Category: crazy

Epiphany On Aisle Seven

So there I am, standing in my local Target store looking at something called Lactaid because evidently God has a sense of humor and I’m pretty sure I’ve become lactose intolerant.

I’ll spare you the details, but I’ve had a bowl of cereal for dinner this evening and I’m bloated up bigger than Airabelle, the Creamland Dairy hot air balloon (last seen at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta).

Pride goeth before a burp, and the thought of taking something to stop this feeling seems real, real appealing. I’m comparing and contrasting the relative merits of the store brand “dairy digestive aid” versus the name brand “dairy digestive aid” when in my peripheral vision, I note a man walk by behind me. I can tell it’s a man by the gait and by what he’s wearing as he shops the aisles.

I hardly notice my fellow shopper, but moments later, I get a whiff of cologne.

Oh my.

It’s that scent, that same deep musk and leather tinged scent that reminds me of someone I used to know. Suddenly I’m not in a Target store but I’m in the cab of an early model step side red Ford pickup truck sitting next to that memory and I’m mainlining that scent like a addict huffs paint.

The one I knew wasn’t especially tall but he was broad in the shoulders, owing to many long hours spent practicing his team roping skills. He was a dusky hued fellow of Native American extraction with ice blue eyes that made me go weak in the knees when he’d walk past me on campus.

We only went out on two dates because he was as squirrely as a rabid woodchuck, but oh my heavens was he handsome. Just those two dates were enough to make me smile wickedly to myself some twenty years later.

So I throw into my cart whichever box of digestive aid was in hand as I sensed the sweet smelling gent shopping in the next aisle. I look at the sign on the end cap containing the Target version of the Dewey Decimal system announcing, “dental hygiene,” and think to myself, “why, yes, I could go for something in a minty fresh breath.”

I fix my casual smile, not too wide, not too meager, just Mona Lisa enough, and sashay toward the mouthwash shelves. Memories of slow two stepping dances to the sounds of something like Alabama or George Straight or Merle Haggard fill my mind. I lean casually next to the Listerine and glance up at the object of my olfactory desire.

There stands a mid-fiftyish man with a boiler hanging over a belt holding up a pair of unflattering pants that evidently contain no butt a’tall. His unkempt hair graying rapidly from the top of his ratty hairdo to the bottom of his scruffy beard. What appears to be a remnant of dinner still lingers there on his, oh my is that really a knockoff Members Only jacket he’s wearing?

I beat a hasty retreat and three rows down, I huddle at the end of the hand sanitizer aisle. I need to regroup.

That was, as they say in the vernacular, a buzz kill. Suddenly visions of New Mexico State Ag Week dances under a clear high-desert starry sky vanish and I find myself once again an almost forty-two year old woman in a Target store. I take inventory of my own raggedy outfit, with frowsy hair escaping a hasty pony tail, glasses framing my weakening eyes and a hand cart full of things like GasX and Lactaid announcing that not only was that guy not the guy that I once knew, but I am in no way that girl I wish I was any longer.

The girl I am now needs to buy some Ziploc bags so she can pack her non-dairy, non-wheat, low-fat lunch to take to my “is this really what I wanted to be when I grew up” job and slog my way through another day, as my tummy churns and my hair grays and I no longer ride in red pickup trucks and wonder what it will be like when I’m all grown up.

This is what it will be like. This is what it is. Just me and my rumbly tumbly and enough freedom and disposable income to make it interesting. When I’m done daydreaming and remembering and purchasing my products of middle aged despair, I get to go home to The Good Man who smells of soap and cute boy and is a pretty gosh darn fine reason for going home.

For some reason, even with my frowsy ponytail and corrective lenses and an occasional bout of lactose intolerance, he still thinks I’m pretty cool. And pretty.

Crazy ol’ fool. (Me, not The Good Man)


Awesomest Street in Chicago



Photo from coolead‘s Flickr photostream.


Calling Schenectady

When prolific author Harlan Ellison is asked where he gets his ideas, his response?

“Schenectady. They have them on a shelf in a Mom & Pop on Route 147.”

It’s a great quote. I mean, Schenectady is an inherently funny word. So is Poughkeepsie. And Poconos. Those East Coasters know from funny.

But the thought that the repository for the wild and engaging ideas of a writer like Ellison are neatly packaged, shrink wrapped if you please, and ready to be lifted off the shelf and plopped into form is one that tickles my senses.

