Tag Archives: musings

Only You Can Save This Blog.

13 May

I have gone to bed so late, so many weeks in a row that I might just start skipping sleep altogether in order to avoid the awful process of waking up.  I keep telling myself I’m going to go to bed early on a weeknight or sleep in late on a weekday to hit the reset button but I never do.  I tried it a few nights ago but couldn’t get to sleep (very unfunny) and I ended up wasting 3 hours of my night just lying awake in bed.

So I just stay up doing frivolous things, trying to make my day last longer so that I feel like I work and have a life.  I don’t – it’s a facade.    I don’t stay up doing anything important; I just stay up.  I eat peanut butter toast and watch entire seasons of shows on Netflix and spend an hour on StumbleUpon and read people’s Facebook updates.  I’m so lame that it’s becoming painful.  

I have gone so many weeks on four hours of sleep a night that I have to peel myself out of bed in the morning.  There has never been a better display of man’s willpower than my waking up each day.  I set three alarms – each 15 minute apart from each other.  The first is the time that I would like to wake up.  It’s my ideal.  If I get out of bed at the first ring, I’ll be 5 minutes early for work, freshly showered,  have eaten breakfast, will have an outfit I’m not miserable in, and will be sporting a fine face of work-appropriate makeup. If I get out of bed at the second alarm, I will have to choose 3 out of 5 of those options.   If I get out of bed at the third, I will have to forfeit all but one.  

But lately I’ve been so tired and miserable that when the third alarm goes off, I snooze it for another 15 minutes.   When I wake I will accomplish none of the above tasks, but the jump start I get from knowing I will be late for work if I don’t wake up immediately and bolt out the door in 10 minutes or less is the only thing that will get me up.

I’ve been doing this over and over again.  Yesterday it got so bad that I couldn’t possibly leave for work unshowered again so I still slept in and resolved to be late.

This has to stop.

I’m a good worker.  I really am.  I usually work right through my lunch break and stay late and break lots of labor laws and things.  But lately I’ve been so absolutely zombie-like that I can’t bring myself to get up and at ’em in a timely manner.  I recall having to peel my eyes apart and splash my face with freezing cold water a few days ago just so that I could see straight enough to put my clothes on.   Once I get there I only make it to 11:30 before I need to go order the the tallest, tastiest, non-coffee but coffee-like drink I can stomach in order to get myself to have enough energy to type an email.

I look like death.

When I go outside, I’m as a member of the underworld visiting the surface for the first time.  The light disgusts me, the bird chirping echoes through my weak, soggy brain, and my limbs are all worn and jagged from being jolted into performance from a dead sleep.   I suddenly find myself absolutely incapable of effective communication.   If I attempt to string more than two sentences together, my brain goes into a total meltdown and my eyes travel up and to the left, where they sift through the soft, gooey, deteriorating pockets of my mind for the right word.

It’s usually a simple one.  Like “pants”.

I only have two options from here.  I can either find a way to restore sleep to my body by effectively going to sleep earlier, sleeping in later, or just giving in to my urge to conk out at my desk instead of guzzling caffeine.   Or I can keep going on as I am and become a fully-fledged, certifiable whack job.  Unable to find the words for anything at all, my sentences will deconstruct themselves into incoherent babblings.  My eyelids will sink down to allow only a sliver of light into my eyes.  My face will become pasty, droopy, and inspire fear.  No longer able to force my body to function without allowing it to recharge, I will ooze from place to place on the floor like a slug.

A decomposing, incoherent zombie slug.

I will be unable to keep my promise to write a blog every day because I will no longer be able to comprehend language.  Already, I find myself staring at my screen wondering what to write.   Not because I have no idea, but because I cannot navigate the idea.  I compose entire paragraphs that seem to be written by a 3rd grader who speaks English as a second language, delete them, and upgrade them to that of a 6th grader who speaks English as a second language.  I stare at commonplace words for several minutes, suddenly questioning if they’re really words at all.

My lack of sleep is threatening thejackieblog.

If I don’t post tomorrow, come to Pittsburgh and search the streets.  You’ll find me there, oozing my way through the masses and hissing at daylight.

