Tag Archives: 365 Project

A Bad Case of the Man Hands

17 Aug

Yesterday at work someone complimented me on how “feminine” I looked.

What, exactly, does that mean?

I would have brushed it off, but that’s the second time in a few short weeks that someone has emphasized how “feminine” something makes me look.  Not pretty, attractive, lovely, soft, or other stereotypical qualities associated with my sex, but simply “feminine”.  Of or pertaining to female.  I would say it’s someone trying to avoid a sexual harassment suit while complimenting my looks, but they’ve both been women.  And older women, at that.   How am I supposed to take “Hey! You look like a girl today!”

Because I’m not taking it well.

By pointing out the times I specifically look like a female, I’m led to believe that I typically do not.  Else why draw attention to the achievement?    The first time it was mentioned, I was wearing a dress to work so I get it.  Not that it’s particularly world-stopping when I wear a dress, but rather the dresses I own are all inappropriate for work based on the super cleavage, the short hemline, or the tight waste.   On the particular day I mention, I was actually worried that I’d be scolded for bringing this dress to the workplace, but it was my birthday and I ventured I could get away with it. 

And since it was my boss who commented thus, I’d say I did.

The second incident was yesterday, when I decided to wear a blouse with flowers on it.  Don’t get me wrong: I’m not typically a blouse-with-flowers-on-it kinda gal.  But it was one of those days when everything else I owned was dirty and I could either resolve to do laundry or to wear a flower blouse.   And since I have a long, sordid history of buying entire packs of new underwear before I’ll do laundry, the flower blouse certainly won.

And subsequently led to a new complex.

It's probably my hands. A close look at a 5th grade photo of me with brother, who was born a smiley face, reveals startlingly mannish hands.

I’m not sure what’s typically unfeminine about me.  I’ve really lightened up on my tomboyish ways.  These days I’m wearing makeup,

jewelry, headbands and – yes, from time to time – the occasional flower shirt.  And since I’m doing all of these stereotypically feminine things, I’m led to believe that it’s simply me.

It’s me.  I look like a man.

I must.  Why else would two people take the time to point out that I look like a female on these days in question?  It’s because I was doing something that detracted from my mannish features.  And thank heavens I let a little femininity shine through; I wonder if the office was starting to question my gender.

Maybe they always wondered and never asked because I work in Diversity. 

Oh dear.  What if they think I’m a transexual?  Are they wondering? Do they have questions?

I don’t know how to combat this.  Perhaps I’ll add a tagline to my signature in work emails: “Female since 1986!” or how about “Hey! Sometimes I wear skirts!” or “Nope, not a tranny!”  I could also plaster my corkboard with pictures of me and my boyfriend.  I’m typically  a no-nonsense-office-decorations kind of gal, but if it will straighten out a few lingering questions in the office, I might give it a go.  Maybe I could just go up to one of the male Summer Interns one day and sexually harass him in front of the cube farm. 

I suppose that would give me troubles of an entirely different sort. ♣

 

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Of Balls and Men

16 Aug

This week, adventure propositioned me while I was at a frozen yogurt shop.  As I rounded the corner to pay, I saw a stack of flyers that directed me to my destiny: The World Pinball Championships.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday Folks.

Thanks to a recent post about my overwhelming Facebook anxiety, it appears I have some noobs in the house.  Hey: thanks for reading another post.  I’m flattered.  So allow me to explain that Lollipop Tuesdays are a special series on my blog where every week I try something completely foreign to me and blog about my humiliation and learning experience for your entertainment.  For more information on this exciting day of the week , see the top of this page and click the link that says “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?” Now: onward!

So with flyer in hand and no idea what to expect, I took a day off work and drove out to explore the wonderful world of pinball.  I pulled into the parking lot of what looked like a warehouse, with middle-aged men sporting bandannas and their best game faces hopping out of trucks and piling into the place.

I opened the door and stepped right into a nerd’s wet dream. 

It was beautiful.  Nerdtastic, if you will.  There were rows upon rows of lit up, music-making, pinball machines.  They had doubles and triples of some of the more recent games and old school machines in great condition.  And every single one was plugged in and playable. But it wasn’t enough to just gawk; I had to register and compete.  Because what’s a Lollipop Tuesday without a chance for severe humiliation?

