On staying amused, or, life without a car

I stumbled upon this SF Weekly blog post about a blog (metablogging?) called Get Off My Internets. The blog’s editor, known as “partypants ” on GOMI and in the physical universe as Alice Wright, uses GOMI to poke fun at web pseudo-celebrities who say/do stupid things and deserve to be publicly ridiculed for them. SF Weekly’s Nick Douglas makes it clear from the beginning that he can’t be bothered to care about anything on GOMI, and neither should we as the reading public. You can tell with every word he writes that he can’t believe his editor made him go interview this woman. My favorite part of the post was reading that one of her targets called her a “fat, slovenly cat lady” and then contrasting that description with her Facebook photo.

I have to strongly disagree with the author when he says that bloggers must hold themselves to journalistic standards. If your post makes its way into the public eye via a news source (congrats!), the news source (SF Weekly, Frederick News-Post, etc.), bears the responsibility for fact-checking, not the blogger they borrowed it from! Hate to break it to you, Mr. Douglas, but no one’s here to make your job easier for you. If only there was room enough for all of us on your high horse. Go Alice! Blog in whatever way you choose; collect as much research as you want. I trust readers and I reserve my right to do the same.

To allay my current state of idleness and sloth, I’ve been thinking about starting a blog on a specific topic. (Imagine that, a blog with a theme!) My friend suggested I use humor, so my first thought was: Oh yes! What can I make fun of until it cries? Well, they say you hurt the ones you love most, so news stories, tag you’re it. Long have I bemoaned the wretched leads, the misspelled headlines and nonsensical subheads. I will suffer in my nerdy silence no longer. And better yet, I will never run out of stories, which means regular updates. Now I just have to think up a name for this new brainchild. As always, I am open to suggestions — not just for a title, but for hilarious articles I can use as fodder. (Insert maniacal laugh here.)

I remember when I was about eight years old we had a white plastic can crusher stuck to the wall in the kitchen. It was my job to crush the family’s soda cans and put them into garbage bags, then my dad and I would drive to a recycling center (somewhere in West Virginia, I believe) and I would receive the proceeds for being such a good helper. Another time, my mom and I walked about a mile to the nearest grocery store, where the city had set up a giant bin for the big three in the parking lot. I’m really glad I have these fond memories of my parents teaching me how to be a responsible consumer, but now I wonder: What happened? Why do I only remember a handful of recycling trips, when at the time it seemed like my parents were attempting to establish a routine? Why didn’t we continue to recycle so that it became commonplace to me instead of a topic I would choose to blog about nearly 15 years later?

After a trip to the recycling center today, I think I might have some idea. This morning I gathered my bottles and cans and headed to the nearby Nexcycle location after looking up their hours online. When I arrived, the trailer doors were shut and a sign read, “Will return at 2 pm.” Feeling slightly perturbed, I assumed the worker had taken an early lunch. I put my bags down next to the center and did some grocery shopping. When I came out, the worker was back and a line had started to form. Luckily, I was near the front, but after taking my recyclables he said he was out of register tape and I would have to wait for a voucher. I offered to come back later. When I returned, the line had grown even longer, and the worker was nowhere to be found. Since the trailer was still open, some people in line had grabbed several plastic bins and were filling them with materials. The worker came hurrying out of the grocery store with a clipboard in his hand, saying, “I can’t take those. I’m out of paper; I’m out of everything.” “You mean we just have to take this stuff back?” “Yeah, I’m sorry.” One of the ladies in line turned to me and said, “Can you believe this? They make it so hard to do the right thing. You know they closed the one in Fairmont. The state of California owes Nexcycle $455 million. Arnold.” She shook her head.

So that solves the mystery of the poorly run recycling program. It’s just poorly funded. Makes me wonder how many other state and local government agencies simply can’t afford their recycling programs. I grew up in one of the less-affluent counties in Maryland where recycling programs appeared, then disappeared just as quickly. I did a quick online search to back up what the woman in line said about CA’s $455 million debt, but I didn’t find anything. I’ll keep digging, and if anyone reading this has heard something similar, please give me a shout.

What a relief it is to be out of the frozen, barren wasteland otherwise known as Minnesota. The climate on the oceanside of the Peninsula couldn’t be any more comfortable. Yesterday it was 80 degrees out and people were swimming in the outdoor pool. It never gets very humid, and a breeze is usually blowing from the ocean (which, by the way, I can see from my bedroom window). I’ve been here for a month now, and I get the feeling that starting over here is going to be easier than it was in the Midwest. I don’t have a full-time job yet, but if I’m lucky I might not need one. I applied for several freelance proofreading gigs and I’ve already been picked up by one company. Proofreading medical/technical documents isn’t easy, but to me it’s interesting and the pay is good, particularly if you have some experience. If I can get a reasonably steady freelance income, that opens up all kinds of options I haven’t been able to explore because of my day job — more traveling, going back to school. So not having one isn’t such a bad thing after all. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t take a full time job in my field; I’m still looking for the right opportunity. But at least I probably won’t have to go back to working at Panera Bread. Even though their blueberry scones do totally rock.

