For the love of God, has the entire world gone mad?!
Is it just me, or has this been dubbed Freak the Hell Out Week and I just missed the memo?
Because seriously.
--------------------------
So I went to lunch yesterday (Wendy's, naturally) because I needed a one dollar salad more than can possibly be expressed in words. I'm walking in the side door to the place, while at the same time this guy is going out. It's one of those two door deals that I never really understand, where you go through one into the tiniest non-room in existence and then go through the next to the outside world. We each make it through our respective first doors and go to walk around each other.
The guy stumbles, however, and bumps into me. This jostles the 5-piece chicken nugget package that he is holding, and one of them falls on the floor.
"Ooh, sorry man. That sucks" I say. He looks at me and makes this ridiculously disgusted face.
"You know what?!" he snarls. "Just FORGET IT!" And then he dramatically throws down the container of nuggets, littering my feet with tiny bits of nugget and nugget-covering, tosses his hair and then storms out of the restaurant, somehow slamming the pneumatic door behind him.
I sort of stand there for a moment, all very 'what the hell just happened' and look to the side and see that all is not well. Lunch has come to a virtual standstill inside as everyone has paused (in some cases literally mid-bite) to stare at me and the scene that I have obviously created. There is a small child standing in line pointing at me and tugging on his mom's skirt.
It's a very big deer-in-the-headlights moment. I have the insane urge to defend myself, to yell to the crowd "I didn't do anything! That guy was crazy! He bumped into me! Stop it! Stop judging me!" But realize that this will only worsen the situation. I shake my feet free of the chicken bits, resolve not to be chased away from my lunch by a nugget-thrower or these starers and get in line.
Dude in front of me in line: "What'd you say to him?!" All accusing-like.
"Nothing! He bumped into me and freaked out." I am the model of wounded innocence.
He looks down at my now very dirty shoes, all condescending: "Whatever, man." I have the intense urge to get into a fight in the Wendy's line, but have the feeling that somehow if I did it would end up being shown on Cops and somehow I would find myself on television without a shirt on running through the back alleys of Dallas with a blur over my face.
I hate people.
But the salad that followed was still delicious. Tasty tasty humiliation.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005
MetaBlog, iPods, and Irons
Okay, so you never want the thing you're writing to be about the thing that you're writing, right?
Ouch. Try again.
There are certain levels of self-reference that are just too mind-numbingly boring to even begin to wrap your head around, so I try to stay away from these sort of things. Avoid writing about the blog on the blog, no? I'm all about serving your interests first.
And yet, I feel compelled. Because all last week I was in a horrible mood and just refused to write anything, despite all the completely random and ridiculously writable things that happened to me. And then suddenly it's the next week and if possible I'm actually in a worse mood. So obviously something has to break.
I'm going to fall in favor of writing anyway, but let's all be aware that I'm not feeling on top of the writing game, so I should get extra levels of understanding when the stuff that pours out is full of bile and/or unfortunate unfunny phrasing.
---------------------------------
So, I bought an iPod this weekend. It was completely gratuitous and completely unrationalized. Usually if I'm going to spend any large sum of money I have to agonize and carefully map out how justified I am by making the purchase and how it will further my goals of either world peace or my eventual world domination. This is then followed by three hours of whinging about in Best Buy (where all my large purchases are made) until I finally break down in a fit of excess and hand over the credit card.
With this purchase, I walked into Best Buy with the sole intention of just checking to see if they had any in stock, and perhaps look them over for an eventual future purchase when I had more discretionary spending money burning a hole in my pocket. The first salesman I ran into showed me the stack of three iPods they had right in the front of the store and was all "You want one?" shaking it ever so seductively. And before I knew what was happening I was at my car holding the tiny little box and wondering exactly how subliminal messages work so well.
Of course, now I cannot live without it, as it keeps me in full contact with huge portions of my music collection at all times of the day. It even hooks up to my car stereo so I don't have to take the hit to get that thing fixed. It completes me in a way I was not aware a physical object could. Even if I do look like a complete dork hipster when wearing it. It's like selling out in the most public way possible. But whatever, y'all just don't understand our love.
-------------------------------------
Last night I'm doing the laundry and rocking out to the above mentioned iPod. I've already gone through the washing phase of things and run out to the laundry room for phase two: moving the ridiculously wet clothes across the room to the one functional dryer left. I pop open the washer and all my clothes are gone.
Hmm.
I look to my right, there are no wet clothes on the table, I check the dryers and they're all full and running. A little worried, but refusing to give in to the panic that comes with believing that every piece of work clothing that you own (along with every pair of underwear in your possession save the one you have on) has been stolen, I figure stranger things have happened and start checking dryers. In running dryer number three I find all my clothes, merrily rolling along.
Very weird. Although I am easily fooled, I do not believe that my clothes have developed the ability to dry themselves. They were not that dirty. My eventual hypothesis is that the would-be clothes-napper wanted to steal my clothes but they were all wet, so he decided to dry them first before he ran off with them. I suppose we will never know, since I hung around until the cycle finished and took my freshly dried clothes back home without word from the interloper.