If you spot me, stick me with a bear tranquilizer, put me on a park bench, and force the regeneration to begin. ♣

The High Hurdles in Slug World

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Rodeway Inn Owes Me a Coffee

12 May

COFFEE 

Last night I intended to be a responsible adult and go to bed early so that I didn’t need a mid-afternoon caffeine kick to get me through my boss’s ridiculous, unending demands.   Unfortunately, my plans were spoiled by a little hotel about 45 minutes away from my humble apartment, where a group of morons were working the desk as my parents attempted to check in for the night.

I’m not really one to blast companies for bad first experiences because I understand that things happen and people are human.  In fact, I’ve been on the other end of customer service at several establishments and know it’s a living hell so I do my best to make things as painless as possible for the other party.  I learned the Military Phonetic Alphabet so that they know what letters I’m spelling out for names (really), I always begin my call by asking for the correct department for my inquiry and then immediately offer up my confirmation number for reference.  I mean, I’m kind of a pro at it.

But last night I was tired, and the Rodeway Inn in Greensburg, PA did more than test my patience.

My parents attempted to check in at this cheap hotel just outside city limits because they love me and want to spend time with me and they don’t mind staying in a modest place to do so in order to spend money on touristy things instead.  Usually it works out really well.  Unless, you know, you have complete imbeciles running the place.

Having already made a reservation online without submitting card information, my darling mother checked in happily to The Rodeway Inn at about 10:00pm.  I attempted to call the hotel earlier to have them make a note that she would be checking in late and had a conversation that went something like this:

RI:  Rodeway Inn.  How can I help you?
Me: Hello – Reservations please.
RI: How can I help you?
Me: Oh, okay – can I give you my reservation number for your reference?
RI:  What for?
Me: So that you know which reservation I’m referring to for this call.
RI:  Well what do you need?
Me: Okay – well my parents are running a bit behind this evening and I was hoping you could make a note on their reservation record that they will be checking in late tonight.
RI: They can just come.
Me: What?
RI: It will be fine.  Like, whenever they come they can check in.
Me: Oh – okay… I just wanted to make sure that they could still have their reservation held. 
RI: Yeah.
Me: Great, thanks. *click* Right.
 

I have made similar calls to pretty much every hotel everywhere, as the front desk likes to have an idea of whether someone is checking in late or simply a no-show.  In addition, some hotels have a policy that if you don’t check in by a certain time your reservation is no longer held.

Their lack of familiarity with this polite process should have been the first indication of trouble.

So my parents finally made it to the hotel and because my mother is kooky about the way she budgets, she needed to put part of the reservation on one card and the rest on another, but was promptly informed that it was not possible.    She then asked if she could pay part in cash and the rest on a card and was informed that that, too, was impossible.  So she decided it was no big deal and that she would just cancel her reservation and come stay with me.  The front desk told her that would be fine but that she had to cancel the reservation online.

That’s stupid, but okay.

My parents left the establishment and I got online (because my mother is a baby boomer, after all, and doesn’t take the Internet with her everywhere she goes) to cancel her reservation.  But when I brought up her record, it indicated that she was outside the cancellation period and couldn’t cancel her stay.  She would be billed the full amount.  So I called her back, told her to turn around and go get the front desk’s advice – if they couldn’t split the payment and they couldn’t cancel her reservation, what exactly was she supposed to do?  Was she supposed to be billed when she goes home for a reservation that she was unable to check in to? Apparently the answer was yes.

So they left again, frustrated and tired, and headed back to their home 2 hours away.  Finding the entire scenario ridiculous (my mother’s strange payment methods, the front desk’s lack of customer service), I called my brother.   To solve the problem, he called to authorize a payment over the phone for his card (something I do every day at work without fail for hotels that are 5 times classier than this) and was told he couldn’t.  Instead he had to send a fax with his card information and write out a statement that he was okay with the charges.

My brother is a Senior Software Engineer and Systems Analyst.  He spends his days developing the most efficient, cutting-edge methods to solve problems.  He’s not really down with obsolete technology and asked if he could email it instead.  The front desk said they didn’t have access to email at night (what?) and that the only option was faxing.   