I had an escape plan, the publishing institute, that didn’t work out. I moved to the St. Paul area. Two close friends have also moved, one to California, the other back to Norway. I attended my aunt’s funeral.  I quit the Y. I found a new (and newer) gym to join. I miss my family and friends! I decided to join the book club I’ve been talking about for months. I decided to update my blog more frequently. I decided to make shorter entries.

“Gather ’round, lads and lassies, I’ve got a tale to tell ye,” Chris booms in a thick Irish accent, leaning over his pint at O’Donovan’s Pub. “It’s an old Irish joke.”

“Oh, so he’s Irish. Which part of Ireland are you from?” asks the man sitting next to us at the bar. Eyes gleaming wih merriment and several uninterrupted hours of drinking, Chris replies, ”Why, my name’s Christopher Walsh, an’ this here’s me brudder Nicholas Walsh, and we’re from Dublin, me lad!”

Undeterred by subsequents doubts as to the veracity of his brogue (”I can always tell a fake”) and the purity of his blood (”Are you sure there’s not a little German mixed in there?”), Chris inauspiciously begins his tale: “A man walks into a pub in Ireland. He sits down beside another man and asks to buy him a drink.

‘Aye, o’ course,’ says the man.

‘Ye look very familiar to me, very familiar indeed,’ says the first man. ‘Whar are ye from?’

‘Why, I’m from Ireland.”

“Really? I’m from Ireland.”

(As Chris accents his story with wild gesticulations, I casually slide his drink out of harm’s way.)

“Well, an’ where didya go to school?”

“St. Patrick’s.”

(Long pause while Chris gathers his thoughts, followed by haranguing by the other patrons at O’Donovan’s, who are obviously Eagles fans. Minnesotans would never be so rude – even if you said you were visiting from a distant Moon colony they would indulge you, albeit suspiciously. The suspicious part is ever-present, though.)

And so Chris decides to try again. Take two:

“So a man walks into a pub. An’ the next thing ye know…”

“You’ve got a bad Irish accent,” interjects the O’Donovan’s bartender. Cue uproarious laughter from the Eagles fans.

Take three:

“The next thing you know…?” echo myself and the other patrons gathered around the bar. It’s almost closing time and from the look on the bartender’s face he’s about had it with Chris.

“The next thing you know, the man says, ‘But I went to St. Mary’s.’ ”

“St. Patrick’s,” I say. More uproarious laughter from the Eagles fans.

“Christ, woman,” Chris says to me, giving me a wink and that irresistible Irish smile. The Eagles fans are now ignoring them, and asking me about myself.

But our fearless hero isn’t giving up yet.

“‘In what year did you graduate?’

‘In ‘69,’ replies the second man.

‘Why, I graduated in ‘69!’

Then one of the regulars comes in and asks the bartender, ‘What’s going on tonight, Mary?’ And the bartender, she says to him, “Nothing much, the O’Reilly twins are smashed again.” 

If Chris’s grin at this moment in time were any broader, it would crack his face. After a moment of silence, Becca is the first to get it, or at least the first to laugh. The bartender breathes a sigh of relief as he pours what’s left of Chris’s drink down the drain. And that’s how we closed down O’Donovan’s on Saturday.

So the city had its first snow of the season last week on the very day, of all days, that my cousin writes to ask, “How’s the weather there? It’s 65 and sunny here.” Sounds like somebody’s been watching too much Weather Channel.

Grrr. Only it comes out as brrr.

“Oh, by the way, how’s the cost of living in DC these days?” That’s going to be my response the next time she brags about wearing short sleeves on the mall. I can almost guarantee my rent is less than half of what she pays.

Speaking of costs, I need to curb my spending. I haven’t been updating as much recently because I just began my foray into the foodservice industry, in spite of friends’ protests that I didn’t need a second job, that I should take this time to figure my life out, et cetera. After my orientation, my manager sent me home with a gigantic box of pastries that I needed help eating. (And by that of course I mean I needed help with not eating them.) Miraculously, those friends have become extremely supportive of my decision all of a sudden.

But back to spending. Everyone knows that times are hard, and getting harder all the time. Fortunately, I haven’t been directly impacted by the recession (yet), but I can see the effects in my neighborhood. Case in point, my run-in with Jules. Scene: I’m on my way home from work. It’s dark at 4:30. Cold. Sleeting. Pretty much your typical winter day here. I get off the bus early to return a DVD I rented and get all the way to the store only to find that I forgot the darn movie. Walk back to the bus stop and wait while inconspicuously doing the potty dance. I can smell Jules before I see him.

“I don’t mean to bother you, ma’am, but I just need a coupla bucks. Can you help me out?” Thick midwestern accent.

“Do you need money for the bus?”  It was sleeting, after all.