My apartment complex is full of weirdos.
-----------------------------------
I get back to the apartment and am in the process of slowly ironing enough shirts and pants that I can go the entire week without having to do more in the mornings than blindly reach in the closet and grab the two nearest articles of clothing and throw them on.
Somewhere around shirt number 4.2, while listening to Ben Folds cover Dr. Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit, I reach over to pick up the iron and miscalculate which side of the iron has the handle on it. Have you ever tried to wrap your hand around a flat iron plate of near molten metal? Well it sucks. I now lack the majority of feeling in my three middle fingers on my left hand, which makes typing a wonderful magic journey of discovery with each additional line.
I mean, I know I do stupid shit a lot. Bad things happen because I am clumsy and inattentive. Yawn. But at some point, you really just have to be all "enough is enough." Because really, grabbing the wrong side of the iron? When did I become a senile 80 year old? Was it yesterday? I'm officially over the clumsy.
I don't know how that will translate into me being less of a spaz and injuring myself, but I want fate to be on notice: I am no longer amused.
----------------------------------------------
To recap the weekend:
New iPod: +++
Nearly stolen laundry: -
Laundry stealing averted and free drying: +
Near maiming at the hands of an iron: ---
Total on the weekend: Break Even.
Rock on.
Ouch. Try again.
There are certain levels of self-reference that are just too mind-numbingly boring to even begin to wrap your head around, so I try to stay away from these sort of things. Avoid writing about the blog on the blog, no? I'm all about serving your interests first.
And yet, I feel compelled. Because all last week I was in a horrible mood and just refused to write anything, despite all the completely random and ridiculously writable things that happened to me. And then suddenly it's the next week and if possible I'm actually in a worse mood. So obviously something has to break.
I'm going to fall in favor of writing anyway, but let's all be aware that I'm not feeling on top of the writing game, so I should get extra levels of understanding when the stuff that pours out is full of bile and/or unfortunate unfunny phrasing.
---------------------------------
So, I bought an iPod this weekend. It was completely gratuitous and completely unrationalized. Usually if I'm going to spend any large sum of money I have to agonize and carefully map out how justified I am by making the purchase and how it will further my goals of either world peace or my eventual world domination. This is then followed by three hours of whinging about in Best Buy (where all my large purchases are made) until I finally break down in a fit of excess and hand over the credit card.
With this purchase, I walked into Best Buy with the sole intention of just checking to see if they had any in stock, and perhaps look them over for an eventual future purchase when I had more discretionary spending money burning a hole in my pocket. The first salesman I ran into showed me the stack of three iPods they had right in the front of the store and was all "You want one?" shaking it ever so seductively. And before I knew what was happening I was at my car holding the tiny little box and wondering exactly how subliminal messages work so well.
Of course, now I cannot live without it, as it keeps me in full contact with huge portions of my music collection at all times of the day. It even hooks up to my car stereo so I don't have to take the hit to get that thing fixed. It completes me in a way I was not aware a physical object could. Even if I do look like a complete dork hipster when wearing it. It's like selling out in the most public way possible. But whatever, y'all just don't understand our love.
-------------------------------------
Last night I'm doing the laundry and rocking out to the above mentioned iPod. I've already gone through the washing phase of things and run out to the laundry room for phase two: moving the ridiculously wet clothes across the room to the one functional dryer left. I pop open the washer and all my clothes are gone.
Hmm.
I look to my right, there are no wet clothes on the table, I check the dryers and they're all full and running. A little worried, but refusing to give in to the panic that comes with believing that every piece of work clothing that you own (along with every pair of underwear in your possession save the one you have on) has been stolen, I figure stranger things have happened and start checking dryers. In running dryer number three I find all my clothes, merrily rolling along.
Very weird. Although I am easily fooled, I do not believe that my clothes have developed the ability to dry themselves. They were not that dirty. My eventual hypothesis is that the would-be clothes-napper wanted to steal my clothes but they were all wet, so he decided to dry them first before he ran off with them. I suppose we will never know, since I hung around until the cycle finished and took my freshly dried clothes back home without word from the interloper.
My apartment complex is full of weirdos.
-----------------------------------
I get back to the apartment and am in the process of slowly ironing enough shirts and pants that I can go the entire week without having to do more in the mornings than blindly reach in the closet and grab the two nearest articles of clothing and throw them on.
Somewhere around shirt number 4.2, while listening to Ben Folds cover Dr. Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit, I reach over to pick up the iron and miscalculate which side of the iron has the handle on it. Have you ever tried to wrap your hand around a flat iron plate of near molten metal? Well it sucks. I now lack the majority of feeling in my three middle fingers on my left hand, which makes typing a wonderful magic journey of discovery with each additional line.
I mean, I know I do stupid shit a lot. Bad things happen because I am clumsy and inattentive. Yawn. But at some point, you really just have to be all "enough is enough." Because really, grabbing the wrong side of the iron? When did I become a senile 80 year old? Was it yesterday? I'm officially over the clumsy.