Glorious. Simply glorious.

I don’t know what I expected.  I guess in some small way I thought my life of video game rocking would somehow pay off here and I’d be able to at least spare myself embarrassment.  But as I was standing in line to play one of the four machines that would compose my ranking score, I was approached by a tall, pleasant gentleman who asked me what my story was.  I explained that I didn’t really have one, but that I was actually there representing a blog and learning about the underbelly of the pinball world as an active participant.  

He told me he was there to be the first Canadian World Pinball Champion.

No, seriously.  He was.  Because he flew in from Vancouver and up until the scrappy Canadian playing on the machine in front of us entered the picture, the guy I was talking to was the reigning Canadian Pinball Champion.    And I’m not sure if he dug the blog idea, he wanted me to get hooked on pinball, or I was one of the only five females in the room and the only one under 40, but he was kind enough to walk me over to another gentleman and introduce me and my blog.

That gentleman just happened to be the three-time, reigning World Pinball Champion.

He seemed thoroughly unimpressed with me, but I was definitely impressed with him.  Because even if I didn’t know a shred about the world of pinball before I walked in the door, I had taken some time to play on a few machines while I was there for fun and in one corner were a row of machines that were saved as relics, with little cards on them stating who won the World Pinball Championship on it in what year and what their score was.  I was staring at a guy who had his name etched on three of them, and the most astronomical scores I’d ever seen on a game.  Ever.

So after I’d had my moment to acknowledge the company I was among, I realized I was about to really suck some pretty awful rearend in front of these people.  

Allow me to further explain my relative suckness.  On the particular day of my arrival, the Classics tournament was underway. The Classics is a competition in itself where only machines made before 1987 are used and there is no skill division – it’s just one big pool of merciless competition.   On some of these old school machines, the score is not digital, but like the odometer on a car.  And as I stood in line to play one of my four games, the gentleman in front of me rolled over the score on his machine.

Twice.

These people weren’t messing around.  There’s a $10,000 prize at stake for the newly crowned World Champion and a trophy that would stand almost as tall as the winner.  There were folks walking around with gloves on, folks in the ready position at the front of the pinball machine as if they were playing hockey and not just flicking flippers.  And most average Joes walking that refurbished warehouse floor owned pinball machines that they had in their homes. 

Where the magic happens

The two people I spoke to had over ten.

So of course I played, and of course I sucked.  In fact, on one of the machines I had the absolute lowest score out of all the people who played that day.  But on another, 100 folks went at it and my score rested safely at twentieth position. And that ain’t so bad.  I know this because The World Pinball Championships are actually pretty darn organized.  And as soon as I signed off on my score, it was uploaded into a database that is searchable by anyone who wants to go to the Pinball Association website and check out scores for a particular player, machine, or tournament.

I must admit that I went online to check out the final standings at the end of the 4-day tournament and was sad not to see my Canadian friend’s name as the reigning champion.  But after a bit of networking, I found that there’s another tournament coming up in March.  And aside from the overwhelming suck I brought with me that day, I actually had a fantastic time.

Who knows: maybe I’ll brush up on my game, throw on a pair of gloves and a bandanna, and try to give my new friends a run for their money in the Spring. ♣

For more information on the World Pinball Championships and other Professional and Amateur Pinball Association tournaments, check out www.papa.org

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Dear Brain: Please Work

15 Aug

Ever have one of those days where you just can’t seem to get a grip on your motor skills?

That was me, oh – I don’t know – all weekend.

Somewhere between falling asleep Friday and waking up Saturday, I inexplicably lost all command of my body.  My brain was sending messages, but somewhere there was a short the wire and nothing really got through.   I could have stared at my hand with a cup of water in it and when my brain told it to put the cup down, it would instead promptly toss the water in my face.

I guess that’s less of a ‘short in the wire’ and more like a ‘go get professional help’. 

Texting was an absolute nightmare.  It’s usually rather taxing anyway thanks to my unwillingness to get a new phone when I’m sporting one that’s had five models after it.  Five! I’ve been using the same model of phone for five years.  Combine its natural malfunctions with my lack of physical control this weekend,and I may as well have just flipped it open and pounded the keys with my fist.  It would have been far more intelligible. 

