intelligent response.
There�s this small part of me that refuses to believe it happened and says that the larger part of me is making something out of nothing. "This third-world group tried to pick a fight with us? Why worry about it?" This is the voice that sneaks up on me when I least expect it.
But then, there is the larger part of me.
The larger part of me wants to wallow in victimhood. It wants to scream; it wants to see our attackers beat to a pulp. It wants to punish the people responsible; it wants to punish the people who thought of being responsible. It wants to rage and fight and cry. I would quote what this part of me says, but I've tried to keep this site rated G.
This is the angry part of me. This is the part of me that wants to keep the memory of that day fresh and new. It wants me to remain furious.
I can�t do it. I can�t sustain this level of anger. I can�t remain this mad all of the time; it�s simply not possible. But I can�t forget it and I can�t ignore it and I can�t pretend it didn�t happen.
So what should I feel? How should I handle it? I don�t know.
I�ve never been to NYC. I know no one who was injured or hurt or killed in the attack. My income hasn�t suffered from the attack. I live on the same coast as New York; that�s it. My cousin went to Afghanistan with the Army as a result of the attack. He was gone for a while and he hurt his neck parachuting during an offensive, but he�s safe at home now, training others to do what he was injured doing.
I really don�t have anything personal to be angry about besides the fact that my country was attacked. Apparently, that�s enough.
And I don�t understand why more people don�t share my anger.
I�m not the only one who�s this angry. So is Lileks and Michele.
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Hee. Man, I've been giggling all day over this page.
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Tuesday, September 9, 2003: Amazing Grace
I�ve just talked to my mother. Apparently, my grandmother�s condition has just been renamed 'terminal' by her many doctors. They�re not going to try to treat her; they�re not going to try to fix her heart. Their main goal right now is to make her comfortable. Translated: My grandmother is going to be the happy recipient of a boatload of morphine until she dies.
I�ve never wanted anyone to die before, but at this point death would be a mercy for her. When I visited her Saturday and Sunday, she was out of her head with the morphine. She barely recognized anyone and the morphine only helped her pain a very little bit. She isn�t coherent enough to understand what�s happening and she's in too much pain to want to try.
She phases in and out of memories and dreams so often, it�s scary. One moment she�s calling for her mother who died when she was a child and the next she�s talking to my grandfather who died thirteen years ago. She talks while she relives her life as if it is happening. She�s relived painful moments like when her stepmother locked her in dark closets as a nine year old. She�s relived happy times like when she and my grandfather held church in their house in Rome, Georgia because the tiny Rome Branch couldn�t afford a building.
I thought I could finish this. I can�t. Maybe later.
Posting will be light.
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Thursday, September 11, 2003: The Battle Hymn of the Republic
I wish I wrote like this.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2003: I Often Go Walking
My grandmother died last Friday night. I�ve been debating whether or not to write anything about it. At the funeral, the usual information was given. I finally decided to write about it because of the things that weren�t mentioned.
The eulogy mentioned how she and my grandfather found the church. My grandfather�s family joined the church right after the Civil War. His mother stopped attending during the depression; by the time he was sent home after WWII, he was an atheist. After the death of their oldest daughter to diabetes, two missionaries approached my grandparents and gave them a Book of Mormon. My grandfather loved a good argument and decided to use the Book of Mormon the missionaries gave him to show them how wrong they were.
My grandparents were baptized months later. My grandfather used to say that argument with the missionaries was the one argument he lost, but won anyway.
They both became very strong in the church. When they moved to Rome, Georgia, the branch there was so small, their arrival with their four children doubled the size of the congregation. Church was held in their living room for many years while my mother and her brother and sisters, now five total, sold donuts and lemonade to buy property for a building.
So many people joined the church in Rome, that my grandparents� living room became too small. At this point, there were enough members who paid tithing that they could afford to rent a boathouse for church every Sunday. Eventually, the church was built.
My grandfather was Branch President for 13 years. Soon after the Rome Branch became a Ward, my grandparents were given the David O. MacKay Award because they were responsible for over 500 baptisms.
My grandmother was survived by five children, thirteen grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Last Sunday, the eulogy mentioned all of that, but since then, I�ve thought of the things it didn�t mention.
