Coffee is good. It’s yummy. It fuels the brain, the body and the spirit. The downside is that it’s both toxic and addictive, but we only call toxic things addictive so that’s pretty redundant. (Don’t worry, your poo-poos – rather, the lack thereof --will tell you when you’ve gone too far.)
I love coffee.
Here’s my problem: my beautiful morning caffeine rush only lasts so long, ergo, I can fuel one activity. Usually it’s a workout, that’s body-fuel. Not today. Today it was spirit-fuel. I Got Things Done Around The House. There’s a shred of caffeine left for brain-fuel, and it needs must be allocated.
That’s why I call it “a cuppa bon mots”. There are only so many bon mots per caffeine rush. It burns out fast, and I’m left straining for a punch-line or an alternative phrasing. There are three different things I’m supposed to be working on right now. Which one gets the last drops of brain-fuel today before I succumb to the lassitude of heat and tedium?
None of them, of course. I wrote this instead.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
An Acer In The Hole
I haven’t been avoiding you. My increasingly temperamental computer finally held its breath until the screen turned black and stayed that way. Thanks to my complete lack of technical know-how, I lost a bunch of pix – most of which I have printed out -- and a few blog drafts. Big deal. I’ve lost more and worse before. I don’t have a complete copy of the best book I ever wrote. So, in the words of St. Augustine, fuck it. (This was during his earlier, Zoroastrian phase. Philosophy joke for me and Frac. And Pseudo, if she sees it.)
Starting over is interesting. I spent most of yesterday up to my crotch in denial. Today I am exhilarated by the prospect. No more picking at bits and pieces of material that you would have seen by now if it was funny. No more wondering what all those icons on the desktop do or mean. I’m like the youngest son of a youngest son, starting out with nothing but a pair of comfortable shoes to win a kingdom. That’s a good metaphor, because I kept my comfy old keyboard.
So take my hand and we’ll ride my trusty new Acer down the yellow brick blog road to a strange but familiar new world, dodging old topics and wielding vorpal clichés in the face of the Jabberwocky of boredom. Yeeha!
Starting over is interesting. I spent most of yesterday up to my crotch in denial. Today I am exhilarated by the prospect. No more picking at bits and pieces of material that you would have seen by now if it was funny. No more wondering what all those icons on the desktop do or mean. I’m like the youngest son of a youngest son, starting out with nothing but a pair of comfortable shoes to win a kingdom. That’s a good metaphor, because I kept my comfy old keyboard.
So take my hand and we’ll ride my trusty new Acer down the yellow brick blog road to a strange but familiar new world, dodging old topics and wielding vorpal clichés in the face of the Jabberwocky of boredom. Yeeha!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
A Day In The Life
There are many worse things. Let me just say that right now. I don’t care how young you are, how entitled you are or how just plain lucky you’ve always been, you’ve had worse things come in the mail than a jury summons. We all have. That said, a summons sucks.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time prepping for jury duty, some of which was useful, though I didn’t need any of the witty voir dire rejoinders I came up with in the tub.
Don’t worry, I have stories anyhow. I almost made a friend. A very pleasant woman about my age complimented my foresight in bringing a crossword puzzle. You know me, I always have a few New York Times Sunday puzzles in my purse. So I gave her one. We would have bonded over our respective previous jury services except for one thing: She kept describing people by their race. The “Korean guy” had slept off a drunken binge in his car. A “young Oriental girl” was his attorney. It was kinda creepy. I found a seat in another part of the room after the break.
The good news is they let you do the orientation online now, which gives you an extra hour and a half to show up. But if you don’t do it, or if you show up late, they make you come back all over again. I watched that happen twice. And hooray! No one seems to have discovered my secret lunch place. A fellow juror put me onto it the last time I served. If you get summoned, I’ll tell you where it is. It’s easy and quite good, with nicer bathrooms than the courthouse.
The last 15 minutes are the worst. I was once called up right at 4:00, so I know it happens. My blood pressure went up at 3:45. Then they let us go, and I finished the book I brought with me on the train home. It sucked too, but it got me through the day.
P.S. If you haven’t taken the Metro in LA yet, you should. Consider that a public service announcement in lieu of a tag line.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time prepping for jury duty, some of which was useful, though I didn’t need any of the witty voir dire rejoinders I came up with in the tub.