Physical accomplishments that are typically ordinary came as enormous feats to me.  I failed several times to crack an egg with any sense of experience.  I would have been better off throwing them against the kitchen wall and holding a pan below to catch the yolk as it slid down.   I also found it difficult to avoid furniture as I navigated the house, managing to run into the same exact obstruction three times within 15 minutes.   I should have called off cooking altogether; when I attempted to lower chicken into a pan of hot oil, my hands decided to release the tongs before my brain was quite ready. 

The cherry on the moron sundae was when I took out my contacts at the end of the night.  As I grabbed my case, I managed to dump all the solution from the day before on myself instead of into the sink.  To top it off, when I tried to fill it back up with fresh solution I was holding the case was upside down – which resulted in me splattering more solution all over myself.

I didn’t even notice until the third straight second of bottle-squeezing.

Perhaps today I shan’t attempt anything at all.  It’s unfortunate that my job requires me to pick up the phone and type at the computer.  My day may be spent arguing with my fingers.  I’ll turn in at the end of the night with a very sore right pinky finger from exercising my right to the ‘delete’ key.

I’ll nurse that wound along with the chicken grease splatter, the sore leg from the repeated furniture run in, and what little is left of my pride.♣

 

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My Niece Is Out to Get Me

14 Aug

My throne is being usurped.

Right this moment, my brother’s newborn baby girl  is sleeping soundly and simultaneously assuming the position as the most beloved girl in the family without even the slightest effort on her part.

My glory days are over.

I’m the youngest of three and the only one of the female construction; I’m not really used to having any youngin’s up in my territory, most especially of the xx chromosome pairing.  I have lost the two key identifiers that made me relevant in the family set up.  Now with only a theater degree and, well, a theater degree… I have absolutely nothing to offer that hasn’t already been covered by other members of the family in light of the newest additions.

I do make a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies, but it’s mom’s recipe so I’m not really necessary for its execution. And unlike my newborn niece and nephew, I can walk, use the restroom on my own, and make myself food.  But it’s only a matter of time before they’re rockin the same skill set there as well.

I have been failing to make any contributions to the family tree even though I’m a ripe age for doing so.  I have offered up no husband and thus no mini Jackies.  And while I’m perfectly happy to keep it that way for quite a while longer, I’m beginning to realize that I’m going to have to come up with some other sacrifice for the family altar in the meantime.

I’m not sure that lambs and barley will be  sufficient.

I don’t know if I could come up with those two old school requirements even if they were the key to the family gods’ satisfaction.   Barley can’t be difficult to track down in PA, but I sense a moral dilemma coming on with the sacrifice of a lamb.

And so I must develop a new, crucial skill set.  I can no longer sit complacent in my position as only reigning young female, for it is no longer my crown to wear. 

Perhaps juggling.  Yes – juggling.  I’ll try my hand at it and become the family jester.

Looks like I’ll rope in their affection with that Theater degree after all. ♣

My bright future.

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How I Almost Engulfed My Father in Merciless Hellflames

13 Aug

Last night marked the single, most epic baking disaster of my life.

It is a rare and sad occasion when I set out to produce a batch of wholesome chocolate chip cookies and instead almost produce a body count.  I was a victim of my environment, really.

Having received an early morning phone call that my sister-in-law was having contractions, my family packed up and drove to my brother’s  house for the weekend to wait on the arrival of a soon-to-be-bundle of girly joy and sunshine sparkles.  But the labor was long and slow so instead of waiting it out at the hospital, my parents and I slept over at my brother’s house and anxiously awaited the real action.  

Long and late into the evening, my sister-in-law had not yet been officially admitted and my old folks (being old folks, after all), passed out.  My mother made it a conscious choice and retired in the upstairs bedroom.  My father, however, fought the urge and failed, passing out on the couch to a rerun of “Cow and Chicken”. 

Being designated the main line of communication for my brother’s updates and having a sudden urge to prove a wonderful aunt, I went about baking up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Entirely out of my element, I gathered all the necessary accoutrements and began relishing in my domestic prowess.   Halfway through, I realized I forgot to make sure my brother had baking soda and resorted instead to baking powder, which Google assured me was just as good as its soda-y counterpart so long as I tripled the measurement.