I don't know how that will translate into me being less of a spaz and injuring myself, but I want fate to be on notice: I am no longer amused.
----------------------------------------------
To recap the weekend:
New iPod: +++
Nearly stolen laundry: -
Laundry stealing averted and free drying: +
Near maiming at the hands of an iron: ---
Total on the weekend: Break Even.
Rock on.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Cheap Date
It has become painfully obvious that I am at the same time very easily amused, and a very cheap date. I am totally the lowest common denominator of movie watching, in that seeing the line up of movies coming out for the last three weeks made me giddy with anticipation: Robots (A cartoon with Amanda Bynes!?!), The Ring 2 (evil dead children of corniness and ultimate scariness), Ice Princess (You got your physics nerd in my ice skater! You got your ice skater in my physics nerd...), and Miss Congeniality 2 (Armed and Fabulous.) (No really, that's the tagline.)
It was determined in conversation earlier this week that I am the cheapest date any of us know, because I don't even need dinner with the movie. You could just give me a couple of Pixi Sticks or a funnel cake and I would like a happy puppy. There was also some talk about how I am easily distracted by shiny objects, but that is neither here nor there.
Anyways, my love for bad movies knows no bounds.
I present to you the quickest rundown of bad movies that make my life complete:
It was determined in conversation earlier this week that I am the cheapest date any of us know, because I don't even need dinner with the movie. You could just give me a couple of Pixi Sticks or a funnel cake and I would like a happy puppy. There was also some talk about how I am easily distracted by shiny objects, but that is neither here nor there.
Anyways, my love for bad movies knows no bounds.
I present to you the quickest rundown of bad movies that make my life complete:
- Bring It On - Easily the best bad movie in existence about cheerleading and subtextual lesbianism. Infinitely quotable in all situations. Need a rebuttal? "[Thing to rebutt] this, tool!" followed by a crotch grab. Everything in life you need to know, you can learn from this movie. And I haven't even got into the Spirit Fingers.
- Center Stage - "I am the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet Academy. Who the hell are you?!" Nothing else needs to be said. (Except: "Dance what you feel!")
- The Ring - You know how this came about, right? (I've got the perfect horror pitch: there's a tape that you watch and then 7 days later you die! Hmm, I don't know, I think you need to add a creepy child actor. Yes! And a monster that comes out of your television and ruins your hardwood floors! We're so brilliant! Wanna go do some more coke? )
- That Thing You Do - Yes, it's cheesy, and ridiculous, and kinda dopey, and stars Liv Tyler and that guy from every failed sitcom in the history of the world, but it makes me ridicuously happy. "You mean a record? A record record record?" For that line alone, I forgive her for Armageddon.
- Miss Congeniality - Did you ever see that episode of Friends where Chandler can tell that Miss Congeniality is playing in the next room through the wall? That is totally me. But really, I blame my friends for putting this on the loop of movies we watched non-stop every week during sophomore and junior year. Same thing goes for X-Men and Coyote Ugly. Which really should get its own bullet point, but that's a bit too depressing.
We'll go ahead and stop there, but I am insanely intrigued to know, what bad movies do it for you? Inquiring, easily amused minds want to know.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Ants
The first firm memory I have from childhood is of my dad wading across our lawn to go visit my grandmother in her mobile home. Back then, we lived near Galveston, Texas, right along the coast, in a hideous, tiny mobile home that was raised up about 4 feet on tiny stilts. This was necessary to get above flood level, as was made plainly evident during this episode. It was right after some big storm, and the waters made it look like our house was situated in the middle of an ocean. But instead of a nice looking ocean, the water was dark and murky, full of branches and leaves.
Also, there were huge scary blackish patches that floated on top of the water. My mother explained to me that these were 'ant rafts,' entirely displaced fire ant mounds that survived the flood by cheating physics and surface tension by linking up into huge masses. In my mind, this was the scariest thing I had ever heard of in my entire life. Fire ants already were mean and hurt like hell whenever you got near them, but now they could defy water? Like, they could be marching on our house right now. They don't have their land anymore so now they want our house. And how could we stop them? (I had a vivid imagination as a child.)
******
This morning I woke up at 5:32 in the morning with a sneeze. Which was weird, because how many times does a sneeze wake you up? I was very disoriented, but figured "whatever, get back to sleep, you're burning precious nighttime hours." When I went back to sleep, I had this really vivid dream where I got this tattoo on my shoulder, but it started itching a whole lot, so I started trying to scratch it, but then the tattoo would move around on my body and I could never reach it - I just kept scratching all over.