My bro has no patience for nonsense or stupidity (sound familiar?) and insisted that they accept an email, which they agreed to after a lengthy discussion that resulted in a call to the manager.  The manager required that before my brother could send the email, my parents return to the building (…what…).  When my brother inquired as to why, he was informed that my mother seemed upset at the front desk and they were afraid that after processing her payment my parents would go to their room, be upset with it, and want to cancel again.

Dear Rodeway Inn:  Even if my parents were difficult customers, you can’t just assume that they will continue to be difficult.  You certainly can’t say to another member of the family that they seem like the kind of people who wouldn’t be happy with anything.  And actually, if you were paying attention, all they wanted was to get in the room.  That’s what all the fuss was about so why would they say no after they got inside?  What could they possibly expect from a budget hotel named “Rodeway Inn”?

So my brother flicked on his switch that allows him to have the patience of Job and called my parents to tell them to go back to the hotel.  Once they arrived, he sent the email.

But it bounced back.  Turns out the front desk girl didn’t really know the address (WHAT?) and wasn’t sure of anything in her life whatsoever.  Finally, her will broke and she allowed my brother to make the payment over the phone, we rewound to half an hour earlier when he asked if he could do that in the first place, and joy was restored to all.  

My parents went to the room, saw no problem with it, and promptly fell asleep.

And I, having a blog topic after a night of struggling (and failing) and content to blast a poor excuse for an establishment, did the same. ♣

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Blue Tiger Swimsuits: A Lesson in Common Sense

11 May

Every year around this time, I begin to swim through pages and pages of bathing suits, looking for one that will lift my boobs, flatter my bum, draw attention away from my legs, be gentle on my neck, stay on me when I cannonball, and make me look like a classic beauty.  

It never really works out.

I’ve tried to get around the problem(s) by working out the rest of the year so that when swimsuit season finally rolls around, I can wear whatever I like.  Each January, I have visions of me piling my arms high with every cute little something, trying them all on and not knowing which one to get.   I think of how I’ll be so hot and so carefree that I’ll have swimsuits of all shapes, sizes and colors.  I’ll wear them casually, as if they’re pajamas.  Everyone will wish they were so confident.

That never really works out either.

So yesterday I started my official swimsuit hunting season.  I began to browse through the Victoria’s Secret website (because their tops actually support you instead of making you feel like you’re made out of biscuit batter) and was affronted by a home page with plump, plucked vixens.  The company is pushing women to “make it a bombshell summer” and slathering their site with tan, beach blonde, curvy women.

Well, curvy for size zeros.

I began to sift through page after page of pink push-ups, lace, frill, and other sex traps.  I like to think that all the women I’m looking at are airbrushed so that the pixels from their waists get put on their chests, but I’ve seen the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on TV and airbrushed muscles aside, those ladies don’t have much need.   Then, just as I slowly sank further into my feeling of sad, fatty-fatness, my eyes were struck by this swimming tribute to the 90’s: 

Image is property of Victoria's Secret photoshop wizards. Click to view their summer collection.

Um, I’m sorry – is that a wildcat?   Okay.  You took animal print, made it blue, and then actually put an animal on it.  Not even on the back or anything, just right there on her stomach, staring at God and everyone.  

There is absolutely no amount of photo magic that can make me appreciate this swimsuit.  I do not find this attractive.  In fact, it insults me that you’re trying to pawn this off amongst the rest of your line.  WHAT IS THIS?! It reminds me of wolf moon shirts.

As if pulling off a swimsuit at all weren’t hard enough, you actually expect women to be able to wear an animal on their stomachs at the beach?  My gut would make it look like the cheetah is leaping out at you.  Beach-goers everywhere would run from the gelatinous wildcat in sheer terror.

It doesn’t even look that good on the model.  In fact, she just kind of looks confused.   Maybe she’s trying to figure out if it’s just a joke or if they’re really going to take her picture of her in that mess.

Victoria’s Secret’s site refers to this swimsuit as “Tiger Print One-Piece”.   I thought they could get away with it because there are a few tiger stripes woven into the pattern.  But the bullet points describing the garment say “bold tiger graphic on front”.

I don’t see a tiger anywhere, actually.  Even if I could mistake that face for a tiger’s, I certainly can’t mistake the lack of stripes.  That’s not a tiger.  It in no way resembles a tiger, aside from the fact that a tiger also happens to be a wildcat.

