Tailgating is the same as shoving

Here’s an odd compellation of thoughts for today.

The first is a compellation within a compellation: a combo of my classic sexism and passive aggressive driver’s rage. This week I have been driving over each morning to feed a dog that my beau and I are monitoring, and I mention this only as an excuse to say that I have been cooking a special meal of fried beef hearts daily for this dog-faced dog.

Anyway, so in my drives I have noticed a disproportionate number of aggressive tailgaters, which is not surprising since I think that I have blogged before about the mean drivers in the higher income neighborhoods and snooty shopping centers (fountains, so many fountains) in this area. What was surprising about this particular crop of tailgaters is that they were distinguished looking older men in fancy cars. I’m not so removed from the wonders of Hollywood that I don’t understand that 50 is the new 40 and that business men will behave as frat boys in spite of their silvery manes, especially when they have fancy foreign cars. But these old men were driving (lattes in hand, the sissies) as though they also ate beef hearts and greens for breakfast every morning.

Here’s where the sexism comes into this: I find this more offensive than when some girl with bug-eye sunglasses and a graduation tassel hanging on her rear-view mirror tailgates me. Tailgating is like shoving, only more cowardly because you tailgate people that you won’t dare shove in real life. I will continue to be sexist and offended when an old fellow who should know better goes around shoving people who are the lady-like two-door hatchbacks of humanity.

Other thoughts…I thought that I had other thoughts when I started typing this…

Okay, well, on then to reflections on the art of retail. That’s right, retail. I am doing it and I won’t suffer any flack from anyone about the supposed dignity of the college degree. Degrees, I wager, have slightly less dignity these days than old men. So, appeal to me with your questions about sensible shoes and not a damn thing else. My early prognostic is that retail is like working in an office, but with more bending.

Oh, now I remembered my other thought. It’s one that I’ve been having for a few days but since I had that weird rash of posts about coffee shops I decided to defer mentioning it until I had some variety. In my tour of local coffee shops I noticed that old ladies often have coffee dates with all of the whimsy and leisure of being retired.

These ladies meet up to talk about their families and their health, two topics that would annoy me in the mouths of the midday Starbucks mom’s but I find perfectly acceptable in this instance. The difference is that these old ladies speak quietly. So I guess that the theme for today is that old men are losing it, but old ladies are keeping it real.

Final thought, and then I’m done. I am, despite my high handed statements, back in a coffee shop. I can’t help it! At home I was tempted to try to give myself a Gibson girl hairstyle; I needed to get out of there if I was going to get anything done today.

And for punishment of my hypocrisy, the music in here is like a twang-y acoustic death-match between Dave Mathews and some lady-loser of the same genre. Ack.

Also, I think it might be in Spanish.

Cheesy chips with stealth

When I was driving home, I planned on blogging about my discomfort with the gobs of pop culture references in novels these days. The concept was already in my mind, since I had gulped down a new release for nefarious purposes over the weekend and was been rendered unable to shut up about the topic since. But now, having been molified by a burrito dinner, I don't feel quite the need for such carrying on. Furthermore, I suspect that it might have come off a little hoity-toity, especially since I was, with careful phrasing to spare my feelings, told just yesterday evening by the the sole reader of this blog that I was being pretentious.

And here I'll stand my ground: though it may seem pretentious to want a little purity in the novel, or to write a blog post about how people should never reference YouTube in an attempt to ground a story [the internet, as its sole determining feature is intangibility, should be ignored as a method of defining characters or space, and here I'll stop as I'm sprouting undergraduate bullshit], but I am not pretentious.