******
My mom says that the reason I have that flood/ant thing as my first memory was probably her fault. She really fed my ant fear a little bit too much back when I was a kid. We had moved to Texas when I was about one year old, from Chicago where I had been born and where my mom had lived basically her entire life. She had never been out in the country really and wasn't really wise to things like fire ants and whatnot. Shortly after we moved in, my mom and her sister had set me and my cousin down under a tree to play with some blocks and then stood over to the side to talk. Apparently they had set us down near some fire ants, which proceeded to live up to their name. It only took about a minute for them to swarm very convincingly over both of us. After that, my mom had a near pathological fear of fire ants and kept a constant vigil against our lawn with some high quality pesticides. And I totally soaked up all of that fear.
******
In my dream, I decided to take a shower to try and wash off the tattoo and get rid of the itching, since I figured that even if I couldn't reach it with my hands, water would get to it. Instead, the tattoo moved up my body and under my hair. And it really hurt, so I started scratching my head. Like, hard.
Suddenly I woke up, and realized that I was totally scratching the hell out of my head. Why? Because there were ants in my hair. Not too many, maybe five or six, but as I've so carefully illustrated here, I can't stand ants. And suddenly they're all in my bed? I hop out, run to the bathroom, shrieking like a little girl all the way, and rid myself of all these tiny alien entities all running around my body. Total count of ant population reduced by me: 12.
Now what to do about the bed?
******
As most people who knew me in college know, I had a very specific manner of getting my computer programming done. I would spend a lot of time figuring out in my mind exactly how I wanted it done, then I would take on the whole thing in one fell swoop, programming for hours at a time, fueled only by massive quantities of Pixi Sticks and Dr Pepper. And I mean, massive quantities. I could burn through a 12 pack in less than two sessions, and I had an entire desk drawer devoted to bags of Pixi Sticks.
Sophomore year I lived in a basement dorm room, just below ground level. My computer desk was right next to the window that looked out on all the passing feet of the students on the lawn. It was right after the first cold spell of the year, sometime in November if I recall correctly. I had left mid-programming session to hit the bathroom and got distracted talking to someone down the hall. When I came back to program, I downed a Pixi Stick and took a swig of Dr Pepper. Only there was something in the Dr Pepper. Yes, the ants had made it into the room, drawn in by the warmth and the emanating sugar waves my desk was giving off.
I used to count that moment when I realized that I had just drank a bunch of ants as the most disturbing moment of my life.
******
I return to my bed, all the lights blazing now, to eradicate any further traces of ant infestation. Careful examination finds 5 more ants secreted amongst the pillows and blanket. And one more on the alarm clock. Further exploration of the entire room and window yields no more ants. I spray down the window with pesticide just to make sure. It is by now 6:30 and I realize that I might as well take a loss on getting anymore sleep tonight.
I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. While I'm waiting for it to get warm, suddenly the urge to sneeze comes on again, and I give in to nature.
And I sneezed up an ant.
We have a new winner for the most disturbing moment of my life.
Thank you and goodnight.
Also, there were huge scary blackish patches that floated on top of the water. My mother explained to me that these were 'ant rafts,' entirely displaced fire ant mounds that survived the flood by cheating physics and surface tension by linking up into huge masses. In my mind, this was the scariest thing I had ever heard of in my entire life. Fire ants already were mean and hurt like hell whenever you got near them, but now they could defy water? Like, they could be marching on our house right now. They don't have their land anymore so now they want our house. And how could we stop them? (I had a vivid imagination as a child.)
******
This morning I woke up at 5:32 in the morning with a sneeze. Which was weird, because how many times does a sneeze wake you up? I was very disoriented, but figured "whatever, get back to sleep, you're burning precious nighttime hours." When I went back to sleep, I had this really vivid dream where I got this tattoo on my shoulder, but it started itching a whole lot, so I started trying to scratch it, but then the tattoo would move around on my body and I could never reach it - I just kept scratching all over.
******
My mom says that the reason I have that flood/ant thing as my first memory was probably her fault. She really fed my ant fear a little bit too much back when I was a kid. We had moved to Texas when I was about one year old, from Chicago where I had been born and where my mom had lived basically her entire life. She had never been out in the country really and wasn't really wise to things like fire ants and whatnot. Shortly after we moved in, my mom and her sister had set me and my cousin down under a tree to play with some blocks and then stood over to the side to talk. Apparently they had set us down near some fire ants, which proceeded to live up to their name. It only took about a minute for them to swarm very convincingly over both of us. After that, my mom had a near pathological fear of fire ants and kept a constant vigil against our lawn with some high quality pesticides. And I totally soaked up all of that fear.
******
In my dream, I decided to take a shower to try and wash off the tattoo and get rid of the itching, since I figured that even if I couldn't reach it with my hands, water would get to it. Instead, the tattoo moved up my body and under my hair. And it really hurt, so I started scratching my head. Like, hard.
Suddenly I woke up, and realized that I was totally scratching the hell out of my head. Why? Because there were ants in my hair. Not too many, maybe five or six, but as I've so carefully illustrated here, I can't stand ants. And suddenly they're all in my bed? I hop out, run to the bathroom, shrieking like a little girl all the way, and rid myself of all these tiny alien entities all running around my body. Total count of ant population reduced by me: 12.