Entirely disenchanted, I scrolled down the page to be greeted by a “Might We Also Suggest” section, which highlighted items that might compliment the suit well.  The signature piece: A long, solid white cover-up tunic that makes it so no one can even see the suit.  

Yes.  Yes, that’s an excellent suggestion.  Thank you.  ♣

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Neon Toast: An Original

10 May

Last night I went to an art auction benefit.  An art auction.  Like, a silent one.  With paddles.

Okay, they didn’t really have paddles.  And quite frankly, I was disappointed.  But there was art and there was auctioning and apparently these days people are just running around pretending that you don’t need paddles to make it official.

You do.

So there I was, mingling with community folks and pretending I thought things were funny and holding a drink in my hand so I only had to think about to do with one arm and not two.   I walked around, I looked at poorly displayed art, and I looked at silent auction items for which I didn’t even have enough money to start the bid.   Not just on my person, but in my bank account.   

Did I mention that this was a benefit for the LGBT community?

I was there for only two hours and my coworker was invited to a naked party, I saw a man very disappointed with the state of the flowers in the table arrangements, and I’d seen enough amusing outfits to make even my third grade self look bland.   Also, the auction opened with a belly-dancing act.  Which I thought strange.

I also thought about how I’ve never seen a fit belly-dancer.  And then I thought about how it is that I’ve come to know so many belly-dancers.

There was food, but it was for the most part ridiculous.  There was a table with a chef that put a packaged, unlabeled confection out for the taking, but I stayed away from it because it looked like a moldy Nutter Butter.   It was slightly longer and slightly more rounded, but it was most certainly a moldy Nutter Butter.   I got really excited when I saw a whole room of free sushi from one of my favorite fish restaurants, but somehow the Event Coordinator didn’t think of the fact that it was on the top floor of an enclosed, unairconditioned room that was going to be chock full of people that evening.   So by the time I’d pushed myself through the moist bodies to the tail of the food line, I was so disgusted by my back sweat and other people’s dewy skin that the idea of raw fish suddenly wasn’t so awesome.

I’m not convinced the auctioneer was any good.  Actually, I feel safe saying he kind of sucked.  Without any certification or training in the basics of Auctioneering, I declare him to be of little worth.    He was heckling the audience for not bidding generously.  In fact, he called out one of the sponsors of the event, which happened to be a well-known financial company, as if the folks that were there were supposed to be bidding away the company’s fortune.  I was pretty nervous.  After all, I was there representing an 8 billion dollar company and if this guy thought I was walking around with a portion of it in my pocket, he was sorely mistaken.

The auction took place in an auditorium with a balcony and at one point he suggested that all the people who intend on bidding come downstairs and everyone else go upstairs.  You know, a sort of a separation-by-class thing.  No big deal. 

The truly preposterous part of it all was that there was not an overwhelming sense of labor put into providing backstory for each piece.  At one point, when reading the notes on a piece from a Latina artist, the speaker couldn’t pronounce it and clearly didn’t look at the cards before she came that evening.  She literally said “(Insert Artist Name Here) studied in Blah blah blah and blah blah blah.  Sorry folks, I wasn’t paying attention in Spanish class.”

WHAT?!  I’m sorry, excuse me.  WHAT?! 

People’s idiocy, not to mention lack of respect, is sometimes astounding.  

I kid you not – they followed up that beautiful linguistic display by putting up a decent looking oil painting in a magnificent frame and saying “Well, to be honest we don’t really know anything about this one but we are sure  it will make a beautiful addition to your home Retail value, $3,700, We’ll start the bidding at $350.”

No one bid.

No one bid because after watching you heckle the audience, put on a witch hunt for any members of financial firms, and mock people who passed on an item after a few bids, they weren’t exactly prepared to drop a couple thousand on something YOU DIDN’T EVEN RESEARCH.  I could have made up something that would have at least made it interesting.  I could have whipped up a backstory for that sucker so super cool that even though no one believed it, they would bid on it just to be a part of the saga.

It got really awkward after a while.  One item had to start at 5 dollars.  That’s embarrassing.

So after I felt I’d endured enough of the misery, I left.  Though I’d been there for 2 hours, it was going to go not-so-strong for another 3 and that would have been certain death.