Lies.

As I repeated batch after batch of terribly flat, terribly depressing excuses for cookies, I started to lose hope.  The only solace I found was in my sister-in-law’s well-equipped kitchen, bursting with Pampered Chef delights.  I remembered earlier in the day my mother had found a square, rubber nondescript and wasn’t sure where to put it when we were cleaning.  Assuming it was a pot holder of some sort, I placed it in the appropriate drawer and went about the rest of my business.   And since said rubber nondescript was in the pot holder drawer, my brain later reminded me of it and I used it to house the baking pan as the cookies cooled between batches.  

When I was on my fourth batch of tears and resentment, I made my way over to the oven to pull out the disappointing fruits of my labor.  Before opening the oven, I shot a glance over to the counter to make sure the rubber-nondescript-assumed-potholder was still there, ready for cookie landing.  

It was not.

Knowing there could be no other answer, I jumped to the oven to confirm my fears: the rubber had stuck to the bottom of the baking pan and it was now a melty, smoky mess in the heart of the oven.  With the rubber dripping everywhere, my mother sound asleep upstairs, smoke filling the house quickly, and my father passed out on the couch, I had some quick decisions to make.  Unsure of the best solution, I instantly went to wake my father for his assistance.

But it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure how to wake him in the middle of a smoke-filled room without instilling a sense of panic.  

I stood over him, playing with the phrasing, wrapping my head around the syntax, and measuring which part of the explanation should come first.  What does one say when bringing another out of deep sleep for assistance in a fire?  Figuring there was no good way to do it, I resolved to let him sleep (and perhaps die a firey death) while I went solo.

I yoinked the rack out of the oven and put it in the sink, where the maroon rubber nondescript melted into the basin, serving a grueling death for being mistaken for a worthy potholder only hours before.  With the entire living room smelling like burnt rubber and smoke billowing from the oven, I ran around the house with real potholders in my hand, fanning the smoke away from my father’s head and the smoke alarm simultaneously.

I was a penguin, flapping silently and violently in an attempt to not disturb him.

After five minutes of pure freaking out, I was a sweating, heart-racing mess and thankful to the good Lord in Heaven for sparing me the lifelong burden of murdering my family.  I cleaned the oven, tossed the cursed cookies into the trash, and put my feet up to bask in my narrow victory.

Interrupted by his overwhelming urge to take a leak, my father stirred on the couch and rose slowly.  I calmly confirmed that my sister-in-law had officially been admitted to the hospital and he smiled.  Thinking this was as good a time as ever to drop the bomb of his almost-death, I casually mentioned that I almost burned the house down because I didn’t know what to say if I tried to wake him in the middle of a smoke-filled room.

He sleepily replied: “You say ‘Dad, don’t worry – we’re okay – but the house is burning down and I need your help'” – and chuckled on his way to the bathroom.

Surprisingly lighthearted reply from a man who narrowly avoided engulfment in cookie and rubber hellfire. ♣

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Remember the Important Things

12 Aug

Two days ago I went to work at 9am and left at 9pm.

I think when someone finds that they’ve been at work for 12 hours or more in a day, they should either quit or kill themselves, so at the moment, I’m at a bit of an impasse.

Do you have any idea how much it slays me that half of my day was spend in a place I don’t like doing something I don’t enjoy?  Every time I think about it, I can feel my soul leaking out me me drop by drop.  

The real pathetic, suicide-inducing part of it is that the reason I was there so late if because I was taking off yesterday and today.  What kind of a sad existence am I living when I have to work an extra four hours in order to take off for sixteen?  Why can’t we all just agree to stop making each other miserable and collectively decide to only work eight in a day and be done with it?  

My fifteen-year-old self would murder me right now if she saw me like this: a cog, fully assimilated into the corporate machine.  

I’ve been worrying that I wouldn’t be able to relax while I’m off work and spend all the time thinking about what I’m missing out on and what exactly I was going to do with all that free time.   But just moments ago I got a text from my brother letting me know he’s on his way to the hospital with my sister-in-law, who is going into labor.   Tomorrow my nephew turns one month old and today I get a brand new niece.

I’m headed to the hospital.

 Forget work? No problem, dude. ♣

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The Burden I Carry

11 Aug

Yesterday I found a banana in my purse.