Now what to do about the bed?
******
As most people who knew me in college know, I had a very specific manner of getting my computer programming done. I would spend a lot of time figuring out in my mind exactly how I wanted it done, then I would take on the whole thing in one fell swoop, programming for hours at a time, fueled only by massive quantities of Pixi Sticks and Dr Pepper. And I mean, massive quantities. I could burn through a 12 pack in less than two sessions, and I had an entire desk drawer devoted to bags of Pixi Sticks.
Sophomore year I lived in a basement dorm room, just below ground level. My computer desk was right next to the window that looked out on all the passing feet of the students on the lawn. It was right after the first cold spell of the year, sometime in November if I recall correctly. I had left mid-programming session to hit the bathroom and got distracted talking to someone down the hall. When I came back to program, I downed a Pixi Stick and took a swig of Dr Pepper. Only there was something in the Dr Pepper. Yes, the ants had made it into the room, drawn in by the warmth and the emanating sugar waves my desk was giving off.
I used to count that moment when I realized that I had just drank a bunch of ants as the most disturbing moment of my life.
******
I return to my bed, all the lights blazing now, to eradicate any further traces of ant infestation. Careful examination finds 5 more ants secreted amongst the pillows and blanket. And one more on the alarm clock. Further exploration of the entire room and window yields no more ants. I spray down the window with pesticide just to make sure. It is by now 6:30 and I realize that I might as well take a loss on getting anymore sleep tonight.
I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower. While I'm waiting for it to get warm, suddenly the urge to sneeze comes on again, and I give in to nature.
And I sneezed up an ant.
We have a new winner for the most disturbing moment of my life.
Thank you and goodnight.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Basketball Owns Me
Because you totally care about my college basketball obsession:
- For the third consecutive year, I've picked a Duke / Arizona Final. Yes, I know it will never happen, but whatever, I get to dream, right?
- Conversely, for the first time, I actually picked Duke to win. Of course, this probably means that Arizona will actually win and I will cry like a little girl. Just kidding. Arizona never wins anything.
- I seriously have no clue about any of the other teams this year. I swear, it's like the only basketball I watched all year was the ACC and all the Illinois games that were on CBS. Oh, and the occassional Big 12 game that came on ESPN Plus. Therefore, this year more than ever I'm totally going by third-hand anecdotes and which team has a better color scheme. (I like the cut of Pacific's jib.) I will, however, no longer consider which mascot looks cooler, after last year's debacle with Georgia Tech (seriously that is a fugly mascot. it alone should have disqualified them from the finals).
- Sadly, this year I have no one to root against. Nevada is still my arch nemesis, but I really want them to beat Texas, for reasons that are conflicted, to say the least. And I know they will receive a quick beatdown from Illinois if they do, so double bonus.
- Actually, strike that, the team I'm actively rooting against is Kentucky, about whom I know little but it offends me that they have a number 2 seed and I haven't seen them play this year. Would also say the same thing about Washington, but I did get to see the PAC-10 final this weekend. They beat my Arizona however, so there is a tiny nugget of hate. I kick them out of my bracket relatively quickly (I'm telling you, look at the stunning colors on Pacific).
So this year I actually have a job, which conflicts with the tournament. In years past it was no big thing to skip a couple days of class for the sheer entertainment of this week, it falls beautifully right after midterms, but now I'm all in a quandry. This is totally what old feels like, isn't it?
Weirdly enough, this is the first year since I started college where I have nothing riding on my picks (last year my entry fee was several canned goods and I proceeded to have the 3rd worst score out of the entire dorm quad, thank you very much Georgia Tech). I have entered no pool, save the ESPN challenge so that I can track just how misguided I was earlier in the week. It will probably be much better for my rage now that there's no pressure to win. (I can recall a time that was junior year in which my head nearly exploded, watching my only winning upset pick (Marquette) snatch away their victory. And then my head actually exploded when they kept winning.) Easing that pain may go a long way to my keeping what's left of my sanity this Spring.
That's totally a lie, my sanity is already gone. Go Wildcats! The Arizona kind! Not those Kentucky ones!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Esteemers
So I've slowly been falling into a state of total disrepair. The hair, which upon cutting had looked so bold and (in my deluded mind) just the right amount of sexy, has now grown out into something that I swear resembles the early stages of a mullet. Except, you know, less business in the front and way more party in the back than one could ever really need.
And I have yet to restock my bathroom since my last depletion of skin care products, so my face is starting to take on that "10 miles of rough road" quality that I can so famously rock. And by "rock" I mean "use to scare small children." Also, I guess it might just be a product of the 40 hour work week, but I have started to develop the most unflattering 5 o'clock shadow in the history of the world. And it starts showing its (hideously deformed) face earlier and earlier in the day. Pretty soon I will end up like Homer Simpson and will be able to watch it reform as I step out of the bathroom in the morning.