There was certainly a strange feeling that overcame me while I was there.  It was kind of like the feeling I get when I want to jump off a bridge for the thrill of it and not to kill myself.  Every time a ridiculous item came up that was within my bidding range (you know, if I dumped my entire checking account out at once), I’d fantasize about raising my number.  I’d think, What if I pretended to be a mysterious rich socialite tonight and bid on something? What if I went head to head with this guy on this bright neon painting of toast?

I didn’t get the toast.  But I did recreate it for you here:

Happy Lollipop Tuesday. ♣

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The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned from Blogging

9 May

Last night was one of those epic nights.  You know, the ones where I’m laying on the couch, unshowered, staring at a YouTube video of a kitten eating with chopsticks.

The video was quite misleading – though the kitten eats with chopsticks, the chopsticks are being operated by a human.

I’d had a good day.  With Dave at his parent’s to celebrate Mother’s Day and myself at the apartment to celebrate Adventures of an Antisocial, I set out to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom.    I took down Easter decorations that were eyeing the place up like they owned it.  I cleaned the furniture, the molding, the shelves, the insides of drawers, and anything even slightly suspicious of clutter.  I attacked my carpet with a ferocity reserved for wartime, spot treating, scrubbing, and covering the area twice with the vacuum.  

I was a force to be reckoned with.

When I had finished, I looked out happily over my lair, calculating the likelihood of my messing it up within the next two days.  I wanted some chocolate for my reward but was out.  Having eaten the last two ice cream sandwiches on the same day last week so that “I would be out of them and wouldn’t eat junk anymore because it wasn’t in the house”, I was fresh out of anything delectable.

But then I remembered this post I wrote on being so ravenous for chocolate that I ate Dave’s chocolate Easter bunny.    In the comments section, I was flooded with ideas to combat cravings such as those.  And I was given advice by my faithful readers to buy a few chocolate bars and hide them around the house.

I looked up to the bread basket, wondering if I had actually taken the advice.  I couldn’t remember whether I just intended to or whether I actually did it.  Until lo and behold I pillaged the bread basket for one solid milk chocolate Dove bar, which had been quietly hibernating there for over a month.  Forget all the things I learn doing Lollipop Tuesdays – hiding chocolate has been the best thing I’ve learned from keeping this blog.  

 

Even better than kittens eating with chopsticks. ♣

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How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?

8 May

Photo by smemon87. Click photo to check out their Flickr Photostream.

I want a dog so badly.

I do – I can’t get them out of my head.  I used to have limits: I couldn’t admire any dog that was smaller than my runt of a Labrador retriever I had several years ago.  But lately, I don’t care – I’ll take anything.  Poodles, Bulldogs, even Pugs – the ugliest of the ugly are adorable in my fantasy world of being a dog-owner.

I can’t possibly take care of a dog at this point in my life.  Let’s face it – it’s all I can do to feed and bathe myself every day, let alone throw some food in the cat dishes and give them both a little pat and some laser-pointer-funtime-extravaganza.    I couldn’t possibly have a puppy – I’m gone for too many hours of the day and with my inconsistent theater schedule, it’s absolutely impossible to set up times to care for said puppy with any degree of regularity.  So I can’t have a dog.  I’ve mused about ways to get around this fact in my post Puppy Amusement Parks, but I don’t know that I’m in a position to throw all my hopes and dreams on a theme park for pets. 

 As a result, I’ve begun to stalk them. 

One of my favorite things about springtime is all the dogs that are out.  After a stressful 5 o’clock rush, I can always trust that when I make it to my neighborhood, everyone will be out getting their dogs some fresh air after being cooped up inside all day.  There are pups of all shapes and sizes and I’ve grown to love them all.  

Yesterday I went for a walk and found myself behind a beautiful, super excited dog and I got out my camera and recorded it.  Like some kind of pet paparazzi.  I don’t know what I thought I was doing.  They just give me so much joy and I was so incredibly amused by him that I thought I’d take a video of how adorable his wagging tail was.  

I think he felt dirty because he stopped and sat shortly thereafter, staring at me. 