Nanny was a tiny woman. Barely five feet tall, her six-foot four-inch husband, tall children and taller grandchildren dwarfed her. Even among the shortest of her grandchildren, she was small. Through illness later in life, she maintained a weight of around 100 pounds. At the end she was 70 pounds, but in my childhood, she was as round and as plump as a Butterball Turkey, fattened with the Hershey�s Kisses she thought she hid from her live-in granddaughter (yours truly) who was also partial to them. They were always in the bottom drawer of her chest of drawers behind her Vanity Fair silk foundation underwear and under the Cross Your Hearts.
In those same days, Nanny and I shared more than a fondness for Hershey�s Kisses. We both loved dolls. She was unbelievably hurt when I, as a pre-teen, would rather crush on Harrison Ford than play house or color rainbows with her. I think that she never quite forgave me for growing up.
We learned our letters together. The Rheumatic Fever she had as a toddler left her legally blind. It was because of her poor eyesight that she was kicked out of school in the third grade. The teacher said that she was retarded, but she just couldn�t see the chalkboard. When I began school, Nanny was determined to learn to read. She wanted to read the scriptures herself instead of relying on the records and tapes she listened to. Somewhere around the fourth grade, I began devouring Victoria Holt�s novels while Nanny still struggled with Genesis. She stubbornly insisted that she would read the scriptures in her own. I wish I knew how far she got.
I�ve never met a woman as stubborn as she. She could be presented with incontrovertible proof on any subject and it wouldn�t change her mind if it was already made up. Take, for example, Clinton�s second term elections. It was the first time I was old enough to vote and I was excited. I was convinced that the reason Clinton was elected the first time was because I was too young to vote, but I was going to correct that. I was going to single handedly oust the Clintonistas from the White House. Well, it was to be almost single handedly. I had a plan.
I had a scheme. Nanny, at the time, lived with my parents and me. She too had never voted, but was interested.
I was ecstatic. I preached the Wisdom of Dole to her day and night. I extolled Dole Virtues to her. I praised Dole in all of his Dole-ness until she agreed that Dole was the man for the presidency even though she thought that Clinton was cute. So, we registered to vote, both of us for the first time, at Wal-Mart.
After the vote, just before the returns came in, I began to dream of a political future. Republican candidates everywhere would bow to my superior vote-attainment abilities. College? Why bother? I was going to Washington DC to make millions working for the GOP.
I had managed to convert my granny to the Light that was Dole and I was ready for the big GOP money. We nuked popcorn and waited for victory. Long after my parents went to sleep, Nanny and I stayed up late to watch and to hope and to scarf down popcorn.
Later, as the returns came in and it was clear that His Dole-ness wasn�t going to win, I cried over the results. And Nanny sat down next to me, patted my back, and slipped a bag of Hershey�s Kisses into my hand. It wasn�t until years later that learned that she � because she thought he was cute � had voted for Clinton.
Needless to say, my big moneymaking GOP career never happened. Soon after that, I left the Republican Party completely and I never took Nanny to vote again. I don�t think she was interested in politics at all, she just thought Clinton was cute and wanted to vote for him.
Stubborn? She agreed that Dole would do a better job than Clinton, but she had already made up her mind long before she knew about Dole. So she just didn�t care: She was going to vote for Clinton because she thought he was cute. It still makes my teeth hurt to think of it.
Her decision to vote for Clinton was ironic. Last Thursday, while making funeral arrangements, we learned that we wouldn�t receive the $225 from Social Security we thought we would get to help with the funeral. We had to make the spray for the casket smaller because of it. Apparently, while Clinton was in office, he made an Executive Order that people on Social Security wouldn�t receive the money for their funeral unless they were survived by a spouse or a minor child. I try to steer away from politics on this site, but I�ll say this about Mr. Clinton: He was a very, very bad man. I can�t believe my grandmother thought he was cute.
That was Nanny: quietly stubborn. She wouldn�t argue. She wouldn�t debate. She�d nod in agreement. She�d pretend to listen to me while daydreaming about Mr. Spock. Then she�d go and do exactly as she�d planned to do from the beginning.
I think that her stubbornness is why she lived as long as she did. She flat out didn�t want to die and she held on longer than anyone ever thought she would because of it. This month is the 41st anniversary of my grandmother�s first open heart surgery. It�s strange; of all of my grandparents, she was the most frail. Yet she was the last to die.