Pile all those up, along with my jacked-up glasses (I fell off the couch and directly onto the glasses, turning them very askew. And by "askew," I mean "scientist who has lost touch with reality and is covered in chalk.") and it's a rough week in the Jason neighborhood.
The next factor: So I was at the store trying to buy some sort of product that would give my apartment a fragrance that was not Eau de Dirty Laundry + Week Old Easy Mac, and I happened upon a scale. It's official, I have fallen back to my old pre-excersize weight. Like, -10 pounds, freshman-year-of-college, creepy-skinny weight. Ugh. Not only that, but it's all distributed really weird. Like, ridiculously skinny arms, but trunk-like torso. Sigh. Do you have any idea how much work it is to go to a gym? Where you have to lift things and people are always very veiny and straining?
I don't even want to consider it, but I do miss being able to pick up heavy things. And not getting winded carrying groceries. AND call me shallow, but I very much believe that my personal self-worth is closely related to the size of my biceps and/or the definition of my abs. I blame television, the media, and Hilary Duff for this poor self body image. But damn if I'm not gonna get back to lifting small heavy pieces of metal for no good reason.
As someone famously said, if you work hard enough at it, shallowness can be so thorough that it almost looks like depth.
(Oh, and speaking of Hilary Duff, Raise Your Voice sucked way more than it had any right to. The Girl-Goes-From-Underdog-To-Overdog-And-Is-Discovered-And-Finds-Love-And-Happiness genre is very easy to work with. Did we learn nothing from Crossroads? Or Glitter? Or Honey? Or, for that matter, Sister Act II - Wait This Time We Have Lauren Hill, Hey Where Are You Going? Stick with the upbeat stuff, no one wants all your drama. Oh, and also, Hilary, your dead brother does not live on the moon. The pluses, just to be fair: that violin chick was awesome. And as much as it pains me to say it, I was totally into the nerdy drum-guy. What? We already went over how shallow I am. Don't act all surprised.)
And I have yet to restock my bathroom since my last depletion of skin care products, so my face is starting to take on that "10 miles of rough road" quality that I can so famously rock. And by "rock" I mean "use to scare small children." Also, I guess it might just be a product of the 40 hour work week, but I have started to develop the most unflattering 5 o'clock shadow in the history of the world. And it starts showing its (hideously deformed) face earlier and earlier in the day. Pretty soon I will end up like Homer Simpson and will be able to watch it reform as I step out of the bathroom in the morning.
Pile all those up, along with my jacked-up glasses (I fell off the couch and directly onto the glasses, turning them very askew. And by "askew," I mean "scientist who has lost touch with reality and is covered in chalk.") and it's a rough week in the Jason neighborhood.
The next factor: So I was at the store trying to buy some sort of product that would give my apartment a fragrance that was not Eau de Dirty Laundry + Week Old Easy Mac, and I happened upon a scale. It's official, I have fallen back to my old pre-excersize weight. Like, -10 pounds, freshman-year-of-college, creepy-skinny weight. Ugh. Not only that, but it's all distributed really weird. Like, ridiculously skinny arms, but trunk-like torso. Sigh. Do you have any idea how much work it is to go to a gym? Where you have to lift things and people are always very veiny and straining?
I don't even want to consider it, but I do miss being able to pick up heavy things. And not getting winded carrying groceries. AND call me shallow, but I very much believe that my personal self-worth is closely related to the size of my biceps and/or the definition of my abs. I blame television, the media, and Hilary Duff for this poor self body image. But damn if I'm not gonna get back to lifting small heavy pieces of metal for no good reason.
As someone famously said, if you work hard enough at it, shallowness can be so thorough that it almost looks like depth.
(Oh, and speaking of Hilary Duff, Raise Your Voice sucked way more than it had any right to. The Girl-Goes-From-Underdog-To-Overdog-And-Is-Discovered-And-Finds-Love-And-Happiness genre is very easy to work with. Did we learn nothing from Crossroads? Or Glitter? Or Honey? Or, for that matter, Sister Act II - Wait This Time We Have Lauren Hill, Hey Where Are You Going? Stick with the upbeat stuff, no one wants all your drama. Oh, and also, Hilary, your dead brother does not live on the moon. The pluses, just to be fair: that violin chick was awesome. And as much as it pains me to say it, I was totally into the nerdy drum-guy. What? We already went over how shallow I am. Don't act all surprised.)
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Summations = Death
I always knew that math would be the death of me, but I never knew exactly how it would play out. Turns out, trying to do math before the first cup of coffee in the morning is my ultimate downfall.
So, I'm easily a very lazy guy. I treasure each and every minute of my sleep as though it were some sort of precious jewel, or perhaps a tasty piece of pie. So in the mornings, once my alarm goes off, I like to hit me some Snooze and regain a few extra minutes of exquisite sleep. Specifically, my Snooze button gives me 9 more minutes. I love those 9 minutes so much. And usually once those nine are up, I can get up with minimal effort, weeping, and moaning. Mostly minimal.
