Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Q: Why could I never be a lawyer?

This morning on the train, I sat next to a man working on his laptop. I couldn't not look over, so I did, and saw he was writing and storing emails. Some of his emails had titles like "Feedback on recent case," so I knew he was a lawyer. I peered in a little closer, hoping to catch a peek at some illicit piece of communication.

This was the email he worked on for the entirety of our time together. Titled "Re: Request for a shredder," It began, "Hidden in my request for a shredding system was a larger question about record keeping...."

But he didn't like that beginning. So I watched him delete "Hidden" and replace it with "Implicit." But he still wasn't satisfied, apparently, and so added "Extremely" in front of the "implicit." I guess he found that phrasing to be too extreme, however, for he pounded the Backspace button and went back to "Implicit." Around this time, I noticed that he was prematurely balding.

Then, in a flurry, he deleted "Implicit," went back to "Hidden" and added "extremely implicit" as parenthetical later in the email. As the train slowed down to his stop, he slammed his computer shut and then hopped off, carrying his computer case in one hand and a 12-pack of A&W root beer (no doubt his rocket fuel for the next 15 hours) in the other.


A: Because I don't like root beer.
Monday, August 20, 2007

Sing a song of sixpence, a library full of pie

I was missing my bag, my binder and my pie. After looking all over for the first two, I decided they were gone forever and instead focused my efforts on the missing pie. I went to the library and asked if they had any pies in Lost & Found. "Oh yes," the librarian said, "We have hundreds. Come look." She took me to a back room and lifted the lid off of a large wooden chest. Inside there were stacks and stacks of coconut pies, some square, some round. I asked how I'd know which one was mine. "Your name should be written on it," the librarian replied. But I'd forgotten to write my name on my pie, and so I slunk away, furious with myself for having left my pie unsigned.

I hate Sunday night anxiety dreams.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Mattel toy recall

Is it wrong that I don't care? Moreover, is it wrong that when I read about the toy recall's first victim, my only response was, "My dear young idiot, you ATE the Polly Pocket magnets. Don't you think you deserved to 'puke green,' just a little?"

I mean, when I swallowed my dad's 1776-1976 commemorative coin circa '77, I knew I had no one to blame but myself for the terrors that followed.

Just another random Sunday

Sunday afternoon, I was all set to buckle under (buckle down? buckle in?) and plough through some work. Important work, time-sensitive work, overdue work. And then I tried to buckle under/down/in and I just. couldn't. do it. It was too damn beautiful out. It seemed the whole world was on vacation. And dammit, we had just celebrated Lazy Day!

So the hubby and I went berry-picking instead. No foolin'. We picked a couple of boxes of blackberries and about 15,000 pecks of blueberries, with all the free snacking we wanted. The only bump in the berry-picking road came when a loud farting noise emanated from the blueberry patch and both Dan and I panicked that the other had rudely soiled the mood. But nope, it was just a nearby berry-picking tween. So all was well.

And then, after berry picking, we went wine tasting. No foolin'. The farm also made fruit and grape wines, and some of them weren't half-bad, and since we were the only ones there we got more than our fair share of pours. The only bump in the wine-tasting road came when a loud "moo" emanated from somewhere nearby and our wine-making host panicked that one of his cows had escaped. But nope, the cow was still safely esconced and was just being loud. So all was well.

And then, after wine tasting, we went to McDonald's. No foolin'. I'd forgotten to eat lunch and was absolutely starving and hadn't had McDonald's in a few years and so we figured what the hell. The only bump in the McDonald's-eating road was, well, the McDonald's. I mean, it was delicious and all, in a 100-percent sodium sort of way, but I quickly learned an important lesson: a two-hour yoga class + no lunch + berries + fruit wine + a Quarter Pounder and fries = death. So all was distinctly not well. Ah well. I slept like a salt-logged log that night, at least.
Friday, August 10, 2007

Having my steak and eating it too

As a woman who wolfed down a big steak dinner on her wedding night (while the hubby had the fish, thanks), I was almost down with this article in the New York Times Styles section yesterday. Ladies, no more salads! was the writer's imperative. Be yourself and order the steak!

Except that wasn't it at all. The real imperative was "order a steak as a strategic first-date maneuver as a way to project a 'guys' girl' aura, regardless of what it is you feel like eating or not eating." God forbid it be "order the steak because there are few things better in this world than a high-quality piece of red meat served medium rare with a large pile of frites nestled beside it."

I will never ever understand where the NYT finds these people. I'm mentally running down my list of female friends at this very moment, tossing out the vegetarians for sampling purposes, and I cannot think of a single one who would order anything other than what she wanted on a first date (save, you know, chili). And actually, let's bring the vegetarians back in: they may not order a steak on a first date, but they'll damn well eat you out of your bread basket. And not once will they consider the strategic disadvantages of doing so.

Life is short. Eating, within certain non-gluttonous boundaries, should be one of life's great pleasures. Any time you revise your own gastronomical interests to please the company of others, that's one night of pleasure lost to you. Period. Me, I prefer to hang with those who feel comfortable enough to order without provocation and allow the (hopefully delicious) chips to fall where they may.

And for the record: my choice to eat nachos for dinner last night was purely my own. And they were damn delicious.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Musings

-This morning I drove behind a black Porsche with the license plate "Torts 1." Do you think there's any chance the driver of that car is a nice person? (Caveat: I say this knowing crap about torts law. For all I know it involves prosecuting puppy-haters.)

-Last time I cried: last night, watching the HBO documentary "White Lights Black Rain." Last time I cried before that: earlier last night, when I managed to get some pepper up my nose.

-No, I've never read a single word of the Harry Potter series, so please please please stop asking. I feel marginal enough as is.

-My 63-year-old mother wrote a short film that was just accepted to a film festival. Seniors: the new hipsters.

-The hubby and I are embarking upon a two-week detox diet starting this weekend. My feeling is, you gotta tox before you can detox, so I plan to eat mightily horribly this week. Any and all crappy-eats recipes are much appreciated. (Also look for my summer lobster tally to go up again.)

-I just noticed that I wrote "brevity" instead of "levity" in a recent post. My brain is officially a useless oblong of Spam.
Friday, August 03, 2007

"We're on seventeenth heaven!"

How the Christian Right maintains its strangehold on the Republican Party: relentless repopulation.

Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child

"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said [scarily potent dad] Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."

Jennifer joins siblings Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.

***

My biological clock has never wound down so quickly.