Worshiping the novel is a not a symptom of snobbery, though it can be a reaction to it. As a note of interest, worshiping the novel also does not mean that you recycle, love the homeless, and eat hummus with the cat that you've named Chaucer. And so, because I love lists and I love talking about myself, I offer to you the list of reasons that I can talk relentlessly about the allure of literature without being pretentious:

• I have on occasion been forced to wipe my cheesy fingers on my socks while secretly eating cheesy-chips at work
• I have a messenger bag that I'm too embarrassed to use it in cities where I know even one person.
• I have lately been accused of loving sitcoms.
• I have lately affirmed that accusation by ordered one on netflixs.
• I once ate McDonalds while very drunk in London (a classically American move).
• I am whole-heartedly a spaz-ish person and pretension requires a certain poise.

Car stoppin' and name droppin'

Today my car abandoned me in the parking lot of a Borders Books. It was around 10 am and because my car is a particular breed of malicious, it often alerts the thwarted driver to its internal distresses by self-activating the blaring alarm. This alarm can only be de-activated by re-connecting the battery twice and playing “You are My Sunshine” on the horn (or by some shit equally cryptic) that I can never successfully perform.

As the moms-in-crocs shot me dirty looks I wondered why my car has a problem with my dress shoes. The recent streak of rebelliousness seems to correspond eerily well with any occasion that I don my shiny black “wouldn’t you love to employ a doofus like me?” shoes. This morning I was spiffed up for a career fair. Recently my car has stranded me following a job interview.

Maybe it just knows that as soon as I procure something vaguely resembling a legitimate employment I will trade it in for something in a more soothing color and petroleum bracket.

So I have been reading the latest book of mini-essays by a certain popular American author that I would feel a little too cliché namedropping. He mentions frequently that he “doesn’t drive” and relies on friends, public transit, walking and the occasionally chartered car for transport.

What a wise fellow.

Machines: both laundry and vending.

Today I wasted the best handwriting of my life on the word “laundry.”

Usually my handwriting is terrible, with r-looking n’s and overly upright f’s and b’s. But today when I casually decided to make a list on the back of a window envelope with the company logo emblazoned on it, I spontaneously achieved flawlessly casual cursive.

And I am pissed (understandably, I warrant). If I had this one beautiful handwriting sample deep within the bowels of my fingers, why would I waste it on the word ‘laundry’? In my glee I tried to immediately continue my list with hopes to achieve the same penned majesty, but every other item came out in my typically spacey writing. I’m certain it’s gone forever.

Speaking of things that anger me unreasonably, I’m going to dabble in a little economic theory for a moment. I’ve always been one for chaffing my nose on the proverbial grindstone, and so I go to work everyday and make some small packet of monies. And with this money I buy goods and gas and lament like everyone else that prices are rising and especially that the job market is shitty, given my particular circumstance of job-searching.

“Yes,” I think to myself as I cruise along in my lumbering vehicle, listening to every moronic radio commercial blaring the word CRISIS into my ear. “Gas is hideously expensive.”

I absorb this daily and reaching back into the recesses of my brain I remind myself of what inflation means, and what a widget is, and how that the invisible hand is not just another creepy Kevin Bacon movie.

And yet, when I went yesterday to the vending machine at my work place to buy a Milky Way, I was enraged to find that it cost 90 cents. Vending machine inflation is the worst of all. I don’t want to hear any more pansies whining about gas prices; we should just thank our lucky stars that our cars don’t run on delightful caramel.

I would like to say that paying ninety cents for a Milky Way is the worst vending machine experience that I’ve ever had, but unfortunately I have a long history of ugly vending machine encounters. I’m thinking specifically of an instance in during last spring quarter when I was refused my Skittles by a vending machine in a crowded section of Wellman hall. [Characteristic comment on spell checking: Skittles is a word? Really?] I decided to forgo the generally futile and noisy attack on said vending machine, and consoled myself by muttering profanities and slinking away into a nearby lecture hall.

A few minutes later I was seated in the lecture and reading the newspaper (I miss you, free news-print and terrible comics), when a girl silently approached me with a package of Skittles held in front of her. In confusion, I reached out my hand to receive them, wondering frantically if I should have any idea who this chick was. And here is the most mysterious bit of all: after handing me the Skittles, she didn’t offer any explanation or even giggle nervously as I would have, but walked straight back out the door. Just like a guardian angel of artificial fruit flavoring.