I know I put it in here some time ago, I just don’t exactly know how long ago that was. 

I have a pretty big purse.  I’ve never wanted to be the kind of person who has a big purse – one that makes my shoulder ache if I’m on foot for any extended period of time. I never wanted to be someone who loses things when they’re actually right on my person all day long – or to find long lost, surprise bananas.

But I need things.  Lots of things.  Ibuprofen, pads, tampons – those are just gimmes because I was born with a woman.  I can’t help those.  They’re necessities until I get out the tail end of menopause, which I’m will come with its own set of supplements and a miniature battery-operated fan.  Then there are cards, keys, necessities of all shapes and sizes.  Allergy pills and asthma medicine to tend to my nerdier qualities.  A mini-umbrella just in case I’m caught in a pickle, a water bottle for health, body spray to freshen when needed.  A journal for sudden, life-haulting blog ideas, a pen, paper, and a paper or two with a list, a to-do, a phone number: whichever scrap of information I choose to carry at my side instead of in my brain.

Apparently, I also pack snacks.  That’s relatively new.

I should probably cut down.  I mean, on a typical day I only access the mini-purse inside and nothing else.   Oh yeah: I forgot to mention there’s a whole other purse in there too.  That’s where I keep the monies.  I should try to lose it all but the clutch, but I know the moment I do I’ll need something from that gloriously large saddle bag. 

Like a banana for instance.

A banana can’t fit in a clutch.  And I’m not about to downgrade to plantains.   What would I do in a sudden bout of cramps or starvation?   Perhaps that’s a chance I’ll have to take.  After all, I can look forward to hauling around a huge basket of belongings when I have kids with wounds to soothe and butts to wipe and band-aids to waste on invisible cuts. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take the plunge. 

…I hope I don’t get hungry. ♣

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Facebook: A New Frontier in Social Awkwardness

10 Aug

Facebook is getting so awkward, isn’t it?

Personally, I can’t take the pressure.   It was bad enough when our parents, aunts, and uncles began to join.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes I still manage to forget they’re in my contacts and I say something wildly inappropriate only to be scolded seconds later.  Then all these apps and games and silly questionnaires came through and all the sudden I’m forced to virtually break up with my friend because she won’t stop telling me to water her virtual crops.  Sure, I could just weed through my privacy settings and try to block app invites, but if my friend is the kind of person that constantly bugs me to water her fake crops, do I really want to be her friend anymore?

These are the sorts of hard-hitting questions I’m faced with every time Facebook ‘upgrades’.

Things got even more intense when Facebook leveled-up to real-time updates so that when you stare at your mini-feed you can actually see someone’s comment post at the very moment they do it.   And now, the ultimate mega stresser: Facebook chat.

It could be the super awkward hermit in me, but the chat is where I draw the line.  The beauty of Facebook used to be that it was casual and cool.   People could post on each other’s walls at their leisure.   In a world where the weight of a cell phone text or an email is so heavy that people expect a response immediately, Facebook was the one place I could still go if I wanted to socialize at a relaxed pace.

Facebook relaxation is now dead to me.

When I log on, I have updates that need tended to.  I have people commenting on pictures or saying hello or writing on my wall to ask me to hang out that same day.  I have messages from friends who haven’t caught up in a while and think email is too impersonal.  And sometimes while I’m tending to those things, someone is online at the very same moment and responds immediately.  Immediately! Then there’s all this pressure.  Do I have to follow up? Can I go log off?  They’re on.  They see me.  They know I updated only 5 seconds ago; it’s stamped right there in cold, gray text. I can’t possibly just leave – I have to finish the conversation.

I also have to manage my status updates.  Because if I tell a friend I’m too busy to hang out one night but I update my status at 8:35pm saying how much I love Arrested Development, it’s voluntary incrimination.   It doesn’t matter if it’s on in the background while I’m working.  It doesn’t matter if I thought of a funny episode and it wasn’t even on television.  That friendship is doomed.  

Doomed.

Don’t even get me started on birthdays and engagements.  Talk about stress! Seriously?! Every year on my birthday I have to be wished a happy birthday by hundreds of people I haven’t talked to in ages.  On one hand, it’s nice to feel loved.  On the other, you know that if any of those people really cared about your birthday they’d have called.  Or written.  Or emailed.  And now I feel inclined to follow up with them to see how they are, but I don’t know if they were really reaching out or if they just wanted to hop on the birthday bandwagon.