Don’t worry, I have stories anyhow. I almost made a friend. A very pleasant woman about my age complimented my foresight in bringing a crossword puzzle. You know me, I always have a few New York Times Sunday puzzles in my purse. So I gave her one. We would have bonded over our respective previous jury services except for one thing: She kept describing people by their race. The “Korean guy” had slept off a drunken binge in his car. A “young Oriental girl” was his attorney. It was kinda creepy. I found a seat in another part of the room after the break.
The good news is they let you do the orientation online now, which gives you an extra hour and a half to show up. But if you don’t do it, or if you show up late, they make you come back all over again. I watched that happen twice. And hooray! No one seems to have discovered my secret lunch place. A fellow juror put me onto it the last time I served. If you get summoned, I’ll tell you where it is. It’s easy and quite good, with nicer bathrooms than the courthouse.
The last 15 minutes are the worst. I was once called up right at 4:00, so I know it happens. My blood pressure went up at 3:45. Then they let us go, and I finished the book I brought with me on the train home. It sucked too, but it got me through the day.
P.S. If you haven’t taken the Metro in LA yet, you should. Consider that a public service announcement in lieu of a tag line.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Hip, Hip And Away!
Last week I was at a club replete with hipsters. Seriously, there were four people over 40 in the room, and only 5 females including me and the MC. So you know there were lots of gratingly annoying mid-20s guys with weirdly perfect skin and clothing chosen carefully to indicate how little they care about clothes.
No one likes a hipster. It’s the new meta-insult. But do we know exactly what one is? I say, if they annoy me, they’re a hipster. Oh sure, there are a few universal hipster traits. One is their ferocious attachment to irony, which they’ve redefined to suit their convenience. Hipsters do the same stuff we do, but they do it ironically. Quite understandably, we all want to smack them for that.
Facial hair configurations, young women in hats – the list is endless, and problematic. Men have facial hair and it has to be configured somehow. Young women might wear a hat for a perfectly ordinary, non-ironic reason. We’re back at irony again. Ironic facial hair is hipster, same with ironic hats.
But why are we so annoyed? There have always been cool kids. Hipsters aren’t much more than self-proclaimed cool kids, which is as annoying at 27 or 37 as it was at 17. The self-proclaimed part is the problem.
You don’t get to decide if you’re cool or not. If you care, you’re not cool. You’re a hipster.
No one likes a hipster. It’s the new meta-insult. But do we know exactly what one is? I say, if they annoy me, they’re a hipster. Oh sure, there are a few universal hipster traits. One is their ferocious attachment to irony, which they’ve redefined to suit their convenience. Hipsters do the same stuff we do, but they do it ironically. Quite understandably, we all want to smack them for that.
Facial hair configurations, young women in hats – the list is endless, and problematic. Men have facial hair and it has to be configured somehow. Young women might wear a hat for a perfectly ordinary, non-ironic reason. We’re back at irony again. Ironic facial hair is hipster, same with ironic hats.
But why are we so annoyed? There have always been cool kids. Hipsters aren’t much more than self-proclaimed cool kids, which is as annoying at 27 or 37 as it was at 17. The self-proclaimed part is the problem.
You don’t get to decide if you’re cool or not. If you care, you’re not cool. You’re a hipster.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Dante Up
Gray weather messes with my schedule. I’m conditioned to get up when I see daylight. Make all the jokes you want about Los Angeles air quality or our lack thereof, smog isn’t gray. It’s brown. So when I see gray, I think, “too early.” Okay, I usually have an adjective in there, but I still don’t get up.
The point is, this morning I was late. Ergo, I drove past the church with the Hellfire ‘N Brimstone™ marquee just after the Sunday service ended.
Well, that’s not really the point; it’s more of a set-up. I’ve been driving past that church for eleven years. Every time I did, I saw the weekly marquee messages. They range from vapid to threatening. That’s why I think of it as the Hellfire church. But until today I’ve never seen a single person going in or coming out.
I’ve been listening to a brilliant Marc Maron cd in the car. It has a terrific riff on the Creationist Museum. You should hear it, remind me when I’m done and I’ll lend it to you. He was doing that bit just as I drove past the church with all those people coming out in suits and nylons. (Don’t be snide. The men were wearing suits and the women, nylons.) The serendipity of finally seeing people at that particular church just as I heard a brilliant rant about the Creationist Museum was too much. I had two thoughts:
First, I wondered why no one ever references The Flintstones when discussing Creationism. Maybe it’s a generational thing, I dunno.