That, my friends, is a truly freakish vending machine experience.
As a final point: I’ve been working my way through A Passage to India, (motivated by my love for A Room with a View) and feel a great suspense. It has morphed into one of those court-dramas that hinges on racism, and I always find those sorts of plots most distressing. A similar weakness hinders my reading of slave narratives and led to my refusal of all war tales and holocaust memoirs for cheeky comedies of manners.

Rags to rich-ish

I went this weekend, being much overcome by issues pertaining to the search of employment and, having three days off of work with which to tarry as I pleased, with my boyfriend to the illustrious casinos in proximity to Lake Tahoe.

Our way was beset with many delays; our straining climb to the glorious summit that doth overlook the more minutiae mountains and less ambitious peaks was plagued by a determined stretch of road labor and we found ourselves often halted, having to content our eager feasting eyes upon the glossy rear bumpers of many a SUV. Finally, without a little labor, we reached the summit and descended with the grace of gravity so often gifted to weary travelers, our tumulus emotions soothed by the lilting tones of the Beach Boys.

Upon arriving in our destination we embarked immediately (though a trifle delayed by a whimsical pause on the sandy beach, standing fully dressed betwixt persons in various states of disrobe) upon a tour of the various residences in order to find the one most suiting to travelers of our station and means. One residence in particular, which I shall not stoop to grace with a mention by name, though most shall know it by reputation and sheer size of facilities, was dismissed on the grounds of a prevailing odor so offensive to our sensibilities and yet so common to facilities employed in the business of gambling in states beyond our own.

Following a prodigious debate we elected to patronize a residence of middling size but exemplary cleanliness and agreeably situated in relation to the casinos. The room possessed a television and charmed me with the delicately folded towels prominently displayed; however, my boyfriend heartily lamented the softness of the bed as detrimental to the alignment of the spine and various other maladies of the back. He was appeased only by the presence of a spa, which we concluded, when used in conjuncture with overly forgiving bedding, would do a suitable job in counteracting, or at the very least minimizing, pain procured by sleeping.

At the casino we were an admirable success. Having indulged overmuch at the buffet, not surprisingly considering my own indisputable fondness for pizza and potatoes, we entered the casino with our funds depleted shamefully to the effect of 3 dollars between us. Despite our humble store of cash we triumphed both in games of skill and by placing ourselves strategically to result in the receipt of beverages free of charge, and saw ourselves richer by 35 dollars when the Beatles tribute band of much renown heralded the end of the evening by conceding to be photographed with the humble likes of myself.

For sooth, in my experience I have found vacationing to be the cure for all ills incurred in daily existence of the mundane kind.

Because I should be writing a paper...

Last week in my sociology class (how I abhor you, G.E. left until my last quarter, full of freshman sporting their ID cards in lanyard pouches about their necks) we watched this documentary called Merchants of Cool. The documentary wasn't really shocking, it simply detailed that the entertainment industry is ruled by giant conglomerates who are busy You-Got-Mailing their way into our brain-cases. It also described how these empires employ special baby-faced professionals (Andy Milonakis?!) who seek out "cool" kids and infiltrate their sub-cultures with the intent of popularizing it for evil capitalist gains. Now, I know I'm being trite, but I thought that the concept of cool deserved a little meditation.


My interest in the documentary was focused almost entirely on the choice of wording. The phrase "cool" seems to have become vaguely immortal. It transcends the harsh realities that ground up trends like "savage" and "sweet" (yes, sweet is over). Parental types utter it all the time when figuring out how to play BeJeweled on their Blackberry. Although my personal tastes tend more toward "bitchin," I am not immune to saying cool when confronted with say, someone doing a kickflip on their skateboard in a halfpipe built of boxes behind the Safeway. I looked it up on Urban Dictionary [Long aside: Not a usual reference point for me, but some guy I know IM-ed me yesterday and said that he was "sprung" and then followed up with a link to the word on Urban Dictionary. After clicking around for awhile I learned that the meaning of the phrase "drink champagne on a beer bottle budget" and advice on how to leave your girl if she is acting "klingy"]. Anyway, the entry on Urban Dictionary for "cool" implies that it is relaxed and never goes out of style and (most importantly) no one will ever laugh at you for saying it. Apparently cool is the safest verbal road away from embarrassment.


