December 2011
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2 [do] k12...
This holiday is a “waiting for the bus” holiday. You “revel” waiting for the moment, and then once it’s passed, you shrug and go to bed. But as a concept, it’s more than the stroke of midnight. It’s a good chapter break, a pause for taking stock, flicking through your the iPhoto of your life and seeing where you’ve been for a whole year.
2011, THE...
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“We used 4x4s for the legs. You know what those are.”
– I’ve painted myself into a corner now. I think my days as Recording Secretary of Carpentry Projects have come to an abrupt end.
Nuts (and bolts.) (And knowing the difference.)
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Plumb...
Some girls have tiny vacuums and little brooms so they can play just like Mommy. I did, I had a tiny sink that worked and the Fisher-Price stove — but I also had a row of tools hung in the barn, so I could play “just like Dad.”
I had doll clothes and a bucket of PVC pipe for building things. For mitre boxes and biscuit joiners and “A hack saw is only for metal,” I...
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The End...
I didn’t make it to 25.
Toni did, and I’m shamelessly copy-inspiring her wrap up, even though mine isn’t complete.
I stalled out at 17, which seems pitiful — I probably plowed 17 a month before the internet (and moving twice in a year and various other 2011-life-turnuppances) but there it is. A bar to beat in 2012. What I read this year:
Wish I Liked it More: The...
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Me-OW...
Cats are bad for your self-esteem.
Or these cats I live with are bad for MY self-esteem. On good days, I get 12 seconds of affection — roughly the same as an inattentive, emotional saboteur. On extremely good days, I’ll get enough to make me think they know I exist. Enough to make me pick out cute collars for them, green gingham and blue flowers.
Their neglect is pointed and unfair....
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Watch“Complicated Theories About Sporting” has become a series, apparently. First swimming , now skiing. I think the “spend your whole life built like a Shetland pony” line got cut, but the “There aren’t even animatronic animals on the way down to look at,” observation is intact.
Skiing is nothing like Disney.
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I Feel No Need, No Need For Speed...
People who were wrong in this scenario: Maverick; David Foster Wallace; and me.
A supposedly fun thing I will never do again, is not flying nor cruising (unless metaphorically.) It’s skiing.
I get it. I just don’t GET it.
The part of my hypothesis that proved true was yes — spend your life built like a Scandinavian Shetland pony, you will be able to squat for days. Got it,...
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Drive-Thru Closed...
Since I got the sucker, I’ve been dreading my first bike wreck. I do not do extreme or speed or risk for the sake of, but I’ve contemplated throwing a spill, just to get it out of the way.
The other night, I’d cycled one way and was getting a ride back, bike on top of the car. When I’m not the driver you see, I abdicate all responsibilities. I do not remember where the car...
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Words Are Weapons...
He: I doing fine.
Me: Did you leave your verbs at training?
He: We're infantry. We don't use verbs.
Me: No time?
He: It's not that, it's that verbs make you weak.
Me: Plus, they take up space for ammo.
He: Exactly. We keep our grammar with our cold weather gear.
Me: Polypro is for poets.
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Christopher Hitchens. →
It’s a sad day when the world loses a fearless, intellectual contrarian.
I had no business being in his presence precisely once. I was terrified, prepared for a skewering, and received none. Instead, he respectfully allowed me to sit a few chairs down, and gave me a very cordial handshake afterward.
Suddenly a moment of silence, just means that no one could fill it as well as he could.
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So Important, It Gets [Almost] Top Billing...
He: Oregon, huh? What's that like?
Me: Hmm. It's fleece and cowboy boots and everyone is really nice and *you don't have to pump your own gas*.
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Your Memoranda Rights...
You have the right to remain silent — and write everything down in a tiny notebook.
It worked for Harriet the Spy.
Anything you say can be used against you — anything you write stays your little secret.
Unless you’re Taffy Sinclair. And then-
You have the right to hide your notebook under your bed.
Or protect it with the invisible hair trick like Anastasia.
If you...
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Top 5 Things I Wouldn't Know...
…That I’m Wildly Missing Out On, If it Wasn’t For the Internet.
Dr. Who. It is about a TARDIS and a relatively cute English chap in period costume and I get it mixed up with The Twilight Zone. Apparently, I should be watching it so I can appreciate the fan art.
This dude. He’s a verb now, apparently? Though for my money, it’s Timmy T, or get out.
Babies. Based...
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Traditions...
The Christmas ornament I care about most, lives at my parents’ house. It’s wooden, a tiny girl with yarn pigtails, sitting on a swing. The swing works, so when I was little — way back in the nascent eight-oughts — it was cool. In fact, all of my Christmas traditions live with that little wooden girl. Like Frank taking the Bro and me to the movies on Christmas Eve, to get...
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Bad Robot...
Let us credit Julia Roberts with what should be our National Robot Containment Policy. The motto comes from the great American film, Pretty Woman:
“I say who, I say when.”
The robot creep is stealthy and therein lies the danger. Encroaching by seemingly harmless measures, until one day we wake up, and humans control nothing.
The time to exercise our Julia Roberts is now.
No...
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She recently wrote the play "Mary Anne and the... →
The actual piece (My So-Called Life: Where Are They Now?) grabbed me — the author’s bio made me want to meet her. (But only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:30-6:00, of course. That’s when meetings happen.)
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Top 5 Things We Wore Out...
It happens once. Then it becomes a tradition. Then it becomes expected. And all of the spontaneous power it once held, is now lost to the ravenous maw of cliché. It don’t mean nothing anymore.
The Top 5 Things We Wore Out.
Live-In Reality Shows: Specifically the “meeting everybody, choosing rooms” part. That ship tipped by Real World: Hawaii. Everybody has seen how it’s...
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Who Am I Anyway? Am I My Résumé...*
“That is a picture of a person I don’t know…”
Somewhere in the past ten years, I went from San Francisco theatre stagehand to soldier. From Republican voter (the last four presidential elections at least) to… vegan who drives a Smart Car? (It’s a long story that involves a terrible driver and extreme sadness on the side of the autostrada.)
I want to believe...
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“I accidentally sent it to Drake, the rapper…not my doctor. So Drake got an...”
– Jonah Hill’s auto-fill address fail.
Celebrities, they’re just like- JONAH HILL. You are not allowed membership in the Greater Women’s Society for the Advancement of Not Having to Send Emails Like This*.
Though you may join us on occasion for tea and cookies. We meet on Tuesdays....
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