Category: sarcasm

Tapping Into My Personal Genius

Boy, that’s a title, eh?

I’ll provide a guarantee right now, this post won’t live up to that title.

Maybe it’s aspirational. We’ll see.

There is a blog I read regularly that takes the form of an online journal. The author is really open and straight forward. It really is like reading her personal diary.

She suffers from quite a bit of writer’s block, and so when that happens, she’ll do a free association blog post where she asks herself questions and has her mind answer any which way it wants.

I find those posts fascinating as they always contain some nugget of something good that makes the whole exercise worthwhile.

I’m not saying my version of this is going to provide anything other than a nugget of “what the sam hell?” but I’m willing to try.

So. Here we go.

Chatting with myself…

Heeere we go!

Yup, let’s go!

We’re doin’ it!

Crimeny, I’m so blocked I can’t even write interviewer questions.

Ugh.

Ok, for real this time.

Hello, welcome to our self-chat. How are you feeling today?

Wait, that’s how a therapist likes to start a conversation. “How are you feeeeling?” How am I feeling? Bite me, that’s how I’m feeling!

I sense a little hostility.

Congratulations, your sensors are working fine. Can I go?

Yes, you can. But would you stay a minute more?

Why?

Because I asked you nicely.

Fair enough.

Why are you so cranky?

I get cranked up when I have writer’s block. It usually comes so easy to me, the words. In fact, I can write too many words. I was constantly admonished by a former boss, a numbers guy, that I wrote too many words.

He was a toad, though, so no need to let his opinions matter.

Isn’t writing a process? A flow? Sometimes a raging river, sometimes a trickle?

Thanks. Now I have to go pee.

Some of the greatest writers in the world had and have writer’s block.

Sure, sure. I know it’s all a part of the creative process but damn, I hate it!

Don’t you think railing against it only makes it worse?

Don’t you think being a smarty-pants is going to net you the backspace key, repeatedly?

Hey, this is your mental exercise, hot-shot, I’m just asking the questions here.

Oooh, touchy touchy! Fine, yes, I know that railing against writer’s block only makes it worse. But railing against [insert item here] is sort of how I make my way through life.

You know, “Hulk mad! Hulk smash!” or something like that.

Yeah. How’s that working out for you?

Today, not so well.

What do you think would help clear the block?

I don’t know. It usually passes in its own time.

So, if you can just wait it out, it will resolve itself.

Usually.

So, being patient with yourself and letting it pass by might actually be the quickest route?

Yeah, probably.

So why don’t you do that…be patient with yourself?

Damned if I know.

Well, maybe that’s something to work on today.

Yeah, you’re right. I’ll grudgingly admit you are right. Maybe even helpful, too.

Any closing thoughts?

I like pie.

Thank you, and good night….

It’s daytime, stupid brain. You good fer nothing piece of……

Thus concludes today’s conversation. I hope we’ve all learned something here. Though I’ve no idea what that would be.

Keep it to yourself, grandma

I remember back when I was about 25 or 26, living in Albuquerque and working at Sandia Labs. Single. Searching. Doing ok.

My older sister was also single and in her twenties, and we grew pretty close back then.

There was one day when I was staying over at her house that she and I went for a walk. We were each other’s support group, so we’d walk along and talk. We’d engage in walking therapy.

This was a chilly winter day. We walked with pink cheeks and a scarf ’round the neck.

We talked about how we both tend to have this internal dialog of snarky comments as we go through our days.

Both of us copped to it. Then my sister said something that sticks with me.

“I just worry that as I age, my ability to keep those thoughts inside will become more difficult.”

I laughed. And I agreed.

See, in our family, we have this relative. My mom’s aunt. She’s a bit infamous among the family as possessing a rather acid tongue. She didn’t even need to grow old to splat out hateful, spiteful and just plan snarky comments.

Oh, she was loyal to her family, especially her beloved brother (my grandfather) and made no bones about letting my grandmother know she wasn’t good enough. I believe she also let my dad know he wasn’t good enough for my mom.

So my sister and I both know that the genes of Aunty Snarky run deep within our DNA. We know how to turn on that frosty chill and say something cuttingly acerbic.

But as my sister pointed out, back then, we did okay keeping it inside.

Now, looking at the world through 40 years old eyes (that need vision correction), I find that my sister was entirely prophetic.

I *am* having trouble keeping that Aunty Snarky side to myself.

It’s such a push-pull of being “the nice girl” vs “oh hell, let’s just be honest.”

I recall reading one of my grandmother’s journals (after she had passed away). In it, she discussed how people always think she’s so nice, “but,” she wrote, “if they only knew.”

Well, I’m afraid I’ve surpassed “if they only knew.” They know.