I�m going to get emails saying that I�m being insensitive and that I shouldn�t have brought up her voting for Clinton. People are only supposed to speak the best of the dead, after all. Well, I do think she was a little crazy for voting for Clinton.
What everyone needs to realize is that she was a Southern Woman. She was an honest to goodness, tomato growing, hat wearing, eccentric Southern Woman. I don�t think that there was a single day after she hit puberty and until my grandfather died that her thighs and hips weren�t met with some sort of firming underwear. As a Southern Woman, she�d completely understand me calling her crazy. In the South, we don�t hide our crazy and disgraceful relatives in the basement or in the attic when company calls. That�s a Yankee thing.
Down here, we drag our crazies out, dust them off, prop them up in the parlor, and let them entertain our guests. That is just what I�m doing here.
Nanny was eccentric. So what? She was stubborn and obstinate and woefully childlike. That was who she was and I loved her for it. I loved her for all that she was, even the crazy obstinate part of her that � Heaven help me � voted for Clinton.
She had other qualities that were wonderful and nicely balanced out the craziness. She had a very firm belief in the church; she listened to tapes of the scriptures daily and tried to read along when she could. Except where Hershey�s Kisses were concerned, she was giving and unselfish; I can�t remember the number of foster children she and my grandfather had over the years.
The children I hope to have someday aren�t going to have any memories of her. That hurts. I want them to know her. I want them to know every part of her, even the crazy obstinate parts. I want to write them down while everything that she was is still fresh in my memory.
And I want to share her with the world. Everyone should know Nanny. So, here she is just as she was.
The funeral was Sunday afternoon. That afternoon, there were two unexpected blessings. First, after the funeral one of the funeral directors asked my aunt for more information about the church. He said that he was intrigued by the bishop�s talk. I�m sure that thrilled my grandparents to no end. My grandfather always said that funerals were best used for introducing people to the church; I guess this proves him right. After all of the baptisms she and my grandfather were responsible for, it�s only fitting that her death may result in one more.
The second blessing happened when I was leaving my parents house late Sunday afternoon to go home. While I packed the car for the almost two hour trip to my home, I was a little teary eyed and felt like I should stay at my parents� home for a month or two. I said goodbye to all of the relatives and kissed the babies one last time. I turned to get in the car when I saw it. There was a rainbow over the house.
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Monday, September 22, 2003: Baby Love
I went to Sam�s last weekend. I have to be careful in Sam�s; it�s one of those stores where I can easily drop $200 without noticing I�ve thrown that much stuff in the cart until I get to the checkout. Cartons of three-dozen cans of chicken stock are on isle three. I�ll put one in the bottom of the cart; the holidays are coming. 100 individually wrapped packs of gourmet sugar cookies are on isle six; I can give those out to my co-workers at Christmas with a little red bow attached.
I guess I really don�t need the thirty-six cans of chicken stock and the 100 individually wrapped packs of gourmet sugar cookies any more that I needed the ten pounds of brown sugar and the 120 candy canes I bought last September at Sam�s. I just can�t help myself. There�s something about shopping at Sam�s that makes everything seem so necessary.
Do I really need ten one-pound packs of gourmet noodles? The holidays are coming; of course I need them. Plus, they�re on sale. Do I really need 156 Ziploc freezer bags? Of course I need them; how else will I freeze the fifteen pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and five pounds of beef roast sitting in the cart? After all, I can only eat three ounces of meat a day. Most of it will have to be frozen and it makes sense to freeze them in three-ounce divisions; therefore, I�ll need very many bags.
Oh, when I�m in Sam�s I can justify buying anything. After this last trip, I won�t have to buy toilet paper for the next two-years and I�m pretty sure that I�ve cornered the Dove Sensitive Skin Soft Solid Deodorant market.
At the Sam�s in Buford, the checkouts are always crowded. I have yet to shop there when it hasn�t been a major hassle to get out the door with my purchases. It makes a person grateful for the invention of deodorant and wishful that more people were similarly appreciative of it.