So, in the spirit of the immortality of the phrase, and because my boyfriend said that my blog needed more lists, what follows is a list of the things that come to my head immediately as being cool.

1) Melodramatic and poorly edited literary magazines full of melodramatic poetry and thinly concealed politics.

2) Professors who write their lecture outlines on the board.

3) Soothing prose about early America. [I never eat pancakes without thinking: "Then sit down he did, as they urged him, and lifting the blanket cake on the untouched pile, he slipped from under it a section of the stack of hot, syrupy pancakes. Royal forked a brown slice of ham from the frying pan...and Alamanzo filled up his coffee cup."]*

4) Zealous internet fan communities.

5) Hour-long teen dramas from the late-nineties.

6) High school newspapers.

7)Boring BBC adaptations of boring British novels.

8)Unpopular eateries.

9) N. Baker's The Mezzanine. [I'm going through a revival phase. After gifting it to someone last week I re-read it, and am re-enamored. People are lucky that I don't block-quote the hell out of that thing all over the interweb.]


*That's The Long Winter; I don't want the internet police knocking on my cyber-door with their virtual mag-lites.

In which I do the unthinkable and quote a poem

I wish that I could manage to write with music on. It seems like it would be so nice to write while listening to some thematically relevant jams, but whenever I try the words from the music get mixed up with the words that I'm thinking and everything gets all lyrical and muddled. I sometimes can't even think too well with music on, to the point that I have to turn my radio (perpetually set to a loud and jangly classic rock station) while driving my car if I am having serious thoughts. I suppose that it's a dramatic exaggeration to say that I can't write with any music on; as long as the music has no words, or in the case that those words aren't in English or very slow phonetically pronounced Spanish, I'm fine. The trouble is finding thematically relevant jams that meet that standard of inscrutability.

I meant to post yesterday because I was feeling very nervous about certain maladies, and I felt that a good ramble would be a suitable remedy but because I got busy at work I had to postpone this venture. I was planning on talking about people that are totally mega-spazzy on the medieval times, because I had been reading this blog by a medievalist, and it suddenly occurred to me that I have read many (perhaps at least two) blogs by medievalist in my time scamming about on the interweb.

This realization combined with several factors. Firstly, I'm a retired scifi enthusiast, and I have a keen knowledge of "Ren Faire" culture. Secondly I had read several--admittedly early modern--Swift poems that morning and was considering 18th century cleanliness ("When he beheld and smelt the towels/ Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed/ With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed"). This sort of vivid imagery clashes with the general corset-heavy medieval conception and created for me a general state of unrest. People: the medieval times were not romantic, they were pretty damn icky.

I know what you think, I saw the Paul Walker classic Timeline too. We'd all like to think that if we were charming archaeologists sucked backward in time that we'd fall in love with a French heiress/revoluntioneer and be awesome at sword fighting and use our "magic" boom boxes to subdue the friendly (if misguided) natives. You, me, and a giant turkey leg in 1344.

However, on further contemplation, I have decided that it might not be quite so pleasant as all that. (And not just because I visited France over the summer and saw a dead homeless guy, though that is a factor). The medieval times were rife with plagues, various household molds, and plenty of people pissing on tapestries. I'm none too sanitary a person myself (currently I'm sporting jeans besmeared with Flaming Hot Cheeto dust and a rip in the crotchal region for the second day in a row), but even I'm baffled by the medieval concept of toiletries, which I assume is a crucifix and a few leeches.

Oh-- consider this my first aborted blog. I've got to go off and eat, so my rant is arrested here.