Because I’ve become that cranky old broad. Only I’m not quite old enough yet to get away with it.

I say things. Out loud. (For example, the “What the f— is your problem?!?!” incident from about a month ago.)

I’ve always ranted about man’s inhumanity to man and tried to rise above it. I really have. But I guess I’ve been worn down. I guess “everybody is doing it” and so I’m no longer rising, I’m wallowing down in it.

Hoo boy. I’m not proud of it.

When I was in Las Vegas, I got busted for it too. I was standing in the narrow median of a quiet street taking a photograph. A pickup rolled by and the driver slowed and said, “I thought you were crossing the street…”

And I thought he was being an a’hole about me being in the median. I’d gotten hassled so much that day while taking photos so my hackles may have been a bit up.

I whirled on him. “Oh nice!” I yelled, “Thank you VERY much. No really, thanks for being such a nice guy!!!” I yelled sarcastically as he drove off.

Ten minutes later the guy walked up to me. “Hey, I just meant, I couldn’t tell if you were crossing the street. But then I saw your camera and I figured it out. That’s all.”

Whoooooo did I feel like a jerk. I ended up apologizing to him and we had a pretty nice conversation about photography.

You’d think that would have capped my fat mouth.

It did, only somewhat.

I’m trying.

I really am. Hard to get that horse back in the barn after all the frolicking in the fields.

It’s just…I don’t always want to be “the nice girl.”

Sometimes I think I just want to be Aunty Snarky when I grow up.

I’m so conflicted.

Verbal-Foo Skillz…I has them

: cue the wavy lines and smoke :

Yes, we’re in the wayback machine, set to “semi-wayback”

Lo, these many years ago when I’d first moved to California, I started dating a guy who was (and is) a musician.

A blues musician, which means he played a lot of dark and, well let’s go with “gritty,” bars in the San Francisco and greater Bay Area.

So, being young and a fairly naïve rube from New Mexico, I used to get all dressed up in cute clothes and impossibly high heels, then head out, by myself, to these bars and clubs to see if I could get the musician to notice me.

So being a young, naïve girl all gussied up to go out, it stands to reason that I used to get hit on by the other patrons of the bars I attended.

A lot.

I mean, *a lot*.

Not because I’m exceptionally pretty, though I’m not a mud fence either. But mainly because I was a girl. Alone. In a bar.

Sort of a siren call for the drunk and lonely.

I have pretty much heard every pickup line in the book. And some from books that no one has written and never should.

Oh yes, I’ve heard ’em all…twice.

When I was feeling convivial, I’d play with the drunk, slurring sportos like a cat plays with a dying mouse. I’d bat them around a little bit before slamming down the paw.

If I wasn’t feeling convivial, I’d get out my acid tongue, a genetic gift from a rather acerbic aunt in my family tree, and burn them on the spot.

One of my favorites is still a late night when all the lights had come up in the bar. The guy I was dating was through working and before he began packing up his stuff, he came over to hang out with me for a minute.

Some very drunk fellow, sensing that the lights were up, began scrambling around to find a warm body, ANY body, to take home.

And of course, since I’m the freak magnet (it’s true, been observed by many a friend and even a family member or two), the slobbering drunk made a beeline for me.

His opening gamble was something slurred and incoherent. Honestly, I don’t remember what he said. I do remember his glassy eyed look as he slurred out something and waggled his eyebrows at me.

Weary with a night of fending off such fellows, I looked him square in the eye and asked, loudly, “Are you hitting on me?”

He slurred in return…”um…well, yes. Is it working?”

I replied, “Let me get this straight…you are hitting on me. And *that’s* your opening line? That’s the best you can do?”

Not to be deterred, he nodded and asked again, “It is working?”

“No,” I said very caustically, “And have you met my boyfriend?” who had been standing next to me the whole time.

Thankfully the very large and take-no-prisoners bartender then placed a beefy hand roughly on the drunk’s shoulder and shouted, “Get out!”

I relate all of this to place a context on the story that follows. So that you understand that, basically, I have learned how to handle myself.

However…

I stopped going to those sorts of clubs and bars a very, very long time ago. And I don’t miss them, honestly. Well, I miss the amazing music that the San Francisco blues musicians pump out, because there is some amazing untapped talent in that City.

But the clubs…I don’t miss them.

Which means, in my now suburban lifestyle, I don’t really get hit on like that anymore.

And you’d think my skills in handling the weirdos might have slipped.

Turns out, I still got it.

So there I was…down on Fremont street in Las Vegas with my trusty camera and the goal to shoot many of the restored old Vegas signs that the Neon Museum installed in the area.