In the opening credits of “The Ray Bradbury Theatre” television shows (dating back to the 1980’s, The Good Man and I have been watching them recently), Bradbury says that he’s often asked “where do you get your ideas?”

His answer refers to his writing space which is filled floor to ceiling with books and mementos and a whole plethora of, well, junk. He says all he has to do is look out and whatever his eyes fall upon, that’s what he writes about.

In an essay on the topic, Neil Gaiman says,

“…these days I tell people the truth:

‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’

People don’t like this answer. I don’t know why not. They look unhappy, as if I’m trying to slip a fast one past them. As if there’s a huge secret, and, for reasons of my own, I’m not telling them how it’s done.”

Truth be told, there is no huge secret. There is no mystery. Ideas simply happen.

When the hose is squeezed too hard, hoping for water, no water can come out.

When you step back and let go, then ideas flow faster.

Then again, every once in a while, you get a big calcified chunk of gunk that blocks the tubes. An esoteric gall stone, if you will.

So where DO you get your ideas?

Hell if I know.

Some days that shop in Schenectady is out of inventory and I have to wait for my back order to arrive.






Photo by username Clix and used royalty free from stock.xchng.


Doing the Superior Dance

A few years ago, in fact, almost three years back, The Good Man and I joined a book club affiliated with our local library. It was run by a really intelligent librarian who was pretty good at managing the club.

She’d do thorough investigations around the book and its topic and would bring up insightful questions for discussion. The first book we read for the club was “A Confederacy of Dunces.” It was an offbeat choice, and I personally struggled to finish the book.

It took The Good Man and I talking about the story for me to understand it and see if for the bit of brilliance it really is.

The library book club was populated mostly by people over the age of seventy, and they were not especially amused by the book. It was an odd club meeting that night. I was unsure if we should continue on, but decided to give it another chance.

The Good Man and I read the next few books and participated in the book club, and for the most part, we enjoyed it.

Then the librarian chose the book “Three Cups of Tea” for the group to read. A non-fiction choice, this was a pretty wide divergence from where we had been. But ok! The book had great reviews and was quite popular.

So I settled in and read it. And I hated it.

I mean, I get it. I get why everyone is so enraptured by Greg Mortenson. But I personally thought his story was a load of yak crap.

For one, I didn’t like the “how great I am” storytelling style. I’ve often found the greatest people don’t need to resort to that.

And for two, I bristled at the idea of this American man imposing his ideas of education and values on these people. I think building the schools is a good and worthy concept, but then get out of the way.

So I said these things at the book club. Well…that didn’t go over well. One especially nasty elderly woman took issue with me on that sentiment.

I should have just let it go. This nasty woman was also deeply offended at the section of the book where it was described how animal dung is picked up (with their hands! *gasp*) formed into patties and dried to be burned as a source of heat.

But she harrumphed and huffed and informed me that Mr. Mortenson was certainly fit for sainthood (in not those terms, but pretty close).

Well. Seeing all the breaking news this week. It looks like *I* was right.

: Superior Dance :



I’m sure that the nasty old woman doesn’t even remember that she was so harumphy at me. But I remember.

The sad news is, after that book club meeting, I was so turned off by the whole thing that I stopped going.

So in the end, she actually won.


“Hello Gorby? It’s Me, Ronnie.”

One of my all time favorite series of posts on this little blog has been the “Office Archeology” series of scenes from my former employer.

From the first week I worked at the new employer, I’ve kept my eye out for potential Office Archeology items to continue the series. So far, no luck. This place is kept spotless. There are no weird wrappers on the stairs, no lockless keys on the hallway cabinets, and no abandoned staplers laying about. Nope.

I mean, that’s good, right? But almost a little weird too. Every office seems to have that bit of junk that everyone ignores. But not this place.

That said, I have managed to fine one item that, while not junk, absolutely confounds me. Here’s a poor quality iPhone photo:




This piece of historic telephony is located in the break room, right above the trash/recycling/compost bins. In fact, off to the left is the chart that provides helpful suggestions about where to toss your trash.

At first I sort of noticed it, but ignored it. My company has occupied this building for over twenty years, and I figured it was a remnant of the past. A leftover.

But over time, I became more and more fascinated by the red telephone.

Why red? Why in the breakroom? Is there a conspiracy happening?

If I pick up the red phone, do I talk directly to Gorbachev?

Look, for a child of the Cold War era, the red telephone means something!