I don’t even recognize some of their names.

I’m not the only one who feels this pressure.  I know it.  Because not long ago, some dear friends of mine got engaged.  And while I was relishing in the happy moment with them, they admitted that they were quite exhausted because they had to be sure to call every single person that was even remotely close to them to let them know they were engaged before those people saw it on Facebook and got offended that they found out online and not from them.

You see? What are we doing to ourselves?!

So no, Facebook, I will not be utilizing your ‘Facebook Chat’.  The last thing I need in this too-accessible age is to log on and be immediately available to a thousand people, try to figure out how to end conversations with everyone because I don’t want to deal with them, and then worry about what to update my status to that will be amusing but also not indicate that I was having too much ‘not-too-busy-to-chat’ fun.

Lord help us; Facebook will be the end of us all. ♣

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A Taste for Crime

9 Aug

This week’s Lollipop Tuesday was a learning experience.  And a taste of how simple and sweet crime can really be.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, folks.

After reenacting the Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia not long ago and then laying down some mad beats by rapping at a crowded open mic last week, I thought I’d switch things up a little this week and go graffiti.   Well, not graffiti so much as tag. I’d pick out a logo or icon, cut out a stencil, and go spray it in conspicuous places all over town.   After seeing it so long and so often, people would be inspired to search for the meaning of it on Google, which would inevitably lead them to my blog and shoot me into super blogger stardom.

Except not really.

In order for a Google search to be effective, you kind of have to be the most clicked-on result to show in, I don’t know, even the first hundred pages.  So that idea was a big, thoughtless bust.   But that’s all right, I thought – I’ll just write out “thejackieblog”.  Because when you search that on google, it’s one of the top results.  I’ll just tag that all over the place.  Which will then lead to people to my blog, and shoot me into super blogger stardom.

Except not really.

Because as it turns out, graffiti’s pretty illegal.  So I couldn’t just go make a stencil and grab a can of spray paint.  Though I would have loved to dress like a midnight ninja and market my blog in the wee hours of the morning, it was obviously a one-way street to arrest given that my blog has my name in it.   So I thought of something super genius: spray chalk.  Spray chalk! I’d spray it on stencils all around town and it would wash away with the first rain! It’s the ultimate balance between criminal genius and socially acceptable marketing tactics.

Except not really.

Because I didn’t actually buy spray chalk.  Instead, I decided to doom myself by not ordering it ahead of time online and instead resorting to a last-minute run to Dick’s Sporting Goods, which Yahoo Answers promised would have it.

Stupid Yahoo Answers.  You’re never right.

And since Dick’s didn’t have it (or Michael’s, or Lowe’s, or anyone within a 40 mile radius of my city) I decided to invest in powdered chalk, a spray bottle, and a dream.  A hopeless, wilting dream.

Surprisingly enough, I thought ahead enough to send a stencil cut-out to a print shop and get it put on some super heavy cardstock.  Then, I carefully cut out each any every little curve and tittle to “thejackieblog” with a little club over the “i” just for pizzazz.   After a few grueling moments with the Xacto knife, I started to doubt my entire plan.

What was I thinking? I can’t just throw powdered chalk in water and expect it to work.

And I was right: I couldn’t.  Because powdered chalk and water clogs even the mightiest spray bottle.  And unless I was headed back to Lowe’s to get myself a super awesome, super long, super-powered sprayer that people use to paint house siding, it was  unlikely I was going come out victorious.

I decided to resort to Google to find some homemade, trustworthy recipes for spray chalk and found that corn starch, hot water, and food coloring seems to do the trick.  But I was fresh out of food coloring and I’d just spent a large fraction of my paycheck on stencils, a spray bottle, and powdered chalk.  I know better than to ever attempt anything without consulting Google first.  Silly rabbit.

So I hardheadedly charged forward into the pit of despair with my 8 1/2 x 11 pathetic attempt at a tag.

Have you ever really looked at how big one single slab of a sidewalk is? Like, really looked? Because they’re big.  Really big.  Too big for an itty bitty 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock to make a difference.  Even in landscape orientation.