I don’t think I can satisfy my dog lust by going around and recording run-ins with other people’s pups.  I’m going to have to actually find a way to satiate this desire so that I don’t become some sort of strange dog stalker.

I guess since I have one on video, I’ve already crossed that line.

I thought I might be able to fill the void with another cat, but my cats are crazy enough and two is plenty.  They won’t keel over until I’m about 35, so I’ve got a while to go before I go commit to another.  I wouldn’t want to start a collection or anything.

There’s gotta be some way to deal with this without acquiring another animal.   I’ll figure it out.  If I can’t get anyone to buy in to my Puppy Amusement Park idea, I’ve gotta come up with something fast.  Like dog-sitting perhaps.    Actually, that sounds stressful.  Maybe I can just move to a ranch and have all the animals I want.  I’ll work the land and live the good life, free from the soul-sucking chains of corporate America.  Yeah, that sounds awesome.  I’ll get on that right away.

One ranch full of dogs, coming right up. ♣

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Eli Pariser: How Internet Personalization Feeds Us Junk

7 May

One of the occupational hazards of life as a hermit is spending an absurd amount of time considering the intricacy of mundane scenarios.

For example, yesterday I blogged about how no one should trust salad.

And lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time considering only marginally more merit-worthy: something on I dub “Mini-feed Missing Persons”.

For quite some time, I have been wondering how it’s possible that I have about a thousand Facebook friends and yet see only a fraction of them in my mini-feed.  I could blame the privacy settings folks might have, but I’d venture to say I have well over 100 friends who are okay with me knowing every single aspect of their Facebook lives.    I don’t say this because I’m full of myself.  I say this because the majority of my friends are involved in theater, and theater people are open to a low, dirty fault.   You know, for the most part.

Besides, Facebook changes its privacy settings so often that even if you started out incredibly diligent about following up with your Account Settings every time an update was made, by now you’ve probably loosened up.  So what’s going on? Why am I only able to easily stalk a fraction of the friends I actually seem to have a connection with in my virtual society?

I started listening to TED lectures because they’re incredibly addictive and mind-blowing in new, brain-stretchy ways.   If we could replace some of the absolute filth on television with a TED talk or few, I’m quite certain that the average IQ and general decency of society would gain 10 quality points (which, on the imaginary quality scale I just made up right now, is a whole lot).  And in my recent run-in, I found Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”. 

In my not-so-witty-and-straightforward summary, the idea behind Eli Pariser’s discussion is that user-generated content and targeted advertising are based on a junk food mentality.   The algorithm that determines what we click on most often is actually targeting what we click on first.   And that what we click on first tends to be junk food for the mind – which are the ideas we already know and like, or sometimes even trash and guilty indulgences.  Eventually, we plan to get to higher-thinking activities and pages but over time it will be determined for us that we will click on the junk food most happily and most readily – and so all  that’s given to us is junk food.   Pariser relates the concept to our Netflix queue and how typical queues will show guilty pleasure movies being moved to the front and intellectual better-yourself movies and documentaries to the back.  He says, “We all want to be someone who has watched Rashomon but right now we want to watch Ace Ventura for the fourth time.” 

And wouldn’t ya know- after all this time I’ve been thinking of this Facebook friend void seemingly in my own little hermit mind, Eli Pariser comes along and talks about it as well:

“Take his Facebook page, for example. Pariser used to receive comments and links from readers on both sides of the political spectrum. Then one day he noticed his conservative friends had disappeared; only links from his liberal friends remained. Facebook, without asking him, had seen that he clicked more often on links from left-leaning friends and simply edited out the rest. The site used an algorithm that hides from view the kinds of content it has determined, from your past activity, that you are less likely to interact with.”  – Excerpt from an article by Kim Zetter for Wired.com Ted 2011:Junk Food Algorithms and the World They Feed Us.

And so that’s what’s happening to all my Facebook friends.  This new age of personalization on the Internet means that if I never wander over to that old high school friend I’ve been meaning to get in touch with and instead check up on my promiscuous neighbor, I will find my mini-feed devoid of said friend and chock-full of half-clothed, drunken neighbor.

What’s my point?  Twofold.  First, TED lectures are awesome and you should look into them.  You could start with the one I’m referencing.  It’s ten minutes: try it. 