“I’m not going to lie to you, ma’am, but I just got into an argument with my girlfriend — she’s over there doin’ drugs with those – those black people – and we got into a fight and she scratched my neck! Here, you can see where she scratched me!” And proceeds to pull his collar down while I stare at him dumbfounded. “So I’m not gonna lie to ya, I just need a beer.” He actually looks like he’s going to burst into tears if he doesn’t get one. “And you’ll think this is funny, this will put a smile on your face; I was going to make a nice Thanksgiving dinner for us, but not now, because I took my turkey back. Here it is! You can see it!” (Reaches into his backpack, laughing). “I won’t date somebody who does drugs.”

The bus pulls up. “Look, I only have one dollar.” My last dollar, and Jules holds his hands out for it. I shake my head and step onto the bus, feeling confused. What should I have said to him? Could I have said anything to help him?

I get off the bus again and head down the alley toward home. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” Oh geez. Now what?

“I don’t have any money!” I say in an attempt at a pre-emptive strike.

“What?” says the figure at the end of the alley.

“I SAID, I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY!”

“I just want to know your name.” Oh really? Because I’m sure I look incredibly attractive right now, dressed in three layers and a hat, standing in the freezing rain. Then, “Are you married?”

“I have to go home.” I can’t keep the annoyance out of my voice.

I’ve only lived here for a year, but I’ve never been approached like that in my neighborhood before. Not that I felt threatened, but these are desperate times and you just never know. So, I’m thinking about getting some pepper spray and enrolling in a self defense class. Mostly just for peace of mind. I can’t see myself using pepper spray on anyone. And as a friend pointed out, it takes me three minutes just to get my keys out of the bottomless pit I carry around with me. We’ll see. You’d think it would get too cold here for crime.

I had a “Sliding Doors” kind of morning. I missed my bus by about 10 seconds, so I went to the nearby gas station to get some coffee while I waited for the next one. I walked out into the crosswalk sipping my coffee, disappointed because it was already cold, when in mid-sip I turned to see the grille of a Chevy SUV bearing down not 10 feet from me. I would have yelled except for the fact that my mouth was full of the subpar coffee, so my would-be startled cry came out as a high-pitched “NoooOOOOMmm.” In other words, a squeal. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. My reactions were instinctual and, therefore, utterly useless. I threw my hands up defensively (that’s always a big help when your adversary weighs roughly 2000 lbs.) and took several steps backward (possibly putting myself into the path of other traffic, though I believe I was still technically in the crosswalk). Terrible gas station coffee was launched into the air. In fact, it may have been the flying cup that finally caught the driver’s attention. When he finally looked up from whatever it was he was doing instead of driving, I could see the whites of his eyes. I expected him to hit me. I gritted my teeth and braced myself for the inevitable impact. Luckily, he swerved to avoid me at the last second (his SUV was so close I could have touched it). As I finished crossing, I looked back over my shoulder to glare at him disgustedly.

And I wasn’t even jaywalking, before you ask. I had the walk light and the Chevy was making a left turn going wayyy too fast. I’ve been thinking about writing a post on jaywalking for a while now, because I’ve seen some close calls downtown (where very few pedestrians pay attention to traffic signals). So I think I’ll look up some statistics and write about that later on this week.

Oh, and I think some of my coffee splattered on his windshield. At least my instincts gave me good aim.

While perusing other blogs, I stumbled upon a wonderfully hokey ad for McCain-Palin 08: “The original mavericks.” That’s when I realized I was tired of pretending to myself that I knew what the word “maverick” meant, so here are the results of my dictionary.com search:

mav·er·ick /ˈmævərɪk, ˈmævrɪk/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[mav-er-ik, mav-rik] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. Southwestern U.S. an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.
2. a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.
3. (initial capital letter) an electro-optically guided U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile for destroying tanks and other hardened targets at ranges up to 15 mi. (24 km).
[Origin: 1865–70, Americanism; after Samuel A. Maverick (1803–70), Texas pioneer who left his calves unbranded]

—Synonyms 2. nonconformist, independent, loner.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

I think I prefer the first one, just because that’s darn funny. And before you say I’m trying to insult McCain somehow, you should know that I am still undecided. I do, however, think that maverick is an… um, interesting catch-word to use for one’s presidential campaign.

(And P.S. do we really want a so-called maverick for president? As in, “Whoo, I’m a maverick, ya never know what I’m gonna do!”)

If the Movie-Watching World Championship (sponsored by Netflix) had been held in Minneapolis instead of Times Square, I would have said, sign me up. Down from the initial eight on Thursday morning, two contestants are vying for $10,000, a Guiness World Record Title, a lifetime subscription to Netflix (oh yeah, and a “Netflix Popcorn Bowl” trophy, which I’m sure is the main reason for playing). As far as I can tell, the contest is still going. The list of movies and my original source can be found here.

So, no sleeping. That’s a given. And I guess no showering either. That tent is probably smelling pretty ripe by now. But what happens when one of the contestants has to use the restroom? Is there a port-a-potty in the tent with a camera to make sure that no one is sneaking some shut-eye? Inquiring minds want to know!