Second, I decided I had to tell you about it, because it truly was a divine comedy.
The point is, this morning I was late. Ergo, I drove past the church with the Hellfire ‘N Brimstone™ marquee just after the Sunday service ended.
Well, that’s not really the point; it’s more of a set-up. I’ve been driving past that church for eleven years. Every time I did, I saw the weekly marquee messages. They range from vapid to threatening. That’s why I think of it as the Hellfire church. But until today I’ve never seen a single person going in or coming out.
I’ve been listening to a brilliant Marc Maron cd in the car. It has a terrific riff on the Creationist Museum. You should hear it, remind me when I’m done and I’ll lend it to you. He was doing that bit just as I drove past the church with all those people coming out in suits and nylons. (Don’t be snide. The men were wearing suits and the women, nylons.) The serendipity of finally seeing people at that particular church just as I heard a brilliant rant about the Creationist Museum was too much. I had two thoughts:
First, I wondered why no one ever references The Flintstones when discussing Creationism. Maybe it’s a generational thing, I dunno.
Second, I decided I had to tell you about it, because it truly was a divine comedy.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Blue Jean Baby Queen
This is about jeans. We all have them. I don’t care if you’re animal, vegetable or mineral, you had a hell of a time finding a style and size you like that fits. I thought I had, two pairs’ worth. Then I fell and skinned my knee, ripping a hole in one of them. (Yes, the ones I’ve been wearing for a year like that. This is called backstory.) A week or two later I went back to the store and bought a third pair, same make, brand and size. They were too small. I wore the ones with the hole. Months later I tried again, this time I tried them on. Pair #4 is one size larger, they practically fell down. I bring those to Las Vegas, with a belt.
What the hell, two pairs are fine. Wear one, wash the other. I had a tailor mend the hole, it looked fine. No problem, right? I was getting ready to leave today when rrrrrrrrrip. Out went the ass-seam of the mended jeans. Not going back to the tailor, I had to bite the bullet a third time.
The Sherman Oaks mall on a Friday after school is not for the weak of spirit. Rich teenagers clog the walkways with their annoying antics and expensive clothes and sneers for anyone who resents their obstruction. Robert calls them “human cholesterol.” But that’s not the story.
I was in the dressing room, trying on a pair of the same jeans, same make, same size (wearing them now to break them in) when I heard it. The saleswoman speaking to the woman in the next dressing room;
“So those don’t fit either? The 00 are still too big?”
That’s why everyone hates shopping for jeans.
What the hell, two pairs are fine. Wear one, wash the other. I had a tailor mend the hole, it looked fine. No problem, right? I was getting ready to leave today when rrrrrrrrrip. Out went the ass-seam of the mended jeans. Not going back to the tailor, I had to bite the bullet a third time.
The Sherman Oaks mall on a Friday after school is not for the weak of spirit. Rich teenagers clog the walkways with their annoying antics and expensive clothes and sneers for anyone who resents their obstruction. Robert calls them “human cholesterol.” But that’s not the story.
I was in the dressing room, trying on a pair of the same jeans, same make, same size (wearing them now to break them in) when I heard it. The saleswoman speaking to the woman in the next dressing room;
“So those don’t fit either? The 00 are still too big?”
That’s why everyone hates shopping for jeans.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
No Dinner
I tried, really I did. I started to write about the three-and-a-half-hours-of-continuous-eating meal, but I gave up. Then I tried a different view, why I wasn’t going to detail all 11 courses (not including the sorbet intermezzo and dessert.) That didn’t go so well either.
If we meet in real life, it’s an epic worth seeing (there’s pix of each plate, remind me and I’ll bring them) and hearing about, but my tired old fingers are just not up to the task of typing out the glory.
I.O.U. In the meantime, this blog will return to its regularly scheduled ranting. Watch this space.
If we meet in real life, it’s an epic worth seeing (there’s pix of each plate, remind me and I’ll bring them) and hearing about, but my tired old fingers are just not up to the task of typing out the glory.
I.O.U. In the meantime, this blog will return to its regularly scheduled ranting. Watch this space.
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