Second, my Facebook friends are not more visible because apparently at some point, I stopped checking up on them.  As a result, they’ve been systematically weeded out.  I actually have to search through my friends list for a name instead of just reading the mini-feed? Preposterous!  But hey – mystery solved.

And listen – I know that I’m a millennial and all, but this affect everyone, not just mini-feed-crazy Generation Y.   You’re reading this blog, you use the Internet, and you probably use Google.  And it might be interesting for you to know that if you’re a conservative from Idaho and your buddy is a Liberal from Alaska, you can type the same search term into Google and be fed completely different search results.

I don’t know whether to be in awe or fear of the potential consequences.  What do you think? ♣

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Salads Are for Rabbits and Baby Eaters

6 May
File:5aday salad.jpg

Gross.

I hate salads.

The only way I’ll happily eat grass is if you dress it up so that I can’t recognize it as such.  I need chicken, cheese, and a creamy dressing – and let’s face it: by the time all that’s in the mix, it’s not healthy anymore so what’s the point of even trying.   I can find burgers with less calories than some salads.

I keep trying different dressings, different mixtures, different greens and it always reverts to the same miserable experience.  I don’t like rabbit food.  I was raised on cheese and grease and bread and that’s what I like.  Sad, but true.

Now I’m not so sure I can say I hate all salads. There are lots of types of salads and I’m not really sure what the term “salad” even means since there can be potato salad, fruit salad, etc.  Maybe salad is just a word for “miscellaneous stuff”.  Maybe fruit salad just means “miscellaneous fruit stuff”.

In that case, I don’t like salads because I can’t trust them.   Just because I like macaroni salad that I buy a local grocer doesn’t mean I’ll like your grandmother’s or your uncle’s, because I have absolutely no idea what those people are putting in it.   The one at my local grocer could make potato salad out of potatoes, mayonnaise and eggs and your grandmother could make it out of potatoes, mayonnaise and babies.

You can’t trust something with no boundaries.

I think I’m done trying.  I have shoved too many green and purple leaves down my throat and chugged water to keep them down.    I’ve bought fancy lettuce, baby lettuce, cheap lettuce, and pre-mixed lettuce.  I’ve tried 4 dollar salad dressings that go right in the trash.  Salads are stealing my money and my joy and I won’t have it any longer.  Today, I officially renounce salads.

Let the revolution begin. ♣

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Light Counter Conspiracy

5 May

Image from indypendent.org, "a free paper for free people".

Now I know that bringing up another work conspiracy (for the original, see my post about what’s in the tissue boxes), but I can’t help but think that I’m involved in some sort of underground dirty scheme.

Last week, a group of three men wandered into my office and began milling around in front of me, staring at the ceiling and looking particularly cautious.  It’s sort of a knee-jerk reaction for me to greet someone with a smile and ask if I can help them when they wander into my office because thanks to the awful positioning of it, it’s the first unintimidating-looking office people get to after they leave the elevator.  So if they skipped instructions in the lobby that were listed on a sign telling them to dial the extension for the party they need (with a list of numbers and names right beside it), they just mosey about the floor until they stumble upon me.

On an average day I have between 1-3 clueless visitors.  And you all know how much I love people who don’t read signs or plan out their lives or have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing.

But this group of three fellas didn’t need any help.  They said they were just fine and that they  needed to “count the lights”.

Count the lights? Seriously? There are three of you.  “Oh.  Okay…”, I said, staring on in confusion as they silently muttered themselves through counting and made marks on mysterious papers lodged in clipboards. 

If you ever want to look official at something, invest in a good clipboard.  Gets ’em every time.

So I thought the visit was strange, but hey – I work for an enormous company and I imagine something like how many lights are running at any given time might be useful for their files.  Maybe it was a sort of electricity census.  Or maybe they needed to switch all of them out at the same time and needed to know how many to replace because they lost the record from the last time they did it.

But then they came back yesterday.

Well it wasn’t actually them.  It was three completely different guys who looked slightly more dressed up than the group that visited me last week.  And when I asked if I could help them, they said they didn’t need any and were just there to count the lights.  “Huh.  Do you guys do that a lot? There was just someone here who said that to me last week”, I said.   “Yeah, I know”, the bossiest looking one replied “and they didn’t do it right, so that’s why I’m here.”