There�s always much bumping of carts and throwing of glares at the Buford Sam�s because of the checkouts� lousy arrangement. All of this is exacerbated by the Sam�s card. It isn�t enough that there are the usual slow cashiers at the checkouts, no. Sam�s has to go one further and insist that their customers use a card to checkout. It never fails; one person in front of me always has to loose their card, which I don�t understand. At Sam�s, cards must be presented to the greeter at the entrance before they�ll let anyone in. How do these people manage to loose their cards between the time they presented it to the greeter and the time they entered the checkout line? I�ll never understand how such a feat is accomplished.
At any rate, I was standing in line when I felt someone grab my shirtsleeve. I looked around, ready to do combat, to find a toddler sitting in the front of a cart holding on to my sleeve and waving it around in his fist. I smiled at him; he smiled back. I smiled up at the woman holding the cart and said, "He�s so handsome."
She snatched his hand away from my sleeve, grabbed him up out of the cart and turned away from me, putting herself between the baby and me. By her reaction, a person would think that I�d just suggested that we should have him for supper, al flamb�. I was standing amazed at this, with my mouth hanging open quite literally, when I heard her say to her companion, another woman, "Crazy white b****."
I thought about this all the way through the checkout and the ride home. I got home, packed away the massive amount of stuff I�d bought and stood staring at my reflection in the full-length hall mirror. It was a Saturday morning, so I wasn�t dressed in full career-woman mode, but I didn�t look homeless either. I was wearing my site inspection work khakis with a freshly pressed jersey shirt and sandals. My hair had been washed and combed that morning, my teeth brushed and flossed. Despite cornering the deodorant market that morning at Sam�s, I had plenty still in the bathroom and had used it quite liberally just a little while before leaving for Sam�s. Wondering if my perfume was too strong, I sniffed my wrist before I remembered that I hadn�t put any on that morning.
Happy with the assurance that I didn�t look or smell crazy, I kicked my shoes off, plopped down into the recliner and put my feet up, automatically reaching for the remote. I flipped to HGTV and stared at the screen as I thought about the woman�s comment at Sam�s.
I have to admit, I�ve been called a b**** before and it occasionally has been deserved (OK, maybe more than occasionally), but I couldn�t see how telling a woman her child was cute warranted such a label. Maybe she saw it as threatening, but I don�t see how. I didn�t suggest that we have toddler tar-tar or anything of that sort, so I don�t see how my comment could have been misconstrued as threatening. I went back to the hall mirror; I certainly don�t look like a toddler-eating maniac, unless toddler-eating maniacs wear khakis with freshly ironed navy t-shirts and sandals.
Having established that I was neither crazy-looking nor b****-like, I laid down on the couch and settled down to watch a woman on HGTV make a couple of distressed old shutters into a coffee table.
My 28th birthday is at the end of this month. I did not need to see this; now I feel really old.
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Friday, September 26, 2003: Kodachrome
This picture is Anakin from SW Episode III. I may go see it after all.
I just liked this one.
This is a picture of Max.
Here�s another one of Max. It was taken before we met. Cute.
Heh.
What�s this supposed to mean? I�m not sure if I should take offense or applaud the effort.
I have a problem with a couple of blogs, Mel�s and Carlene�s. I like them. I�d like to read them. But. They never load completely. I get about half of the screen and that�s it. It�s why I never comment unless it�s a really short post. And frankly, I�m getting a little sick of it. I�d like to finish reading The Blues post, for crying out loud. And the one about cubicles? The first paragraph was funny, at least.
At first I thought it was Blogspot. But no, I can load Renee�s site just fine. So, does anybody know if it is the settings on my computer that is causing this?
This is why I�ve never linked to their sites. I have a rule about that link list on the right side: never link to a blog unless it�s one you read yourself. I don�t want to link just for the reciprocating link; too many bloggers do that for the reciprocating link and not because they really enjoy the site. I think it�s tacky. Anyway, if anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know. I really want to finish the post about The Blues.
P.S. OK, I�m breaking my rule; I like what little I�ve been able to read, so I went ahead and added their sites to the list. Incidentally, I started a site at Blogspot when I began this one. The idea was that it would mirror this one while I learned Movable Type. Well, I�m just too comfortable with chiseling out HTML on stone tablets with a hammer I guess. (You'd never know it by today's ugly picture post.) I never posted more than two posts before I decided to stick with HTML txt files. Anyway, sometimes it loads completely and sometimes it doesn�t. I haven�t got a clue why.