But this morning, I guess I must have bumped the clock when I set it last night, because the alarm went off at 6:24, rather than the normal 6:51 that I am accustomed. You see 6:51 + 9 minutes = 7:00. Time to get up, right? Nice and easy. So the alarm goes off at 6:24. Kneejerk reaction, I swing out my arm, smash it down on the clock and roll over. During this roll over is when I process the time.
"6:24, eh? That means, I will get to sleep until.....ummm...6:33. Excellent. That's even more sleeping time than usual. In fact, I could hit the snooze button even more than just once."
Thus began my downward spiral in my mind, trying to do simple addition to figure out how many times I could hit the snooze button and still reasonably get up right around 7:00. My brain does not function this early in the morning. You have no idea how complicated this entire process was to me. Of course, it never occurred to me to reset the alarm for any time, no I laid there running over and over the sums, trying to come up with the perfect number of times I could be jerked out of my sleep, wack my hand on a demonic piece of plastic, and then try to recover some additional Zzz's.
I just couldn't come up with the right number. I'd do the sums, and then forget to keep the running total in my head, or keep the count but not the minutes. Over and over. This went on for the full 9 minutes of the first snooze. That's right, the alarm went off before I had finished counting up the remaining 36 minutes in the hour. And notice that it's 36. It's an evenly divisible number of snooze hits. 3. The answer is 3 more times after this first one. But I never got there.
Once the alarm went off, I was all "Screw it. I'm just gonna hit it 2 more times and then get up." So I inadvertently was still correct, despite my lack of 2nd grade math.
That is until I found out that when I wake up by an alarm, I really don't have that good of thought processes (in case that wasn't plainly evident) and can't keep a running count from snooze to snooze. So I did that whole "One snooze left" hit 4 times.
Which meant that not only did I have to forego shaving this morning, I was especially grumpy and wrinkled the whole day through.
Stupid math.
So, I'm easily a very lazy guy. I treasure each and every minute of my sleep as though it were some sort of precious jewel, or perhaps a tasty piece of pie. So in the mornings, once my alarm goes off, I like to hit me some Snooze and regain a few extra minutes of exquisite sleep. Specifically, my Snooze button gives me 9 more minutes. I love those 9 minutes so much. And usually once those nine are up, I can get up with minimal effort, weeping, and moaning. Mostly minimal.
But this morning, I guess I must have bumped the clock when I set it last night, because the alarm went off at 6:24, rather than the normal 6:51 that I am accustomed. You see 6:51 + 9 minutes = 7:00. Time to get up, right? Nice and easy. So the alarm goes off at 6:24. Kneejerk reaction, I swing out my arm, smash it down on the clock and roll over. During this roll over is when I process the time.
"6:24, eh? That means, I will get to sleep until.....ummm...6:33. Excellent. That's even more sleeping time than usual. In fact, I could hit the snooze button even more than just once."
Thus began my downward spiral in my mind, trying to do simple addition to figure out how many times I could hit the snooze button and still reasonably get up right around 7:00. My brain does not function this early in the morning. You have no idea how complicated this entire process was to me. Of course, it never occurred to me to reset the alarm for any time, no I laid there running over and over the sums, trying to come up with the perfect number of times I could be jerked out of my sleep, wack my hand on a demonic piece of plastic, and then try to recover some additional Zzz's.
I just couldn't come up with the right number. I'd do the sums, and then forget to keep the running total in my head, or keep the count but not the minutes. Over and over. This went on for the full 9 minutes of the first snooze. That's right, the alarm went off before I had finished counting up the remaining 36 minutes in the hour. And notice that it's 36. It's an evenly divisible number of snooze hits. 3. The answer is 3 more times after this first one. But I never got there.
Once the alarm went off, I was all "Screw it. I'm just gonna hit it 2 more times and then get up." So I inadvertently was still correct, despite my lack of 2nd grade math.
That is until I found out that when I wake up by an alarm, I really don't have that good of thought processes (in case that wasn't plainly evident) and can't keep a running count from snooze to snooze. So I did that whole "One snooze left" hit 4 times.
Which meant that not only did I have to forego shaving this morning, I was especially grumpy and wrinkled the whole day through.
Stupid math.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Success About Something...
Man, okay. Did you ever have a week where just doing anything that required any kind of effort was just not worth it? Because I've been having that week for about 15 straight days. So much stuff keeps my attention all day long that by the time I get the free minute to write anything down (or get anything else done - those brakes on my car still aren't fixed) I would just so rather turn up the television and blast some video game monsters into oblivion.
I have grown massively lazy, even moreso than before. Which is seriously saying something. Yesterday I got home, did household chores for 45 minutes and then took a freaking 2 hour nap. That was basically my entire night - sleeping followed by a light meal, followed by sleeping. I am such a rock star.