Remember the days when Ronald Reagan sat in the Oval Office with his finger on the button and the red phone at his side? It was a staring contest to see who would blink first. Gah! THE RED PHONE!

Soon enough, my obsessive compulsiveness kicked in. I couldn’t ignore the red phone any longer. It wasn’t just something in the background but this THING that was there in my environment taunting me!

My need to be “the good girl’ and follow the rules (meaning, if it’s not yours, leave it alone) and my intense curiosity began to collide.

I must pick it up! I can’t pick it up! I must pick it up! I can’t pick it up!

I asked someone who’s worked here a while about the red phone. I hoped that answers would help ease my OCD.

“Um, I don’t know, I never really thought about it,” she replied, when asked.

This is what normal people do. They don’t obsess about a red phone.

Finally, when the days and nights of curiosity and agony were too much too take, and I found myself alone in the break room, I quickly looked left, I looked right, then lifted the red receiver from the red base, and held it to my ear.

I could hear nothing. “Hello,” I said in sotto voce, eyebrows knit together waiting for all to be revealed.

“Hello?” I said again to the silence.

Then I tap-tap-tapped at the hanging up lever.

Nothing. The phone is dead. I was right, it’s a leftover.

Not satisfied, a week later I sat in a meeting with a few members of our IT team, including the voice engineer guy. At the end of the meeting, I cornered him and asked about the red phone.

“Oh, that’s for disaster recovery. Since we all use VOIP lines on our desks and cell phones, we have to keep one wired line on every floor in case of emergency.”

Ah ha. Well that makes sense.

“Did you know that the phone doesn’t work?” I asked.

He shrugged and said, “Oh well!” and walked away.

Fabulous. The emergency backup phone doesn’t work. Now I have a whole new thing to obsess about.


Tuesday (pronounced /tju:zdei)

…is a day of the week occurring after Monday and before Wednesday.

… it is the second day of the week, although in some traditions it is the third.

The name Tuesday derives from the Old English “Tiwesdæg” and literally means “Tiw’s Day”. Tiw is the Old English form of the Proto-Germanic god *Tîwaz, or Týr in Norse, a god of war and law.

In most languages with Latin origins (French, Spanish, Italian), the day is named after Mars, the Roman god of war.

Tuesday is the usual day for elections in the United States.

Shrove Tuesday (also called Mardi Gras – fat Tuesday) precedes the first day of Lent in the Western Christian calendar.
__________

Boy oh boy…that’s some good stuff about Tuesday, isn’t it? Tuesday. What a fascinating day. How cool to be Tuesday. How cool to live through a Tuesday.

I sure do like Tuesday.

Which is why I sure wish I could have actually had myself a Tuesday this week.

Oh, I mean, Tuesday happened, but I wasn’t in it.

Let me back up. First of all, on Tuesday, I was completely wiped out from my latest headcold (started on Sunday). This is the third such evil bug I’ve hosted in the past seven months (I remember when I used to brag that I *never* get sick. I smirk at that me that used to say that kind of sh**). By the second day of the week, this cold was in full bloom. Fever, headache, etc.

And, of course, as my colds do these days, this bug took up residence in my lungs.

*Cough, cough, cough….coughcoughcoughcoughcough*

Monday night, I filled up my water bottle as the ubiquitous “they” say to “stay hydrated” when you are sick.

Fine. So I filled up my metal bottle from our Brita pitcher, turned to place the half empty pitcher under the faucet, coughed, and threw my back out.

I immediately needed to lay down on the floor to see if I could stop the overwhelming desire to black out. Yes, it hurt like that.

Waking up Tuesday morning was a brand new adventure in pain. I couldn’t even stand up straight. Fun!

So Tuesday was a toss up for me. Was I more miserable because of my fever and endless snotty nose? Or was it the agony in my back?

No, you know what, I think what I enjoyed *most* of all was the relentless coughing which caused searing pain to radiate out from my back.

Yeah. That was fun.

So I spent all day on Tuesday not really on this planet. The day was pretty much me, hopped up on both pain and cold meds, flat on my back, legs up, trying to take pressure off my aching spine.

And lots and lots of kleenex.

So now I’m pissed. I want my Tuesday back. Without the misery.

Hello? Universe? Give me my twenty-four hours back!

Oh, and another thing, while I got you on the line, you and your evil friend Fate have really pulled me through the proverbial knothole these past few months.

Just to let you know, I’m ready for my reward now.

Karma does still work that way, right?





Source for all of the Tuesday facts.