Help will be deeply appreciated.
Researchers have cloned rats* so that they can reproduce and make more rats. Why? Aren't there enough rats now?
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003: Always Drive a Cadillac
I�ve had many requests for me to post a picture of me. Well, three people asked. Since this is approximately half of my daily hits, it�s a significant number. So, after much consideration, I�ve decided to comply. The problem is that I�m just about the most non-photogenic person in the world. I either look like the biggest geek or the scruffiest hobo; there is no middle ground. All through school, my yearbook portraits oscillate between "Revenge of the Nerds" and the PBS Special "Is There Help for the Homeless?"
Take for example my tenth grade yearbook photo. No I�m not going to post it; I�ll describe what it looks like. Tenth grade was a particularly gruesome year. It was the year I first wore glasses. They weren�t just any glasses, either. My glasses were those big plastic round frames that the brainy girl on 90210 wore. I, of course, partnered this with a polka dot shirt, striped sweater vest, stone-washed peg-legged jeans, and Keds. That getup wasn�t even stylish at the time; I have no idea what I was thinking. This photo, I will not share.
I suppose the tenth grade geek was better than the ninth grade �urban outdoorsman.� I looked like I had slept in my clothes; they were wrinkled and faded and looked like they hadn�t been washed in a while. I have no memories of this outfit; if I didn�t have proof by way of this picture, I would have never believed I ever wore it. My hair was a nightmare of extra hold hairspray, Dippity Do, frizzy spiral home perm, and Miss Clairol �Beautiful Brown� that took a full hour to lacquer into place each morning. My makeup was the goth-girl meets grunge (read that as black eyeliner on eyes and lips) that is now used by every mainstream pop diva wannabe. It was just as awful the as it is now. Don�t ask why I died my naturally brown hair the same shade of brown; I blame the fumes from the black nail polish I wore. Other than that, I have no explanation. This photo, I will not share.
My eighth grade punk look was unforgivable. Cut boy-short in the back and girly-long over the forehead, my hair was less of the punk I was looking for and more of the sad suburban latchkey kid look that Vanilla Ice inspired. I suppose that was fitting since the boy I crushed on had a serious case of Vanilla Ice worship. Man, I can still remember the words to "Ice, Ice Baby."
All right stop, collaborate and listen.
Ice is back with a brand new edition.
Oy. It makes my brain hurt to think of it. It�s one of those songs that, once it gains a foothold in the brain, never lets go. It�s very similar to the �Brady Bunch� song in that manner. Anyway, I�ll get back to the picture. Teal vest over red shirt over gold MC Hammer genie pants. I think that I need not say more about it. This photo, I will not share.
As this is already quite lengthy, I�ll quickly recap the rest of the school portraits.
Seventh grade: Paula Abdul wannabe.
Sixth grade: Nerd.
Fifth grade: Hobo.
Fourth grade: Madonna wannabe street person.
Third grade: Very sad geek.
Second grade: Homeless child.
First grade: A jewel, a pearl! The only one of my yearbook portraits that I actually like.
Kindergarten: Teacher�s nerdy pet.
I guess the point of all this is that I really don�t take good pictures. I mean, I feel fine when I�m sitting in front of the camera thinking that I look good. I get the picture back and I look like the girl wearing the scoliosis brace in "Sixteen Candles."
My scanner was on the blitz this last weekend, so I couldn�t scan the one from first grade. It�s a shame; that picture personifies the real me. To make a long story short (too late), I managed to find one unoffensive picture previously scanned. I�ve changed a little since then, but here it is anyway.
I�ve finally found a solution to my problem with Mel�s and Carlene�s blogs. To reiterate the problem, when I go to one of the sites, only a small bit of the blog loads. I don�t get a scroll bar on the right or anything. I tried reloading as Cameron suggested (thanks), but it didn�t work.
This morning, I decided to explore. After much fiddling, I finally found a solution. Right click on the page. Click on �Encoding.� Click on �Right to Left Document.� Everything will be justified to the right, but the entire page can be viewed. So, right click again, click on �Encoding,� and click on �Left to Right Document.� I have no idea why this works, but it does; I�m happy.
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