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Yesterday morning as I was getting ready to leave the house, I realized that I didn't have my glasses on. I ran around everywhere I could think to, looking for them, but eventually had to abandon them and drive blind, so I wouldn't be late. This was mildly annoying, made moreso by the fact that I had done the same thing last Friday. "Showing my old age," I figured. I get to work after blindly weaving through traffic for hours (sidebar: I am a horrible driver. It's depressing to realize that you suck at something so fundamental in life. But I totally do.) and settle in to my workday of squinting like an old man. 30 minutes in, I lean over to pick up a fallen paperclip and my glasses fall out of my shirt pocket. Apparently I wasn't showing my old age, I was showing my Alzheimer's Disease. For the love. It's the equivalent of losing your glasses when they're on the top of your head, only I don't even have that excuse, because my shirt pocket is where I keep my glasses. I swear I'm only 23, yet I sound as though I'm about to yell at a bunch of kids to stay out of my damn yard. If I had a yard. (Do you notice how often I say that? I think I have some sort of yard fixation. Latent Homeownership Envy, I suppose. One of the hazards of working in the mortgage industry.)
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So, lately it has totally been the attack of the 90's everywhere I look. The OC recently featured an entire episode's worth of throwback 90's songs and covers, in addition to the hideously painful cheesiness that was the episode itself (Seth hanging off the roof in a Spiderman mask? I yelled at the television so loudly that my sister came running into the room. I mean, Jesus.). And nowadays whenever I drive out for lunch, the radio stations are compelled to do this lunch hour flashback into my high school years. And while I may not have fully enjoyed those years as a whole, damn but I love the music. A lot of it sounds like a bunch of REM, Greenday, and every derivative thereof (which, yeah, it mostly was) but it's all very comforting and pleasing to the ear. And by The Ear, I mean My Ear, because mine is the only musical taste that matters in the world that revolves around Jason. Blind Melon, No Doubt, and Nirvana? Be still my tiny, black heart.
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New Amazing Race starts tonight. You should totally watch. Brand new season, you can be in from the beginning. Easily the most addictive thing I've been a part of, television-wise. Racing around the world. Detours and Roadblocks. I fully believe I would kick a ton of ass if I was a contestant on this show.
More realistically Jim & I would be partners (Estranged Friends/Former Bandmates) and we would be eliminated in the third leg after I got us lost driving through the streets of Calcutta and we were taken hostage by a group of wandering gypsies, but whatever. We would totally kick ass.
I have grown massively lazy, even moreso than before. Which is seriously saying something. Yesterday I got home, did household chores for 45 minutes and then took a freaking 2 hour nap. That was basically my entire night - sleeping followed by a light meal, followed by sleeping. I am such a rock star.
---------------------------------------
Yesterday morning as I was getting ready to leave the house, I realized that I didn't have my glasses on. I ran around everywhere I could think to, looking for them, but eventually had to abandon them and drive blind, so I wouldn't be late. This was mildly annoying, made moreso by the fact that I had done the same thing last Friday. "Showing my old age," I figured. I get to work after blindly weaving through traffic for hours (sidebar: I am a horrible driver. It's depressing to realize that you suck at something so fundamental in life. But I totally do.) and settle in to my workday of squinting like an old man. 30 minutes in, I lean over to pick up a fallen paperclip and my glasses fall out of my shirt pocket. Apparently I wasn't showing my old age, I was showing my Alzheimer's Disease. For the love. It's the equivalent of losing your glasses when they're on the top of your head, only I don't even have that excuse, because my shirt pocket is where I keep my glasses. I swear I'm only 23, yet I sound as though I'm about to yell at a bunch of kids to stay out of my damn yard. If I had a yard. (Do you notice how often I say that? I think I have some sort of yard fixation. Latent Homeownership Envy, I suppose. One of the hazards of working in the mortgage industry.)
---------------------------------------
So, lately it has totally been the attack of the 90's everywhere I look. The OC recently featured an entire episode's worth of throwback 90's songs and covers, in addition to the hideously painful cheesiness that was the episode itself (Seth hanging off the roof in a Spiderman mask? I yelled at the television so loudly that my sister came running into the room. I mean, Jesus.). And nowadays whenever I drive out for lunch, the radio stations are compelled to do this lunch hour flashback into my high school years. And while I may not have fully enjoyed those years as a whole, damn but I love the music. A lot of it sounds like a bunch of REM, Greenday, and every derivative thereof (which, yeah, it mostly was) but it's all very comforting and pleasing to the ear. And by The Ear, I mean My Ear, because mine is the only musical taste that matters in the world that revolves around Jason. Blind Melon, No Doubt, and Nirvana? Be still my tiny, black heart.
----------------------------------------
New Amazing Race starts tonight. You should totally watch. Brand new season, you can be in from the beginning. Easily the most addictive thing I've been a part of, television-wise. Racing around the world. Detours and Roadblocks. I fully believe I would kick a ton of ass if I was a contestant on this show.
More realistically Jim & I would be partners (Estranged Friends/Former Bandmates) and we would be eliminated in the third leg after I got us lost driving through the streets of Calcutta and we were taken hostage by a group of wandering gypsies, but whatever. We would totally kick ass.
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