What?

I’m sorry – what? The last crew of three people that you sent failed to accurately count the number of lights in this room and so you had to leave your office and come take care of the business yourself?  There’s a bad joke about how many guys it takes to change a light bulb in there somewhere.  I’m starting to think that this isn’t about light bulbs at all.  What is actually going on underneath all this?  Am I part of some underground goings-on that I’m oblivious to? 

I’m going to get to the bottom of this.   Maybe it will be some sort of huge scheme by a bunch of folks to scam as light counters to get out of a day of work and they accidentally used the same site twice.  Or maybe it’s just a stupid job that the company I work for genuinely finds useful to employ.  But there’s a very small chance that I’ll discover something super secret and exciting.  Maybe all of this somehow leads to a Malkovich Room.  Maybe there are leprechauns somewhere along the way.  Or a secret plot of the CIA.

Or maybe I need to give the Netflix queue a break. ♣

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Dear Slow People Everywhere

4 May

 You know, I’m getting really tired of everyone slowing me down all the time.  

I can’t stand wasting time on stupid crap.  I can’t.  I have absolutely no patience for people who make me spend longer doing something I don’t want to do just because they don’t know how to find beauty in efficiency.  So let’s get real now. 

Dear Slow People Everywhere,

Please hurry up.   I know that seems like a really obvious thing to tell a slow person, but I feel like you just can’t be taking things seriously.  I want you to make an honest effort – give hurrying up the good ol’ college try.  Because I know you don’t want to be doing miserable things any longer than I do.  I don’t like traffic or grocery stores or taking care of business over the phone either, but sometimes we have to be adults and do these things and we should try to hurry the hell up so we don’t make people want to scoop their brains out with a melon baller.

You’ve driven me to this.

When you’re walking down a grocery aisle, stick to the right.  It’s easy – just like traffic flow that you demonstrated knowledge of just before you walked in the door.  Because if you want to stop and look at chocolate chips in the middle of the aisle and you’re hard of hearing, I have to say “excuse me” three times for you to notice me and we could have just saved time if you would read a Driver’s Manual and understand it’s an application for life.    Try it in the mall.  Try it at the airport.  Heck – try it when you’re walking down the sidewalk.  The positive effects on society are boundless.

Or hey – how ’bout this one: put your stuff back where you got it.  It’s super easy.  All you have to do is designate where something will live (keys go in the bowl by the door), put them in that spot, and then always put them back where you got them.  Try this for lots of things – wallets in pockets, glasses on side tables – and you’ll always know where your stuff is.   And I won’t have to wait around for you to find it.  Keys, money, license, you know – whatever.  Less stress instantly.

Next, why don’t you consider learning the Military Phonetic Alphabet?  If you have a job that requires you to use a telephone and you don’t know the Military Phonetic Alphabet, you’re slowing people down.  You and millions like you are responsible for slowing down business across major corporations, non-profits, and government entities.  Because when I’m trying to write down your last name and I can’t understand the difference between your “m” and your “n”, it’s really helpful to just say “Mike” and “November”.  Every time I have to ask you repeat what you said, or every time I write it down wrong and get an email returned, or any time you have to stop to think of a word that starts with “u” so that you can spell out something saying “u as in…. umbrella” – is time I could be doing something less miserable than I am in that moment.  So just think about how efficient your phone calls could be.  Really.

And on that note, please put your phone number and name at the beginning of a voicemail.  Every time you put it at the end, you waste enough time to be equal to the amount of your call.  A 3 minute voice mail means I have to listen to a 3 minutes twice to get your number down exactly right.  That’s six minutes of my life you’ve wasted because you can’t say “Hi my name is ______, my number is ___________” right at the beginning.

These are just a few suggestions.  Listen, I know change doesn’t happen overnight.   And with all the years you’ve all slowed me down, I understand these are well-worn habits that will take time to adjust.   But I’m hopeful that after a few attempts at the above suggestions, you’ll start to have a newfound lust for life and grab your day be the horns, now that you’ve added 2 more hours to it.

So buck up, Slowskys – it’s time to start practicing.

Puppies and Sprinkles,

Jackie ♣


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