It was about 10:00 in the morning, so that was probably my first mistake. Second, I was alone. Third, I was behind the camera and really in creative head.

All of this mixed together meant the moths came dashing over to knock themselves against my flame…so to speak.

At 10:00 in the morning, the tourists aren’t really out, so it was me and the, ahem, locals.

I got a lot of “heeey…wanna take *my* picture?”

Um, no.

“Heeey, what’s *your* name?” (my least fave opening line, btw)

But the best interaction went like this….

“Hey! Hey? HEY!?!?”

And so I finally turned to see who was bellowing at me.

“You are a big girl! I saw you walking by and I said to myself, I said, you know, big girls need loving too…”

Yep. That was his opening line. He called me fat and then decided I was so lonely cuz I’m such a big girl that I needed his, what would it be…pity? Charity? Selfless giving?

I said, “Uh huh.”

“Say baby, what’s your name?” he said, turning on ALL the charm.

“Lucy,” I replied (using my Nom de Bebida) followed by, “And my husband’s name is David.”

My suitor then sharply spun on one heel and walked away.

The rest of the morning was not just photography, but a continual improv show in which I was the only performer.

I was Lucy, I was a photography student at UNLV, my teacher had given me the assignment to shoot the signs, and ONLY the signs (in answer to the continual request to “take my picture!”), I was a local, I lived with an aunt and uncle, I’d been living here for a while, no I don’t have any spare change and by god I have a husband and don’t need your affections.

It was exhausting.

The final straw was the guy smoking a spliff who came up carrying a Wal-Mart plastic bag which he held out to me. “Wanna buy a Coach purse?” he offered.

And with that, I was done. I caught a cab back to my hotel and stayed inside the rest of the day.

I still got it, but mostly, I just don’t want to have to use it anymore.

Best Line of the World Series

Heard on my local radio sports talk show.

“So the Yankees had their World Series celebration today. I understand that team manager Joe Girardi spoke. Yeah, he got about half way through the speech, then called Mariano Rivera in to finish for him.”

: rim shot :

(if you watched any of the American League Post Season, you’ll find this not so much funny as shake your head true)

Today: A Fable

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess…we’ll call her…Karenita. This lovely princess was married to the most handsomest prince in the whole land.

But unfortunately for our lovely princess, every weekday, she was required to go and toil away the hours at the Imperial Tower of Doom. Gray clouds swirled overhead while poor Karenita was tormented by her oppressors.

There was one oppressor who was particularly a thorn in the side of our beautiful princess.

See, our lovely girl arrives to work in the morning tired and in need of something for breakfast. The princess keeps some food in the Imperial Tower office ‘fridge, and also likes a spot of hot tea on the cold gray swirly cloud mornings.

Unfortunately for the princess, there lived in the break room a mean and nasty troll.

No really, this lady is like five foot nothing with a bad attitude and a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder.

For some reason, the Evil Break Room Lady can always sense when Karenita the Princess needs to have breakfast, and makes sure to hustle in there first, blocking the egress for our lovely girl to reach the ‘fridge.

While Karenita is there heating up her food, Evil Break Room Lady makes nasty comments about how people don’t clean up after themselves (despite the fact that Karenita scrupulously cleans up after herself) and self-importantly restocks the paper coffee cups (it’s not her job, by the way, she’s a very high paid executive admin) while dropping hairy eyeballs on the princess the whole time.

And then Evil Break Room Lady takes paper towels and cleans the countertops, sometimes pushing Karenita’s bowl out of the way while she does. Karenita finds this to be very rude.

It’s clear that Evil Break Room Lady doesn’t like Karenita, but Karenita doesn’t know why. The princess was raised to be kind and cordial and always says hello and thank you and excuse me.

Karenita believes that Evil Break Room Lady must be very unhappy with her menopausal lot in life, and all the hot flashes must make her cranky. Karenita thinks Evil Break Room Lady envies her still productive ovaries and plentiful estrogen.

The princess tries to be understanding, but it’s kind of hard when someone gives you the equivalent of the finger with her face every morning. Karenita is just trying to make it through the day.

The princess has tried to be nice, to make conversation, to say “yeah, it’s really bad when people leave water everywhere” but none of this works. Evil Break Room Lady has just determined that the princess is a lesser form of life.

And this doesn’t make Karenita feel very nice as she starts each day.

In other news, the nicest person to Karenita in all the Imperial Tower of Doom is the janitor. The janitor thinks Karenita rocks and will make it a point to wave vigorously from across the room and say hi.

Karenita likes Mr. Janitor. He’s a good man with a sucky job and he does it with life and verve and kindness.

So there’s hope. Maybe Karenita knows she’s not such a bad person after all.

And they all lived crankily every after.