Dave managed to dab powdered chalk on the stencil and get it to leave a light impression on the cement.  A small, barely-noticeable impression.  I, however, forged ahead with a sponge and a bowl of powdered chalk and water, intent on plastering my blog name at every major bus stop in the area.  But as I dabbed my sopping wet, maroon sponge onto the paper, it soaked through it entirely.  And when I picked my pathetic excuse for a stencil up off the sidewalk, it left one enormous blob of disgustingness in its place.  Which I then tried to turn into an enormous club (♣) so as to not leave, well, a hideous blob of disgustingness.  But I kept trying to round each of the little circles perfectly and you know when you cut a heart out of construction paper and you keep making it tinier and tinier because you’re trying to make it perfect?

It was like that but the opposite. I was left with an enormous maroon puddle that looked as if something had died there not long ago.  Like all my hopes and dreams, for example.

So this Lollipop Tuesday was a bust.  But I made pretty much every mistake I possibly could, so I can try it again and actually get spray chalk and a stencil on a piece of plastic that’s big enough to be seen after spraying.  I’ll be a tagging wiz in no time.  I’m determined to do this the crime-free way.

Though in the midst of my frustrations, I must admit a life of crime looked quite appealing. ♣

Proof of failure.

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The Death of Molly Pleasantville

8 Aug

Yesterday marked the hundredth time someone in an establishment has asked me if I work there when, in fact, I don’t.

I haven’t been keeping hash marks or anything but one hundred seems right.

I’m not sure what it is about me that makes people assume I’m working for the place they’re patronizing.  I’d like to think it’s a pleasant disposition coupled with a comfort in unfamiliar surroundings.  Maybe I look like I know things.  You know.  Like, maybe I look smart and stuff.  Maybe when the guy at Starbucks last week saw me standing in line with all the other people who were waiting for their beverages, he asked me where the bathroom key was because he really thought I looked like I knew.    

Maybe I appear to be all-knowing.

I could just be wearing the wrong thing.  Like when the elderly lady pulled me aside in the paper towel section of the grocery store yesterday, maybe she was blinded by my bright orange cardigan.   Or maybe she was a little hunched over and could only see my feet.  I’ll bet it was the sensible flats.  She’d have never stopped me if I were wearing slut shoes.

What I’m really afraid of is that it’s none of these things.  I’m afraid that there is no pleasant disposition or appearance of comfort.   Rather, I look like a pushover.  Like a do-gooder.  A doormat.

What if this is evidence of my day job affecting my life in ways other than monumental stress and sudden, spastic bouts of depression?  What if in addition to biting off all my fingernails, feeling ill the Sunday night before a work week, and possessing dull, vacant eyes, I’ve also acquired an aura of ‘what-can-I-do-for-you”?

Oh dear.

It’s like people can feel it.  It hangs in the air around me.  They know I reheat lunches and answer phones.  They know I edit PowerPoints and get drinks for visitors.  They can smell bitch work on me from a mile away.

So they take advantage of me.  They ask me where the paper towels are when they’re staring right at them.  They ask me for the bathroom key when they know I’m not wearing a barista apron.  They mock me with their inquisitiveness. 

The other night at the supermarket, the cashier didn’t bag a single one of my groceries.  I kid you not – not one single item did that man place in an Earth-killing plastic carrier for me.  I did them all.  

What’s sad is I didn’t even realize it until now.

Maybe I’ll start dressing goth when I go out in public.  I imagine goth dressers don’t get asked a lot of customer service questions.   Maybe I could carry the persona over to the workplace and avoid the robotic good-mornings and how-was-your-weekends and the-temperature-is/will be/was-such-and-such-today. 

This is obviously the answer to all my problems.  I don’t know why I didn’t think about this earlier.  I could have avoided human contact my entire life if I would have just dressed up as someone people don’t want to have human contact with.   But no – I’ve been wearing cardigans in the summer time and pairing them with sensible shoes like Molly Pleasantville.  That’s it.  No more Molly Pleasantville – she’s dead to me.

I’m going to need to get some more eyeliner.

And spiky bracelets.  Definitely spikey bracelets. ♣

"Excuse me, do you work here?"

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